There were shapes… Yes, it was shape-shifting. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope. Spinning polygons were quickly replaced with circles and swirls. Colours blasted through my mind. Patterns that made me dizzy danced past my eyes. The shifting got faster and faster, and the colours grew brighter and brighter, until everything disappeared…

A few brief moments later, I awoke. Groggily, I realized two things: I was extremely sore with no clue why, and I was also a bit chilly. I opened my eyes to see where my sheets had gone, but something more urgent distracted me: I wasn’t in my own bed.

Confused and panicked, I stared at an unfamiliar bed surrounded by vaguely familiar curtains. This was not my bed at Hogwarts, and this was not my bed at home. Eleven seconds of bewilderment later, I realized where I was. This was St. Mungo’s. I’d been here before, visiting my aunt when she’d been sick, and I remembered the revolting orange ward curtains around the beds. A few seconds after that, something hit me, and I thought, Why on earth am I in St. Mungo’s?

This was not good, but at least I now understood the pain. I was in the hospital.

Why was I in St. Mungo’s?

That was the moment when it all came back to me: I remembered walking along the streets of my hometown, relishing being back home from Hogwarts after You-Know-Who’s defeat. Suddenly, I had seen a quick flash of something greyish and hairy. All I remembered next was pain. Sore, I closed my eyes, wondering what had happened to me. My eyes snapped open again. What had happened to me? I examined my body, and then almost vomited up whatever I had eaten last.

I was covered with half-healed, nasty-looking cuts and bandages. My skin would be permanently scarred! Oh, Merlin! The pain was immediately was cranked up a few big notches. I still didn’t know what had happened to me!

Must have been some dangerous hex that gives you cuts that are hard to heal, even with magic, I thought to myself, but not believing it completely. Who would have done it? Why would anyone randomly hex me? What was that grey thing? Would magic be this messy?

I slowly pulled the ugly curtains back to reveal a small, cramped, filthy ward. There was a single window and few portraits. Only a few beds were occupied and several people bustled about. I had to get someone’s attention. “Healer?� I asked out loud.

A man wearing glasses looked up. “Ah, dear, you’re awake, good... I’m Healer Smethwyck, Healer-in-Charge of the ‘Dangerous’ Dai Llewellyn Ward for bites and stings. Do you remember what happened?�

I shook my aching head. Bites and stings? Why was I here? “No, sir, not really.�

“Oh, no,� he said slowly, drawing in his breath. “Miss Vane… I’m afraid... well… you’ve been attacked by a werewolf.�

A werewolf?

What? That’s…

Oh. My. Godric.

Ten seconds ringing silence followed his statement. Everyone in the tiny ward paused to watch my reaction.

This was BAD. This was HORRIBLE. This was… a large amount of obscene adjectives I should never say… but I did. Loudly. Even more people turned to stare, though there were only about eight people in the whole ward. Despite this, it suddenly seemed full of obnoxious jerks that had nothing better to do in a hospital ward.

Usually, when people get news such as this, their reaction goes like this: Shock, disbelief, more shock, distress, curiosity, anger, confusion, numbness, desperation, and acceptance. I couldn’t accept it, EVER, but I went through the other stages anyway.

“A werewolf?� I exclaimed (the first shock). “That can’t be!� (Disbelief.)

Healer Smethwyck grimaced. “I’m sorry, dear, it’s true. While you were out taking a walk, a werewolf…attacked you.� I looked down at myself again, in the second state of shock.

“How did it happen? Who did it?� I asked, as my head spun. (This would be curiosity.)

“We’re not sure, but next month at full moon…� The Healer grimaced again, and trailed off.

I was distressed for about thirty seconds, but then, my head began to spin.

No, I thought, hysterically,I cannot be a werewolf! I had an almost perfect life! This’ll ruin everything! How could this happen to me, I was always a good person! Beneath my (slightly flawed) exterior was a clever, brave person! (I’m a Gryffindor!) I’ve never done anything bad to anyone unless it was for a good cause! HOW? (At this point there was the anger and confusion, obviously.)

