Chapter Text
“I’ll get it! I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” Branwen Potter leaped down the stairs, taking two at a time. In her rush to answer the doorbell, she tripped on the last step, taking the fall on her knee. “Ooh,” she groaned, but pulled herself up and continued hobbling down the hall.
When she reached the door, she threw it open with an eager smile. “Hi, Re….mus?”
Her jaw went slack as her eyes travelled up the boy on her front stoop. When they had parted only a few months ago, Remus Lupin had been only slightly taller than his best friend. Now, he had at least six inches on her. He was hunched over though, as if uncomfortable with his new proportions and trying to withdraw his gangly limbs into himself. His tawny hair had grown as well, hanging in a dishevelled fringe over his ears and across his brow where it attempted to hide the puckered, pink scars across his face.
Remus’ pale face lit up though, upon seeing Branwen, and he threw his shoulders back. “Hi, Branwen. How was your summer?” He resisted a mighty impulse to smack himself. He knew exactly how her summer had been; they had exchanged letters everyday.
“It’s been nice. Better, now that you’re here.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Miss Potter,” Lyall Lupin cleared his throat from where he stood behind his son.
“Thank you, Mr. Lupin,” Branwen jerked back into a state of alertness, realising her guests were still standing outside in the warm August sunshine. She ushered them in. “It’s nice to see you as well. Please, come in. I think my father is in his study.”
“Thank you, dear,” Lyall smiled at the two teenagers, then made his way further into the house. Though the Potters and Lupins had never travelled in the same social circles before their children started school, Lyall and Fleamont Potter had seen a great deal of each other recently.
Fleamont had retired several years ago from overseeing the production of his invention, Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and Scalp Treatment. Lyall worked for the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Over the summer, the two men had attended several meetings for a new underground organisation called the Order of the Phoenix. Their children knew little about the work of the group, except that it was part of the growing turmoil in the wizarding world.
Just before Branwen and her brother James had started school, a dark wizard by the name of Voldemort had launched his campaign of destruction and evil. So far, his actions had mostly been relegated to the shadows. He was known to be recruiting dark creatures and was rumoured to be behind a number of seemingly natural disasters. He was also fuelling a growing hostility between the magical and Muggle communities.
Even within the wizarding world, Voldemort promoted a pureblood mania, ostracising those wizards and witches of Muggle birth. Though the Potters were purebloods from a long lineage of respectable wizards, they were condemned as blood traitors for associating with Muggle and half-blood families, like the Lupins.
With their fathers in conference, Remus and Branwen stood awkwardly in the hall, stealing glances at each other. Remus rubbed his chin, and Branwen realised for the first time that there was blonde stubble growing in scrubby patches around his facial scars.
He cleared his throat. “Your hair grew out.”
Branwen’s hand flew to her head. “Oh, yeah. Thanks to Daddy. You know how good he is with hair potions.” She smiled. “Do you like it?”
He flushed. There were lots of things he liked about his young friend. She was clever, kind-hearted, and fiercely loyal. She was also the first of his friends to discover his furry little secret.
Just before his fifth birthday, Remus had been attacked by a werewolf named Fenrir Greyback. From then on, the boy lived in complete isolation with only his parents for company, terrified of the monster inside himself. His first foray into the world had been at the age of eleven when he left for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was only able to attend thanks to the kindness and precautions of the school’s headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.
Once a month, during the full moon, Remus escaped down a tunnel that led to a run-down house on the edge of the school’s property. There, he could transform without the possibility of harming his fellow students. Without others to prey on though, Remus was still a danger to himself. Most of the scars that littered his body were self-inflicted.
The only thing that relieved his agonising condition was the presence of his friends, James and Branwen Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. They accompanied him through the tunnel every month, waited for him through the night, then attended him to the school’s hospital wing. Branwen was so moved by seeing his injuries, she began training under the school’s Healer so she could better minister to his needs.
After nearly a year of standing back and watching their friend’s suffering though, James, Sirius, Peter, and Branwen had decided to take action. They discovered that there was no cure for lycanthropy, so there was nothing they could do to fix him. But they also found that werewolves, though fatally attracted to humans, had little interest in animals as prey. And, with the logic and ambition of the young, the friends decided that if they couldn’t comfort Remus as humans, they would have to comfort him as animals.
Wizards who could change into an animal were called Animagi. The process to become one though, was so difficult and fraught with hazard that only a handful of wizards and witches had accomplished it in known history.
The friends had already encountered many of the difficulties inherent to the process. One of the steps called for them to keep the leaf of a Mandrake plant in their mouth for a whole month. There were many false starts before they caught on to the idea of using a Sticking Charm, and even then it was dependant on them remembering to apply the charm several times a day.
At one point, they thought they had it down. The resulting potion (which also included one of their hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew, and the chrysalis of a Death's-head hawkmoth) was flawed though. They ended up with horribly botched transformations that would likely have left them disfigured if not for some clever, if unorthodox, solutions. From this scratched attempt though, they were able to discover what animals were in store for them.
James had grown a short pair of antlers, or as Sirius now called him, “Prongs.” He was looking forward to being what he called “a majestic king of the forest.”
Sirius, true to his celestial name, ended up with a long, wagging dog’s tail. James and Branwen had bestowed on him the name “Padfoot” after a childhood pet.
Peter’s Animagus form was that of a rat, and the long, naked rodent tail he had sprouted earned him the appropriate, albeit obvious, name of “Wormtail.”
Branwen had been dubbed, “Feathers” because of the black plumage that had replaced her hair. They weren’t quite sure what kind of bird she would be though – Branwen insisted it would something elegant like a black swan, but her brother teased that she would end up an ugly vulture.
