Thursday, 17 October 1997

The third day in Fred and George Weasley's lair was the one in which Rose's fever broke and she could stomach solid foods again. She sat at the table in the cozy little kitchen, her thick owlish glasses bringing out the recent sickness left in her face, devouring some corned beef Mrs. Weasley had prepared. Remus Lupin sat near the stove sipping some of the omnipresent herbal tea while reading a Daily Prophet article on 'the werewolf menace' and chuckling every now and then at something within.

Mrs. Weasley was busily baking something vaguely chocolaty while doing dishes and humming along with the radio. The twins were downstairs on the first floor, running the shop with Verity, their only employee and Fred's casual girlfriend.

Chessie was curled up in the chair by the kitchen door writing in a notebook meant for finances. Every so often she'd ask Rose if she preferred knee or ankle socks, skirts or dresses, etcetera. Chessie herself was starting to get tired of wearing the same two bathrobes alternately each day. Mrs. Weasley had offered some of the castoffs of someone called 'Fleur', but the name alone was enough to repel her. She was making a list. Until she could find another job, there was no way to get money to support herself. Fred and George's hospitality would surely only last so long, so she was planning on at least having some halfway decent clothes for Rose and herself when they got sick of the two werewolves. So far, she had a pair of pants and a t-shirt, a sundress, a light jacket, some second hand shoes, and one white sock for Rose. Enough to get her through the summer, hopefully, if she could find another small white sock. That alone had cost her almost thirty-five of her fifty remaining galleons.

For herself, she had an old yellow shirt featuring a unicorn choking on a music note with the words 'Diehard Unicorns' in shiny happy letters beneath it that she'd taken from the back of Fred's closet, and a patchwork skirt Mrs. Weasley had brought over that morning, and that was it.

She sighed and, putting the pencil down in her lap, looked out the kitchen window at the sky.

Tonight was it. Rose would be fine. She's young and resourceful and bounces back well. It was herself that Chessie was worried about. Judging by Lupin's presence all day, he wasn't too faithful in her either.

I'm not going to lose it this time. No way.

But considering she'd already gone feral once and she hadn't even been a werewolf an hour at that point, she wasn't feeling too optimistic. She sighed again.

Rose looked up from her coloring book and crayons. "Are you okay, Chessie?"

Chessie jumped a little.

"Yeah. I'm…okay."

"Are there voices in your head too?" Rose asked in her sweet young voice. She smiled slightly and rose to pass her completed picture to Lupin, who watched the two over the top of the newspaper. Mrs. Weasley kept tinkering around very clearly pretending not to be acutely listening.

"Yeah. But I'm getting used to them."

Rose frowned, digesting this.

"Will the voices go away?" She finally asked softly. Chessie unfolded herself from the chair in the corner and sat by her six year old, gently moving crayons out of the way.

"Who knows? We'll find out together, I guess."

Twisting in her seat and pushing her glasses up her face, Rose looked up at Chessie.

"But what if you go crazy again?" she asked. Chessie couldn't answer that. She sighed, got up and went outside to sulk on the stoop.

"The moon rises in just under an hour. You should be okay until then," the stern matron Chessie remembered as Madame Pomfrey said. Chessie wondered if leaving three werewolves together was wise with a town less than a mile away, but Lupin had chosen the spot himself.

"Moody and Tonks have graciously offered to keep an eye out for you," Madame Pomfrey continued, "so if something unexpected were to happen, hopefully they'll be able to solve it."

Had anyone not heard about Chessie's accident? Probably not. Safety issues. That was part of the reason Lupin was staying with them under mental protection of the Wolfsbane Potion. Having only been 'discovered' for three days, and not having enough anyway, the girls had to find out what being a werewolf was like with no protection at all.

A shiver ran through Chessie's body, both terrifying and pleasant. She could feel the coming moon drawing the werewolf out of her, and hoped that nothing worse than physical transformation would befall her tonight. She sensed, instinctively, that it was time, and with her golden eyes wide, she looked eagerly towards the sky.

_Friday 17 October, 1997_

The sun was shining cheerfully in her eyes as she opened them, and the blurry face above her gasped.

"Turn the light off," Chessie croaked. Once she spoke she realized that her throat was extremely sore. So was her head. And her legs. And her eyes, even…she shut her eyes. It hurt.

Someone went to the door, if the sound of hard boots was any indication, and spoke softly to someone on the other side of the door, which then creaked open as lighter footsteps entered.

"Wotcher," the light female voice of the boot owner said. Chessie got a flashback of pink hair and the word 'AUROR' stamped across the back of a black robe. "How sore are you?"

"Incredibly," Chessie said. She reopened her eyes slowly as the shutters were pulled closed and the room wasn't so horribly perky. Tonks sat on the edge of Chessie's bed in almost the same position she had the month before, and stared thoughtfully at Chessie in silence, her only movement being an occasional blink. Every so often a hint of emotion crossed her heart-shaped face, and then out of nowhere she rubbed her eyes and sighed. It looked as though she was trying to invent the least painful way to break bad news.

"What…did something happen?" Chessie asked, afraid to find out. Was Rose okay? Was Lupin? Do I really want to know?

"You- well, the wolf you- is completely, unmistakably savage beyond believe. Um, Moody and I are fine, no one got hurt, Lupin's fine, Rose is fine- she really likes that coloring book…." Tonks trailed off as Chessie finally gathered enough resolve to sit up, and almost passed out from the pain. Madame Pomfrey came in but Chessie didn't notice.

"…And Remus is not entirely sure what's going on, but his theories are pretty good." Tonks was talking. Oops. Maybe she should listen. "Maybe it's pent-up aggressions, or something that comes out when your subconscious inhibitions aren't there, or-."

"Or maybe I'm just slowly going crazy," Chessie half joked sarcastically.

"Well, we considered that too." Tonks smiled apologetically, absently rubbing her abdomen. She did smell different from the prior month, Chessie's inner wolf noted.

There was a knock at the door and before anyone could either put a chair under the doorknob or lock it, George came in carrying a bowl of delicious-smelling soup, followed by Fred carrying Rose, and Verity, the curly blonde employee of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, carrying Rose's coloring book and crayons and a change of clothes and a towel for Chessie. All of them were very cheerful.

"Soup! Hot soup, fresh off Mum's stove!" they were calling out while Rose giggled insanely in Fred's arms. The only sign of her night was a Band-Aid on her forehead and a few stitches under gauze on one leg. She seemed fine. Chessie eased herself up into a sitting position as a smile rose to her face. Rose kicked her way out of Fred's arms and skipped over to Chessie.

"I'm glad you're okay," Chessie said happy, her golden eyes lighting up with normal, human happiness. Rose enthusiastically but carefully climbed onto the bed and tucked her legs under the covers beside Chessie so they could snuggle.

"Yeah! Hey, look at my bruise!" she cheerfully raised a sleeve and showed Chessie a painfully bright bruise that would have but a boxer to shame.

"Wow…" Chessie managed. Rose saw her expression and put her sleeve back down.

"Do you have any pretty bruises?" she asked. Chessie shrugged.

"I don't know yet, I'm sort of afraid to move too much right now."

"You shouldn't anyway, Mum said you'd had a nasty crack to the skull last night," George said, and hummed something out of tune as he set the tray with the bowl of soup on Chessie's lap. "You shouldn't remember it."

Chessie paused in her ravenous attack on the soup bowl. "No...nothing."

Tonks smiled to herself at Chessie's change in mood, and wondered quietly to herself what brought it on. Or…who. Whatever the reason for her werewolf-form sadistic violence, at least in her normal shape she was as sane as ever.