The rest of the week went by quite well except for the fact that people still believed that Ast was a cheat. But people had extended the lie to the point that it was so ridiculously stupid. Like yesterday when she was in the girls' bathroom, she overheard some girls debate on whether she was from Mars or Neptune. Or that Ast had superhuman powers like the ability to turn people she looked at into stone like Medusa. Ast obviously found all the stories bizzare. And even Sirius and James were playing along with the lie claiming that they saw her send messages to intergalactic planets.
She was going to have to stop the rumor at some point but for now, she wanted to see where it got her.
While she was busy thinking about how to stop the story from spreading any further at breakfast, a large group of owls entered the great hall.
That could only mean one thing: the world was in danger.
Either that or it was mail time. Ast was not expecting anything though. So it was a shock to see her family owl, Henry, land in front of her bowl of cereal, causing her to almost knock the bowl onto the floor. He had a letter attached to his leg so she unattached and unravelled it. It was from her parents.
Dear Ast,
We hope that you're having a good time at Hogwarts. We also hope that Oscar is doing well and making friends. We went to the muggle ultrasound today and they say that the baby is healthy.
Anyways, we have to tell you that you and Oscar will have to stay at Hogwarts this winter. Your father has to go back to Bulgaria for urgent work and I need to go with him. We have to stay there for around four months. We're very sorry, Ast, but we will see you soon. You can have a nice time with your friends at Hogwarts.
Love from Mum
She closed the letter and crumpled it up into a ball. She spotted Oscar do the same over at the Hufflepuff table. Jade Gilis, a girl he had been growing friendly with since school started, patted his shoulder.
Ast had never missed Christmas with her family and now they expected her to be fine without it? She'd have no friends to stay back with her because she was sure that the boys would go back home to their families.
"What's wrong, Ast?" Peter asked, looking up from his unfinished potions assignment.
"It's nothing, here let me help you with that." She responded as she pulled his parchment and quill towards her.
*****
They were leaving the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. It was finally Friday, meaning that it was the weekend but Ast still had masses of homework to complete. Sirius and James were discussing pranks while Remus and Peter were arguing over which Zonkos product was the best.
They approached the entrance to Gryffindor common room, said the password, and entered. They plonked their stuff down and sat down by the fire. Since it was still September, people were going outside to sunbathe and relax.
Remus suggested that they should go outside too but Ast declined, claiming that she wanted to get homework out of the way first. So the boys bid her goodbye and left the common room.
However she didn't have any plans for staying indoors today. She waited five whole minutes before going out of the common room too. Since almost everyone was outside, she could run through the corridors without getting told off. She slipped through the entrance doors and ran to the forbidden forest.
She knew that she wasn't allowed into the forest so she ran in further in case anyone could see her. When she was in far enough, she stopped and transformed.
When Oscar had his first werewolf transformation, it wasn't as bad as his teenage ones, but it was still terrible. They had no idea how to control him and he was too dangerous. Ast had always wanted to be with him during his transformations though.
However, she was forbbiden to enter the room he was in until he was human again. Once, she was so curious to see what would happen, that she went in the room. She didn't know of the dangers he posed. She thought that he would recognise her and not attack. Unfortunately, she was wrong. He ended up scratching her along her forearm. Fortunately, she wasn't infected but it left a scar.
Ast wanted to find a way to stay with him without him attacking her. So she did research, lots of it, it took her six months to finally figure it out: she had to become an animagus. However, she was too young to do it since she wasn't even enrolled into a wizarding school at that point.
In her second year, Ast found out the recipe for the potion and in her third was the first time she successfully transformed into her animagus form; a ginger fox. In the beginning, she wasn't too keen on her animal but now, she'd gotten used to it. It was easy to make a quick getaway, or eavesdrop on other students. Her brother was thrilled when she told him but Ast made him swear not to tell anyone.
Fortunately, he kept the secret to himself for their remaining time at Durmstrang. Every month, they would go out to the shack made for werewolves and if anyone questioned them, she would say that she was merely taking him there and then leaving. When they arrived there, they would wait for the full moon and both of them would transform.
Since werewolves didn't attack fellow animals, she didn't have to worry. But, during summer time it was too risky to transform because both of their parents worked for the ministry. Especially since their mother worked for the department of magical law enforcement that found and punished unregistered animagi.
The actual process of becoming one was extremely tough. Firstly, she had to look through so many books to find out about the potion. Secondly, she had to have a mandrake leaf stuffed in her mouth for a whole month. Lastly, it was nearly impossible to brew the potion because she had to raid the potions classroom for ingredients.
As soon as she changed into her fox form, Ast headed over to the edge of the great lake to breathe in some fresh air. She missed being a fox. She'd been so upset over the letter her mum sent her that she'd been in need of letting off some steam. Today had been exceptionally tiring so she allowed herself to doze off for a few minutes.
