Waiting rooms were all the same, and the ones at St. Mungo’s were no different. There must have been a hundred werewolves waiting patiently for the vial of potion that would cure them, clutching slips of paper with their numbers on them. It was dizzying to think that there were so many people out there who went through what Ted did every full moon. It made him feel a lot less significant, that was for certain. Many had to have been from foreign countries eager to get the antidote before it was available in their own local hospitals, and Ted could see the nervous anticipation on all of the faces around him.
Quite a few of those faces were maimed and mutilated, some missing eyes or teeth or noses or large chunks of flesh. Most were gaunt and hollowed, and all bore the distinctive smell that only fellow werewolves could recognize.
Ted, who had turned seventeen not long before, had gained a wolf’s sharp sense of smell, restlessness, and keen reflexes, but not much else. He couldn’t stand cooked meat anymore, and he felt ill whenever silver was around, but his mind was no different than it had ever been. Wolfsbane and Occlumency were keeping him sane and keeping him human, and soon he wouldn’t even need them anymore. Surveying the crowd around him, he tried to imagine how they could manage at all without using Occlumency against themselves.
Some of the people in the room wore the defeated, hopeless expressions of self-loathing that signified them as werewolves who had turned their anger against themselves. Ted wondered what their stories were, remembering how he’d lost all faith in himself after killing Balthazar. If it wasn’t for Jordan, he might have still been that way. Others were obviously feral, like Balthazar, blood crusted on their faces and fingernails and their robes frayed and decrepit. They looked out of place in a waiting room, twitching and growling to themselves and smelling incredibly bad. It had never once struck Ted’s mind that the feral werewolves who had embraced their conditions and turned against humanity would want to be cured as well. Maybe even they knew deep down that what they’d been doing was wrong. The idea made Ted feel better somehow, knowing that they were only human after all.
But a surprising number of people in the room just looked ordinary, people who would blend into the background anywhere. There were old and young werewolves, men and women, shabby and well-dressed, werewolves of every race and ethnicity.
“There are so many people here,” said Ivy, voicing exactly what Ted had been thinking. She’d come along for moral support and general company, and Ted was glad. He knew the waiting room would have been completely unbearable without her to talk to.
Ted nodded. “We’re probably going to be here a few hours at least. I wonder how Dad’s doing.” His father’s number had been called along with four others just a few minutes before, and it was a truly bizarre thought to imagine Remus Lupin cured. He’d been a werewolf as long as Ted had known him, as long as anyone still alive had known him, and soon he wouldn’t be anymore. Even weirder was the idea of Ted still a werewolf and his father not, however briefly.
He tried to imagine lying in his bed in the Gryffindor dormitory while moonlight illuminated the patterns on his quilt, or sitting at home eating dinner with his parents, carrying on a perfectly normal conversation while the full moon hung harmlessly in the sky. It was impossible.
The door opened, and Ted looked up. He got a pleasantly warm feeling inside every time he saw an ex-werewolf proudly step through that door, cured and confident and incandescently happy. This time, he saw a rather handsome middle-aged man with long, greying red hair and a rugged face, holding hands with his beautiful blonde wife. Accompanying them were two teenaged girls, one strikingly lovely with short reddish-gold hair, and the other small and bony-looking with dark, curly hair.
It took Ted a minute before he realized who he was seeing. The man was Bill Weasley, unrecognizable without all of the disfiguring scars that had previously criss-crossed his entire face. Werewolf bites never healed, but apparently, the potion fixed that, too. Ted touched his mangled forehead, trying to envision it smooth and unmarred. It was amazing what one potion could do.
The girls were Bill’s daughter Marina and her friend Arden DuBois, chattering amiably in French. But Arden, once so shy and unsure of herself, was vibrant and full of life, her dark blue eyes alight with happiness. The second she saw Ted, she cried, “Theo!”
“Arden! It’s great to see you again!” exclaimed Ted, hugging her. “How are you?”
