Fauna's mission was simple: purchase chocolate frog from visitor's kiosk, return to hospital room, eat chocolate. Then wipe away the evidence with a napkin before the Healers caught her. She'd spent most of the day sleeping, and the rest of the time giggling and babbling as a result of the potions she'd imbibed.

When she'd woken up this evening, in pain but clear-headed, she'd sat in bed for about half an hour, fighting off tears, boredom, and tears of boredom. Her mum had left for a few hours, and Fauna didn't want to be in the room alone, stuck with her intrusive thoughts about the attack.

So she shambled out into the hallway, coins clenched in one hand and slippers on her feet. Fauna blinked at the bright lights as she walked, her unflattering hospital robe and vacant expression marking her as someone who should not be wandering about.

At the sound of a clinking tray laden with potions, she turned to see one of Healers beginning her rounds at the end of the hall. When the woman looked up, Fauna ducked into a random room.

A few moments passed as Fauna hovered in the doorway, trying to decide when it would be safe to leave. She glanced back into the room she'd invaded. A familiar blond head poked out over the covers.

"Sasha?" She whispered, staring at him.

"You're... you... you were attacked, too?"

A mixture of conflicting emotions went through her that she couldn't even begin to process.

His abdomen was still prone to sharp pains whenever he shifted position or breathed as each breath expanded and stretched the skin around the scratches.  But, it was still nothing like it had been.  The treatments that Mister Priestly had advised Kronos to administer had done much to take the edge off the pain but that was largely in comparison to the previous sheer agony brought on by the growing infection.

Priestly's treatments had, by and large, worked.  Sasha had never doubted they would.  Under Kronos' careful watch, the man had completed his task with enviable precision and efficiency.  But, (rather nervously) Mr. Priestly had explained that there wasn't anything that could have completely cured the injuries in a matter of hours.  Either they would have to risk someone discovering the injuries by Sasha going home half-healed or risk someone discovering Sasha's absence if he stayed until they were fully healed. 

Sasha had opted for the former. 

By the time he'd reached St. Mungo's, most - but not all - of the fever had lifted and the gashes were no longer swollen and angry with infection.  As somewhat of a testament to Mr. Priestly's skills (and much to Dreogan's, Akiva's and the Healer's confusion), after the initial evaluation, the St. Mungo's Healer's had concluded there wasn't really much they could do at the time except administer follow up doses of potion and monitor his healing.  Everything that could be done had been done - it was just a matter of time.  The group of them had left the room a short time before.  Sasha presumed they were discussing the curious state of his injuries and the reliability of the explanations Sasha had offered. 

Which left Sasha in the room, alone.  Sasha had never been good at being idle.  It made him nervous and antsy.  He hadn't thought to grab any school books as Dreogan had hurried him to St. Mungo's.  With nothing to do and, likely, no chance of leaving his bed without someone noticing, the combination of boredom and potions had left him in a state of half-sleep. 

That was, until he heard a familiar voice say his name. 

He immediately pushed himself up semi-upright, supporting himself on his elbows, as he looked towards Fauna but, immediately, regretted the motion.  He cringed slightly at the sudden sharp pain but the discomfort passed quickly once he'd stopped moving. 

She was staring at him.  Sasha watched her apprehensively, half expecting her to start yelling or lecturing or ... something ... at him.  The apprehension faded, slightly, at the question but quickly shifted to resignation. 

"Ja."  He offered quietly, still watching her with uncertainty, half expecting her to pick up where her letters - or Dion's letters - had left off. 

What he was supposed to say after that, he didn't have a clue.  Part of him wanted to fling reality at her - point out what her precious, misunderstood and victimized friends had done.  Not just to him (and, apparently, her?) but to any number of people in this hospital.  Sasha had only realized after he'd gotten to the hospital how entirely lucky he'd been.  Like Kronos had said - they were filthy, vicious, untrustworthy creatures.  Nothing anyone said could convince him otherwise.  But, he couldn't.  Despite the potions and, despite the ongoing stubborn bitterness, he knew it wasn't she he was ... he wasn't even sure it was anger he felt.

