Chapter 2: Deep Dive Into Research

Hermione peered over Teddy's shoulder at the Muggle computer screen, studying the database they were attempting to craft together. She supposed she could have just cast an Inanimate Agency charm to allow the computer to process and enter the data itself, but it was more beneficial for Teddy to sift through the statistic points manually, without the use of magic.

Every journey begins with a simple step, and to Hermione's practical mind, it was best to tackle those steps in order. Break down the larger problem – his apparently inherited, not acquired, werewolf condition – into smaller problems, and then approach each of those smaller problems one at a time.

In previous discussions she had had with her brother-in-law and her husband (soon to be ex-husband), the Golden Trio had agreed that Teddy's condition was probably without precedent. In order to make sure, however, Hermione and Teddy would have to go back through reams of research, texts and history to make absolutely certain there was no previous case of a werewolf inheriting his/her powers.

"Let's start by working backwards," Hermione had told her best friend's godson. In order for a previous werewolf to have possibly inherited (not acquired through a bite) his werewolf fate, there would have to be a case of a werewolf actually reproducing, either with another shape shifting she-wolf or a human witch, and passing the lycanthropy down to a child. In turn, that meant tabulating every known werewolf throughout most of modern wizarding history, and possibly going back further, through all recorded wizarding history.

Honestly, Hermione wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. A Werewolf Registry was desperately needed, especially in her department. When she had presented Teddy with the idea, he had been only too eager to help; at this point, the poor lad looked desperate enough that he was willing to try anything. They agreed to use the Ministry's Animagus Registry as a model, even if the list wasn't very exhaustive, and certainly not as exhaustive as a Werewolf Registry would probably be.

"Fenrir Greyback," Hermione prompted. "1945 to 1998. Age: approximately 53. Male."

Teddy's fingers flew over the keys as he entered the information. "Any known…. mates?" By this, Hermione knew he wasn't talking about mere friends. She shuddered at the question, in spite of how innocently it had been posed.

She combed through newspaper clippings from the Prophet. There had never been any reports that Greyback had taken a woman or she-wolf as his mate; his reputation alone suggested the odds were against it. The chances of there being a descendant of Greyback were thus even lower, thank Merlin!

"Put down None for now," Hermione cautioned. They may well go back and check their work, only to find something they had missed.

Teddy obeyed, shoulders slumping a little. He was getting tired, Hermione noted; they were probably both due for a break. "Why don't you stand up and stretch, Teddy?" she asked kindly.

"No," Teddy gave an emphatic shake of his head. "I don't type well when I stand; Merlin knows I've tried."

His implied previous experience with such a Muggle contraption as a computer made Hermione cock her head with interest. "You mean you've used an operating system before?" She and Ron had agreed it was important to teach their children about their Muggle heritage and thus, the proper use of Muggle appliances (something Ron had always been horrendously bad at, no matter how many years went by) when Rose and Hugo were little.

"Sure," Teddy shrugged, leaning in and squinting as he kept clacking along the keyboard. "My Gran made me learn. Harry taught me how too, a little."

Hermione couldn't help but admit…. she was impressed, smiling down at him softly. Again, her heart went out to him. His shoulders were still hunched in barely staved off defeat, yet still he doggedly worked.

"How much longer do you think this will take, Hermione?"

She wasn't sure why, but this was the first time she had cared to really pay attention to how Teddy had never referred to her as 'Aunt Hermione' – not even when he was little. Practically adopted into the sprawling Weasley clan as a 13th grandchild, it hadn't taken much effort for him to call out for his Aunt Ginny, Auntie Fleur, Aunt Angelina, Uncle Ron…. Only Hermione had never had the familial prefix affixed to her name. The only other person who could say that was his godfather, Harry. And besides, Harry had always just called Sirius… Sirius, hadn't he?

Hermione supposed she could wave it away as she always had before…. if she had been Teddy's godmother. But she wasn't; that title had fallen to Ginny. Even though Ginny – then just 17 – had not been looking for or was ready to have a child, she had accepted the assignment from the elder Mrs. Tonks gamely, wanting nothing more than to make Harry happy. Even then, she had always been 'Aunt Ginny' to the boy.

Hermione shook her head, putting the semantics out of her mind, at least for the moment, focusing on the question he'd floated. "As long as it takes. It will probably be a while; we have a lot of data to sift through."

She watched with a prickle of dread, of fear for him, as Teddy slumped even lower into his seat. Still, he kept typing. "I don't know if I have that kind of time…." He mumbled forebodingly.

