Chapter 9- Finding Family
Ginny and Luna sat across the desk from Professor Dumbledore. He looked them over his bright blue eyes twinkling like Christmas lights behind his half moon glasses.
"So what is the problem that brings you two lovely ladies to see me today?" He said smiling at them.
"Well Professor, it's like this," Ginny began looking sheepish. "In our chooseing of our identities we sort of forgot who else we might be involveing."
"I assume you are reffering to the fact that Professor Slughorn believes you to be my granddaughters?" He interrupted.
"Yes Professor." Luna said "We are very sorry about the misconception, Ginny didn't think the story all the way through."
Dumbledore waved his hand stopping her apology. "Do not be sorry, I for one am not. From what I have heard from your Professors I would be honored to have such bright and talented witches in my family, and the notion to those very same teachers will explain away the quite frankly advanced level of magic you two seem to possess. I believe it best to endeavor to maintain this minor fiction. Besides it will do me no harm to have two such lovely young ladies showing affection for me." He grinned at them as he stood up and walked around the desk to stand in front of them. "You look a lot like your mother, Miss Weasley and you have your fathers eyes, Lovegood if I recall correctly." The girls stared openmouthed in shock at their Headmaster.
"Now off with you, dinner awaits, and what sort of grandfather would I be if I kept you from your food?"
He escorted the girls out of his office and down to the Great Hall. He turned and tward them one more time before they entered. "And should it ever come up, I prefer Granpere'. " He chuckled as he entered the hall and headed to the Head Table his eyes blazeing with sheer delight.
Luna shook her head at the batty old man, as they headed into the hall and the Gryffindor table. "That went better than expected. Odd…but good none the less."
Ginny had to agree but kept silent as they sat down, smiling to herself as Sirius bullied a third year into moveing down so that she could take the seat beside him. Lily looked in askance at the girls as they slid into their seats beside the Marauders.
"Did your meeting go well?"
"Yes," Luna replied "we worked out what we needed to." She looked up and caught Lily's quizitive look. "There was a slight discrepancy in our transcripts that needed to be ironed out."
The six finished dinner and parted company as Lily and James had a meeting with the Prefects to start planning the Holloween Ball that was coming up next month. The rest went back to the Common Room. Remus took out a book and draped himself over a chair in the corner and pretended to read. What he was really doing was watching Luna, who took a small frame out of her bag and enlarged it to reveal a tapestry loom. Setting it up in front of her she began to weave meticulously by hand. He couldn't see the pattern as she had draped the back with black fabric. He longed to get up and look at what she was creating, but she seemed to guard the pattern so fiercely when Sirius tried that he couldn't bring himself to intrude. So he just watched her as she moved the shuttle back and forth changing the colors of the soft looking yarn at will with her mind. He longed to talk to her, to start some kind of conversation, but he couldn't. Her aquamarine eyes were shining with something he couldn't place, but that made the part of him that wasn't a man rise up. It wanted her. He WANTED her in a way no other woman, no other person had ever been capable of making him react. There was a primal, almost animalistic desire to claim her, to possess her, to make her his. To Mate with her, the wolf supplied. Just the thought made Remus shudder with longing, but he knew it was impossible. No woman could or would ever accept the secret he carried within him, no woman would ever willingly bind herself to a monster. His fate had been sealed long ago and he knew he should accept it, accept the fact that his path was to be walked alone. No more tries… No more memories modified…no more. His mind whispered to him. His ears perked up as he heard her sigh, and he looked up to catch her eyes dropping from his face, tears shimmering in them unshed. His heart beat faster. He thought he had seen his pain in her eyes, as if she could read his thoughts, but that was impossible…she would need to look into my eyes for Legimancy. She sighed again and carefully put up her work, turning to look at Ginnae who was currently trounceing Sirius in a game of Wizards Chess.
Luna looked over at Ginny and caught her attention. "Ginnae," She said speaking in French. "Le coeur de loup appelle mais il des denys il encore. Mon coeur saigne. Je dois courir." (The heart of Wolfs calls but it denys it still. My heart bleeds. I must run.)
"Attendez jusqu'à ce que l'obscurité tombe et nous irons. Pouvez-vous attendre mon cher coeur jusqu'à ce point?" Ginny returned. (Wait until the darkness falls and we will go. Can you await my dear heart up till that point?)
