CHAPTER TWO:
Two eleven-year-olds stood with their chins to their chests and their eyes staring, terrified, at the floor. Their father paced silently before the fireplace, their mother sat with her arms folded menacingly across her chest. In a box at her feet was a collection of forbidding looking devices, each bearing the moniker "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." Their Uncle Harry stood in the doorway, keeping his escape route clear in case things got overly heated.
"Harry," Roxanne said with a great deal more restraint than she wanted to show, "the boys tell me you are responsible for these things being in their room. Is this true?"
Harry nodded. "Partially," he admitted. "Fred and George helped, but it was their idea. Did they tell you that?" He shot the boys an accusing glare, but their eyes were glued firmly to their shoelaces. "I tried to convince them to keep the stuff in my room, but they wouldn't have it. Dobby promised he'd keep an eye out for them-"
"Dobby? He's in on this too?" she spat.
All three nodded. Remus fidgeted nervously, stepping from one foot to the other, rocking side to side as if he needed to visit the restroom very urgently. At last he could take it no longer. He rushed forward, falling to his mother's knee. "I swear, Mum! We weren't going to use them to get into trouble! It was a surp-" But Lorenzo was on him, hissing at him to keep quiet, grabbing Remus in a headlock, nearly tumbling over him, and knocking his knee on the coffee table.
"The trick is up, guys," said Harry. "We don't really have any choice. We've got to tell."
"But, Harry!" they complained together. Despite their physical differences the boys did nearly everything identically, including their annoying habit of speaking simultaneously more often than was natural. Harry figured they must practice at it.
Sirius stopped, looking at his godson, waiting for an explanation. Harry met his eyes and suddenly had an idea. "Sirius, may I speak with you? Alone?"
Sirius looked at Roxanne who frowned and sighed, glaring at them both. Sirius glared back. She was in a mood. Damned stubborn woman. If he didn't love her so much. . . "Relax, Roxanne," he said tersely, and walked out of the room with Harry.
They whispered in the hall for a few minutes, voices rising and falling, shushing each other to keep from being heard. Finally they returned, Harry looking as guilty as ever, Sirius doing his best to maintain a stern frown.
"Well?" said Roxanne, obviously very annoyed. "What is it you two have decided without me?" Sirius supposed he was risking a night on the couch, but steeled himself, squaring his shoulders, strode across the room and picked up the box.
"Boys. Go get breakfast. I'll be taking this," he said, and left quickly, disappearing up the stairs. Harry, Remus, and Lorenzo wasted no time clearing out of the sitting room before Roxanne could overcome her shock and start yelling. They were well in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for boxes of cereal when they heard their mother thumping up the stairs after Sirius.
*****
Packing boxes lined nearly every wall of the Black house. It was moving day. Roxanne had her hair tied up on her head, and wore a stained t-shirt and faded jeans. The children bustled about, calling to their mother more frequently than she could tolerate, asking after this possession or that that could not be located. Doing her best to keep her temper, she eventually decided the best thing to do would be to simply ignore them. She had her own packing to do, and if the children lost a thing or two it certainly wouldn't be any skin off her nose-just less junk to unpack once they reached their rooms at Hogwarts.
Minerva had shown them around the Headmaster's quarters the day before. As with many magical houses, the interior far exceeded the confines of the exterior walls. The rooms were spacious and rose high into the tower over the Headmaster's office. There was no kitchen-they wouldn't be needing one, with the house elves constantly at their beck and call for everything from a formal dinner with important guests to a warm glass of milk for a child having difficulty sleeping. There were three bathrooms and five bedrooms. The boys, however, insisted on rooming together, and the fifth bedroom became a playroom. Most of the children's toys would go in there. There was also a separate study for the younger children's schooling and a small sitting room with wide windows connected to the master bedroom. They had a second entrance in the rear, so the family could come and go without disturbing their father in his office. Roxanne would not need a potions lab. The school came equipped with ample space near the potions classroom for her to continue her research. And the children would be fawned over night and day by the child-loving house elves-she'd not need a nanny.
A newly packed and sealed box in her arms she started down the stairs for what seemed like the millionth time, when a large gray owl swooped right at her and dropped a large envelope atop the box before flying off again. It had the insignia of the Werewolf Support Services, a division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She'd received two other such letters in recent months. Neither had been good news. She could only assume that this one would not be either. She struggled with the box to the bottom of the stairs where she put it down and sat on the bottom step, opening the envelope. The first few lines confirmed her worst fear, and she groaned.
"Sirius!" she called, her loud voice carrying easily throughout the house. "Sirius, I need to speak with you!"
He had been helping Samantha pack up her clothes, and appeared almost immediately at the top of the stairs. "Is something wrong?"
She simply held up the letter. He swore quietly as he came down the stairs. "What is it this time? Not another attack?"
She nodded.
"That's the third one in four months! And today of all days!" he said gesturing around to the unholy mess the house lay in. "Can you get someone else to go?"
"No. They requested me specifically. It's a kid-nine years old. He's a muggle."
"A muggle? And he survived?" It was rare for a muggle to survive a werewolf attack. Especially a child.
"The Ministry is sending an official to test him for magic. As far as they know he's not shown any magical ability before," she said. She sounded tired, as she always did when she was asked to give a family the worse news they would likely ever hear. In cases of a werewolf attack death was preferable. She sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I need to go."
He sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close and kissing her hair. "It's all right. We'll manage. I have a whole army of house elves at my disposal. Remember?"
She smiled for him. "Thanks."
*****
The boy had been treated in a small clinic in a little town not far from the Scottish border. The bite wasn't overly serious, for a werewolf bite particularly. For the past nine months or so the Ministry of Magic had been monitoring a seeming increase in werewolf activity. There had been a number of reported sightings, both by wizards and muggles, of large wolf- like creatures throughout Britain on full-moon nights. At first it had been only sightings. But after the first attack-a young witch out for a romantic stroll with her boyfriend-the Ministry immediately contacted the Prime Minister's office. Every hospital in Britain was commanded to report any dog attacks to the authorities immediately. The vast majority did not occur on full-moon nights. Most proved to be only dogs. One or two had been rabid. But then a flurry of attacks occurred-two on one night. One had resulted in the death of a muggle. The other left a middle- aged wizard who had just sent his youngest child off to Hogwarts, with a condition that would shorten his now-miserable existence.
