Chapter Charlie

When Ted recovered from his meeting with Greyback he headed back down the stairs. He checked his watch, 1 PM, lunchtime for the children. Ted entered the lunchroom. He had to watch where he stepped because, as always, the floors were covered with years of old food. The children sat in scattered groups on the floor and chatted happily. Ted wished that they could afford to provide the children with tables.

Each child owned one plate, one cup, one fork, one knife, and one bowl. Against the walls were three large sinks where the children had the option of washing their plates. Sadly many of the children chose against that option.

Behind the lunchroom was a kitchen. In the kitchen there was a time table that listed which three children would do the cooking for the day and which two children would get the groceries. The children would spend the morning cooking lunch for everyone, and the afternoon cooking dinner for everyone. For breakfast each child would get two slices of plain bread and a cup of water. No one really cared what lessons the children would miss in school on the days they cooked.

Ted glanced at a small boy's plate. It had a glop of half cooked hamburger meat mixed with some canned corn. It was a good thing that werewolves liked rare meat, because the children were never properly taught how to cook. Liam insisted that the kids needed vegetables in their meals, so he would always make the kids who got the groceries get cheap canned vegetables.

Half the time the kids would steal the food, but half the time Liam would give them money from their funds to purchase the food, so they would decrease their chances of getting caught stealing. The stealing was always done from muggle supermarkets. The days the kids stole they would always steal several boxes of packaged cakes and large bags of assorted candy, and eat them on the way back to headquarters. Liam tried his best to regulate the amount of sugar the kids consumed on these days. He was well respected amongst the kids and they mostly obeyed him, but when it came to eating sweets, the kids always ate as much as they pleased no matter how much Liam begged them to stop.

A young boy named Justin waved to Ted. Ted walked up to him.

"Hey Ted, long time no see," Justin said through a mouth full of hamburger meat. "We miss you around here. Grab a plate of food and sit down. They have some extra plates in the kitchen."

"Thanks, but the days of lunchroom grub are long behind me," Ted replied. Justin threw a handful of hamburger meat at Ted's face. Ted ducked out of the way and the meat hit the wall behind Ted. "Just kidding man. I miss you guys too. Your biceps look bigger. It seems like you've been working hard."

Justin beamed with delight. "I bench four hundred pounds now!" he said excitedly. That was pretty good for a werewolf his age.

"Nice!" said Ted. "Where's Liam?"

"He's up in the infirmary. He ate his lunch in like two minutes and went up there," Justin replied.

"Well I need to go talk to him. I'll catch you later Justin," Ted said as he headed to the infirmary.

"See ya!" Justin called after him.

Ted entered the infirmary. One girl was sleeping on a mattress with a damp rag on her forehead. Ted assumed she had a fever. Another boy was lying on a mattress and reading a comic book called The Adventures of Martin Miggs, The Mad Muggle. His face looked greenish. He must have had a stomach bug. Kids often fell sick, probably because the places they ate and slept in were filthy, and Liam and Alistar hardly had time to take care of them because they were busy teaching the other children. Ted wished that they had some house elves to clean the place and more teachers to teach the children. But the werewolves simply didn't have the money or the man power, so that was the way things had to be and Ted had to accept that.

Liam was sitting next to a small child lying on a mattress. The child didn't look good. He was covered in bandages. His face was quite pale, and he had deep purple circles under his eyes. Ted kneeled down beside Liam.

"What happened?" Ted asked.

"He's a muggle. Alistar bit him on the last full moon. He's not doing well." Liam replied gravely.

"But it's already been a couple of weeks since the last full moon," said Ted. "Shouldn't the kid have recovered from the bites by now, or, you know, died?" Ted hated sounding so insensitive. Many muggles couldn't survive werewolf bites, but some could. The werewolves needed more man power, they had no choice but to turn muggles.

"Unfortunately this poor guy is still suffering for some reason. I've been taking care of him as best as I can, but I don't know what more I can do." Liam looked at the boy with concern. "I'm about to change his band aids, why don't you help me out?"

Ted nodded. Liam handed Ted a bowl of powdered silver mixed in a paste made from dittany leaves, the standard treatment to heal werewolf bites. Liam carefully removed a bandage from the boy's stomach, revealing a large bloody werewolf bite. Ted gingerly applied a fresh layer of the paste to the boy's stomach. Then Liam tenderly bandaged the wound with a fresh roll of gauze. The two of them worked like this on all of the boy's wounds.

"I wish Alistar hadn't bit him so many times," Liam said in annoyance.

"You know he couldn't control himself. None of us can when we are in werewolf form," Ted pointed out. Liam nodded, frowning. After they finished changing the boy's bandages they sat quietly watching the boy.

After about twenty minutes the boy's eyelids fluttered. He coughed and muttered in a hoarse voice "Mommy."

"Hey, hey, its ok buddy," Liam said in a soothing voice. "You're going to be ok." He picked up a white teddy bear and handed it to the boy. The boy started to sob quietly. Liam rubbed the boy's arm soothingly and tried to keep reassuring him that everything would be alright. Within minutes the boy fell asleep. Liam checked his watch.

"Shit, I have to teach the young batch how to steal while Alistar teaches the older batch dueling spells," Liam said. He removed his hand from the boys arm, and the boy started to sob quietly again. Liam immediately began rubbing him again and the boy abruptly stopped crying.

"It's ok, I'll take care of the kid while you teach," Ted said. Liam looked at the boy worriedly for several seconds.

