The Wolf Emerges by Buckbeak22
Chapter Notes: I was wondering what would happen if Bill was bitten more than once by a werewolf. Either the accumulation of the lycanthropy venom would turn him into a werewolf, or it would vaccinate him. This story deals with the former option.
Fleur Weasley turned over for what seemed like the umpteenth time since she had got into bed. It was only a week until her due date, and there was just no way to stay comfortable. Bill was restless too. The full moon shone in at the window, and he tossed from side to side, occasionally groaning in his sleep. She might as well just get up again Fleur thought crossly as one of Bill’s flailing limbs hit her. She was going to need to pee again soon anyway. Perhaps she would have a better night in the rocking chair.
She hauled herself out of bed with none of her usual grace, and padded off to the bathroom again.
When she got back, Bill was worse, if anything. Fleur was a bit worried. The first time he had been bitten by Fenrir Greyback, it had not changed a lot about him, apart from the fact that he preferred his meat rare. Seven months later he had again met Greyback and again the werewolf, although still man not wolf, managed to bite into his arm. Bill still showed no concrete symptoms but he had become increasingly agitated at the full moon. The third time he was bitten, Greyback had been hiding in the shadows. Bill was battling three Death Eaters, his back to the wall, and Greyback, springing from the shadows, had made an attempt to bite off Bill’s wand hand. As help arrived at that moment, Bill triumphed, slaying the man who by now was barely human, using his badly mangled wand arm, but at a terrible cost to his hand, which he was lucky not to have lost completely. His scars were still mending, and this was the second full moon he had experienced since then: the first he had spent in a semi-coma in St. Mungo’s.
The Healers were fairly sanguine. Since Bill had escaped with no werewolf tendencies the previous two times, they did not expect any problems. A junior Healer, however, took Fleur aside and asked her to be watchful and note any new symptoms: his older and more experienced colleagues disagreed, but he had noted the day Bill was bitten was the day the full moon was expected that night, and he thought that might make a difference. True, Bill had not changed the previous full moon, but he thought that might be because the lycanthropy poison had not yet started to work, owing to the fact that the bite was fairly fresh, only having been sustained that morning. Also, Bill was still in shock. Fleur had thanked the young Healer, as he was so earnest, but she had not really taken him seriously. Healer Thoman had been very sure there would be no side effects.
***************
Fleur tried to shake Bill awake, but he just growled at her, so she sat in the rocker, feeling a little peeved. She was starting, blissfully, to drop off, when Bill’s breathing became erratic, and he sprang up in bed, on all fours, stretching his face to the ceiling. Fleur only just realized what was happening, and she lumbered out of the chair as quickly as she could, grabbing her wand and making for the door. She slammed it behind her, disbelieving, listening to the sounds that meant her husband was transforming…
Fleur knew there was no way to escape. She had to do something, and fast. Bill would burst out of the door easily, and she couldn’t run in her state “ the pregnancy had been a hard one. She hadn’t been one of the Tri-Wizard champions for nothing, however. She pointed her wand at the empty keyhole in the door, and quickly whispered the words for Devil’s Snare. A vine shot out of her wand, curling through the keyhole and under the door. Of course, this was not real Devil’s Snare, and would only last as long as she needed it, but it should work the same way. She held her breath, feeling the sweat prickle her neck, hoping it would be enough.
The wolf had not fully transformed yet, but she heard when it did. There was a nasty silence, and then he howled. Fleur backed away from the door, breathing fast and holding her wand ready with a Stunning spell.
The wolf was not rational, obviously. She could hear it tearing up their room, and then turn to the door. She trembled, hoping the Devil’s Snare would start to work soon or the door wouldn’t last. The door shuddered, and then held. She could hear the wolf snarl. There was a vicious unseen struggle, and then a gasping for breath. The Devil’s Snare must be too tight! It would strangle her husband! Without a thought for herself, Fleur thrust open the door, and sent a Stunning spell straight at the wolf. It collapsed, covered in vines. Fleur did an Impedimenta charm on the Devil’s Snare. It would stop it getting tighter and completely cutting off the wolf’s circulation. She then lit her wand, curious to see what the wolf would look like.
