Dislclaimer: We don't own Harry Potter or Anne of Green Gables. Thank goodness. The characters would probably kill us if they found what we'd done to their lives. Or crack slates over our heads.

Moonstruck Madness Year One: Chapter 6

Questions and Answers and Even More Questions

"When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla."
- Anne Shirley; Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne sat in her pajamas at the end of her bed. The rest of her roommates were already sleeping peacefully. Anne was still awake, though, staring blankly at the wall. She had nearly fallen asleep just minutes ago in Dumbledore's warm, comfortable room, but after she had been taken back to the Gryffindor common rooms, she found that she simply could not sleep. She had tried clearing her mind, but annoying thoughts kept pushing into her mind, until she was wide awake.

As long as she was awake, she might as well do something productive, Anne thought. She haltingly tapped one of the books Dumbledore had lent her with her wand as he had instructed her to do so, and nearly screamed when it popped to a normal size. She opened the hefty book and began to read.

Supposedly, the books Dumbledore had lent them were rare editions that he only had a single copy of each. He suggested that they should consider meeting a couple times a week so that they could share information. As if she would willingly spend any more time with Gilbert Blythe than she had to. Anne figured that she would conveniently drop her finished books near Gilbert during breakfast some morning. He would probably do the same.

On page 64, chapter two of "The Arte of Cross-Universal Travelling", by O. T. H. R. U. Neversitas read:

'Records of various events have shown that the aftereffects of inter-universal travel are fairly similar for all travelers. Conditions include headaches, stomach weakness, hallucinations, and muddled, disorientating dreams. This is most likely due to the cross-dimensional nature of universe travelling, which is a foreign sensation to the human body.'

'Rare cases include losses in the ability to do specific skills in magyck, e.g. the ability to apparate.' Anne read, ' Others have gained a supernatural ability. For example, the famous time travel theorist Florence Gerbera claimed to have the ability to grow daisies out of his ears. Unfortunately, he mysteriously expired while trying to perform this feat. Various time travelers have also reportedly grown or lost skeletal or facial features. The infamous goblin Orid the One-Eyed was speculated to have –'

Anne hastily slammed the book back shut in alarm. She rubbed he eyes tiredly. This was too much to deal with in one night. She would have to find time to do further reading at another point.

Anne fell back on her bed before a sudden wave of homesickness washed over her. Anne couldn't stop thinking about her home in Avonlea; if she would ever be able to go back, if she could ever see her extended family again. She realized with guilt that under the excitement of discovering magic, she hadn't given more than an incomplete thought about her family. She found herself wondering if Gilbert was still awake, being plagued with unwanted thoughts.

Gilbert. And Tom. Gilbert had a family in this world. Although Gilbert didn't know Tom particularly, he had somewhere to call home over vacation and during breaks. Anne knew that she would be living with Tom as well, and it was true that it was logical for the foreign students to live together - but it wasn't the same as having her own family. She suddenly realized with a horrible pang just how lonely she was in this world.

This detour to the Wizarding world was slowly becoming more and more like either a prolonged nightmare, or a crazed dream.

Which was precisely one off Anne's main problems. She couldn't quite decide if magic was good or bad; she couldn't decide whether she'd miss it or not. Some parts about it were so nightmarishly horrifying, while other parts of it were so otherworldly, so fantastical, so – well, magical.

Marilla had never quite approved of her fanciful imaginings of dryads and fairies and such. She never did more than frown or scold her for whatever she had neglected to do.

But practicing witchcraft, as the stern Sunday services teacher often had told her, was impure. In history, they had briefly touched on witch trials that were held to purge the community of evils. Allegedly, the devil exercised his powers through witchcraft. Many were persecuted and put to death for suspected witchcraft. Taken with the fatal injustice of it all, Anne had pressed her teachers with questions, but they had remained tight lipped, shushing her and telling her off for being overly inquisitive.

The witch trials. Anne shuddered. They had seemed wonderfully haunting and tragic when she had learned about them in Sunday school – but now the stories were too close for comfort.

Anne herself was unsure. Evil was often a great temptation that blinded people, but the entire student body, plus the staff, and Dumbledore couldn't all be promoters of evil, could they? Neville, who didn't have a mean bone in his body, or Hermione, who was so stubborn she figured no one could persuade her otherwise. Yet she still doubted herself.

Now Anne genuinely wished she knew how Matthew, Marilla, and her closest friends would react if she told them she was a witch. Would they love her all the same after a brief period of shock? Or would they shun her for her "unnatural behavior", as was the case with the grandmother of a muggleborn she had overheard? Anne was horrified to realize that the more she contemplated on it, the less certain she was about this answer.