WIth a sigh, Sasha cringed and braced himself against the pain as he pushed himself more upright and leaned against the headboard.  "Ja.  I ... I ran into Foley."  He shrugged, dismissively.  "Kind of seems like we've been here before, doesn't it?"  He scowled slightly, then shook his head.  "I mean ... not here.  Just ... nevermind.  I thought you were in school." 

Fauna took another step inside the room and left the door open a crack. She remained standing, trying not to move much or fidget, and looking very stiff and uncomfortable. Sasha's every movement seemed to hurt him too.

She felt vulnerable and small in the hospital gown, with only her wacky slippers differentiating her at all from other patients. The slippers had googly eyes (her mum had bought them to cheer her up), so two pairs of eyes stared at Sasha. Looking at him was awkward, but there was nothing else in the room to distract her.

"What?" The potions still had a lingering effect, and she didn't understand what he was talking about. She was here, and not at school, because she'd been attacked. But she ignored those details and his odd tone, and latched on to one name: Foley.

"Ollie?" Panic tinged her voice. Everything was hitting too close to home.

"Is she ok? What happened?" Fauna took a step towards the bed and crossed her arms, wincing at the sudden movement.

Sasha let out a derisive sigh and nodded in confirmation.  Ollie.  Foley.  The werewolf.  Whatever they wanted to call her. 

Suddenly, Fauna sounded panicked.  Sasha flinched as she took a step towards his bed and, immediately, became aware that she was ... she was asking him if Foley was alight. 

He cast Fauna a dark, hurt glance before looking down at his sheets.  "If you're worried about her, why not go find her and ask.  Sure they took her to the Ministry.  You've got chums there.  Ask them." 

He closed his eyes, desperately wishing he had a book or something to hide behind.  But there was nothing to provide a distraction.  Slowly, he shook his head, his face scrunching briefly as he wrestled his emotions back in check.  He should have just stayed with Kronos.  There, at least, he wouldn't to be telling someone whether his attacker was alright. 

Sasha's answer was not very helpful. She caught the hurt look he gave her, but was too worried about Ollie to stop and think about how rude she was being. Her odd logic was that she could see Sasha sitting there, alive, but she didn't know where Ollie was, didn't know if she'd been hurt during her capture, or how they were treating her and Greyfriar now.

"You didn't see? --Sorry," she interrupted herself when he closed his eyes and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Fauna glanced at the door, tempted to run out and ask the mediwitches if they knew anything about what was happening at the Ministry. She'd heard people had died there. But no one would tell her the details. Fauna let out a sigh, certain the Healers would just lead her back to her bed and give her something to help her sleep rather than talk to her.

She looked back at Sasha, expression conflicted. "Did she... you know, bite you?"

Fauna hoped not. Both for his sake, and Ollie's.

He couldn't believe it.  She was still standing there, asking him how the werewolf was doing.  Slowly he shook his head. 

He was tempted to refuse to answer.  Tempted to, again, tell her to bugger off and find someone else to bother about it.  But, even if it might be considered justified, it'd still be rude.  And, he wasn't going to alter his own moral standard on account of a werewolf. 

"Not really," he admitted with a resigning sight.  "I mean - she got bit.  My dog grabbed her to pull her off of me.  She was stunned - unconscious when I got away.  I had to get my dog to a vet so I didn't really stick around.  I don't really know what happened after I left." 

He opened his eyes, again, glancing at the sheets on his bed before looking over towards Fauna.  "They - they don't think so."  His voice was quieter, more reserved.  "She was on top of me but Baldur, you know, pulled her off before ..."  He couldn't stand the idea of having been bitten.  He had no idea what he'd do if he had been.  "He - they say they would have seen signs by now if I had been."   

"What ... who ..." He nodded in her direction.  Given everything over the last couple months, who bit you seemed like such a loaded question. 

