A/N: Sorry the pace has been slow lately! I'll try to be more dedicated in writing this. I think we are about 3/4 of the way through what I have planned, so stay tuned for the real action!


On the day of the next full moon, Teddy felt a bit faint. It wasn't anything worse than what he used to get on those particularly lonely nights in Hogwarts. Come to think of it, he never knew why he got that illness every full moon. It must have been something passed down from his father, but it seemed very mysterious to him even though he had lived with it for so long. Perhaps he should have asked the Healer about it when he had been in the hospital. He wondered how much that feeling would amplify in wolf form. He should have asked Chan when he had the chance. He could still ask Golkow, but it seemed improper to visit the man just to ask what it felt like to turn into a werewolf without Wolfsbane. It was probably a feeling of intense loneliness which fueled the drive to bite more people, to form companions...

Nover had written to him two days prior asking where he wanted to meet. The answer was obvious. Even without his father's association with it, the Shrieking Shack was a location he could access easily since it was in Hogsmeade, as well as one that Nover could get to without shirking too many of his Professor responsibilities. Though he and Victoire had barely any correspondence since their meeting in Hogsmeade, he felt that he should write to her anyway to let her know he would be close. He had received her reply that morning. His heart had leaped at how long the reply was and his mood soared afterwards. She had not said anything definitive, had not even addressed that they had not left off on the best terms last time, but she wrote in great detail about her week and ended with how much she missed him. Nothing about werewolves or full moons- it was almost like their relationship before he had messed everything up. Yet even though he was glad they could correspond normally again, he knew that they were just avoiding something bigger. He decided he would think on it after the full moon.

He did not go to the Shrieking Shack alone that night. His grandmother had insisted on coming with him. And he could not warn her of the dangers because she already knew them from her time with his father. He also could not say that the spell Nover would be performing would be dangerous, since in the weeks prior she had combed over every bit of the theory and probably knew how the spell worked better than even Teddy did. As he apparated the both of them over to Hogsmeade, he had to admit it was nice to have somebody clinging onto his arm, ready to do anything to heal him.

"What are you doing here?" Teddy blurted out as soon as he popped outside of the Shrieking Shack. He had landed just a nose away from Victoire.

"I go to school here," she said simply, arms crossed as she leaned against the building. It seemed like if she leaned any harder the entire building might collapse. "Hi Mrs. Tonks," she added.

"Good evening, Victoire," his grandmother said cheerfully.

"But why are you here?" Teddy asked.

She shrugged.

"You showed me the secret passageways out. So I decided to use them tonight. Do you have a problem with that?" she challenged.

He sighed. The sun was already beginning to set, giving everything around them a red tinge. The Shrieking Shack looked particularly ominous in this light. He would have to think of a way to make sure Victoire was not around when he transformed. But for now, he was irrationally glad that she came.

Moments later, they could see Nover's head just beginning to peak from the bottom of the hill. Teddy noted that he was not as well dressed as he usually was. Instead, it seemed like he had opted for an old pair of robes. It did not even seem like he had put any effort into his hair. His dress style did not matter of course. All Teddy cared about was that the man's eyes were narrowed in determination. A bit of Teddy's nerves fluttered away.

"Hello everyone," Nover greeted. His head turned to Victoire and lingered for only a moment. "Should you be out of the castle right now, Ms. Weasley?"

"Yes," she said easily, taking a step closer to Teddy.

The professor looked between the two of them before shaking his head.

"Alright. But you are staying outside during this."

"But Professor-"

"Be grateful that I am not sending you back to the castle right now and taking points from Gryffindor, Ms. Weasley. If something happened to you inside there and it comes to light that I knew you were not in the castle..."

Victoire bit her lip.

"Okay. I will be out here then."

Teddy nodded, giving her a small smile that he hoped came off as supportive rather than one that showed his relief that she would not be in the room to watch him turn.

"Mrs. Tonks..." Professor Nover began.

"I am not a student here. I do not believe you have the right to tell me where I can be." His grandmother drew herself up to her full height. Teddy caught Victoire trying to conceal a smirk.

"Er, right..." Nover said. "I was just going to say... that we should probably go in now..."

The door to the Shrieking Shack opened at just a touch from Teddy's hand. Perfectly in character, the house creaked itself open, each of its floorboards moaning under the weight as the three of them stepped inside. Teddy turned back to give one more look at Victoire in the rapidly setting sun. She looked small with the majestic castle behind her. She gave him a slight nod. He returned it. The door closed and separated them.