"Je suppose, j'irai sommeil. Réveillez-moi quand il est temps. N'oubliez pas." (I suppose, I will go sleep. Awake me when it is time. Do not forget.)
"Je n'oublierai pas, Luna. Nous courrons avec la nuit, et votre coeur sera guéri." (I will not forget. We will run with the night, and your heart will be cured.) Ginny replied a shadow crossing her eyes.
Luna quietly turned and walked up the stairs to their dorm, as Ginny watched her friend from below gather into herself with sad eyes. She turned back to her game with Sirius not hearing his softly spoken "Votre mouvement, mon Cheri" (Your Move, my dear).
Later that evening after everyone else had gone to sleep Ginny wakes Luna. They open their window and change form winging lightly out into the night sky, over the Quiddich Pitch and deep into the Forbidden Forrest. The silver raven dove thru the branches and transformed again into a silver wolf with eyes that reflect the color of the sea. The falcon followed after circleing lazily in the sky for a few more moments, transforming before she hit the ground into a large dark red dog with bright silver eyes…echoing the colors of the falcon she had been moments ago. They raced and romped through the forrest, tearing through the underbrush and zigzagging thru the trees. Free and without care they raced out of the woods and came to rest at the Quiddich Pitch. The dog transformed and Ginny stretched her limber body tward the sky. Luna followed her, reluctant to leave the wolf form behind. Luna's mind traveled to her past…the future of this time…when they had just mastered their first forms.
Hermione sat with them in the parlor of the Burrow. Ron and Harry were out testing their new forms. Ron had found himself to be a reddish gold Lion, Harry a sleek panther with ebony fur and emerald eyes. Hermione's form was a golden brown leopard. Luna found it slightly amuseing that the golden trio were all feline while she and Ginny were canine in nature. Hermione was discussing the fact that she thought that they could rework the animagus spell set to allow them to have more than one form.
"I've studied up on Native American and Old Celtic Legends" she said waveing her hand as Ginny groaned "No hear me out… Finding out what animal you become as an animagus is a lot like finding your totem or spirit animal. The thing is these beliefs say that no one really has just one totem, so why can't you learn to embrace the others like you embrace the first?"
Luna watched Ginny's eyes grow as thoughtful as her own as they digested Hermione's suggestion.
"I suppose you could," Luna replied "It would just be a matter of changing your focus and reworking the charms a little. I mean it isn't as though the training isn't already there. I don't have to focus to change form anymore its more like opening myself to that basic part of my soul. If there are other forms we could attain I'm sure with focus and study we could find them."
"I don't see how it could hurt to try." Ginny chimed in
For the rest of the summer they had worked on it in secret, until each of them had found their second totem, their second transformation. Ginny a red falcon with silver markings, Luna a silver raven and Hermione a golden eagle. This was a secret they kept to themselves, giving them a form that they didn't have to register with the Ministry. Oh Luna knew eventually Hermione would admit to having figured it out and would register her other form as well but until then it was a secret they shared.
The girls changed form and flew carefully up to their window. They fell in their beds never knowing they had been seen. One pair of twinkling blue eyes admired their ingenuity and another the color of fog and mist stared after them, stunned and amazed.
It was almost three in the morning and he still couldn't sleep. Sirius knew he was obsessing but he couldn't get the picture of what he had seen out of his mind. He knew he had spied on them, and the violation of their privacy haunted him as he knew within his heart he would have been livid if someone had done the same to him and his friends. But he just couldn't help himself. He was way to inquisitive by nature to let something like that go. He had understood their conversation although he knew it was unlikely that anyone else did. But Sirius came from family with old values which still taught French as a cradle language, as he suspected did the girls. Although he had distanced himself from his family entirely after they had disowned him he knew enough about the old ways to know that very few of the pureblooded families still taught them these days. Sirius leaned back against his bed and sighed he would just have to put it out of his mind and see what happened. Maybe one day they would feel comfortable enough to tell their secrets to him, then he could tell his own. Still the realization of having seen not only 2 more Animagi at Hogwarts but having seen them have more than one form was something that shocked him to the core. OH well, there is nothing I can do about it now, He thought. And with that thought he allowed himself to drift into a deep sleep dreaming of a red dog running with him in the woods.