Now was not the time for Hermione to remind him that their research probably wouldn't stop at completion of the Werewolf Registry. Once the fact of Teddy's unique condition was confirmed, there was still the matter of how to fix it, possibly reverse it for good, if there was a way. And there had to be a way. That would require more reading, diving through spellbooks and possibly skirting on the edges of Dark Magic. There was no telling where the search might take them, and even less how it would end. Hermione only hoped that Teddy held on long enough to possibly enjoy that happy ending, should it come to pass. Wordlessly, she draped a comforting arm over his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Teddy. We'll have you….. better in a jiffy." Fixed wasn't quite the best word – Hermione found that she was choosing her words very carefully around him nowadays. The wrong word might imply that there was something wrong with him, and there wasn't. It was an open question how much of this was really Teddy's fault, how much he really could control in his werewolf state, no matter what the Wizgamot and the courts had to say.

Teddy glanced to her with a tousled smile. "Thanks, Hermione." She smiled back, realizing how close their faces were. She drew back and stood up, blushing in spite of herself, and resisted the urge to pat him on the head the way a mother would her son.

"Silas Crump. Birth date unknown. Age unknown. Mate…. Unknown." Teddy complied with her instruction.

"Do you suppose we should include Uncle Bill?" he floated.

"Probably not – Bill was scratched, not bitten. He isn't a full-fledged wolf. If we were to suggest otherwise, he would probably be insulted." On the whole, Bill had been lucky – aside from having a preference that his steaks be cooked rare, he had not displayed any other wolfish tendencies, and for Fleur's sake, she was grateful.

On the next entry, Hermione's voice grew quiet: "Remus Lupin. 1960 to 1998. Aged 38. Mate: Nymphadora Tonks. 1 child."

Teddy morosely typed the date into the computer, quiet and introspective. "I just hope there are others like me," he mumbled.

Hermione didn't know what to say to that.

"It's never nice being the only one."

"It's never nice being the only one of anything," Hermione soothed him. "Your godfather…. Well, the title of the Chosen One really bothered him at first. No one likes to be singled out, Teddy – especially for reasons that aren't always in their control."

Teddy nodded, his shoulders lifting so that he seemed a little lighter. "Wise as well as brilliant." Hermione felt herself turn pink at the praise.

The quiet, companionable calm was interrupted by Hermione's office door banging open, heralding a trio of young wizards. Two of them – the red-haired, fierce young witch and the blonde-haired boy – were yelling at each other over the head of the black-haired young man, who was wincing and had his fingers hovering temptingly close to his ears. Upon locking his emerald-green eyes at her, Albus Potter dashed forward to his aunt, trying to tune out the terrific row erupting behind him:

"It's a cat, Scorp! A helpless little animal!"

"The blasted thing was directly in my way, Rose! I tripped – SPLAT! I could have ended up in St. Mungo's, and do you care?"

"Of course I care! But you can't blame your bloody awful balance on poor little Katarina!"

"Katarina is a menace! With a ridiculous name besides!..."

"Auntie: help me!" Albus winced. "They're driving me bloody batty!"

Hermione sighed, smiling at her nephew sympathetically before looking over his head at her daughter and almost-son-in-law. Albus followed her gaze. Off to the side, Teddy craned his neck around the computer.

"I swear to Merlin, they should either just kill each other, or run off and elope! It would save us all an earache!" Albus whined, studying his two best friends.

The argument reached a crescendo and then abruptly stopped, Rose taking a deep, cleansing breath as she turned away from her ex-fiancé. Smiling at Teddy as though nothing had happened, she crossed to him and deposited the medium-sized cauldron she was carrying on his desk with a flourish.

"Here you are, Ted! Another draught of Wolfsbane Potion." She winced apologetically. "Sorry this one is so late." She appeared truly sheepish and Hermione knew why – if Rose hadn't been tardy with this latest batch, Teddy's incident with those Muggles might not have happened. Teddy took the cauldron gratefully.

"Thanks, Rosie. Although I don't know what good it'll do." Rose's deep blue eyes dimmed a little bit, looking a little hurt. Hermione knew Teddy hadn't meant anything bad by the observation. She was beginning to wonder herself how helpful Wolfsbane Potion really could be to the young man. It was at least a stopgap, a Band-Aid on the problem, thanks to Rose's clever work – people said she was the best Potions student since her great-aunt through marriage, the late, first Lily Potter.

It was late at night by the time Hermione returned home to an empty flat. She absently scratched Crookshanks the Second behind the ears, retrieved a wine glass from the cupboard and sank down on the couch in front of the telly. Summoning a bottle of wine into her other hand, she sighed heavily as she poured herself a glass of Chardonnay. Taking a small sip, she tried to keep the tears at bay.