A while later, she was awoken by the sound of laughter coming from behind her. She recognised who the voices were coming from and a few seconds later, the boys came and sat under the same tree she was sat under. Remus sat beside her but she didn't cower away, instead she brushed up against him and let him stroke her.
"Okay okay let's get serious now." Sirius smirked, "Remus, we know that you like Ast so there's no need to deny it."
Being taken aback by Sirius's statement, Ast looked up at Remus. Expecting him to refuse, she was shocked to see him blush.
"See even the fox knows you like her!" Peter laughed.
"I don't," Remus muttered.
"Oh come on, Remus, it's so obvious."
"No I don't. Could you stop getting me to confess my feelings if I ever do so much as talk to a girl?"
"But Ast seems to be interested in you." James pointed out.
"Yeah, cause she doesn't know about my you-know-what. Besides, I doubt she sees me as anything other than a friend."
He huffed and pulled a book out of his tote bag. Ast however, could see his cheeks turn an even brighter shade of red.
"Oh, Remus likes a girl," Sirius teased.
"No I don't!" Remus said, a bit too quickly for his liking.
"Uh oh, Remus is upset." James said, in a fake baby voice.
"Yeah, so you better shut up before I make you." Remus said, not looking up from his book.
Peter, Sirius and James instantly stopped talking. Ast was impressed at how easily they obeyed Remus. When she first met them, she thought that James was the scary one. But after spending a week with the boys who called themselves the 'Marauders', Ast knew better than to cross Remus.
Ast, still in fox-form, looked up at the boy who was stroking her fur with one hand, and holding a book in the other. He did look handsome; with his amber eyes, his messy, brown hair, and his sharp jawline. Ast had to tear her eyes away from him so she wouldn't look like an utter idiot.
They all relaxed under the sun for a few hours. The boys had to protect Ast from being terrorised by a group of third year Slytherin boys who were throwing rocks at her. They all got angry at them and since Remus was a prefect, he took ten points from Slytherin for them being a threat to wildlife.
When they finally decided to get up and head to dinner, it signalled Ast's cue to leave and return to the castle before they did. She transformed and rushed into the Great Hall and around a minute later, the boys arrived.
"Ast! You should've came there was this fox that was surprisingly calm and I'm sure you would've liked it and it was such a nice day out!" James exclaimed as soon as he sat down at the table.
"Calm down, James," Ast said, trying to hide her grin.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh nothing, nothing."
"Yeah, you should've came, Ast." Sirius said, "the fox was so sweet."
"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll see it again another day."
*****
Back in Durmstrang, Ast used to be on the Quidditch team. She played as a chaser but was occasionally a seeker as well. She heard about trials for the Gryffindor team from James that were taking place next week so she hoped that she'd able to make it onto the team.
Ast had picked up that James talked a lot about Quidditch, more than the average wizard. He was obsessed with its inner workings and constantly played around with a Golden Snitch that he kept in his pocket.
"James! James!" Ast heard Remus call.
"What?" James asked.
"It's... " Remus's voice went down to a whisper, "It's tonight."
Ast, who was in the common room pretending to be doing her homework, was actually listening to their conversation.
"Should we tell her?" James's voice was also brought to a whisper.
"Are you crazy? We don't know who she is, she might be against...you know...my kind."
"But we've got to tell her eventually."
"Yes, but not tonight. We need to see if we can trust her."
She could tell that they were talking about her. Remus sighed and headed up to the boy's dorm. What did he mean by 'It's tonight'? What did they have to tell her? And why would they think she'd react badly?
The full moon was that night and Oscar said that he didn't need Ast to accompany him this time. She found it a little odd since she always accompanied him, but she complied anyway.
Ast was the curious sort, so knowing that Remus and James were keeping something from her didn't help her in the slightest. She had a plan, she knew it was wrong, but she couldn't help it. She needed to know what they were doing and why. It would be risky turning into a fox again, but she had to try. She still wasn't used to the school, so she wasn't sure whether teachers patrolled the grounds at night. But, she was a Gryffindor after all, so risks were technically coded in her DNA.
It was fifteen minutes till sunset and everyone began heading down for dinner. Lily and Marlene came over and started talking to Ast. But it was inconvenient for Ast as she wanted to keep an eye on the boys. She lost her focus on them for a split second then found them slipping through the doors in the Entrance Hall. She had let them get away and couldn't do anything about it.
After dinner, Ast, Marlene and Lily went back to the common room. Ast still couldn't find a chance to leave and it had already been two hours since the boys left.
*****
She had completely forgotten about the boys until Lily asked what she thought about them. They, Marlene and Dorcas were currently pulling an all nighter and the time was 5:46 and the sun had just risen. They were all so tired, yet somehow full of energy.
"Listen, I'm too tired, I think I'm going to go to bed now." Ast announced as she struggled to stand up.
"Yeah me too, hey, race you to the dorms!" Marlene said.