Roxanne arrived, after having quickly showered and dressed, a couple of hours before lunchtime. Oliver Wood met her there, as well as a liaison from the Prime Minister's office-a young man with a nearly bald head and long skinny legs. Roxanne knew him well. They'd worked together now for the duration of the nine month werewolf alert. He and his wife had hired her to be their midwife when she became pregnant with their first child.
"Hey, Rodney. How's Maggie?" she said genially to the PM official.
"Great! She felt the baby move for the first time yesterday," he said.
"Right on time. Did that last batch of potions take care of the leg cramps?" she asked. He said they did, and thanked her. Roxanne turned to Oliver.
"Have you read my preliminary report?" he asked, shaking her hand.
She nodded. "And the tests? How did they come out?"
"Definitely positive for magical ability. The family believes we're here from the animal control office. They have no clue."
"You're sure not making this any easier for me, Oliver," she said with a sigh.
"I left it for the best," he said, encouragingly.
She rolled her eyes at him and followed him to the room where the boy lay, his eyes still wide with terror, his hip and thigh heavily bandaged, his leg propped up on a tall stack of pillows. He was clutching his mother's hand desperately. The initial pain would endure for nearly twenty-four hours, with nothing she, or anyone else, could offer to give him relief as the poison spread through his body, transforming the very nature of his cellular anatomy. She'd been working on developing a potion for the agony the boy was suffering, but it was rare to have a subject on whom she could adequately test it. First the subject had to be recently bitten-within a few hours of the attack. Second, they had to agree to risk any number of possible side effects. Third, she would not test it on children until at least a few adults had taken it with no ill effects. Any good potion needed to be tested on numerous subjects, but numerous subjects were not easy to find, and she would not wish for them to be so.
She held her hand out to the father-a Mr. Andrews. "My name is Roxanne Black," she said, introducing herself. "I'm here to help. Oliver, is there somewhere we can speak privately with Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?" They'd been through this drill before. He'd already made the arrangements-a conference room down the hall. But Mrs. Andrews refused to leave the boy's side, especially when he clung to her more tightly at Roxanne's words.
"It's OK. Your mom can stay with you for now, but I'll need to speak with her soon," Roxanne soothed. "Is that all right?"
The boy shook his head vigorously. Roxanne shrugged. "Maybe if I talk to you first?" The boy only looked at her. "Don't worry about it. We'll work something out. But I do need to take your dad with me. OK?" The boy nodded reluctantly at a reassuring nod from his mother.
They walked down the hall-Roxanne, Oliver, Mr. Andrews and Rod. Oliver entered first and pulled out a large office chair for Mr. Andrews to sit in, pointing him silently to it, his face grave. He did not like this sort of thing. It would be especially difficult with a muggle family-things would need to be explained and proven-not an easy task considering his job was to protect non-magic people from ever having to face something like this. But the werewolf attack had taken all the family's protections away. They would have no choice but to live among the magical community. They would not be able to survive the ordeal without them and remain an intact family. Asking people to accept such horrible news was difficult enough, but to also ask them in the same instant to reverse everything they had been taught about the world and the people in it would take some careful doing. That's why Roxanne was here.
Rod sat beside Mr. Andrews and introduced himself. "Mr. Andrews, I'm Rodney LeManns. I'm from the Prime Minister's office."
Mr. Andrews shook his hand numbly. It was just beginning to dawn on him that his son's dog bite was considerably more serious than it appeared. Rod told him Roxanne was an expert on his son's condition, and advised him to listen carefully to everything she said. He turned to her, his expression clouded with worry.
"Mr. Andrews," she began, pacing back and forth in front of the closed door, "there really isn't any easy way to do this, so I'm just going to drop this giant load of muck on you and we'll dig out of it together." She paused, making sure she had his full attention-though she didn't have to worry about it. His eyes were wide with concern for his son, his voice quavering with panic as he surveyed the furrowed brows in front of him.
"What is it? Is it rabies? Is my son going to--?"
"Your son has been bitten by a werewolf," she blurted loudly over his questions.
He froze, stunned, his brain working feverishly to process what he'd just heard. "A-a what?! Did you say a werewolf?"
Roxanne nodded.
He laughed a bitter laugh and stood, his face twisting with confusion, vascillating between hurt and anger and humor like a man with a remote control, flipping channels more quickly than it was possible to see what was on. "What kind of a sick joke is this?" he spat, charging for the door.
Roxanne grabbed his arm and looked him square in the face. "It's no joke, Mr. Andrews. Please sit down and I'll explain."
But he wrenched his arm from her grip. "I've never struck a woman before Ms. Black, but if you don't get out of my way you'll be the first!"
She threw up her hands and sighed. "Give it your best shot, Mr. Andrews. But only if you'll agree to hear me out."
He stared at her, his jaw clenched, his eyes sparking angrily. "Who are you?" he hissed.
"I am a representative of the Ministry of Magic. I am a wizardess. I am here to help you cope with your son's condition. If you need proof, I am fully prepared to give it to you. But I must assure you, that if you do not cooperate we, with the full cooperation of the Prime Minister, will be forced to take your son away from you."
He stepped back. There was no mistaking the seriousness in her eyes. This was no joke, but his brain still refused to process what she was telling him. He paused, thinking, his eyes darting around the room at the three grave faces in front of him. "You said you can give me proof. I want it," he said quietly.
Roxanne slipped off her shoe and stepped back from it, pulled her wand from her blazer and pointed it at the shoe. "Felis Transfigurum," she said, flicking the wand expertly. The shoe changed immediately into a cat-a rather ugly cat that spit and darted around the room, eventually crawling beneath a cabinet, where it growled threateningly. Roxanne sighed. "I never was the best at transfiguration. Damn! Now I have to crawl under there for my shoe."
Mr. Andrews stared at the black space where the cat had disappeared, his jaw hanging slack, his face pale, his forehead beaded with sweat. "He's shocking!" called Oliver, rushing forward and backing Mr. Andrews into his chair before he collapsed. Rodney went to the water cooler and filled a paper cup. "Drink this, Mr. Andrews. I know it's not nearly strong enough, but for now it's all I can do."
Roxanne retransfigured and retrieved her shoe, and slipped it on as the men did their best to revive Mr. Andrews. After several minutes he came around enough to begin speaking again. "How-how did you do that?" he croaked.
