CHAPTER THREE: I, Gentleman Werewolf
Erin rolled out of bed, dreaming of the clear Australian skies
she left. Not that I mind the rain, she thought giddily. Still half
asleep, she maneuvered through her luxurious flat and to the bathroom, where
she successfully turned the shower on and stepped in. It's a nice thing
that Liam persuaded me to cut my hair, she considered, fifteen minutes later
as she stood in the tub, drying herself off. Not as much to comb, or to
deal with, for that matter. She pulled on her clothes before picking up her
comb and forcefully brushing her stubborn, sun-bleached blond hair into
submission. Normally, it was a job and a half, made worse by London's high
humidity levels. Eventually, however, she was able to calm the unruly hair
and force it back into a stubby ponytail.
The clock read 7:15. That meant there was only forty-five
minutes to grab some food, catch a taxi, navigate through Muggle London, and
arrive at St. Mungo's at 8:00. Maybe the food would have to wait until
lunch, she thought, when at least the knew where she was. Erin laughed,
pulled her thick, black over overcoat from the coat rack and opened her flat
door, still not used to the fact that although she had left a hot spring in
Australia, the days here were bitter cold. This has got to be one of the
most confusing cities that I've ever had to navigate through.
She caught a taxi outside her flat at precisely 7:25, as gloomy
clouds began to drizzle, and was able to direct the driver to within a block
or two from St. Mungo's front entrance. The Muggle pulled away from the
curb with a large grin on her face, and Erin had a feeling that perhaps
she'd paid her a bit too much. That's how it is, I'll bet, with the
Galleons and Knuts and the like. I never was too great at math though.
At exactly 8:00, Erin met Head Healer Gregory outside his
office. The impression he gave her this time was much more relaxed than the
day before, where the introductions never occurred. He was a nice sort of
man, one whom was quiet enough to be considered shy, but not to the extent
he let ideas and controversial notions float by his ears without
reprimanding. Order was key in his success as the Head Healer, and the ship
he kept was tightly run, and overseen. However, one couldn't help but
revere his square wrinkled face and the occasional twinkle behind his thick
glasses.
The Head Healer greeted her with a tired smile and a firm
handshake and escorted her towards the SOUP ward. 'Did Jensen show you
Remus Lupin yesterday? I'm terribly sorry that I was unable to,' said
Gregory, getting straight to the point. Erin nodded, but before she was
able to remark on Lupin's situation, the Head Healer abruptly began again.
'Good. I was hoping he didn't forget. He often does, you see, forget the
mildly important details like that.' They continued in silence towards
Lupin's ward. Gregory seemed slightly uncomfortable. 'Remus woke up
yesterday, after you left,' he sighed. 'He's a bit disoriented, keeps
asking where Mad-eye, Kingsley, Tonks are. They're aurors for the
Ministry,' he added at the look on Erin's face. 'I think it might have
something to do with what he was doing before he was brought in, but
naturally we have no clue what it could be. For all we know they could have
been having tea at the Leaky Cauldron.'
'Jensen seemed to have an idea about where he had been,' Erin
commented. The Head Healer raised his eyebrows and frowned.
'Did he now? Well that would make sense; he was the one that
originally oversaw the caring for Lupin. Anyway, don't mind if he's a bit
disconcerting, all right? He's in a mild state of shock, still terribly
weak, and can say things that he doesn't really mean to.' Gregory stopped
in front of the ward's door. 'Once you get to know him, he's really quiet a
gentleman. I'll leave you to him.' He opened the door and Erin stepped
inside.
'Umm, sir?' she asked timidly. 'Where are you going?'
'I have other work to do, Miss Langhart. You see, although I am
fascinated by Remus Lupin's condition, I have other obligations to attend
to. I'm sure you can manage.' With a curt smile, he began to close the door.
'Call down to me if there's anything you require, understand?' Erin nodded
and Gregory shut the door behind her with a click.