"Oh you're on."
All four girls stood up and began to run towards the staircase. Marlene pushed Ast out of the way and she collided with a sofa. As she regained her balance, however, she saw that she was the only one left in the common room.
The common room door swung open and Sirius emerged from the tunnel behind it. He saw Ast and his face turned white. Then he quickly turned around and sort of waved towards the door. But he was too late because in came James and Peter carrying some sort of body.
All Ast could think of was: Please don't tell me I've befriended murderers.
They set the body down on the couch and Ast was able to look at the body. It was Remus. But, he was breathing. And his whole body was covered in blood.
"What happened?" Ast demanded.
"It's fine, Ast, go back to bed." Sirius warned.
"You should take him to Madam Pomfrey!"
Then it hit her, she in fact, knew what was going on. All along, she had suspected it and now her suspicious were coming true. Remus was a werewolf, the signs were so obvious. Just like Oscar, he had the same scars, same scent of chocolate and same changing of mood depending on the moon's position in the sky.
The boys however, were unsure of what to do. Surely, if they had done this before, they'd take him straight to Madam Pomfrey, not the Gryffindor common room.
But Remus seemed to be losing a lot of blood and the Hospital Wing was too far from the common room. Ast knew what to do.
"Stay here," she told the boys.
She ran upstairs, not even caring if she woke the whole dorm up, she just ran to her trunk.
Sirius turned to James, "who was that other person there?"
James shrugged, "I don't know, I thought Remus was the only werewolf here."
"It couldn't have been a first year though, they were bigger than Remus... unless it was Ast's brother."
"Oscar?"
"Yeah, he's got the scars and everything."
"You might be right there, Sirius."
Ast opened her trunk up and quickly rummaged around until she found it, her medical kit. She always kept it with her in case of an emergency and this was one. She ran back downstairs to hear Peter, James and Sirius freaking out over what to do. She pushed everyone out the way and knelt down by Remus's side. He opened his eyes for a second and closed them again.
"Remus, I'm going to apply Dittany on you, is that okay?" She asked.
Slowly, he gave her a small nod.
Blood was seeping through his shirt so she took it off. But she struggled with the buttons due to her stress so Sirius helped her.
"Do you need any help?" James asked.
"Yes I need you to get a rag to soak up the blood."
"Okay."
He ran to the bathroom. Ast opened her kit and took out Essence of Dittany, Monkshood, a bowl and Dittany herbs. She placed the herbs in the bowl and used a charm to crush them. She then added the Essence of Dittany and stirred it.
This was her own creation because after every full moon, Oscar would return with loads of gashes and wounds so she had to heal them for him. She called it the Wolfsbane Potion.
James returned from the bathroom with a few towels and by now Remus was losing a lot of blood so she had to act quickly. She soaked up the blood and then dropped some of the remedy onto his wounds. Within seconds they closed and the blood disappeared. However scars appeared on where the wounds used to be.
Ast hadn't mastered the spell for removing scars yet so Remus was going to have to wait. He opened his eyes again and before he closed them, Ast said:
"Does anywhere else hurt?"
He nodded.
"Where?"
"My head," he mumbled.
"Drink this, it will help."
He lifted his head a little to allow Ast to pour the potion down his throat. He gulped it down and repelled in disgust. Colour had slightly come back to his face and he was able to move a bit more.
"How did you-" James began but couldn't find the words to finish.
Ast turned her head so she was facing the boys, she lifted her finger up and pointed very sternly at them.
"Next time," she said, "just take him to Madam Pomfrey."
They nodded obediently, clearing not wanting to be lectured by Ast.
Together, they lifted Remus up and brought him up to his dorm. He fell onto his bed, too tired to do anything. Ast waited outside while the boys helped Remus get changed. Once they were done, she went back inside just to make sure everything was okay.
She sat down at the edge of Remus's bed while the others got into their pyjamas. She gave him water to drink and checked his wounds. He was staring at her gratefully.
"Thank you," he said.
"No worries," she replied.
His face fell, "did- did they say anything? About why we were out?"
Ast could sense that the boys had stopped moving around and were listening to their conversation. As far as the boys knew, Ast didn't know about Remus's condition, but they had to make sure just in case.
"Nope. Why were you out anyway?"
"We were thinking of pranks..." James quickly cut in. "And um... Remus got attacked by the Whomping Willow."
Asteria's eyes widened in amusement. She knew it was a lie. But she decided to play along with it. Remus would tell her he was a werewolf when he was ready, she wasn't going to force it out of him. She wondered how her brother had gotten on with his transformation.
"Yikes," she said, gritting her teeth.
The boys let out a silent sigh of relief. Ast didn't know, they were safe, for now.
Asteria held Remus's hand in hers, gave it a little rub and kiss then headed towards her own dorm. Remus sat there in his bed, staring at where it had been kissed, a goofy smile forming on his lips.