Its yellow eyes were open, and savage. There was no sign of her husband behind them. The wolf was hideous. It looked a little like an unfinished child’s drawing. The parts that were not yet covered in thick black hair were sallow, and did not look at all like the handsome scarred man who was her very beloved husband. As Fleur watched, the wolf lunged, his snarling jaws just missing her as she leapt back, startled. She had not thought the wolf would be able to either recover from the stunning spell or resist the Devil’s Snare to that extent. She sent another Stunner, and again the creature collapsed. All through the long night, Fleur kept watch over her husband, exhausted, but determined he should come to no real harm. The Devil’s Snare worked well for her, and she now knew how to judge when the wolf was coming out of the spell, and needed to be Stunned again.
With the dawning light, came the change. It looked extremely painful, and Fleur felt helpless, not able to do anything but watch, until Bill lay, naked, and covered in Devil’s Snare, which was already starting to shrivel up and die. His wrists and ankles were covered in deep bruises, and a few cuts, where he had struggled against his bonds. His neck was also torn and bruised. Fleur herself felt bone weary and tearful, tired beyond belief.
As Bill came to himself, he moaned, and Fleur, knowing he was safe now, ran over, and knelt down beside him, pulling his head on to the little lap she had left, murmuring his name again and again, stroking his hair back. For a moment Bill looked up at her, his eyes unfocussed, and then she saw the startled recognition. He sat up with an exclamation, taking in the half torn up bed, the shattered dresser, and the shrinking, blackening Devil’s Snare. He pulled back in horror to look at his pregnant wife.
“It happened.”
Fleur nodded, unable to speak. She knew her Bill.
“The baby? You? Did I ““
“You sink I would allow you to hurt your baby, or your wife?” Fleur looked at him with reproach. “”Eet was not a very restful night, but we slept in the rocking chair. You, I had to Stun, so now I think we dress your wounds and then go to the guest room, and both get some sleep, no?” She reached for the dressing gown she had not felt safe enough to attempt earlier, and put it on, grateful for the warmth. Fatigue had made her cold.
Bill took her hands. “Fleur… I am not safe any more. Not if we have a child! I can’t have a child like this.”
Fleur, who had half-expected this, drew herself up to her full height. “And ‘oo says zis? I am nine monts’ pregnant. I can ‘ardly stop now. And you will be ze best father.” She got up clumsily, ignoring his half formed protests and led the way downstairs, to their lovely kitchen, and looked around without any sense of loss. “We will immediately sell zis ‘ouse, which is much to big, enfin! And we will buy a smaller house with a big cellar that we can put bars on, and locks. Once a month -voila! Eet es not a problem.”
The look on Bill’s face made her heart ache. “Fleur “ it isn’t possible! You love this house. It was the one you chose. And I am not fit to be a father now. What if something happened?”
Fleur jerked open the medicine cabinet, and brought out some potions and a small book of spells. She shrugged. “What eef? You will do nozzing. Locked up in a cage, what could you do?”
She held his head up and started dabbing potion from a small blue bottle onto the livid lines around his neck in a no nonsense kind of fashion.
Bill, his heart breaking, held her hands still. “Fleur, listen to me “ I can’t support a family! You may not be able to stay at home with the children as we planned. I will lose my job! I will find it difficult to -“
Fleur, panicking now, not knowing how to cope, and definitely not wishing to listen, twisted out of his grasp. “No, it is you who will listen! You are a “ a “ a “,“ her English gave out. “Imbecile! Zere is nozzing zat ‘as changed. Just once a month you will ‘ave to be locked in a cage. We weel live some’ere else, where zere is a lot of country around, and nobody can hear. I will work for both of us.”
“Fleur, Darling!” Bill held out his hands to her. “What if one day the cage breaks? What if I get out? What if one of the children unlocks the cage?”
Fleur backed, “Zat will not ‘appen! You sink I would let the children see you like zat? You sink I am so terrible to let my children play wiz a werewolf? You are most stupid Englishman, and I go to get Remus. ‘E will talk to you, and make you see.”
In tears now, partly from fright at Bill’s reasoning and partly from exhaustion, she stalked with a waddle to the Floo as Bill moaned, and put his head in his hands.
She emerged in the Lupins' kitchen. Tonks was sitting on the kitchen table, with Lupin in a chair in front of her. He had on trousers, but was naked above them, and she was doctoring a large claw mark on his cheek. Tonks was in a bright purple extra large T-shirt that clashed horribly with her bright hair, half of which was orange this morning. Her rather beautiful feet with their brightly colored toenails were planted squarely on Lupin’s thighs, and she had her wand in between her teeth.
Fleur was speaking even before she got out of the Floo, coughing a little because of the smoke. “You must go to ‘im, Remus, and make ‘im see. ‘E will not listen to me, but to you he will listen because you are also a werewolf, so you must immediately go to ‘im. But immediately, and make ‘im see ze sense.”
