Remus shivered, stood in the entrance hall with Madame Pomfrey, Briggs and Devon. He pulled his scarf tighter around his face and tucked his fingers into the sleeves of his jacket. The warm Autumn days were done, it seemed. An unforgiving chill whipped across the grounds and stung at the skin of any fool out late.

He supposed the wind would do some good to muffle the noise.

"Get a move on Lupin." Chided Madame Pomfrey briskly. One half of Remus appreciated the way that she approached his affliction as though it were no more unusual than a broken wrist, but the other half of him felt cold, alone and sought out the comfort of a mothering figure in the night before the full moon.

He stumbled down the steps and joined the adults. Pomfrey placed a hand on his shoulder, but said nothing. He felt braver, somehow.

The trip down to the Whomping Willow was wordless and left space for his mind to wander. He supposed there was only reason to be hopeful. After all, if the muggle drugs worked, it might change his full moon transformations for the rest of his life. It was an exciting thought, though bittersweet - to think that it was only resources that held him away from such a life-changing solution.

The tree froze and they crouched into the tunnel, one after the other. Even wide-eyed, Remus could barely see the crouched back of Healer Briggs two feet in front of him. The air smelled like old soil and damp. It was a long walk.

The old house in Hogsmede had been abandoned for years and had a convenient history of misery which lent itself to malevolent ghost stories. The hope was that any noise he made would be attributed to unsettled spirits.

If all went well, there would be no noise tomorrow night.

"He's gone again."

Sirius cracked an eye open to see Peter's face peeking through his four-poster curtains, his pale skin glowing in the darkness.

"Excuse me?" Sirius' voice was thick with sleep and he rubbed his face to try and will himself into wakefulness. Peter glanced behind him before hopping up onto Sirius' bed and perching awkwardly on the edge. He closed the curtains behind himself as if they would create some kind of soundproof barrier.

"I woke up a little bit ago. Remus is gone. His bed's empty, but his trunk is still here."

"What time is it?" Sirius pulled himself to sit up and made room for Peter. He didn't think he'd ever spoken to the boy alone and was grappling with the invasion of his personal space by a friendly acquaintance.

"Four."

Sirius considered the conversation he and James had had yesterday by the boathouse. He was torn between wanting to help, to properly reinvent himself and do the good Gryffendor thing, and his inclination to treat others how he expected to be. That is, having his family secrets left well alone.

"I'm worried about him." Peter's voice was small and he looked more at Sirius' eyebrows than his eyes. "He was gone last month too, and came back hurt. I thought he'd just sprained his ankle or something, but I saw it bandaged the other night." Peter took a shuddering breath and picked at his socks, rocking back and forth a little. "I know you said that it's rude to pry, Sirius, but what if something's not right? He's going somewhere and coming back hurt, and tired."

Peter trailed off and seemed to lose his confidence. He looked down at his own knees and waited for Sirius' contribution, regret building as the seconds grew longer.

"Maybe James is right." Sirius sighed. "Maybe it's better to be direct. But…" Sirius thought of the reverse, Peter and Remus banding together to pry into his home-life. "I'm not brave enough, I suppose."

He considered Peter. He was small and stocky, like James, though where James had a loud confidence, Peter had a quiet, timid hopefulness about him. He supposed Peter was to Remus what James was to him. Someone who had decided to latch on to a quiet and tight-lipped boy and force their unwavering company upon them.

"We're worried too." He tried his best to come off comforting to Peter. "What say we all speak to Remus when he next gets back? We don't have to keep prying on the same subject - but maybe there's something we can do to help anyway?"

"Okay Remus, just like last time, but a little longer. You're a brave lad."

Remus' lips twitched at the compliment. He was perched on the dusty bed, once again surrendering his arm to the wizarding healers, who were testing muggle drugs licensed less than a decade ago on a child werewolf. It was a little ridiculous.

"Midazolam first, okay? Then once the transformation begins, we'll "knock you out" as it were. We'll be here the whole time, so you don't have to worry."

Briggs' expression was soft and fatherly as he looked up at Remus from his seat next to him. The boy watched as the plunger was depressed in small increments over the course of their conversation.

In all honesty, he wasn't worried about the drugs. The trial had gone well and both were surprisingly well tolerated. Other than some odd twitching and residual sleepiness, he'd had no ill effects - certainly nothing worse than an actual transformation. Sure, it had only been over two hours, rather than eight, but he was confident that he would at least wake up.

