Chapter 1: Amphotericin B
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Hermione let out a huff as she stepped out of the clinic, letting the sun sink into her weary bones. Her impromptu ten-hour shift had just ended, along with her rather frustrating consult with the higher-ups. Her mood soured at the memory; at their blatant refusal to review her findings regarding her doctoral thesis. She was certain that the counteragent she'd formulated would work – her accumulation of meticulous reports and studies near proved that. However, her adamant beliefs against premeditated virus injections on animals had proven to be her downfall. No proof; no pass.
Shaking the dark thoughts from her mind, she marched her way down the stairs, chin held loftily in the air. Those senile old codgers weren't going to tell her what to do anymore, no. She was Hermione Granger; at the young age of twenty-three, she could proudly state that she was the youngest and brightest doctor the veterinary hospital had ever seen and had only a term left before she finished her final doctorate thesis in Molecular Pharmaceutics.
That is if the hospital ever let her trial her theories.
Despite her exhaustion, she dawdled as she made her way through London, revelling in the soft wind that shoved away the smell of hospital-grade disinfectant and sickness that always threatened to follow her home, tangling in her hair. Instead, she allowed herself to be consumed by the stench of second-hand smoke as she snuck her way through the crowds into the overground station. She carelessly tapped her Oyster card, sweeping through the turnstile and stood precisely behind the yellow line with half a minute to spare.
The platform was empty, and (considering her last minute call-in at three in the morning) Hermione was pleased to find that finally, something was going her way. Her suitcase, filled to the brim with research documents and samples that she had packed the night before, hung by her side, which she patted self-assuredly as the train pulled up next to her.
The train carriage wasn't barren like the platform, Hermione noted as the doors shut with a hiss. Seated in the far corner was a man dressed in shabby trousers and an ill-fitting dress-shirt. Hermione perched herself down in the nearest seat to the door, placing her suitcase protectively on her knees as she eyed the stranger warily. His cheeks and neck were a scruff of patchy bristles and his dirty blond hair was overgrown, sticking up at odd angles as if he'd run his hands through it numerous times. She couldn't see any descriptive features; his head was turned away, lolling on his shoulder and bobbing in unconsciousness as the train began to move forward.
Hermione didn't take her eyes off the homeless-looking man the entire trip and was rather relieved when she glanced out the window to see her stop approaching.
"Welcome to Wandsworth Town Station. Doors opening."
The man jolted as the automatic message played. Wide, pale brown eyes snapped open, rimmed in shadows so dark that they seemed sunken. A narrow, Roman nose sat beneath and a thin-lipped mouth followed. His cheeks were slightly hollow, leaving him to appear gaunt and frail, and Hermione could see faded scars crisscrossed his face and forearms like an abstract jigsaw puzzle. Despite the few decades the man had on her, Hermione couldn't help but think that with a shave (and a good home-cooked meal) he would be rather striking.
His light eyes swivelled over to her then, making her duck her head, blushing furiously at being caught. But the man didn't say anything as he shuffled past her off the train and out of sight, disappearing into the trickling stream of people milling around the station.
Much more slowly Hermione left the carriage, her hand gripped tightly around the handle of her case, cheeks still flushed pink as she began the trek home.
Hermione knew she could always take one of the many available taxis or the local bus home, but the short quarter-hour walk to and from the station every day was what she considered a treat. Every day she'd have to walk through Wandsworth Park filled with its lush greenery and pristine lawns; it was a refreshing change to wander through the trees – far different from the fast-paced bustle of the corporate district of London.
As she weaved her way through the barrier of trees lining the open fields, she caught sight of more than one couple in the distance basking in the rare spring sun with a picnic basket, along with an amateur cricket match that was being held on the far-side; Hermione could hear the faint cheering of the crowd across the hectares.
She had sunk just out of sight of the fields and into the cool shade of the planted forest when a low, uneven growl echoed from nearby, making Hermione freeze and duck behind a large oak. A grizzly noise came from her left, followed by the soft, placating voice of a man. Hermione listened as the voice continued to make calming noises and she nervously glanced through the thick cluster of trees hiding the stranger from view. A dog barked ferociously in response, and Hermione could tell that it was confused and panicked, as it switched between snarling and whining at a furious rate.
The man sounded nervous now; his voice was edging closer towards Hermione's hiding spot, making her hold her breath. A familiar mop of messy hair met her view as the man retreated toward her. The rickety growling followed him, the dog hiccupping fiercely.
