Card the moon

Chapter 29 – Let it snow

…

Bitter. Cold. There was a hole in his soul, bitter and cold. All the warmth was gone. The sun had set forever. Joy, happiness, what are these things? Are they tasty? Can they fill the hole? The hole in his soul, so bitter, so cold.

Ron was still fuming, and Hermione was in the library avoiding both of them. Harry was inclined to let her be, Ron too. He was still angry with Hermione but Ron's need to harp on the point was not improving the situation. No one could. It was gone. His one, his only, gone.

*sigh*

Okay, so he was being a bit overdramatic. If he was being honest with himself, and it was really hard, it was—just, just—just a bbbbbbroomstick.

"Ugh! I can't even think it," he moped aloud.

And who could blame him? It wasn't 'just' a broomstick, it was a Firebolt. He'd wanted one from the very moment he lay eyes on it. And he'd had it. For a few glorious hours it was his. Technically it still was, for all the good it did him now that McGonagall held it in custody. And for what? The chance it might be hexed.

She wasn't even doing anything with it, couldn't. The only one qualified to do the job was Flitwick and he was out of the castle till the holiday was over. Some holiday.

He couldn't stand to be around either of his friends, so he'd gone for a walk. If either of them had been paying attention they might have told him not to go. Wandering around on his own; don't you know Sirius Black is out to get you? Are you trying to get yourself killed?

They wouldn't have liked his answer. He wasn't suicidal but he was in a foul mood; the kind of mood that would lead him to saying things; stupid things; things he didn't really mean but wouldn't stop himself from saying. Those kind of things.

He meandered past the quidditch stadium, snow lightly falling around him. He barely glanced when his elf popped in just behind him, loud enough to announce his presence, a presence that shouldn't have been in his presence.

"I thought I said I wanted to be left alone Dobby."

The elf nodded timidly, he remembered the conversation, "Dobby is knowing, but, Dobby is noticing as he is tidying Harry Potter sirs things, Harry Potter sirs is missing unwrapping one of his presents."

The elf held out his over sized hand, presenting a light blue package with a neon pink bow, "From you's Miss Loveygood."

A wry smile drifted across Harry's face at the way Dobby referred to Luna; wry being all he could manage while remaining in his funk which he was far from ready to come out of.

"Thank you, Dobby," he said, taking the tacky package.

The elf nodded and vanished with a snap, leaving Harry with the peculiar package from the peculiar girl.

Curiosity temporarily overcame his mood, and how could it not. He'd never met anyone so atypical as Luna Lovegood. What might such a person give as a gift. The box wasn't very big, though with magic that certainly didn't mean much.

He worked out the knot on the garish pink bow, stuffing the ribbon into his pocket before he opened it. Inside was a very nice, albeit simple wristwatch. The knob on the end used to wind it seemed larger than it ought to be, but beyond that it looked as nothing more than a perfectly ordinary time piece.

Of course, he didn't believe that for a second. Unless he'd read Luna completely wrong, there was no way she would send a regular gift like a wristwatch. Didn't stop him from putting it on. The fit was perfect, uncannily so even.

"That can't be all."

Staring at the watch forced no secrets from it so he turned to the box. The small space beneath the padded base, revealed after a good shaking, released a folded bit of paper signed Luna at the bottom.

It was a rambly, directionless sort of note. It made him feel better because that was totally Luna. It ended with something about gentleman always standing for a lady before ending with her signature. He read it again, still unable to make sense of it before turning it over.

Set the time to midnight, press in the button, and say, 'Suit up', was all she wrote.

This he understood, at least in so far as he knew what he was supposed to do. He pulled out the knob, adjusted the time to midnight, pushed in the knob and said, "Suit up."

Nothing happened.

Disheartened, he fiddled a bit with the knob, only to discover it pushed in further when the time was set to midnight, "Suit up?"

It probably wasn't supposed to be a question, but the watch didn't care. Context was a bit beyond its limited understanding; it heard the words, it did what it was made to do.

He started at the glow that encompassed him, then marveled at its effect, his entire outfit, changed in a near instant. And where had the cane come from?

