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Chapter 11
March, 2009
Isabel Pepper wasn’t a very good witch. In fact, compared to most of her classmates (and even those younger than she) she was downright awful. Her worst class was Potions, but in reality she mastered two of the most notoriously difficult potions ever.
The first, of course, was Wolfsbane Potion. She spent many a long hour in the hospital wing with Madame Russiani, even when it wasn’t that time of the month, learning the painstaking caution and care that went into it. Russiani had taught her the potion, and Noire had taught her the secret tunnel to the Shrieking Shack. Both the school nurse and the librarian had foreseen a time when they’d both be asked to step down from their positions, and they had felt it best to prepare Isabel for when she’d be the only one who knew her secret at Hogwarts.
That time had come in the middle of Isabel’s fourth year, when the newly appointed Nurse Winslow declared Isabel completely free of dragon pox, leaving the girl without a reasonable excuse to miss class one or two days a month. By then Isabel had become so adept at making Wolfsbane Potion that she could completely retain her human thoughts even while in the form of an animal. She took a draught of it every day; she found that the more she drank the less severe the effects of her malady.
The second potion Isabel had learned on her own. She thought herself very clever for coming up with the idea - all she needed was a willing helper, in this case a house-elf named Twippy who was more than delighted to take Polyjuice Potion for the chance to go to classes and pretend to be a student. Most professors didn’t register the difference, because neither Isabel nor Twippy were very articulate when called on in class. Still, the house-elf performed well on two exams she’d taken in Isabel’s absence, which raised a few eyebrows among the faculty but didn’t seem to raise suspicion too much.
The entire month after that Valentine’s Day, Isabel hadn’t spoken to Brian beyond a “Hi” or a “Have you got the Transfiguration notes?” but Brian didn’t mind. He understood how embarrassing it must have been for her to cry like that, and he knew she would take her time before she felt up to talking again. He wasn’t going to rush her.
But that was also the month when Pimento Pepper had a dastardly plan, cracked one Saturday morning over coffee and pasties.
“Shrieking Shack. Full moon. Come on,” she insisted.
“Bollocks, that’s this Wednesday. There’s a Transfiguration practical on Thursday,” Brian remarked.
“Come on, Brian, don’t be such an arse,” Gillichu taunted. He was always willing to follow Pimento’s foolhardy plans, no matter where they might lead, but he really liked having company.
“Don’t be such a worrywart, knucklehead,” Pimento smirked. “Gillichu’s got an invisibility cloak; we’ll sneak from our common room to Gryffindor’s to yours and…”
“Gryffindor’s? Who else is going?”
“Izzy’s already said she wanted to come. And Cassie, too, and Ethan and…”
“Isabel?”
“Isabel?” Pimento nearly choked on a scone.
“You didn’t even ask her, did you,” Brian sighed, more of a statement than a question.
“Well, she’d definitely say no,” Pimento snorted. “Brian, she’s a total anorak.”
“She’s not that,” Gillichu said in Isabel’s defense.
“It wouldn’t hurt to at least ask, now, would it?” Brian insisted.
“Well, if you’ve got your panties in a twist about it, why don’t you invite her?” Pimento retorted.
Brian’s face flushed with anger and embarrassment.
“Your acne’s flaring up again,” Gillichu teased as Brian stormed away without a word.
When Isabel first began using the Shrieking Shack once monthly as a hideaway, it was cold and drafty and altogether a miserable place to be. She found herself sneaking away there even when she didn’t need to be there, bringing bits of cloth for curtains or dragging some lumpy cushions from the common room. With a dresser and a few blankets, Isabel could stash her clothing in a safe place (she’d learned the hard way when, in wolf form, she chewed through her own pair of shoes) and also keep warm after she’d stripped naked.
The moon was peeking through the raggedy curtains she’d assembled, and her transformation began. It was a painful process, but Isabel learned that the anticipation was worse; if she was calm and relaxed the entire time, it wasn’t so bad. Her skin tingled as fur sprang up, and her bones ached as they broke and reassembled themselves into more canine forms. Her jaw extended, her head shrank, her ears migrated to the top of her head. She imagined the process might look comical to someone unfamiliar with werewolves and how dangerous they could be.
In wolf form, however, Isabel was hardly more threatening than a well-trained Rottweiler. She still possessed supernatural strength, but her potion rendered her preternaturally calm, for a wild animal. In fact, she spent much of her time as a wolf reading, because her vision in the dark improved. Before Russiani was asked to leave, Isabel even allowed the nurse to stroke her in wolf-form, but aside from that Isabel had never had any human contact as a wolf.
And then she heard her classmates stumbling through the tunnel towards her.
“I found the map in the groundskeeper’s office,” Pimento’s voice boldly exclaimed.
“It’s so cold in here,” Cassie remarked. “I should have put real shoes on.”
“Same here,” Izzy chimed in, and Aury giggled in agreement.
