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Full Marks, Hermione
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Hermione waited trembling outside the classroom door while Harry and Professor Lupin discussed certain matters inside. Normally she would have chafed at having to wait to speak with a professor, but the exhaustion of using the Time-Turner had not yet made itself known to her, and she was perfectly content with letting time flow until she could just turn it back with a single turn.
No, it was the matter of Snape's essay that bothered her.
When she had peeked through the door at Ron's suggestion, she half-expected to see Professor Lupin. Because of the assignment, and the knowledge of the previous three months (including August's rare blue moon, which had come as a shock to her), she understood in a blink why Professor Snape had told them to turn to page 394. It chilled her to the bone; Hermione remembered the moment she connected the dots together earlier Saturday morning. How could Professor Dumbledore even allow Professor Lupin in to Hogwarts? was the running thought.
She had thought about going to McGonagall, even to the Headmaster himself, to demand an explanation. But something held her back, a darker thought that whispered in the depths of her mind.
"What defenses?" said Harry inside the classroom, his voice oddly tight. "Can you teach me?"
"I don't pretend to be an expert…" Professor Lupin was saying.
Hermione shivered suddenly, even though the castle corridor was quite warm.
For all that Hogwarts was egalitarian—no doubt because of Dumbledore—there was no escaping the inescapable fact that Wizarding society, as a whole, was deeply prejudiced and even hateful at its most unsavory against anything that bucked tradition. For all that Great Britain was relatively untroubled by the witch hunts of greater Europe, the psychological scarring it had left upon the wizarding community went deep. Suspicion and distrust of Muggleborns was commonplace, even towards those who intermarried with Muggles, but nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to the fear and disgust ordinary wizards felt towards inhuman and nonhuman creatures.
Werewolf ostracism was the sad consequences of European wizards clustering together for survival and safety. Never truly accepted by society because of the werewolf curse making it impossible to lead normal lives, there was also the stigma that these half-wolves half-men were inherently bestial and violent beyond belief. Women turned up their noses at even the most respectable, decent of the lot; and men outright threatened them with death if they so much as revealed their affliction.
For female werewolves, there was no hope; according to Hermione's research, they were all but extinct in Europe and the few recorded instances of their existence in Great Britain was all in connection to the Great Wizarding War, the rise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. For male werewolves, they fared little better, living underground and away from wizards and Muggles alike, in fear for their lives.
Such insular existences bred resentment and hatred, feeding upon the antipathy that forced them there to begin with.
A vicious cycle that could only end in violence.
Hermione knew nothing of Professor Lupin's history, or how he came to be at school (she'd heard enough in the last ten minutes to guess at the Whomping Willow's actual purpose), but she knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was worse off than even she.
She could put up with Malfoy's taunts easily; "mudblood" meant nothing to a British schoolgirl growing up with other British children with even viler curses. But Lupin had no such luxury. And he had been given a chance by Professor Dumbledore at a decent life, if only for a few terms, just as her Hogwarts letter had given her hope that her strange magical outbursts weren't that of a freak.
So it was that when she had exclaimed, disappointedly, "Oh no, I've already finished it," Professor Lupin had looked at her with a significant look that she instantly knew its intent. For the rest of the class, even though learning about Hinkypunks was fascinating on its own, she waited with a strange excitement that was unlike giddiness. At last the class was dismissed, but then Lupin had called Harry over for a quick word, and she was obligated to wait outside in the corridor, dancing with her thoughts and whether she did wrong.
For all that Hermione was clever, she did not yet grasp that it wasn't her fault to begin with.
"I have a lot to do before the holidays," Professor Lupin was saying. "I chose a very inconvenient time to fall ill. I'll see you shortly to arrange things, Harry."
The conversation was over, for Harry soon appeared at the door and said a quick hello before darting away to the common room, ostensibly to do homework. Their most demanding class, History, was approaching in two days. Professor Slytherin wanted three scrolls on the consequences of English migration and whether or not the existence of a medieval "New England" could be ascertained. Hermione had went to the extreme with seven scrolls, even going so far as to document the English composition of the Constantinople Varangian Guard.
Hermione took a deep breath and walked in.
The classroom was empty, the hinkypunk's cage covered in a cloth, and Professor Lupin fussing about with his case. He paid no attention to her until after the door clicked shut.
He straightened up and took out her essay. Hermione could see its title written with neat cursive glinting in the light.
Ways to Recognize Werewolves.
