CHAPTER X.

For the next week, as the castle readied itself to be emptied for Christmas holiday, Zelda held the secret to her chest like a talisman. It bumped against her breastbone like one, with each step: werewolf, Remus, werewolf, Lupin, werewolf.

She was headed, that morning, to Potions. It was the fifteenth of December, and the full moon would rise that night above the castle. Zelda had half a mind to stay awake and listen for a howl. Perhaps the werewolves rumoured to be in the Forbidden Forest was really just one, she mused as she slipped into the dungeon classroom.

Thankfully, if Zelda was calculated about it, she wouldn't have to face Remus again until their second detention in January, when they all returned from holiday. It wasn't that she was scared, exactly, for she knew that if Remus had been allowed to attend Hogwarts at all, then surely Dumbledore must know, and for all his greatness he must have managed to find a way to avoid a werewolf attempting to hunt his students once a month.

Yes, Remus was surely sequestered away for every month's moonrise. The question was where.

Really, she was just too intrigued to be scared. All day, as Remus haunted her mind, she wondered. Questions like: how did he manage to hide it so well? (Zelda's hypothesis was that the cable-knit jumpers and chocolate and books did that for him.) Did all the teachers know? (Other than Dumbledore, Zelda assumed McGonagall, as his head of house, must be aware, but as for the rest of the faculty she had no idea.) What about his friends? (If they were completely blind to the truth, Zelda would eat her wand.)

It was moments like these that Zelda felt more Muggle-born than ever. With this secret unveiled, the existence of werewolves was finally confirmed; it was no longer just a matter to be covered in textbooks and theoretical, but a fact of life, a tenet of the magical world that really, truly existed, just like everything else. Just like unicorns, teleportation (which she could do, now that she'd passed her test over the summer, but she had to keep reminding herself it was called Apparation), fairies, mermaids, giants. . . the unlikelihood of it all was still nothing short of astonishing.

"Alright, class, take your seats, find your cauldrons!" Professor Slughorn called from the front of the classroom, yanking Zelda from her thoughts.

She was sitting at her usual cauldron, whom she shared with Pandora. As Zelda pulled out her copy of Advanced Potion-Making, Pandora sat down next to her, neatly tucking a strand of white-blonde hair behind her ear.

"You returned late last night," Pandora said conversationally, "and left early."

"Yeah," Zelda muttered. "Detention last night, things to do for Pomfrey this morning, you know. . ."

Pandora looked unconvinced. Rightly so, Zelda thought ruefully.

"Now, let's begin," boomed Slughorn from the front of the room, and it was at this moment that Zelda's brain decided to conveniently remind her that the portly Potions professor, in all likelihood, knew Zelda's secret. Hot, prickling shame flooded her cheeks; she felt suddenly as though she'd been dunked into a vat of ice-cold water, and just as soon as Slughorn finished speaking, Zelda realized that she'd missed his instructions entirely.

She leaned over the cauldron and whispered to Pandora, "What are we brewing?"

"Veritaserum," Pandora replied absently, rummaging through her bag. "He said we'll finally do amortentia after Christmas hols. Something about not having the ingredients for it during our sixth year."

Zelda swallowed and stood from her chair, trying to mask the spike of fear that shot through her veins as an eagerness to gather ingredients. She hurried to the supply cabinets, glancing down at her Potions book to make sure she was retrieving the correct items.

"One drop of this," Slughorn was saying cheerfully at the front of the class, "and you'd spill your deepest secrets to a complete stranger! Now, Veritaserum is strictly regulated and controlled by the Ministry, but as the Hogwarts Potions Master, I have been given permission to teach my seventh-year N.E.W.T. students how to brew it! And it's a lucky thing, for you just happen to be those students!"

"He's so annoying," Pandora muttered as she sidled up next to Zelda, who was in the process of pocketing a vial of powdered moonstone. "Always blathering on. . ."

Zelda gave a noncommittal hum and, once she was sure she had all the required ingredients, returned to her cauldron. She tried to ignore Slughorn's instructions and idle chatter with the rest of the class, determinedly keeping her gaze fixed on her work station, but she didn't have to — for Slughorn didn't approach her once. He got close, even asked Pandora how her father was doing as Zelda crushed her sopophorous beans, but she needn't have worried.

After an hour, Slughorn finally called, "Alright, class, set your supplies down and step away from your cauldrons! I shall be around to inspect your work shortly!"

Setting down the ladle she'd been using to stir her potion — which was now as clear as water and just as odourless — Zelda swore under her breath and prayed to every deity in existence that Slughorn wouldn't mention anything about her family, or ask her the question she knew must be on his mind. Surely Mr. Bancroft of the Ministry must have expressed doubt, must have said he'd never heard of a Zelda in his family, that perhaps this student Slughorn spoke of must just be a fraudulent little social climber with nothing to her name. . .

"And what do we have here?"

Zelda looked up, and felt a trickle of sweat slip down her back between her shoulder blades. Slughorn was standing adjacent to her, positively beaming — not at her, but at her cauldron.

"Veritaserum, sir," Zelda said, studiously avoiding the professor's gaze.

