God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The Wisdom to Know the DifferenceChapter Five: The W.S.S.
It was a crisp autumn day outside. The grey sky and cool air promised an afternoon shower. It would be perfect weather to curl up by the fireside and drink hot cocoa. At least, that's what Remus would have liked to think as he stared out the single hospital window. He could just barely make out a piece of the sky over all of the tall buildings.
It had been three excruciatingly long days in the "Dangerous" Dai Lewellen ward for serious bites, and Remus could barely stand another. The nurses made sure that he was quite confined to the bed, the brutes. Both of them were extremely unpleasant in their own unique ways. Mrs Angley was at least honest about it, with her gruff and churlish nature, but Mrs Lacess was so obliquely pleasant Remus found her to be the harder of the two to bear. She would be overbearingly nice when force-feeding him vile potions that Remus couldn't find it in him to trust her large smile anymore. Twice upon saying 'it tastes like rum punch' she'd been lying. It tasted like boiled toad (well, at least he imagined it did, as he'd never actually eaten boiled toad.)
'Good afternoon, Mr Lupin,' a deep voice said rather briskly, as a large woman backed into his room, dragging a cart in with a tray of food and a great bottle of swamp coloured liquid.
'Oh no…' Remus said as she parked the cart next to his bed. 'Is this that same stuff Lacess gave me yesterday?'
'Yes i' tis,' the boorish woman replied in her disturbingly bass voice.
'Do I have to take it?' he asked giving her what he hoped was a very endearing look. It didn't take a mind reader to realize this tactic would not soften the heart of this acrimonious woman. The look Mrs Angley gave him was so ugly he wondered how she had ever managed to become a Mrs in the first place.
Without further complaint he took the two spoonfuls of the vile liquid Angley proffered him and tried not to gag.
"Did you see my mum or dad out there?" he asked as she set down his food onto the odd hospital bed table and pushed it in front of him.
"No."
"Oh…" Remus replied, trying not to sound too disappointed. His parents hadn't been able to make it back to the hospital all day. They had said something about 'making arrangements for the moon' at the house, but he didn't really know what that meant. All he knew was that the hospital served dinner too early, the medicine made his stomach queasy and he was incredibly lonely as there were no other patients in his ward.
Just then there came an unexpected knock at the ward door. He felt his heart leap at the hope it was one of his parents. Unfortunately the door opened to reveal neither his mother nor his father. It revealed yet another complete stranger. Remus didn't know how many more introductions he would deal with.
She was a waif of a woman, with large doe-like brown eyes, and straggly reddish-brown hair.
"Remus Lupin?" she smiled with a slight quiver in her voice.
"Ya aren't allowed in here, missy, without the proper papers havin' been filled out," Angley fairly barked at the thin woman, putting her fists on her large hips.
"They ha-ave. I'm with the- the W.S.S.," the young woman said, unsurely, her eyes widened with alarm.
"Huh," Angley sniffed. "Well stop hoverin' and get in already."
The slight woman promptly entered the room and made herself busy with looking at a nice arrangement of flowers Remus' mother had cut for him the previous day. An awkward silence had descended upon them as Remus and Angley both stared at the woman.
"Just who are ya anyways?" Angley asked gruffly, eyeing her with suspicion.
"Oh, you- you must think I'm awf- well, I'm not normally this… I'm Elinor Dunlan. It's my first time you see, and I'm not quite used to being the one t-to-"
Angley didn't seem to care enough to hear all of what the woman had to say, as she promptly brought the conversation to halt.
"Right. Mr Lupin, if you need me to stop certain people from gabbing, just call. I'll be back in half an hour for your tray." And with that she left, not before giving Dunlan a warning glare.
"Lovely flowers you have here, Remus," she sighed, looking a bit less flustered.
"My mum brought them from her garden for me," Remus replied with a small smile.
"That was very nice of her."
"She's always nice," Remus said, grabbing a fork and starting to lie into the potatoes. He was reaching for his milk when he noticed she was staring at him with an odd sort of look on her face.
"Do you want some?" Remus asked, pointing to his beef filet. She found this terribly amusing, for some reason, and began to titter.
"No, thank you," she smiled at him, but her smile didn't last very long. Again the same indecipherable look settled upon her face, making Remus feel very ill at ease as he awkwardly handled the overly large flatware to cut his beef filet. After a few more tedious minutes of her looks and his failed attempts to cut bites of filet for himself, he gave up and put his severing instruments aside, staring longingly at his filet that had remained uneaten.
"Um, do you- Do you need help cutting your filet?" she asked.
"Ok," Remus replied reluctantly. He would have preferred to be alone.
She cut through the tough filet with ease and made all of the bites small enough for him, before handing the fork over to him and placing the knife on the bedside table. Even though he desperately wanted to be alone, he couldn't help but feel grateful to be able to sate his appetite.
He made a quick job of eating the entire contents of his plate, more to keep himself busy during the uncomfortable silence than because he was particularly hungry. Long after he had finished, she just sat there, staring at him as she wrung her hands in a nervous fashion.
He would have loved to yell at Ms Elinor Dunlan if it weren't for the fact that his mother would greatly disapprove of it, and Dunlan would probably go into stuttering hysterics at a sudden outburst, considering her earlier behaviour. He began debating what to do. If he were to ask her 'what do you want?' he was sure his mum would think it rude… but sitting there in silence was so gratingly awkward there was no other course of action he could take.
