How High the Moon

.ψ.

Chapter Twenty Two: Worth Fighting For, P.1

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

She waits for me at night, she waits for me in silence
She gives me all her tenderness and takes away my pain
And so far she hasn't run, though I swear she's had her moments
She still believes in miracles while others cry in vain

It's all about soul; It's all about faith and a deeper devotion
It's all about soul; 'cause under the love is a stronger emotion
She's got to be strong; 'cause so many things getting out of control
Should drive her away, So why does she stay?
It's all about soul

She turns to me sometimes and asks me what I'm dreaming
And I realize I must have gone a million miles away
And I ask her how she knew to reach out for me that moment
And she smiles because it's understood there are no words to say

It's all about soul; It's all about knowing what someone is feeling
The woman's got soul; The power of love and the power of healing
This life isn't fair; It's gonna get dark, it's gonna get cold
You've got to be tough, but that ain't enough
It's all about soul

There are people who have lost every trace of human kindness
There are many who have fallen, there are some who still survive
She comes to me at night and she tells me her desires
And she gives me all the love I need to keep my faith alive

It's all about soul; It's all about joy that comes out of sorrow
It's all about soul; Who's standing now and who's standing tomorrow
You've got to be hard; Hard as the rock in that old rock 'n' roll song
But that's only part, you know in your heart
It's all about soul

-'All About Soul' Billy Joel

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Charlie hadn't noticed when the lunascope began to glow. He had been way too preoccupied with the enthusiastic witch in his lap to care about the lighting.

Now, however, things were a little different.

"Uh, Stella?"

"Mfph." Was his only reply. The witch in question was much more interested in kissing the side of his neck than answering his question.

Under just about any other circumstance, Charlie would have been pretty pleased with himself. It had been a dragon's age since she'd been like this! And oh Merlin, she knew how much he liked it when she … Oh yeah, right there…

But for the first time in his life, Stella and her kisses had taken a tail-seat to something else.

"Stella?" His voice cracked. Charlie couldn't look away from the far wall.

The comfortable lump in his lap was not pleased. "Joder, gatito! What are you going at tonight? Five minutes ago you seemed perfectly happy with snogging till doomsday. Now you are as responsive as a rock! Y a ti qué tornillo te falta?" Even as she said it, she ran her fingers through his hair again, trying to regain his attention.

Charlie figured that whatever she'd just called him was less than complementary, but didn't really have enough of a mind to care. He was still staring past her.

"Charlie? Charlie? Charlie! What is wrong with … oh." She looked over her shoulder just as they began making noises.

A frantic series of yelps came from the cages, followed by a tiny howl that sent shivers down Charlie's spine. The noises were NOT normal (assuming it was normal for rats to howl.) Tiny rodent bodies shuddered in the firelight, limbs jerkily reordering and longer fur sprouting. The yowls were unsettling, like a really bad case of intestinal gas. Eyes grew too large, snouts too long, tails too short.

And they had fangs.

A little voice in Charlie's head kept mentioning that rats should not have fangs.

Stella sat back with a stroppy little harrumph. "That does put a damper on the mood."

Charlie gapped like a Plimpy out of water.

"Stella?"

"Don't call me that, you ass." She grumbled, ignoring a fresh round of murderous whines.

"What in the name of … what are they?"

"A constraint on my love life, that's what!" She said tetchily, before sighing and scooting off. "Come on Charlie, get up. I've got to get some chores to get done before we can get back to … oh honestly! Isn't it obvious?"

Charlie was incredulous. "Why in the name of Pickerton's puffskeins do you have werewolf rats?"

"My research."

"Werewolves!"

"The Lycanthropic cure is a very important cause!" She presented him with one of those patented female what-am-I-doing-with-such-a-thick-wanker? stares. "Obviously we can't use human test subjects! What did you think I was about, anyway? The Society for Rat Welfare?"

"I, err … I guess I never gave it much thought." Werewolves? Why would anyone want to work with werewolves

"Do you want to look around the lab? We cannot disturb Neville long, and I have to take care of the test groups and get back to the party soon, but…" She looked at him with something that could have almost have been called hope.

