"That's what I said!" Zane exclaimed.
"You're both mad," Petra said reproachfully. "You're as bad as she is."
"We don't want to kill her," Zane replied in a wounded voice. "We just want to see her drop a few hundred feet in terror. Ridcully would levitate her at the last moment, just like the Ralphinator did for James. Honestly, you must think we're monsters."
"So are we all agreed, then?" Ted asked the group. Everyone nodded and murmured assent.
"That's wonderful and all," Ralph said, "but how are we going to do it?"
Ted leaned back and stared up at the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, stroking his chin. Slowly, he smiled. "Does anyone know what the weather is supposed to be like tonight?"
There was very little that the group needed to do to prepare. After lunch, Sabrina and Noah headed off to the basements to talk to the house-elves. James and Ted, both of whom had an afternoon free period, spent some time in the library studying a collection of gigantic books about Atmospheric and Weather Charms.
"This is Petra's thing, really," Ted lamented. "If she wasn't busy all afternoon with Divination and Runes, we'd be a lot better off."
James looked over their notes. "Looks like we've got what we need, though, doesn't it?"
"I guess," Ted replied airily, flipping a few huge pages. A minute later, he looked up at James. "It was really tough for you to ask for help, wasn't it?"
James glanced at Ted and met his eyes, then looked out a nearby window. "A little, yeah. I didn't know if I'd be able to explain it. I wasn't sure any of you would believe it."
Ted furrowed his brow. "Is that all?" he prodded.
"Well…," James began, then stopped. He fiddled with his quill. "No, I guess not. It just seemed like… like something I was supposed to do on my own. I mean, with Zane and Ralph's help, sure. They were along with the whole thing from the start. But still. I kind of figured that, between the three of us, we'd be able to manage. We'd work it out. It felt a little like…" He stopped, realizing what he was about to say, surprised by it.
"Like what?" Ted asked.
James sighed. "Like a failure. Like if the three of us couldn't do it on our own, we'd failed, somehow."
"The three of you. Like your dad and Ron and Hermione, you mean."
James glanced at Ted sharply. "What? No… no," he said, but suddenly he wasn't sure.
"I'm just saying," Ted replied. "It makes sense. That's how your dad did it. He was a big one for taking on all the responsibilities of the world and not sharing the load with anyone else. He and Ron and Hermione. There were always loads of people around who were ready and willing to help, and sometimes, they did, but not until they'd pretty much forced themselves into the action." Ted shrugged.
"You sound like Snape," James said, keeping his voice level. He felt uncomfortably vulnerable all of a sudden.
"Well, maybe Snape's right, sometimes," Ted said mildly, "even if he was an oily old humbug most of the time."
"Yeah, well, blast him," James said, surprised to feel a prickle of tears. He blinked them away. "He was a load of help, wasn't he? Sneaking around, working both sides, never making it clear to anybody where his loyalties really lay until it was too late. Can't really blame my dad for not trusting him, can you? So I don't trust him either. Maybe my dad did do most stuff with just Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. That was all he needed, wasn't it? They won. He'd found two people he could trust with everything. Well, I found them, too. I've got Ralph and Zane. So maybe I thought I could be as good as Dad. I'm not, though. I needed some help." There was more James meant to say, but he stopped, uncertain if he should continue.
Ted looked at James for a long, thoughtful moment, and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Tough thing living in the shadow of your dad, isn't it?" he said. James didn't reply. A moment later, Ted went on. "I never knew my dad. He died right here, on the school grounds. He and Mum both. They were in the Battle of Hogwarts, you know. You'd think that it would be hard to feel resentful of people you never knew, but you can. I resent them for dying. Sometimes, I resent them for being here at all. I mean, what were they thinking? Both of them rushing off into some big battle, leaving their kid at home. You call that responsible? I sure don't." Ted looked out the window as James had done a minute earlier. Then he sighed. "Ah well, most of the time, though, I'm proud of them. Somebody once said, if you don't have something worth dying for, you aren't really living. Mum and Dad had something worth dying for, and they did. I lost them, but I got a legacy out of it. A legacy is worth something, isn't it?" He looked across the table at James again, searching his face. James nodded, unsure what to say. Finally Ted shrugged a little. "The reason I bring it up, though, is my dad, he left me something else."
Ted was quiet for almost a minute, thinking, apparently debating with himself. Finally, he spoke again. "Dad was a werewolf. I guess it's as simple as that. You didn't know that, did you?"
James tried to keep his face from showing it, but he was quite shocked. He knew there had been something secret about Remus Lupin, something that had never been explained to him or even mentioned outright. All James knew for sure was that Lupin had been close friends with Sirius Black, James Potter the First, and a man named Peter Pettigrew that had eventually betrayed them all. James knew that Lupin had come to teach at Hogwarts when his dad was in school, and that Lupin had taught his dad how to summon his Patronus. Whatever the secret of Remus Lupin's past, it couldn't have been anything terribly serious, James had reasoned. He had thought perhaps Ted's father had been in Azkaban for a while or that he had once flirted with the Dark Arts when he was young. It had never crossed James' mind that Remus Lupin might have been a werewolf.
Despite James' attempt to mask his shock, Ted saw it on his face and nodded. "Yeah, quite a secret, that was. Your dad told me the whole story himself a few years back, when I was old enough to understand it. Grandmum never talks about it at all, even now. I think she's afraid. Not so much of what was, but… well, what could be."
James was a little afraid to ask. "What could be, Ted?"
Ted shrugged. "You know how it is with werewolves. There're only two ways to become one. You can get bitten by one or you can be born of one. Of course, nobody really knows exactly what happens when only your mum or dad is a werewolf. Your dad said that my dad was pretty upset when he found out Mum was going to have a baby. He was scared, see? He didn't want the kid to be like him, to grow up an outcast, cursed and hated. He thought he never should've even married my mum, because she wanted babies, but he was afraid to pass on the curse to them. Well, when I was born, I guess everybody breathed a big sigh of relief. I was normal. I got my mum's Metamorphmagus thing, even. They tell me I was always changing my hair color as a baby. Got no end of laughs about that, Grandmum says. I can still do it today, and a few other things, too. I usually don't, though. Once you get known for stuff like that, it's hard to be known for much else, if you know what I mean. So I guess Dad died feeling a bit better about having me, then. He died knowing I was normal, more or less. I'm glad of that." Ted was staring out the window again. He took a deep breath, and then looked back at James. "Harry told me how your Grandfather James, Sirius Black, and Pettigrew used to run with my dad when he changed, how they'd change into animal forms and accompany him around the countryside under the full moon, protecting him from the world and the world from him. I even started thinking it was all sort of adventurous and romantic, like those dopey Muggles who read those werewolf stories where the werewolves are all handsome and seductive and mysterious. I started almost wishing I had got the werewolf thing after all. And then…" Ted stopped and seemed to wrestle with himself for a moment. He lowered his voice and went on. "Well, the thing is, nobody really knows how all this werewolf stuff works, do they? I never gave it a second thought. But then, last year… last year, I started having insomnia. No big deal, right? Except it wasn't any normal insomnia. I couldn't sleep, but not because I wasn't tired, exactly. I was… I was…" He stopped again and leaned back in his chair, staring hard at the wall by the window.