“Fantastic!” she replied in her delicate French accent. “I cannot believe that… that it’s all over.”
Ivy smiled and gave her a hug as well. “You look great,” she said. “Do you feel any different?”
“You have no idea,” sighed Arden. “Theo, you are seventeen as well?”
Ted nodded sympathetically. “Did you have a hard time, too?” he asked, grinning. It was strange how easy it was to joke about embarrassing wolfish moments, knowing that neither of them would never have another one.
“Are you kidding?” exclaimed Marina. “She was a total… female wolf, if you get my drift. It was kind of cool, actually.”
Arden rolled her eyes, but she didn’t look irritated. She was too giddy. “I hope I will see you again soon, Theo,” she said. “I will be in England all summer.”
“Let’s all do something fun together,” suggested Ted. “Next full moon. Wow, this is so weird.”
“Yes, but I love it,” sighed Arden, hugging Ted again before she and Marina’s family left the hospital and walked out into the bright summer sunshine. Ted shook his head in awe, still completely fascinated that the girl he’d spent so many transformations with the year before was suddenly no more a werewolf than Ivy.
“It’s nice to see her so happy, isn’t it?” said Ivy.
“Yeah, really,” replied Ted, remembering how completely self-conscious Arden had been not too long before. He also remembered how Ivy had once thought that Arden and Ted were dating, how upset she’d been. But apparently, she had no hard feelings against Arden anymore, and that was one of the things Ted liked so much about Ivy.
Just then, two more people burst through the door, and Ted jumped to his feet again. It was his parents, looking completely transformed with happiness. It was a nice change, seeing Remus Lupin transformed due to something other than the presence of a full moon.
“Ted”I did it, I took the potion!” his father shouted, stating the obvious. “I’m completely cured!” Ted laughed and went in for another hug. If he’d been Jordan, he’d have been very annoyed indeed what with all of this hugging, but since he was Ted, he was happy. Ted had never heard his father sound so carefree before in his entire life” in fact, he’d never even heard him raise his voice before.
“Did you know that I’ve never thought of myself as a man?” Remus said quietly.
Ted couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “I think that came out wrong, Dad,” he said.
Remus smiled. “What I mean is, I’ve always thought, I’m a werewolf named Remus Lupin. Now I can think, I’m a man named Remus Lupin. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is for me.”
He was wrong. It did sound like much. Professor Lupin, even with his loving family and friends, had never considered himself a human being, and that was one of the saddest things that Ted had ever heard.
Even in his worst moments, Ted had never seen himself as anything but a boy. Of course he’d thought of himself as a werewolf, but only in the same way that he thought of himself as a student”an accurate description of him, but not enough to sum up his entire being. Now he realized something that he’d never considered before”his father had raised him to believe in himself and keep focused on his humanity, not because he knew from experience what that was like, but because he wanted Ted to live like a normal person in a way that he never had himself. He’d done a good job, whatever his motives.
Ted and his parents sat together and talked for awhile, about their plans for a party to be held on the next full moon, what the potion was like (disgusting), what questions the Healers would ask, how it felt to be cured. Inside, Ted was restless with anticipation and, for some reason, nervousness. He was dreading his number being called, and he wasn’t sure why.
As the room gradually emptied, Remus checked his watch. “It’s nearly two o’ clock,” he said. “Ted needs something to eat, or he’ll pass out.”
“There’s a tearoom somewhere here,” chipped in Mrs. Lupin. “Ted, would you like it if your father and I brought you and Ivy something to eat while you wait? Though, of course, you might be cured by the time we get back.”
Ted smiled. “That sounds good,” he said. “Just remember I hate Earl Grey tea.”
“Get him decaffeinated,” added Ivy. “He’ll probably be hyper enough as it is after he’s cured, not that I’d blame him.”
Mrs. Lupin kissed her son on the nose. “Be back in a minute then, love. Good luck.”
