a long road ahead

With a groan, Alexander slowly opened his eyes, his memory foggy and his body aching. As he tried to piece together the events of the previous night, he realized he was in the Hogwarts hospital wing, his arm in a sling. Using his other arm, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing as the pain flared up.

The matron hurried over to him, urging him to take it easy. "You had a rough night, but you're going to be okay. Lay back down before you aggravate your injuries," she said in a soothing voice.

Alexander wanted to protest, to know what had happened and how he had ended up in the hospital wing. "How did I get here?" he managed to ask through his exhaustion.

The matron's expression softened as she replied, "Professor Elling found you. If it wasn't for her, you probably wouldn't have made it." Alexander nodded as he fell back to sleep.

It’d been a particularly rough transformation.

Lily had never liked the idea of running around the forest, under the influence of Wolfsbane or not. Teddy had taken to reserving a room, magically soundproofing it and locking it so there was no chance of an innocent person stumbling upon her. He woke up early and would allow her out. Some months, she’d go to her bed and rest, making excuses for her absence. But more often than not, she ended up in the Hospital Wing.

Matron Callahan knew the deal. Lily had never had to say anything to her, which she assumed meant intervention from Teddy, but the Matron clearly knew what she was treating and to be gentle.

Lily had been in and out of consciousness all morning. Once Teddy had gotten her to the Wing she’d told him she’d be fine on her own, so she’d spent most of it seemingly alone…

But in between states of alertness, she’d heard the Matron speaking to one of her assistants. “An attack, a nasty one…”

“Was it…”

“No, I believe it occurred in the forest. I’ve already alerted the Ministry and have someone coming from Mungo’s… I didn’t see any sign she’d been in the forest though.”

Lily rolled over and dreamt that she saw Alexander Greengrass in one of the beds.

Alex let out a low groan, his eyes slowly fluttering open as he found himself in the hospital wing. Memories of the attack in the forest came rushing back to him, but his mind felt clouded by the pain and blood loss. Nothing seemed to make sense.

A kind and concerned face appeared in his line of sight as the matron approached him. She helped him sit up in the bed and handed him a measure of skelogrow potion, which he reluctantly swallowed with a grimace. "Mending is a lot easier than regrowing," she remarked before walking away, leaving him to his thoughts.

As his eyes wandered around the room, they fell upon Lily, who looked just as bad as he felt. She was sleeping soundly, recovering from whatever had brought her to the hospital wing.

Exhaustion took over Alex's body, and he rested his head back on the pillow, allowing himself to drift off into a much-needed slumber.

When she awoke properly, it was early afternoon. For about thirty minutes, she listened and moved but couldn't open her eyes. When she finally did, the apprentice Cara had spotted her and helped her sit up. Cara quietly explained the injuries they had treated, some light scratches and bruising from the wolf gnawing on her own limbs, lumbering around a room filled with heavy chairs and desks. The name of the game now was pain management. The human body was not meant to survive total organ failure, the breaking and reformation of nearly every bone... and yet she had died and been reborn before returning once more almost almost two dozen times.

"Thank you, Cara," she managed to croak, her mouth dry. She pushed herself up even more, but her hands slipped under her, struggling to even hold her own weight. Her eyes fluttered closed and she let out a long breath. When her eyes re-opened, she received a jolt of shock.

She thought she had dreamed Alexander, but there he was. "C-cara?" Lily said, reaching out a hand to touch the woman's arm. "Why is... Why is he here? What happened?"

Cara glanced between Lily and Alex, before a look of concern and regret colored her kind face. "He's going to be in here for awhile... and perhaps moved to St. Mungo's. But he'll be okay."

Lily's heart began to pound. "It wasn't... He... I..."

Cara glanced towards the Matron, conflict twisting her lips as she tried to navigate with discretion. She cleared her throat. "Professor Lupin discovered you in a locked room. He assumed you fell asleep while studying, maybe hit your head." She smiled. "There's no reason to assume you were anywhere but that room."

Cara squeezed Lily's shoulder before walking over to Alexander to check on him. Lily felt her mind racing but tried calming herself down, using the trick Teddy had taught her. She closed her eyes and counted down from 3.

It was probably all a coincidence.