Erin took a deep breath to calm herself, walked to the foot of
the bed, and picked up the clipboard that Jensen had placed there the day
before. Over the top, she noticed that the man in the bed was staring at
her. She nodded quickly and pretended to busy herself with the papers
clipped to the clipboard.
'Pardon me for interrupting,' the man began in the bed in a
quiet, labored voice tinted with a dismal tone. 'But who are you? It seems
to me that I've seen you somewhere else, but I can't quite place it.' Erin
lowered the clipboard and took a few steps around the food of the bed to
bring her closer to the man.
'That would be most peculiar because I don't recall ever seeing
you in Australia,' said Erin in a cordial tone. 'My name is Erin Langhart;
I'm the new resident healer. I specialize in werewolves,' she added.
'I suppose they've already introduced me to you, but I prefer to
introduce myself.' He held out a weak hand for Erin to shake. Erin shook
it as he presented himself. 'Remus Lupin,' he whispered. His grip was
fragile.
'My pleasure.' Erin let his hand fall. 'So, basically my job
is to get you out of here as soon as I can so you can get about your normal
life.' Tired eyes gazed up at her. He's nice enough, she thought,
rummaging through the paperwork once more, looking for nothing in
particular. I wonder why they keep warning me about him. I didn't expect
he'd be so quiet after all those warnings. She looked around and pulled a
chair up to the side of his bed. 'Alright,' she began, puffing her ear
length hair out of her eyes. Lupin chuckled. 'Umm...so, how long have you
been up?' She tapped her pencil to an imaginary beat on the clipboard,
noticed she was doing it, and gave Lupin a meek grin. 'It's a habit I'm
trying to stop.'
'I've been up since about five yesterday afternoon.' A bored
sigh.
'Okay, well that's good. Interesting.' She flipped through the
papers again.
'What's interesting?'
'Well, that's half an hour after I left. Must have cured you on
the spot.' Lupin snorted and Erin looked up, smirking. 'Anyway...do you
remember what day it was when you transformed?' Lupin concentrated on the
ceiling.
'What you have to understand,' said he, 'is that I didn't
transform before I was injured. I was hit with a rather powerful curse, and
that's about all I remember. That was December 24th.' Erin glanced up to
the spot on the ceiling that apparently was of some interest, then scribbled
down some untidy notes on the back of a page.
'Sucks for you to be here during the Christmas holidays,' said
she, biting her lip and taking another glance around the room as she waited
for him to return his attention to her. It didn't ever happen. 'Do you
know what curse you were hit with?'
'Yes.' Erin waited for a follow up, but the ceiling had
captivated all of Remus Lupin's attention.
'Would you mind telling me what curse it was?' She began to tap
on the clipboard again, unconsciously. Lupin gave the pencil a quick,
horrified stare and looked back at the ceiling. Erin smiled guiltily and
stopped.
'No.' Again, Erin waited for a response, but none came. With a
glance from Lupin to the ceiling, she sighed.
'Some time this century would be nice.' Lupin smiled at the
ceiling and turned to face her. His smile was gone.
'The curse was a powerful one, that's all I care to say.'
'Well, you already told me that,' Erin pointed out. 'Would you mind giving
me a name?'
'The name is irrelevant, Miss Langhart,' he dismissed and shook his head. 'I
was not...' There was a pause as Lupin debated over a careful selection of
words. '...in the right place at the right time.' Erin frowned and sat back
in her chair. Lupin eyed the papers on her clipboard nervously. Erin
grinned in what she hoped was similar to one of Liam's contagious smiles.
It worked. A shy smile appeared on Lupin's lips.
'This will be off the notes, this conversation, from now on,'
said she, and began to slide the clipboard under her chair, but thought
better of it. 'Care to look at these?' she asked and held the clipboard out
for Lupin to take. He took it with a wary glance at Erin and shifted through
them. 'Before we go anywhere, my name is Erin, not Miss Langhart. It makes
me sound like an old spinster.' Lupin smiled at that, and she returned it,
hoping that it would put him at ease. 'Now,' she continued, 'can you tell
me what you were doing on that night you got cursed?' Lupin looked up from
the papers and smiled condescendingly, his wariness back in place.
