BIRTHDAY: 4th October

WAND: Fir and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches, stiff

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor

SPECIAL ABILITIES:Animagus (distinctively marked silver tabby cat)

PARENTAGE: Muggle father, witch mother

FAMILY: Husband Elphinstone Urquart, deceased, no children

HOBBIES: Needlework, correcting articles in Transfiguration Today, watching Quidditch, supporting the Montrose Magpies

Minerva McGonagall was the first child, and only daughter, of a Scottish Presbyterian minister and a Hogwarts-educated witch. She grew up in the Highlands of Scotland in the early twentieth century, and only gradually became aware that there was something strange, both about her own abilities, and her parents’ marriage.

Minerva’s father, the Reverend Robert McGonagall, had become captivated by the high-spirited Isobel Ross, who lived in the same village. Like his neighbours, Robert believed that Isobel attended a select ladies’ boarding school in England. In fact, when Isobel vanished from her home for months at a time, it was to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that she went.

Aware that her parents (a witch and wizard) would frown on a connection with the serious young Muggle, Isobel kept their burgeoning relationship a secret. By the time she was eighteen, she had fallen in love with Robert. Unfortunately, she had not found the courage to tell him what she was.

The couple eloped, to the fury of both sets of parents. Now estranged from her family, Isobel could not bring herself to mar the bliss of the honeymoon by telling her smitten new husband that she had graduated top of her class in Charms at Hogwarts, nor that she had been Captain of the school Quidditch team. Isobel and Robert moved into a manse (minister’s house) on the outskirts of Caithness, where the beautiful Isobel proved surprisingly adept at making the most of the minister’s tiny salary.

The birth of the young couple’s first child, Minerva, proved both a joy and a crisis. Missing her family, and the magical community she had given up for love, Isobel insisted on naming her newborn daughter after her own grandmother, an immensely talented witch. The outlandish name raised eyebrows in the community in which she lived, and the Reverend Robert McGonagall found it difficult to explain his wife’s choice to his parishioners. Furthermore, he was alarmed by his wife’s moodiness. Friends assured him that women were often emotional after the birth of a baby, and that Isobel would soon be herself again.

Isobel, however, became more and more withdrawn, often secluding herself with Minerva for days at a time. Isobel later told her daughter that she had displayed small, but unmistakable, signs of magic from her earliest hours. Toys that had been left on upper shelves were found in her cot. The family cat appeared to do her bidding before she could talk. Her father’s bagpipes were occasionally heard to play themselves from distant rooms, a phenomenon that made the infant Minerva chuckle.

Isobel was torn between pride and fear. She knew that she must confess the truth to Robert before he witnessed something that would alarm him. At last, in response to Robert’s patient questioning, Isobel burst into tears, retrieved her wand from the locked box under her bed, and showed him what she was.

Although Minerva was too young to remember that night, its aftermath left her with a bitter understanding of the complications of growing up with magic in a Muggle world. Although Robert McGonagall loved his wife no less upon discovering that she was a witch, he was profoundly shocked by her revelation, and by the fact that she had kept such a secret from him for so long. What was more, he, who prided himself on being an upright and honest man, was now drawn into a life of secrecy that was quite foreign to his nature. Isobel explained, through her sobs, that she (and their daughter) were bound by the International Statute of Secrecy, and that they must conceal the truth about themselves, or face the fury of the Ministry of Magic. Robert also quailed at the thought of how the locals – in the main, an austere, straight-laced and conventional breed – would feel about having a witch as their minister’s wife.

Love endured, but trust had been broken between her parents, and Minerva, a clever and observant child, saw this with sadness. Two more children, both sons, were born to the McGonagalls, and both, in due course, revealed magical ability. Minerva helped her mother explain to Malcolm and Robert Junior that they must not flaunt their magic, and aided her mother in concealing from their father the accidents and embarrassments their magic sometimes caused.

Minerva was very close to her Muggle father, whom in temperament she resembled more than her mother. She saw with pain how much he struggled with the family’s strange situation. She sensed, too, how much of a strain it was for her mother to fit in with the all-Muggle village, and how much she missed the freedom of being with her kind, and of exercising her considerable talents. Minerva never forgot how much her mother cried, when the letter of admittance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrived on Minerva’s eleventh birthday; she knew that Isobel was sobbing, not only out of pride, but also out of envy.

As is often the case where the young witch or wizard comes from a family who has struggled with its magical identity, Hogwarts was, for Minerva McGonagall, a place of joyful release and freedom.

Minerva drew unusual attention to herself on her very first evening, when she was revealed to be a Hatstall. After five and a half minutes, the Sorting Hat, which had been vacillating between the houses of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, placed Minerva in the latter. (In later years, this circumstance was a subject of gentle humour between Minerva and her colleague Filius Flitwick, over whom the Sorting Hat suffered the same confusion, but reached the opposite conclusion. The two Heads of House were amused to think that they might, but for those crucial moments in their youths, have exchanged positions).

Minerva was quickly recognised as the most outstanding student of her year, with a particular talent for Transfiguration. As she progressed through the school, she demonstrated that she had inherited both her mother’s talents and her father’s cast-iron moral sense. Minerva’s school career overlapped by two years with that of Pomona Sprout, later Head of Hufflepuff House, and the two women enjoyed an excellent relationship both then, and in later years.

