Screams

Fifteen

"I was very young when I was bitten," Remus explained, "there was no cure, nothing that could help me. My parents hid me away and feared that when I was the right age that I would not be admitted to Hogwarts. Then Dumbledore became the headmaster and said that he would take me, as long as certain precautions were taken. The shrieking shack was built, and a passageway to the grounds of Hogwarts built. The whomping willow was planted over the entrance to deter nosy students."

Remus took a breath and then continued. It seemed that now he had started he couldn't stop, "I was determined to keep my secret. But even with the pain of my transformations and the worry of concealing them, I was happy. I had friends, four wonderful friends, Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew and of course your father, Isaac Doge. It took my friends a while to work out what was wrong, but eventually, Isaac managed to put the pieces together and clued the others in. Once they knew about my condition, I feared that they would abandon and expose me, but they didn't. My friends did something wonderful. They became illegal Animagi so that they could be with me during the full moon."

Remus paused again and took in the stunned expression on his Goddaughter's face.

"My dad was an Animagus?" Calliope asked before Remus couldn't continue, "what did he turn into?"

Remus smiled sadly as if remembering a thousand moments, "he was an Eagle."

"An eagle," Calliope repeated.

"James was a stag, Sirius a dog and Peter a rat," Remus continued, "whilst they were in their animal forms I would not attack them. We spent full moon nights exploring the grounds, and other nights recording our findings on a map we named the Marauders Map."

"After we left school, James and Lily came under threat of being hunted by Voldemort," Remus said sadly, "they went into hiding, James trusted Sirius more than anything else, and he became the secret keeper for the Flidalus charm they cast upon their house. But Sirius betrayed them, which resulted in them being killed. Not long later Peter found Sirius, and Sirius killed Peter along with twelve Muggles, before being subdued by the ministry and taken straight to Azkaban."

There was a pause, in which Calliope absorbed all that she had been told.

"So if he's supposed to be dead, how can you be sure that this is him then?" Calliope asked.

"The number of times that I have seen my friends in their Animagus forms. I would recognise them anywhere," Remus confessed, "I have no idea how he is not dead, but all I know is that he's right here in this room."

"If Peter is alive," Calliope started, hesitating as she was slightly apprehensive of Remus's reaction to what she was about to say, "then maybe everything that you thought was right is wrong. Maybe there's a whole other side to the story that no one, not even Professor Dumbledore, knows about."

Remus face became stony and unreadable, "perhaps." He muttered quietly.

"We need to speak to him!" Calliope insisted, "Peter I mean, we need to get him to tell us the whole story!"

"No," Remus said with a forcefulness that Calliope had not heard from him, "no, we will keep him locked up in her," he tapped the cadge that held the rat, "until we can establish exactly what is going on." He looked suddenly tired, and much older than he was, "but you have much more important things to be worrying about. Your OWLs are right around the corner Calliope, you must start revising so that you live up to the expectations that have been set out for you."

Calliope groaned, "expectations," she repeated.

"You are an extremely intelligent girl, and if you put your mind to it I expect that you can easily achieve Os in almost every subject," said Remus, "it might be because of your banshee heritage, or it could simply be you, we will never know. But what I do know is that you are destined for great things Calliope Doge, do not let this insignificant thing get in the way of that when there are plenty of others who can deal with it."