She and Remus walked out of the waiting room into the hallway, and Ted felt strangely sad. He knew it was childish, especially for a grown wizard of seventeen, but he hoped his parents would be back by the time he took the potion. They’d been with him before at St. Mungo’s when he’d learned he was a werewolf, and it didn’t seem right for them not to be there when the situation was reversed.
“Well, you seem to know a lot of people,” said the boy sitting in the chair next to Ted. Ted blinked. He hadn’t consciously noticed the boy until then. “What did you do, bite everyone you know?”
Ted laughed. “I don’t think they’d be so friendly to me if I did.”
“Ah, well, you’re English, aren’t you? I guess you’d know more of these guys,” said the boy. He had an accent of some sort, and he was dressed in Muggle clothes, jeans and a t-shirt with some band name on it that Ted hadn’t heard of. He was slightly shorter than Ted and nearly as thin, though unlike Ted, he had an athletic, wiry look about him. His skin was darker than Tyrone’s, and his hair formed a dense cloud around his head. He wore glasses and was reading a comic book.
“Yeah, I live nearby,” said Ted. “I’m Ted Lupin, by the way.” He held out his hand to be shaken, something that normal teenagers didn’t often do, though the other boy took it in stride.
“Magnus Desmoulins,” the boy responded, “from Winnipeg”that’s in Canada.”
Ted raised his eyebrows. “That’s really far to come.”
“I know, but they’re not giving out the antidote in Canada and the U.S. for a few more weeks, after the next full moon. I wasn’t putting up with that.” Magnus grimaced. “My parents think I’m on a debate tournament. I told them I joined debate after I got bitten so they wouldn’t suspect anything. Though they have been putting out traps for wolves ever since they started hearing howling around the woods behind our house.”
Ted stared. He couldn’t imagine being able to hide something so big from his parents. “Haven’t they noticed that you only go to debate on full moons?” he asked.
Magnus shrugged carelessly and folded his arms behind his head. “They don’t have any idea what’s going on. They’re Muggles. So am I, for that matter.”
“Really?” Ivy asked, leaning forward. “I didn’t know Muggles could be werewolves!”
“I didn’t know anyone could be a werewolf,” said Magnus. “I was at this party when I was fourteen”I’m seventeen now”and this wolf comes out of nowhere and attacks me and chews up half my chest. Everyone thought it was a rabid stray dog or something, but I wake up the next day in this weird hospital, and there are all these people standing around to tell me about magic, saying that Harry Potter’s real and I got bitten by a werewolf. And next thing I know, I’m turning into a wolf on full moons, getting dumped by my girlfriend, and getting kicked off the varsity basketball team for attacking this guy on the other team. Funny, I always thought it would be really cool to be a werewolf”back before I knew they were real, of course”but it’s kind of a pain to hide it.”
Ted let out a low whistling sound. Magnus had been the same age as Ted when he’d gotten bitten, and they were the same age now, but the rest of the story was so completely unlike Ted’s own. “That’s got to be hard,” he said. “Everyone knows I’m a werewolf. I pretty much told the whole school when I got back from the hospital. ‘Course, my dad’s a werewolf, too…” He paused, reminding himself of the weirdness of the situation. “Well, he was a werewolf, now he’s cured. But anyway, I grew up knowing all about werewolves and stuff, so I wasn’t too upset.”
“Your sister a werewolf, too?” asked Magnus.
Ted squinted. “No, she’s not. Neither is my brother. How did you know I had a sister?”
He wondered if maybe Magnus was a Seer on top of a werewolf. Could Muggles even be Seers?
“Well, it’s kind of obvious,” Magnus answered, gesturing vaguely toward Ivy.
Ivy looked uncomfortable, exchanging glances with Ted. “Er… I’m not his sister,” she replied awkwardly. “I’m… his girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Magnus blushed, looking just as uncomfortable as Ivy did. “Wow, uh, sorry about that. I just thought… you know, werewolf…” Ted got it. People were usually surprised to find out that he had a social life. In most people’s imaginations, werewolves were loners and outcasts, and from what he’d seen, a lot of werewolves took that to heart and made themselves loners and outcasts. He was a Prefect with a close-knit circle of friends, a girlfriend, and a good home life. No wonder he confused people.