By the end of her education at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall had achieved an impressive record: top grades in O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Prefect, Head Girl, and winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer award. Under the guidance of her inspirational Transfiguration teacher, Albus Dumbledore, she had managed to become an Animagus; her animal form, with its distinctive markings (tabby cat, square spectacles markings around eyes) were duly logged in the Ministry of Magic’s Animagus Registry. Minerva was also, like her mother, a gifted Quidditch player, although a nasty fall in her final year (a foul during the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game which would decide the Cup winner) left her with concussion, several broken ribs and a lifelong desire to see Slytherin crushed on the Quidditch pitch. Though she gave up Quidditch on leaving Hogwarts, the innately competitive Professor McGonagall later took a keen interest in the fortunes of her house team, and retained a keen eye for Quidditch talent.

Upon graduation from Hogwarts, Minerva returned to the manse to enjoy one last summer with her family before setting out for London, where she had been offered a position at the Ministry of Magic (Department of Magical Law Enforcement). These months were to prove some of the most difficult of Minerva’s life, for it was then, aged only eighteen, that she proved herself truly her mother’s daughter, by falling head-over-heels in love with a Muggle boy.

It was the first and only time in Minerva McGonagall’s life that she might have been said to lose her head. Dougal McGregor was the handsome, clever and funny son of a local farmer. Though less beautiful than Isobel, Minerva was clever and witty. Dougal and Minerva shared a sense of humour, argued fiercely, and suspected mysterious depths in each other. Before either of them knew it, Dougal was on one knee in a ploughed field, proposing, and Minerva was accepting him.

She went home, intending to tell her parents of her engagement, yet found herself unable to do so. All that night she lay awake, thinking about her future. Dougal did not know what she, Minerva, truly was, any more than her father had known the truth about Isobel before they had married. Minerva had witnessed at close quarters the kind of marriage she might have if she wed Dougal. It would be the end of all her ambitions; it would mean a wand locked away, and children taught to lie, perhaps even to their own father. She did not fool herself that Dougal McGregor would accompany her to London, while she went to work every day at the Ministry. He was looking forward to inheriting his father’s farm.

Early next morning, Minerva slipped from her parents’ house and went to tell Dougal that she had changed her mind, and could not marry him. Mindful of the fact that if she broke the International Statute of Secrecy, she would lose the job at the Ministry for which she was giving him up, she could give him no good reason for her change of heart. She left him devastated, and set out for London three days later.

Though undoubtedly her feelings for the Ministry of Magic were coloured by the fact that she had recently suffered an emotional crisis, Minerva McGonagall did not much enjoy her new home and workplace. Some of her co-workers had an engrained anti-Muggle bias that, given her adoration of her Muggle father, and her continuing love for Dougal McGregor, she deplored. Though a most efficient and gifted employee, and fond of her much older boss, Elphinstone Urquart, Minerva was unhappy in London, and found that she missed Scotland. Finally, after two years at the Ministry, she was offered a prestigious promotion, yet found herself turning it down. She sent an owl to Hogwarts, asking whether she might be considered for a teaching post. The owl returned within hours, offering her a job in the Transfiguration department, under Head of Department, Albus Dumbledore.

The school greeted Minerva McGonagall’s return with delight. Minerva threw herself into her work, proving herself a strict but inspirational teacher. If she kept letters from Dougal McGregor locked in a box under her bed, this was (she told herself firmly) better than keeping her wand locked there. Nevertheless, it was a shock to learn from the oblivious Isobel (in the middle of a chatty letter of local news) that Dougal had married the daughter of another farmer.

Albus Dumbledore discovered Minerva in tears in her classroom, late that evening, and she confessed the whole story to him. Albus Dumbledore offered both comfort and wisdom, and told Minerva some of his own family history, previously unknown to her. The confidences exchanged that night between two intensely private and reserved characters were to form the basis of a lasting mutual esteem and friendship.

Minerva McGonagall was one of only a handful of people who knew, or suspected, how dreadful a moment it was for Albus Dumbledore when, in 1945, he made the decision to confront and defeat the Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

Minerva McGonagall did not teach the young Tom Riddle, but she was privy to Dumbledore’s fears and suspicions about him. Minerva was not inducted into the Order of the Phoenix during Voldemort’s first climb to power (at that time the Order of the Phoenix was seen as a renegade outfit by the Ministry; successive Ministers feared Dumbledore’s charisma and magical talent, and were inclined to harbour fears that he wished to succeed them). Minerva’s abilities as an Animagus were to prove useful in these dark periods of wizarding history, however, and unbeknownst to her students she spent many nights spying for the Ministry in the guise of a tabby cat, bringing the Aurors crucial information on the activities of Voldemort’s followers.

Like most of the magical community she suffered personal bereavements during the first period of Voldemort’s power. Among the worst were the loss of her brother, Robert; two of her favourite students, Lily Evans and James Potter; and Dougal McGregor, who was murdered, along with his wife and children, in a random anti-Muggle attack by the Death Eaters. This last news was a terrible blow to Minerva, who asked herself whether she might not have been able to save Dougal’s life had she married him.

Through all her early years at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall remained on terms of friendship with her old boss at the Ministry, Elphinstone Urquart. He came to visit her while on holiday to Scotland, and to her great surprise and embarrassment, proposed marriage in Madam Puddifoot’s teashop. Still in love with Dougal McGregor, Minerva turned him down.