Hermione felt surprised as the man from the station edged back unknowingly closer to her, his voice clearer, "Sirius, this isn't funny. Stop joking around and change back, we don't have time for this."
Hermione looked past the man to 'Sirius' and her breath caught in her throat. A hulking dog was struggling to stalk closer, each step seeming to send painful spasms wracking through the dog's body and he gave a fearful yip in retaliation with each step. The dog was covered in black, matted fur, looking to be a cross between a German Sheppard and a bear.
"Sirius, I'm warning you, Molly's going to be cross if we're late to another one of her suppers again..."
The man sounded less sure of himself this time, raising his palms out in a sign of surrender.
Sirius tilted his shaggy head side to side as if he was trying to understand the man. His mouth was hanging open, tongue not dissimilar to sandpaper as he panted. Hermione watched in fright as Sirius's eyeballs rolled wildly in their sockets, dilated and unfocused.
Oh, no...
The man seemed to take Sirius's panting as a sign of submission as he smiled warmly and reached out towards the dog.
"No— don't!" Hermione cried.
But it was too late. The beast had lunged towards the offered arm and sunk its fangs into the exposed skin of his wrist, Sirius's maw encircling the man's entire hand, who cried out in shock.
"Aaaargh!"
He was tossed left and right as Sirius shook his great head, the dog's teeth grinding closer towards the bone with every movement; his eyes were crazed in blood-lust as the man pounded on the side of his head uselessly. Hermione dropped to her knees, yanking open her suitcase to reveal vial upon vial of blue and clear chemicals. Her hands shook as she snatched up a packaged syringe, ripping open the paper fastening with her teeth and jamming it into one of the clear sealed bottles.
Another cry erupted from the man when Sirius shoved him to the ground, looming over the stranger and snapping at his scarred face. Hermione pushed the case aside, not caring as her meticulous hand-written notes scattered across the ground, fluttering away in the soft wind out of sight.
She rushed towards the pair, syringe poised, and, upon later reflection, did one of the most reckless things she had ever done in her short life; she flung herself onto the beast's back and latched her free arm around his neck, holding on for dear life as the crazed dog turned his attention from the man on the ground to her. She narrowly dodged a sharp nip at her fingers as she waved her needle at Sirius's neck, feeling the dog's growl vibrate throughout her entire body.
The man on the ground stared at her with his pale eyes, nursing his bitten wrist as blood leaked out onto his shirt. Hermione smiled wryly at him when the dog paused in his attempts to tear her head off to heave a dehydrated pant and plunged the syringe into the side of his neck, aiming as close to the heart as possible.
Sirius heaved another pant of exhaustion as he began to sway on his feet, stumbling as Hermione let go of her death-grip around his neck, feeling like she'd just ridden a malfunctioning mechanical bull and fell onto the soft grass. Sirius's eyes fluttered as he gave one final woof and collapsed. Unconscious.
The sound of cheering in the distance from the cricket pitch pierced the silence that surrounded Hermione and the stranger. He was still lying on the grass, staring up at the canopy with glassy eyes and pallid skin; his hand firmly gripped around his bitten arm. Hermione edged her way closer to him, slipping off her cardigan.
"Hello, sir? Are you all right?" those light eyes swivelled on her, still unfocused and unseeing. Hermione swallowed nervously, "I— I need to see your arm..."
He continued to stare.
"You can trust me, I'm a doctor. A pharmaceutical veterinary engineer, to be exact. Which, I know isn't your usual GP, but I can promise that I've had just as much training. More, in fact."
The man didn't release the grip on his wrist, mouthing the word 'doctor' to himself as if it was foreign, so Hermione reached out, gently gesturing to him to loosen his grip. He watched silently as she tore a strip of material from her cardigan and began to fasten it over the bite.
Uncomfortable with the silence, Hermione babbled, "You'll need stitches and a vaccine – as soon as possible, of course. I'd usually apply an antiseptic before wrapping bandages, but you've seemed to have caught me without my usual medical kit. I'm Hermione, by the way. Hermione Granger. What's your name?"
"Remus," the man replied, then slurred, "I don't feel very good."
Hermione nodded, her confidence boosting at the man's admittance and her professional mask falling into place, "That's the shock. I suggest that you take deep breaths, can you do that for me, Remus?"