'I can.' He snorted. Great, Erin thought, I've got to deal with
a grammar freak. This is just the type of thing that Liam would enjoy. Why
me? She cursed under her breath and Lupin laughed out loud.
'Will you?' asked Erin, exasperated. Maybe those warnings were
valid. He seems to enjoy annoying me though. He and Liam would get along
perfectly.
'Alright.' There was a pause and Erin was sure they were going
to repeat the steps of their earlier conversation. Right before she was
going to prompt a response, Lupin took a deep breath and flipped another
sheet of paper over. He didn't look up as he began. 'One of my good
friends, well sort of good friend, was in danger, so a small group of us
went to scope out his situation. We all felt confident that we could come
out of whatever the problem was unhurt. It was the day before the full
moon. Needless to say I'd taken my potions, so I was perfectly safe.' He
flipped the sheet he had been reading over and continued. 'To make a rather
uninteresting story short, we burst into a...an... Um, and
met a large group of...people...and fought them. That's basically it.'
'Basically?' Erin wondered with a smile. 'What's the not so
basic part?'
'What we were doing the rest of the time.' Lupin's warning tone
was clear enough for Erin to put her hands out defensively in front of her.
'Okay, okay, you don't want to talk about that. Got it. But
would you mind telling me who we and us are?' Lupin looked up from the
charts and met Erin's twinkling eyes with stern, questioning ones.
'Yes.' The voice was very bitter this time.
'Alright, fine,' Erin muttered, a bit put out. 'You're going to have to
tell me the rest of the story one of these days, though, if I'm ever going
to figure out what's wrong with you.'
'You'll find there's a lot more wrong than that of what they told you, Miss
Langhart' Lupin derided. Erin shrugged and conjured a bottle of Sleeping
Draft with a flick of her wand, thanking her imaginary wand gods for
allowing her do correctly complete a spell.
'Take a cup of this, got it?' She stood up, turned away from
him and measured a small amount into a clay mug that she found sitting by on
the bedside table. When she turned back around, he was waiting expectantly
for the glass. She traded the cup for the clipboard. 'I'll be back
sometime mid-afternoon.' He raised the cup in a mock toast and gulped it
down. Erin took the cup and stepped towards the door, clipboard in hand.
Suddenly, remembering something she'd wanted to ask him, she turned around.
He was watching her patiently. 'Have you told anyone else about that night?
Anyone?'
'No. Only the people with me know what happened.' Erin nodded
and wrinkled her nose in confusion.
'Alright...are you sure?' There was a meek bow of the fading
man's head. Erin sighed. 'I won't tell anyone either.' Lupin nodded and
smiled gratefully, fighting to keep his eyes open. He must be really weak
if the potion works that fast on him, Erin reflected. She left the dark
wardroom quickly and hurried down the hall towards Gregory's office.
Glancing down at the top paper, she saw written there in a tidy scrawl,
Thank you. Erin brushed an incompetent lock of hair out of her face and
smiled. He's nice enough for sure. Heck, it's hard to imagine what he's
like when he's a werewolf. That'd be weird. And as she headed down the
hall, something popped into her mind. Dammit, he's still calling me Miss
Langhart! I hate the name!
'Great, you're up,' Erin remarked as she walked through the
SOUP's doors and saw that Remus Lupin was sitting up in his bed reading a
magazine. The chocolate bar had been opened and nibbled on. He was looking
slightly less drawn. Erin sat down in the chair she had previously occupied
and read the cover of his magazine. 'The Witch Weekly?' asked she, with an
inquisitive face. 'What's that? It sounds like gossip central to me.'
