Chapter 124 — The Precautions That Mattered

The search continued through the following week. McGonagall returned to details of Ron’s account, and Hagrid checked the places near the outbuildings where small animals sheltered. Lupin kept the map. When I remembered something useful, I went to his office instead of reaching for parchment that was no longer in my pouch.

There were reports of rats, but no confirmed sighting of Peter Pettigrew. I learnt to ask which sort of news somebody meant before allowing myself to become excited. It didn’t stop the disappointment when the answer was another animal found behind a shed.

Luna’s father replied with notes on the old reports he had located. She showed them to Harry before bringing them to me. Most repeated the account we already knew, though he had marked where one writer appeared to have relied on another; at least we could avoid counting the same story as several independent witnesses.

‘He’ll tell me if he finds anything else,’ Luna said while I followed one of the references. I thanked her for asking and helped her put the papers with the other material. The envelope had brought us more work, but I was glad she had taken the trouble.

Hermione spoke to McGonagall about Divination. Once the arrangements were settled, she removed it from the timetable folded inside her book and watched the empty space for a moment before closing the page.

‘One less thing to be late for,’ she said. She didn’t explain the remaining overlaps, and I left them alone. Dropping a subject had given her time back without making the rest of her timetable my property.

Ron’s anger stayed with us in smaller ways. He sometimes answered more shortly than usual, or hesitated over lending something he would once have passed across the table without thinking. He still came to our discussions about the search. I tried to deserve that much trust without asking him to announce that everything was normal again.

When Hermione and I returned to our practical work, I brought out the diagrams of the old relay experiments. I set a wooden block on the floor and put the notebook where she could see it. She recognised the arrangement before I finished finding the right page.

‘You want to use this again,’ she said. I told her I wanted to check that I could still place it accurately. Remembering a success beneath the trapdoor or among the spiders didn’t tell me how well I would manage the next hurried arrangement.

I prepared two pulse strips, keeping the marked surfaces clear while they settled. One went on the floor in the position shown on the drawing, aimed towards the block. I kept the other to begin the sequence from my hand and checked the route between them before stepping back.

Hermione moved to the side of the cleared space. I threw the strip in my hand and spoke ‘Impello’, sending its pulse into the waiting piece. The second spell released across the floor and knocked the wooden block over.

We waited until it stopped moving before going to inspect the result. Both pieces were spent. The block had travelled in the direction I intended, though its final position reminded me how much room even that small arrangement needed.

‘You’d have to place it before anyone stood there,’ Hermione said, looking back along the route. ‘And keep the line clear for your own spell.’

‘A spoken order by itself still won’t do anything,’ I agreed. I collected the spent pieces while she righted the block. ‘The waiting strip has to be reached.’

‘Then make sure anyone helping you knows where you’re aiming.’ She pointed from my starting place to the mark on the floor. I copied that beside the drawing, remembering how quickly people had needed to move in the forest.

Harry and Ron had helped with earlier trials, so I showed them what I had checked rather than beginning with a new invention. Ron asked what would happen if the waiting piece shifted before I used it. I said it could miss or fail, which made him look at the diagram for another moment.

‘Then don’t point it at us,’ he said. I assured him I hadn’t planned to. ‘Good. Keep that part of the plan.’

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

There was a little of his usual humour in the answer. I accepted it without trying to turn it into forgiveness. Later, I prepared two fresh Patronus strips and put them into separate dry covers; the pattern had worked in Lupin’s office, but I would still have to find the feeling when I released them.

Hagrid’s letter arrived that week too. The appeal had been refused, and Hermione stood beside me while I read the decision. We went through our retained copies afterwards, finding confirmation that the accounts had arrived and the order had nevertheless been upheld.

There was no missing signature for me to repair. I took the decision to McGonagall and asked whether another step remained possible in the time available. She said Dumbledore was speaking to the officials concerned. We could make certain Hagrid had company and remain available if he needed help with the papers.