“At my school, people just think I’m a psycho,” muttered Magnus. “Especially since I spazzed out on one of my teachers… that wasn’t a good day. And I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m some huge junkie or something”you must get that a lot, too, eh?”
Ted laughed. “Yeah, Ivy’s, er, Ivy’s brother still calls me the Stoner Werewolf Boyfriend. I’m used to it, though.”
“I wouldn’t mind it if someone called me that,” said Magnus. “Though it’s not like I’m gonna be anyone’s boyfriend or anything anytime soon, not with my reputation.”
The conversation probably could have gotten even more awkward, but just then, a Healer bearing a clipboard called out, “Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety.”
“Eighty-eight, that’s me,” said Ted, standing up.
Magnus stood up as well. “I’m eighty-nine. This should be interesting.”
After sitting in the waiting room chair for so long, Ted felt a lot like he often did after transformation, achy and stiff, and he felt a bit dizzy as he got to his feet. He hoped that this was just head rush from standing up and that he wasn’t about to pass out”though, of course, if he had to pass out anywhere, a hospital would be his prime choice.
“I’m coming with you,” said Ivy, getting up as well and taking Ted’s hand. “I want to be there when you take the potion, especially since your parents are down at the tea shop.”
As Ted made his way toward the door, he saw a small girl in a pink frilly dress holding hands with her mother. Her curly blond hair was pulled into two pigtails, and she was holding a ‘get well soon’ balloon. “Eighty-six, that’s me!” she exclaimed, doing a little dance that reminded Ted a lot of Haley. As Ted walked past her, she stopped where she was and stared up at him. “Wow, Mister, you’re tall!” she exclaimed. “Are you a giant?”
Ted laughed and squatted down to the little girl’s level like some kind of preschool teacher. “No, sorry,” he said. “But I can say fee-fi-fo-fum, if it makes you feel better. So long as I don’t have to grind anyone’s bones.”
It was then that he noticed the little girl’s face, and wondered how he hadn’t before. Her entire face was a mangled mess of scars and open wounds, nearly as bad as Cassius Balthazar’s. It was one thing to see such a horrible face on a wild, rugged-looking man, but on a little girl, it was just tragic. He couldn’t imagine how her mother must feel.
The little girl giggled. “You’re funny. I’m Basilia Cartwright, and I like you,” she announced. “I’m five and one-sixth, and Daddy says I can have a pony of my own when I’m ten. Are you ten?”
“Even older,” said Ted gravely. “I’m seventeen, can you believe it?”
“You’re really old!” shrieked Basilia, clapping her hands gleefully. “Can I kiss you?”
Her mother smiled nervously. “I’m sorry about Basilia,” she sighed. “She can get rather… excitable. She doesn’t realize that she…”
“No, it’s okay,” Ted said quickly, “so long as my girlfriend doesn’t mind.” He looked up at Ivy, smiling, and she smiled back. “Go ahead,” she said. In the background, Magnus was valiantly attempting to keep himself from laughing by cramming both fists in his mouth.
The little girl stood on her tiptoes”although Ted was squatting, he still managed to tower over her”and gave him a dainty little kiss on the cheek. “You’re a nice man,” she saidTed wasn’t sure why, but that simple compliment from a little girl was bizarrely touching. Maybe it was because just moments before, his own father had said he’d never thought of himself as a man, or maybe it was because after killing Balthazar, he hadn’t felt very nice. Or maybe it was because in a room full of werewolves, no one saw him as strange or unusual in any way.
“Hurry along now, Basilia, and say goodbye to your new friend,” said her mother, giving Ted a tired smile. “We have to get your medicine, and this nice boy and his friends have to get theirs, too.”