It was more the fact that they would be in the house with him. After all, wasn't the whole point of the arrangement so that he could stay away from… potential victims? Yes. He was far more concerned that the drugs would fail to sedate his wolf and his worst nightmare would become reality.

He was too scared of speaking his fears into reality to voice it, however, so he simply smiled in acknowledgement of Briggs' attempt at comfort and watched as the syringe was swapped for a line primed with the opaque white liquid that had put him to sleep weeks before.

Remus felt oddly dazed and a little sick. Pomfrey was watching him from the armchair in the corner of the room, glancing his way out of the corner of her eyes while she went through his trial papers with Devon. His eyes felt sticky and his head filled with cotton.

"I don't want to be rude but…" Remus rubbed at his face groggily. "Can I go to sleep?"

Devon laughed from across the room. "Yeah wee man, it's 11.30 and we just sedated you! Don't let us keep you up."

Remus didn't have the presence of mind to register the amusement. He burrowed himself into the dusty sheets and listened to the low murmur of the adults around him.

Hi Benny,

I'm really sorry.

I'll make it up to you at Christmas when I come home for the holidays. I was being a bit selfish and got caught up in my own things. I'm glad we're still friends.

(I can't believe you took Tuney up to the heap!? I won't grass, I promise.)

That's a bit grim, about Billy. I'm sorry we're all moving around. I promise I'll always come home, and that we're still friends.

Petunia wanted to come, but there was no space, so we argued a lot and I couldn't decide on whether to go or not for a long time. It's up in Scotland and is very cool. To be honest, it is a bit like those books. I wonder if I made the right choice? I've made some friends here, but I feel like I'm going to be a stranger by Christmas.

Sev went to the same place, actually. But we're not in the same house, so I don't see him all the time. It's good to have a friend though.

There's some people here that I think you would have fun with. It's a bit of a shame everyone seems to be from all around the country, so you'll probably never meet them. This girl who is in my house called Dorcas is good fun, and I think you'd get on with a boy called Peter, too. He's a bit quiet, but he likes to make people laugh - he reminds me of you!

Sounds like nothing new for Sev's parents. I don't think they're written to him much either. I think he's chuffed to be away from them, honestly.

(If you get Tuney to climb the pit wheel, I'll repay you with the best secret ever).

From Lily

Lily re-used the envelope that her parents had sent her a letter in and enclosed her letter to Benny along with a short update for her family. It was a little frustrating to not be able to just write to him directly, but she could at least trust that Petunia would pass it on.

The Owelry smelled like ammonia and dust. It caught at her throat and made her cough on first entering. She definitely didn't want an owl, if this was what it was going to smell like. She coaxed a school owl down from its high perch and handed it the letter, trying not to think too much about how absurd her life had become. Sending a letter by owl from her magic school to her old primary school friend full of white lies about where she was and what she was doing. Lily couldn't help but entertain the thought that she had made a mistake in coming to Hogwarts. Surely it was unfair to ask her to abandon her life as she knew it at 11?

She wanted, more than anyone, to have someone to share the absurdity with. If only Petunia could have joined her. But now, thanks to her selfish choice, they'd never be the inseparable pair they were as young children. A crack had started to form between them years ago, not at all helped by Severus, or by Petunia's obvious jealousy at her weirdness, but she had always hoped that things would knit together over time.

November afternoon sun lit the castle, casting the courtyards in dark shadow and setting the many windows ablaze. Lily let her mind wander, eyes staring blankly at the horizon. Perhaps she wouldn't come back next year?

"So, why have you planned to reduce the dosage at midnight? Surely the opposite - a werewolf requires much more force to subdue than a child?" Pomfrey was skimming the notes by wandlight, occasionally glancing over her notes to check in on her student - not that there was much for her to do. Remus was held half asleep, half unconscious by a mixture of muggle drugs and plain tiredness.

"Yes, this was a large point of contention." Pomfrey was a little wary of Briggs and Devon's eager attitude. While she respected their willingness to help the afflicted child (and their bedside manner was unusually passable for research based healers) it was a little disconcerting to see how delighted they were to have a willing test subject in an area of research which was so difficult to source guinea pigs for.

"As you know, in terms of magic, it takes a lot of force to subdue a werewolf because they are magically powerful. However, in terms of muggle medicine, everything is based on weight, rather than magical strength. Regardless of how magically powerful a being is, 4.5 st is 4.5 st, if you're a muggle. We're hoping to circumvent this problem by applying muggle science.