Tears streamed down her face, only serving, in that sly Veela way, to enhance her incredible beauty. Her hand movements were impassioned.
Both the Lupins looked around, startled. Fleur noticed the claw mark on Remus’s cheek. “See? You do not eat your wife! Bill says ‘e cannot have a baby because ‘e is a werewolf!” Here she noticed Tonks, whom she had been too upset to see before, and she blinked, but her surprise was momentary and did not divert her. She turned to Remus again. “He is being so stupid, and does not see! You have to come and talk to him, or ‘e will be gone, and my poor baby will have no father.” She wrung her hands.
Tonks raised a brow, and took her wand out of her mouth. “Sorry Lupe. Looks like you’d better go check on what is going on. If she has been carrying on like that, you may need to stop the poor bloke from hanging himself.” She waved her wand over the cut cheek and bent forward and kissed Lupin affectionately. He got up, wincing a little.
Tonks jumped down from the table. “Here, Fleur. Let Remus go and see what is up, and you sit down and have a nice cuppa. Looks like you could do with one.” She busied herself with the teapot.
As Lupin disappeared into the fireplace, Fleur took the mug that was offered with a moue of disgust. “Ze Eenglish, nevaire can zey drink tea properly. ‘Zis mug is an offence. One should have porcelain, but beautiful porcelain.” She wiped her eyes impatiently with the back of her hand, not noticing Tonk’s rolled eyes. Tonks did not deal well with Fleur, and found it a strain to be in the same room with her. On the other hand, she was a warm-hearted girl, and Fleur was obviously agitated, besides being very heavily pregnant.
“What happened?” she asked, sitting back on the table with another steaming offensive mug. “Bill turned? I thought he was alright?”
Fleur shuddered. “Last night. ‘E turned, and it was of a ‘orribleness. Ze wolf, it is not attractive, no? And zen he says he cannot be a father. Cannot be? And I am nearly ‘aving my baby ‘ere in ze kitchen?” She wiped her eyes again.
Tonks grimaced. “Let’s hope not.” She put a hand on Fleur’s shoulder. “It must have been a great shock to Bill. He won’t be level headed for a while. Remember it is the first time it has happened to him.”
Fleur choked on her drink. “Zis is terrible. I cannot drink it. Do you ‘ave some water?”
Tonks bit her lip hard and went to the fridge to pull out a bottle of mineral water. Something told her that Fleur wouldn’t be impressed by tap water. She planked it down by Fleur who looked at it, uncomprehending. Tonks sighed heavily and went to fetch a glass, wiping it surreptitiously on her sleeve before handing it over. Fleur still looked forlorn.
“Et did not ‘appen to Bill only,” she complained, pouring out her water. “I ‘ad no sleep “ but none! And now ‘e says ‘e does not want ‘is baby, who has done nozzing.” Her face contorted, and she put a hand to her side. A second later fluid erupted and flowed from her chair over the kitchen floor. Tonks, (who had rolled her eyes again at Fleur’s facial contortions, thinking them more drama) yelped.
“Oh magic! You are having the baby!” Panicked, she tore a towel from the towel rack to throw on the puddle of amniotic fluid and tipped the cutlery in the drainer onto the floor. “Someone get somebody! Oh magic, Remus is at your house. What are we to do?” As she knocked against the table, Fleur’s discarded cup of tea joined the amniotic fluid on the floor.
“’Eet would ‘elp if you could fetch Mrs. Weasley per’aps?” suggested Fleur a little acidly, as Tonks waved the drenched tea towel, spattering them both and the kitchen with drops of liquid.
“But you… I mean the baby…?” stammered Tonks, who would have been far more at home facing a few Death Eaters.
“Eet will take a long time,” Fleur assured her with the air of a martyr who had been through childbirth many times. “Babies are not quick, no? Mrs. Weasley will know more zan you, and she can ‘elp me go to ze ‘ospital. She will like zat as Bill is her oldest son,” she added in a satisfied tone.
It was little more than a few minutes when Tonks reappeared through the Floo with Mrs. Weasley and Ginny in tow, but Fleur was already on her hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor. Mrs. Weasley stopped her firmly.
“Stand up Fleur, and for goodness sake use your common sense. Ginny and Tonks are quite capable of clearing up this mess between them. We need to get you to the doctor. Where is Bill?” Fleur was recalled to a sense of her grievances.
