"Good," he said, squeezing her hand. "I look forward to it."
He stood slowly, cane in hand, and hobbled over to the door. He glanced back at Fleur as he left, offering a small, reassuring smile, and then disappeared down the hall.
The Healer led him to a lift that took them down to the bottom level of Saint Mungo's, to a long block of stone cells. Already feverish and anxious, Bill felt suddenly nauseous at the sight. A few cells down, another Healer accompanied a young woman who was visibly shaking. Bill locked eyes with her for a moment and felt a pang of guilt. She was clearly in for a long night and he'd hopefully be in and out.
The Healer unlocked a cell and Bill made his way inside. There was a neatly folded blanket in the corner and nothing else.
"Err, sorry," the Healer said. "We don't do beds anymore because they always got torn to shreds and the mending spells stopped working."
"It's fine," Bill said, leaning his cane against the wall and sliding down to sit on the floor. He curled up with the blanket tucked around him and closed his eyes.
He tried to sleep as the moon rose but he was uncomfortable and his head ached dully behind his eyes. A sudden pain shot down his wounded leg as he heard the werewolf in the nearby cell begin to scream. This was it.
The real torture wasn't the moon itself but the experience of hearing the woman transform. Of all the things that ached and pained him, it was the screams that were the worst. Once they'd faded into the soft snarls of a caged werewolf, Bill focused on his own body and found he felt almost the same. Yes, the leg hurt, and yes he felt strangely energetic and exhausted all at once, but he was still human.
He pulled the blanket tighter and waited, observing that he could now clearly distinguish smells he hadn't noticed before and that objects in the dim hallway appeared sharper. Everything was slightly heightened so that when the Healer returned to check on him, Bill had heard him coming from much further away.
"I feel okay," he reported, pulling himself to his feet with the help of the cane. "Still sore and all that stuff, but no different." The Healer performed a few basic diagnostic spells through the cage bars and then, satisfied, opened the door to allow him back upstairs.
He wasn't sure he'd ever been more relieved. He had as much of a spring in his step as he could managed with the bum leg as he made his way back to his room to meet Fleur.