A Visit

After the full moon, Lupin still hadn't recovered. The terror of having nearly hurt several of his friends slowed his physical recovery. Lily had no classes that morning, and as one of those involved in the previous night's full-moon incident, she went with the three Marauders to visit Lupin in the Hospital Wing.

"I wonder how Remus is doing now."

Sirius somewhat regretted running off so impulsively the night before. He worried it might create a rift between Lupin and the rest of them. "We'll find out soon enough, as long as we tell him we won't stay away from him because he's a Werewolf."

Before Lupin entered Hogwarts, Dumbledore had arranged how to accommodate him at school. Each month, when the moon was full, he would take the secret passage beneath the Whomping Willow to transform in the Shrieking Shack, keeping him completely separated from the other students.

When Lupin entered school, he believed that only Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, and Hagrid knew. He carefully concealed the fact that he was a Werewolf, afraid the whole school would shun him and he would be expelled.

Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been allowed to attend Hogwarts because he was a Werewolf. Dumbledore had given him a chance, allowing him to go to school and make so many friends.

He held on to a sliver of hope that perhaps his friends wouldn't tell the professors, and he might be able to stay at school. Lupin knew it was unfair to the other young witches and wizards to think that way. He lay in his hospital bed, tormented. Perhaps because it was still early, there were no gifts from visitors by his bedside.

A black-haired head peered around the Hospital Wing door. It was James. Sirius and Peter poked their heads out from behind him immediately afterward. Lupin managed a strained smile. Madam Pomfrey would only allow them to stay for a little while, and the three Marauders and Lily tiptoed over to Lupin's bed.

"Remus, how are you?" None of them mentioned that Lupin was a Werewolf, concerning themselves only with his health. "I brought you a Chocolate Frog." Peter put an unopened Chocolate Frog by the bed and looked at Lupin worriedly.

"We were all really worried about you. No matter what you are, you'll always be our friend, the best member of the Marauders." James did his best to reassure Lupin too.

"Sirius brought you Fizzing Whizzbees as well." James snatched the small bag of sweets from Sirius's hand and put it beside the Chocolate Frog. "Draught of Peace. I thought you might need this." Lily placed a bottle of pale blue potion by the bed. "Thank you all..."

Lupin was overcome by a jumble of feelings, his nose prickling. He had never imagined that his friends would so readily accept him, flawed and dangerous as he was.

"Get well soon, and then we can go on adventures together again." Sirius patted Lupin on the shoulder.

Before long, Madam Pomfrey came over to usher them out. "Children, it's time you left. Give the patient some time to rest." The four said goodbye to Lupin and left the Hospital Wing. Lily returned to the tower for her textbooks, then went to the library to work on her essay with Petunia. With the addition of her third-year electives, Petunia was noticeably busier. She wanted to get the best marks in every subject. Professor Flitwick: bitterly mourning the loss of two Ravenclaws.

Lily entered the library. The afternoon sun slanted through the stained-glass windows, and the floating dust carried the faint scent of old parchment. She passed Madam Pince, who stood guard at the lending desk, and looked for Petunia. At a table by the window, Petunia had three thick textbooks open and four rolls of parchment notes stacked beside her. Her quill dipped into silvery-blue ink as she wrote without pause, and she didn't look up when she saw her sister arrive.

The sisters usually sat together like this, each working on her own homework without disturbing the other, yet there was an atmosphere around them that no one else could intrude upon. Lily glanced at the parchment spread across the table: Transfiguration homework and excerpts from Intermediate Transfiguration. Petunia had noted the key points for stabilizing mammal-to-human Switching Spells and added a note about her own mistake in class: when practicing turning a cat into a glove the previous week, some fur from its tail had remained. She had marked down that she needed more practice with the basic bone-shifting spell and drawn a simple skeletal diagram in the margin.

There were also Divination notes. Petunia had chosen three subjects: Divination, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes. Lily took out her Charms textbook and the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2. She finished her essay first, organized her Herbology notes on identifying poisonous fungi, and then began reading about Advanced Transfiguration.

Almost all the pieces of the puzzle in her mind had lit up, except for the last one. Lily didn't know what spell it was, but she wasn't a compulsive collector and had no desire to complete the whole catalogue. The spells she already had were more than enough to keep her occupied. She could gradually improve her proficiency and ensure her own safety and her family's. Lily hadn't forgotten that Voldemort was currently at the height of his power, and far more people died fighting him now than in the future.

Petunia looked up after finishing a section of her Divination notes and saw that Lily was already studying advanced Transfiguration. A quiet sense of urgency rose in her heart. She readily admitted that Lily was far more gifted than she was; each sister had her own strengths. They occasionally lowered their voices to discuss things. After Petunia finished her essay, she neatly put it back in her bag, then took out her own spell compendium and leafed through it.

The sun slowly sank, and before they knew it, they had spent four hours in the library. "We should go. If we're any later, the Great Hall will be out of the dishes you like."

Petunia packed her bag and took Lily by the arm. "That quickly? I thought it was still early."

Lily glanced at the sky, followed Petunia out of the library, and went straight to the Great Hall with her bag on her back. She had just sat down at the Gryffindor table when Mary leaned over to her. "Have you seen that young Black in Slytherin? He looks a lot like Sirius, but he has a completely different air about him."

Mary poked at her bacon, and Lily looked toward the Slytherin table in the direction of her fork. Regulus had been sorted into Slytherin, a result that came as no surprise. Sirius wouldn't yield to pressure, so Regulus, with his strong sense of duty to his family, would inevitably have to shoulder the Black family's burden.

The Blacks had to pledge their loyalty to Voldemort. Walburga and Orion were proud and would never personally bear the Dark Mark. Every prominent Pure-blood family would put forward one of its children to serve the Dark Lord. Sirius had chosen to break away from the family, so the burden fell on Regulus. In the original story, he had been branded with the Dark Mark at sixteen. At seventeen, he saw Voldemort's bloodthirsty, brutal true nature and realized that the Dark Lord was not worthy of the Black family's honor. But it was too late. With his own life, he fired the first shot in the resistance against Voldemort.

"The two of them really do look alike. If Sirius is a blazing, dazzling sun, then Regulus is a quiet, reserved moon. They should have shone together."

Sadly, from the moment the Black brothers stepped onto their diverging paths, they never had another chance to walk side by side. Each pursued the path he believed was right, and the rift between them remained unresolved until death.

Alice had just sat down at the table when she immediately asked, "Lily, I didn't see you come back to the dormitory after curfew last night. Where did you go?"

"I went to pick herbs near the Forbidden Forest. Don't tell anyone." Dorcas was just about to ask how Lily had dared go to the Forbidden Forest, which Dumbledore had expressly forbidden students to enter.

"Severus and I are brewing Felix Felicis. We were missing some ingredients, so I wanted to try my luck near the Forbidden Forest." Lily quickly gave Dorcas a glass of Pumpkin Juice to stop her from shouting. They could lose a lot of points for this.

"Why are you always so close to that Snape from Slytherin? You don't like him, do you? What about my battle-power ship?"