Remus sneezed, and a billow of dust drifted up from the binding of the book he had laying across his knees. He was sitting in the wide window of the library - his favorite place at Fallengunder. He rubbed his nose with his jumper sleeve and stared out at the steep mountain face beyond for a moment before letting his eyes slip closed...

Suddenly there was a quiet thump and Remus was stirred awake to find the sun had gone down outside of the castle, the stars were dotting the sky he could see above, and a faint glow of the aurora borealis tinged the sky. He drew a deep breath, which made the bones in his back ache and he winced with the feeling of it.

There was a tap on his knee and his eyes turned to see the orange kneazle, sitting on the bench before him.

"Hullo," he murmured, through his grit teeth. The kneazle purred quietly and got up, pressing it's head against his leg, rubbing along so that his whole side and tail passed against Remus's leg. Remus couldn't help but smile, the little creature was quite fluffy after all, and generally it was quite hard to resist anything so soft. Especially when it was purring. "You've become a mite more friendly than you were last time I stayed here, eh?" he asked it, and he reached down and scratched behind its ears as the cat-like creature's tail swished and it pressed it's head into his palm persistently. A small laugh escaped him, and he murmured, "Yes, yes... hullo."

"He likes you." Remus looked up to see Ned Veigler limp into the room, leaning heavily on a cane. "He's never this friendly."

"No?" Remus asked, and he scratched the kneazle behind his ears.

"No," Ned answered. He drew his wand and one of the arm chairs scooted across the room to him, and he lowered into it heavily, sighing with relief as his weight came off his legs, which were in terrible pain. "I'll be bloody happy to see this moon go past," he commented.

Remus nodded.

"Not that the phases have made much difference lately," Ned added.

Remus hugged his knees as the kneazle curled up on his feet and tucked it's nose beneath it's paws. "Has Mr. Scamander figured out what's causing it yet?" he asked.

Ned shook his head, "He's hard at work at it, of course, though."

Remus nodded.

Ned asked, "Have you been taking the aconite?"

"Yes," Remus answered, "But it's seeming to help less these days."

"Building up an immunity to it," Ned nodded, "I did the same after awhile." He sighed. "I wish they'd just legalize the Wolfsbane potion, make it affordable, give us a chance..." he shook his head.

Remus looked down at his feet, at the rise and fall of the kneazle's back as he breathed quietly, sleeping.

"It isn't fair," Ned said. And Remus looked up at him, recognizing the sound of a cracking voice. "They fear us because the moon makes us monsters, but they can't bloody well provide the one antidote that tames us. It's as though they want to oppress us..." 

Remus murmured, "Thank my father for it. He's the one who helped draft the laws."

Ned's voice was gentle, "He didn't know better, Remus."

Remus shrugged and turned to look out the window again.

Ned was about to say more on the subject, when there came a great banging that echoed though the castle. The knocker on the castle's entrance door. Ned's head turned in surprise and he looked at Remus. "Who d'you reckon...?"

Remus looked nervous, "My friends are abroad," he answered.

Ned stood up, leaving his cane against the chair, and drew his wand, whispering, "Wand at the ready, Remus," and waved for Remus to follow him. Remus drew his wand, too, clutching the bulbous end, where the moonstone was hidden within the wood, and keeping close to Ned's heels. The kneazle ran up the stairs and slunk into the shadows, staring down with glowing eyes from the dark at the top of the staircase. Ned glanced into the foeglasses that lined a table in the entrance hall, but the figures within them were still shadowy and far-off, none were close enough to be on the door step of Fallengunder. 

Ned opened the door carefully, and Remus hovered, wand ready...

On the steps, sprawled as though she had been poured down from the sky, lay a woman with long white-blonde hair, wearing clothes that Ned instantly recognized as belonging to the style of the muggle village beyond the trees, low in the valley. 

It was then that he noticed the arrow stuck in her shoulder.

"Oh hell," he said, and he leaned forward and carefully lifted her, though this made him wince and groan with immense pain from the weight of her on his tired bones, and he barked at Remus, "Quick. Grab that bag she's dropped there - on the stairs. Close the door behind you. Lock it. Someone's shot her and we don't need them barging in. Meet me in the dining hall with the potions kit and towels." He hurried, carrying away the girl, whose wound was dripping blood upon his robes and the floor.

Remus quickly stepped around the pool of blood on the step, which had seeped into the stone already and was dripping down on to lower steps, and grabbed hold of the strap of the bag halfway down the steps that led to Fallengunder. He glanced about, searching to see if he saw anyone in the trees, but the woods seemed quite empty and the grounds were certainly bare. He tucked the bag over his shoulder and hurried back inside.

Remus hurried to the kitchen and dug about 'til he'd found the potions kit - a long wooden box, full of clinking bottles, given to Ned by Newt Scamander - and snatched several tea rags from the shelf. His knee was crying out by the time he reached the dining hall, but he grit his teeth against it, running in spite of it, so hard that the breath burned his lungs as he heaved the kit and the tea rags onto the table beside Ned and the woman.

Her outer robes were made of thick white furs that looked like foxes to Remus and he shivered as Ned snapped the top half of the arrow carefully off, holding the base of it steady so that it did not disturb the wound. He peeled away the fur coat and beneath it she wore an old-fashioned, billowy linen shirt with drawstrings that kept the neck closed. The white linen was stained all around her shoulder with deep, deep red that bled outward, all across her chest and arm, radiating out from the entry point of the arrow. Remus gasped.

