Starlight and
Moonlight
A
Harry Potter Fan Fiction Piece
By
Megaella Ballanche-Viewlard
Part One: The Witch with the Golden Eyes
"Harry?"
Impatiently, Sirius Black called up
from the living room.
"HARRY!", he shouted. "Hurry up!
We can't miss the train, you know!"
Hurriedly, sixteen-year-old Harry
Potter scrambled down the stairs and found his foster father pacing about
impatiently. A fire was burning
brightly in the grate despite that it had suddenly turned warm for an early
autumn day. The jar of Floo Powder on
the mantelpiece had its lid off. Their
luggage was all ready to be carted off for the trip back to Hogwarts for
Harry's sixth year.
It looked like a brighter year for
Harry, his friends, and everyone close to them. At the end of the previous school year, the evil wizard Voldemort
had finally been vanquished when Harry blew him away with a very powerful spell
that more than exacted the vengeance he craved for the deaths of his parents
James and Lily. Harry was quite sure
they were now really resting in peace after fifteen years.
Sirius's name had been cleared and the
traitor Peter Pettigrew thrown into the bleak prison of Azkaban in his
place. ("Serves the bugger right",
Sirius had grunted in deep satisfaction when the verdict was handed down.) As a result, Sirius was finally able to
claim his responsibility as Harry's godfather and guardian. At the beginning of the summer, Sirius had
ridden up from Hogwarts on the same train as the students and had
authoritatively swept in front of an astonished Vernon Dursley, telling him in
passing that he was taking Harry away – for good – and that the boy needed better
guardians who would treat him better, love him, and – most
importantly – understand him.
For Harry, moving in with Sirius had been an early birthday
present. He did have several
more of those, of course…
Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
replaced another Voldemort supporter, Cornelius Fudge, as Minister of
Magic. The ever self-effacing
Dumbledore had, once again, tried to decline the position but finally took it –
albeit reluctantly – due to insistent public demand. The similarly modest Arthur Weasley, the father of Harry's best
friend Ron, had been assigned as his right-hand man and the ensuing pay hike
brought up the level of comfort at the Weasley household. This, of course, meant that Deputy
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was now Headmistress.
This last reassignment of duties
caused a bit of worry – quite close to a crisis, actually – as a new head for
Gryffindor House as well as a new Transfiguration teacher had not been
designated due to the sudden occurrence of events.
It wasn't a crisis for long, though. Sirius Black found himself dragooned into
taking McGonagall's place as Transfiguration professor, causing mighty cheers
to erupt from the Gryffindor table at the Great Hall during the year-end
feast.
Then, after a year with a Mad-Eye Moody impostor
and another with a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who seemed to have
been cut from the same cloth as the incompetent Gilderoy Lockhart, came a
surprising but extremely well received decision. Remus J. Lupin, the Hogwarts alumnus who had handled the subject
in Harry's third year, was to be reinstated and made head of Gryffindor
where he once belonged – regardless of the fact that he was a
werewolf.
Goodness only knew how fervent and how loud the
cheers from the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-year students of all four
houses were! Even the Slytherins were
enthusiastic about Lupin's return as he'd been their best teacher for the
subject ever. The departing
seventh-year students, however, could be heard muttering darkly about life not
being fair, about how unlucky they were that they were leaving just as Lupin
was about to come back.
Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House, had been so
shaken by the turn of events over the past year that he relinquished the
thought of ever taking the DADA classes himself. Indeed, working with both Sirius Black and Remus Lupin for the past
year enabled them to settle their differences; Snape was more than willing to
stir up batches of Wolfsbane Potion if it meant never having to deal with
incompetent exorcists ever again!
Harry smiled as he thought about the
kindly Remus who was second godfather to him.
Sirius had made it clear that, if anything were to happen to him, Remus
would look after Harry. It was a joke
between the two remaining Marauders that Remus would've made a very good
father, but it was a joke that had its basis in fact. Despite his frail-seeming body, the androgynously handsome Remus
had always been good with children: as a student, he'd been very
older-brotherly. As a teacher, he'd
been quite paternal to the point that his students caught themselves on the
verge of calling him "dad" more times than they'd care to count.