Elphinstone, however, had never ceased to love her, nor to propose every now and then, even though she continued to refuse him. The death of Dougal McGregor, however, although traumatic, seemed to free Minerva. Shortly after Voldemort’s first defeat, Elphinstone, now white-haired, proposed again during a summertime stroll around the lake in the Hogwarts grounds. This time Minerva accepted. Elphinstone, now retired, was beside himself with joy, and purchased a small cottage in Hogsmeade for the pair of them, whence Minerva could travel easily to work every day.

Known to successive generations of students as ‘Professor McGonagall,’ Minerva – always something of a feminist – announced that she would be keeping her own name upon marriage. Traditionalists sniffed – why was Minerva refusing to accept a pure-blood name, and keeping that of her Muggle father?

The marriage (cut tragically short, though it was destined to be) was a very happy one. Though they had no children of their own, Minerva’s nieces and nephews (children of her brothers Malcolm and Robert) were frequent visitors to their home. This was a period of great fulfillment for Minerva.

The accidental death of Elphinstone from a Venomous Tentacula bite, three years into their marriage, was an enormous sorrow to all who knew the couple. Minerva could not bear to remain alone in their cottage, but packed her things after Elphinstone’s funeral and returned to her sparse stone-floored bedroom in Hogwarts Castle, accessible through a concealed door in the wall of her first-floor study. Always a very brave and private person, she poured all her energies into her work, and few people – excepting perhaps Albus Dumbledore – ever realised how much she suffered.

By the time of the second wizarding war, Minerva was no longer prepared to act as a spy for a Ministry she believed had become corrupt and dangerous. Her attitude was undoubtedly hardened by the intrusion at Hogwarts of Dolores Jane Umbridge, a Ministry inspector and Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, with whom Minerva clashed more violently than with any other colleague in her long and varied career. Following the confrontation with the Death Eaters who had invaded Hogwarts at the time of Albus Dumbledore’s death, Minerva became a fully fledged member of the Order of the Phoenix, which was now, more than ever, seen as an outlaw organisation.

Following the promotion of Severus Snape to Headmaster, after her temporary stewardship of the school, Minerva McGonagall remained in post to protect the students as best she could from the malicious attentions of the Carrows, the Death Eater teachers imposed upon the school by Lord Voldemort. In spite of her well-known loyalty to Professor Dumbledore, Voldemort and his followers believed that Minerva was both too gifted to lose, and too sensible not to join them fully once their victory was assured.

In this, however, they were quite mistaken, and Minerva McGonagall’s actions during the famous Battle of Hogwarts proved that her allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix had never wavered. She was one of the last to duel Voldemort before his death, an encounter she survived, and she subsequently became a successful and inspirational Headmistress of the school she had served so long and well. Minerva McGonagall was later awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, by the new Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and shortly afterwards appeared on a card in the Chocolate Frog Famous Witches and Wizards series, an accolade she admitted she had never imagined receiving.

Minerva McGonagall was not immune to a secret amusement at the antics of rule-breakers. Nevertheless, she frequently questioned Dumbledore’s policy of allowing Harry to run extreme risks, and bend many school rules, during his adolescence, often showing herself to be more protective of Harry than the then Headmaster. Harry had a claim on Minerva’s affections, not only because he was the son of two of her all-time favourite students, but because he, like herself, had suffered serious bereavements. Although she neither spoiled nor favoured Harry when he was her student, she revealed the depth of her trust in him during the Battle of Hogwarts, at which time she supported him unequivocally even though she had never been fully in his or Dumbledore’s confidence.

Following a private conversation with Harry, Minerva McGonagall later took the controversial decision to add a portrait of Severus Snape to the gallery of old headmasters and headmistresses in her tower office.

Minerva was the Roman goddess of warriors and wisdom. William McGonagall is celebrated as the worst poet in British history. There was something irresistible to me about his name, and the idea that such a brilliant woman might be a distant relative of the buffoonish McGonagall.

A small sample of his work will give a flavour of its unintentional comedic value. The following was written as part of a poem commemorating a Victorian railway disaster:

‌

An Animagus is a witch or wizard who can transform at will into an animal. While in their animal form, they retain most of their ability to think as a human, their own sense of identity and their memories. They will also retain normal human life expectancy, even if they take their animal form for long periods of time. However, feelings and emotions are simplified and they will have many animal desires, feeding off whatever their animal body craves, rather than demanding human food.

It is immensely difficult to change oneself into an Animagus and the process, which is complex and time-consuming, can go dramatically wrong. As a result, it is believed that fewer than one in a thousand witches or wizards are Animagi.

An Animagus has a great potential advantage in the spheres of espionage and crime. For this reason, an Animagus Registry exists on which all Animagi are expected to log their personal details and the precise appearance of their transformed self. It is usually the case that distinctive markings or disabilities belonging to the human body will transfer to the animal self. Failure to enter oneself onto the Registry may result in a stretch in Azkaban.

When the process of becoming an Animagus goes wrong, it often goes seriously wrong. Impatience with the long and complicated process is generally at the root of such disasters, which usually take the form of horrible half-human, half-animal mutations. There is no known cure for such mistakes and those who make them are often forced to live out their days in their pitiable condition, being unable to become fully animal or fully human.

Talent in both Transfiguration and Potions is necessary to become an Animagus. No responsibility can be taken for any physical or mental problems resulting from following these instructions.

1. For the space of one entire month (from full moon to full moon), a single leaf from a Mandrake must be carried constantly in the mouth. The leaf must not be swallowed or taken out of the mouth at any point. If the leaf is removed from the mouth, the process must be started again.

