The Song of Bronze and Blue
Prologue
Fortunata Longbottom was a Ravenclaw.
She had taken great pride of it over the years, though at first it hadn't been easy. Her cousin, Frank, was in Gryffindor, as had been most of the Longbottoms that hadn't been a Black in the first place. So as she doned in the bronze and blue colors of the house of the wise, she wondered if she truly belonged between the eagles.
It wasn't until she stepped into the Common Room that she realized all the worries she'd had throughout dinner at the Great Hall had been for nothing. First Years like her galed at the shelves upon shelves of books spread, at the arched windows and the starry ceiling and the beautiful statue of the intelligent founder Rowena Ravenclaw.
Blue and bronze became a staple on her wardrobe, and very rarely did she leave the Common Room - how could she when debates arose at every chance? How could she when there were so many books to read? How could she when even the eldest of the students took the chance to speak of their own experiences on the castle? Fortunata made friends with her House, asked questions beyond any imaginable answer she could get, just to see her Housemates sit and converse.
Her First Year was full of wonder and mystery, knowledge and lessons. Before she knew it, she was almost a year ahead in her studies, and all because of the little tricks and shortcuts and books and stories that were left on the shelves of the Ravenclaw Common Room. By the end of the year, she had to say goodbye to those who taught her, and also a temporary goodbye to the most wonderful of the places - Hogwarts castle.
Second Year she realized one could only read so much before she ran out of books. And thus began the exploration of the castle. It was that year that she met Abigail Brown, a friendly Second Year Hufflepuff who gladly helped her find any book in the library that she wished to read. The exploration of the library turned to the exploration of the third and eventually the fourth floor of Hogwarts.
Abigail soon learned that what Fortunata seeked the most wasn't an adventure, or even new books to read, but new things she could see, and learn, and store inside her head. The Hufflepuff would follow, because Fortunata was her friend, and she was fun, and she learned new things every time they spoke - Abigail liked to explore, too, and she was gaining a friend and better grades on Transfiguration thanks to the Ravenclaw.
On Third Year, Fortunata learned of magical creatures on a new subject, and soon enough she had memorized the entirety of the Magical Creates Section on the west wing of the Hogwarts Library. Abigail, by her side, bit on a licorize wand and edited her potions essay. Then, when Winter left and the both of them were back in the castle, the first and second floor were their goal. They found the dungeons, where Slytherins came and went by, and with their new discovery came a new friend by the name of Lionel Nott, a Fourth Year who thoroughly enjoyed annoying Fortunata for being "an unsufferable know-it-all."
Lionel didn't have many friends, and he was grateful to have both witches by his side.
He didn't have the prejudices his house had when it came to blood, yet he hated Gryffindors with high passion. He jinxed a few a day, picked fights with the likes of Sirius Black and James Potter, and was thoroughly rude to Proffessor McGonagall.
But he had confessed to Abigail and Fortunata, at three in the morning in the kitchens near the Hufflepuff Common Room, that he wished to be a healer, and a healer he'd be. Fortunata and Abigail developed a habit of defending Lionel, no matter if guilty or innocent, of anything anyone might accuse him of. In return, Lionel explored the castle with them and taught them that the line between Dark Magic and Blood Magic was more defined than what people made them believe.
It was in Fourth Year that things began to change. Lionel was pressured by his family to start acting like a man - and soon began to trips to the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts after the black haired boy joined the Quidditch team. Fortunata, always one with a temper, would spit and curse his family while Abigail handed him the Pain Dulling Potion she'd very carefully made. He'd take it, sleep, and the next day he'd sit beside them on the Hufflepuff table to smile and say he knew another healing spell that would surely help him reach his goal.
It was also in Fourth Year that they discovered something while exploring the fifth and sixth floors of the castle - the Room of Requirements. Only Fortunata was familiar with the term, but when they stepped inside, Abigail confirmed that it was the work of Helga Hufflepuff, the founder of her own house, who made the room they stepped in. The next night, instead of exploring, the three entered the room again. Fortunata laughed hysterically when she saw the piles of objects, forgotten and old, lying around the massive room. Whenever Abigail or Lionel couldn't find her, they knew where to search.
By the end of the year, Lionel had realized that his grades had never been better, despite the endless nights moving across the castle in order to avoid Filch. Abigail laughed, sitting at the end of his hospital bed with a chocolate frog in her hand. He'd taken it, thanked her, and it was then and only then that Fortunata, for the first time, noticed the sleeping figure of Remus Lupin a few beds away from them.
"Is that Lupin?" Lionel asked once he'd seen where her eyes were settled.
"Yeah," she'd whispered back. "He looks terrible, did Potter and Black do that?"
"Could have been Pettigrew," Lionel pointed out.
"He's not mean, not like the other two," Fortunata sat straighter, craning her neck to try and see him. "He's got a shit ton of empty vials on his nightstand. What the hell happened to him?"
"He always looks like shit, though," Lionel sat on his bed, wincing.
"Careful, Lio," Abigail stood to help him, and the aslytherin kissed her temple with care.
"Thanks, Abby," he sighed, looking at his almost black knee. The bruise covered the entirety of it. "I fucking hate Quidditch."
"No," Fortunata muttered.
"Oh, not again," Lionel groaned.
"He always does look tired," the Ravenclaw watched the sleeping form of the Gryffindor with narrowed eyes. "Why?"
"Don't break your brain," Lionel said, and they didn't speak of Remus Lupin again.
But it haunted Fortunata sometimes. She'd be speaking to her friends, or maybe sharing an early lunch with Pandora at her table, when the sandy haired boy would trudge in, flop down on his bench, and inhale his food as if he hadn't eaten in days. Oftentimes people would pitch in - explain that his aunt is sick a lot of times, and he inherited the trait, that he's a good student who overworks himself, and even one time a gossipy housemate had told her that he and the three friends would disappear in the middle of the night every full moon.
It was only when the full moon was mentioned that she realized it. Sitting in her house, in summer, reading the letters some Ravenclaws sent her, painting her nails with Abigail, that she realized that Gryffindor student Remus Lupin was a werewolf.
"Oh," she'd mumbled, dropping Abigail's hand.
"Did you realize something?" the blonde asked, and when Fortunata nodded but didn't provide information, her friend smiled. "Well, I hope you can sleep better at night, then, Nat."
She didn't. She tossed and turned and thought of calling Lionel before she was reminded that he hated everything Gryffindor stood for. And thus, for the first time, Fortunata kept a secret.
She was chosen was prefect that summer, receiving a heavy, packed letter that gave her congratulations and informed her that, along with prefect Marcus Brown, she was going to be working with other houses. When her eyes fell on the Gryffindor house prefects, she let out a long breath - she had known it'd be Lily Evans and Remus Lupin. It was much too obvious.
She'd been chosen prefect because of her grades, but she knew that the only thing she could possibly excell at was Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmacy. Abigail was best at Potions and Alchemy, while Lionel was a brilliant Transfiguration and Charms student.
The beginning of Fifth Year was the very first time since third year that she hadn't directly gone with Lionel and Abigail to share a compartment. And thus, began Fortunata's long and inevitable relationship with the Marauders of Hogwarts.