Rigel had phenomenally bad luck with Halloween. As she kicked her uncle away from her, blood pouring from the wound in her shoulder, she couldn’t help but remember how that morning she’d thought she’d used up her bad luck. Oh how wrong she’d been.
———
It was lucky really that Pettigrew was in such a ruffled state when she opened the door. He didn’t even seem to notice her injury, beyond a cursory remark that she should probably go to the hospital wing. Rigel waited until he was out of sight before collapsing to the floor. Hands shaking she wiped the blood away as best she could. She gasped as her fear was realized, for it wasn’t claw marks causing the blood, it was bite marks.
Well, at least that explains the burning, Rigel thought humorlessly. She glanced down the corridor at her uncle, trapped in the circle of magic. Now that the mermaids had stopped screaming he was watching her with wolfy concern. Rigel ran a hand through her hair as she thought through her options.
The moon was already starting to pull at her blood, but a werewolf never transformed the same night they were bitten and since this was the third night of the full moon she wouldn’t have to worry about transforming until next month. Although how she would get the wolfsbane for herself or hide her transformations she didn’t know. Still that was irrelevant-wait. Actually…werewolves could sense other werewolves so Remus would be able to tell, once he de-transformed, what she was. So she couldn’t just lie to him like she’d been planning. Not only that but he would be able to definitively tell her and Archie apart.
Rigel glanced at her uncle again, he was still staring at her. She needed to act now but it was hard to think through the blazing pain in her shoulder. Remus needed to go to the hospital wing. That was important. She needed to mend her robes first so Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t try and treat her. Rigel added another mental tally to the list of reasons to avoid diagnostic charms as she went about casting reparo.
Once that was done she walked seriously towards Remus.
“Remus, I need you to listen to me for a second,” she said sternly. The wolf stared blankly back and it took a moment for the realization to hit. Obviously he couldn’t hear her. With a sigh, Rigel decided she would have to wait until after his transformation to talk to him. At least that gave her time to think up something that would appeal to his better nature. With luck Remus would understand.
———
“No I do not understand!” Remus shouted in acute disbelief, “Archie how can you even suggest that?! I hurt you. I’ve-I can’t be trusted here-and to not tell your father-“
“Remus it wasn’t your fault,” Rigel said for what seemed like the thousandth time that morning. She’d snuck out as soon as the sun began to rise and headed straight to Remus’s room. The man had, of course, known instantly something was off and, putting the pieces together at a speed that would frighten even Master Snape, had realized what he’d done while in wolf form and promptly lost his mind. “You’re being completely unreasonable!”
“Me?” He asked, “Arch I bit you. You-you're a werewolf now. I’ve ruined your life and your dad-he’s my best friend there’s no way we can’t tell him. He’ll hate me he has every right-“
“Remus, please,” Rigel begged, widening her eyes and protruding her lip. “I need you to think of the political ramifications. A prominent pureblood heir turned werewolf. If we keep it a secret and I keep going to school then we can reveal it after graduation. Imagine the good that would do for creature rights?”
Remus paled dramatically, shaking his head, “Archie,” her uncle said seriously, “a werewolf just bit a prominent pureblood heir on the grounds of Hogwarts. A werewolf hired by Albus Dumbledore himself. This will set the light back for years, Dumbledore may be finished not to mention any hope of new creature reform-“
“If people find out,” Rigel pressed. She had come to a decision last night, one she wasn’t quite sure Archie would approve of. Still there was no possible way they could keep their secret from Remus now. If she could get him on her side before telling him though it would make things much easier, “uncle Remus, how is this any different from what you did when you were in school?”
“Because I told my family-“
“And how did that go?!” Rigel snapped. Remus blinked at her, taken aback. It occurred to her that that was a very un-Archie thing to say. From the look on her uncle’s face however she suspected he was attributing the outburst to something else.
“Arch, is that what this is about? You think Sirius-what won’t love you if he knows you’re a werewolf?” He asked gently. Rigel blinked. That honestly hadn’t even occurred to her. Remus took her silence as agreement it seemed for he went on, “Arch there is nothing in this world that could make Sirius love you any less. Alright?” Rigel nodded as she quite agreed. “Listen I…I shouldn’t have pushed you. This isn’t my secret to tell and if you aren’t ready for Sirius to know yet well…I understand if you need time to adjust.”
Rigel couldn’t help but feel guilty. She really should have thought of the emotional appeal before trying the political one. The only thing bigger than her uncle’s brain after all was his heart. She supposed this was as good a time as any and took a deep breath.
“Remus there’s ah something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Rigel said, not quite able to meet her uncle’s eyes.