“Romilda, sweetheart, please, your parents and sister are here to see you. Would you like them here, or would you rather be alone?�

“If they don’t mind, I’d like to be alone,� I replied, still in shock.

---

I used up the next couple of days waiting for the “acceptance� part, not eating or talking much, though with an occasional tantrum. I had visitors, but they couldn’t cheer me easily. First, it was my family.

“Oh, Romildy, honey, how are you?� my mum cried as soon as she entered the room.

“How do you think I’ve been?� I asked bitterly.

My dad started his rambling. “Honey pie, don’t worry, everything will be fine, blah, blah, don’t worry, muffin, blah, blah, blah…�

A few of my friends came in, too. Charlotte tried to comfort me as much as a best friend could, which in my case wasn’t much. My life had just spiraled down the loo and I couldn’t have been less prepared.

The next few days after that I did a variety of things: reading newspapers (no recent news except Harry Potter joining the Auror Office—I wonder why that love potion never worked?); eating Chocolate Frogs (I got a card with Lionel Loead—he is rumored to be the wizard who created Invisibility Cloaks); making towers out of Exploding Snap cards (I stopped when they exploded and set the curtains on fire—the curtains turned a very gloomy purple, though I have no clue why); and playing wizard’s chess against myself (Charlotte had bought me a set where you can play against yourself while it seems that another person is playing the other side). My cuts were almost healed now, and I would be out of the hospital in four days. I got my O.W.L . results and I passed everything pretty well. I was still deeply depressed, though.

Spending time in St. Mungo’s is anything but fun for a person like me, and now that I was a werewolf (no, don’t think about that!!), I was about as much fun to be with as a starving vampire in an empty room.

My head would randomly spin at times with thoughts like: I can’t believe I’m a werewolf! What am I going to do? There’s absolutely no chance of having a boyfriend, getting married, getting a job, having a life, being successful, going back to Hogwarts, etc., etc.

I began to change while at the hospital too. All of the sudden, I started to sleep with my mouth open, I was more tired than usual, my skin had become paler, and my middle fingers were a tad longer than I’d remembered.

Again, there was the looming subject of my fate. It had turned around in a single stroll outside. Why hadn’t I taken a stroll the first night after I had gotten home, when there wasn’t a full moon? Why hadn’t I paid attention?

I was deeply immersed in self-pity. Well, at least I had an excuse. The word werewolf echoed in my head constantly, driving me insane. It was a complicated emotion, as if someone had died. I was extremely sad, and a feeling of hopelessness had descended upon me. I couldn’t stand it.

People couldn’t stand me, either. Since I was bored, depressed, really hungry (the food was horrible… Today, I think my meatloaf actually moved), and sore, I was quite the bundle of joy. One brave patient actually tried talking to me, about how he lost his whole left side, but I rudely fell asleep.

In my ward, there was also an eight-year-old girl who had been stung by something that made her nose, ear, and elbow the size of small cauldrons, and an old woman who had her arm bitten rather badly by an illegal breeding – er, experiment. Another patient arrived a week later, moving into the bed next to mine. His name was Geoffrey, and he had lost all of his limbs but his left arm.

The Healers were quite annoying, saying that being a werewolf isn’t that bad, it doesn’t hurt much, and I’ll have a normal life while harping on about the Wolves Bone Potion or something like that…

Make it stop! was the only thought in my head. The whole experience was something I wanted to forget.

---

On my third-to-last day at the hospital, I noticed something funny. It was a Friday, so all the sheets were being changed. I waited in a chair, watching, bored as usual. The Trainee Healer had lifted up my mattress to tuck the corner of the sheet under the mattress. I saw, very briefly, something carved into the wood of the bedpost, beneath the mattress. It was writing that had been carved into wood with a wand. I couldn’t read it, but I was immediately interested. What could it be? Who carves messages into a hospital bed? And why? I grew very curious as to what it could say. It was very random… and quite intriguing.