The rush of panic she'd felt earlier was slowly giving way to a steady presence of dread and anxiety. Face pale, Fauna nodded, silent as he explained that his dog had hurt Ollie, but Ollie had certainly hurt his dog more. She imagined him in London or Diagon,  struggling to handle his own injury and that of his pet, and a stab of sympathy went through her. For the time being, it was strong enough to overwhelm her other conflicting emotions.

Since her back was also sending stabs of pain up her spine, reminding her she was due for another dose, Fauna took a seat in one of the chairs by Sasha's bed. She didn't look at him as she sat, didn't wonder or worry about whether he wanted her there. There was too much going on in her head to make room for her usual bout of self-consciousness.

"What? Oh," Fauna looked up, made eye contact when he asked her what had happened.

"I was at the Ministry. Staying in one of the cells." It didn't occur to her to explain to him why she'd been there. "And..." she swallowed, pausing for a few seconds as she looked down at her hands. Suddenly, she didn't want him to know. Especially not about who had attacked her.

"A werewolf attacked," she said dully. "I mean, it got out when Bagnold was escorting me out. So that's why I'm here. I didn't get bit," she added, looking at him.

"I've never been bit," she said firmly, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"Scheiße."  A sympathetic grimace scrunched Sasha's face and he shook his head, glancing towards Fauna.  This was all just so terrifying.  Werewolf attacks all over - some during the daytime!  He wasn't sure why Fauna was in the cells at the Ministry but, for the time being, that seemed a secondary concern.  "Are you ..."  He hesitated a moment and shrugged his shoulders, not sure if he was supposed to be asking or not - whether she was even wanting him to or not. 

But, he couldn't not ask.  That was just too rude.  "Are you, you know, alright?"  But, he couldn't resist bitterly tagging on: "I hope I don't offend you by not asking about your attacker, first." 

Quickly, he dropped his gaze, again.  Now that the obvious conversation topic had been attended to, he had no idea what to say to her or, even, what he was supposed to say. He was just as surprised to find her sitting there, talking to him.  The fact she was sitting seemed to indicate she wasn't in any hurry to leave, either.  As if casual conversation wasn't hard enough under normal circumstances. 

Of course, the prospects of casual conversation were quickly derailed by Fauna's bittern insistence that she'd never been bit.  Color flooded Sasha's face and he, regrettably, shifted uncomfortably. 

"I ... I never ..."  Bits of information, suddenly, fell into place.  He swallowed and shook his head, asking quietly: "is ... is that, you know, why you were ... in the cells at the Ministry?" 

She blinked, visibly surprised when he asked her if she was alright, though she shot him a look when he tagged on a comment about the attacker. Fauna glanced away. She understood now where his hurt expression had come from, but she didn't have the will to try to explain herself, argue with him, or apologize. Especially apologize.

"I guess so," Fauna finally answered. She was alive. "You?"

It was strangely satisfying to see his face flush when she told him that a werewolf had never bitten her. Fauna stared at him for a few moments, realizing that their correspondence had stopped before she'd had the chance to tell him (probably in all capital letters) that Bagnold had questioned her, she'd failed the test, and had been ordered to the Ministry on the full moon as a result.

"Yeah." Her expression hardened and she crossed her arms, hunched over a bit to avoid her back touching the seat.

"It worked, you know. Your letters to the Ministry. They actually took you seriously," she studied his face, tone accusatory. Fauna was tempted to launch into a rant, but talking required energy, and a part of her just wanted him to feel bad. So she let the words hang there.

He shrugged, dismissively, not really wanting to answer the question that only came after being prompted by an inquiry about his attacker and his inquiry about her own well being.  It was clear to him she wouldn't have asked if it hadn't seemed a social etiquette necessity.  Nor did he have any desire to admit to her how stupid he'd been in trying to handle the injuries on his own. 

Sasha flinched, slightly, at her accusatory tone, wishing he could call a halt to this conversation and return to letter writing.  It was infinitely easier to get his words in order when the recipient wasn't hunched next to him.  And, when he had time to edit.  And, letters gave him the opportunity to work through the confusion.  Without looking like an idiot.  But, now, he didn't have the luxury so he opted for the next best thing: continuing to stare at his blanket. 

