Assumptions

She opened her eyes and was startled by the darkness.

“Light!” called Adrian. There was a sound much like an electric zap, and light flooded the room. There were no windows, and a damp smell hung in the air. In the room were several shelves filled with books and multi-colored bottles and vials. There were locked cabinets and cluttered tables. In one corner was a bed.

“Encase!” Adrian said next, and there was a startled yelp. An enormous round cage had appeared out of nowhere, trapping Patrick within. The great dog banged against the curved metal bars, whining mournfully.

“Christian,” Adrian said, his face contorting in pain. “By the bed. Melissa—please calm him down. Please…” He looked imploringly at Melissa, who stood stunned before the gigantic cage. She called Patrick’s name and at once the giant dog calmed down. He looked at her with his brown eyes again, pleading.

“N-now.” Adrian bent down next to Christian, who had sat himself on the bed. “Give me your hand.”

“I could’ve gone to the hospital,” Christian said, gingerly placing his left hand on Adrian’s. His wrist had swollen and was a distinct shade of purple. He grimaced at the pain.

“Well,” Adrian said, examining it. “It is, essentially, my fault. And besides, I think I can do a better job than the doctors. Relax.” He cupped both hands around the swollen wrist and applied a bit of pressure.

Christian winced. “Your hands are scalding hot…”

Adrian only nodded. He kept applying the same pressure for a few more seconds before he let go. Christian’s eyes widened. The pain had gone.

“You’ve done it!” he gasped, impressed. But Adrian shook his head.

“I’ve only gotten rid of the pain,” he said. He rose and began rummaging through the shelves and brought down several bottles, placing them on a nearby table. Adrian grabbed a stone basin from a cupboard and started carefully pouring the bottles’ contents in it. Sometimes, he squeezed only several drops from the bottles; sometimes he emptied the entire thing. Within a minute, he was stirring the mixture with a glass rod, muttering inaudible words. Christian could see swirling smoke emanating from it, even though Adrian had not lit a fire to heat it up.

“All right,” Adrian said, scooping up the mixture with an empty bowl he grabbed from a nearby shelf. “Luckily, I always keep preliminary mixtures at the ready. Otherwise, I’ll be brewing for months…”

He sat beside Christian by the bed and handed him the bowl. “Here, drink all of it. You should be all right in a couple of hours.”

Christian looked at him suspiciously; he did not take the bowl. “Is that poison?” he asked.

“If I wanted to kill you, I could have easily let Patrick maul you back at the gymnasium,” Adrian said coldly. “Drink. It’ll fix your bones.”

“You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” Christian asked, taking the bowl.

Adrian did not reply until Christian had drained the bowl of its contents.

“I do not like labels,” Adrian said, taking the bowl. “But yes, I am gifted with the magical arts.”

“Like Harry Potter,” Christian grinned.

“Aha,” Adrian said, replacing the bottles he’d used back into the shelves. “No.”

“Do you have a wand?” Christian asked eagerly, ignoring Adrian’s blunt reply. “Harry had a wand! Holly, eleven inches, and a phoenix feather core.”

Adrian threw him an offended look. Christian shrank back into the bed.

“Wands are for children and amateurs,” Adrian said. “I happen to have surpassed the need for one when I turned eleven—let me see.”

Startled at the sudden change in tone, Christian placed his hand on Adrian’s once more. To his surprise, the swelling around his wrist had already deflated, and he could see his wrist bones moving underneath the skin.

“Hmm, good, good,” Adrian muttered, watching the bones move. He looked up at Christian, and said in a quiet voice. “You know, I was quite astonished at how brave you two were tonight.”

Christian frowned at him. “Why?” he asked. “Because Melissa’s a girl and I’m gay?”

Adrian snorted. “Because Patrick is a monster. People usually scream and run away from him. Not run after him.”

“I thought you didn’t want him being called a monster?”

“Only I get to call him that,” Adrian said quietly. He glanced over at Patrick and Melissa. She was running her hands over Patrick’s hair, lulling him to sleep. A smile twitched in his mouth.

“Has he always been like this?” Christian asked, watching the two as well.

Adrian shook his head. “Always? No, not always. Although the curse did catch him at a very young age…”

“Do his parents know?”

At this Adrian snorted. “Oh, yes. They bolted the moment they knew what their son had become. Haven’t heard from them since. Patrick was four.”

“And your parents?”

“My father knew,” Adrian said leaning against the wall beside the bed. “He was Patrick’s Healer. He was the one who told Patrick’s parents what had bitten him, what he would become every full moon… My father took pity on him, continued to administer the cure even though his own parents had given up on him. And his efforts weren’t in vain, of course. In three short years, Patrick was finally able to distinguish human from animal prey. My father trained him to avoid the former and to hunt only animals. But…”

His eyes had gone distant.

“Well, the curse of the werewolf is no easy thing to destroy…” he said, more to himself than to Christian. “I was fourteen, and so was Patrick… my father’s cure has successfully diminished most of his werewolf features…you would notice Patrick doesn’t have thick fur on him, nor does he even have a tail… but… my father was especially exhausted that day, I suppose. I came home late that night to find him dead by the enclosure where he trains Patrick whenever he transforms. Patrick was nowhere to be seen… Eventually, I found him, before it was too late. I was already powerful enough to subdue and incarcerate him by that time and was able to smuggle him away before anyone noticed…”

He took a deep breath.

“I’ve been taking care of Patrick ever since. I take him to the woods surrounding the village whenever he transforms. I give him the potion he needs every meal of every day. In my care, his eyes have looked more human than dog; he can even speak now, albeit in simple words. In no time, the curse will have completely left him.”

Christian didn’t say anything for a while. He gently patted Adrian’s back. It looked as though recounting these events had taken great toll on Adrian; his shoulders have sagged heavily.

“You really love him, don’t you?” Christian said after a minute.

Adrian looked at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you still take care of him even though it was basically his fault your father’s dead,” Christian said gently. “And I noticed how it hurt you to cage him like that, and how you don’t want anyone calling him a monster…”

Adrian shrugged, smiling. Christian noticed a blush on his face.

“He’s the only family I’ve got left, after all. And that night, when I saw my father dead on the ground, I swore to drive the curse out of Patrick myself, so his work would not be in vain. And if the curse is destroyed, my father’s death would have been avenged as well.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” Christian said, a meaningful look on his eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Adrian said, looking away. “And no, it can’t be anything more than that. Besides, what happened tonight proved that.”

“What?”

“He only responded to Melissa in the park,” Adrian smiled grimly, a quaver in his voice.