"I can't pretend to have noticed," he began amicably enough. "You were quite detailed and thorough in your work."
"Y—Yes, Professor."
He smiled. "Come now, no need to be nervous. I've given you top marks for it."
She took a deep breath. "I know what you are."
There was no reaction or change of expression on his face. A face, she suddenly realized, was quite lined and weathered. The wintry sunlight falling upon it made him appear ghostly.
"You—You are a werewolf, P—Professor."
"Quite right," he answered. "I imagine it was quite obvious in hindsight. Quite ill the week leading up to it, weakened the week after. Though I assure you," he added with a slight grin. "My illness during the match was weather-related."
Hermione didn't grin.
"Why?"
Lupin shrugged. "A big question best left unanswered for the time being, unless you want certain specifics answered."
"Why… why did Professor Snape, uh, assign the—the—"
"I can't answer that." At her quizzical look, he said, merely, "That is unfortunately a matter between myself and Professor Snape."
"Then, why did Professor D—"
"Pity." A quiet admission. "He pitied me. Professor Dumbledore's always seen the best in us. Many call him mad, but none have ever denied what he did was right. He helped me come to school, made the proper arrangements, ensured I would hurt nobody."
"The Whomping Willow—" she said, and stopped.
Lupin volunteered no further information.
"How have you been, erm, coping?" she asked instead.
He smiled again. "I'm sure you've already discovered it. It's mentioned on page 424, a recent discovery to help reincorporate willing wolves back into the fold." His expression grew serious. "I must ask you: do you intend on informing anybody?"
Hermione thought back to what she had learned about werewolves, and found, honestly, that she couldn't bring herself to do it. Surely McGonagall already knew, and approved, of Lupin's hiring. And Professor Dumbledore's intuition had never been wrong before. There was also Professor Slytherin, monstrous strong and surely more than a match for an out of control wolf.
"No," she heard herself saying. "I won't."
"Thank you, Hermione." Professor Lupin picked up his briefcase. "Shall I escort you to Gryffindor tower?"
"Yes, please."
They left the classroom and turned for the grand staircase that would take them to the seventh floor from the third, and from there to the tower. Hermione ruminated in silence as she pondered Lupin's words and the strangeness of his and Snape's interactions. It was common knowledge that Snape always wanted the position of DADA Professor despite its cursed history and had always looked down upon every other professor to have taught it, including the legendary curse-breaker Professor Rakepick some four years ago; but never, in all her life, had Hermione seen him treat another Professor with such open contempt as with Lupin.
She knew that Snape was doing something to aid and alleviate Lupin's lycanthropy (Harry had told her and Ron about the smoking goblet of what she now knew was Wolfsbane, not poison), but couldn't quite decide if that something was voluntary or forced. She snuck a glance at Lupin as they passed the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, heading towards the Astronomy tower.
He looked haggard and pale, but otherwise normal enough. Whatever happened during his last transformation two weeks ago didn't seem as bad. Definitely not as bad as the descriptions in The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts made it out to be. Excruciating, graphic descriptions they were; she still couldn't get the nightmare of her own ribs puncturing through her chest out of her head, the Saturday she had dreamed of being a werewolf.
They turned a corner and went up a flight of steps to the landing of Gryffindor tower. There the portrait of Sir Cadogan emerged into view, the long stretch of landscape upon which a fat pony munched grass and a tiny knight in full anachronistic plate armor was sharpening a claymore. He jumped up at their approach.
"Hail, good comrades!" he declaimed. "What is the word of entry thus required to gain passage within the halls yonder?"
Hermione moved forward. "Caledfwlch."
"Thou hast guessed correctly. Thou mayest yet be worthy to sit at the Round Table!" Sir Cadogan's portrait swung forward, revealing the round portrait hole through which lay the commons.
"I'll soon you around, Hermione," said Lupin.
"Likewise, Professor." Hermione searched again in his wearied face for anything that might give a hint as to his and Snape's apparent feud, and found none. She turned and entered the commons. The portrait closed, separating her from Professor Lupin.
She would use the Time-Turner at least once, after the Gryffindor commons was deserted, to keep on studying. Hermione bumped into herself going to bed and automatically reached out to steady herself.
"Good night," she said before she could stop it.
"Thanks," answered herself, unperturbed by the incongruity of it.
Remus Lupin was not the only one to have secrets. Hermione was content to keep his for the time being. For, after all, she did not know of his friendship with Sirius Black until that fateful encounter in the Shrieking Shack, the 23rd of June in the next year.
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