To get rid of the feathers on her head, Branwen had used a spell to shed them out, but it left her bald. Remus performed a hair-growth spell, but it was a weak one, only able to grow back a short, curly fuzz, rather than her usual long, glossy tresses.
Hair was the Potter family business and its distinguishing genetic trait. James had a wild, dark mane that he continuously ruffled to make even more untidy. Branwen had the same thick blackness, but her hair was unnaturally tame. It seemed that no matter what she went though (climbing through the tunnel to the Shack or winning a Quidditch match), it remained precisely in place. It was also very, very soft. Remus couldn’t count the number of times he had awoken from a night of pain to find the dark hair spread across his bed as his best friend rested beside him on the mattress. He would caress her head, letting the silky locks slip through his fingers until he fell asleep again.
His attention now back on her hair, Remus admired that it was back to its original length, swaying below her shoulders. He also realised that Branwen was still searching his face, waiting for an answer.
He swallowed hard. “It’s….it’s lovely.”
Her face fell a bit at his seemingly lacklustre reply. Nevertheless, she grabbed his hand. “Come on up to James’ room. He and Peter are in there.”
Hanging on to her hand, Remus followed her up the stairs.
“James! Wormy! Remus is here!”
“Mooneeeeeey!” James ran and leapt into his friend’s arms. Or at least he tried to. James’ sturdy frame knocked Remus over as he crashed into him at high-speed. When Remus picked himself up, Peter gave him a quieter welcome, shaking his hand. “Ready to head back to school, Moony?” James and Peter both liked to call their friend by his tongue-in-cheek nickname.
“Yeah, I am. And guess what…..” Remus grinned and reached into the pocket of his faded corduroy trousers. When he pulled his hand out, there was shining red-and-gold pin resting in his palm.
“You’re a prefect!” Peter gasped.
“Yep,” he reddened and scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry I didn’t write and tell you, Branwen. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“It’s all right,” she kissed his warm, stubbly cheek. “I’m so proud of you!”
“Although, it’s not much of a shock,” James took the pin and held it up to the light like a jeweller trying to determine the authenticity of a suspect gem.
“What do you mean?” Peter raised a brow.
“I mean, McGonagall had to pick one of the four of us to be prefect. It doesn’t take a whole lot to be better than the rest of us gits.”
“Stop it, James,” Branwen shoved her brother over on his bed. “Remus worked hard for this.”
James ignored her, jumping back up with a shine in his hazel eyes. “Who’s the prefect for the girls, Moony?”
“Lily Evans. She wrote yesterday to tell me.”
Only Peter noticed the slight frown that crossed Branwen’s face. James was too busy pestering Remus with questions about his favourite Gryffindor ginger.
Lily Evans had been the subject of James’ fancy since their first meeting on the Hogwarts Express five years ago. The feeling was not mutual. Lily had a wide circle of friends, including her room-mates, Marlene McKinnon and Mary MacDonald, and her best friend Severus Snape, but James was not among them.
When Remus had assured James for the fifteenth time that Lily had not mentioned him in any of her letters, he changed the subject. “Have you heard from Sirius?”
Sirius, the fifth member of their group, spent his holidays under lock and key at Number 12 Grimmauld Place under the malicious eye of his parents, Orion and Walburga Black. The Blacks were pre-eminent among wizarding families who believed in pureblood supremacy and they hated their son for rejecting these principles.
Sirius’ younger brother, Regulus, however, was the ideal Black. He was a Slytherin, the House that boasted the most purebloods at Hogwarts. He worshipped his cousins who were nearly all high ranking members of Voldemort’s growing army.
The youngest Black had a complex relationship with the youngest Potter. In another era, the two pureblood families would have considered their children the perfect match to secure the purity of wizarding bloodlines. But with the Potters now tainted by their liberal views, the Blacks wanted their sons as far from them as possible.
Regulus and Branwen’s interactions at school were equally mixed. She had once hexed him for calling Peter a “mudblood,” a filthy term for a Muggle-born. After that, they had gone night-flying on their brooms together and spent time in Hogsmeade together on their weekend holidays. His gift for her last birthday had been an expensive hairpin that she treasured, keeping it in a special place in her jewellery box.
Regulus and Branwen had exchanged several letters over the summer, but Sirius had only managed to slip out one past his parents.
“I got this from him,” James pulled out the letter, a smudged piece of parchment that had been wedged in his desk. “He said that Voldemort is still holding meetings at his house. That ruddy house-elf, Kreacher keeps him locked in his room most of the time.”
“Master Lupin!” Cassie, the Potter’s housekeeper, called up the stairs. “Your father is leaving.”
Remus ran down to hug his father, promising to see him again at Christmas.
That night, the Potters treated the children to a feast. It was both a farewell and a congratulations for Remus’ appointment as prefect.
Fleamont and Euphemia Potter treated all of their children’s friends as part of their family. Euphemia had always dreamed of a house full of children, but even James and Branwen had seemed an impossibility until late in her life. She had been overjoyed when Peter joined them for the summer and looked forward to every Christmas when she got to mother all five of them.
She especially doted on Sirius. Every time she saw the boy, she seethed with loathing for Walburga. Euphemia had often spoken seriously to Fleamont about taking legal action to bring Sirius into their family permanently, but he always reminded her of the larger battle looming over them all. Still, she made it a point to let the boy know that if he ever needed anything at all, she would be there for him.
So it was with a bitter mix of pride and sorrow that the Potters dropped all their children off at Platform 9 ¾ for another year at Hogwarts.