'And so it is,' Lupin agreed. 'The Daily Prophet is the only
published piece that has anything interesting in it at all. Well, The
Quibbler does at times, but hardly anyone takes it seriously. This one's
the only one with any worth in that whole pile.' He jerked his head towards
the pile and Erin inspected it. They were still very neatly arranged. She
balked at some of the titles. Vampire's Tribune? She wondered. What would
drive a poor soul to read that?
'I see,' said Erin, but she really didn't see. 'Well, I wasn't
able to develop any good hypothesizes based off the data I gathered earlier
today, but something's in the works. Anyway, I stopped by to say hi.
Seeing how you're my only patient, and I've got nothing to do right now.'
'Thank you.'
'Oh,' Erin laughed, remembering his note, 'I got your note you
left on your medical records. Very funny.' Lupin smiled shyly again. He's
got a charming smile, Erin thought. I wonder how he looks when he's not as
tense as he is right now. 'How'd you write it? Not with my pencil,
surely.'
'No, not with your pencil,' Lupin agreed and closed the
magazine. 'They forgot to take my wand away,' he indicated the nightstand
and grinned. 'Not that I have the strength to do much more with it than
write two words.' He chuckled softly and took the chocolate off the table.
'Would you like some?' asked he, looking at Erin and breaking a slab off.
Erin shrugged and took the piece he offered. He broke a piece off for
himself and wrapped the chocolate back up.
'Thanks.' She tasted the corner and smiled. It was good, just
like the chocolate at home but had a metallic flavor she couldn't quite
place. 'What type is this? It's good.'
'I thought you might like it,' said Lupin. 'Mungo's imports top
quality chocolate from around the world. This is from around Innisfail.'
Erin nodded in recognition. 'It's a lot better than the chocolate I've had
from Equador.'
'I'm not familiar with that place,' said Erin. 'Is it near
here?' Lupin laughed and set the chocolate back on the nightstand.
'No, it's no where near here,' responded Lupin with a suppressed
smile. 'It's on the other side of the world; south of Central America,
actually. I'm surprised that you didn't know that.' He gave Erin a
reproving look; one a teacher might to a child caught misbehaving.
'Naw,' Erin giggled. 'Why would I know something like that for
what I do?' Lupin raised his eyebrows and Erin laughed. 'I never did very
well in Geography, always had a B-. There wasn't a thing that I could do to
bring that grade up. Well, beside study for the exams and stuff like that,
but why waste all that time when you could be doing something else on a
beautiful day?'
'Like what?' asked Lupin curiously, leaning back into the
massive pillows on his bed.
'Well,' Erin began, 'like seafaring or surfing, for example.
There's nothing like a cool breeze to take you out to sea, or capering with
a grindylow.' Lupin was politely amazed, showing hardly any emotions on his
tired face.
'Have you done that?' Erin gave him a sidelong stare and pulled
a pen out of her robe's pocket. She studied it for a while before gently
tapping it on her chair's armrest.
'Yeah, I've done it once or twice,' said she, rather
noncommittally. 'It was ridiculous more than anything.'
'Why?' asked Lupin, eyeing the pen. 'It seems to me it would be
more dangerous than anything else.' Erin shrugged and shifted slightly in
her chair, pen still tapping an intricate beat.
'Well, they're dangerous for sure,' she agreed, 'but come on,
they're grindylows! What could go wrong?' Lupin's smile was reserved.
'The students in my third year class at Hogwarts thought as you do,' he
remarked, 'but that was before I brought an actual grindylow into the
class.' He chuckled. 'Wonderful things, grindylows.'
'Umm, sure, whatever you say,' said Erin dismissively. 'Maybe you've never
seen a Queen's grindylow, but they're smaller and stouter than the other
species. Devilish, nasty little twerps. They're great fun to annoy, but
you've got to be able to make a quick get away. They can't run very fast,
but damns not fun for you if you stick around and wait for them to catch
up.' Erin giggled. 'The big ones are the only ones that really creep me
out,' said she with a shiver.
'Where do you find these Queen's grindylows, exactly?' asked Lupin.
