Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created sorely to satisfy my imagination. Harry Potter and anything/everything related to the novels belongs to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing in this fanfic that might be recognizable as belonging to the canon of HP.

AN: I'm not too happy with how this chapter turned out, but I thought best to leave it as it is. I need to move forward with the story to get where I want to be.

Chapter 8: November run

The full moon shone brightly over the Forbidden Forest and I felt myself sway my shoulders with the upmost elegance that in normal day to day I could not muster. The wind howled, the trees grunted, and the eeriness of the unknown thrilled me beyond reasoning.

There was no reasoning to its appeal.

I was drunk again. Out of my head. Blitzed. The haze of the moon veiled my most rational thoughts and made me step into my darkest of heritages. The truest truth in my blood.

The nightgown blew in the nightly wind of November. If it was cold, which I'm sure it was, I couldn't feel it. I could not feel pain of any kind. All that was in me was contentment, and that was pure bliss.

Like the previous month, the pack found me. I had just waltzed into the Forest like I owned the place, gliding in ways only possible when drunk. Tentatively, they edged from the protection of the trees, bringing a smile to my face. Before that moment, I had not realized just how much I missed them.

The castle, though filled with people, was a fortress of solitude for me or at least I thought that as I laid a kiss on the four different furs that neared me. In the three months spent in Hogwarts so far, I had yet to make and keep for long any kinds of friends, but with the pack I felt intimate. We had only played on two full moons, and yet it made me feel like those two nights had been years. We knew each other in ways I don't think anyone could understand. And at that moment, that was how I liked it.

Again, we ran together.

It was just as the first time, exhilaratingly fun and crazy. We moved like blurs through the forest grounds; dodging, jumping and galloping together in a way too perfect to describe. As a dance, I would try to explain. We ran as if in a previously choreographed dance. We knew were each had to be and what move had to be done, and we managed to stay out of the way of the other, as if we all in direct link into each other's mind.

The only thing that was expected of me, by them, was to run. I was to run with them, and they with me.

I repressed the need to sigh as the portrait came into view.

He would pry. He always did on a normal basis, and he would not open the door until I talked to him or snap. It was the morning after a full moon. I was cold, dirty and tired; I would end up snapping again.

"Imperi—"

"You will speak to me first." His voice was definite, the kind I did not like to invoke in him. He sat as he always did in his portrait, looking at me from a bent angle. His beard went down to the lower frame of the drawing and disappeared. I had yet to see him standing in all the times I had seek his guidance or his words, but I liked to imagine that it reached his knees. True to his house, his ancient robes were green, and on his head rested a pointed hat.

This time I sighed, loud and clear for him to hear. I found myself crossing my arms and slouching my shoulders.

"I'm listening."

He cleared his throat. "I understand that there are many natures in your being, and that coping at once with all is confusing." He began, his amber eyes looking at me intensely. Then again, he always looked at anyone like that. "However, there are things, even in our magical world that are not normal. These full moon strolls, for example, are occurrences that must be corrected. There is darkness in them. One that will corrupt you easily."

I couldn't look away from him as he continued. "Since the day we have met, I've done all in my power to help you to the correct path. A path leading to safety and understanding of what I have bestowed in you. All that you are - all that has happened - you have shared with me, except for what happens under the moon's influence. For three nights, you've left through my door out of your head. The first night of which left you in the hospital. This is not good. It is not a natural thing, and you refuse to let me help you surpass it. I know that I am limited to this frame, that I am not the man who walked these very hallways once, but we can find a way. Accept my help Faraday. We can get Dumbledore's aid so as to be able to control this unnatural condition."

At some point during his speech, I had to look down. His words, though filled with care and worry toward me, felt more like a burden. All I could remember was the gentle breeze of the nightly wind making the hem of my nightgown dance, the beauty of it, and how two old wizards that only wanted the best for me would damaged that.

"Why do you insist on it being unnatural when it's the most normal state I can be in? It doesn't hurt me. It's gentle with me, and understanding, unlike your blood knowledge." I won't lie, I wanted to cry.

The portrait's face gave me a sad grimace, as if to show that the last thing he wanted was to hurt me. "It cannot be explained."

His words caused a frustration in me, one I couldn't fully understand. "I can explain it!" I said up to him. My hands were shaking, as my emotions threatened to come crashing down my face. "The hold the moon has on me is because of my inheritance. Like the abilities I received from you, ancestral grandfather. I received my affinity to the moon from my ancestral grandmother."

I saw how the mention of my female ancestor made him wince.

"But where did she find such power?" Those amber eyes pierced right through me, and gave me the impression that he was seeing pass me, to a person and time that no longer existed. "When I died I took that question unanswered to the great beyond. And even as I am a painting, barely who I was, I find myself haunted by it. There was darkness in her, one that consumed and destroyed everything that was good in her. Just as it happened to her, it will happen to you if you don't accept help."

Again, I was silent for a long time, not being able to grasp his statement and wanting to be anywhere but there.

I felt incredibly guilty as I stood in front of the door to Slytherin House. What was worse was that I had no say in the matter. He claimed that I would be corrupted should I continue to allow myself to be controlled by what he called 'darkness' in me, but he failed to see that it was something I had no need to know how to control. I had told him many times before, yet he was still oblivious to the fact that I just lose control as soon as the moon is high enough to shine down.

It was frustrating, that at the state I was in, I had to go through a sermon, and I might have seen a bit more coldly than I was feeling. "Why do you fear her? Why do you fear her in me?"

His voice seemed small, and what expression he had I refused to find out. I kept looking down. "I could not help her. I refuse to fail again."

I did not want to, but if I wanted to escape the portrait's worry - at least for the night - I had to agree to what he asked. It wasn't that I agreed with him, it was that I had to get away as soon as possible or I would end up crying in front of a ten centuries old painting."I'll accept your help, if you accept my one condition."

"Say it."

"We don't get the Headmaster yet."

"Farad—"

I held my hands up to make him stop. It was the only part I could tilt to my favor, and I was not going to lose it. "We'll deal with this just the two of us, just for now, please."

"Very well. I will not inform Albus. However, should we find ourselves in need of his assistance; neither you nor I will dally in seeking him." His demeanor was more upbeat, and without having to repeat the password, the portrait swung to the side, revealing the corridor to the Slytherin common room. "Are we clear?"

With the door open, I slipped right in.

"Yes, Merlin."