A werewolf weighs the same in its human and wolf form, as far as we know. We consulted with a muggle veterinarian and it seems sedation doses are more conservative in large dogs than they are in children. We'd rather err on the side of caution." Briggs silenced himself as the clock tower in Hogsmead could be heard tolling in the far distance.

"At the ready." He added grimly.

Remus twitched on the bed, drawing the attention of the adults in the room. They simultaneously drew their wands. This was the moment of risk. They knew that a magical child reacted similarly to a muggle child to the drug, and in theory, the wolf should be subdued by the same logic. It was the transformation which was the real unknown factor.

"I've never seen a child werewolf," Devon commented. "I suppose if nothing else, at least he won't be awake to experience the change. I've heard it's somewhat uncomfortable."

No one replied. They watched, for the first time in their lives, a werewolf transform. Remus' hands twitched again, and his eyes cracked open, half lidded. Instead of the mossy hazel they had been when he'd fallen asleep, bright, un-human amber stared blankly back.

"Are you sure he's sedated?" Devon's voice was a little high.

Briggs waved his hand in front of Remus' face. The wolf's eyes tracked the shadow sluggishly, but he made no effort to move.

"Yeah. He's subdued, at least."

In the dim wandlight, it was a little nightmarish. The sandy hair on Remus' head seemed to spread like a rash in fast-forward. His face elongated into something unrecognisable, as did his hands. The muggle jumper he wore rippled unnervingly as the body underneath elongated and warped. Before the minute was complete, a gangly, half-dressed wolf lay, passive on the bed before them. In some respects, it was as though the boy had been completely replaced, but upon closer look, the fur colour held some resemblance, and the long limbs, disproportionately large paws and thin face with large ears hinted at the youthfulness that was shared by both forms.

"Lupin?" Pomfrey prompted, leaning forward to regard him reproachfully.

The wolf blinked sluggishly, its tail (trapped in Remus' trouser leg) twitched, as did the slightly floppy ears on its head.

"Wow," breathed Devon, brave enough to inch forward. "I can't believe it was that easy."

Briggs hummed. "Indeed, seems a little too good to be true. The night's not over yet."

"The ideal scenario would be to remove the element of transformation all-together," Briggs leaned back in his chair, one eye on the sleepy wolf, but much more relaxed now that it was clear there was no immediate risk.

"But since that is obviously impossible, the most perfect and potentially possible solution is to allow the lycanthrope to keep their human mind. Naturally, this is preferable for the werewolf themselves - there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of how upsetting it is to lose chunks of time to the wolf - but also legally. Keeping the mind means that the werewolf, the person never loses their humanity. It means that there is a starting point for re-integrating werewolves into wizarding society. If a wizard maintains his sanity - even as a wolf - then essentially you have an unwilling animagus. They can be tried for crimes committed during transformation and if they can be tried, then it's acknowledged that there was a choice. That is the perfect option. It forces wizarding society to acknowledge werewolves as wizards again."

Pomfrey hummed in acknowledgement, considering Briggs over steepled fingers. "I suppose this is part of the reason that the Lupins agreed at all. It must be difficult to consider that their child will grow up to be an outcast from society."

Devon yawned. It was several hours into a long night and he wanted desperately to take a cat nap and rest his arms on the bed. He resisted. Professionalism was still important, even in the unusual setting. "There's a long way to go, but it's people like Lupin that will allow any real progress to be made," he added. "Even this -" he gestured to the now empty boxes that the propofol and midazolam had come from, "Isn't a viable solution, just a starting point. It's just not accessible to most afflicted wizards and isn't simple enough to have a 100% compliance rate. And that's what society would need - in the end."

They lapsed into silence again, watching the wolf. It was still half-asleep, still twitching occasionally, and still quiet. Briggs continued to manually push the maintenance dose diligently. This was the only trouble with wizards using muggle medicine. The lack of access to electrical machinery meant it was very tedious to manage.

It was only perhaps half an hour before the moon would set when the snarling began. Initially a low growl and an increase in the twitching. There was an agitated air to the movements now. Briggs raised his eyebrows and simply pushed a larger bolus.

"You can note that down, Devon. Four hours at approximately 2mg/kg/hr before tolerance developed."

Obediently, the junior healer did as he was instructed, pulling back a little from the bed - just in case.

"Will he wake?"

"Hopefully not. Keep your wand ready."

Propofol and midazolam were both released in the early 70s, I believe. I know there can be some contra-indications of pairing them, but midaz has an interesting profile of uses which I feel like can nicely justify its choice. (Midazolam is known as Versed in the US). They're also both safe for use in children so… Sorry Remus.