He was also quite a
disciplinarian. He probably wasn't bad
as Snape, but bad enough to scare the living daylights out of the lot of
them. Harry remembered that somewhat
ruefully…
That summer, he'd
invited Ron over to where he and Sirius had been living with Remus.
The boys had been lured into doing all sorts of mischief by Sirius and
the crowning point of the whole summer was a magical taffy pull to which Harry
had been allowed to invite a number of other classmates and friends.
The party for the taffy pull in the dining room went along successfully,
but the taffy pull itself in the kitchen was a disaster. The cauldron where they'd been boiling the
candy exploded, hurling a gooey mess that spattered all over the kitchen. The boys had all been in the kitchen with
Sirius when it happened and everyone was in high spirits, laughing over the
explosion.
The kitchen door slammed open and in
stormed Remus, pale face livid, one hand on the door and the other clenched
around his wand. They all fell silent
at the sight of the angry wizard at the door.
"What happened here?", he demanded,
marching into the ruined kitchen. Hands
on his hips, he stared down the offenders who had all cowered into a
corner. There was a definite wolfish
gleam in his violet eyes that made them all cold all over.
"Um…"
It was shaky little Neville who spoke first in his tremulous voice. "Th-the cauldron exploded, sir", he mumbled,
eyes widening like a frightened bunny-rabbit.
"That seems painfully obvious…"
Remus suddenly caught a whiff of
something different from the aroma of caramel that hung in the air and went
over to the ruined cauldron. Studying
the contents, he looked up with a withering glance and grabbed a pair of tongs
from a cupboard. Gingerly, he fished
out the remains of a Dr. Filibuster's Firecracker from the sticky mess in the
cauldron. The stare he fixed upon the
nonchalant (albeit shaking) Sirius was probably about as deadly as that of a
basilisk if it had been someone else.
"Why, you're trembling, Padfoot!" Remus drew closer with the air of a wolf about to pounce. "Surely you – of all people! – didn't
have anything to do with this!"
"Um, well, er…" Beads of cold sweat began to drip down
Sirius's face, which, by this point, had taken on an almost deathly
pallor.
If he'd probably given a straight
answer, the end result would've been rather peaceful. As he didn't, however, Remus practically lost it and came very
close to howling his head (and everyone else's ears) off.
Pointing his wand at the cleaning
closet, he roared, "Accio!" A
flock of brooms few straight into each guilty person's hand along with an
assortment of mops, rags, and buckets that magically filled themselves with
soapy water. The miserable group stared
at each other incredulously. Surely,
he doesn't mean that we have to…
"I want every single spot of this kitchen scrubbed clean", Remus
thundered as he turned for the door. "Accio!" Everyone's wands came flying out of their
robe pockets and into his hands. "No
magic", he snapped. "Elbow
grease." He marched out of the door
with everyone else's wands as the morose gazes of the guilty trailed him. The door slammed shut behind him, making
them all jump.
For the rest of the afternoon, they
threw themselves wholesale into the horrendous job of cleaning up. As it was his suggestion that had led to
this sorry state of affairs, nobody spoke to Sirius the whole time. He ended up
with a pitiful hangdog expression on his face when the exhausting chore was
over and Remus came back to inspect.
The girls came right behind him, looking smug.
"I take it he chewed you out?",
Hermione asked Ron and Harry, both of whom had crumpled into an exhausted heap
after having to scrape hardened taffy off the tiles by the sink.
"And then some", Harry managed to
gasp.
"Are we waxing or waning this week?",
Ron choked from the floor.
"Waxing", Hermione replied.
"Oh, man…" Ron stole a nervous glance towards Remus who was busy checking
every corner for any sticky residue.
Nudging Harry in the ribs, he asked if they had already brewed any
Wolfsbane Potion. "We might need it",
he muttered ominously.
"Snape sent us a jug full of it",
Harry replied. "It's up in one of the
cupboards."
Remus looked satisfied by the way the
kitchen had been scrubbed spotless.
But, "Let's not take any chances, shall we?" He reached up and opened one of the cupboards to take out the jug
that Harry had described. The contents
sent up wisps of foul-smelling steam when the jug was uncorked. Sighing, Remus carefully poured out the vile
stuff into a goblet and gulped it down without a word. Then, to everyone's surprise, he poured a second
dose and drank that down as well.