Remus nodded, taking a few minutes to breathe in gulps of the park air. He still looked pale and clammy, which made Hermione nervous as she stood, dusting herself off and regretting that she had left her mobile phone at home, "I'm just going to find someone to call emergency services for you, all right?"
"Wait!" Remus rasped, "What about Sirius? Is he okay?"
"Your dog?" Hermione asked.
"My friend," he corrected, looking sadly over at the unmoving canine, "You said you were a Healer of sorts... you can help him!"
"W-well no, I can't. I specialise in pharmaceutics; I've only dabbled in emergency medicines in regard to my studies in—"
But Remus just shook his head, "Please, surely there's something you can do?"
Hermione glanced at her suitcase, the blue vials glistening in the low light of the grove, "I... can. But it won't be entirely legal..."
"Anything!" the man was nearly incomprehensible now, his head bobbing with the difficulty to hold it upright, "Just help him... please."
Hermione sucked the air through her teeth before nodding resignedly, forcing herself to hold back a blush at the older man's thankful smile. She pulled her suitcase over, taking out a blue bottle and willing her shaking hands to be still as she unwrapped a new syringe, plunging it into the liquid and measuring two millimetres exact. Tapping the end of the needle, Hermione leant over the unconscious dog-bear, carefully lifting an eyelid to find the pupil had rolled back into his head. Good.
She began to sift her way through the matted fur, prodding at any exposed skin for recent lacerations. Finally, on Sirius's hind leg, she felt the infected scabbing of an animal bite – a couple of weeks old if she guessed right. Raising her needle once again, Hermione carefully injected the blue substance where the bite sat, watching the liquid disappear from its chamber and into the still dog.
Satisfied, Hermione sat back and placed a hand on Sirius's chest. In a matter of minutes, his heart began to lose its palpitations (which had still been beating fast even in his unconscious state) and slowed to a smooth, steady beat.
Clicking a cap on the used needle, Hermione cheerily tossed it back into the suitcase with its sealed twin, feeling rather boastful, "It's lucky that I was here to help. Most animals who have reached the hyper-salivation or furious stage aren't responsive to the vaccine, and – while there are still some legalities regarding my Aconite solution – it's been proven to have a ninety-four percent success rate in mid-stage recipients... well, in domestic creatures at least. Wolves are far more susceptible to the disease, leading them to— Remus? Remus!"
Hermione had glanced over to find Remus's shoulders were trembling violently and his knuckles were white with the pressure of his grip as he let out a deep suffering groan.
She rushed over, worry spread across her face as she measured his vitals, "I— I don't understand! The infection can't just suddenly appear in such a short amount of time… this can't be right!" she lifted a hand to his forehead, feeling the heat resonate off him before she even came in contact with his flushed skin, "I have to call an ambulance! Please, just stay here – I'll get someone to help us – we'll get you to a hospital!"
"No!" Remus roared, blank eyes now dimly filled with fear, "they can't know – the muggles... they'll figure it out! They can't know about the wolf!"
Another spasm rattled through his body, and he collapsed in pain, choking on spittle that was running from his mouth in a thin foam. Hermione's jaw dropped.
"This is impossible!" she cried desperately, "You can't just... get rabies! The symptoms take weeks to appear in humans, not minutes!"
"Where's m' wand?" the man gagged on his saliva.
Hermione reeled back, "What? No, you're hallucinating! Please, just... I don't know what to do!"
But Remus didn't offer any help and instead chose to collapse in an airless heap. Hermione shoved him onto his side in hopes to clear his airway as she glanced through the trees desperately. Her mind quickly came to the conclusion that even if she was able to reach one of the many park-goers on the far side, by the time an ambulance arrived it would be too late. Remus had already bypassed the prodromal stage to move directly into the later movements of the furious stage, which meant at any moment he could fall into paralysis.
Hermione dragged her hands through her hair, feeling desperate tears burn at her eyes. She didn't know what to do. Nine years of advanced study were all a waste as this stranger lay dying before her.
A hand weakly tapped on her arm. Hermione's vision swirled through the salty tears that prickled at her eyes, "M' potion... need m' potion..."
"Please, try to focus on breathing," Hermione whispered weakly.
But Remus just shook his head, "M' potion— the wolfsbane one, t' stop m' changin'."
Hermione froze in thought; wolfsbane. Yes, of course.
She rushed back over to her suitcase for the third time, tearing open her last syringe and stabbing it into the blue medicine – her aim so bad in her rush that she nearly pierced her own skin twice.
