"So, it's possible that you'll feel some burning in your blood after taking the potion," Aria said to Remus, consulting her notes. "Professor Snape thinks it's possible you'll run a slight temperature too, but we can't give you a Pain Reliever or a Fever Reducer because we don't know how those would interact with the potion in your system."

Remus nodded, glancing at the potion in the silver goblet. Just behind Aria Snape and Sirius stood pretending to ignore each other. Moonrise was in an hour, and Aria was finally ready to test her lycanthropy cure on someone. Snape had produced an exceedingly long scroll that Remus had read through before signing, a kind of waiver that Snape said was absolutely necessary in case the potion failed and Remus decided to sue her.

She and Remus had rolled their eyes at that and Remus had added that it was standard procedure for guild members to get waivers signed when doing human trials on new potions.

Now they were at some cottage owned by the Black family in the middle of nowhere Wales to give this a try. They had arrived soon after classes had ended, Sirius greeting them at the door with dinner that he claimed to have prepared all on his own. Aria was pretty sure he was lying about that, but Remus had not batted an eyelash. Snape had had to be convinced Sirius wasn't trying to poison him.

"Are you certain this potion won't kill Remus?" Sirius asked.

"I'm certain it won't kill him," Aria stated. "Whether it cures lycanthropy is another matter altogether." She turned back to Remus who patted her hand before taking the goblet and knocking back the potion. His face twisted in a grimace at the taste and he managed to set the goblet down before he was doubling over in pain. Sirius rushed to his side while Snape showed Aria how to cast the monitoring and diagnostic spells over Remus, taking his temperature and heart rate. His temperature spiked up to 101.4 degrees Fahrenheit before stabilizing which Aria thought was really good. She wrote down his temperature and the time. She took note that in the first fifteen minutes after taking the potion his heartrate spiked to 150 beats a minute which remained a constant until the he sagged against Sirius after 30 minutes, the pain that had contorted his face fading into a bone-weary tiredness that Aria recognized from when she had first seen him on the train to Hogwarts her third year.

"Fucking hell!" Remus gasped with a shudder. Aria noted down the time the pain stopped, his temperature which was starting to go back to normal, and his rest heart rate which was slowly going back down to what it was before they had started, a nice 70 beats a minute.

"How are you feeling?" Aria asked as Snape withdrew a vial of blood from Remus' arm.

"I have some aches," Remus told her. "Like I did heavy lifting and now my muscles are tired." Aria took note about what he said. Snape put some blood on a microscope and peered at it. The heavy sigh made Aria's stomach clench and she slid over to his side to also look at the microscope.

"Some of the gene is gone, but not all of it," she fretted.

"It may be we have to adjust the dosage based off weight instead of giving a standard dose," Snape told her. Aria glanced at Remus.

"So, what does that mean?" Sirius asked.

"It means that the dose we just gave Remus is too low," Aria explained. "But giving him a second may make it too high. We will have to see how tonight goes."

"Moonrise is in ten minutes," Snape said. Remus nodded and slipped outside into the dark, Sirius transforming into Padfoot as he followed. Aria and Snape locked the front door and stood at the window, lowering the lights so that it was easier to see into the expansive front yard.

As the full moon rose over the horizon, the light bathed the yard in an eerie white light. Aria was glad to be inside, not just because there was a potential werewolf in the front yard, but because the surrounding area looked more frightening in the moonlight than it did in the inky blackness. They were deep in the wilds of Wales, probably either completely warded against Muggles or in an area inaccessible to Muggles, a hidden valley known only to the Blacks and other magical creatures.

Remus' body jerked and contorted. A cry rose up from his lips. Padfoot began to prance nervously in the yard, going in circles around him. He fell to the ground writhing, hands grabbing at his hair. A scream broke from the man's lips before he suddenly fell still. Padfoot cautiously crept towards Remus who, to Aria's delight, was still in human form.

Suddenly, Remus sprang onto his hands and knees, gnashing his teeth at Padfoot who scrambled back.

"Fuck," Snape muttered.

"What's wrong?" Aria asked, fear making her voice rise in pitch. "What's happened?"

Remus snapped his teeth at Padfoot even as the dog whimpered. Snape pulled his wand and carefully slid the window open. The noise of the wood alerted Remus and his head snapped in their direction. Aria's stomach curdled as she stared into the eyes of a wolf, hungry and wild and very, very dangerous.

"Stupefy!"

Snape's aim was true, even from such a distance. The red light that shot from the man's wand hit Remus' chest and the man fell like a brick. Sirius transformed back into a man and, within seconds, had Remus bound with strong cords.

"What happened?" Aria demanded as she and Snape exited the cottage.

"I . . ." Sirius shook his head, clearly rattled by the experience. Even Aria's heart was having a hard time settling. "His mind still transformed, but his body didn't."

"Do you think it's because there was still some of the gene left?" Aria asked Snape.

"Possibly," Snape replied. "We will have to monitor his blood throughout the rest of the month. If the potion is able to keep the werewolf gene stable the way it is, then we can adjust the dosage for the next month."

"But if the gene returns then we're back to the start," Aria said with a groan.

"Not completely," Snape assured her. "The fact that we know this potion can stop a transformation is beyond what even the Wolfsbane does."

"The Wolfbanes allows him to keep his human mind though," Sirius said. "This one doesn't."

"A minor setback," Snape stated.