He shivered at the horrible taste.
"God, that's awful!"
"Why two doses, Moony?", Sirius
asked, his curiosity piqued.
"After what you guys did?", Remus
gasped as he put the cork back on the jug. "One probably might not be enough to
save you from my wrath." There was a
dangerous, lupine glint in his eyes and the normally placid wizard looked more
than a bit, well, dangerous.
The implications of the whole scene made everyone cringe.
Harry laughed at
that particular memory.
"What's so funny?", Sirius asked him with a grin.
"I just remembered the double dose of
potion Remus had to take when you dropped that firecracker into the taffy
cauldron", Harry chuckled. "I really
thought he was going to have us for supper then!" They all knew better, of course; Remus would rather kill himself
than put any of them in danger.
"Yeah, that was a memorable one." Sirius himself roared with laughter at
that. Taking the jar of Floo Powder, he
tossed a shimmering handful into the fire.
Pushing Harry's stuff in, he motioned for the boy to jump in. "After you", he said. "Have to lock and ward up, otherwise Remus
will kill me."
"Okay." Harry jumped in, the cage holding the sleeping Hedwig in
hand. "To Platform 9 ¾!", he cried.
In a dizzying flurry, Harry found
himself and his luggage transported to the grate of the porters' room at King's
Cross Station's Platform 9 ¾. A
wizard-porter helped him out of the fireplace and dusted him off with a huge
clothes brush while a second porter carted his stuff onto the train. Ron was already there with Hermione and his
sister Ginny.
"Oy, you took your sweet time coming
here!" Ron and Harry slapped
high-fives. Hermione hugged the new
arrival before putting her usual death-lock on Ron while Ginny laughed as Harry
planted an affectionate kiss on her cheek.
"Where's Sirius?", Hermione asked
Harry. Harry simply jerked a thumb at
his approaching foster-father who looked appallingly like a chimney sweep,
powdered as he was with soot from head to foot.
"Hullo, y'all!", he roared
good-naturedly, enveloping the four youngsters in a very smoky bear-hug. "How are you, kids?" He winked at them playfully. "Hope no one's folks got a Howler from Moony
after what happened the last time."
"Remus never sends Howlers, Sirius",
Harry reminded him.
"Thank God, he doesn't!" Ron crowed with laughter. "Good thing Mum never found out or I'd have
been in major hot water if she found out I helped trash your kitchen!"
"He was really nervous the
whole week after we got home", Ginny giggled.
"Every time Hedwig or Luna showed up, he'd run to his room in a
fright!" Luna was Remus's owl, a snowy
she-owl like Hedwig but much bigger.
"Mum thought he was feverish because he was so jumpy; good thing it
never occurred to her that he was guilty about some prank!"
They all laughed and joked around
about it, particularly when the other Gryffindor fifth and sixth-years caught
up with them.
"By the way…" Hermione frowned as she looked around,
craning her neck over the heads of the crowd.
"Where is Remus? Did he
go on ahead?"
"In a manner of speaking", Harry
nodded. "He came here first; I'll wager
he's down at that compartment near the end of the train, napping."
"Fellow keeps wearing himself out",
Sirius grunted, but he did not mean that unkindly. He was concerned about Remus's well-being as the rest of
them. "As if the Change doesn't drain him
enough, he fills in for some of the more demanding Auror jobs for the Ministry
or gets busy with his writing or throws himself into his syllabus!"
"Can't you get him to slow down?",
Hermione asked. Her tone had a definite
accusation ringing in it. "You're his
best friend, Sirius!"
"The only one left, come to think of
it", Ron added somewhat absently.
"I would if I could – but I can't!" Sirius spread his hands, looking more than a
little put out by the question. "I'm
not sure if I can make any of you understand what sort of hell he has to go
through every time the full moon shows up.
Moony wants to forget the pain he experiences during the Change. I do know he's more than a little
misguided when he thinks that working so hard can tone things down, but what
can I do?"
Everyone was taken aback by this
impassioned outburst coming from a normally playful rogue like Sirius Black,
but none of them could answer his last question.