"I told you I was going to drop a load of muck on you. Now it's time to start digging out," Roxanne answered evenly. "You have to understand that everything you thought you knew about the world is pretty much wrong. There is magic, real magic, all around you. You have neighbors who have the same abilities I do. There are thousands of us all over Britain, and many thousands more all over the world. In our libraries, fairy tales are not fiction, they are history. Magic blood runs everywhere, and apparently somewhere in your ancestry, Mr. Andrews-or your wife's. Your son has inherited some magical ability, and it's good for him-it saved his life."
"Saved his life? What do you mean?"
"When a young wizard is particularly frightened or angry he can make some very strange things happen, including fending off a fully-grown werewolf in the midst of an attack. Even if he isn't aware of his gift." She looked Mr. Andrews in the eye. "Has your son shown any unusual abilities, or done anything that seemed unexplainable?"
Mr. Andrews, still stunned by what he was hearing, thought as best he could, shaking his head slowly. Suddenly, a light came on behind his glazed eyes, and he looked at her. "Yes," he whispered. "There was this one time-his brothers had been teasing him. He's much younger than they are, small for his age. Somehow he managed to lock them in the garage. They were stuck there until I came home from work and couldn't tell me how it had happened. They had no memory of how they got in there. I was furious," he said, chuckling quietly. "I thought they'd been nipping my gin. Simon told me he locked them in there, but wouldn't tell me how." As Mr. Andrews mind cleared he began remembering more, and went on for five minutes, listing instances of Simon's abilities. Roxanne nodded at each, smiling and laughing at the particularly amusing stories. Mr. Andrews was much more at ease now. The time had come to take him through the more difficult information.
"Mr. Andrews," she said, "You heard me tell you your son was bitten by a werewolf."
He frowned suddenly, nodding.
"Surely you know what that means," she said, leading him to think this through himself. It would sink in better that way.
"He-he's a werewolf?" he asked quietly.
Roxanne nodded gravely. "It's important you understand all that implies," she said. "First, your family life can never be the same. Everything, at least one day a month, will have to revolve around Simon. It will be very difficult to keep your family strong and unified. Your home will have to be modified to accommodate his transformations. He will have to take a strict regimen of medications. You will experience prejudice of the nastiest sort almost everywhere you go. You will be forced to rely on the magical community for support. You will be forced to listen to your son suffer, with no choice but to leave him alone-without comfort, without help. Werewolves often harm themselves during their transformation in their frustration at being cooped up, or because of their mental state beforehand. Your son's life span will be shortened by as much as 30 years. Simon will have to be registered and will fall under certain magical laws governing his movements and his conduct for the remainder of his life."
She stopped, letting this load of information sink in for a moment. Mr. Andrews face had returned to stunned silence.
"That's the bad news, Mr. Andrews. The good news is that we can help."
*****
The entire incident had to be repeated for Mrs. Andrews. But she knew her son better. She accepted that his oddities could finally be explained and actually seemed relieved to finally have reason for it, no matter how implausible that reason might be to a muggle brain. The magic must have come through her line. She also had Mr. Andrews at her side, the boy finally having fallen asleep, to help her through it.
Oliver immediately contacted the Ministry with the accounts of Simon's nearly lifelong magical incidents, and demanded to know who was responsible for missing them.
Roxanne fixed tea for the Andrews' and sat down opposite them, letting them sit silently as they mulled over the ramifications of all they'd just heard. Now the news had to be broken to the boy. Roxanne hoped he was young enough, imaginative enough to accept readily. She knew children were resilient, and knew that of everyone in the family he, who would have to suffer the most, would likely be the most tolerant. She was glad to be able to provide some good news-the potions she could provide to help ease his transformation and heal his body more quickly afterward.
Nearly twelve years ago, Roxanne had begun researching werewolves and potions to help them. Unfortunately the literature was sorely lacking. The bulk of the work that had been done up to that point had been on protecting oneself from werewolves, rather than protecting werewolves from themselves. In recent years a potion had been developed that calmed the wolf inside. During the transformation, the patient, while still dangerous, was able to maintain enough human sense that he or she could lie calmly and wait for it to be done, recognizing the danger they were to others and keeping themselves isolated. Her late husband, Remus Lupin, had benefited from that potion for many years. But it had to be taken constantly, every day, and was difficult to make.
She had never seen Remus transform. He would not allow it. Sirius had told her about it after his death, after she pleaded with him to tell her everything. She had wept through the entire tale. Why had Remus not told her before? Why did he want to protect her from it? In a way though, she had been comforted knowing that his suffering was over.
It was not until several years later, when she began her close association with the Ministry of Magic, that she witnessed her first werewolf transformation. Then she understood why Remus did not want her to see. It was terrifying. The man cried out in agony as his body twisted and writhed with the pain and fear. He told her later that the pain was always the same, even with the calming potion, that the fear never diminished. And while the episodes of wolf-enraged destruction were almost non-existent, the fatigue afterward was as intense as ever-in a way even more so, as if the suppression of the natural instincts of the wolf was more tiring than the restless, violent nights had been.
She began working full-time developing potions that would help relieve the suffering of werewolves. She and Sirius finished the basement, building a potions laboratory, with a nearby playroom for the children. They persuaded Dobby, with Minerva's urging, to come live with them, to help with the housework and the children. Sirius had been wonderful-still was- patiently waiting for her until late into the night sometimes, assisting her where he could, letting her go-assuring her the children would be well cared for-to visit werewolves throughout Europe and test her potions on them. There had been many failures, mingled with a few successes. Now the Ministry recognized three additional potions that could be used to treat werewolves. Still she worked, racing to find a cure. The answer eluded her. But she would not accept that it was not there somewhere in all her knowledge and all her supplies. She began receiving mail and donations from werewolves and their families throughout Europe. Apparently she was one of very few potions masters researching the problem, and of those, she was the only one to have been married to a werewolf, to have borne sons by one, to have loved one.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were down the hall, still relaxing over a cup of tea, peppering Oliver and Rod with questions. Roxanne sat beside the boy, stroking his forehead, talking unceasingly to him as his body tensed over and over again with the pain. It had been nearly twenty hours now since the attack-he would not be in pain much longer, but often the pain intensified as the process neared completion. She would stay with him throughout, letting his mother be spared the agony of watching it. He would learn to trust her this way as well. He would need to trust her. He had not been told about his condition yet. That could wait. The terror was strong enough right now, but to wait too long would only cause more distress. It would be best to get it all done as quickly as possible and let the healing begin from there.