The snow fall grew notably heavier as he examined his present. The new outfit wasn't put over his old cloths, everything had been completely replaced. He now found himself wearing a very nice suit, complete with white silk shirt and red silk tie; black coat and trousers, and yes, even the underwear was new. How she'd gotten his size, especially for his underwear was too mortifying to think about.

He also found a black bowler hat atop his head, and a black domino mask over his face, replacing his glasses. Upon inspection he found they had lenses implanted in the eye holes, good lenses, better lenses. Lenses like he'd never seen through. Everything was so clear, like how much the snow had picked up.

"That was quick," he remarked, looking around at the growing flurry.

It would have been easy to head back inside. No amount of avoiding his friends was worth standing out in a blizzard. He wasn't feeling that spiteful. But when he turned toward the castle, a wicked chill ran up his spine, accompanied by a wailing snow filled gale blasting a wall in front of him. That wasn't normal.

"That can only mean one of two things. I'm betting—Clow card."

He turned back around and came face to face with a snow-white woman in an ornate Japanese robe. It was only a moment, there and gone as the blizzard quickly obscured her from view. Harry trudged over to where he thought she'd been, but she was gone. So was the quidditch stadium, the castle, the forest, basically anything more than five feet in front of his nose.

"Well bugger me," it was going to be another one of those, the kind that tried, overtly, to kill him.

Lucky for him he had a spell that ought to blast right through her little blizzard. Unlucky for him, as he soon discovered, his change of clothes had included anything he was carrying inside them, like his wand.

"Double bugger me," his Clow cards had been in his 'other pants' as well. "Huh, so that's what people mean by that."

Now he was really in for it. Unarmed, lost, in a blizzard, and he didn't know how to change back. "This has got to be some sort of karma. Was I a dark lord in a previous life?"

It was with surprising calm he considered his options. Surrounded by a howling blizzard he shouldn't have felt calm, it was very strange. He put it out of his mind for later and focused on his immediate situation.

He had no wand, which meant no fire spell. He had no Clow cards, at least, none that he could touch. But did he need to. The first time he used the WINDY he hadn't been touching the card, or LOOP. They'd been in his back pocket. He may have been guessing, but it was fair to surmise in some sense all his cloths, including the cards within, were somehow inside the watch. Would that be enough.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, the wind howled, and the snow piled with worrying speed. He drown it out, he felt them, far yet near (round yet square). He was going entirely on instinct, but so what else was new. Everything he'd been doing with the Clow cards since the Buckbeak incident had been on instinct.

"WINDY!"

A swirling vortex blasted the snow away and he stood in stillness. He had a sense that the other card didn't like that; the blizzard pressed in hard against the stilling gale.

"Got to find her. Can't just sit here and let her blast me." But how? She could be anywhere. How did you track something like that? "With a very special kind of dog. THUNDER!"

The lightning hound erupted into existence and roared its arrival. A glance was shared tween man and thundering beast, then he was after her. It was a short hunt; she hadn't gone far. The blizzard failed when the first scream came. Thunder chased her out of the forest and into the open, dogging her heels and cutting off every attempt to attack.

WINDY, waiting patiently, snatched up the snow spirit in her swirling embrace, raising her out of reach of the thunder hound. Harry trudged through the snow till he was looking straight up at the captured spirit.

"You're lucky I don't have my wand, or I would have toasted your frosty butt."

The spirit turned up her nose haughtily, which lost some of its effect with her hair blowing in her face.

"Yeah, I think that's enough of your attitude. Back to the card with you. SNOW!"

The swirling wind mixed with the swirling snow, all dying away, the card floating stubbornly into his waiting hand. Even sealed he could feel the obstinance radiating off it.

"She must be fun at parties," Harry quipped to no one but himself. "Now, time to get out of this stupid cold."

Get inside, warm up, figure out how to change back, that was his plan. It hit a bit of wrench when he neared the castle and a black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead came charging out.

"Harry? Harry, please tell me that's you."

"Yeah, why wouldn't it—oh the outfit. Yeah, it's me," he said.

"Where did you—never mind. More important things. We've found another youma, and this one is no joke. Sailor Moon's fighting it, but she's losing badly. If we don't hurry, I'm afraid it will…"

But Harry didn't need to hear the rest, couldn't in fact. He was too busy running.