Isabel’s keen sense of hearing did the math for her - four voices, more footsteps. Just how many people were on this expedition? She could discern the heavier footsteps of heavier people - there were boys, too. Isabel panicked. The problem with being a wolf was that wolves lack thumbs, or hands, or any means of opening doors with doorknobs once they’ve been shut. The tunnel was the only way in or out, and there were people blocking her exit. Isabel burrowed underneath the layers of blankets she had stacked up in the corner, whimpering to herself. She would have cried, if she’d had the tear ducts for it.
Isabel listened intently as the voices reached the entrance. “Come on now, there’s no reason to be scared,” Pimento said, poking her head through. “Hello? Anybody here?” she asked theatrically.
“Pimento, shut up!” someone chided. It was Brian. Isabel’s ears popped up immediately at the sound.
Deep, deep, deep inside, Isabel recognized the urge to rip their faces off, to bite them and scratch them and watch them bleed. It wasn’t the werewolf in her; it was the embarrassed fifteen-year-old who hadn’t even been invited to come along, regardless of the foolishness of their adventure or whether or not she could or would have come.
“Holy shite,” Gillichu declared as he waltzed in behind Brian and the troop of girls. “Someone lives here.”
Isabel listened to the intakes of breath as the group slowly realized that someone had indeed been making the Shrieking Shack a more inviting place to be.
“Well, I hope they’re expecting company,” Pimento remarked carelessly, collapsing on a cushion in the corner.
“I think we should go,” Brian insisted.
You shouldn’t have even come, then, Isabel thought angrily to herself.
“If you’re staying, I’m staying,” Gillichu told Pimento as he sat down beside her, giving her a squeeze. Cassie and Aury and Izzy lingered uncomfortably at the threshold for a few moments longer, ultimately finding cushions of their own to lounge on.
“This is stupid,” Brian added.
“Would you be a mate and grab us those blankets from the corner before you go? Thanks, love,” Pimento teased. Brian huffed but obeyed, crouching down to try and grab the whole pile at once, grasping at a chunk of Isabel’s rust-colored fur. Isabel whined sharply and pulled away as Brian tugged it; surprised, he dropped the pile back on top of her and she dashed out from underneath. She first ran straight into Aury, then tripped over Gillichu’s outstretched legs, searching for somewhere to hide. In an instant they were all up, chasing her around the room, until she was cornered.
“Oh my gosh, how cute!” Cassie declared as Isabel cowered, tail tucked between her legs. Isabel was not yet a full-grown woman, and so was not yet a full-grown wolf; she was caught in that awkward lanky stage between cub- and adulthood, giving her an almost goofy appearance.
The group bantered back and forth for a bit, trying to discern the wolf’s origins. Some proposed that there was probably a whole pack, but the others thought that unlikely. Someone suggested that she was the pet of a vagrant witch or wizard, which would explain the homey surroundings. Not one suggested that it was a werewolf, because really, werewolves were vicious. Remember that attack first year? Yeah. No way that this poor creature could do that.
“We should take it back to Hogwarts with us,” Gillichu suggested. The others, besides Brian, rallied around the idea. A mascot for their adventures! A new plaything! What a wonderful idea!
Isabel most certainly did not want to go back to Hogwarts, especially not with six of her classmates. She knew that when the moon faded in a few hours, so would her wolfishness, and chances were that she’d find herself naked in someone else’s common room the next morning. What was there to do? She couldn’t bite them all…
“Aroo-ooo-oooo-oooo!” Isabel cried out, interrupting the group’s marvelous plans. “Aroooooo-oooo-ooooo-ooo!”
“Shite,” Aury and Izzy said together, covering their ears.
“Shite is right,” Brian added. “You can’t take it back to Hogwarts when it’s howling like that; we’d get caught for sure, even with the invisibility cloak.”
“Someone give it something to eat,” Gillichu suggested, but no one had anything to offer. They agreed to come back on the weekend, and promised Isabel stacks of steak and bones for her Sunday meal.
The next day Isabel hastily dressed and hurried to class. She went into her first class, Care of Magical Creatures, more than a little tired and discombobulated, and she found herself standing beside Brian, who she had been avoiding all month.
Brian took it as a sign, and thought of the discovery last night as a window of opportunity. He struck up some small chat and found himself inviting her on a surprise later that evening.
“What do you mean, a surprise?” Isabel asked, distracted.
“Trust me, you’d love it,” Brian smiled, knowing that Isabel would be delighted to meet a wolf cub, given her love for all things furry. That evening after dinner and without explanation, he spirited her away into the tunnel leading to Hogsmeade.
“Look!” he exclaimed as he burst through the entrance, but his excitement quickly turned to dismay when he realized the cub was gone.
“What am I looking at?” Isabel asked, playing dumb. She had actually been incredibly nervous (Is this a date?) until they’d gone into the tunnel. That was when she realized Brian didn’t like her the way she had thought he did.
“It… it was here… just last night…” Brian trailed off as he stepped into the room, running a hand through his hair and searching for a clue.
Isabel followed him obsequiously, noticing a yellow-and-black striped scarf dangling from a dresser drawer. “Come on, let’s go,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back into the tunnel, back into Hogwarts. She could come back and get the scarf later, but she needed to find a new place to hide.
That Saturday Pimento and the other girls returned with armfuls of meat, only to find that their filching efforts had gone to waste.