The Tutor
A powerful medicinal smell filled Lupin's nose. He struggled to lift his heavy eyelids and found himself in a finely furnished room.
His head felt foggy, and his thoughts moved sluggishly.
Had someone saved me? Who? That child's family?
Then he heard the 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." Will raised the potion, green bubbles churning inside it, and moved to pour it into Lupin's mouth.
Lupin tried to speak, but the moment he opened his mouth, the bottle reached his lips. The green, bubbling potion, thick as a slug, flowed in. Warm and slick, it filled his mouth, slid down his throat, and entered his stomach.
One thought flashed through Lupin's mind: I'm done for.
Then everything went black, and he passed out.
"The Amarla Grass toxin 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 Lupin had passed out again.
This guy's far too frail.
Will cleaned the cauldron he had just used to brew the potion, then took out his third-year Potions textbook and began reading ahead. He doubted Snape would give him time to look things up in class.
On a winter night, a sick man lay in bed, poisoned after someone had tricked him, while a boy sat quietly reading at the table.
If Lupin had been a beautiful girl, the scene would have fit right into an online light novel. Unfortunately, Lupin was a melancholy middle-aged man.
Time flew. By the time Lupin slowly woke again, it was noon the next day.
He sat up, clutching his throbbing head. His stomach cramped, and he retched several times. The memory of the potion he had drunk the night before still made him feel ill.
Once he had recovered a little, Lupin looked around. The room was clean, tidy, and finely furnished. Whoever lived here was at least middle-class. Had the boy's family saved him?
Had the child not told his family I'm a werewolf?
No. I need to leave at once.
Lupin had just pulled 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 took it and thanked Will.
"Thank you for looking after me, child, but I have to leave. Otherwise, I'll bring trouble to you and your family." Lupin's gratitude was sincere, but he needed to get away from these kind people quickly. He couldn't put them at risk.
"Don't worry. You won't," Will said with a wave of his hand. He knew what Lupin meant.
"No, child. You heard me yesterday. I'm a werewolf. You and your family must understand what that means. Werewolves bring trouble. I should thank your parents before I go. I'm very grateful to all of you."
"Sir, I think you've misunderstood. I meant that I don't have a family. My situation is complicated."
Lupin fell silent. After a moment, he drank the clear potion. Despite looking like water, it was bitter, with a strange salty, fishy taste. Lupin felt as though he were eating raw fish guts from the belly of a Pickled Auk that had been pickling for eighteen months.
His face contorted.
"Awful, isn't it? I purified the Bezoar extract as much as I could, but its reaction with Malan Grass always makes it taste strange."
Lupin nodded with difficulty. His tongue felt as though it had been brutally tortured.
"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 were purple, and black spots had appeared on your tongue, so I brewed an antidote last night. You woke for a few minutes, then passed out again."
"To be so skilled at potion-making at your age..."
"I have a good teacher: the famous Potions Master, Professor Snape." Will smiled. "Oh, 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 asleep."
At the dining table, Lupin 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 placed Harry with his Muggle relatives. Surely Harry's circumstances were much better than Will's.
Will, who had saved him, lived alone and persevered. The piles of books in his drawing room showed how hard he studied, and he could even brew potions well enough to save a life.
Lupin's heart ached. It only strengthened his resolve to leave. On the night of a full moon, he was far too dangerous. A young wizard like Will could never stand against a werewolf.
He chewed the beef Will had cooked to perfection but could not taste it. He wanted to help the boy, yet what could he do? He was a penniless, down-and-out werewolf.
Leaving was the greatest help he could offer Will. He decided to slip away that night after Will went to sleep.
As they ate, Lupin and Will talked about Hogwarts. Their conversation ranged from Professor McGonagall to Dumbledore's enduring love of sweets, then from the Black Lake to the Hogwarts Kitchen.
Eventually, they turned to the classes at Hogwarts and Will's studies.
"My Defence Against the Dark Arts grades aren't very good," Will said with a sigh. "Our Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor is awful. He just reads from the textbook. I wanted to study hard. I might even become an Auror someday."
"Lupin, you were amazing when you beat those Dark Wizards yesterday. Could you teach me some Defence Against the Dark Arts?"
"Well..." Lupin thought back to yesterday. He hadn't wanted to get involved, but when he saw several adult wizards pointing their wands at a child like Will, he had stepped in.
That was Lupin for you. He truly had a kind heart.
"I can't stay with you for long, Will. Perhaps your Defence Against the Dark Arts classes haven't taught you this, so 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 your life would be if that happened. I can't be the one to ruin your future."
"Is that why you went to buy those fake potions?" Will didn't seem afraid at all. Lupin, who had hoped to scare him off, found himself at a loss for words.
"Yes. I want to live a normal life. I knew the potion was probably fake, but what if it wasn't? I wanted to try." Lupin sighed softly. "I've tried many times. Not once has it worked."
Of course he had considered that he might be cheated. But each potion was like a straw before a drowning man, impossible not to reach for. He had fallen for such tricks more than once, and every time, he fell for them again. He wanted so badly to be normal.
"Of course not. Not everyone is as lucky as Carls, and not every potion turns out to be an Itching Potion." Will had deftly invoked a story familiar to wizards. Carls was a sixteenth-century potioneer who had invented the Itching Potion in the most absurd way: one day, he accidentally overturned 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 enough to drink it. Within minutes, the arm covered in bites from Ulo Black Mosquitoes stopped itching.
After repeating the experiment several times, he had his Itching Potion, a potion with a wide range of uses that made him a fortune.
Countless wizards had tried to imitate Carls since then. Most of them had met disastrous ends.
"Good heavens, Will. You really are knowledgeable. You're right. Not everyone is as lucky as Carls—not me, and not the people selling fake potions."
Lupin's voice carried a strange mixture of melancholy and pain.
"It's all right, Lupin. The next full moon isn't until January nineteenth. There's still plenty of time. Could you teach me until school starts? I really want to learn."
"All right... but only until then."