Anne suddenly realized with panic that she had a problem with performing magic. It wasn't that she was physically unable to do it, although she wished that were so. She realized that she was dreadfully uncomfortable with performing anything that could be thought as "witchcraft". Some of the courses she had to take at Hogwarts, however, really didn't require magic at all. For instance, Herbology was a sort of eccentric gardening. Potions similarly was analogous to a bizarre interpretation of cooking. Subjects like Charms and Transfiguration, would be more difficult to work around, though – they truly were magic. Anne groaned. She hardly needed anything like this to further complicate her life.

Anne tensed for a moment when Lavender rolled over in her sleep, and then relaxed.

She couldn't lose hope, Anne decided determinedly. She would just have to stick things out, and deal with troubles as they came. Losing hope wouldn't do her any good- rather, it would probably be quite an insult to Dumbledore.

Keeping a little faith had always proved to be worth its while in Anne's life. After nearly ten years of waiting and hoping she would permanently be adopted by a family (that didn't just want her to look after their three sets of twins), she had finally gotten Matthew and Marilla. When they told her they had wanted a boy instead, she had been devastated. But the whole time, she had held onto a little bit of hope. And it had paid off – she had found a loving, albeit occasionally dysfunctional, family. She supposed that after waiting ten years, this delay wouldn't be so horribly long to wait out.

Anne decided to stay optimistic.

Anne's exhausted body finally decided to shut down, and she soon fell into a fitful sleep, full of hazy images fire and nightmarish scenes of angry people chasing her with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Gilbert woke up the next morning with an extremely nasty headache. He had been getting them ever since he'd accidentally set off that time-turner. It was quite a nuisance.

Maybe it was a side effect of the traveling between dimensions thing-he really should have taken a look at those books. Or Anne's books. On second thought, he doubted he'd set eyes on Anne's books ever again.

It was very early in the morning, probably about six-thirty or so. Oh no! Wasn't he supposed to meet someone somewhere at seven? Groggily, he racked his brains to remember. Strangely enough, he didn't remember any of last night. All he remembered was dropping dead with exhaustion the other night—which was probably why he was still wearing his uniform. Was memory loss another symptom? He doubted it; His mother had always said that he was remarkably heedless and forgetful even for a boy. But lately, he'd been forgetting things more and more often.

He remembered now. He was supposed to go somewhere at seven. To meet Professor… Cabbage? No, that couldn't be right. This was really getting annoying. Maybe it really was a symptom…

Somehow, he was able to dress in the dark and attempted to leave the dormitory. Drowsily, he somehow managed to trip over something he thought was Ron's sock and fell headlong down the stairs.

Suddenly, there was a rush of information into his brain as he hit his head on the wall. Burbage… third floor… carrot cake… Gryffindor! Gilbert winced, rubbing his head. Now this was truly creepy. He made up his mind to ask Professor Burbage about this… right after he found out what a telly was.

After asking for directions from an upperclassman, and a few mishaps with some staircases that refused to move to where he wanted to go, Gilbert made it to Burbage's office. He opened the door to see a pleasant-looking, round room, with the professor sitting behind her desk amid a storm of parchment.

"Oh! You're a bit early, Gilbert, but that's all right," she said with pleasant surprise. She looked a little distracted. "Just give me a moment. Accio!" A piece of parchment the length of his forearm whizzed through the floating mass into her hands. With another wave of her wand, the papers all settled into various heaps on her desk. Professor Burbage rummaged under one stack, located a pair of reading glasses, put them firmly on her nose, and stared at her paper.

"Have you been having any strange feelings?" she asked without preamble. "Nausea, memory lapses, headaches, extreme fatigue…" The professor glanced with amusement at Gilbert's rather rumpled robes at that last comment.

"All four," Gilbert answered, slightly bemused.

"Ah. Well, hopefully that'll wear off. You'll have to see Madam Pomfrey as soon as possible, of course. Anything especially strange?" She lifted a quill from her disorganized desk and marked a large slash.

"Er… I forgot nearly everything that happened yesterday when I woke up this morning, but then I fell down the stairs and suddenly I remembered everything."

Professor Burbage looked at him in concern over her round glasses, which made her rather resemble an owl. "That is rather strange. Definitely Madam Pomfrey." She made another slash on her parchment. "Now-" she began.

Abruptly, the door of the office burst open with bang like a gun going off, and a certain redhead tumbled into the room, panting.

"Sorryimlate," Anne spilled out. "talking-"

"Calm down, dear," Professor Burbage said kindly. "Sit down." She gestured at the chair beside Gilbert. Anne plopped down in the chair, her hair drifting up and beginning to escape its two neat braids.

"Now, Could you repeat that? Slowly,"

Anne took a deep breath. "Well, I was looking at the portrait of these lovely girls, and I commented aloud on the dress, andthentheystartedtalkingtome-"

Professor Burbage interrupted, "Talking portraits are normal for the Wizarding world," She said guiltily, "I don't know why I didn't tell you this before."