“Mummy, why do I have to?” whined Basilia as she was led away. “I hate medicine. Especially cherry! It doesn’t even taste like cherries! It tastes like Ick!”
Her mother sighed again. “It’ll make you better, dear. It’ll cure you so you won’t be a werewolf anymore.”
Basilia pouted. “Why?” she demanded, stamping her little foot. “I don’t need a cure! I’m not sick! I like turning into a wolf, it’s fun!”
“You have a beautiful daughter,” Ted told Mrs. Cartwright as a Healer led him to one room and directed the Cartwrights to another. Mrs. Cartwright looked deeply astonished, having clearly never been told anything like that before about her hopelessly disfigured daughter, but Ted wasn’t just talking about her face. Basilia acted like any other little girl, confident, childishly selfish, and precocious. She didn’t let being a werewolf bother her. In fact, she liked being a werewolf, didn’t see anything wrong with having the exciting talent of turning into a wolf once a month. In a way, Ted was glad she’d never have to face the reality of what it meant to be a werewolf once she turned seventeen… but another part of him couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad.
“See you around, Magnus,” said Ted. “Oh”wait”” He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scribbled something on it. “I know this girl, Giorgi… I think you might get on well with her. She’s a Muggle, too, but she knows about magic… it’s a long story, but she’s really cool. And she loves getting email.”
Magnus smiled. “Thanks, man. I’ll drop her a line. Well… here goes. Potion time, I guess.” He waved goodbye as he and Ted made their ways toward their respective rooms.
Ted felt an odd pang of sadness as he stepped into the room. Being in a room with so many other werewolves, he’d felt like part of some sort of exclusive group. He and his father and Magnus Desmoulins and Basilia Cartwright and everyone else in the room had had something in common that united them, and soon they wouldn’t anymore. He’d been a werewolf for only two and a half years, but it felt like much longer. It was who he was, and he’d gotten used to it, and now he’d have to get used to being normal again.
“Hello!” chirped the Healer, a blonde woman with a round, cheery face. “I’m Healer Sparrow.”
“I’m Ted Lupin,” said Ted, sitting on the examination table, “and this is Ivy. I hope it’s okay I brought company?”
“Perfectly fine,” Healer Sparrow assured him. She looked more closely at Ted, tapping her chin with one finger. “I’m sorry, but you look so familiar. Have I seen you before?”
Ted shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve, er, met a lot of people… I’m really sorry if I don’t remember you…”
“Ted Lupin… Ted Lupin… oh my gosh!” Her eyes lit up. “I do remember you! You came in with a werewolf bite what, two, three years ago? We were just talking about you earlier today. You really brightened up the place!” She laughed. “I should’ve recognized you, but you look so different! You’ve gotten so tall and thin! You’re not that little boy I remember!”
Ted gave her an embarrassed smile. It quickly grew even more embarrassed as Healer Sparrow continued, “And… no, I don’t believe it!” She pointed at Ivy. “You’re that nice little girl who came to visit him on Christmas Day and brought him the present and those hilarious antlers! And you’re still together…awww, how sweet!”
After so much gushing, it was a bit of relief to get down to business and have his height, weight, and blood pressure taken. Privately, though, Ted had to admit that he was rather proud that Healer Sparrow remembered him from so long before. It couldn’t have been fun for her to be called away from her Christmas dinner for something as depressing as a werewolf attack, but if she remembered him in a positive light, he had to be doing something right.
After recording all of the necessary numbers, which were apparently important in order to determine the dosage of the potion, Healer Sparrow poured a glutinous orangey-yellow potion into a flask and pulled out a piece of paper and a quill. “You’ll have to sign this before you take the potion,” she said. “Standard procedure. You’re seventeen, so you don’t need your parents to sign for you.”
