A few days later.

London.

Am I alive? Chessie's first coherent thoughts were jarring. She felt so much pain and stiffness throughout her body that she had to be alive. How am I alive?

There were sounds she didn't recognize. Metal tapping, shoes clicking on tiled floors. She heard sounds that were once familiar, years ago. The unmistakable scritching of a quill on a page. Muted voices, mens' and womens'. There was a smell of antiseptic, of healing potions, of clean linens. Annoyingly, there were lights all over too that hurt even through closed eyes.

Chessie groaned softly and put one of her dark arms over her eyes to try and block the light. Someone across the room dropped something that clattered loudly and dashed out, not even bothering to explain themself. Chessie opened her eyes slowly and frowned. She stared at a grey ceiling for a few minutes from under the relative safety of her bare arm, trying to get her bearings, failing, and still being confused. She tried to suppress growing panic at not knowing where she was. What's going on? she wondered, but felt too lethargic to attempt to yell after the quickly-retreating figure.

A grim middle-aged man in Healer robes came over to stand beside the bed Chessie was laying on, clutching her medical chart in white-knuckled hands. His body language was full of disdain. She put her arm back down at her side and tried to focus her eyes on the healer.

"Hello," he said in a resigned tone, as though he was required to do this but didn't particularly care to, "I am Healer Browne. I need to ask you a few questions to see how much you remember of what happened to you two nights ago."

"Two nights?" Chessie asked in a surprisingly scratchy voice. "It's...Wednesday?"

"What is your name?" the healer asked as he conjured a quill and began taking notes on her condition and reactions.

"Chessie Wharton. Chessandra, actually, but-."

"Age."

"Er, nineteen."

"Address."

"13 Wheedle Way, Ottery St. Catchpole-."

The healer looked up sharply at her as he asked his next question.

"Why were you out during a full moon?"

Chessie paused. Full moon, why did that sound familiar- oh. Ha, how ironic. What a detailed nightmare. Surely it's just a coincidence. Surely. But then the shadows in her memory began to reveal a two-story house lit by a full moon. A corridor and a staircase, and a large, furred animal standing over a small bleeding body...

"Miss Wharton, must I repeat myself?" The healer wasn't even going through the motions of being friendly now. Some strange…feeling…inside of her told her mutely that the man was practically radiating fear.How the devil do I know this?

"Oh! Oh, yes. I was walking home from work."

"Where-."

"The Shiny Teacup. It's a muggle diner. I worked from 8 in the morning to closing, at 8."

There was a knock at the door to the hall, and two people entered without waiting for a response. They were both rather tall, but one was younger and had pink hair, while the older one was- Remus Lupin? A slightly older and greyer Lupin than from her fifth year at Hogwarts, but still very much the same person. As the pink-haired witch tripped over something that likely didn't actually exist, Chessie saw AUROR in bold white letters across the back of her black robes. Lupin paused to help her up with a small unprofessional smirk, and they made it to Chessie's bed without further incident.

"Healer Browne," The Auror said pleasantly, "Questioning victims about more than their identity isn't really your job."

The icy healer sniffed in disdain and strode off to harass any poor apprentices he came across. Pink-Hair smiled at Chessie warmly and surprisingly genuinely, a welcome change from that horrible man.

"Wotcher. I'm Auror Tonks, and this is Remus Lupin. He's my husband." She sat down without hurting herself on the foot of Chessie's bed while Remus gently rolled his eyes and sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair provided for visitors.

"That last part isn't relevant to why I am here," he said, slight grin fading as he studied Chessie's condition.

"That is true but I like telling people," Tonks said, then shifted to the point. "Your friends Dove and Mary are very worried about you, Chessie."

"He- the healer said I'd been out for two days," Chessie said. Her voice, now that it was being used again, wasn't nearly as rough. She almost sounded like herself. Like a version of herself who was severely ill.

Lupin nodded. "About two and a half days, considering it's just after breakfast on Thursday."

Tonks looked slightly less cheerful now, but still friendly and open. "Do you remember anything that happened two nights ago?"

Chessie thought back. Mary and Dove's argument, Mary's warning, the walk home, the scream…kicking the neighbor's door in and sensing, then knowing, that she was about to die….

"Oh, hellfire. It wasn't a bear." She sighed and rubbed her temples, propping herself up against the headboard of the bed with a loud groan. She discovered that her torso from just above her breasts down to her hips was almost mummified in bandages that had loosened when she moved. She pulled the wrapping around her abdomen loose to reveal what was very clearly a healing bite of a very large carnivore, covered in what appeared to be a green paste that smelled terribly. She discovered the wound extended most of the way across her stomach, as though she was supposed to have been disembowled.

"I know it wasn't a bear. Bears don't do that." Once again, she thought back to the lurking figure. "More like a huge wolf."