"My goodness!" Slughorn reached into his robes and withdrew a tiny clear vial, dipping it quickly into Zelda's potion and holding the now full vial up to his eyes in wonder. "My dear, this is simply — perfect! Odourless, colourless — and tasteless too, I would imagine! Very well done, Miss Bancroft, please take five points to Slytherin for pure talent. . . very impressive, quite impressive indeed, and considering you being. . ." Slughorn met Zelda's eyes, looking suddenly uncomfortable, and trailed off. "Well, yes. Good job indeed. Please leave your cauldrons full, we'll check on our potions in a month, once they've had a full moon-cycle to mature. In the meantime, please prepare two rolls of parchment over the Christmas holiday" — a chorus of groans from the class at this — "on the ingredients and properties of Veritaserum! Thank you!"

"Figures," Pandora said to Zelda as they left the dungeons. "You, Snape, and Evans are the best in the class. Though I'd wager you beat both of them."

"You? Complimenting Evans?" Zelda murmured, mind still fixed on what Slughorn had been about to say. "Never thought I'd see that."

"Well, she is a boon at Potions," Pandora reasoned, though she sounded suddenly shy. "Not as good as you though. And anyway, Xeno says I should recognize people for their merits."

"I thought you didn't buy into that sort of talk," Zelda said as they turned a corner and caught sight of Dorcas in the first floor corridor.

"Don't tell my father," was all Pandora said, before she flung herself into greeting Dorcas and asking whether she had Quidditch practice that weekend, and if not, did she want to accompany her to Gladrags on Saturday, because goodness knows Zelda won't. . .

Zelda watched her, mulling over their exchange in Potions. She knew that Pandora had been feeling more inclusive lately, and she was well aware that it was all thanks to her new Transfiguration tutor, one Xenophilius Lovegood of Ravenclaw — a sixth year, and a bit of a weirdo, according to Dorcas (Zelda herself couldn't really disagree).

But if an interesting-at-best and delusional-at-worst tutor was what it took for Pandora to finally realise the error in her family's ways, Zelda certainly wasn't complaining.

A sudden groan from Dorcas ("Eurgh — look who it is. . .") pulled Zelda from her thoughts, which she so often tended to get lost in these days; looking up, she followed Dorcas's line of sight to what appeared at first sight to be a mess of rumpled red-and-gold robes topped with various shades of black and brown hair. Upon further inspection, Zelda had to stifle the urge to roll her eyes when she saw what she was supposed to be look at — or rather, who: four boys, familiar but unwelcome, leaning haphazardly against the entrance to one of the castle's many cloisters.

James Potter, the loudest and the proudest, was talking to Lily Evans. Zelda vaguely remembered hearing about their first date through the ever-churning rumour mill; they appeared to still be going strong, much to the delight of the gossiping mouths of portraits and students alike. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were flanking him, chatting animatedly, and as a cluster of lower-year Hufflepuffs passed, Zelda caught sight of the boy bringing up the rear.

She barely heard Dorcas's grumbles about the so-called Marauders, or Pandora's pretty sigh of frustration. It was just white noise to Zelda, for at that moment she noticed Remus, or rather, she noticed the mother-of-pearl sheen coating the scar on his face. It was the most noticeable of his collection, a since-healed silvery gash that crossed over the bridge of his nose. There was a bump there, like he'd broken it at some point (most likely, Zelda surmised, in the same incident which had given him the scar), and the scar itself curved upwards on the left side of his face, just barely missing the corner of his eye and carving a slit through his eyebrow.

But the scar had thinned since that night they'd served detention together. Zelda knew what that meant: he'd taken her advice to heart, and eaten the dittany she'd given him.

Something warm and unnameable unfurled in her chest, and before Zelda could stop herself, she was marching up to Remus and his friends, weaving in between throngs of students — she was jostled unpleasantly by a crowd of shrieking first years — and coming to a stop in front of Remus just as he finished tucking his books into his satchel.

He looked up at her just as all his friends did, too; they were all wearing identical looks of confusion on their faces, clearly at a loss as to why their little group, so insular and exclusive, was being approached by a Slytherin. Zelda's heart stuttered against her ribcage, but she kept her gaze determinedly on Remus. He was frowning slightly, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows as she watched him, apprehensive.

"Hey," she finally said.

"Hey," Remus echoed. "Er — is everything alright?"

Zelda took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, just, um. . ." What had she meant to say? His scar was definitely thinner, noticeably so. Only ingesting raw dittany could have done that. Zelda knew it was thanks to her, but she wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, here, going out of her way to approach a Gryffindor in the corridor. And for what? To fish for a bit of gratitude? Was she that self-centered?

Remus was looking at her expectantly. So were all his friends.

"If you're here to blackmail us again, Bancroft, you can shove off," Black said loudly.

Zelda turned to look at him, and suddenly, another piece of the puzzle clunked noisily into place. She remembered approaching the merry gang of four in the corridors earlier in the term, intent on giving Black a detention for aiming a spitball at the back of her head, and had instead stumbled upon the beginnings of a truly delightful puzzle: evidence that Potter really had been faking a broken arm that morning she'd seen him and his friends in the Hospital Wing. Evidence that there was digging to be done, that there was something the Marauders preferred to hide, and while Zelda had had no intention of following them around or anything like that, she certainly had intended to scare them into compliance.