Ted took the potion and the paper, feeling pterodactyls flap around inside his stomach. This was it. All he had to do was scrawl his name on the line and choke down the potion and he’d be totally, completely normal…
“No,” he heard a man’s forceful voice say. It took him a minute before he realized that the voice was his own. Ivy and Healer Sparrow were both staring at him like he’d just crawled out of a swamp. “No,” he repeated, more confidently, setting down the flask of potion.
“But… Ted, don’t you want to be cured?” Ivy asked gently.
“I’m not sick,” said Ted. What Basilia had said earlier had struck a chord with him. He’d spent these last few years as a werewolf trying to make other people understand that just because he was a werewolf, he wasn’t a bad person. Wasn’t rushing out to take a cure hypocritical? “What’s so bad about being a werewolf, anyway?”
Healer Sparrow shook her head, her eyes full of concern. “Ted… don’t tell me you’re siding with the feral werewolves,” she said in a soft, wounded voice. “You’re too good of a person to let the wolf inside of you take control.”
“I’m in control of myself,” Ted insisted, “but there isn’t a wolf inside me. It’s all just me in there. Even people who aren’t werewolves have to use some self-control, don’t they?” He sighed. “I know, I know, it sounds weird, but I’ve gotten used to being a werewolf. It was hard at first, but it’s part of me now. I’ve worked hard enough to be the way I am… I don’t think I have to change now.”
He realized that there were tears in Ivy’s eyes. But she didn’t look sad or worried, she looked proud, and that made him want to continue on.
“I think I’m lucky”I mean, I love animals. Who wouldn’t want the chance to get to be one? And once a month, I can just… go crazy and run around and see everything from a different point of view for a change. I know there are loads of Muggles who wish they were werewolves.” He looked up at the Healer with his big, light blue eyes, eyes that always retained a look of childish innocence even at the age of seventeen.
“I sound cheesy, I know I do. Everything I’m saying is a cliché. But I’m… I’m this endangered species, you know? I just think it’s sad that soon, there won’t be any werewolves left in the world, maybe one or two feral ones, but no more normal people like me. I mean…I’ve always really liked surprising people by doing things for them, showing them that werewolves aren’t all bad. It’s fun to change the way people see things. If we all take this potion, it’s like saying… it’s like saying all the prejudiced people were right, that werewolves are evil and dangerous and don’t belong in society.”
The Healer’s expression grew more and more mystified the more he talked. Ted didn’t see what was so difficult to understand about what he was saying.
“I know I might end up being the last werewolf in the world,” he said. “I’m okay with that. I like being different, I really do. For a long time, I always just kind of felt… lost. Everyone else I know has some big thing they’re really into… I was just this nice, awkward guy who didn’t stand out at anything. I don’t really have any cool talents or skills or anything, and I don’t have a big hobby, and I felt like I wasn’t special. It wasn’t ‘til after I got bitten that I actually got confident enough to think, ‘Yeah, people can be gits because they don’t understand me, but they don’t know what they’re missing.’ Everyone knows who I am… there are even kids at my school who really look up to me. I used to feel like I was important enough for anybody to care about, but now I have this cause, you know? It’s like I want to get to know everybody so they’ll realize werewolves can be regular nice guys after all. It’s amazing how many friends you can make that way.”
Unconsciously, he rubbed the mass of scar tissue on his temple. “Being one of the last werewolves… I don’t care if people think I’m a freak show. If the Daily Prophet wants to talk to me, I’ll talk with them and maybe people can read what they write and learn something. And if you want, I can always come down here so you can do some tests on me and maybe write a paper about it or something”no one really knows much about werewolves except for other werewolves. I didn’t even know about all the stuff that happens when you turn seventeen. It’s not in any of your textbooks, is it?”
“Is that what this is all about?” asked Healer Sparrow, her eyes widening. “Oh, Ted, don’t tell me that you don’t think you can get a job! Once you’re cured, no one will discriminate against you. You don’t need to be a medical test subject to support yourself.”