"Open that box," Ned commanded as he worked at ripping open the shoulder of the shirt to allow the girl her modesty, but still accessing the wound as quickly as possible.

Remus quickly undid the latches on the front of it and pushed the lid open, revealing at least twenty bottles, each carefully labelled. Ned reached down, bit the cap off one, and held it out to Remus. "Here," he said, and he reached for the arrow that was still stuck in the wound. Remus stared, wide eyed, fascinated and terrified at exactly the same time. "When I pull this arrow out, you must immediately pour that into the wound, before much blood can escape. Understand? Immediately."

"Yes Professor," Remus said hurriedly and he leaned so the mouth of the bottle was close at hand as Ned's knuckles tightened 'round the arrow shaft and he drew a deep breath.

"Gods I wish Newt were here, he's much more the man for the job," Ned groaned, then he pulled the arrow, twisting it as he did so that it came up cleanly as could be, a burst of blood spattering himself and Remus as it exited. Remus upturned the bottle and the potion poured out into the woman's wound, a dark blue, nearly black liquid that bubbled and hissed as it entered her, and steam rose up from the wound.

A sudden scream made Remus jump and nearly drop the bottle. The woman's eyes had flown open at the application of the potion and she struggled against Ned, who held her back, one hand on her collar bone, just above the wound, and the other quickly found her other hand and wove their fingers together, allowing her to squeeze his hand in her pain. "Calm now, calm... You've been shot by an arrow, and we're treating you."

"An arrow?" the woman's voice was rough and grit with pain.

"In the shoulder, yes. We're fixing it, you'll be healed in no time, just breathe - take deep breaths for me?" She stared up at Ned, her eyes the brightest blue that Remus Lupin had reckoned ever seeing in all of his life, and Ned stared down, back into hers. "We've met before," he murmured, "At the bar. In the village."

The potion gone, Remus lowered the bottle and Ned looked at him. "Every drop?" he asked.

"Every drop," Remus confirmed.

Ned looked back at the woman, "Deep breaths, now. It's going to burn in a moment, but once it's finished, you'll be good as new, I promise."

"Burn?" the woman asked, "Burn how?" But she'd barely gotten the words out when she let out a low, guttural groan that grew slowly louder, louder, until she lay screaming as the burning seemed to fill her muscles. Her skin glowed and Remus stared at the wound, sickened and fascinated, as the muscles literally tore and wove themselves back together, from the deepest layer of the wound upward until finally it was the turn of the skin and it, too, wove together, glowing bright hot red for a moment before it dulled, darkened, and left behind but the smallest scar. The screaming stopped and instead she now lay panting, clutching Ned's hand, tears staining her face.

"There we go," Ned whispered, "There we go. It's over. You've done brilliantly." He brushed some stray strands of her pale white-blonde hair away from her face and stared down into her eyes for a long moment. Long enough that Remus felt uncomfortable watching, and turned away.

The woman sat up, and Ned's hand was at her back, steadying her, his other hand still closed tightly in her balled fist. Her fur coat lay behind her, and she looked down at the blood stained linen of her shirt, her eyes taking in the tear that Ned had made in the fabric, and the smooth skin, slightly puckered with her fresh pale scar, and reached up to touch it, poke it. She looked up at Ned. "How did you...?"

Ned shook his head, refusing the answer.

"But I can tell from the stains it was deep, and you've completely healed it. In minutes."

Ned said thickly, "You're tired. You need rest. I have guest rooms upstairs, if you'd like to stay."

The woman stared still at the healed wound, then, resolutely, she replied, "No. I need to go." She reached for her furs and pulled them on around her tightly, and tried to stand up, but the loss of blood went to her head and she immediately tumbled back onto the table. Ned braced her so she didn't hurt herself, then, giving in, she whispered, "I suppose a bit of a stay would be in order."

Ned nodded, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the dining hall, calling back to Remus, "Could you send an owl to Newt and let him know we're out of Musclemalha? Handy stuff that is." Remus nodded, and Ned ducked 'round the corner, his footsteps fading down the hall as he carried the mysterious woman away. 

Remus picked up the empty bottle, closed the potions kit. "Scourgify," he muttered with a flick of his wand, and the blood and mess on the table was cleaned up instantly. After returning the potions kit to it's proper place in the kitchen, Remus went back to the library, carrying the top half of the arrow that Ned had broken off the girl's shoulder. After writing to Newt about the Musclemalha, he turned to the walls of books about the Icelandic symbols and tribes, and he searched until he found a match to the markings of the arrow.

The arrow matched the markings of the village below, at the foot of the castle.

Someone out there had shot that woman - which meant she was more than likely and outsider. But Ned had said that he'd seen her before - at the bar - and Remus felt as though he, too, had seen her before, though he could not place where in his mind. Remus stared across the library, toward the doorway, through which he could see the stairs that Ned had carried her up, wondering who she was...

Through the doorway came the kneazle, his thick bottlebrush tail in the air as he walked slowly, eyes shining bright in the dim light of the lanterns Remus had lit in the library. He padded over silently, leaped up, and sat again upon Remus's lap, purring quietly as Remus absentmindedly stroked his back.