It was a question that remained
unanswered even as the last whistle blew before the Hogwarts Express pulled out
of the station.
Sure enough,
Remus Lupin was sleeping soundly in the last compartment when Sirius and the
others slipped in.
He'd managed to rouse himself a bit to
say hello but fell asleep before anyone could strike up a conversation with
him.
Ron studied the slumbering Remus while
the others discussed Gryffindor House's chances for the Quidditch Cup for the
year in quiet but excited voices. As he
regarded the thin, exhausted wizard's careworn face and silver-flecked brown
hair, he remembered what he'd said the first time they encountered him back in
their third year.
Looks like one good hex could
finish him off…
Ron had long since taken those words
back. Remus was, despite the
lycanthropy and whatever else it was that ailed him, an exceptionally competent
teacher who knew exactly what he was doing and made sure that his students did
the same.
Nevertheless, Ron had always thought
that Remus Lupin didn't seem to exist in the same world as the rest of
them. It was like he was on the
outside, sadly looking in on those who had normal lives.
I wonder if…
Ron shook his head; he dared not voice such an opinion. Remus had transcended from being just their
teacher to becoming their friend and, for some odd reason, almost like a member
of the family. (He remembered how his
mother tried to fatten him up when he, Harry, and Sirius were invited for
dinner at the Burrow.) He would
probably feel insulted, possibly even hurt if Ron asked him about… The red-haired boy sighed and turned his
eyes to the landscape sweeping past outside.
During the
summer, a rumor flew among the Hogwarts students wherever they may have been.
Headmistress McGonagall agreed with
the rest of the faculty that the ghost of Old Professor Binns was not helping
the students at all when it came to History of Magic and Cultural Magic. The old ghost understood, thankfully, and he
simply went to haunt the library he'd loved during his lifetime, annoying the
hapless Madam Pince as he did. In his
place would be a much younger living teacher, a Hogwarts alumna from
abroad.
News about the new teacher spread
throughout the Hogwarts Express as it chugged along the track and all sorts of
speculations flew about.
"Young, you say?", someone asked. "How young do you think she is?"
"Early or mid-thirties like Snape,
Lupin, and Black?", someone suggested.
Someone denied that. "Twenty-ish", they said.
Ooh…, they thought. She's either young enough to join in on
the fun or young enough to be a regular control freak!
"Is she pretty?"
"Are you nuts?", someone
snorted. "If she were pretty, do you
honestly think she'd spend her days teaching?"
Everyone wondered what she would be
like. Opinions ranging from "very
pretty" to "pretty ugly" differed from compartment to compartment. An unending debate over the whole dumb bimbo
thing against the whole droning geek thing also raged for a better part of the
journey. As to what she was really
like, no one aboard had the foggiest clue.
Remus, however, simply listened in
intent silence as those in his compartment chattered about her as he woke from
his nap. His lips were pursed into a
thoughtful line the way they usually did when he seemed to know something the
others didn't.
The Headmistress had summoned him to
Hogwarts the previous week and he'd run into a pretty unusual character…
In the week prior
to the start of the term, Remus was summoned to Hogwarts.
Incoming Headmistress McGonagall was
going to turn over some things to him, mostly stuff he needed as the new Head
of Gryffindor House.
It was Severus Snape – Severus
Snape, of all people – who met him at the Hogsmeade Station. The two had long since buried the hatchet
and greeted each other cordially. On
the coach bound for the school, Snape filled Remus in on the dismissal of
Professor Binns and was eager to talk about the new teacher.
"She was one of my first students", he
began. "Came about five years after our
class left Hogwarts. Amihan Sinagtala,
daughter of the former Philippine ambassador Habagat Sinagtala. You're aware that he and his wife are of our
kind, aren't you?"
"Yes, and they were able to hide it so
skillfully." In his mind's eye, Remus
remembered Ambassador Sinagtala: a dark, massive man with a solemn countenance
and wry sense of humor. "I met them when Dad and I launched the book
we did on Philippine wizards. That was
around the summer before I last taught here."
He regarded Snape thoughtfully.
"What's his daughter like, Severus?"
