Author's note: Thanks to Mia for the chapter title and Aya for the beat. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Content Warnings: Medical mystery; illness; hospital setting; terminal illness

What If The Cure Is Worst

Teddy Lupin usually liked his job, except when he hated it. Like now. He rubbed at his eyes before turning to the blackboard again, leaning back in his chair. He couldn't help but feel that he was racing against a losing clock as he sat there with the other Healers, their books, and their coffees, which had now gone cold since the cafeteria had closed hours ago.

He turned to look at the blackboard again, at the five pictures hanging there. They were all familiar to him: Abigail Hallaway, Devin Thatcher, Peter Kim, Carter Chambers, and then his father. The five oldest werewolves who had consented to being part of St. Mungo's study on lycanthropy and aging. The five pictures were circled by dates and notes in his colleague Christina's tiny handwriting: birthdays, dates bitten, biting werewolf if known, bite location, any other health condition… The pictures on the board made the study clear: his father wasn't the oldest one there, but he looked the sickest and

… Well, that's because his dad was. The size of his medical file attested to that, though he also had some notes from the Hogwarts infirmary in there and had been one of the first werewolves to trust St. Mungo's. He had never let Teddy consult on his case until now when he was starting to worry that other werewolves might age as poorly and painfully as he did. Teddy knew that they were racing against the clock on his father's life to find an answer, which only made these dead-end and emotionally exhausting nightly sessions worse.

"We need to run through it again," Teddy said.

"The bloodwork?" Christina asked.

"No, patient histories," Teddy sighed.

"We already…"

"I know we already did but it's a full moon so the patients aren't here," Teddy said—trying not to sound impatient. "So, patient histories. Let's go."

They went over them all again and added to the board as new hypotheses or questions popped up. They were the only five Healers who accepted to work with werewolves regularly and requested that their schedules be made with the phases of the moon in mind. This was why their meetings on this case were always at ass o'clock at night, when they were all in and waiting for werewolves to come in after their transformations in various states of disarray.

Teddy braced himself for when Healer Han got to his father's file. He looked at Teddy tentatively.

"It's fine, Han," he said. "It's nothing we don't already know. That I don't already know."

Han nodded but chewed his lip as he started reading.

"Remus John Lupin, born ****..."

Teddy stared at the blank yellow note pad in front of him as he listened to the familiar stories. Then they got to 19**...

"Wait," he said. "Wolfsbane. Is Dad—I mean, Lupin, is he the only patient we have who took Wolfsbane?"

"No, they all have," Christina said. "Well, at some point…"

"Abigail Halliday doesn't take it regularly," Teddy said. "She takes it in the winter when she hates transforming outside. And Carter Chambers keeps missing doses at the clinic, he doesn't take it consistently. But…"

"But Remus Lupin worked at Hogwarts for 22 years," Leigh Nyongo said.

"23, with a break," Teddy said. His heart beat in his throat. "And before that… he restrained his transformations almost always."

"Chambers didn't know he was a werewolf for years because he's Muggle, Halliday and Thatcher ran with Greyback, and Kim built a maze for himself under the family estate," Han said slowly.

Teddy's stomach dropped ten stories. As he had watched his father age and his condition sicken, he had always thought that it was fundamentally unfair that Fenrir Greyback had been far older and in top shape until the second he had been killed—despite all the terrible things he had done. But what if that wasn't a coincidence? What if…

"Oh, fuck me," Teddy said, burrying his hands in his hair. "And we just fought tooth and nail to get more money to distribute it at the free clinic. I just prescribed it…"

"Teddy, you can't be serious," Christina said. "The implications are…"

"Terrible," Teddy said. "Absolutely terrible. For our patients, for the werewolf liberation movement, but… But that doesn't change the fact that it… it might be true."

The other Healers were quiet because he was right. And this was the best theory on the board…

"Oh my God," Teddy said, burying his head in his hands. What if his dad had slowly killed himself trying to do the right thing?

"Teddy, it's like you said," Leigh said. "None of the patients are here. We won't be able to verify anything until we talk to them; we won't even be able to come up with an experiment to verify the theory. We could all use some naps before the full moon crowd gets here…"

The others nodded and muttered encouraging things. Han put a hand on his shoulder, but Teddy's stomach kept sinking.

Teddy Lupin liked his job. Except when he hated it.

WC: 842