2. Remove the leaf at the full moon and place it, steeped in your saliva, in a small crystal phial that receives the pure rays of the moon (if the night is cloudy, you will have to find a new Mandrake leaf and begin the whole process again). To the moon-struck crystal phial, add one of your own hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew collected from a place that neither sunlight nor human feet have touched for a full seven days, and the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. Put this mixture in a quiet, dark place and do not look at it or otherwise disturb it until the next electrical storm.

3. While waiting for the storm, the following procedure should be followed at sunrise and sundown. The tip of the wand should be placed over the heart and the following incantation spoken: ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus.’

4. The wait for a storm may take weeks, months or even years. During this time, the crystal phial should remain completely undisturbed and untouched by sunlight. Contamination by sunlight gives rise to the worst mutations. Resist the temptation to look at your potion until lightning occurs. If you continue to repeat your incantation at sunrise and sunset there will come a time when, with the touch of the wand-tip to the chest, a second heartbeat may be sensed, sometimes more powerful than the first, sometimes less so. Nothing should be changed. The incantation should be uttered without fail at the correct times, never omitting a single occasion.

5. Immediately upon the appearance of lightning in the sky, proceed directly to the place where your crystal phial is hidden. If you have followed all the preceding steps correctly, you will discover a mouthful of blood-red potion inside it.

6. It is essential to move, at once, to a large, secure place where your transformation cannot cause alarm or place you in physical danger. Place your wand-tip against your heart, speak the incantation ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus,’ and then drink the potion.

7. If all has gone correctly, you will feel a fiery pain and an intense double heartbeat. Into your mind will come the shape of the creature into which you are shortly to transform. You must show no fear. It is too late, now, to escape the change you have willed.

8. The first transformation is usually uncomfortable and frightening. Clothing and items such as glasses or jewellery meld to the skin and become one with fur, scales or spikes. Do not resist and do not panic or the animal mind may gain the ascendancy and you could do something foolish, such as try to escape through a window or charge a wall.

9. When your transformation is complete you should find yourself physically comfortable. You are strongly advised to pick up your wand at once, and hide it in a place of safekeeping, where you will be able to find it when you regain a human form.

10. To return to a human form, visualise your human self as clearly as you can. This should be sufficient, but do not panic if the transformation does not occur immediately. With practice, you will be able to slip in and out of your animal form at will, simply by visualising the creature. Advanced Animagi can transform without wands.

Generally wizards prefer to have their clothes Transfigure with them, to escape the embarrassment of reappearing naked. However, it is possible to leave clothes behind if one wishes to give the impression of having gone for a bath or something similar. The longer a witch or wizard has been an Animagus, the better they will become at choosing the precise form of their transformations.

The animal into which one turns, if an Animagus, seems always to be that which becomes the Patronus. There is no known instance of the Animagus form changing to match the Patronus if the latter changes, but the Animagus who can also produce a Patronus is highly unusual and no study has ever been done on sufficient numbers to draw firm conclusions.

‌

BIRTHDAY: 10th March

WAND: Cypress and unicorn hair, ten and a quarter inches, pliable

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Exceptionally gifted in Defence Against the Dark Arts, werewolf

PATRONUS: Wolf

PARENTAGE: Wizard father, Muggle mother

FAMILY: Wife Nymphadora Tonks, son Edward Remus (Teddy) Lupin

Remus Lupin was the only child of the wizard Lyall Lupin and his Muggle wife Hope Howell.

Lyall Lupin was a very clever, rather shy young man who, by the time he was thirty, had become a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions. These include poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures that, while sometimes ghostlike in appearance and behaviour, have never been truly alive and remain something of a mystery even to the wizarding world.

On an investigative trip into a dense Welsh forest in which a particularly vicious Boggart was supposed to be lurking, Lyall ran across his future wife. Hope Howell, a beautiful Muggle girl who worked in an insurance office in Cardiff, had taken an ill-advised walk through what she believed to be innocent woodland. Boggarts and poltergeists may be sensed by Muggles, and Hope, a particularly imaginative and sensitive person, had become convinced that something was watching her from between the dark trees. Eventually, her imagination became so overactive that the Boggart assumed a form: that of a large, evil-looking man, bearing down on her with a snarl and outstretched hands in the gloom. Hearing her scream, young Lyall came sprinting through the trees, causing the apparition to shrink into a field mushroom with one wave of his wand. The terrified Hope thought, in her confusion, that he had driven her would-be attacker away, and his first words to her – ‘it’s all right, it was only a Boggart’ – made no impression on her. Noticing how very beautiful she was, Lyall made the wise decision not to talk about Boggarts any more, but instead agreed that the man had been very big and scary, and that the only sensible thing to do was for him to accompany Hope home to protect her.

The young couple fell in love, and not even Lyall’s shamefaced admission, some months later, that Hope had never really been in danger, dented her enthusiasm for him. To Lyall’s delight, Hope accepted his proposal of marriage and threw herself enthusiastically into preparations for the wedding, complete with a Boggart-topped cake.

Lyall and Hope’s first and only child, Remus John, was born after a year of marriage. A happy, healthy little boy, he showed early signs of magic and both parents imagined that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in due course.

By the time that Remus was four years old, the amount of Dark magical activity across the country was increasing steadily. While few yet knew what lay behind the mounting attacks and sightings, Lord Voldemort’s first ascent to power was in progress and Death Eaters were recruiting all kinds of Dark creatures to join them in their quest to overthrow the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry called in the services of authorities on Dark creatures – even those as minor as Boggarts and poltergeists – to help it understand and contain the threat. Lyall Lupin was among those asked to join the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which he did gladly. It was here that Lyall came face-to-face with a werewolf called Fenrir Greyback, who had been brought in for questioning about the death of two Muggle children.

