The Cure

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The Cure

*

The cure for Lycanthropy.

Something every potions brewer dreams of inventing. Something that can bring one richness, praise, and fame.

All those I have got by inventing it.

What is it worth if I can't share it with you?

It works, the Cure. Every day I receive more and more owls from werewolves willing to thank me. The Ministry of Magic contacts me daily, telling about yet new countries and areas the cure has been expired to. Soon, there'll be not a person suffering of Lycanthropy. The werewolf registries will be destroyed. All the former lycanthropics will be able to walk around and get jobs and marry and have children, and walk under the full moon with the one they love.

What is in it if you can't enjoy it?

You were willing to be my test subject. I tried to stop you, to tell you that it wasn't worth your life, that nothing could be.

You smiled a bit sadly, and told me that if there was a chance to be cured, you wanted to take it. You said you trusted me and my skills, that you knew I would never purposely hurt you.

I didn't, did I? No, none of my breweries hurt you. I'd never give you anything even relatively dangerous. It was my stupidity that killed you, my inability to stop you doing what you were doing.

It was I whose arms you died on.

I'll never forget it. "You will manage, Sev," you said, and smiled weakly. "You will manage, and the others will be cured."

"But you are dying," I said, holding back tears. "You will die, and it's my fault."

"No," you disagreed, "it's anything but your fault. You tried to stop me. You told me to take the potion, and I didn't. It was my own fault." Your eyes wandered away, then snapped back to focus. "I love you," you whispered, and at the moment I knew you were slipping away from me.

"And I love you," I replied softly, the tears at last freely rolling over my cheeks.

Then you closed your eyes, the last breath escaping your lungs. I felt your pulse, and it was weak, so weak, and slowing down.

I managed to find the cure, but finding it killed you. Your body was too weak, too damaged after all those full moons you suffered without your Wolfsbane. I needed pure blood samples, and you were willing to give them, despite all my attempts to talk you away from it.

I tried to tell you not to, that I could find other willing werewolves for the samples so you wouldn't have to suffer, but you always disagreed. Told that it was enough when one suffered. And when I wouldn't take the samples from you you took them yourself, leaving a full bottle of blood on my table before locking yourself to the Shack. You did it all yourself, didn't you.

And still, I blame myself.

What else could I do? It was my fault, after all. I was the one who needed the blood, I was the one who didn't manage to talk you away from it, I was the one who wouldn't forcefeed you the Wolfsbane when you refused to drink it.

Therefore, I was the one who killed you.

I don't even hear their speechs of congratulations. They give me awards, Order of Merlin at first, but I don't even see the certificates in front of me. They invite me to parties, meetings, gatherings, and I never go.

I never leave my dungeons nowadays. I sulk alone, locked in here by myself, not caring to keep any human contact anymore.

It hurts to be here. It hurts to sit on the couch when no one is sitting next to me. Hurts to see the fire when it warms no one but me. Hurts to see all your things around, knowing that it was you who put them there, since I can't bring myself to throwing them away or even moving them.

It hurts to sleep, when the bed is cold and empty of all life but me.

I don't even sleep much nowadays. I wander around at nights, trying to read but not being able to concentrate, trying to write but my hand shaking, trying to brew but it hurts so much, hurts, hurts, and the pain just doesn't go away...

I'm breaking, I know it. I see the concerned glances others are giving me whenever I meet them. That isn't often, no, hardly even every week, but sometimes. And they see I'm breaking under the pressure, they see I can't bear it all, all the awards and praise and thanks when they know what it has cost me.

I invented the Cure, and it cost me your life. Not a price can me higher, not even my own life.

Sometimes, I play with the thought of suicide. I've even placed the knife on my wrist a couple of times, broke the skin once even. But then I saw the blood, and I remembered the blood in the bottles, and the little stream escaping your mouth as your head lolled back on my arms, and I dropped the knife and fell on my knees.

You believed in afterlife, didn't you? You always would say how we'd meet your friends in the Heaven, and I would say that you probably were going to the Heaven but I was destined to the Hell, and you'd laugh and tell me to stop joking, that there was not a better man in the world than I.

But you were the best, Remus. You were the best I could ever get, the best anyone could ever get. I still can't believe my luck as I got you mine. And then I lost you, and that made me the worst man in the world.

You were right, indeed. It managed, the Cure. I found the required trace of the curse from the last drop of your blood. My hands were shaking at that point, my heart pouncing in my chest, I was afraid that I'd find nothing and you had died for nothing. I had gathered every drop from the bottles, determined to solve the problem, determined to make your death worth something.

And it was there, the little genetic trace, clear like the full moon shining on the night sky. In the last drop of your blood, the last change to make your sacrifice worth something.

You healed them, Remus, love. You cured them, not me, your willing sacrifice made me able tofind the cure and stop the curse you suffered from.

And they're healed, they're cured, and no one still can heal the wounds in my heart.

No one can cure me.