She hurried back to Remus's side, tearing off the bandages she made with a fervour she never knew she had before, babbling madly at the semi-conscious man, "I don't know how well this is going to help you; the solution wasn't designed for humans. It's primarily a strand for house pets – I've never had the clearance to test it on anything but a handful of mutts and some rats during my travels. Definitely not homo-sapiens, or even pan-sapiens for that matter!"
Hermione bit her lip, "Please don't die," she begged as she slipped the needle's point into the bite, letting the Aconite cure mix into Remus's bloodstream.
She watched quietly for several minutes, two fingers resting on his jugular as his fever dropped along with his heart-rate until eventually a final tremor ran through him and he let out a soft sigh, slipping off into a deep slumber.
Hermione held back a desperate yell of joy, the tears finally welling over in relief as she cried over the sleeping man. It took her several more minutes to compose herself as she glanced around in their small clearing. Slamming her suitcase of empty phials and used equipment shut, Hermione made sure the man was lying comfortably on his side when she felt the prickling of eyes on her.
Turning, she found herself face-to-face with the gigantean monster Remus called his friend, who gave a happy yip when he saw he caught her attention, "How are you awake? I gave you enough anaesthesia to knock out a horse!"
Sirius ignored her in favour of watching the unconscious man, "He should be all right now," Hermione said assuredly, more for her own sake than the dog's, "Could you do me a favour? Watch over your master while I go and get help?"
Without waiting for an answer (or really expecting one), Hermione dashed off through the trees, toward one of the closer picnic couples across the field.
But when she arrived back the pair had vanished into thin air – all that was left were some muddy paw prints and an empty suitcase.
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"Wakey-wakey, sleepyhead," Remus heard a faraway voice call out to him, followed by a succession of sharp taps to his cheek.
Remus swiped at his face with a groan before reluctantly squinted through bleary eyes up at the looming image of his long-time friend, Sirius Black. With an easy-going grin, Sirius cheerfully ignored his weak attempts to bat him away and continued to play out the drum solo to one of the Weird Sisters' latest hits on the side of Remus's face.
Under the much sharper glare of Remus, Sirius leant back in his seat, "Welcome back from the land of nod. With how much you were snoring away, I thought you were going to sleep forever."
Remus looked around slowly, his brain struggling to catch what his eyes were seeing. A row of beds, covered in starch-white sheets sat to his left with more than one occupied bedside table housing a capricious amount of bouquets and get-well cards. Remus glanced at his own bedside table to find a modest amount of chocolate perched on top, along with a few cards of his own and some daisies sitting in a glass vase that glowed in the early morning sunlight.
"They're from James, he was just around a few hours ago. He had to leave before his shift started. Lily sends her best too." Sirius nodded at the vase, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his robes, "Peter left you a box of truffles but ended up eating a fair share of them, greedy sod."
Remus frowned, scowling at the ache that shrouded his body, "Why am I in St. Mungo's?"
His friend's face became solemn before turning away to watch something just a little over his left shoulder, his eyes far away. There was a long silence while Sirius stared at nothing.
Remus was about to ask him again when he whispered despondently, "It's my fault."
Remus frowned, "What's your fault?"
"This," Sirius yanked a hand out of his pocket and angrily gestured to the bed Remus was lying in, "All of it. It's my fault you're in here at all."
"Sirius, what happened?" Remus asked carefully.
Sirius suddenly looked very tired. Lines that Remus had never seen before gripped at the edge of his mouth and wrinkles threatened to become permanent on his forehead as it creased in worry.
"I should have listened when you told me to get that bite checked out," he admitted.
Remus was very confused now, "That raccoon bite from when you went travelling? What's that got to do with anything?"
Sirius's eyes pinched. "Don't you remember? In the park?" Remus shook his head. Sirius pressed further, "The muggle girl? What was her name? Herr... Hermi..."
"Hermione Granger," Remus offered. The name slipped smoothly off his tongue before he could even think to snatch it back, and like someone had just tipped a penseive over his head the memories washed over him. Images flashed through his brain at an alarming rate, threatening to slip through the cracks of his mind as he grasped wildly at them. Outrageous brown hair and wide, frightened eyes appeared more than once; sometimes smiling, but mostly crying.
Remus blinked, "Oh."
"Yeah," Sirius muttered, looking ashamed.
