A Tutor for the Holidays

A powerful medicinal smell filled Lupin's nose. He struggled to lift his heavy eyelids and found himself in what appeared to be an elegantly furnished room.

His head was foggy, and his thoughts turned slowly.

Had someone saved me? Who? That child's family?

Just then, he heard a boy's voice.

"You're awake?"

Lupin was about to speak when he saw Will holding a potion bottle.

"Drink this and you'll get better." Green bubbles churned in the potion Will held as he moved to pour it into Lupin's mouth.

Lupin tried to speak, but the bottle reached his lips as soon as he opened them. The green, bubbling potion, thick as a slug, flowed into his mouth. Warm and slippery, it quickly filled his mouth, slid down his throat, and entered his stomach.

One thought flashed through Lupin's mind: I'm done for.

Then his vision went black, and he passed out.

"The toxicity of the Amarla Grass should wear off in a few hours. You'll recover soon."

Will put the bottle away as he reassured Lupin. When he turned back, though, he found that Lupin had passed out again.

This guy's awfully frail.

Will cleaned the cauldron he had just used to brew the potion, then took out his third-year Potions Class textbook to study ahead. He doubted Snape would give him time to flip through it in class.

On a winter night, a poisoned, down-on-his-luck patient lay in bed after being tricked, while a boy sat quietly reading at the table.

If Lupin had been a beautiful girl, the scene would have fit a web light novel perfectly. In reality, Lupin was a melancholy middle-aged man.

Time flew. By the time Lupin stirred awake, it was noon the next day.

He sat up, clutching his throbbing head. His stomach cramped, and he retched several times. The memory of last night's potion still made him feel unwell.

Once he had recovered a little, Lupin looked around the room. It was clean, tidy, and elegantly furnished—at least a middle-class home. Had the child's family saved him?

Could the boy have kept quiet about my being a werewolf?

No. I need to leave at once.

Lupin had just thrown back the covers when a boy appeared in the doorway.

"You're awake?" Will held out a potion.

"Drink this too. It'll clear out the remaining toxins."

This potion was clear and transparent, almost like pure water. After a moment's hesitation, Lupin accepted it and thanked Will.

"Thank you for taking care of me, child. But I have to leave, or I'll bring trouble to you and your family." Lupin's gratitude was sincere, and he meant to put distance between himself and these kind people as quickly as possible.

"Don't worry. You won't." Will waved a hand. He knew what Lupin meant.

"No, child. You heard me yesterday. I'm a werewolf. You and your family should know what that means. Werewolves mean trouble. I must thank your parents before I go. I'm very grateful to you all."

"Sir, I think you've misunderstood. I meant that I don't have a family. My situation is complicated."

Lupin faltered. After a moment, he drank the clear potion. It looked like pure water, but beneath its bitterness lurked a strange salty, fishy taste. Lupin felt as though he were eating raw fish entrails from the belly of a seabird that had been pickled for eighteen months.

His face twisted into a peculiar shape.

"Tastes awful, doesn't it? I actually purified the Bezoar extract as much as I could, but its reaction with Malan Grass inevitably makes the flavor strange."

Lupin nodded with difficulty. His tongue seemed to have endured a particularly cruel torture.

"Good potion." He forced a smile through the assault on his taste buds.

"Thanks." Will smiled. "The main ingredient in their fake potion was probably Amarla Grass solution. Your fingertips had turned purple, and black spots had appeared on your tongue, so I brewed an antidote last night. You woke up for a few minutes, then passed out again."

"To have such skill at Potion Brewing at your age..."

"I have a good teacher: the famous Potions Master, Professor Snape." Will smiled. "And I hear he can brew the Wolfsbane Potion."

"..." Lupin fell silent.

Will seemed not to notice. "If you don't mind, we can talk over a meal. Your stomach growled several times while you were lying there."

At the dining table, Lupin finally learned a little about Will's circumstances. He looked at the boy with a pang of sympathy and found himself thinking of James's son, Harry Potter, the savior of the Wizarding World.

He had heard that Dumbledore had entrusted Harry to his Muggle relatives. Surely Harry's circumstances were much better than Will's.

Then he looked again at Will, who had saved him. The boy lived alone and faced it bravely. The stacks of books in the sitting room showed how hard he studied, and he could even brew a potion that had saved Lupin's life.

A bitter ache rose in Lupin's chest, strengthening his resolve to leave. He was far too dangerous on the night of a full moon. A young wizard like Will could not withstand a werewolf.

He chewed the beef Will had cooked to perfection without tasting it. He wanted to help the boy, but what could he do? He was a penniless werewolf with nowhere to turn.

Leaving would be the greatest help he could give Will. He decided to go that night, after the boy had fallen asleep.

As they ate, they talked more about Hogwarts. They went from Professor McGonagall to Dumbledore's enduring love of sweets, then from the Black Lake to the Hogwarts Kitchen.

Eventually, their conversation turned to classes at Hogwarts and Will's studies.

"My marks in Defence Against the Dark Arts aren't very good," Will sighed. "Our Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor is terrible. All he does is read from the textbook. I wanted to study hard. I might become an Auror someday."

"Lupin, you were incredible when you defeated those dark wizards yesterday. Could you teach me some Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

"Well..." Lupin remembered yesterday. He had not wanted trouble, but he had stepped in when he saw several adult wizards pointing their wands at a child.

Then again, that was Lupin for you. He truly was kindhearted.

"I can't stay with you for long, Will. Perhaps you haven't learned this in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but I must warn you: werewolves become extremely dangerous on the night of a full moon. If one scratches or bites you, you'll become a werewolf too.

"Will, you can't imagine how painful life would be if that happened. I can't be the one who ruins your future."

"Is that why you went to buy those fake potions?" Will did not seem frightened at all, leaving Lupin, who had hoped his warning would scare the boy off, at a loss for words.

"Yes. I want to live like a normal person. I knew the potion was probably fake, but what if it wasn't? I had to try." Lupin sighed softly. "I've tried many times. Not once has it worked."

Of course he had known he might be deceived. But each potion was like a straw before a drowning man, impossible not to reach for. He had fallen for similar scams more than once, and each time, he fell for the next one too. He wanted to be a normal person that badly.

"Of course not. Not everyone is as lucky as Carls, and not every potion turns out to be the Itching Potion." Will had deftly invoked a story familiar to wizards. Carls was a potion maker from the sixteenth century, and the way he invented the Itching Potion was absurd. One day, he accidentally knocked over his herb table, sending a jumble of ingredients into his cauldron. Ordinarily, a potion like that would be fed to a toad or poured away.

But Carls was reckless to the point of foolhardiness. He drank the potion. Minutes later, the itching stopped in an arm covered with bites from Ulo Black Mosquitoes.

After repeating the experiment several times, he produced the Itching Potion. Its wide range of uses made him a fortune.

Countless wizards had tried to imitate Carls afterward. Most of them had met disastrous ends.

"Good heavens, Will, you really know a great deal. You're right. Not everyone is as lucky as Carls—not me, and not the people selling those fake potions."

There was a strange note in Lupin's voice, heavy with sorrow and pain.

"It's all right, Lupin. The next full moon isn't until January nineteenth. That's still a long way off. Could you teach me until school starts? I really want to learn."

"All right... but only until then."