Ted laughed calmly. “No, I was just volunteering to do that! For free! Actually, for awhile, I’ve really wanted to be a Healer. I know I’m not the brightest bloke around and I’ll have to work twice as hard to get the job, but I’ve been a patient so many times that I feel like it’d only be fair. And like I said, I like to help people.”
“But you don’t want to be cured?” asked Healer Sparrow, looking stunned. “You seem like the best-adjusted person I’ve seen all day, but you want to stay a werewolf?”
“Yep,” he replied cheerfully. “And if I ever change my mind, I can always come back take the potion, right?”
Healer Sparrow blinked. “Er… yes,” she said, still sounding shell-shocked.
“Thanks so much, then,” said Ted, hopping down off of the examination table. “And I really am sorry for wasting so much of your time! Thanks for listening, too. Good luck with the rest of your patients!”
As he turned to go, Healer Sparrow called, “Ted!”
Ted spun back around. “Yes?”
The Healer was smiling. “I’ll let you know when there’s a vacancy for a new trainee,” she said.
Ted returned the smile warmly. “That would be great.”
Walking into the waiting room, he felt even taller than usual, like he was floating above the waiting room, with his head dangerously close to grazing the ceiling. But as he saw all of the people still sitting there, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Slowly, he turned to Ivy. “You don’t mind that I want to stay the way I am, do you?” he asked. “Because if you want, I can go right back in there and take that potion, I really can. I understand if you don’t want to me to risk it.”
“Of course not,” she said softly. “Actually… I didn’t want to say anything, but I really didn’t want you to take the potion. It just seemed like a cop-out to me, after all this time. And…” She smiled bashfully. “You’re so adorable as a wolf.”
“I knew that was it!” exclaimed Ted. “I was right when I said the day I got bitten that girls love guys with scars on their foreheads!”
Ivy took his hand, laughing. “Well, that’s part of it. But… I kind of feel like this whole werewolf thing…brought us together. Full moons, they’re our special time. I didn’t just decide to be an Animagus so I could get that O plus in Transfiguration.”
Ted grinned. “I hope my dad still holds that party next full moon. I’m going to run around as a wolf freaking everyone out.”
“You should wear a little wolf-sized tuxedo, too!” added Ivy. “And sit at the table!”
They were so deep in conversation that they didn’t even notice the man who was walking back into the waiting room behind them. He still clutched the slip of paper that identified him as number eighty-seven, and wore a set of neat but threadbare robes. He was old, with long grey hair and a beard, but he was broad-chested and muscular. This, coupled with the eye patch he wore over one eye and his weather-beaten face, gave him the look of a retired sea captain.
“Excuse me?” he said. His voice was surprisingly high pitched, marked by a rather fussy-sounding upper class accent.
Ted turned around. “Yes?”
“I know this sounds absolutely absurd…” began the man, rather nervously, “but I feel rather as though I know you from somewhere…”
“I get that a lot,” Ted said politely.
“Is… your name Ted, by any chance?” asked the man. “Ted Lupin?”
Ted nodded, trying to figure out if he knew this man. Something about him did seem very familiar. The voice, and a certain something in his face. But he was almost sure he’d never known anyone with an eye patch, or he’d remember it.
“Take this as the word of a foolish old man, but when I was younger, nearly twenty-five years ago, I worked for Lord Voldemort.” He shook his head. “Incredibly idiotic, I know, but I thought it was the only option for a werewolf. I let myself lose control. But… ever since the day Lord Voldemort died, I’ve been having the strangest of dreams. Nearly every night, I dreamed that a young werewolf named Ted Lupin was there at the battle and told me I was wrong… and then, every night, just before I woke up, he killed me.”
Ted gaped, and the room spun around him. “Cassius Balthazar?” he asked, his mouth going dry.