The Werewolf Registry was badly maintained. Werewolves were so shunned by wizarding society that they generally avoided contact with other people; they lived in self-described ‘packs’ and did all they could to avoid being registered. Greyback, whom the Ministry did not know to be a werewolf, claimed to be nothing more than a Muggle tramp who was utterly amazed at finding himself in a room full of wizards, and horrified by the talk about the poor, dead children.

Greyback’s filthy clothing and lack of wand were sufficient to persuade two overworked and ignorant members of the questioning committee that he was telling the truth, but Lyall Lupin was not so easily fooled. He recognised certain telltale signs in Greyback’s appearance and behaviour and told the committee that Greyback ought to be kept in detention until the next full moon, a mere twenty-four hours later.

Greyback sat in silence while Lyall was laughed at by his fellow committee members (‘Lyall, you just stick to Welsh Boggarts, that’s what you’re good at’). Lyall, generally a mild-mannered man, grew angry. He described werewolves as ‘soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death’. The committee ordered Lyall out of the room, the head of the committee apologised to the Muggle tramp and Greyback was released.

The wizard who escorted Greyback out of the inquiry was intending to place a Memory Charm upon him, so that he would forget having been inside the Ministry. Before he had a chance to do so, he was overpowered by Greyback and two accomplices who had been lurking at the entrance, and the three werewolves fled.

Greyback lost no time in sharing with his friends how Lyall Lupin had just described them. Their revenge on the wizard who thought that werewolves deserved nothing but death would be swift and terrible.

Shortly before Remus Lupin’s fifth birthday, as he slept peacefully in his bed, Fenrir Greyback forced open the boy’s window and attacked him. Lyall reached the bedroom in time to save his son’s life, driving Greyback out of the house with a number of powerful curses. However, henceforth, Remus would be a fully fledged werewolf.

Lyall Lupin never forgave himself for the words he had spoken in front of Greyback at the inquiry: ‘soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death’. He had parroted what was the common view of werewolves in his community, but his son was what he had always been – loveable and clever – except for that terrible period at the full moon when he suffered an excruciating transformation and became a danger to everyone around him. For many years, Lyall kept the truth about the attack, including the identity of the attacker, from his son, fearing Remus’s recriminations.

Lyall did all he could to find a cure, but neither potions nor spells could help his son. From this time onwards, the family’s lives were dominated by the need to hide Remus’s condition. They uprooted themselves from village to town, leaving the instant that rumours of the boy’s odd behaviour started. Fellow witches and wizards noticed how peaky Remus became as new moon approached, not to mention his monthly disappearances. Remus was not allowed to play with other children, in case he let slip the truth of his condition. In consequence, and in spite of his loving parents, he was a very lonely boy.

While Remus was small, his containment during his transformation was not difficult; a locked room and plenty of silencing spells usually sufficed. However, as he grew, so did his wolfish self, and by the time he was ten years old, he was capable of pounding down doors and smashing windows. Ever more powerful spells were needed to contain him and both Hope and Lyall grew thin with worry and fear. They adored their son, but they knew that their community – already beset with fears at the mounting Dark activity around them – would not be lenient on an uncontrolled werewolf. The hopes that they had once had for their son seemed in ruins, and Lyall educated Remus at home, certain that he would never be able to set foot in school.

Shortly before Remus’s eleventh birthday, no less a person than Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, arrived uninvited on the Lupins’ doorstep. Flustered and frightened, Lyall and Hope tried to block his entrance, but somehow, five minutes later, Dumbledore was sitting at the fireside, eating crumpets and playing Gobstones with Remus.

Dumbledore explained to the Lupins that he knew what had happened to their son. Greyback had boasted of what he had done and Dumbledore had spies among Dark creatures. However, Dumbledore told the Lupins that he saw no reason why Remus should not come to school, and described the arrangements that he had made to give the boy a safe and secure place for his transformations. Due to the widespread prejudice around werewolves, Dumbledore agreed that for Remus’s own sake his condition should not be broadcast. Once a month, he would leave for a secure and comfortable house in the village of Hogsmeade, guarded by many spells and reached only by an underground passage from the Hogwarts grounds, where he could transform in peace.

Remus’s excitement was beyond anything he had known before. It was the dream of his life to meet other children and have, for the first time, friends and playmates.

Sorted into Gryffindor house, Remus Lupin was swiftly befriended by two cheerful, confident and rebellious boys, James Potter and Sirius Black. They were attracted by Remus’s quiet sense of humour and a kindness that they valued, even if they did not always possess it themselves. Remus, always the underdog’s friend, was kind to short and rather slow Peter Pettigrew, a fellow Gryffindor, whom James and Sirius might not have thought worthy of their attention without Remus’s persuasion. Soon, these four became inseparable.

Remus functioned as the conscience of this group, but it was an occasionally faulty conscience. He did not approve of their relentless bullying of Severus Snape, but he loved James and Sirius so much, and was so grateful for their acceptance, that he did not always stand up to them as much as he knew he should.