I didn’t want to look at it with everyone watching, so I decided to wait until everyone was asleep. I spent the rest of the day wondering what in Godric’s name it could say. For once, I wasn’t thinking about the werewolf bite. I was determined to find out what it said.

Finally, night fell. There were still employees walking around, checking the patients, so I had to be careful. I pretended to be asleep until someone checked on us. As soon as they were gone, I immediately got to work. As quietly as I could, I slipped out of bed and grabbed my wand.

“Lumos,� I whispered. Light.

I crept up to the end of the bed, crouched down so the mattress was at eye level, and lifted it so I could see the words that were carefully carved there. It read:

�If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.� –E. D.

A poem. It was a poem. My heart sank slightly. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t poetry. I read it again. It was a nice poem, I guess, but I was still disappointed.

I crawled back into the bed and tried to go to sleep, but something was bugging me. Several things, actually. Who was E. D.? Why did they engrave that poem there? What did the poem mean? Why was it there, in a hospital bed, of all places?

When I finally fell asleep, I had a peculiar and rather disturbing dream.

I was alone, and it was almost pitch-black. I couldn’t tell whether I was outside or inside. There was a hard metal chair a few feet away. Somehow, I was pulled towards it. So, I sat. It didn’t seem like a big deal.

A dark screen appeared in front of me. I recognized it immediately: It was a television, a type of box that Muggles used for entertainment. They watched other Muggles on it. We had learned about them in Muggle Studies at the end of third year.

Suddenly, I was watching myself during my old life at Hogwarts, probably three months back. It was a normal week. The television followed me through the day. It was odd, watching myself laughing at Olivia Nicholson’s haircut. I saw me passing notes in History of Magic complaining about how horrible my life was. Then, during Transfiguration, I told Patricia Smith that juicy rumor that was going around about Cho Chang and Michael Corner.

The scene on the screen changed. I was walking down a familiar street during a full moon… Terrified, I watched myself be attacked, and then the screen went blank.

It was dark again.

---

The next day I did some serious thinking. The bite, the poem, the dream — I didn’t know what to think anymore. What is a girl to do after she’s been bitten by a werewolf, locked up in a hospital, confused by mysterious poetry, and scared by a dream like… that?

I couldn’t stop thinking about that poem. What did it say again? I shall not live in vain.

“Excuse me, but are you feeling okay?�

It was Geoffrey, who was one of the only patients brave enough to speak to me. I usually tuned him out, because I was always too occupied with my own problems.

Lying through my teeth, I said, “Yes, I’m fine. Why do you ask?�

“I was awake last night. You were screaming in your sleep.�

Oh…

“Is there something you need to talk about?�

I knew that was a strange, Muggle-psychologist-like question, but somehow, I found myself telling him everything: how I could not be a werewolf, how I’d been wallowing in self-pity, and how I’d found the strange poem on the bedpost. I told him about how I wasn’t sure if I could take it all. I had finally cracked.

When I finished talking, Geoffrey was silent. For a long moment, I wondered if I seemed like a crazy person.

“Well, Romilda, I can see you have a lot on your plate.�

Understatement of the year. I sighed. He smiled this strange little grin, and said, “How are you going to handle this?�

Another good question. Rudely, I replied, “Does it seem like I know what to do?�

Geoffrey was a strange man. Honest. Kind, also. In some way, what he said next explained what was obvious. To everyone but me.

�Romilda, think about that poem you found. The poet wanted people to live for the good of others, not for themselves. Why do you think it was written on a hospital bedpost?� He paused. �Someone wanted to remind someone like you that though you’re a werewolf now, you can’t act the way you do. You can’t live as if you are the only one on Earth.�

As his words sank in, I realized how true they were. I remembered my nightmare. I noticed that the man lying next to me would never walk or use his right hand again. I saw that that would be worse than transforming once a month into a wolf.