“Yes… I assume you’ve heard of me. I did do some dreadful things in my youth, but I’m now an author. Maybe you’ve read my memoirs? I’ve never heard of dreams changing anyone’s lives, not in any lasting way, but the dreams… well, they were so real. I never assumed I’d actually meet a Ted Lupin… but, of course, you couldn’t have been at the battle. You’re far too young. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Ted felt as though he was about to pass out. Cassius Balthazar, the man he’d killed twenty-three years before in an alternate universe, was standing in front of him. And he’d had nightmares every night about meeting Ted. This Balthazar was humble and apologetic, no animal wildness in his single scummy blue eye. And more importantly… he was thanking Ted… thanking him for years of unimaginable nightmares.
And he was unrecognizable. He looked almost like any other man Ted might see on the street. Although the potion hadn’t been able to do anything for his missing eye, all of the scars and gashes covering his face had completely disappeared, and he made a much more civilized impression when not covered in festering dried blood.
“I know I sound as though I’ve lost my mind,” said Balthazar, looking slightly desperate. He rummaged in the pocket of his robes and pulled out a shredded piece of cloth. “But… is this yours?”
Ted stared. In the man’s hands was a tattered t-shirt splattered with ominously pink and grey stains. It was stiff with filth and age, definitely not wearable anymore. It had been carried around in the man’s pocket for nearly a quarter-century.
But Ted recognized it. It was the shirt he had left at the Final Battle.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Ivy called after a Healer bustling down the hallway ahead of her, “Which way to the permanent residents’ ward?”
She had told Ted that she had to use the restroom. Ted, still rather stunned by the logical impossibility of meeting the man he’d killed and holding the bloody shirt, had needed some time to sit down, anyway. But the real truth was, as much as Ivy loved and trusted Ted, she knew that she had to do what she was about to do alone.
“It’s this way,” said the Healer, “but it’s locked. It’s a good thing you found me, or you wouldn’t be able to visit your…”
“My father,” Ivy supplied hesitantly, unable to think of the right word.
“Oh.” A crease appeared between the Healer’s eyebrows. “I wish I could do something for you, but…”
“It’s all right,” Ivy said quietly. She followed mutely behind the Healer down the hall, and waited with patience as the Healer fumbled around for the proper key. The truth was, she was incredibly nervous. She didn’t want to do this, but she couldn’t go to St. Mungo’s without paying a visit to Draco Malfoy.
As soon as she stepped into the room, though, she began to have second thoughts. She’d never seen a sadder sight than a room crowded with broken, mindless people lying in bed after bed, some talking in garbled gobbledygook, others rocking babies that didn’t exist or repeating inane phrases over and over and over again. One elderly woman thrust a sweet wrapper at Ivy as she passed as though it was an amulet that would ward her off.
The most disturbing sight, though, was the man lying in the far corner of the room.Draco Malfoy was neither awake nor asleep, alive nor dead. His empty grey eyes, so like Ivy’s, stared vacantly at the ceiling, his mouth lolling open. He was drooling slightly, and his long blond hair lay in uncombed tangles on his pillow. He had once been a good-looking man, not so much handsome as pretty, but now he looked like a badly-made wax sculpture, not lifelike enough to put on display in even the seediest of wax museums.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, feeling a lump well up in her throat. She took a deep breath. This was the hardest thing she’d ever done. “I have a new family now, but you were once my dad… and you did a good job taking care of me and Ophidias. We both miss you. I didn’t want to admit it. I thought that if I did, it’d make me evil, and I really wanted to do the right thing. But…you… you did some really bad things in your life, but you didn’t deserve this, nobody does. You weren’t a good person… but you were a good dad. I wanted to say goodbye”I never got the chance to before. I… love you.” She bent down and kissed the vacant shell of a person in the bed on the forehead. She knew he couldn’t hear or understand a word she had just said, but that didn’t matter. What was important was that she had finally said it, finally settled everything that had been bothering her.
Draco Malfoy was gone. What was lying in the bed wasn’t Draco Malfoy, it was an old house that Draco had moved out of long ago. But he’d deserved a suitable goodbye, no matter what he’d done, and Ivy had deserved the chance to say it.