"Your lab?" He gulped, suddenly skittish. The last time he'd been in a potions lab, there had been consequences.

Stella was oblivious and as usual, he thanked his lucky stars for it. He thanked all twelve of them, in fact.

"Si, my lab. You really are like an echo tonight, gatito! Are you sure that none of those scaly friends of yours has been toasting you extra crispy lately?"

His silence was assumed a 'yes', and she tugged him off into another room of the barn.

.ψ.

Memories stirred under their shallow graves when he followed her in.

A pair of cauldrons burbled cheekily on the rough hewn hearth, mocking him. "We know! We know all about you!" They seemed to shriek.

Charlie was going to be sick.

Merlin, it hurt. Worse than any bludger bang-up, worse than any creature run-in. It was a physical blow, even worse than that time a Graphorn had gored him through the spleen. The guilt was crippling. Memories shredded him apart like angry Vipertooths.

Blackness. Shame.

Oh, he should have done it all so differently!

Pain. Unendurable pain. His hand twitched. Sweet Circe! If only he could take it all back…

Don't think about it. He tried to listen to Stella's babbling as she pointed out different tools and racks of glittering potion vials. Just focus on the present.

The room was sooty, rough, and much colder than the one that housed Stella's mad were-rats. He could almost see his misty breath in front of his face. Every square inch of wall was plastered with pages of notes and charts. The faint fumes of a thousand different potions flittered under his nose. Why a potions lab? Of all the places on earth tonight, why a sodding potions lab? Charlie sneezed, startling a bulky figure in the corner.

"Miss E.! I didn't hear you come in!" The boy squeaked.

"Well, you wouldn't with those on, no?" Stella twinkled as he fumbled to remove a bedraggled pair of pink rabbit earmuffs. Neville Longbottom was cocooned from head to toe in wooly winter gear. If he hadn't been so preoccupied by guilt and regret, Charlie would have envied him. The room was hardly warmer than the garden!

"I – err – I mean, err…" The boy blushed and promptly tripped over the untied shoelaces of his Wellingtons, knocking his head on a plant-laden workbench.

"Neville!" Stella rushed over to inspect the damage. "Are you alright?"

A whisper of jealousy was enough to drive away Charlie's darkest thoughts.

"Fine, fine Miss E." The boy stammered hotly as Stella's hands brushed over his forehead searching for cuts. At least he had the decency not to look at Charlie while she did it. Touching some other bloke with him in the room, was she? Charlie wanted to bite something.

Or someone.

"I, err," the young man stammered, "I should be getting back early tonight. Professor Slughorn assigned us another three foot essay, and Hagrid likes to have everyone back in the tower by curfew."

"Well, I wouldn't want to make trouble in the noble house of Gryffindor." Charlie knew that was for his benefit more than the boy's. "Just remember not to try to apparate out. We would not want you to splinch again, no?" She said with a little grin, indicating a delicate blue ceramic bowl of floo powder that looked rather out of place in its dingy surroundings.

The big, gawky boy blushed and hurried over to the fireplace, calling out a quick goodbye.

"You did not have to frighten him." She pursed her lips once he was gone and took up where the child had left off, chopping fungi.

Charlie really shouldn't have been thinking about her lips. That brought up thoughts of couches and broom cupboards … and part of him wanted nothing better than to act on his impulses. He held out a spark of hope that things might go back to the way they used to be –one that was certainly encouraged by her eagerness earlier- but Charlie also knew that it would take him a little while to wrap his head around the idea of Stella … doing what she had done… being who she was…

It would just take some time.

"What do you mean, frighten? I didn't do anything."

"You … you loomed over me, like you were a dog and I was a bone. I do not like dogs, Charlie." A familiar roll of the eyes told him she wasn't half as serious as she made out to be.

"If you don't like dogs, then why do you work with werewolves?" He tried to continue the joking between them, but Stella's smile faded.

"You say that like they aren't human."

"Didn't mean to…"

Stella activated another lunascope with a rough flick of her stumpy wand and continued chopping the plant matter under its potent magical light.

