"The what?" Ron asked for the third time.
"The De-Were Project." Hermione repeated patiently. The Staff Room was silent. No-one seemed to know what she was talking about, not even the Headmaster. She took a deep breath.
"Don't ANY of you follow the changes in social policy? Oh well. The De-Were Project is located in the middle of a near impenetrable Russian forest. It is so remote that it was even debated whether anti-muggle charms would be necessary. They did them anyway in the end, the expert in charge insisted on it."
"Expert?" interjected Remus, confused.
"On werewolves. Well, on Wolfsbane. Serenity Rubor is the only potion maker left in the wizarding world with the know-how to make the Wolfsbane potion. She was given an undisclosed budget and these secluded premises to conduct research. Some people say she was virtually forced into the job, but as they won't disclose her pay check either, I think it is safe to say that she was offered too much money to refuse. There are five voluntary subjects who are used to experiment with variants of the Wolfsbane potion, new potions as well as charms and Anti Dark experiments."
"Whoa" interrupted Lupin, "we are looking for suggestions and yours is to do with a place where they use werewolves as lab rats?" He was incredulous.
Hermione sighed and continued, "The De-Were Project is not centred around defence but on anything which can alleviate the suffering of the werewolves themselves. There are rumours that Ms. Rubor has developed a potion which stops the change. It's not been substantiated but regardless of forward leaps in the research – you missed the most important point of what I said. Serenity Rubor is the ONLY person left who can make Wolfsbane. The project has no commercial outlet, although the Ministry has stated that stocks of Wolfsbane will be available in six months time. My suggestion is that Professor Dumbledore or Harry calls in a favour and we go and visit them, see what they are about, see if we can help and most importantly – persuade Ms. Rubor to part with six months supply of Wolfsbane."
Hermione sat back; she had actually managed to get them to listen to the whole thing. It sounded like they approved of her plan because they had already gotten onto who would be going with Remus to the project.
The Headmaster held up a hand for quiet, "I think that it should be Remus' decision as to who goes with him. Obviously Professor Granger would be a sensible choice regardless." He had regained his twinkle, absent for so long, he was starting to take joy in the lives around him again.
Remus decided to just take Albus and Hermione with him. They were both happy to spend their holidays trying to help their friend. The personal things about a person had taken on so much more emotional resonance since the last battle, these things were important. It also helped that nobody now had better things to do. After decades of fear, worry and preparation they were handed back all the time that they had had to devote to those concerns.
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Serenity re-read the missive from the Ministry for a sixth time and scowled. They had promised that there would be no meddling and now a group of "interested parties" were coming to visit. She had to show them around the facility, explain the research, and "involve" them for Merlin's sake. How could she involve normal wizarding folk in this, it was so dangerous. She didn't want to share her glorious discovery yet either. She had informed the Ministry that she believed she had created a potion capable of repressing the werewolf transformation, but they were only in week two of experiments and they had yet to combat a full moon with the potion in effect. That must be why they were coming, to check up on her. Her paranoia got the better of her and she charmed various commonplace objects in her quarters to become hiding places for her research. She had given away too much of her research in her life to lose the glory of this one. It may not have been a research route she would have chosen all by herself, she admitted that they were right about the money swaying her. But that was three years ago, she had just got out of hospital after recovering from the final battle and she felt devoid of hope. They offered her a huge salary, freedom of research within that field and a quiet place to avoid all human contact. She crawled away to her forest and began the reconstruction of her genius. But now? Now she loved her job, she became absorbed in the study and churned out idea after idea. She got along well with the werewolves themselves and found that the whole project was far less distasteful than she had first thought. Like most people, she had ingrained conceptions about werewolves, ones which the final battle had done little to shift. But working here, day by day, moon by moon with them, Serenity learnt how to accept when she was wrong. She learnt a lot about herself and became the expert that she was touted as being for her knowledge of one applicable potion. She cared about them and she cared about her research. She just wished that outsiders would keep away from her; she told them all that they needed to know. She patiently awaited her visitors as one would await a walk to the executioner, with utter dread – going pale at the inevitability of the horror. Serenity Rubor did not like surprises, meddling, distrust or anything that required her to interact. Her co-workers became to her as part of the house, a stable portion of her world that didn't change. Sometimes they got new staff, but this project demanded devotion so it always ended up the same people as new folks shipped in and out.
Serenity decided not to wait. If they were so damn desperate to look around, let them find their way through the werewolf quarters. She headed for the cellar, warning the werewolves along the way that visitors were expected.
"Just be on your NORMAL behaviour." The werewolves chuckled at her playfully raised eyebrows. They were all young men infected shortly before or during the final battle, they got bored and then they got hyperactive and then they behaved like neglected children. They acknowledged that on some level they had accepted Serenity as a kind of mother wolf. Now that she may have come up with something on the way to a cure she had relaxed a little; she felt better about what she was doing, as though she really was helping them and not just using them. They saw this in her and loved her all the more, but she became a little less of a mystery. They now knew that she cared and they took full advantage of her lightening up to treat her more like a big sister. It further relaxed the natural state of the Project without diminishing its successes.