Inevitably, his three best friends soon became curious as to why Remus had to vanish once a month. Convinced by his lonely childhood that his friends would desert him if they knew that he was a werewolf, Remus made up ever more elaborate lies to account for his absences. James and Sirius guessed the truth in their second year. To Remus’s astonished gratitude, they not only remained his friends but thought up an ingenious method of easing his monthly isolation. They also gave him a nickname that would follow him all through school: ‘Moony’. Remus finished his school career as a Prefect.

By the time the four friends left school, Lord Voldemort’s ascendancy was almost complete. True resistance to him was concentrated in the underground organisation called the Order of the Phoenix, which all four young men joined.

The death of James Potter, along with his wife Lily, at the hands of Lord Voldemort, was one of the most traumatic events of Remus’s already troubled life. His friends meant even more to him than to other people, because he had long since accepted the fact that most people would treat him as untouchable, and that there could be no possibility of marrying and having children. Even worse, within twenty-four hours he had also lost his two other best friends. Remus was in the north of the country on Order of the Phoenix business when he heard the horrible news that one of them had murdered the other, and was now in Azkaban, a traitor to the Order and to Lily and James themselves.

The downfall of Voldemort, such a source of jubilation to the rest of the wizarding community, marked the beginning of a long stretch of loneliness and unhappiness for Remus. He had lost his three close friends and, with the Order disbanded, his previous comrades returned to busy lives with families. His mother was now dead, and while Lyall, his father, was always delighted to see his son, Remus refused to endanger his father’s peaceful existence by returning to live with him.

Remus now lived a hand-to-mouth existence, taking jobs that were far below his level of ability, always knowing that he would have to leave them before his pattern of growing sick once a month at the full moon was noticed by his workmates.

One development in the wizarding community gave Remus hope: the discovery of the Wolfsbane Potion. While this did not prevent a werewolf losing his human form once a month, it restricted his transformation to that of an ordinary and sleepy wolf. It had always been Remus’s worst fear that he would kill while out of his right mind. However, the Wolfsbane Potion was complex and the ingredients very expensive. Remus had no chance to sample it without admitting what he was and so he continued his lonely, itinerant existence.

Once again, Albus Dumbledore changed the course of Remus Lupin’s life when he tracked him down to a tumbledown, semi-derelict cottage in Yorkshire. Delighted to see the Headmaster, Remus was amazed when Dumbledore offered him the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was only persuaded to accept when Dumbledore explained that there would be a limitless supply of Wolfsbane Potion, courtesy of the Potions master, Severus Snape.

At Hogwarts, Remus revealed himself to be a gifted teacher, with a rare flair for his own subject and a profound understanding of his pupils. He was, as ever, particularly drawn to the underdog, and both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter benefited from his wisdom and kindness.

However, Remus’s old flaw was at work. He had grave suspicions about one of his old friends, a known fugitive, but did not share them with anyone at Hogwarts. His desperate desire to belong and to be liked meant that he was neither as brave nor as honest as he ought to have been.

An unfortunate combination of circumstances arose that resulted in Remus undergoing a true werewolf’s transformation on the grounds of the school. Severus Snape’s resentment, never abated by Remus’s subsequent respectful politeness, made sure that it was widely known what the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was. Remus felt obliged to resign and departed Hogwarts once more.

As Lord Voldemort once again gained ascendancy, the old resistance regrouped and Remus found himself once more part of the Order of the Phoenix.

This time, the group included an Auror who had been too young to belong to the Order during its first incarnation. Clever, brave and funny, pink-haired Nymphadora Tonks was a protégée of Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody, the toughest and most grizzled Auror of them all.

Remus, so often melancholy and lonely, was first amused, then impressed, then seriously smitten by the young witch. He had never fallen in love before. If it had happened in peacetime, Remus would have simply taken himself off to a new place and a new job, so that he did not have to endure the pain of watching Tonks fall in love with a handsome, young wizard in the Auror office, which was what he expected to happen. However, this was war; they were both needed in the Order of the Phoenix, and nobody knew what the next day would bring. Remus felt justified in remaining exactly where he was, keeping his feelings to himself but secretly rejoicing every time somebody paired him with Tonks on some overnight mission.

It had never occurred to Remus that Tonks could return his feelings because he had become so used to considering himself unclean and unworthy. One night when they lay in hiding outside a known Death Eater’s house, after a year of increasingly warm friendship, Tonks made an idle remark about one of their fellow Order members (‘He’s still handsome, isn’t he, even after Azkaban?’). Before he could stop himself, Remus had replied bitterly that he supposed she had fallen for his old friend (‘He always got the women.’). At this, Tonks became suddenly angry. ‘You’d know perfectly well who I’ve fallen for, if you weren’t too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice.’

Remus’s immediate response was a happiness he had never experienced in his life, but this was extinguished almost at once by a sense of crushing duty. He had always known that he could not marry and run the risk of passing on his painful, shameful condition. He therefore pretended not to understand Tonks, which did not fool her at all. Wiser than Remus, she was sure that he loved her, but that he was refusing to admit it out of mistaken nobility. However, he avoided any further excursions with her, barely talked to her, and started volunteering for the most dangerous missions. Tonks became desperately unhappy, convinced not only that the man she loved would never willingly spend time with her again, but also that he might walk to his death rather than admit his feelings.

Remus and Tonks both fought Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, a battle that resulted in the public exposure of Voldemort’s return. The loss of the last of his school friends during this battle did nothing to soften Remus’s increasingly self-destructive attitude. Tonks could only watch in despair as he volunteered to spy for the Order, leaving to live among fellow werewolves to try to persuade them to Dumbledore’s side. In doing this, he was exposing himself to the possible reprisals of the werewolf who had changed his life forever, Fenrir Greyback.