I disliked how little that left me to do. Hagrid thanked us when we visited, showing that he had read our accounts more than once. He kept them carefully beneath the newer correspondence, and I found it difficult to stop looking at the pile before leaving.

Later that week, I took an ordinary Potions assignment to Snape’s office and asked whether he had time for a question about one of the preparations in Ken’s notes. I waited outside until he told me to enter. The room smelled bitter beneath the usual mixture of ingredients and warmed metal.

A small cauldron stood over a low flame. Snape moved a labelled bottle further from the heat, then took my assignment and read the opening paragraph. His quill stopped near the middle of the page before he handed it back.

‘The conclusion is ahead of the evidence, Mr Mercer. Correct it.’ I looked at the passage he had marked and recognised an explanation I had made sound firmer because the accurate version was less satisfying. ‘The observations are usable. Retain those.’

That was enough encouragement to make me want to do the correction properly. I asked about the ingredient in my father’s notes, and Snape answered in the clipped manner he used when he expected me to have completed the preliminary reading. My next question brought his quill to a halt again.

‘The plant’s name is not the recipe,’ he said. ‘Two preparations do not become interchangeable because you recognise an ingredient in both.’

I went back to the passage I had copied, then looked at the bottle beside the cauldron. Its label named the potion: Wolfsbane. I had read about it while trying to understand Lupin’s absences and Snape’s choice of werewolves for the lesson he had taught in his place.

‘Is that for Professor Lupin?’ I asked. Snape’s expression changed very slightly, leaving me conscious of how the question must have sounded after all the clues I had kept separately in my head.

‘You’ve finally put the pieces together.’ He waited while I looked from the bottle to the cauldron.

‘I suspected,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’ The full moon the boggart had become, the absences and the name Moony no longer seemed like separate curiosities. ‘He’s a werewolf.’

Snape confirmed it plainly. Hearing the answer was different from keeping the possibility in a private corner of my thoughts. I studied the bottle again, remembering the purpose of a potion whose preparation was far beyond the mixtures I could reliably make.

‘That lets him keep his mind when he changes,’ I said. Snape put down his quill before answering.

‘When the treatment is taken correctly. It is not a cure and does not remove the need for precautions.’ He glanced towards the cauldron as I asked whether Lupin received it regularly. ‘I prepare it.’

The way he said that made a question about whether he enjoyed the work unnecessary. I asked why he was warning me now, and his eyes came back to mine without the slightest sign that he found the answer difficult.

‘Because you have a talent for treating a warning as an invitation to discover how close you can get to the danger.’ He waited long enough for me to remember the corridor before continuing.

‘He’s taught us properly,’ I said. I thought of the chair beside the trunk and the way Lupin had waited for Harry to recover.

‘That is not the question I’m addressing.’ Snape’s gaze moved to the assignment in my hands. ‘Follow the arrangements for the full moon. Don’t go looking for him because you’ve thought of another question. If those arrangements change, fetch a member of staff.’

I began to nod. His next words stopped me halfway through the movement: becoming a lion did not make me Lupin’s keeper. I looked up sharply, and Snape regarded me without surprise.

‘Minerva is not the only professor who can be informed of a student’s work,’ he said. ‘Particularly when the school must make arrangements for him.’

Keeping my form out of common-room gossip had never meant choosing which teachers could consider it when planning for my safety. I looked back at the potion, then at the pages I had brought him. Knowing what happened to Lupin at the full moon hadn’t erased the care he had taken with us. It made the treatment and the arrangements harder to dismiss.

‘I understand,’ I said. Snape told me to make certain of that, then returned to the cauldron. Lupin hadn’t come to collect the bottle while I was there, and I left with my assignment and the answer I had been reluctant to reach alone.

Harry, Ron and Hermione waited near the end of the passage. Harry held a wrapped portion of food; Hermione had Hagrid’s latest note clenched in her hand. I stopped at the sight of their faces and asked what had happened.

‘The Ministry’s executioner is here,’ Harry said. He held out the food without looking at it. ‘He’s come for Buckbeak.’