Halley

22- Human Ginnie Pig

"This. Is. Going. Nowhere!" Halley bashed her head against the polished table in the brewing room of St Mungo's in between every word. She had been consistently putting in extra hours in the brewing room, still attempting to work out where she was going wrong with her potions.

"Halley, are you okay?" Halley turned to see Ethan standing there. During her training, Ethan had been a mentor to Halley, always helping her when she was stuck, and never failing to be there when she needed him.

"I'm fine," Halley sat up, and glared at the congealed contents of her cauldron, "just getting a bit irritated that my project is going nowhere."

"What's your project?" Ethan peered into the cauldron and scrunched up his nose in disgust.

Halley frowned. She still hadn't told anyone about her idea, not even James. But Ethan was an experienced healer, who had been working in the Creature-Induced Injuries department for years, he had a wealth of experience, that Halley could only dream of.

"I've been working on it for a while actually," Halley said eventually, "you might actually be able to help me."

"What with?"

"You have experience with werewolves right?" At Halley's words, a dark shadow of something Halley couldn't identify crossed Ethan's face.

"Yes." He sat tight-lipped Pedro.

"Well, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to do something that would help out werewolves, I mean my Mum is a werewolf, my Godfather is too. I've hated watching them struggle with lycanthropy. So when I was in my fifth year at Hogwarts, I decided I wanted to develop a cure."

Ethan's mouth fell open, "a cure?" He asked.

"Yes, or at least something to make it easier." Halley shrugged, "but it's been slow going. I've been testing everything on myself you see, and I'm only part werewolf, it doesn't exactly have the same effect."

"Why haven't you asked your mother?"

"I don't want to get her hopes up," Halley confessed, "what if I fail? But I can't really keep going without a tester."

"You're in luck then," a wide grin spread across Ethan's face.

"What?"

"I'm a werewolf."

"You're a- of course!" Halley could have smacked herself. She had grown up with a werewolf for a mother, yet she had failed to notice the signs in her mentor. Frequent illness, with no viable explanation, an aged look about him, a pallor every month. "Of course you're a werewolf, it all fits.

"That is how I know your mother," Ethan sat down beside Halley, "when I was first bitten, I shared a ward with your grandfather, Arthur Weasley, he tried to speak to me, but I told him I'd take a chunk out of him. Then Venus spoke to me, she helped me realised that I could live with it. That's why I became a healer. I saw what she did for me, and I wanted to do that for others."

"Wow," Halley whistled. "But this is just perfect! You can help me brew the potions, and then test them!"

"That was what I was implying when I told you my biggest secret," Ethan laughed.

Halley grinned widely, "point taken."

She couldn't be more excited, finally, she would be able to see her potions actually in effect, see how they worked on a full blooded werewolf. And she hadn't had to involve her mother or Remus. Everything was fitting into place, it was just a matter of actually brewing the potion.