Remus came face-to-face with both Greyback and Tonks at Hogwarts barely a year later, when the Order clashed with Death Eaters within the castle. During this battle, Remus lost yet another person he had loved: Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore had been adored by every member of the Order of the Phoenix, but to Remus, he had represented the sort of kindness, tolerance and understanding that he had received from nobody in the world outside his parents and his three best friends, and had been the only man ever to offer him a position within normal wizarding society.

In the aftermath of the bloody fight, inspired by Fleur Delacour’s protestation of enduring love for Bill Weasley, who had been savaged by Greyback, Tonks made a brave, public declaration of her feelings for Remus, who was forced to admit the strength of his love for her. In spite of continuing misgivings that he was acting selfishly, Remus married Tonks quietly in the north of Scotland, with witnesses taken from the local wizarding tavern. He continued to fear that the stigma attached to him would infect his wife and wished for no fanfare around their union; he swung constantly between elation that he was married to the woman of his dreams and terror of what he might have brought upon them both.

Within a few weeks of their marriage, Remus realised that Tonks was pregnant and every fear he had ever had surfaced. He was convinced that he had passed on his condition to an innocent child and that he had condemned Tonks to the same life as his mother, forever moving around, unable to settle, having to hide her increasingly violent child from sight. Full of remorse and self-recrimination, Remus fled, leaving the pregnant Tonks, seeking out Harry and offering to accompany him on whatever death-defying adventure awaited.

To Remus’s shock and displeasure, the seventeen-year-old Harry not only declined his offer but became angry and insulting. He told his ex-teacher that he was acting selfishly and irresponsibly. Remus responded with uncharacteristic violence and stormed out of the house, taking refuge in a corner of the Leaky Cauldron, where he sat drinking and fuming.

However, after a few hours’ reflection, Remus was forced to accept that his ex-pupil had just taught him a valuable lesson. James and Lily, Remus reflected, had stuck with Harry even unto their own deaths. His own parents, Lyall and Hope, had sacrificed their peace and security to keep the family together. Bitterly ashamed, Remus left the inn and returned to his wife, where he begged her forgiveness and assured her that, come what may, he would never leave her again. For the rest of Tonks’s pregnancy, Remus eschewed missions for the Order of the Phoenix and made it his first priority to protect his wife and unborn child.

The Lupins’ son, Edward Remus (‘Teddy’), was named for Remus’s recently deceased father-in-law. To both parents’ relief and delight, he showed no sign of lycanthropy when born, but inherited his mother’s ability to change his appearance at will. On the night of Teddy’s birth, Remus briefly left Tonks and his son in the charge of his mother-in-law, so that he could go and find Harry for the first time since their angry confrontation. Here, he asked Harry to be Teddy’s godfather, feeling nothing but forgiveness and gratitude towards the person who had sent him home to the family that gave him his greatest happiness.

Both Remus and Tonks returned to Hogwarts for the final battle against Voldemort, leaving their tiny son in the care of his grandmother. The couple knew that if Voldemort won this battle, their family was sure to be eliminated: both were notorious members of the Order of the Phoenix. Tonks was a marked woman in the eyes of her Death Eater aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, and their son was the very antithesis of a pure-blood, having many Muggle relatives and a dash of werewolf.

Having survived numerous encounters with Death Eaters and fought his way skilfully and bravely out of many tight corners, Remus Lupin met his end at the hands of Antonin Dolohov, one of the longest-serving, most devoted and sadistic of all Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Remus was no longer in prime fighting condition when he rushed to join the fight. Months of inactivity, using mostly spells of concealment and protection, had blunted his duelling capabilities, and when he ran up against a dueller of Dolohov’s skill, now battle-hardened after months of killing and maiming, his reactions were too slow.

Remus Lupin was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, the first werewolf ever to be accorded this honour. The example of his life and death did much to lift the stigma on werewolves. He was never forgotten by anyone who knew him: a brave, kind man who did the best he could in very difficult circumstances and who helped many more than he ever realised.

Remus Lupin was one of my favourite characters in the entire Potter series. I made myself cry all over again while writing this entry, because I hated killing him.

Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy (being a werewolf) was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes.

Remus’s Patronus is never revealed in the Potter books, even though it is he who teaches Harry the difficult and unusual art of producing one. It is, in fact, a wolf – an ordinary wolf, not a werewolf. Wolves are family-orientated and non-aggressive, but Remus dislikes the form of his Patronus, which is a constant reminder of his affliction. Everything wolfish disgusts him, and he often produces a non-corporeal Patronus deliberately, especially when others are watching.

‌

There are werewolves worldwide and they have traditionally been pariahs in the wizarding communities from which they often spring; witches and wizards who are frequently involved in hunting or studying such creatures are exposed to a higher risk of attack than the average Muggle. In the late nineteenth century the great English authority on werewolves, Professor Marlowe Forfang, undertook the first comprehensive study of their habits. He found that nearly all those he managed to study and question had been wizards before being bitten. He also learned from the werewolves that Muggles ‘taste’ different to wizards and that they are much more likely to die of their wounds, whereas witches and wizards survive to become werewolves.