"They didn't have much choice in becoming what they are! They aren't evil by default, you know. Lupin is a werewolf, and the last time I checked, I was still letting him marry my sister." She looked so serious that Charlie was sure that she'd never even considered the fact that Tonks could get married without her blessing. He stifled the urge to laugh.

"I know that. It's just …"

"I do it because I know what it's like, Charlie." Her eyes grew dim. "I know what it's like to be shunned and despised and written off because of something that's not completely your fault."

She chopped the herbs with a sharper pace, her features hard and determined.

"I do it because there are so few left who give a damn about a cure, and would rather just write them all off as hopeless causes. Because no one wants to try anymore for lack of headway. Just because something's not easy doesn't mean it can't be done; no one would ever get anywhere if they used that logic! When being stuborn's no use, you simply have to be crafty!" She laid down her silver knife carefully, not addressing him so much as the world at large.

"I do it because I know there's more to life than what we can touch and see and prove, and heaven help me, I will find a way to screw this bastard virus if I have to use my dying breath. I do it because I need to know that the underdog can win the match sometimes. I do it because I want to believe that we can make a world of our own choosing if we want it badly enough, if we're willing to spill some blood and go down swinging.

Her emotions were swinging on a wilder pitch than before -if that was even possible- from conviction to a pleading whine for understanding to a commanding tone of truth. Charlie was a little overwhelmed by her fervor on the subject, feeling like he'd just added the wrong ingredient to a very explosive potion. She didn't seem to notice, going on with growing intensity.

"I do it because I have done so much wrong already, made so many mistakes. If I can spare a few people some pain, then maybe it makes up for a little bit of what I've done. Maybe if I put enough of my life into this, and if there really is a God like they say, then he'll let me … oh, how did Jaci put it? 'Atone for my sins', whatever that is supposed to mean."

"In the end I guess it really doesn't matter. I doubt that any deity could ever forgive me after all the hurt I've caused. My blood is as black as it comes. But that doesn't mean that I won't try for them. I made my decisions, but they can't help what they do every month. No one deserves that. I may not be able to come out clean, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to just sit and watch them go down too. Not without a fight."

She turned to stare into the soft glow of the lunascope, tracing its craters and valleys with a longing gaze as passion flooded her voice.

"I do it because there is more than just me in this, more that just my feelings or my dreams or even my heart. Because I want to believe that despite everything they are wrong about me, and they are wrong about us all! People can change! Phoenixes really do rise from ashes! And when this war is over, kids like Neville are going to grow up and fall in love and have kids of their own and the planet will keep turning. People like Nyms and Remus will find happiness just like everybody else. I want to believe that life will be normal again someday for the rest of the world, even if it never is for me. I have to believe it. I have to try every road to the far side of impossible if it means that I might find some way.

"That is why I do this, Charlie. That is why. Do you understand?"

He did, in a way. Even if her emotional explosions and almost obsessive fervor were starting to give him the willies, it still made some sense. Ever since The Mistake, part of him had always been whittling away at the problem of how to make up for what had happened. The only trouble was that nothing could fix the damage he'd done. There was no 'atonement', no forgiveness or reparation. He had tried a long time ago, but the effort had been a waste.

An annoying little voice in the back of his head pointed out that it was pretty damn funny for an amoral, conscience-less Slytherin to go attempting what he, an honest, decent Gryffindor had not.

In fact, it was laughing its arse off at him.

And not only was she trying to make her amends, she was doing it on a level he rarely even thought about. This was something for the good of all of mankind, not just the individuals she'd hurt. Sure, Charlie knew that people were starving in other countries, that the world was full of terrible diseases and social injustice, but that was all the further it ever went. He felt bad for those nameless victims on the rare occasion when the thought crossed his head and once in a while he felt slightly guilty about never donating to charities and relief efforts, but he was just one man after all. Charlie was too busy with his own crazy life to try to save the dying wombats or support a cure for vanishing sickness.

The little voice was on the verge of mad cackling, and Charlie dearly wished he could strangle it. Since that obviously wasn't an option, he tried to ignore it.