They had entered the school gates at
that point. Pressing a finger to his
lips, Snape led Remus towards a clump of oak trees. He pointed to what appeared to be a cloaked and hooded figure
delicately plucking the strings of a Japanese samisen to produce a
gentle, haunting melody.
"That's her", Snape said quietly as
they listened to the soft, lilting music.
"She was always musically inclined, you see; a rather talented girl."
"You seem to have a soft spot for her,
Severus", Remus noted as they made their way towards the castle proper. "She was a Slytherin, I suppose?"
"Who?
Starlight?"
"Starlight? Isn't that the
translation of her surname?"
Snape nodded. "It's also her
nickname." He managed an apologetic
grin. "Much as you know how much I've
maligned your House, Remus, I'm afraid you're wrong on the Slytherin
score." They went up a flight of stairs
to the teachers' corridor. "Amihan
Sinagtala was – and still is – a Gryffindor to her fingertips!" He chuckled as he remembered a young girl
with a constant expression of annoyance on her face. "She could pass off for Slytherin, though: nasty-tempered
little git that she was. Yes, I was
fond of her as she ended up a better potion brewer than me and aced all of her
subjects to become Prefect in her fifth year and Head Girl in her seventh. She was even Quidditch captain!" Snape suddenly frowned and turned sadly to
Remus. "However, she was never quite
happy nor satisfied with what she already had."
"What do you mean?"
Snape regarded him uneasily, as if he
were afraid of what Remus might say in reaction to whatever he had in
mind. "There was one person who got in
her way of becoming the perfect witch, Remus", he said rather slowly. "It was you."
"Me?" Remus stared at him in bewilderment. "How can that be?", he exclaimed. "We've never even met!"
"It's a long story", Snape
sighed. They stopped at his office and
went inside. Snape motioned for Remus
to take a seat on the ratty old couch while he himself went round his desk to
settle in his own uncomfortable chair.
He looked up at the sparse collection of picture frames hanging on the
wall over Remus's head. Remus himself
looked up and saw the framed photograph of their graduating class. He found his seventeen-year-old self waving
shyly at him, surrounded by rambunctious Sirius, clever James and his wonderful
Lily (Lily was clapping her hands vigorously), and Peter Pettigrew with his
neck in a headlock thanks to Sirius. He
noted that Snape looked pretty vindictive in the picture when Remus finally
found him.
Snape chuckled when they'd drawn their
eyes off the picture. "How I used to
hate the lot of you when we were boys", he laughed. "James who was so good at everything. Oh, and Sirius who was as clever as James was but was too busy
getting into scrapes to get better grades.
Tag-along Peter – traitorous git that one, alas! – and you, Remus." He sat back and closed his eyes, caught up
in a memory. "You came close to
knocking James out academically but never did", he said as he opened his
eyes. "Potions grade got in the way, I
suppose?"
"That and all my – er – absences",
Remus admitted wryly. "I think I missed
one or two crucial quizzes or tests when I disappeared for the full moon. Oh, well…"
He simply shrugged. "That's
all over."
"True. But, Remus, you have a standing record despite all those, well,
absences." Snape gazed at him
candidly. "Remus, you were – and still
are – the only student at Hogwarts who ever got perfect grades in
Defense Against the Dark Arts for all seven years of your stay here."
Remus had the grace to blush. "That's very flattering, Severus", he said
modestly. "But what does that record
have to do with Professor Sinagtala?"
"Ah…"
Snape rose and bustled to get a pot of tea ready. Remus marveled at that; Snape had
changed. "Well, as to that, the
fact that she could never get 100% in Defense never sat well with Starlight",
he continued. He soon handed Remus a
steaming mug of tea. "She got good
enough grades in the subject but it galled her that she could never break your
record." He sat down to sip from his
own mug. Then, "Things got so bad that
she would sometimes curse the very memory your name left in this school; she
even swore that someday she'd find you and shoot a silver bullet into your
heart." The very idea made Remus squirm
uncomfortably in his seat. "It was
awful, Remus. She was soon spending all
of her free time trying to find a way to put herself on a level with you on the
subject. Unfortunately, she never came
close. Her grades stayed good, but it
soon became an obsession for her and…" There was a knock on the door.
"Yes, come in!"