Gilbert stared. How had Anne missed all the portraits while they were walking back to the Gryffindor tower?

"Now that both of you are here," Burbage began with amusement. Anne turned almost as red as her hair. Burbage looked at her parchment again. "Ah. Anne, have you been having any odd symptoms? Nausea, headache…"

"No…" Anne said slowly. "But – it's all so confusing-" She stopped herself mid-sentence, catching herself before she went on another rant.

"Go on, dear," Burbage said encouragingly. "What's confusing?"

Anne looked as if she were about to spill over with unanswered questions. "Well – how does the food get to the tables?" asked Anne. She sounded at least as confused as had become the norm for Gilbert to be feeling. "And – where do the rest of the houses everyone else sleep?"

"There are three other common rooms. The Slytherin one is somewhere in the dungeons, but I'm not sure where the others are," Burbage mused, "The founders were rather secretive. They're all password-protected like yours. As for the food – it's magic. There's not really any other way to explain it…"

"Why do we drink pumpkin juice? Wouldn't it be easier to have a more common fruit juice? How would we have enough pumpkins?" Anne questioned.

"Well, our groundskeeper is rather talented at growing pumpkins," said Professor Burbage. "Just wait until November – they're massive. We have pumpkins so that we can have juice from home- grown plants all year round. They're the easiest thing to grow in Professor Sprout's greenhouses, because her other magical plants won't try to eat them."

"Oh." said Anne. She immediately followed up with another question, leaving Gilbert with no room to interrupt. "Then – the staircases," Anne interjected, "Is that – magic, too? What kind of magic does it use?"

"Everything here is magic," Burbage answered, "I'm not entirely sure what kind of magic is used to make them move, but you might be able to find out at the library. Speaking of the library, do you know where that is?"

Anne nodded. The Ravenclaw prefect who had directed her to Burbage's office had decided to make good use of the time, and showed her places along the way.

"Good," said Burbage. "Maybe you could show Gilbert sometime." Anne struggled to not to make a face.

"How are we to get to classes? Do all Gryffindor first years have the same schedule?" Anne was now in full interrogation mode. "And – do we have to write with quills?"

"You'll find that most people prefer to write with quills, but no, it isn't required that you do. However, the huge amount of magic at Hogwarts tends to mess up the mechanics of Muggle items like pencils. One girl had a rather messy incident with an exploding ink pen…" Professor Burbage frowned. "You can probably get directions from older students, but you're probably better off asking prefects. Some of the upperclassmen are a bit too mischievous. You will have the same classes with all the first years in your house. As for schedules, you will be getting timetables at breakfast, as you will every time schedules change," Burbage responded patiently. She looked as though she wasn't exactly sure how to deal with Anne. Gilbert was rather impressed. Though he supposed that made sense, since normally her job would be to teach wizards about Muggles rather than Muggle-borns about magic.

Gilbert took the very brief pause in the conversation as an opportunity. "Er… sorry for being off topic, but… what's a 'telly'?"

Burbage blinked. "It's a Muggle thing, a sort of box that shows moving pictures that tell a story," she explained, "Like a portrait, kind of. Only it's not magical."

Suddenly, a clock behind them started hopping up and down shouting "Breakfast!" in a squeaky voice, and Gilbert nearly toppled out of his chair in alarm.

"Oh, look at the time!" said Burbage with apparent surprise. She began rummaging through messy piles of papers again, "You'd both best be going down to breakfast," she said over her shoulder, "If you've got anymore questions, just stop by any time. Gilbert, do try to stop by Madam Pomfrey's afterwards. Cheerio!"

Gilbert followed Anne out and down the stairs again, though he took pains to take a different route than she did. This had certainly been informative. Whether it hadn't created more questions than it answered remained to be seen.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reviewing! It means a lot to both of us. :)

To:

LivingInTheClouds : Those are interesting thoughts – we hadn't thought of that. Most likely though, Anne wouldn't be related to Harry. It'd probably get a little confusing – Harry would start wondering why his great-great aunt or whatever looked like and had the same name as Anne. The Blythe couple were definitely time travelers (or attempting to), but I don't think the Shirleys ever met them.

ariedling: Thanks! Dumbeldore might not get her puffed sleeves, but I'll bet Anne's going to get them one way or another. Or get attatched to some other newfangled fad. Whichever comes first.

Yes, Anne hasn't had very good luck with families, has she? Don't worry, though. Anne has always had a good reputation for being lovable.

random reviewer on a bender: This review was very helpful and constructive. You were right when you said we were moving too fast – we suppose we just got a little overexcited. :D We hope the last few chapters have fixed that, and possibly added in some conflict and drama?

Kiki: The insanity of it all really helps our story stay creative. :)

Dontmezwitme: Thank you! If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you point us to the kind of spelling errors? Would they be Harry Potter/ Anne of Green Gables related spelling mistakes? Or just general spelling issues?