“If you tell me you were also bitten by a vampire, Arch, I think I may have a heart attack,” her uncle joked tiredly. Rigel tried to smile but there was a knot in her stomach. Remus’s expression grew more serious and she realized belatedly that Archie would have laughed, even if it wasn’t that funny. Oh well it didn’t matter now anyway.
“Right so I’m about to say a bunch of stuff and I just want you to listen before you say anything. Alright?” Rigel asked quickly. Her uncle agreed and so she told him. She told him how she and Archie had switched places, how they’d thought they were so clever. She told him how she just wanted to brew potions but that terrible things just kept happening. She told him about the basilisk and about Riddle’s completely unrelated sudden interest in her. She told him about the problems with her magic and everything else she could think of to tell.
By the time Rigel was done speaking she was out of breath. She stood there panting, staring at her uncle. His face had gone from shocked disbelief, to understanding, and now back to disbelief. The minutes ticked by and still he didn’t say anything.
“Uncle Remus?” She asked tentatively. Still he just stared at her. Desperately, she said, “you see why we have to keep the whole werewolf thing a secret now don’t you? Cause if Archie's a werewolf then Harry can’t be and if Rigel is then Harry definitely can’t be and if anyone finds out that Rigel’s a halfblood and a werewolf-“
“Stop.” Remus said finally. He stepped forward and, tentatively wrapped his arms around her. Shocked, Rigel carefully returned the hug. “Harry. You’ve been very stupid.”
“I know,” she mumbled.
“But I can’t think of a way out of this,” Remus said softly. Rigel stiffened but he went on, “so I’ll keep your secret for now, even from James and Lily. But I need you, and Archie over Yule, to promise me that this is the only secret you’ll keep from me. From now on you’ll involve me in all of your plans and I’ll do everything I can to help. Do you promise me, Harry?”
“Yes I promise,” Rigel whispered, feeling like a weight had been lifted.
“Good,” Remus said, pulling away. “I’ll make us some tea and we can figure out how to hide your transformations.”
——
She really shouldn’t have. Harry knew that as she was doing it. It was a volatile recipe. There were about two million different ways it could blow up in her face, literally in most of them. She could lose a limb. She could lose several limbs. She could die, for goddess’ sake.
And yet Harry couldn’t help but turn her wolfsbane work from theoretical to practical. It was the only logical step with this particular brew. She had several ideas she’d spent all year (plus a whole lot of time turned time) researching and she just had to test them.
Batch number one blew up in her face (not quite literally as she got the shields up in time).
Batch number two brought her dad and Remus downstairs and, while her dad didn’t recognize what she was brewing, Remus did. But after much scolding and yelling from both sides he agreed to help and to keep her parents away from the lab the next couple days while she “tested the shields”.
Batch number three did nothing at all.
Batches four through twenty seven all blew up.
It wasn’t until batch thirty nine that Harry made any progress at all in fact but what she did was astonishing. It was just a shame she couldn’t tell anyone, bar Remus, about it. Not yet anyway.
————
When the first task was set for the night of the full moon Rigel was glad to have the new new wolfsbane in her pocket. She seriously wondered what the vow would have done if she hadn’t.
When the last task also fell on the night of a full moon Rigel wasn’t worried. Ultimately she should have been.
She should have done more testing. That was what it came down to. There was no way she could have predicted this of course. It was a potion after all, there was no reason for a potion to be sucked away by a magical attractant, but she felt it the moment it was.
It wasn’t just the attractant that did it. When the ritual used her blood, her own blood not Archie’s, she felt it sink its hooks into her and she knew instantly something was wrong. Not just because of the horrible pain, but the way it hurt. The scar on her shoulder started burning, the way it did every full moon and Rigel could feel the blood in her veins starting to turn and shiver.
She shouldn’t have used blood-wart, Rigel thought as she began to scream. It was an additive, so it didn’t mix in properly, and yet it was the only thing keeping the moonstone anchored. The ritual disrupted it and, once the magic from the blood-wart was sucked away, there was nothing connecting the moonstone to her core. Without the moonstone there was nothing keeping her body from transforming.
She also should have taken normal wolfsbane, Rigel reflected as her mind began to slip. That, at least, should have been obvious from the moment she invented the alternative. This is going to be bad, was the last thing she thought before the wolf took over.
———
When Harry awoke the next morning in her apartment she immediately grabbed the newspaper lying next to her. The headline fought for attention with the picture on the cover.
Rigel Black Secret Halfblood Werewolf Escapes Hogwarts, Wins True Triwizard Tournament
With the subheading:
Were We The Real Monsters?
The picture seemed to disagree with the subheading however as it was a picture of her, mid transformation, screaming in her ripped Hogwarts jersey, covered in blood.
“It could have been worse,” Leo said from the doorway, a familiar looking dagger in his hand. “You could have been a vampire.”