"Professor Snape!" The door swung open with a loud crash to
reveal a figure covered in a hooded cloak made of black velvet and stitched
with what seemed a galaxy of silver stars.
One hand held a samisen while the other was impudently resting on
her hip. They could not see her face as
it was obscured, but Remus saw a stunning pair of amber colored eyes staring
out from the hood.
Amber eyes… Remus cocked his head to one side as he
studied them. How wolf-like! And yet…
"Well, well, well!" Snape rose
and folded his arms in the imperious, contemptuous manner he used to use on the
Gryffindors. "Sinagtala!", he snarled. "Had enough of playing wandering minstrel,
have you?"
"I see you're still sticking that
broken beak you call a nose into stuff that doesn't concern you." Snape winced at the spirited comeback
uttered with a cool American accent, but the hooded figure simply laughed and
flung her arms about him. Remus noticed
that she did not doff her hood. "Gods,
how I've missed you all, sir!", she exclaimed in a rich alto. "You, McGonagall, Sinistra, Vector, Hooch,
Pomfrey, Flitwick, Sprout, and Hagrid!
I miss Dumbledore, too, but I'm glad he's minister now; Fudge was useless!"
"We agree on that score, dear girl",
Snape nodded indulgently.
There was a rueful gleam in those
amber eyes. "Pity about Quirrell", she
sighed. "He was a good teacher until
that terrible run-in with a vampire who turned out to be the Dark Lord." She shivered visibly at that and
grimaced. "Of course, I'd have liked
him better if he'd only, well…" She
just spread her hands helplessly. "No
help for that now, I'm afraid; what's done is done."
A slightly misty-eyed Snape clasped
her hands with great understanding.
"That's all over now, Starlight", he told her. "However, I am glad to have you aboard." He suddenly remembered Remus and stared at
him in consternation; the latter simply got up and offered to go to
McGonagall's office by himself.
"You seem to have lots of catching up
to do", he said simply, a pleasant smile on his face. However, he silently noted that Starlight's golden eyes widened
when she finally noticed him. "I'll go
on ahead."
"Oh…"
Hastily, Snape managed to stop him long enough for a few hasty introductions. "I'm forgetting my manners", he
stammered. "Starlight, this is…"
"Professor Remus J. Lupin." Politely, Starlight inclined her head
towards him even as they shook hands.
There was no trace of alarm in her voice. "We finally meet", she said.
"Your reputation has preceded you, though, in the guise of your nom
de plume: Romulus Moony, author of Hairy Snout, Human Heart."
"You seem incredibly well-informed,
Professor Amihan Sinagtala." Remus
answered her frank gaze with his own sharp violet eyes. "It would be fascinating to work with
another Gryffindor this year." He
grinned at Snape. "Present company
notwithstanding, of course." He turned
back to Starlight. "I trust your father
is well, Professor Sinagtala?"
"You've met?"
"Yes.
About a year after I left Hogwarts, to be exact. I was in your home country with my father;
we were working on a book on local wizards' customs."
"The Lore of the Mangkukulams." There was a faint smile in those golden
eyes. "That was a well-documented and
well-written book and I liked it." She
checked her watch and frowned.
"Hmm… You two seem to be headed
for some place; then, I won't detain you any longer." When she turned away, she addressed Remus with an odd note to her
voice. "It was a pleasure to finally
meet you, Professor Lupin."
"And I you, Professor Sinagtala",
Remus agreed pleasantly, even if she hadn't bothered to look his way when she
spoke.
"I look forward to working alongside
you, then." With that, she disappeared
down the dim corridor.
"Don't let her get to you, Remus",
Snape advised him, offering an apology on Starlight's behalf. "Starlight's always had a bit of an – um –
attitude problem. She can be very snippy,
but I assure you that she's a delightful person to know."
"I have no doubts about that", Remus
agreed as they left the room, "seeing how happy and enthusiastic she was to see
you." But there was a troubled cast to
his thin face. "I can't say the same
thing for me, though; she put her guard up before you introduced me."
He said no more about it as they made
their way to McGonagall's office.
However, Remus had a nagging feeling that this was but the first in a
series of encounters with the fiery-seeming witch Snape had called Starlight.