'In Queensland, around Mount Morgan. My father owns a house up there, and
we sometimes visit it. The place is always crawling with them.' Erin
shivered.
'Hmmm...' Erin looked the clock on the nightstand and abruptly
stuffed the pen back into her pocket.
'I've got to be going,' she observed, and stood up. 'You want
some more of that before I go?' asked she and waved a hand towards the
bottle of sleeping potion. Lupin shrugged and Erin gritted her teeth. Come
on! She thought. It'd be more difficult if you were mute! 'Alright, I'll
leave you to it then,' said she and left the ward. Lupin sighed as the door
clicked shut and stared back to the ceiling.
Erin woke up at eleven o'clock with jarring pains shooting
through her entire body. She was drenched in a cold sweat and her heart was
double lapsing. Icy cold hands wrapped around her neck like a vice. What
the bloody hell? She thought as she climbed out of bed. She swayed on her
feet, stumbled, and was barely able to catch herself on one of the bedposts.
The room swam in fuzzy circles about her. My god, what is this? She
shambled to the bathroom, grabbing onto anything that she could to keep
herself upright. She retched just as she flung the toilet lid up. Vast
amounts of horrible, pungent, black liquid poured out her mouth. It must
have been something I ate.
Twenty minutes later, and three more doses of almost garroting
on her vomit, Erin stepped away from the toilet and hung onto the bathroom
sink for dear life. Her eyesight faded and returned in pulses, making the
fuzzy world seem to move as in an old fashioned picture. Carefully, she
wound her way back to her bed and picked her wand off the floor. Still not
thinking straight, she flopped back into bed and stuffed her wand under her
pillow. Her sleep didn't last very long. Within minutes, she was up out of
bed again, racing to the bathroom, and doubling over the toilet. God, she
muttered to herself, trying to calm the hurling sensation in her stomach,
the fish at dinner must have been rotten for weeks. Weeks and weeks and
weeks. Maybe the English like fermented fish; adds to the flavor. She
laughed and then gagged as more dark broth flowed out her mouth. Damn, I
didn't know that my stomach could hold all that. Oh, wait, she realized, her
mind slowly gripping reality. I'll check all those medicines I brought with
me; there's bound to be something for this. Reeling slightly, she stood up
and sorted through the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror. Erin
found a bottle of Eddy's Excellent Gut Tranquilizer, unscrewed the cap,
gulped half of the red liquid down, and prayed that it would sedate her
stomach instead of killing her.
Her mind was her own again, and her stomach was anew. The Gut
Tranquilizer tasted like the vomit she'd been chucking, but it calmed her
stomach the moment it slid to the bottom of her throat. Squinting, Erin
scratched her head and stared at the appalling liquid floating in the
toilet, determined to know what caused her so much pain. With a yelp, she
ran back to her bed and grabbed her wand from under her pillow. She raced
back to the bathroom and pointed the tip of her wand at the blackness in the
toilet. 'Delfinum,' she whispered and a jet of blue light encircled the
toilet's contents. Squinting, she watched as the spell took hold and began
to form pictures that blurred around the vomit in a circle. As soon as she
was able to understand one of them, it would fly by at record speed. Stupid
rhabdomyoma, I never was that good at it. This is where Father would take
over, she thought as she endeavored to see more of visions. Flashes of the
SOUP hospital room revolved in and out of Erin's vision. She saw herself sit
down and watched as Lupin handed her a slab of chocolate. Then, with a pop,
the whole twirling blue mass of light disappeared and left Erin slightly
more confused than she had started out as.
'Shit,' she whispered as she scratched her chin. 'Oh, damn.'
Gritting her teeth in alarm, she ran back to the bedroom, flung a robe over
her pajamas, and bolted towards her flat's door. 'Damn,' she whispered again
as she glanced over her shoulder to the clock. Midnight twenty? Goddamn.
It's too late to catch any taxis. Oh, I hope this works. She pulled her
wand out of her pocket and pointed it at herself. Cowering before it, she
murmured the incantation and disappeared with a snap, only to reappear
outside the store front that led to the lobby of St. Mungo's. Thank god,
Erin thought as she rushed through the glass and into the dark lobby.