He had slept little throughout, and the fatigue showed in the dark purple circles beneath his eyes and the paleness of his cheeks. But he would not sleep, for a few more hours anyway. After it was done he would sleep deeply for a day or more. Nothing would be able to wake him-it would be a coma of sorts, but with no head injury, or severe trauma. Simply his body and mind resting after being completely drained of energy, of coping ability, of mental alertness, of spiritual strength.
Oliver and Rod had been busy outside for most of the previous night and that day handling muggle affairs-keeping the muggle doctors and nurses at bay, explaining things to them in terms they could accept, catching odd minutes of sleep propped in wholly uncomfortable chairs. The boy would be transferred to St. Mungo's, the wizard hospital, as soon as this initial phase completed itself and he could travel more comfortably.
Simon cried out, his body shaking violently as a surge of pain tore through him from his head to his extremities. His fingers curled, digging into his palms, his fists clenched tightly. Roxanne had anticipated this. She had cut his nails close many hours before to prevent him from hurting himself. More than once she'd seen patients cut into their own flesh, the blood seeping out between their stiff fingers. No amount of prying would open them-the werewolf and the desperate pain made them too strong. The boys long-sleeved hospital gown covered his muscles that Roxanne knew were tensing crazily, until each sinew could easily be seen beneath the skin. She could see them popping out in his neck and face now. She hoped he had good, strong teeth, that they wouldn't crack under the pressure. She'd seen that as well. Fortunately any damage he did to himself during these final hours could be quickly treated once they had him at St. Mungo's.
The air hissed through his clenched teeth faster and faster, his chest rising and falling at an unbelievable speed. He was nearly through it, just a few more minutes now, then his eyes would roll back in his head, his entire body would relax, he would take one tremendous breath, then lie still as death, his breathing so shallow it took some doing to detect it at all. Roxanne held her face close to his ear, whispering reassuring words, her hand held firmly on his forehead now. "We're nearly through, Simon. Just a little while longer. You're being braver than I ever hoped."
Then suddenly, it happened, just as she knew it would, and he lay still, and relaxed, and serene, as if he were home in his own bed, warm and safe, having been kissed goodnight and tucked in by his mother. And as she knew she would, Roxanne laid her head on the pillow next to his and cried.
*****
"Hey, Hooks."
Roxanne was jolted out of that shadowy state between sleep and awake, where even the slightest disturbance can throw a person's entire day off balance. But this disturbance only brought a smile to her face.
"Hey, Waytoo," she answered automatically. It was Sirius, stooping beside her. Oliver stood behind him looking down at her with a frown on his face. She'd been lying on a couch in the Andrews' home, intending only to rest for a few minutes. The boy slept through the hours spent at St. Mungo's. He was fine, aside from being a werewolf. Most of their time there was spent filling out the necessary forms, registering the boy with Werewolf Support Services. As the hours passed Roxanne felt herself growing increasingly tired. And by the time they had the boy settled at home in his own bed, still sound asleep, she found her eyelids too heavy to keep up, and was soon on her way to sleeping, until Sirius and Oliver came in. Her eyelids were still heavy and she fought to hold them up and to focus on Sirius' face. He held out a glass of ice water, and helped her sit up to drink it.
"I'm sorry," he said, worry lining his nearly fifty-year-old face. "I wanted to let you sleep, but Oliver said you're needed. He let me come in and wake you. I hope that's all right."
She nodded, yawned, then stuck a hand down into her glass and patted her face and eyes with the cold water. "He's awake then?"
"I think so," he answered. "Are you up for this right now. It can wait a little while can't it?"
"I'd rather just get it over with," she replied with a sigh. "His parents are well prepared. They've been asking questions all night. That should make it easier-quicker anyway."
"Do you think you'll be home tonight?" he asked reluctantly. "You know what day it is, I assume."
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and rubbed at her temples with her fingertips. "Let me see-it's the fourth, isn't it?"
"Yes. The fourth," he said significantly. "The children would really like you home tonight," he hinted, hoping that through her fatigue she'd cotton on that something more was up than just the children's longing to have their mother back. He had promised Harry he would not divulge the twin's secret to her.
She did not cotton on. As he figured she might, her entire sluggish mind was focused on the boy in the room across the hall.
"Oh, Sirius. There's just so much that still needs to be done," she said, her fatigue growing as she thought about it all, her voice croaking tiredly. "I need to get him started on his suppression potion right away-"
"They were sent home from St. Mungo's with a supply of it."
"-they need to have their house fitted-"
"That doesn't need to be done right away, and you don't need to personally supervise. Your crew knows what to do."
"-and he'll have a lot of difficult nights ahead-"
"Which I'm sure his mother can handle. And," he said, holding up a hand as she began to protest, "she can always call you if things get out of hand."
"But, Sirius, he's just a little boy-" she whimpered as tears began to fall.
"I know he is. But he's not your little boy, and his mother needs to be the one to calm his fears and sing his nightmares away." He took her hands in his. "And your boys need you to be home tonight."
She sighed and nodded, frowning a little.
"I tell you what," he said, lifting her to her feet and holding her tightly to him, "the boy will be released in a few hours, why don't you invite them over for dinner tonight. They can even sleep at the castle if they want. It might be just what Simon needs to perk up after all that's happened."
At last she smiled and looked up into his dark eyes with her deep blue ones. "I just may do that," she said, then kissed him tenderly.
Oliver shuffled uncomfortably behind them until they pulled themselves apart and, arm in arm, headed for the door. He came up close beside Roxanne, a puzzled expression on his face. "What's with the nicknames?" he asked. "Why do you call him Waytoo? What does it mean?"
"I call him Waytoo, because he is," Roxanne said mischievously.
"Is? Is what?" Oliver said, even more puzzled.
"Way too Sirius," she whispered conspiringly.
Oliver stifled a laugh at Sirius' annoyed expression, then coughed and went on. "And what about Hooks? Where'd you get that one?"
"From Remus," she said, and strode deliberately upstairs to the boy's room, avoiding any more of Oliver's questions.