"Werewolf." Tonks stated quietly. Chessie started, and then nodded. Denying it wouldn't do any good.

"Looks like." She said sadly, exhaling. She knew then that Mary wouldn't be on her side anymore. Or Dove, probably. Or anyone. It was a good thing she never bothered to make friends, losing them would have been very hard. Tonks helped Chessie wrap back up and get comfortable reclining against the headboard.

"I'm going to ask you to remember as much as you can. You don't have to be exact, but be as accurate as you can. Any details may help."

Chessie told her what had happened when she left work that evening, trying not to move around too much. Every time she did there was a stabbing pain in her abdomen and she didn't want to think about it. She would have plenty of time to overthink later.

"Okay, so…you live on Wheedle Way. How close are your neighbors?" Tonks asked.

Chessie wasn't sure where this was going. "Well, it's a cul-de-sac, the Rosenbaums live to my left- they can see down the road from the front of their house- and the Carleys live across the street from me."

"Families with children?" Tonks muttered, slouching slightly as she sat Indian-style at the base of the cot. She looked like she already knew the answer but wished she didn't.

"Yes. The Carleys have a daughter, Rose. She's... she was six. Her parents were worried that she wouldn't get into Hogwarts, because her aunt- Margaret Carley's sister- is a witch. Rena Wisen, I think they said. She's got a grandparent on the other side who's a wizard but I don't know who. They're both muggles but they think she might not be."

"To be clear, the Rose Carley in that bed over there?" Tonks leaned to her left so Chessie could see across the room to the cot opposite hers. A sunbeam from a large cheerful window highlighted wavy golden locks and a sickly pale face. Enchanted floating clipboards duly recorded every movement the child made, inside and out.

Chessie stared, and then tossed the blanket off her and slowly and clumsily walked across the room over to the little girl, completely not noticing that she just had bandages and underwear on in front of strangers. She gently pushed some of Rose's golden hair out of her face. She'd baby sat the girl. Watched- and helped- her grow into the beautiful six year old she was. She saw her laying still and broken on the floor.

And here Rose was, lying like a discarded rag doll in a hospital with her thick owlish glasses on a small table beside her. Chessie caught her reflection in one of the lenses.

"Can I -can I see a mirror?" she croaked, staring into the lenses of the glasses. Lupin handed her one from an empty bed nearby. She shoved some of her frizzy mass of hair out of her face and willed herself to look at her reflection. Same dark brown skin, just slightly ashy from shock and trauma. Same nest of dark brown hair with the failed attempts at magically highlighting it nearly grown out. The biggest circles she'd ever seen under her eyes were vibrant and purple. At least they'd go away with sleep and a good shower and meal. But in addition to the giant wound on her torso, she had a number of other scratches, bruises, and cuts on her arms and legs that she couldn't remember receiving.

"Wow, I look like crap" she said, unable to tear her eyes away from he reflection. Tonks and Lupin exchanged a look, and Lupin ran a hand through his grayish brown hair.

"We've established that you're a werewolf, right?" he asked tiredly.

"Yeah," Chessie nodded absently.

"Well, when you're bitten, the wolf transfers…an essence of itself to you, along with the more obvious physical implications of being lycanthropic. At the very instant you're bitten, not only are you becoming a werewolf but in a small part of your mind, a…shadow of the wolf's mind is developed, and you can choose whether or not to listen to it or succumb to it. You…did. But the Aurors got you back fairly quickly…." He stopped talking and watched Chessie.

Well, bugger. Wait a bloody second-

"What's this about 'fairly quickly'? You mean I was…feral or something?" She sat back down on her own cot, mirror forgotten. Tonks didn't look at her.

"When the muggle relations division contacted us- thanks for doing that, incidentally- and said that a werewolf was spotted near Ottery St. Catchpole, the trained werewolf capture unit was across the country and wouldn't have gotten there in time. So several of us Aurors apparated over and found a very pissed off you before we even got to Greyback. You tried to attack Blackwell, but we got you back and he's okay. He's already joking about it, good bloke. Apparently women attack him all the time. It wasn't for more than a few minutes. That's why you're a little extra cut up like that. We had to defend ourselves. No one's pressing charges, so don't worry. You get off okay this time because of the situation. Just don't do it again."

Chessie tried desperately to ignore the grave importance of "We got you back."

"Why are you being so kind about this," she asked pitifully, indulging in a little post-trauma shock as she hugged herself and limped back to her own bed.

"A lifetime of struggle," Lupin smiled grimly, and gestured across the room, "I was her age, myself." Before Chessie could entirely digest what that may have meant, a small sweet voice groaned.

"I'm thirsty," Rose muttered softly. Healer Browne burst back into the room from his eavesdropping point on the other side of the hall and shooed the Auror and the Werewolf out, saying that this was indeed his job, thank you, and they could finish their discussion when the two checked out later.