Slightly disoriented, she made her way down the hall to Gregory Avatt's
office and then to the SOUP ward on the fourth floor.
'Remus,' she called urgently as she opened the door and looked
around. 'Oh no.' She knelt by the bed and shook her head. 'Dear lord.'
Her fingers shivered as the felt for a pulse on his deathly cold arm. It
was faint, but present. His face was covered in sweat and his breathing was
obstructed. 'I know just how you feel.' Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she
tried her very hardest to remember what symptoms like Lupin's warranted.
Come on, think! She yelled at herself in her mind. It's not the
transformation, not the after effects...bloody hell what is it? Can't be
the lunar phase in accordance to his state. Wouldn't be the sleeping draft
earlier in the day; those symptoms would have been present when I checked on
him earlier. What is it? She sat down in the chair that was unmoved from
earlier that afternoon and put her head in her hands.
'Miss Langhart?' Erin slowly rose her eyes to meet Lupin's
blood shot ones. His voice was softer than any sound she'd ever heard.
'It's Erin, dammit!' she snapped in her fear-shaken voice, but
quickly added, 'Yes?'
'What's wrong with me?' Erin stared at his pallid face in a
trance like state, wincing for him every time he had to swallow.
'I don't know. Have you been up long?' Lupin nodded and Erin
grimaced. 'What does it feel like?' Lupin considered his situation for a
moment and then closed his eyes.
'It feels like poison,' he whispered. Erin felt as though she
had just ran into a brick wall. Of course, she thought. God damn, I have
got to be one of the most stupid... 'But I wouldn't know very much about
poison, except for when I take the wolfsbane potion, which sometimes tastes
like poison.' Good, he still has his sense of humor.
'Where's the chocolate?' demanded Erin. Lupin looked over to
where it lay on the bedside table. Erin grabbed it off the table and
clutched it in her hands. After examining it for a few moments, she turned
back to Lupin. 'Who gave this to you?' Lupin frowned.
'The Healer Jensen did, I think. It was dark when he brought it
to me last night.'
'Got it.'
'Why is that...' Lupin convulsed in pain and moaned. Erin set
the chocolate on her chair and immediately took Lupin's pulse. It was the
same.
'The chocolate contains a mediocre dosage of mercury, which
would explain why it tasted so original and why we both had
such...alarming...reactions.'
'You had a reaction as well?' Lupin's eyes blurred.
'Well sure,' said Erin, moving the chocolate and sitting back
down in her chair. 'Otherwise, how would I have known to come? Believe me,
I know exactly how you feel.' A tired smile appeared on Lupin's lips and
Erin stood up, turning towards the door. Lupin watched as she drew her wand
out of her robe pocket and pointed it to the door. Feeble sparks erupted
from the end. 'Um, would you mind if I used your wand?' asked Erin as she
turned back around, looking at her wand with pure loathing. Lupin shook his
head and Erin snatched his wand off the table. 'Thanks; my stupid wand is
bloody mental.' With a deep breath, she said, 'Accio Eddy's Gut Potion!' A
few seconds later, the red bottle whizzed through the door, leaving a
perfect impression of it engraved into the wood. Erin caught it with a
smile and uncorked the top. 'Here, drink the rest of this,' she directed,
thrusting the bottle at Lupin who drank it gratefully.
'Thanks,' he murmured. 'What's wrong with your wand?'
'It's not my wand,' responded Erin with a shrug. 'It was my
mum's wand before she died. We never were able to find a perfect wand for
me, so I got Mum's. Works great, sometimes.'
'Thanks for coming up here.' Right now, or from Australia?
'Sure.' Erin turned back to the door and walked over to it.
'Are you leaving,' asked Lupin, with a frightened look on his
face. Erin grinned as she looked back, his wand still clutched in her hand.
'Naw, I'm fixing the door.'