Two eleven-year-olds stood with their chins to their chests and their eyes staring, terrified, at the floor. Their father paced silently before the fireplace, their mother sat with her arms folded menacingly across her chest. In a box at her feet was a collection of forbidding looking devices, each bearing the moniker "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." Their Uncle Harry stood in the doorway, keeping his escape route clear in case things got overly heated.
"Harry," Roxanne said with a great deal more restraint than she wanted to show, "the boys tell me you are responsible for these things being in their room. Is this true?"
Harry nodded. "Partially," he admitted. "Fred and George helped, but it was their idea. Did they tell you that?" He shot the boys an accusing glare, but their eyes were glued firmly to their shoelaces. "I tried to convince them to keep the stuff in my room, but they wouldn't have it. Dobby promised he'd keep an eye out for them-"
"Dobby? He's in on this too?" she spat.
All three nodded. Remus fidgeted nervously, stepping from one foot to the other, rocking side to side as if he needed to visit the restroom very urgently. At last he could take it no longer. He rushed forward, falling to his mother's knee. "I swear, Mum! We weren't going to use them to get into trouble! It was a surp-" But Lorenzo was on him, hissing at him to keep quiet, grabbing Remus in a headlock, nearly tumbling over him, and knocking his knee on the coffee table.
"The trick is up, guys," said Harry. "We don't really have any choice. We've got to tell."
"But, Harry!" they complained together. Despite their physical differences the boys did nearly everything identically, including their annoying habit of speaking simultaneously more often than was natural. Harry figured they must practice at it.
Sirius stopped, looking at his godson, waiting for an explanation. Harry met his eyes and suddenly had an idea. "Sirius, may I speak with you? Alone?"
Sirius looked at Roxanne who frowned and sighed, glaring at them both. Sirius glared back. She was in a mood. Damned stubborn woman. If he didn't love her so much. . . "Relax, Roxanne," he said tersely, and walked out of the room with Harry.
They whispered in the hall for a few minutes, voices rising and falling, shushing each other to keep from being heard. Finally they returned, Harry looking as guilty as ever, Sirius doing his best to maintain a stern frown.
"Well?" said Roxanne, obviously very annoyed. "What is it you two have decided without me?" Sirius supposed he was risking a night on the couch, but steeled himself, squaring his shoulders, strode across the room and picked up the box.
"Boys. Go get breakfast. I'll be taking this," he said, and left quickly, disappearing up the stairs. Harry, Remus, and Lorenzo wasted no time clearing out of the sitting room before Roxanne could overcome her shock and start yelling. They were well in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for boxes of cereal when they heard their mother thumping up the stairs after Sirius.
*****
Packing boxes lined nearly every wall of the Black house. It was moving day. Roxanne had her hair tied up on her head, and wore a stained t-shirt and faded jeans. The children bustled about, calling to their mother more frequently than she could tolerate, asking after this possession or that that could not be located. Doing her best to keep her temper, she eventually decided the best thing to do would be to simply ignore them. She had her own packing to do, and if the children lost a thing or two it certainly wouldn't be any skin off her nose-just less junk to unpack once they reached their rooms at Hogwarts.
Minerva had shown them around the Headmaster's quarters the day before. As with many magical houses, the interior far exceeded the confines of the exterior walls. The rooms were spacious and rose high into the tower over the Headmaster's office. There was no kitchen-they wouldn't be needing one, with the house elves constantly at their beck and call for everything from a formal dinner with important guests to a warm glass of milk for a child having difficulty sleeping. There were three bathrooms and five bedrooms. The boys, however, insisted on rooming together, and the fifth bedroom became a playroom. Most of the children's toys would go in there. There was also a separate study for the younger children's schooling and a small sitting room with wide windows connected to the master bedroom. They had a second entrance in the rear, so the family could come and go without disturbing their father in his office. Roxanne would not need a potions lab. The school came equipped with ample space near the potions classroom for her to continue her research. And the children would be fawned over night and day by the child-loving house elves-she'd not need a nanny.
A newly packed and sealed box in her arms she started down the stairs for what seemed like the millionth time, when a large gray owl swooped right at her and dropped a large envelope atop the box before flying off again. It had the insignia of the Werewolf Support Services, a division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She'd received two other such letters in recent months. Neither had been good news. She could only assume that this one would not be either. She struggled with the box to the bottom of the stairs where she put it down and sat on the bottom step, opening the envelope. The first few lines confirmed her worst fear, and she groaned.
"Sirius!" she called, her loud voice carrying easily throughout the house. "Sirius, I need to speak with you!"
He had been helping Samantha pack up her clothes, and appeared almost immediately at the top of the stairs. "Is something wrong?"
She simply held up the letter. He swore quietly as he came down the stairs. "What is it this time? Not another attack?"
She nodded.
"That's the third one in four months! And today of all days!" he said gesturing around to the unholy mess the house lay in. "Can you get someone else to go?"
"No. They requested me specifically. It's a kid-nine years old. He's a muggle."
"A muggle? And he survived?" It was rare for a muggle to survive a werewolf attack. Especially a child.
"The Ministry is sending an official to test him for magic. As far as they know he's not shown any magical ability before," she said. She sounded tired, as she always did when she was asked to give a family the worse news they would likely ever hear. In cases of a werewolf attack death was preferable. She sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I need to go."
He sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close and kissing her hair. "It's all right. We'll manage. I have a whole army of house elves at my disposal. Remember?"
She smiled for him. "Thanks."
*****
The boy had been treated in a small clinic in a little town not far from the Scottish border. The bite wasn't overly serious, for a werewolf bite particularly. For the past nine months or so the Ministry of Magic had been monitoring a seeming increase in werewolf activity. There had been a number of reported sightings, both by wizards and muggles, of large wolf- like creatures throughout Britain on full-moon nights. At first it had been only sightings. But after the first attack-a young witch out for a romantic stroll with her boyfriend-the Ministry immediately contacted the Prime Minister's office. Every hospital in Britain was commanded to report any dog attacks to the authorities immediately. The vast majority did not occur on full-moon nights. Most proved to be only dogs. One or two had been rabid. But then a flurry of attacks occurred-two on one night. One had resulted in the death of a muggle. The other left a middle- aged wizard who had just sent his youngest child off to Hogwarts, with a condition that would shorten his now-miserable existence.