"I may have to do a deeper study of the Wolfsbane," Aria said. "I had looked at it when I had first started my research, but had decided that as it dealt with the mind only it was not going to be able to help me with this potion. But perhaps I may have to rethink that strategy." She glanced at Remus who was beginning to stir, growls beginning to build in his chest. Sirius placed a strong Sleep Spell on him and the growls disappeared. Scars littered the man's body. Deep scars crisscrossed his chest and arms, looking like a wild beast had gouged the flesh from him. Around his wrists, ankles, and neck were another type of scar, circular in nature, and very much what Aria thought a burn scar might look like.

"Where'd he get the scars?" she asked, already thinking through what sort of Scar Removal he would need. Why had he not gotten rid of them yet? They were magical!

"They're magical scars, if you're thinking why does he still have them," Sirius explained, summoning the robe Remus had been wearing and carefully placing it over his lover. "Some magical scars can't be removed."

"I assume most of those are from transformations," Aria said, "but I really meant around his wrists and ankles and neck."

Even Snape appeared interested in the answer. Sirius hesitated.

"I don't think he'd want me to be the one to tell you," he finally said. "Life as a werewolf is not easy. And there were twelve years where I couldn't protect him."

Horrible images and possibilities flashed across Aria's mind as Snape led her back to the cottage and Sirius conjured a tent over Remus before transforming back into Padfoot to spend the night making sure Remus never regained consciousness.

"The summer before third year, Snatchers or Hit Wizards or . . . really bad people came to the house and kidnapped Remus," Aria said as Snape made her a cup of tea. "Right before they arrived, he received a package. That's how we found out he was a wizard." She trailed off. "They destroyed the kitchen."

Snape set the tea in front of her.

"It was silver," she remembered. "I thought it looked . . . it looked like a dog collar." Tears pricked her eyes. Someone, who knew that Remus was a werewolf, had sent that collar and in the one metal that hurt werewolves. Just like the scar around his neck.

"Someone collared him!" she cried, sobbing now. "Someone put a fucking dog collar on him! Who . . . who . . ." a few objects in the house began to rattle. Her skin buzzed as it always did whenever her magic built up inside of her. A rage she had never experienced before filled her. Someone had put a collar on Remus like he was some kind of animal! Some kind of beast. He was a person! If she ever got her hands on the person . . .

Warmth on her shoulder pulled her from her rage. She looked up into the dark eyes of her professor. He pushed the tea closer.

"You will drink this tea," he ordered. "Then you will go upstairs to the bed prepared for you and go to sleep. Tomorrow, you will continue your research and you will cure lycanthropy. Understand?"

"I think I could kill whoever hurt Remi like that," Aria admitted.

"Love's like that," Snape agreed. "Use that feeling to fuel your research. Don't commit crimes."

"And if I do, just don't get caught," Aria added, taking her tea and shuffling towards the stairs. Snape rolled his eyes.

In the morning Remus was already at the breakfast table when Aria came down. Sirius and Snape were cooking in silence. The Wizarding Wireless was playing the morning report quietly.

"How're you feeling?" Aria asked, sitting next to Remus.

"I feel much better than I have in a long time," he assured her. "But it was a strange experience, having my mind turn but my body not."

"I'm going to fix that," Aria assured him. Remus picked up his tea to avoid it getting knocked over by Sirius who came to dump several rashers of bacon onto his plate.

"I have no doubt," Remus said with a smile.

Snape came and placed a full English in front of Aria. He and Sirius finally sat at the table too with their food. They ate in silence for several minutes, each in their own head.

"Sirius says you were asking about a few of my scars," Remus broke the silence. Aria paused, a tomato halfway to her mouth.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she murmured. "It just makes me mad that people've hurt you. Couldn't you have . . . I don't know . . . gone to Madam Bones or something?"

"I'm a werewolf," Remus reminded her. "I can't . . . crimes against werewolves don't get prosecuted in this country."

Madam Bones didn't seem like the sort of woman who would let such a violent crime go unpunished. Something must have shown on her face, because Sirius took up the explanation.

"Amelia would absolutely drag someone off to Azkaban," he said. "But legally, werewolves cannot accuse other people of crimes against them."

"What?" Aria whirled around to Snape. Surely, they were joking. Snape nodded, looking like he was not joking.

"So, anyone could just . . . hurt you and you couldn't do anything about it?"

Remus nodded.

"That's fucking insane!" Aria jumped to her feet. "Why're you still here? Why haven't you gone to another country that doesn't treat werewolves like shit?"

"Language!" All three men cried. Aria groaned.

"I haven't left because this is my home," Remus said. "I thought many times about it. But the Muggle world accepted me better, so why leave? I never intended to come back to the wizarding world. But now . . . the people I love are here. I love this place for all its problems. And I want to try and make those problems go away. So, if my suffering is what helps bring about change for others, then let it be so."

Aria flung her arms around Remus, burying her face in his shoulder, uncaring how her tears soaked his shirt. How was this man still so kind and gentle and good? If she were in his shoes, if she had suffered like he had, she was not sure she would be so kind. Even her problems compared nothing to his!

Remus' strong arms wrapped around her.

"Don't cry, Aria," he murmured. Aria sniffed.

"I can't help it," she answered. "It's not fair."

"No, it's not," Remus agreed. "But we can either become bitter or better and I much prefer to be better than those who perpetuate such hatred. Now dry your eyes and eat your breakfast. The cure for lycanthropy is not going to be found on an empty stomach."