“Bill will not like that I am ‘aving the baby,” she announced darkly. “Remus is wiz ‘im and will make ‘im see ze sense, but maybe et es too late and ‘e will not see when ‘is son is born.” She burst into tears.
Mrs. Weasley looked at Tonks, bewildered. Tonks, who had lost all coherent thought when Fleur had gone into labour had completely forgotten about Bill. She blushed.
“He transformed last night,” Tonks informed her. “Apparently said he wasn’t fit to be a father. Fleur came over for Remus and promptly started to give birth in my kitchen. Everything else went out of my head.”
Mrs. Weasley was white. “Stress,” she murmured. She put an arm around Fleur. “Time to show some courage, love. You will need to be strong for your husband and your baby now.”
Fleur wept. “Bill does not want me.” Mrs. Weasley nodded to Ginny.
“Ginny, pop over to Bill’s and get Fleur’s overnight case, and tell Bill to come to hospital. We’ll see you there.” To Fleur she was gentler.
“Come now, all this crying is not good for my grandchild.”
*****
Ginny stepped into Bill’s kitchen. Bill, who had at least put on some jeans, had his head down and Remus had a hand on his shoulder talking urgently to him. Ginny heard part of Bill’s response. “Not good enough…leave…” and decided to interrupt the pity party. Sure, he was a werewolf, and she did feel for him, but he had a wife in labor who needed him.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she called crisply. “Bill, Fleur is having the baby, and she is in floods of tears because she thinks you don’t want her or the baby any more. And I have to take her overnight bag to the hospital. So get a shirt on and hurry up. We have to meet her and Mum there.”
Werewolves vanished from Bill’s brain. He stood looking at his sister in horror. “Fleur? Baby? Now?” At Ginny’s nod, he gave a howl strongly reminiscent of the wolf he had been and rushed up the stairs a few at a time, in spite of his weariness. For a second he baulked at the mess in the bedroom, but finding a shirt was now uppermost in his mind. Ginny and Remus exchanged a smile. Remus nodded at her.
“Bill will need to talk later. Let him know any time will be fine with me. Keep us posted about the baby! I had better get back to Tonks.”
Ginny grinned at him. “She was pretty shaken by Fleur exploding in her kitchen!” She saw Lupin into the fireplace, and then followed Bill.
She was aghast by the ruins of what had once been a rather nice master bedroom. She saw the curled and dried Devil’s Snare, the marks of claws and fangs in the walls and wooden door, the broken bed and she vowed never to underrate her new sister-in-law ever again. She helped Bill find a respectable shirt from the heaps of torn and mangled clothing lying amongst the splinters of what had been Fleur’s antique chest of drawers.
As they left the bedroom, Bill looked back at it, his face haunted. “Don’t worry,” Ginny whispered, torn inside by the look of devastation on his face, “Mum and I will have everything to rights by the time she comes home.” She knew that was not really what was worrying Bill, but it seemed the right thing to say. He did look a little relieved.
******************
The hospital was brightly lit and the room easy to find. Fleur lay back in the bed in a faded hospital gown that somehow managed to look like a catwalk creation. She was holding Mrs. Weasley’s hand, but the glowing look on her face when she saw Bill showed just how much she really had worried. His own taut face relaxed and he ran over to hug her. She held him tight.
“We will move to anozzer house. A smaller one. Eef you lose your job I can work, and your muzzer will look after the keeds. You can work from ‘ome.”
“Anything, Darling.” Bill held her tighter, his face buried in her shoulder. Mrs. Weasley and Ginny looked at each other, and Ginny saw tears in her mother’s eyes. Fleur could be irritating and even annoying on the surface, but Bill had chosen well.
“Et weel be no different. We weel still be ‘appy.”
“Of course, Darling.” Bill’s voice broke, and Ginny thought that maybe he was near tears himself.
“Oh, Bill, et ‘urts so much to ‘ave a baby!”
Young Lyall* Weasley made his way into the world five hours later, thinking only of filling his stomach, and completely unaware that the wolf had finally chosen the name his parents had been arguing about for the last nine months.
Bill and Fleur moved closer to his mother, and Fleur never, by look or by word gave Bill to understand that she regretted their reduced lifestyle and fortified cellar. She even grew fond of chickens. Four more attractive redheaded children joined Lyall. In time, Fleur even patented her new clinging Devil’s Snare for werewolves, which improved their lifestyle considerably by restraining their claws and jaws so that they could not damage themselves and softened the change for many an incarcerated werewolf during the full moon. And Bill and Fleur Weasley were happy.
* Lyall means "wolf"