Roxanne arrived, after having quickly showered and dressed, a couple of hours before lunchtime. Oliver Wood met her there, as well as a liaison from the Prime Minister's office-a young man with a nearly bald head and long skinny legs. Roxanne knew him well. They'd worked together now for the duration of the nine month werewolf alert. He and his wife had hired her to be their midwife when she became pregnant with their first child.
"Hey, Rodney. How's Maggie?" she said genially to the PM official.
"Great! She felt the baby move for the first time yesterday," he said.
"Right on time. Did that last batch of potions take care of the leg cramps?" she asked. He said they did, and thanked her. Roxanne turned to Oliver.
"Have you read my preliminary report?" he asked, shaking her hand.
She nodded. "And the tests? How did they come out?"
"Definitely positive for magical ability. The family believes we're here from the animal control office. They have no clue."
"You're sure not making this any easier for me, Oliver," she said with a sigh.
"I left it for the best," he said, encouragingly.
She rolled her eyes at him and followed him to the room where the boy lay, his eyes still wide with terror, his hip and thigh heavily bandaged, his leg propped up on a tall stack of pillows. He was clutching his mother's hand desperately. The initial pain would endure for nearly twenty-four hours, with nothing she, or anyone else, could offer to give him relief as the poison spread through his body, transforming the very nature of his cellular anatomy. She'd been working on developing a potion for the agony the boy was suffering, but it was rare to have a subject on whom she could adequately test it. First the subject had to be recently bitten-within a few hours of the attack. Second, they had to agree to risk any number of possible side effects. Third, she would not test it on children until at least a few adults had taken it with no ill effects. Any good potion needed to be tested on numerous subjects, but numerous subjects were not easy to find, and she would not wish for them to be so.
She held her hand out to the father-a Mr. Andrews. "My name is Roxanne Black," she said, introducing herself. "I'm here to help. Oliver, is there somewhere we can speak privately with Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?" They'd been through this drill before. He'd already made the arrangements-a conference room down the hall. But Mrs. Andrews refused to leave the boy's side, especially when he clung to her more tightly at Roxanne's words.
"It's OK. Your mom can stay with you for now, but I'll need to speak with her soon," Roxanne soothed. "Is that all right?"
The boy shook his head vigorously. Roxanne shrugged. "Maybe if I talk to you first?" The boy only looked at her. "Don't worry about it. We'll work something out. But I do need to take your dad with me. OK?" The boy nodded reluctantly at a reassuring nod from his mother.
They walked down the hall-Roxanne, Oliver, Mr. Andrews and Rod. Oliver entered first and pulled out a large office chair for Mr. Andrews to sit in, pointing him silently to it, his face grave. He did not like this sort of thing. It would be especially difficult with a muggle family-things would need to be explained and proven-not an easy task considering his job was to protect non-magic people from ever having to face something like this. But the werewolf attack had taken all the family's protections away. They would have no choice but to live among the magical community. They would not be able to survive the ordeal without them and remain an intact family. Asking people to accept such horrible news was difficult enough, but to also ask them in the same instant to reverse everything they had been taught about the world and the people in it would take some careful doing. That's why Roxanne was here.
Rod sat beside Mr. Andrews and introduced himself. "Mr. Andrews, I'm Rodney LeManns. I'm from the Prime Minister's office."
Mr. Andrews shook his hand numbly. It was just beginning to dawn on him that his son's dog bite was considerably more serious than it appeared. Rod told him Roxanne was an expert on his son's condition, and advised him to listen carefully to everything she said. He turned to her, his expression clouded with worry.
"Mr. Andrews," she began, pacing back and forth in front of the closed door, "there really isn't any easy way to do this, so I'm just going to drop this giant load of muck on you and we'll dig out of it together." She paused, making sure she had his full attention-though she didn't have to worry about it. His eyes were wide with concern for his son, his voice quavering with panic as he surveyed the furrowed brows in front of him.
"What is it? Is it rabies? Is my son going to--?"
"Your son has been bitten by a werewolf," she blurted loudly over his questions.
He froze, stunned, his brain working feverishly to process what he'd just heard. "A-a what?! Did you say a werewolf?"
Roxanne nodded.
He laughed a bitter laugh and stood, his face twisting with confusion, vascillating between hurt and anger and humor like a man with a remote control, flipping channels more quickly than it was possible to see what was on. "What kind of a sick joke is this?" he spat, charging for the door.
Roxanne grabbed his arm and looked him square in the face. "It's no joke, Mr. Andrews. Please sit down and I'll explain."
But he wrenched his arm from her grip. "I've never struck a woman before Ms. Black, but if you don't get out of my way you'll be the first!"
She threw up her hands and sighed. "Give it your best shot, Mr. Andrews. But only if you'll agree to hear me out."
He stared at her, his jaw clenched, his eyes sparking angrily. "Who are you?" he hissed.
"I am a representative of the Ministry of Magic. I am a wizardess. I am here to help you cope with your son's condition. If you need proof, I am fully prepared to give it to you. But I must assure you, that if you do not cooperate we, with the full cooperation of the Prime Minister, will be forced to take your son away from you."
He stepped back. There was no mistaking the seriousness in her eyes. This was no joke, but his brain still refused to process what she was telling him. He paused, thinking, his eyes darting around the room at the three grave faces in front of him. "You said you can give me proof. I want it," he said quietly.
Roxanne slipped off her shoe and stepped back from it, pulled her wand from her blazer and pointed it at the shoe. "Felis Transfigurum," she said, flicking the wand expertly. The shoe changed immediately into a cat-a rather ugly cat that spit and darted around the room, eventually crawling beneath a cabinet, where it growled threateningly. Roxanne sighed. "I never was the best at transfiguration. Damn! Now I have to crawl under there for my shoe."
Mr. Andrews stared at the black space where the cat had disappeared, his jaw hanging slack, his face pale, his forehead beaded with sweat. "He's shocking!" called Oliver, rushing forward and backing Mr. Andrews into his chair before he collapsed. Rodney went to the water cooler and filled a paper cup. "Drink this, Mr. Andrews. I know it's not nearly strong enough, but for now it's all I can do."
Roxanne retransfigured and retrieved her shoe, and slipped it on as the men did their best to revive Mr. Andrews. After several minutes he came around enough to begin speaking again. "How-how did you do that?" he croaked.