The wait for the moon to rise was one of the longest Teddy had ever endured. His grandmother had Conjured a fine leather chair the moment she walked in and sat herself in the corner while he and Nover sat on the ripped apart sofa in the middle of the living room. It was a wonder that it was still capable of holding two people. Upon closer inspection, Teddy concluded that it must have been held together by magic since one leg was quite literally broken into a thousand pieces.

He became nervous. He was never very good with physical pain, and he imagined this would be worse than anything he had experienced before. Turning into his Animagus wolf form was not much of a problem because the magic had been designed that way. But turning into a werewolf- he knew from his studies that his bones would grind against each other and his muscles would contort into all sorts of inhuman shapes. A bite he could endure- but this pain from the inside was one he could hardly imagine. He thought his grandmother seemed uncharacteristically calm.

Of course this would all come down to Nover though. Teddy trusted his professor. After all, there was no reason why Nover would not be able to perform a spell that Teddy could do. He had more training in Transfiguration than anyone Teddy knew. Hermione had even been telling him that she had read some of Nover's papers and that she thought they were quite brilliant. The man's face revealed nothing. He sat very still, rotating his wand between his fingers.

Moments before the full moon, Teddy thought of Victoire. His heart swelled knowing that she was waiting outside for him, wanting for him to get better just as much as he did. After this was over, he would make sure to go out there and fix things between them. He did not really know what there was to fix, but he did know that something was wrong and the only way to solve it would be to summon his Gryffindor courage and talk it through with her. He wanted to return to those precious few months when he would casually study for his N.E.W.T.s with her curled into him in the Gryffindor common room, and by the time the last students had left, his books would be tossed to the side and he would be leaning back, stroking her hair, both of them talking idly just to hear the other's voice. He ran a hand over his bite mark. How he had messed things up.

When the full moon came, he held his breath.

It started with a tingling at the nape of his neck.

And then it stopped.

Nover was standing. His grandmother was still sitting, looking at him intently.

He looked outside and saw the moon, round and perfect against the cloudless sky.

Another tingle in his neck.

And nothing more.

Minutes passed where none of them moved. The wind gusted lightly outside. He found himself hoping Victoire was not cold.

More minutes passed. Teddy began breathing very slowly.

Finally, his grandmother spoke.

"Well?"

Nover had his wand pointed at Teddy. Without taking his eyes off of him, he reached with his free hand into his robes and pulled out the cell phone Teddy had seen once before. Did Muggle technology work in Hogsmeade? He could not remember. Nover must have found a workaround...

With wand still pointed at Teddy, Nover pulled the phone to his ear. Teddy remained very still.

"Hey. Could you check the time for me?"

There were only two thoughts going on in his head in that moment. The first, was that he had to remain stiff- perhaps the transformation was just starting later than usual today and at any minute he could turn suddenly and violently. The other was that his grandmother looked almost bored.

Nover pocketed the cell phone. Giving one last cautious look at Teddy, he lowered his wand.

Teddy did not dare to speak.

Nover tilted his head, folded his arms together, and said, "Well!"

"Well?" Teddy blurted, unable to stay silent any longer.

"Kill time was eight minutes ago. And here you are."

"And here he is," Teddy's grandmother agreed.

He looked down at his hands. Still ten long fingers attached to arms, one of which bore the bite he had received exactly a month ago. The bite was real- the Healers had examined it thoroughly. He remembered the teeth ripping through his flesh all too clearly. Had he managed to perform the Homorphus spell before he was bitten? No, that could not be right, he distinctly remembered that the only reason why he was able to land the spell was because he had the wolf dangling off his arm...

"What's going on?" he asked because he did not know what else to do.

Nover shook his head.

"I don't know. I certainly haven't cast the spell yet..."

His grandmother stood up.

"Immunization," she said simply.

"What?" Teddy asked, but Nover's eyes had widened in understanding.

"Does lycanthropy work like that?" Nover demanded.

"Like what?" He felt like he should have caught on by now, but he was still wary and focusing half of his energy on remaining in control in case he did turn.

Walking over to Teddy, she cupped his face with her hands and gave a warm smile.

"Relax, Teddy. You're safe. You aren't a werewolf."

He wanted to question her, to demand how she knew this, but her rough aged hands had a comforting effect on him. Instead, he sat down on the sofa, dumbstruck.

"May I ask how you have arrived at this conclusion, Mrs. Tonks?" Nover asked. It almost made Teddy laugh to see him asking a question so politely. The professor could not be used to asking questions as opposed to answering them.