He didn't speak after that, so Remus resigned himself to lie there staring at the ceiling. Healers came and went, bustling past to the other patients in the room with nary a glance in his direction. He was used to being ignored by Healers due to his lycanthropy, and so more often than not his mind drifted back to the image of the young woman that flittered out of his mind. Remus couldn't remember the last time anyone had seemed so worried for him, had held so much sadness and concern plainly on their face – he was just a stranger after all. He wondered how she would have reacted if he was her friend.
Remus sighed, glancing down at the wrist that Sirius's jowls had clamped down on. There wasn't even a scar (the Healers had made sure of that), nothing to keep in memory of the erratically pretty girl that had saved his life.
Another hour passed before a Healer shoved aside the privacy curtain that Sirius had been kind enough to close and approached the end of his bed with a clipboard and a frown.
"Mr Lupin?" she asked in a loud voice.
Remus grimaced in response, nodding over at the slumped over the figure of Sirius by the bedside; he looked like he needed all the rest he could get.
The Healer ignored Remus's subtle urgings and continued primly, "I just need to clear some issues with you. Our records state that you are registered by the Ministry of Magic as a werewolf, am I correct?"
"Yes," Remus admitted tiredly.
"And you are regularly administered the wolfsbane potion, is that correct?"
Remus began to feel nervous, "I was up to my fourth serving of the week before… this."
The Healer licked her teeth before scribbling something down on her clipboard, "And you are aware that you have been in St. Mungo's for the past eleven days—?"
Remus shoved himself upright, ignoring the searing burn that stretched through his muscles at the movement and yelled, "I didn't hurt anybody, did I?"
Sirius started from his seat, grizzling dazedly. Remus cast him an apologetic look before turning back to the Healer who shook her head.
"The issue, Mr Lupin, is that you didn't change at all."
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The Healer had discharged Remus shortly after, with a promise to them that he returned for review after the next full moon, and the two friends decided to retreat to Grimmauld Place; Remus to nurse a nice cup of tea. Sirius for something stronger.
Sirius sat staring at the grains of wood threaded through his kitchen bench, "Wow..." he muttered.
Remus nodded, rubbing absentmindedly at where Sirius's bite mark should have been, "I know."
"No, really, wow..."
"Yes, I know."
Sirius turned wide eyes on his friend, running a finger around the rim of his whiskey glass, "No, I mean just... wow."
Remus turned annoyed eyes at him when a burst of green appeared in the fireplace and the familiar messy head of James Potter stepped through.
"Remus!" James strode over to the kitchen bench, plopping down into the chair opposite them and stared amazedly at him, "...Wow."
Remus scowled, "I know."
James shook his head, "How are you feeling? I mean, Sirius, Peter and I were all there for the full moon – you know, just in case – but you sort of just laid there the entire night. Didn't make a sound. Peter thought it had something to do with you being unconscious, but Sirius pointed out that that couldn't have been the case after that time in fifth year when we broke into Slughorn's storage cupboard and you accidentally drank a whole bottle of—"
"The Healers said for me to keep track of my vitals for the next month," Remus cut him off, cheeks pink in embarrassment. It wasn't one of his most shining moments at Hogwarts, "Or at least until the next full moon. They think it might have been a fluke."
Sirius snorted, "Sure. They're just peeved that a muggle might have figured out the cure for werewolves before they did."
Remus frowned. If what Sirius said was true then he owed a lot to Hermione Granger. Ever since he was bitten nearly forty years ago he had had to suffer with the curse of his lycanthropy and now, for the first time, he felt the stirrings of hope rising within him at the idea that he might finally be free to live a normal life.
"She saved your life too didn't she, Sirius?" Remus heard James say, "After that stupid move with the squirrel..."
"It was a raccoon," Sirius huffed, cheeks red, "A really big one."
"Whatever, "James waved him off, "Are you going to try and see her again?"
Remus choked on his tea. Quickly moving the cup away from his reach, he stuttered, "See who again?"
"The girl who saved you."
Remus shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to imagine himself having the courage to walk up to the pretty young woman that had saved him nearly two weeks ago in the park. A blush spread down into the collar of his shirt at the thought of her straight-toothed smile and strong-willed spirit.
"We shall see," he murmured.
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This is a twelve-chapter story. Each chapter will be released every second day. Also, Voldemort doesn't exist in this universe, and obviously Hermione is a muggle. Enjoy.