"I told you I was going to drop a load of muck on you. Now it's time to start digging out," Roxanne answered evenly. "You have to understand that everything you thought you knew about the world is pretty much wrong. There is magic, real magic, all around you. You have neighbors who have the same abilities I do. There are thousands of us all over Britain, and many thousands more all over the world. In our libraries, fairy tales are not fiction, they are history. Magic blood runs everywhere, and apparently somewhere in your ancestry, Mr. Andrews-or your wife's. Your son has inherited some magical ability, and it's good for him-it saved his life."
"Saved his life? What do you mean?"
"When a young wizard is particularly frightened or angry he can make some very strange things happen, including fending off a fully-grown werewolf in the midst of an attack. Even if he isn't aware of his gift." She looked Mr. Andrews in the eye. "Has your son shown any unusual abilities, or done anything that seemed unexplainable?"
Mr. Andrews, still stunned by what he was hearing, thought as best he could, shaking his head slowly. Suddenly, a light came on behind his glazed eyes, and he looked at her. "Yes," he whispered. "There was this one time-his brothers had been teasing him. He's much younger than they are, small for his age. Somehow he managed to lock them in the garage. They were stuck there until I came home from work and couldn't tell me how it had happened. They had no memory of how they got in there. I was furious," he said, chuckling quietly. "I thought they'd been nipping my gin. Simon told me he locked them in there, but wouldn't tell me how." As Mr. Andrews mind cleared he began remembering more, and went on for five minutes, listing instances of Simon's abilities. Roxanne nodded at each, smiling and laughing at the particularly amusing stories. Mr. Andrews was much more at ease now. The time had come to take him through the more difficult information.
"Mr. Andrews," she said, "You heard me tell you your son was bitten by a werewolf."
He frowned suddenly, nodding.
"Surely you know what that means," she said, leading him to think this through himself. It would sink in better that way.
"He-he's a werewolf?" he asked quietly.
Roxanne nodded gravely. "It's important you understand all that implies," she said. "First, your family life can never be the same. Everything, at least one day a month, will have to revolve around Simon. It will be very difficult to keep your family strong and unified. Your home will have to be modified to accommodate his transformations. He will have to take a strict regimen of medications. You will experience prejudice of the nastiest sort almost everywhere you go. You will be forced to rely on the magical community for support. You will be forced to listen to your son suffer, with no choice but to leave him alone-without comfort, without help. Werewolves often harm themselves during their transformation in their frustration at being cooped up, or because of their mental state beforehand. Your son's life span will be shortened by as much as 30 years. Simon will have to be registered and will fall under certain magical laws governing his movements and his conduct for the remainder of his life."
She stopped, letting this load of information sink in for a moment. Mr. Andrews face had returned to stunned silence.
"That's the bad news, Mr. Andrews. The good news is that we can help."
*****
The entire incident had to be repeated for Mrs. Andrews. But she knew her son better. She accepted that his oddities could finally be explained and actually seemed relieved to finally have reason for it, no matter how implausible that reason might be to a muggle brain. The magic must have come through her line. She also had Mr. Andrews at her side, the boy finally having fallen asleep, to help her through it.
Oliver immediately contacted the Ministry with the accounts of Simon's nearly lifelong magical incidents, and demanded to know who was responsible for missing them.
Roxanne fixed tea for the Andrews' and sat down opposite them, letting them sit silently as they mulled over the ramifications of all they'd just heard. Now the news had to be broken to the boy. Roxanne hoped he was young enough, imaginative enough to accept readily. She knew children were resilient, and knew that of everyone in the family he, who would have to suffer the most, would likely be the most tolerant. She was glad to be able to provide some good news-the potions she could provide to help ease his transformation and heal his body more quickly afterward.
Nearly twelve years ago, Roxanne had begun researching werewolves and potions to help them. Unfortunately the literature was sorely lacking. The bulk of the work that had been done up to that point had been on protecting oneself from werewolves, rather than protecting werewolves from themselves. In recent years a potion had been developed that calmed the wolf inside. During the transformation, the patient, while still dangerous, was able to maintain enough human sense that he or she could lie calmly and wait for it to be done, recognizing the danger they were to others and keeping themselves isolated. Her late husband, Remus Lupin, had benefited from that potion for many years. But it had to be taken constantly, every day, and was difficult to make.
She had never seen Remus transform. He would not allow it. Sirius had told her about it after his death, after she pleaded with him to tell her everything. She had wept through the entire tale. Why had Remus not told her before? Why did he want to protect her from it? In a way though, she had been comforted knowing that his suffering was over.
It was not until several years later, when she began her close association with the Ministry of Magic, that she witnessed her first werewolf transformation. Then she understood why Remus did not want her to see. It was terrifying. The man cried out in agony as his body twisted and writhed with the pain and fear. He told her later that the pain was always the same, even with the calming potion, that the fear never diminished. And while the episodes of wolf-enraged destruction were almost non-existent, the fatigue afterward was as intense as ever-in a way even more so, as if the suppression of the natural instincts of the wolf was more tiring than the restless, violent nights had been.
She began working full-time developing potions that would help relieve the suffering of werewolves. She and Sirius finished the basement, building a potions laboratory, with a nearby playroom for the children. They persuaded Dobby, with Minerva's urging, to come live with them, to help with the housework and the children. Sirius had been wonderful-still was- patiently waiting for her until late into the night sometimes, assisting her where he could, letting her go-assuring her the children would be well cared for-to visit werewolves throughout Europe and test her potions on them. There had been many failures, mingled with a few successes. Now the Ministry recognized three additional potions that could be used to treat werewolves. Still she worked, racing to find a cure. The answer eluded her. But she would not accept that it was not there somewhere in all her knowledge and all her supplies. She began receiving mail and donations from werewolves and their families throughout Europe. Apparently she was one of very few potions masters researching the problem, and of those, she was the only one to have been married to a werewolf, to have borne sons by one, to have loved one.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were down the hall, still relaxing over a cup of tea, peppering Oliver and Rod with questions. Roxanne sat beside the boy, stroking his forehead, talking unceasingly to him as his body tensed over and over again with the pain. It had been nearly twenty hours now since the attack-he would not be in pain much longer, but often the pain intensified as the process neared completion. She would stay with him throughout, letting his mother be spared the agony of watching it. He would learn to trust her this way as well. He would need to trust her. He had not been told about his condition yet. That could wait. The terror was strong enough right now, but to wait too long would only cause more distress. It would be best to get it all done as quickly as possible and let the healing begin from there.