"Ok. If the kid starts to bleed too much we have a blood replenishing potion in the cabinet. The dose is written on the bottle. If the wound starts oozing green, put on a new layer of the dittany mixture and redress the wound with fresh gauze. If the wound or the skin around the wound starts turning black, then come grab me right away, because we may need to amputate him." Ted looked up at Liam alarmed. "We can use skelegro and fleshgro potions. It won't be as good as a normal limb, but it will be better than not having a limb. If he starts acting rabid or hallucinating, come and get me right away. Although I don't know what we'll do if he gets to that point. I'll come check on you every hour and will be done teaching in three hours."

"Ok," said Ted. The moment Liam stopped stroking the boy's arm the boy began to whimper. Ted immediately took Liam's seat and began stroking the boys arm. His skin was scorching hot. Liam waited for the boy to stop whimpering before he left to go teach the other children.

Ted knew he was doing a decent thing by stroking the boys arm, but he started to feel bored very quickly. Liam's patience with children never failed to impress Ted. He frequently peeked under the boy's bandages to make sure none of the things Liam described would happen. Eventually, out of boredom, Ted started to hum a tune he had heard many years ago.

"Please sing the song," he heard a small female voice croak. The voice was so quiet that Ted was surprised that he even heard it. He glanced over to where the girl with the fever had seemed to have woken up. The nauseous boy was still engrossed in his comic book.

Ted sung whatever lines of the song he could remember. When he was finished the girl clapped. Even the nauseous boy looked up from his comic book.

"Water," Ted heard a voice croak. Ted looked down, alarmed. The bitten boy's eyes were fully open now. "Water," he repeated.

Ted crossed the room to pour the boy a glass of fresh water from the jug kept on the counter. Liam made sure that the dishes in the infirmary were spotless, which meant he had to wash them all himself.

Ted helped the boy sit up and put the water glass to his lips. The boy slowly took the glass in his own hand and drank deeply from it. When he finished he closed his eyes again and Ted continued to stroke his arm.

Liam popped back into the room. "Hey is everything ok?" he asked. Ted checked his watch. Only a half hour had passed since Liam had left the room.

"Yeah everything's fine. The wounds are the same, and the kid woke up to drink some water," Ted said. Liam took a seat next to Ted. "What about your class?"

"Oh come on. Everyone is already pretty much a master thief here. I don't need to teach them anything new. I gave them the afternoon off." Liam stated. "How much water did he drink?"

"This glass," Ted said, holding up the glass.

"Wow, he's been having a lot of trouble eating and drinking anything," Liam stated. "Poor guy just doesn't have the energy to eat or drink, but I wish he would eat and drink more so he could get some energy."

"What has he been eating?" Ted asked.

"Well new werewolves love rare meat, but in his condition he can't really stomach it," Liam explained, frowning. Ted pondered this.

"Have you tried giving him the raw meat in some sort of broth form?" Ted asked.

"That's not a bad idea," Liam said. "It could be easier to digest, and the warmth could sooth him, and help break the fever. Why don't you go make some over the fire, Ted? There's some fresh spinach and ginger and garlic over there too. Throw some of that in too. Make enough for Becky and Ian too, but cook the meat longer for them."

Ted followed Liam's instructions. When he finished he brought a tray with three piping hot bowls to Liam. Liam took a bowl for the boy, and then Ted gave the other bowls to Ian and Becky.

"Come on, you have to eat this. It's the only way you'll feel better," Liam prodded. The boy slowly sipped from the edge of the bowl. Then he began to drink deeply. "Yes! Good boy! You're going to feel great now." The boy removed the bowl from his lips, panting. His brow glistened with sweat. "Great job! You drank it all! High five little man!" The boy lifted his hand with more ease this time to high five Liam. A very small smile tugged at his lips.

"Ted you're a genius! You ought to become a Healer!" Liam exclaimed. Ted snorted.

"Yeah, like they'd ever let a werewolf become a Healer. They think we are diseased freaks ourselves," said Ted.

"Actually I meant over here. We could actually really use a Healer here the way these kids get sick. I try my best to give them the care they need, but I know it's not nearly enough." Liam said sadly. "Maybe you can stay here. There's a couple of extra guest rooms. You could have one."

Ted didn't say anything. "But I understand. You have your mission which is too important for you to not follow through with." Ted nodded in agreement. He almost wished he could stay here and help the sick children. But with his mission he would bring in so many more funds, and so much more man power, so that the conditions for the werewolves would improve tremendously.

Ted stayed with Liam in the infirmary for the rest of the day, and throughout most of the night. The boy's wounds started to look a bit better and he certainly seemed to have more energy. Unfortunately, with the new found energy, he was able to ask about his "mommy" quite a bit more.

Liam told the boy that he was going to have a fun new life now. He would get to play with so many other children his age, eat all the sweets he wanted without anyone stopping him ("Hey they never listen to me when I try to stop them anyway," Liam said when Ted eyed him wearily), learn to fight bad guys, and get lots of new toys (though he forgot to mention that he would be stealing all these new toys).

The boy seemed to cheer up after hearing all of this and asked about his mother less frequently.

At around 2 AM Liam told Ted to go home and get some sleep. Ted told Liam to do the same. Though Ted knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until this boy was better.

"What's your name?" Liam asked the boy as Ted started walking towards the exit.

"Charlie," The boy whispered. Then he fell asleep.