"There isn't much research into lycanthropy, as I am sure you know. I discovered this shortly after my daughter became pregnant." She sat down on the couch next to Teddy. She spoke slowly and evenly. "We were all wondering but none of us would say it out loud- if lycanthropy was genetic. So I went and did some research on what little documentation there was. I won't bore you with the details, but certain things do get passed on from a werewolf parent to a child, though none of it combines to make the child a werewolf. The loneliness you feel on full moons, Teddy, I believe is from that. It's like a half werewolf living inside of you.

"So when you were bitten, the lycanthropy tried to spread through you but you already had that half werewolf inside of you and your body knew how to fight it. It's the same way Muggle vaccines work."

"What are vaccines?" Teddy asked.

"And how do you know what they are?" Nover eyed her suspiciously.

She sighed. "They are little bits of a disease that Muggles inject into children so that their bodies know how to fight off the full blown disease. Just because I am from the noble and most ancient house of Black does not mean I don't know Muggle things, Professor Nover. My husband insisted we give them to Dora so I learned about them."

"It's a good theory..." Nover said slowly. "But how can you know for sure?"

"Because I already ran tests on Teddy's blood," his grandmother said too nonchalantly.

"Er, what?" Teddy asked, startled.

"You don't think I've just been doing nothing around the house, do you Teddy? I was researching and testing. It made me feel like I was in Hogwarts again."

"So that time when you dropped the plate on me and I started bleeding..."

"I don't know where your mother got her clumsiness from but it was not from me. Do I look like I drop plates by accident? And why would I have cleaned you up with a towel when I could have healed that cut with a flick of my wand? No, I needed to keep your blood around..."

Teddy could not think of anything to say. He had thought that his grandmother just missed him and wanted to patch him up personally, but here she had been brewing her own plan...

"That is some dark magic if you used blood..." Nover began.

"I can show you all of my research, Professor, in great detail, even the blood parts if you insist, though that was supposed to stay a family secret."

Nover nodded bravely. Teddy could tell he would have preferred not to spend anymore time with his grandmother. But for the advancement of magic, he would stay.

"I think that would be for the best. Because if this is true..."

"It would mean there is a way to prevent lycanthropy, as well as to cure it!" Teddy exclaimed, just realizing this himself.

"Well. I blocked out this time already. If you aren't doing anything right now, Mrs. Tonks...?" Nover asked, bowing his head ever so slightly.

"I want to see this too," Teddy said. For the first time, he relaxed. He felt a thousand times lighter, the bite mark no longer something that would make his stomach drop every time he looked at it. It was hardly believable, that he had spent a month with a transformation to worry about in the back of his mind.

"No," his grandmother said sharply. He blinked, slightly hurt. She spoke gently then. "I only mean that there is somebody anxiously waiting for you outside whom you should see."

"Right, of course," Teddy remembered. He did not know how he could have forgotten about her. Even when he thought he was about to turn he had still been thinking of her, yet she had not crossed his mind once since Nover's phone call.

"Thanks Professor... I'll see you... later?" It was difficult to define his relationship with Nover now- somewhere between student-professor and research partners. And now he felt indebted to the man even though he had not actually cured his lycanthropy, if only because he had been willing to.

"Yes," Nover said. He had already Conjured a new, large table and his grandmother had Summoned her papers so that they were all neatly placed on the table. They gathered around the table in two regal chairs that could only have been his grandmother's doing. Even before Teddy was out the door they were rifling through the papers and discussing theory.

Teddy stepped outside.

She was sitting and leaning against the side of the house. Her head jerked up when the door opened.

Standing, she almost ran to him then seemed to decide against it. It gave the effect that she had tripped forward and then caught herself.

"Are you...?" She trailed off.

Teddy closed the distance between them. In the moonlight, he could see her wide eyes clearly. For just that moment it was almost as if he could forget about all of his troubles- his deceased parents, his werewolf bite- and boil his life down to this simple image of a girl looking at him with hope in her eyes.

"I didn't turn," he said.

"What? How is that possible?"

"I don't know. My grandmother and Nover are working it out now." He smiled widely and she returned it, though neither of them were sure what exactly they were smiling about. "Something about immunization."

"Because your father was a werewolf?"

"I think so."

She blinked. Something was churning through her mind but when she spoke she only said, "That's a nice gift he gave you then."

"Yeah." He ran his hand through her hair, each strand catching the light of the full moon beautifully.

"I'm so glad," she whispered into his ear. It must have been more emotional for her than he thought. He could feel her tears against his cheek.

"Me too."

It was a perfect moment. In a matter of weeks, it would all be ruined. But in this moment, he really did love this life his parents fought to give him.