He had slept little throughout, and the fatigue showed in the dark purple circles beneath his eyes and the paleness of his cheeks. But he would not sleep, for a few more hours anyway. After it was done he would sleep deeply for a day or more. Nothing would be able to wake him-it would be a coma of sorts, but with no head injury, or severe trauma. Simply his body and mind resting after being completely drained of energy, of coping ability, of mental alertness, of spiritual strength.
Oliver and Rod had been busy outside for most of the previous night and that day handling muggle affairs-keeping the muggle doctors and nurses at bay, explaining things to them in terms they could accept, catching odd minutes of sleep propped in wholly uncomfortable chairs. The boy would be transferred to St. Mungo's, the wizard hospital, as soon as this initial phase completed itself and he could travel more comfortably.
Simon cried out, his body shaking violently as a surge of pain tore through him from his head to his extremities. His fingers curled, digging into his palms, his fists clenched tightly. Roxanne had anticipated this. She had cut his nails close many hours before to prevent him from hurting himself. More than once she'd seen patients cut into their own flesh, the blood seeping out between their stiff fingers. No amount of prying would open them-the werewolf and the desperate pain made them too strong. The boys long-sleeved hospital gown covered his muscles that Roxanne knew were tensing crazily, until each sinew could easily be seen beneath the skin. She could see them popping out in his neck and face now. She hoped he had good, strong teeth, that they wouldn't crack under the pressure. She'd seen that as well. Fortunately any damage he did to himself during these final hours could be quickly treated once they had him at St. Mungo's.
The air hissed through his clenched teeth faster and faster, his chest rising and falling at an unbelievable speed. He was nearly through it, just a few more minutes now, then his eyes would roll back in his head, his entire body would relax, he would take one tremendous breath, then lie still as death, his breathing so shallow it took some doing to detect it at all. Roxanne held her face close to his ear, whispering reassuring words, her hand held firmly on his forehead now. "We're nearly through, Simon. Just a little while longer. You're being braver than I ever hoped."
Then suddenly, it happened, just as she knew it would, and he lay still, and relaxed, and serene, as if he were home in his own bed, warm and safe, having been kissed goodnight and tucked in by his mother. And as she knew she would, Roxanne laid her head on the pillow next to his and cried.
*****
"Hey, Hooks."
Roxanne was jolted out of that shadowy state between sleep and awake, where even the slightest disturbance can throw a person's entire day off balance. But this disturbance only brought a smile to her face.
"Hey, Waytoo," she answered automatically. It was Sirius, stooping beside her. Oliver stood behind him looking down at her with a frown on his face. She'd been lying on a couch in the Andrews' home, intending only to rest for a few minutes. The boy slept through the hours spent at St. Mungo's. He was fine, aside from being a werewolf. Most of their time there was spent filling out the necessary forms, registering the boy with Werewolf Support Services. As the hours passed Roxanne felt herself growing increasingly tired. And by the time they had the boy settled at home in his own bed, still sound asleep, she found her eyelids too heavy to keep up, and was soon on her way to sleeping, until Sirius and Oliver came in. Her eyelids were still heavy and she fought to hold them up and to focus on Sirius' face. He held out a glass of ice water, and helped her sit up to drink it.
"I'm sorry," he said, worry lining his nearly fifty-year-old face. "I wanted to let you sleep, but Oliver said you're needed. He let me come in and wake you. I hope that's all right."
She nodded, yawned, then stuck a hand down into her glass and patted her face and eyes with the cold water. "He's awake then?"
"I think so," he answered. "Are you up for this right now. It can wait a little while can't it?"
"I'd rather just get it over with," she replied with a sigh. "His parents are well prepared. They've been asking questions all night. That should make it easier-quicker anyway."
"Do you think you'll be home tonight?" he asked reluctantly. "You know what day it is, I assume."
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and rubbed at her temples with her fingertips. "Let me see-it's the fourth, isn't it?"
"Yes. The fourth," he said significantly. "The children would really like you home tonight," he hinted, hoping that through her fatigue she'd cotton on that something more was up than just the children's longing to have their mother back. He had promised Harry he would not divulge the twin's secret to her.
She did not cotton on. As he figured she might, her entire sluggish mind was focused on the boy in the room across the hall.
"Oh, Sirius. There's just so much that still needs to be done," she said, her fatigue growing as she thought about it all, her voice croaking tiredly. "I need to get him started on his suppression potion right away-"
"They were sent home from St. Mungo's with a supply of it."
"-they need to have their house fitted-"
"That doesn't need to be done right away, and you don't need to personally supervise. Your crew knows what to do."
"-and he'll have a lot of difficult nights ahead-"
"Which I'm sure his mother can handle. And," he said, holding up a hand as she began to protest, "she can always call you if things get out of hand."
"But, Sirius, he's just a little boy-" she whimpered as tears began to fall.
"I know he is. But he's not your little boy, and his mother needs to be the one to calm his fears and sing his nightmares away." He took her hands in his. "And your boys need you to be home tonight."
She sighed and nodded, frowning a little.
"I tell you what," he said, lifting her to her feet and holding her tightly to him, "the boy will be released in a few hours, why don't you invite them over for dinner tonight. They can even sleep at the castle if they want. It might be just what Simon needs to perk up after all that's happened."
At last she smiled and looked up into his dark eyes with her deep blue ones. "I just may do that," she said, then kissed him tenderly.
Oliver shuffled uncomfortably behind them until they pulled themselves apart and, arm in arm, headed for the door. He came up close beside Roxanne, a puzzled expression on his face. "What's with the nicknames?" he asked. "Why do you call him Waytoo? What does it mean?"
"I call him Waytoo, because he is," Roxanne said mischievously.
"Is? Is what?" Oliver said, even more puzzled.
"Way too Sirius," she whispered conspiringly.
Oliver stifled a laugh at Sirius' annoyed expression, then coughed and went on. "And what about Hooks? Where'd you get that one?"
"From Remus," she said, and strode deliberately upstairs to the boy's room, avoiding any more of Oliver's questions.