I had never been nice to the people who were nice to me. I never complimented them. I just ignored them. I had gossiped about them, and I had manipulated them. I had hurt them.

I saw the truth: I was a bitch.

“You’re right,� I told him. He was absolutely right. “But, Geoffrey, even if I become a better person, what can I do? I don’t know any other teenage werewolves.�

He smiled again. It was an odd smile. “Well, dear, how you live is up to you.�

---

I spent the next day thinking. How could I stop being Romilda Vane, the mean and shallow girl, and handle being a werewolf at the very same time? Everything just seemed impossible.

Geoffrey was mysteriously silent.

The Healer-in-Training interrupted my thoughts. “Romilda, how are you feeling?�

I sighed and tried to be polite. “Okay, I guess. I didn’t sleep much last night. Or the night before.�

He frowned. “Why not?�

“I was just… thinking.�

He made a sympathetic noise. “Anyway, I thought you might want to read this book about the Wolfsbane Potion. You like potions, right? Well, I think that if you understood the potion more, you might be open to using it and continuing on with your life.�

He looked like he expected me to bite his head off, like the last time he shoved something in my face. Well, I was about to, but this time I actually listened to what he said. That was… nice of him.

“Thank you,� I said. I took the book and started to read when he left.

It was an interesting book. The theory was complicated, but I figured it out without too much difficulty. Basically, the chemical changes that affect a werewolf’s mind during a transformation are altered with the use of the potion, but there is still no way to stop every single change in the DNA. Some things can’t be fixed, because the alterations of the mental changes completely cancel out any kind of removal of physical change. In short, though you fix the mind, you can’t fix the body. I spent all day reading, and finished it around dinnertime.

After that, I did some more thinking: What if there was a better Wolfsbane potion? Werewolves wouldn’t have to suffer pain or discrimination anymore. I could live a normal life, back to the way it was.

The way it was.

Suddenly, I had an idea. A strange one, but one that suddenly solved… everything.

If I tried to create my own version of the Wolfsbane Potion, I could help many people. I wouldn’t be “living in vain� anymore. I wouldn’t have to suffer through the transformations. Neither would dozens of werewolves across the country, or even across the world! I would stop having nightmares. I would help someone, instead of hurting them. I could learn to be someone that people actually liked.

I left the hospital the next day, but apologized to everyone first. The next month, I did some extensive research on “E.D.� and potion making.

“E.D.� was easier. After a bit of looking, I learned about Emily Dickinson. She tended to stay inside of her house in the United States, so I don’t think she was the one who had carved the message on the bed frame. She lived 150 years ago, too.

She had written hundreds of poems. I read a few more…

The other research, on potion making, helped me a bit. If there was a way to stop every change, or almost every change, I could do it. After the research, I had a hunch.

---

I figured it out three years later, a year after I graduated from Hogwarts. I’ll spare you the details of all the deoxyribonucleic acid studying and such. It was called the Potion of Adolpha. Adolpha was the female form of a word that mean “noble wolf� in Latin. Slightly ironic, I know, but I wanted something werewolves like me could relate to.

Anyways, Adolpha canceled out every symptom except the wolf’s eyesight (when taken monthly). I tried many times to fix this, but eventually I gave up. So, one night a month, werewolves would have different eyesight. I started enjoying it after awhile. It was nice to see things from a different perspective. After all, seeing everything from only your point of view could be damaging.

Sometimes I did not use my potion. I was never sure why, but sometimes it seemed… unnecessary. I felt I needed to be reminded of how I’d come so far and worked so hard. I didn’t want to be who I used to be again.

I think I finally became a nice person. The painful transformations I’d had before the potion reminded me that nothing was ever easy.

Now, I’m a great fan of Emily Dickinson, who also helped through some tough times. I am a successful, independent woman who happens to have once been a Lycanthrope, but who has found a cure for that very disease. Yes, it was hard. But it was worth it. My life could never be greater, and I am thankful for that.