"Well..."  He hesitated, conflicted and confused and, finally, shrugged.  "That was the point."  Yeah.  This was bound to go poorly, quickly.  "I ... you know ... was hoping they'd take it seriously."  After all, he hadn't written the letter for the fun of it.  But ... that didn't mean he'd wanted her hauled in if, in fact, it had been so obvious she wasn't a werewolf.  That's what didn't make sense. 

"I don't get it."  He admitted, shaking his head.  He still couldn't look at her.  "I assumed it'd be obvious.  You know?  If you weren't?   At least, well ... they're professionals.  That's ... if it was supposed to be so obvious to us then it should have been easy for them?"  That was, after all, why Sasha had approached them in the first place.  He didn't know enough - he figured the trained professionals would.  If they'd looked at the evidence and determined there was no concern then that would have been the end of it.  "They're the experts - .  I don't ... I don't understand why they brought you in!" 

Sasha's reaction was definitely not one of guilt. He wouldn't look at her, but he continued on in the same tentative tone he'd used to ask if she was alright, trying to rationalize, to analyze, to make sense of things.

Her expression turned incredulous, then angry, as she heard him say that it should be obvious if she weren't a werewolf. That's what she had thought, too!

"Well, it happened," she snapped, scooting slightly farther away from him in the chair and glancing at the door.

If she were him, she'd be wracked with guilt. The kid usually apologized for stubbing his own toe, but he couldn't tell her that he was sorry it had happened, that he'd never wanted her to get hurt. Perhaps those feelings should have been obvious to Fauna. She just didn't see anything in his words or in his face that reassured her of that.

"They're not as professional as you think they are," she muttered, unwilling to elaborate on how Bagnold's behavior and her immature reaction to him had contributed to the problem.

"It started though, because of you," Fauna threw the words at him with a blunt cruelty. "Do you not get that? That I wouldn't be here, in this hospital, if you and Baxter hadn't convinced yourselves that I'm some horrible... werewolf?"

She'd been about to say 'person'. Though a few doubts sprang up in her mind about how she was handling this, she shoved them away.

He flinched again when she snapped at him, wishing she'd just leave.  But, clearly, she didn't plan on making it that easy.  She has some point to make or, perhaps, wanted something from him before she leaved.  If that were the case, couldn't she just say so - and say what she wanted?  Wouldn't that make it easier for both of them? 

"That's ... that's not what I ..."  Another scowl settled on Sasha's features as he shook his head.  That wasn't what he'd intended to have happen - not in any way.  "Don't they just-"  Actually, he didn't know what the Ministry just did to investigate possible werewolves.  He'd assumed, again, that had been the Ministry's concern.  But, before he could find an appropriate way to end the sentence, she picked up where the letters had left off. 

A few moments before, his mind had been reluctant to follow the line of evidence down the path Fauna was setting forth.  In a attempt to protect itself from the very guilt Fauna was looking for, his mind had forcibly ignored the connections. 

But, subconsciously, he knew the connections was there and his brain had no choice but to follow the line of reasoning as she threw it out. 

His face scrunched and his gut tightened as his breath caught painfully in his chest.  He quickly shook his head half hoping the gesture would somehow wordlessly convey how much he really wished she'd go away.  He turned his face to the wall to hide the tears that escaped when his breath finally loosened itself from his chest. 

"I didn't - I thought they'd just look into it and ... figure it out.  I didn't ... I never would have wanted you to get attacked.  I - I thought I was doing the right thing.  I - "  His voice faltered and he shook his head. 

Sasha flinched, stammered, scowled, and showed many signs that he was uncomfortable and didn't want to hear this. But she kept on anyway, spelling it out for him, trying to ignore the moment when his face scrunched up and he looked away from her. Fauna hesitated and glanced away too, annoyed that she was so easily deterred by the threat of tears. She didn't want to feel guilty right now.

