Hope was waiting at the door. She had been waiting at the door for an hour.

It had been a particularly long night, with the moon rising at 3pm last afternoon. At quarter to, she'd kissed her son on the head, told him she'd see him in the morning, and bolted the thick cellar hatch from the outside.

It was always impossible to sleep, during the full moon with Remus in the house. If the heart-wrenching sympathy hadn't kept her awake, the noise would have. She remembered a much younger Remus locked in the bathroom for his first full moon. What a mistake that had been. They'd both sat vigil outside the door listening to the glass shower screen smash and the horrible scrabbling of claws on ceramic, unable to enter and fix things. Most of the morning was spent picking glass out of their five year old's feet with tweezers.

The small cellar that was designed to house coal was what had sold them on this house.

The hatch was nestled in a small nook, in the hallway between the kitchen door and behind the staircase. Large enough to fit a broad-shouldered man, but still with the claustrophobic nature of having to lower yourself into a completely dark pit. They'd had the hatch door reinforced with flat iron bars, which had taken some fantastic on the spot fibbing on Lyall's part. The fitter had been awfully suspicious of what they were planning to keep down there that needed iron bars and a thick, outside deadbolt.

The clicking on the wolf's nails on the stone floor had stopped, as had the whining and occasional scrabbling at the door that usually marked the late hours of the transformation, but she couldn't be sure. She could never be certain.

Lyall returned from the kitchen holding two cups of tea, gesturing that one was for her. He was still in pyjamas and looking a little haggard after a sleepless night on the living room sofa. She smiled in thanks and turned to the door again.

"You reckon it's done?"

Lyall stepped into the sitting room, leaning low so he could inspect the winter sky before returning.

"It's still cloudy, I can't really tell. Heard anything?"

"Nothing for a good few minutes. I'm just gonna risk it."

He shrugged his agreement and set the cups on the coffee table before returning to the hatch.

"Want me to go down?" he offered.

Hope drew back the bolt and Lyall pulled out his wand, flicking it as though to remove a fly from the end, wordlessly producing a softly glowing ball of light that hovered in the air between them.

"I'll pass him up to you," she said before heaving the hatch open and he sent the light down into the darkness after her.

The room was about the size of a generous cupboard, with a low ceiling that barely allowed her to stand upright. She could feel her hair catching on the exposed stone ceiling. It was bitingly cold down there. Completely underground as it was, any heat from the house seemed to seep out immediately. Her light was just bright enough to allow her to see, without blinding Remus who had spent the last 17 hours in absolute darkness. The Winter Solstice had only been last week, and this was the longest full moon of the year.

He was huddled in the corner, asleep and shivering.

"Mouse," she whispered, crouching down next to him and giving his bare shoulder a little nudge. He was covered in goosebumps and the still air smelled like blood.

With a sleepy groan as the only reply, she heaved him up by the arms so she could carry him over to the hatch where Lyall was perched on the topmost stair, arms out, wand between his teeth.

"Ma, I'm up, I'm up." Remus wiggled in her grip until his bare feet touched the ground. He rubbed at his face with one hand, balancing himself against Hope's arm with the other. His voice was hoarse, but a night of screaming would do that.

"C'mere then," Lyall called from around his wand and gestured for Remus to take his hand so he could pull him up the short, steep wooden staircase. Hope followed after them, sealing the hatch behind her.

In the sitting room, Remus wasted no time burrowing himself under the quilt Lyall had slept under that night. Hope accepted her tea and Remus gratefully took the other, warming his cold hands on the mug.

"What's the damage, then, Rem?" Lyall asked through a yawn. He leaned over to wake up the radio for the comfort of fuzzy background chatter.

"Not that bad, considering. My mouth feels disgusting, so I think he was chewing at the staircase."

"Better than your own legs, I suppose." Hope took one of Remus' hands and pulled a washing-up bowl Lyall had filled with warm water and TCP dunked it. Remus hissed.

"Sorry Hen," Hope took the strange paste that St Mungo's had sent them a few weeks before the end of term and diligently spread it over the bite marks. "So, this stuff works, then?"

Remus shrugged. "It works alright. I don't think it actually makes them heal any faster, but it hurts less so that's nice."

Remus felt a little embarrassed, sitting between his parents on the sofa, wearing nothing but the cocoon of a quilt while his mother carefully tended to all the bites as though he were a toddler, but he didn't argue. It was quite nice to be back, being cared for by people that he actually knew.

"Mungo's wrote to say they're going to lay off you for a few months," Lyall said. "They were going to do a formal write-up of last term, and thought you might like a break."

Remus hummed thoughtfully. "I didn't really mind it." He confessed. "It was nice to have someone around. And it was nice to sleep through it, too. Hardy any new bites, that way."

They lapsed into a well practised silence, having been here many times before. Remus eventually fell asleep against Lyall's shoulder, essentially trapping him on the sofa under him. The fuzzy voices on the radio and the warm weight of someone leaning against him had a definite soporific effect that had his eyelids drooping too.

"I was right, about the muggle thing," Hope commended. "I never expected them to take it that seriously, but…"

Lyall considered her, thoughtfully. "You're generally right about that sort of thing."

"Oh?"

"Well, I didn't even consider it, remember. I thought it was all over. Lucky you have a sensible head on you."

Hope tried not to think too much about how things might've gone that night if she hadn't been so insistent on trying the last thing that would be likely to work. Who would have thought that muggles could do anything in the face of a werewolf.

"Do you think they'll actually find something?"

Lyall was thoughtful. Often, he found it most reasonable to consider the worst case scenario and work backwards from that - after all, it would be hard to be surprised by a terrible turn of events that way. But he hadn't married Hope for nothing. And she was right, there were things that could be done using muggle medicine, apparently. And now with a small team at Mungo's willing to humour it… well, it was possible.

He cast his mind back to the long days at Cardiff Royal, the two of them on edge between daring to hope that they would be able to at least patch him up enough to get through the night, but full of the sickening fear that they would endanger the staff, the children sharing their ward and the statute of secrecy by even daring to try and save him.

"I think they might. I don't think they'll be able to reverse it - it's a curse, and famously, curses are almost impossible to break. But they seem to be excited about the possibilities. If they can make him safe - that would be better than we could have imagined."

Hope smiled at his uncharacteristic optimism.

"Happy new year, by the way."

Well, that was much easier to write than the last chapter. I don't know why I'm much more comfortable writing these other characters than I am Peter, considering they all have similar amounts of information about them, but hopefully it'll get easier with time.

I tried to check if the weather was actually overcast on New Year's morning, but I couldn't find a weather record.

I was researching aconite and there are some interesting routes I can go down…