"Ms Dunlan?-"
"Elinor will do."
"Ok… do you want something?"
"Yes, yes. Sorry, it's just, I'm not quite sure how to say- well, you're very young after all, and I want- well, I don't want to say anything t-to confuse or alarm you."
"Well, why are you here?" he said this very slowly, so as not to confuse or alarm her. Remus couldn't take much more of this. He had no idea what it was that she wanted to talk about, but he had never known any adult to be so incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together.
"I'm with the W.S.S…" she gave him time for this to sink in. Unfortunately, he had no idea what those three letters stood for, and it was blatantly apparent by his bemused expression.
"The uh, the Werewolf Support Services…" she said this at almost a whisper, as if it were some shameful secret, though there was no one present.
"Oh…" Remus replied, looking downward at his plate. He had almost forgotten he was a werewolf. It was quite easy to forget. He felt no different than before, other than the slight twinges of pain where he'd been bitten.
"Do you know what that means?"
"You support werewolves?" Remus shrugged.
"That's right," she said with a smile.
Elinor seemed friendly enough, but Remus had no idea how this woman could support the weight of a particularly heavy book bag, much less a werewolf.
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Carry them… us… We're real dangerous. How do you do it without getting bitten?" he said as he watched the condensation on his glass slowly roll down its side.
"Oh no. Not that kind of support," she said, looking torn between amusement and sadness. "No- no, we are there to, well, give aid. You know, advice. Tell you all about what happens when you, uh, transform into a werewolf, so there won't be any surprises. Remus, do you know very much about werewolves?"
Remus shook his head. He actually knew a great deal about them, and was surprised to find himself shaking his head 'no.' Talking about it didn't seem like a very good idea. He didn't want to think about the attack, or what the werewolf had looked like after he transformed back.
"Well, you know what happens to werewolves on the full moon, right?"
"We turn into…"
"A werewolf, yes, but when you're transformed, you won't- you won't know who you are. You'll only know that you want to bite someone. It's very important that on the night of the full moon you are in a place where you can't bite anyone, or they would become a werewolf. Do you understand?"
He silently nodded.
"I've been to your house today- that's why your parents aren't here right now. We've been putting up a shed of sorts on your land so that when you transform you can't bite anyone. There are lots of protective spells to keep you in there, so there's no problem there."
"How'd the other werewolf get out?" he asked, suddenly raising his head, and causing Elinor to jump a bit at the abruptness of the question.
"Other werewolf?"
"The one that- that bit me," Remus said, trying to keep his voice steady.
"The spells to keep werewolves safely locked away don't do much good if the werewolf isn't there when the moon is rising," she said a bit agitatedly.
"He wasn't there?"
"Um, no. He wasn't," she said looking as if she was holding back some prevalent information.
"Why?"
"It- it doesn't really matter why. He wasn't there, and that's- that's all you need to know." She tried to say this with authority, but only ended up looking as if she'd show signs of being ill at any moment.
Angley entered the room a few moments later to take his tray, her usual frown fixed on her face. Neither Angley nor Elinor said anything to each other. Angley gave her a glare as Elinor nervously stared at the floor and proffered the knife. Muttering something about hating mice, Angley grabbed the utensil and hastily left, letting Elinor have the opportunity to let out a breath she'd been holding since the unpleasant nurse had entered the room.
"Remus, I, uh, need to tell you more. Are you up to that?"
He nodded as his hands started to wring the sheets.
"I'm going to try and be as straightforward as I can…Transforming, well, it isn't easy. Your- your bones and muscles and everything change when the full moon rises, and it hurts… quite a lot. There isn't anything we know of that can change it. Do you understand what I mean?"
He nodded again.
"You'll also scratch and bite yourself, most likely. Supposedly the more stress you're under the more violent you get, so we're going to try and keep things going as smoothly as they can for you. You'll need to try and keep yourself calm and not overwork yourself, both physically and emotionally before the full moon. You understand?"
Remus felt his head nod on its own accord.
"We're working out who will take care of your injuries afterwards. They, they say the first transformation's always the hardest and-"
"I don't want to talk anymore," Remus whispered as he stared at the sheets, tears forming in his eyes. "I don't want… I just- I don't…"
"That's fine. I understand," she said, bowing her head.
"NO!" Remus suddenly yelled, surprising even himself. "No… I'm- You don't!"
Without any forethought he jumped from the bed and ran down the hallway, furiously scrubbing at his eyes. He heard some people yelling at him, but it just spurred him on to run faster. No one would ever understand: ever. He had to get away; he just had to. There were people talking about it now. He could hear them. Did they know? Who all knew? Could everyone tell what he was? He was skidding around the corner when he ran into a sturdy body. He was about to run past it when he heard it call out:
"Remus?"
He looked up to see his father looking very bewildered as he stared down at Remus.
"What are you doing out here, lad?" John asked, kneeling down to look him in the eye. Remus couldn't make himself look up. "You don't have to talk about it."
Remus shook his head, looking at the floor. His father stared at him for a moment before picking Remus up and carrying him down the hall. He laid his head upon his father's shoulder and could feel the fabric rough against his cheek.
"But if you ever want to, you can."
Remus shook his head and silently swore he would never talk about it to anyone.
A/N:Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. I tend to be quite nerous about my writing skills and the support really helps me have the confidence to write more and post it.