As he drifted in and out of sleep, his mind would wander to the events leading up to the attack. He couldn't shake the feeling that he could have done something differently to prevent it from happening. But now, lying in the sterile hospital bed, he felt helpless and vulnerable.

When Alex awoke again, one of the women who worked there was hovering over him to check on his injuries. Startled awake he jolted his injured arm wincing in pain. When he opened his eyes again he was looking at Lily once more. “Lily?” he questioned his voice cracking as he spoke. “What happened? Are you okay?” there was concern in his voice as he looked over at

3…

2…

“Lily?”

Her eyes flew open and she turned her head, meeting Alexander’s gaze. Concern was breaking just beyond a familiar expression she recognized as stemming from pain.

She winced as she pushed herself up a bit, showing she was fine. “I’m okay,” she said, reaching for the goblet of water on her bedside. “I… have a condition. Gives me dizzy spells and bits of fatigue.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Are you?” she said, her voice lowering, worried for the answer.

Alexander watched as Lily sat up and took a drink, choosing to take that as a good sign. "Probably better than I could have been," he replied softly. "I'm just glad I'm alive." His ears flushed a light shade of pink as he shifted in his bed, trying to get more comfortable despite the pain shooting through his arm.

"I don't remember much after the pain," he admitted, his brow furrowing in confusion as he tried to piece together the events leading up to his attack. "They said Professor Elling found me in the forest. I remember something following me, something large and furry...like a distorted half-man, half-wolf," he trailed off, the memory sending shivers down his spine.

"I'm here," he said, his voice firm and determined. "And I'm not going to let whatever that thing was get the best of me. We'll figure out what happened, and we'll make sure it never happens again."

She listened patiently, at first, trying to understand what had happened. But as he mentioned the forest, a darkness gripped at her heart, an innate understanding. She’d never been gifted at Divination but she could have won a large sum betting on Alexander’s concluding explanation. Call it… animal instinct.

Her eyes slid closed and she grimaced into the harsh shockwave of understand. To an outside viewer, one might have supposed her disgusted by the existence of a half-man, half-wolf. Surely in Lily Potter, sister and by many measures adopted-daughter of Teddy Lupin, son of a werewolf-turned-war hero, this prejudice was shocking to behold.

The truth of it was… she didn’t wish this condition on anyone, not even the wolf who gave it to her, not on whoever passed it to Alexander. It was painful, uncomfortable. She was not one of those zealots either who believed in the eradication of werewolves. It was a painful fact that she lived differently, would always have to, so her disgust was not for the condition… but for the very nature that to live was to suffer.

And now another would feel some of what she had suffered.

“I-”. Her eyes did not open as her voice cracked. The grimace had faded into a deep, unhappy frown, and she took a shuddery breath. Her eyelids slid open, revealing dark brown eyes that were shining. Someone who knew her might see she was near tears.

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

Alexander couldn't bring himself to meet Lily's gaze again. If his suspicions were correct, he had fallen victim to a werewolf's attack, all because of yet another foolish mistake he had made. He braced himself for the expected wave of anger from Lily. But to his surprise, Lily offered an apology.

His brows furrowed in confusion as he turned his gaze towards her. "You have nothing to apologize for, Lily," he responded, his voice filled with sincerity. "You didn't force me into the forest, and you were right here in the castle all night." Alexander's fragmented awareness had picked up snippets of conversations swirling around him while he drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the day. "That's what the nurse confirmed, right?"
Besides, deep down, he could never envision Lily as the monstrous creature that had attacked him.

His sincerity hurt more because she was not the one who needed compassion. She was comfortable with her reality, he was nowhere near even understanding how much his life was about to transform. She needed to focus on that, not the existentialism that gripped her everytime she considered the sheer amount of suffering that life seemed to offer.

That was a thought for a different day.

She expelled a breath as she sought to wrestle back control of her tear ducts. A moment and the emotion relaxed on her face. She felt her heart pound at his question. No one knew she was a werewolf, but would he figure it out? She’d heard stories that some could identify each other by scent. She’d never found it to be the case and assumed it was a lie but…

“Yeah, I, um, had a spell of exhaustion. Low blood sugar, or something,” she said, swallowing. “Are you… Are you going to go to Mungo’s? A werewolf attack is pretty serious.”