"Yeah, well, I guess you thought wrong..." Fauna mumbled, staring down at her googly-eyed slippers.

At least he said that he hadn't meant for her to get attacked. But he hadn't said he was sorry.

"Maybe next time you'll think before you single me out, you know?" It was a funny choice of words, because Sasha did entirely too much thinking, in her opinion. And at the rate they were going, there might well be a next time. Perhaps even another werewolf attack. Fauna let out a sigh and shook her head.

"What you said had impact," she continued, sounding less angry. "You didn't expect this," she made a small gesture around the room. "But don't act so surprised when people... act on things you say. And it grows into something you... didn't want." Fauna rubbed at one side of her face, unsure she was even making sense anymore.

"I didn't single you out."  Sasha snapped back at Fauna, shaking his head at the accusation.  What did she think?  That he'd sat down with the mission of singling Fauna out to make her life as miserable as possible?  That this was all some vindictive endeavor on his part?  Sure - he'd been jealous that she seemed to be able to embark upon whatever mischief she wanted without consequences.  And, it certainly wasn't his fault that, for once, the consequences finally caught up with her.   

Still.  He wasn't that petty.  "I didn't single you out," he repeated.  He dropped his head forward and brushed his face under the guise of pushing himself more upright once more.  Ignoring her, clearly, hadn't worked.  He knew it was probably best to keep his mouth shut but he couldn't just sit there quietly.  "He asked, you know, about what mischief you'd gotten into and I just told him what I knew.  He'd said, given the information, the ... the signs were there.  There was enough reason to be suspicious and, yes, I sent a letter to the proper authorities about my concerns.  I just -"  He'd believed Baxter.  At least, enough to believe there was a risk great enough to respond to. 

"If I'd ... if I'd known the same information about the same behavior from any other person, I'd have had the same suspicions."  The only difference it being Fauna had made was Sasha hadn't felt comfortable approaching her directly about it. 

But, Fauna was clearly still seeing the events as a personal attack.  He, on the other hand, still stuck to the belief that it wasn't - that it never had been.  And, she was lecturing him like some foolish kid who'd just stuck a knife in a wall socket. 

"I wanted-"  He quickly cut off that line of thought.  Chances were, pointing out he wanted there to be an impact wasn't going to help matters.  He shook his, raising his hands.  Again, his mind sought shelter from the guilt through a careful web of logic. 

"The same could be said for you, you know."  He countered.  "You shouldn't be so surprised when people act on the things you say and do, either.  I didn't fabricate your behavior and I only told the Ministry the truth as I knew it.  If your actions were, truly, suspicious enough to warrant bringing you in then, I did the right thing based on the information I had.  I don't ... I don't expect you to understand.  I'm sorry you got attacked but I made the best choice based on the information I had." 

There it was. He finally said he was sorry. But he had to ruin it with extra justifications and 'buts' and her supposedly suspicious actions.

She was learning that her actions and words had weight, at least to a few people. She knew she'd made mistakes. Being a secret werewolf at Hogwarts wasn't one of them.

Fauna stared at him for a long moment.

"Based on the information you had, from a kid whose Da has a thing against werewolves," she said in a low voice. Sasha Schlagenweit was smart, thorough, normally objective. Yet he so readily believed the worst of her. Fauna didn't know how not to take offense at that.

"Can't you own up to something?" She threw her hands in the air, winced at the movement. "Just say, wow, Fauna, I'm sorry I misjudged you. Or maybe I'm sorry I didn't tell you I thought you might, you know, sprout claws and fangs at certain times of the month. How about I'm sorry that you got harassed at school, bullied by a Ministry official, and then attacked and nearly killed?"

She'd spent a good long while feeling bad about what had happened to Sasha in October, had apologized to him for it, and he just wasn't returning the favor. Not well enough for her, anyway. Fauna gave him a hurt, disgusted look, then very slowly got up from her chair (resenting the fact she couldn't just flounce off), about to leave unless he had an answer.