The Ministry of Magic’s policies on werewolves have always been muddled and inefficient. A Werewolf Code of Conduct was developed in 1637, which werewolves were supposed to sign, promising not to attack anyone but to lock themselves up securely every month. Unsurprisingly, nobody signed the Code, as nobody was prepared to walk into the Ministry and admit to being a werewolf, a problem from which the later Werewolf Registry also suffered. For years, this Werewolf Registry, on which every werewolf was supposed to enter their name and personal details, has remained incomplete and unreliable, because so many of the newly-bitten sought to conceal their condition and escape the inevitable shame and exile. Werewolves have been shunted between the Beast and Being divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for years, because nobody could make up their minds whether a werewolf should be classified as human or bestial. At one point, the Werewolf Registry and Werewolf Capture Unit were both in the Beast Division, while at the same time an office for Werewolf Support Services was established in the Being Division. Nobody ever presented themselves for Support Services, for the same reasons that very few ever signed the Registry, and it was eventually closed down.

To become a werewolf, it is necessary to be bitten by a werewolf in their wolfish form at the time of the full moon. When the werewolf’s saliva mingles with the victim’s blood, contamination will occur.

The many Muggle myths and legends surrounding werewolves are, in the main, false, although some contain nuggets of truth. Silver bullets do not kill werewolves, but a mixture of powdered silver and dittany applied to a fresh bite will ‘seal’ the wound and prevent the victim bleeding to death (although tragic tales are told of victims who beg to be allowed to die rather than to live on as werewolves).

In the second half of the twentieth century, several potions were devised to soften the effects of lycanthropy. The most successful was the Wolfsbane Potion.

The monthly transformation of a werewolf is extremely painful if untreated and is usually preceded and succeeded by a few days of pallor and ill health. While in his or her wolfish form, the werewolf loses entirely its human sense of right or wrong. However, it is incorrect to state (as some authorities have, notably Professor Emerett Picardy in his book Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don’t Deserve to Live) that they suffer from a permanent loss of moral sense. While human, the werewolf may be as good or kind as the next person. Alternatively, they may be dangerous even while human, as in the case of Fenrir Greyback, who attempts to bite and maim as a man and keeps his nails sharpened into claw-like points for the purpose.

If attacked by a werewolf that is still in human form, the victim may develop certain mild, wolfish characteristics such as a fondness for rare meat, but otherwise should not be troubled by long-term ill effects. However, any bite or scratch given by a werewolf will leave lasting scars, whether or not he or she was in a wolf’s form at the time of the attack.

While in its animal form, the werewolf is almost indistinguishable in appearance from the true wolf, although the snout may be slightly shorter and the pupils smaller (in both cases more ‘human’) and the tail tufted rather than full and bushy. The real difference is in behaviour. Genuine wolves are not very aggressive, and the vast number of folk tales representing them as mindless predators are now believed by wizarding authorities to refer to werewolves, not true wolves. A wolf is unlikely to attack a human except under exceptional circumstances. The werewolf, however, targets humans almost exclusively and poses very little danger to any other creature.

Werewolves generally reproduce by attacking non-werewolves. The stigma surrounding werewolves has been so extreme for centuries that very few have married and had children. However, where werewolves have married human partners, there has been no sign of their lycanthropy being passed to their offspring.

One curious feature of the condition is that if two werewolves meet and mate at the full moon (a highly unlikely contingency, which is known to have occurred only twice) the result of the mating will be wolf cubs which resemble true wolves in everything except their abnormally high intelligence. They are not more aggressive than normal wolves and do not single out humans for attack. Such a litter was once set free, under conditions of extreme secrecy, in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, with the kind permission of Albus Dumbledore. The cubs grew into beautiful and unusually intelligent wolves and some of them live there still, which has given rise to the stories about ‘werewolves’ in the Forest – stories none of the teachers, or the gamekeeper, has done much to dispel because keeping students out of the Forest is, in their view, highly desirable.

BIRTHDAY: 9th March

WAND: Hazel and unicorn hair, nine and a half inches long, very flexible

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw

SPECIAL ABILITIES: A Seer, though the gift is unpredictable and unconscious

PARENTAGE: Muggle mother, wizard father

FAMILY: Early marriage ended in unforeseen rupture when she refused to adopt the surname ‘Higglebottom’, no children

HOBBIES: Practising making doom-laden prophecies in front of the mirror, sherry

A very great variety of first names are given to children by their wizard parents, some of them being what we might think of as Muggle names (e.g. James, Harry, Ronald), others giving a distinct flavour of the personality or destiny of the bearer (e.g. Xenophilius, Remus, Alecto).

Some wizards have a family tradition of names. The Black family, for instance, like to name their offspring after stars and constellations (which many would say suits their lofty ambition and pride). Other wizarding families (like the Potters and the Weasleys) simply pick their favourite names for their children, and leave it at that.

A certain sector of magical society, however, follows the ancient wizarding practice of consulting a Naming Seer, who (usually for a hefty payment of gold) will predict the child’s future and suggest an appropriate moniker.

This practice is becoming increasingly rare. Many parents prefer to ‘let him/her find his/her own way’, and dislike (with good reason) receiving premature hints of aptitude, limitations or, at worst, catastrophe. Mothers and fathers have often fretted themselves silly on the way home from the Naming Seer, wishing that they had not heard the Seer’s predictions about their child’s personality or future.

BIRTHDAY: 22nd November

WAND: Chestnut and phoenix feather, eleven and a half inches, whippy

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Hufflepuff

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Encyclopedic knowledge of magical creatures, fearlessness

PARENTAGE: Magical father, magical mother

FAMILY: No wife, no children

HOBBIES: Dangerous creatures are both his work and his hobby