Back then, it had come from a place of frustration. She'd been annoyed at the fact that Madam Pomfrey seemed to be consciously digging holes into Zelda's recorded hours in the Hospital Wing, and determined to find someone to blame.

But here, at last, was the answer to a smaller question.

"Seems to me you're implying that you've got a secret worthy of being blackmailed," Zelda quipped without missing a beat. A familiar feeling of satisfaction rose at the way Black's expression instantly changed, shuttering closed in the blink of an eye, but not before Zelda caught a flicker of nervousness. She smirked. "That's what I thought."

They must know, she thought, eyes flicking between Potter, Black, and Pettigrew before finally returning to meet Remus's stricken gaze. And they must visit him during the mornings after. It makes all the sense in the world.

And of course, upon first realising Remus's secret, it had struck Zelda as obvious — the scars, all silvery white and jagged lines and tapered edges, so clearly cursed it was like they'd fallen straight from a healing textbook; the excused absences, which she'd failed to even notice until she'd perused her memory, and the sickly, pallid way about him.

She had failed to consider, however, the repercussions that accepting a student with lycanthropy must have had on the school. For the question of whether any teachers besides Dumbledore knew of Remus's condition had finally been answered.

It was an addictive feeling, solving another part of a mystery. Zelda thought she could perhaps give Nancy Drew a run for her money.

Hardly caring how stupid she must look, Zelda turned around and fled in the other direction towards the Hospital Wing. She ignored Dorcas and Pandora's voices calling her name as she jogged past them, her bag thumping against her hip as she ran, and couldn't contain a smile, because Zelda knew — finally — why Madam Pomfrey had been preventing her from coming to her apprenticeship like clockwork.

She had described it in her mind as something that happened every few odd-weeks. But as she racked her brain, Zelda knew that exactly a month had passed between each instance of the door being closed in her face, of Pomfrey explaining it away with some feeble excuse, of storming away from the Hospital Wing in frustration because she didn't want a stupid break, really!

And here the answer was, bright and clear as a cloudless day.

She skidded to a halt in front of the Hospital Wing and pushed open the doors. Madam Pomfrey was fussing over a student with a broken nose (Zelda thought, inexplicably, of Remus, and wondered if Pomfrey had tended to his broken nose during his Hogwarts days, or if it had been someone else, and that led to another question: when had he been bitten?).

"Hi," Zelda said when Pomfrey noticed her. She was itching to just get to the point, to bite the proverbial bullet and ask the question that mattered. What she said instead was, "Can I speak with you?"

Pomfrey hid her surprise well, but Zelda was particularly schooled in noticing the split-second during which someone's face betrayed their reaction before it was hidden. "Certainly, dear. You can wait in my office."

Zelda nodded and walked past Pomfrey to the far door, slipping into the matron's office. At once, her gaze found the back door, which had been ajar the last time she'd been in here. It was closed, now, but she knew it led onto the grounds. Zelda frowned, and was just beginning to form a train of thought when the office door creaked behind her and Pomfrey entered the office.

"What can I help you with, Zelda?" Pomfrey said, closing the office door behind her.

Zelda didn't allow herself time to think before speaking this time. She knew very well that if something required bravery to say, it was better not to consider the consequences before saying it. Despite this, she had a plan, and it wasn't so much about what Pomfrey would say, but how she would say it.

"I know about Lupin," Zelda said slowly, making sure to appear calm — and sure enough, Pomfrey's eyes widened for a split second before the older woman carefully schooled her expression into one of polite confusion.

"I'm sorry?" Pomfrey asked.

"I know about his" — Zelda hesitated for a split second, then plowed on, determinedly keeping a straight face — "condition."

It seemed Pomfrey was also determined to keep a straight face, as she was surveying Zelda impassively.

"Miss Bancroft," she said at last, "I'm not at liberty to discuss sensitive — and private — information relating to students medical conditions."

"That's fine," Zelda said shortly. "I just wanted you to know that I know. And that. . . I won't bother showing up after full moons. Even if it takes time out of my apprenticeship. I don't think he'd be happy if I knew, so —" she shrugged helplessly, hoping her silence spoke for itself.

"I'm sorry, dear," Pomfrey said, looking pained. "I'm really not sure what you're talking about —"

"It's okay," Zelda replied. "Really." She shifted on her feet, hoping she didn't look at awkward as she felt. "Er, I'll just be going now."

She left, then, head on the verge of spinning with all the information she was taking in, but just as satisfied as she'd felt all day — if not more. The act she'd put on, the confused-but-well-meaning-student, the girl who had figured something out but meant no harm by it, had done exactly what Zelda had needed her to.

Without meaning to, Madam Pomfrey had confirmed her suspicions: the matron knew about Remus's secret.

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two zelda chapters in a row!! i know, i'm straying from the pattern. i promise we'll return to remus's POV next chapter!