It's a bad idea to listen to the little voices in you head, after all.

Especially when they are laughing at you.

Besides, his current problem was bad enough without the help. Stella was like a puzzle with too many pieces, one that Charlie was trying to solve in the dark with his hands tied. All the little bits were so jumbled and opposite that it seemed impossible for her to be just one woman.

She was the girl who'd reattached his leg.

She was the girl who'd set the twins on fire for money.

Her parents were death eaters.

Her lips were like pillows.

She had practiced the dark arts.

She had cried for his pain.

She made no promises about walking in the light.

She wanted to save the world.

She confused him, she pissed him off, she called him hundreds of derogatory things in a language he couldn't understand, and yet he needed her. It smarted to say that, but it was true. He, Charlie Weasley, the great and eternal free-flying, nothing-to-hold-me-down bachelor, needed a woman for the first time in his life.

It wasn't just loneliness, he decided. The lacking ache couldn't be filled by anyone but this pudgy little witch with the hot coco smile. He wanted to understand, wanted to keep whatever it was that they had. Wanted to confess The Mistake, wanted her to tell him it was alright and she still wanted him too. He realized something important as she stared up at him impatiently.

She made him want to be a better man.

But before he got the chance to tell her anything, there was a knock at the door. She huffed techily in his direction for not answering her question yet and went over to tap the latch with her wand.

"What is it Neville? I thought you had a … oh, hello. You are not Neville." Stella stated the obvious with her usual lack of tact. "What do you want?"

The scraggly little bloke reminded Charlie of a newborn fawn: all trembling limbs and big eyes.

"Can we do something for you?" Charlie tried politeness when the intruder failed to respond to Stella's less-than-cordial greeting.

The boy, who couldn't have been any older than Gin, shifted his black cloak and stepped inside the door mumbling something so soft that it was drown out by the burbling cauldrons and the faint echoes of a were-rat howl.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. What did you say?"

The change was like lightning.

"Expelliarmus!" Shrieked the boy with a growling voice and a crazed expression, catching both of their wands seamlessly.

Charlie glanced over at Stella to see her mirroring his own shock.

"Merde, gatito," she whispered, almost in a trance, "He has a mask."

Charlie saw it too. A smooth white death eater's mask hung from the bloke's belt, just underneath his cloak.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Authoress's Notes: 'Y a ti qué tornillo te falta?' might translate to something like 'You got a screw loose or something?' and 'Joder!' is a roughly equivalent to 'bloody hell!'.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ctc- like I said, Ginny is still very up in the air. She may not be back in the picture for a chapter or two here, but she's hanging on for dear life, I promise.

Random- thanks, as always. You make me blush. The room? Were-rats. Howling were-rats. Ahh-oooooo! Hehe.

Imaj-natif- Hello! Thanks for reviewing! No worries, I'm a review addict so I don't care when you start reviewing as long as you consider doing it again (hint hint, nudge wink cough) As for your guess about the mistake, all I can tell you is that you might be on the right track… I'll let you stew on it though, cause I can't really give anything more away just yet. Thanks for your sweet comments about Myra. I'm so glad that she's getting such positive feedback! I know exactly what you mean about unrealistic OCs. 99 percent of them are either Mary Sue's, the over compensated characters you mentioned (I call em Mary Suicides, but that's my twisted sense of humor for you. Lol) or worst of all, a character that's a cross between a mary sue and the author themselves (hate ta tell you folks, that's not writing, that's called fantasizing, haha.) Anywho, I'm giddy to hear that you thought I managed to escape the usual humdrum of OCs. Thanks for the bright pick me up in my day!

HarryPotterMagic- Yes, sorry for interrupting the action. It had to be done though. What did you think of the were-rats? Ahh-ooooooo! Ah, clever girl, you noted the absence of mention on the parents. Good eye. More to come soon on that… Yeah, I imagine most of us really wouldn't have that sort of patience with Chuck the block-head, but Stella is –as Charlie often notes so fondly- a very laid back girl. Me, I would have probably slapped him! Geeze! As for The Mistake itself, let's just say you could be somewhere near the ballpark…