With the finalization of the divorce coming up, Hermione was starting to come to grips with how lonely she was, and how that status was unlikely to change anytime soon. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband had moved out; the kids were grown and had flats near Hogsmeade. Solitary nights like this one were probably going to be the norm… and at not quite 45, Hermione was starting to wonder if her life had come to its proverbial end. If she had peaked.

She dearly wished she had someone to come home to. Someone to comfort her and support her and share her life with…

She poured herself another glass of Chardonnay.

Harry may have offloaded much of Teddy's life onto his sister-in-law…. but that didn't mean he still wasn't worrying about the boy. Quite the contrary.

Whenever his brain had a free moment, it was spent trying to cook up solutions to Teddy's predicament.

The latest came in the middle of the night one evening, causing Harry to jump bolt upright in bed. Casting Lumos with his wand, he hurriedly shook his wife awake.

"Ginny….. Gin, wake up!"

Ginny grunted, her fiery red hair tousled, and she swatted at him. "Piss off, Potter!"

"But I have to tell you my idea!" Harry sprang out of bed, crossing to his corner desk in three quick strides and booting up his Muggle laptop – an at least decade-and-a-half old Christmas present from Hermione. Lickety-split, he accessed the Animagus Registry, studying the slightly less than a dozen names – 11, actually – of Animagus from the previous century.

It had been big news when the Ministry had announced several years ago that they were going to posthumously register James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew in the Animagus historical records, as well as give them a pardon for undergoing the Animagus transformation process illegally, as doing so without the Ministry's direct supervision still carried pretty stiff penalties. In their youth, Harry's godfather, father and that traitor Wormtail had been three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts. A fourth unregistered Animagus, Rita Skeeter, still very much alive, had been a different story. In a move that shocked many, she had reported on Potter, Black, and Pettigrew's registration, ending the piece by outing herself as an unregistered Animagus. To further leave the wizarding world stunned, Hermione Weasley – then Minister for Magic – had vouched for Rita Skeeter to be registered without punishment. Harry had been chagrined, Ron had been livid, but Hermione had reminded them both that Rita had been adhering much more closely to journalistic integrity as of late, and deserved this olive branch.

However, it was the names of his father, godfather and Wormtail that leaped off the database screen at Harry now. Plucking a book off the shelf, he leafed through it. Sirius Black's diary. His frenzied motions now had his wife's full attention, who sat up in bed, gawping at him.

"Harry…. what in Merlin….?" Her mouth, fallen open, was nonetheless upturning into a bemused smile.

"Whenever Moony transformed, my dad, Sirius and Wormtail were there to protect him!" Harry rambled. "That's the whole reason they ran the risk of the Animagus transformation in the first place!" He laughed triumphantly. "I'm a genius! I've had a Hermione moment!"

"When was the last time that happened?" Ginny – delivered in her dry sarcasm – voiced.

"If we can't cure Teddy, maybe we can guard him!" Harry prattled on. "Guard his worst impulses! Dad and Sirius transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. If I could just talk to Ron and Hermione…."

"Hold it!" Ginny cried, reaching her husband's conclusion faster than he could spit it out. "Are you mad? Go through the Animagus transformation yourself? Harry – there are huge risks involved!"

"So?" Harry shrugged – it had become a standard response to anything dangerous. Some things never change.

"You don't even know what animal you would become! An Animagus has no control over that!"

"My father turned into a stag, and his Patronus was a stag. My Patronus is a stag," Harry pointed out. According to research, there was evidence to suggest that a wizard or witch's Patronus was an indicator of what Animagus they would be, should they go through the transformation. However, now that he thought about it, Harry quickly ran into a problem. Ron's Patronus was a dog, but not a big dog like Sirius had been. Should the Patronus theory bear out, as an Animagus, Ron would transform into…. A Yorkshire terrier. A Teddy not under some semblance of control from the Wolfsbane potion could easily gulp down his uncle for a midnight snack. As for Hermione…. Her Patronus was an otter. It had been since before she and Ron were married. How could she possibly help keep Teddy in check if she was confined to water?

Harry sighed, sinking down onto the bed. There was only one registered Animagus so far for the 21st century. Of the 11 Animagi from the previous century, only two – Rita Skeeter and Minerva McGonagall – were still alive, and poor Minerva was becoming frail. Besides, her cat form was far too small to guard against Teddy.

"You're right," he mumbled to his wife.

He was grateful she didn't rub his nose in it, beyond asking, unusually gently, "Now: how do those words taste coming out of your mouth?"

"Like Polyjuice Potion."