I hope you all are enjoying this story so far. When I was writing this chapter, it occurred to me how incredible it is that something little can be something so big. Anyhow, here's chapter 5. Review if you don't mind.


Moonchild

Chapter 5

Seleneo

"Where are you going?" Luna asked. She and Seleneo had just come down from the Ravenclaw common room for dinner, but instead of turning into the Great Hall, Seleneo had started heading for the dungeons.

"Oh," Seleneo said. "Right, well, I told you I'm Filius' GA. I can't do classes at the normal times so I had to make other arrangements. I'm going right now for Advanced Potions."

"You can't just skip dinner," Luna said, almost pleading.

"Well, I sort of have to," said Seleneo with a shrug. "It's not a big deal, I've skipped meals before."

"That's horrid," said Luna. "And why are you speaking that way?"

"Well," said Seleneo, "I imagine I'll have to start speaking in front of people sooner rather than later, so I thought I'd try to sound like I belong here. I've been working on my British accent for years."

"Well, it's very convincing," Luna conceded, "but it's not you."

"OK, then, tell you what," Seleneo said. "What if I start out full British, and then over the course of however long, I ease everyone into it so that by the time I'm not faking an accent anymore, everyone will be used to it?"

"That sounds fair," Luna agreed.

"Alright, well, I'll catch you later," Seleneo said. With that, he headed on down to the dungeons where Professor Slughorn was waiting for him.

"Ah yes, Mr. Moonchild, good to see you," chortled Slughorn as Seleneo entered the dungeon reserved for Potions class.

"Evening, Professor," said Seleneo. "So what have you got in mind for tonight?"

"Glad you asked, dear boy," said Slughorn jovially. "Tonight we'll be brewing a Chameleon Potion."

"Chameleon, you say?" Seleneo probed, intrigued by Slughorn's choice.

"Yes," Slughorn affirmed. "A rather extraordinary concoction, it is. As you can probably imagine by its name, it causes the drinker's body to change color in accordance with its surroundings."

"But one's clothes would ruin the effect, wouldn't they?"

"That's the thing," said Slughorn. "Not only does it also affect the drinker's clothes, assuming he's wearing any, but it also adjusts to the viewer, tailoring its color change to whatever angle from which the viewer is seeing the drinker."

"Far out," said Seleneo. "Sounds good, what all do I need for it?"

"Instructions and ingredients," said Slughorn with a flick of his wand, "are on the board. You should find everything you need in the supply cabinets. You've got an hour, and then we'll take a look and what you've got."


Seleneo trudged back up to Ravenclaw Tower now with an eight-foot essay on pigmentation potions to do, which was not helping his stress level. At long last, he reached the dark blue door with the brass eagle knocker.

"There is a blue single-story house. The sofa is blue, the walls are blue, the floor is blue, and the ceiling is blue. What color are the stairs?"

"There are none," Seleneo said irritably.

"Eh, my heart wasn't in it," sighed the door knocker. "One of these days I'll come out with a really hard one, just you wait."

Seleneo sat down on the sofa near the fireplace in front of the table so that he could work on all of his schoolwork. He had barely gotten started when a loud crack made him jump in his seat. When he'd recovered, he saw the ugliest thing he'd ever seen in his life. It had a human shape, but was much shorter and appeared to be immensely old, with a long snout-like nose and bat ears, with copious amounts of ear hair and big bushy eyebrows, all pure white. It wore what appeared to be a potato sack and was bearing a golden tray laden with sandwiches.

"Kreacher has brought Sir dinner," it croaked.

"Who…who are you?" Seleneo asked hesitantly.

"You can set that down and then go if you want, Kreacher," said a dreamy voice from somewhere behind Seleneo. Then he saw Luna drop down from the back of the sofa onto the cushion beside him. "Just be on the lookout for whenever this tray empties so you can send up more. I imagine Seleneo's starving, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I…what's going on?" He turned to look again at Kreacher, but another loud crack signaled his departure. The golden sandwich tray lay on the table, with a goblet full of pumpkin juice next to it.

"While you were in your Potions class, I went over to the Gryffindor table," Luna explained. "Harry owns that house elf Kreacher, so I asked him if he would summon him and order him to bring you dinner."

"Harry…" Seleneo thought for a minute. "You don't mean Harry Potter, do you?"

"The very same," Luna said.

"He bought a house elf?"

"Goodness no," Luna giggled. "He inherited Kreacher from his godfather when he died. He got Sirius' house, too."

"Sirius…as in Sirius Black?"

"You don't miss a trick, do you?" Luna seemed to think this was all very funny.

"He's the guy that escaped Azkaban, right? I remember seeing that in the news back home, which is surprising since we usually don't see too much from outside our own country."

"You seem to know a lot about what happens over here, though," Luna observed.

"Well," said Seleneo, "I try to be more like a citizen of the world instead of just an American." He took a sandwich from the tray and took a bite. "This is good, but I'd rather have had sushi. I haven't had any in forever and I could literally eat it every day." As he said this, the tray cleared of sandwiches and refilled itself with numerous little rice cakes, each with a different type of seafood on top secured by a strip of seaweed. A pair of chopsticks had also appeared, along with a small dish and a bottle of soy sauce, as well as a little green mound and a pile of dark red slices of something at which Luna turned her nose up. The pumpkin-juice-filled goblet also vanished, and was replaced by a gold-painted ceramic flask accompanied by a small gold-painted ceramic cup.

"Is that…" Seleneo began, and poured some of the liquid out of the flask into the cup, and took a drink. "It is sake! Excellent! I dunno if you can hear me, Kreacher, but you're the best!"

"What is that like?" asked Luna. "I've never had any of it before."

"Alright, well, um…" Seleneo thought for a moment. "Um, ok, Kreacher, could you send up another cup and another pair of chopsticks?" Instantly his request was granted. "Ok, well first thing to do is pour out the soy sauce into this dish here, you see. Not too much, because it's in bad taste in Japanese cuisine to waste anything. I dunno if you want to put any wasabi in it, that's that green stuff over there. It's hotter than all get-out but some people like it. I don't, personally, but you might." He thought for a moment. "Kreacher, could you send up another soy sauce dish?" Another dish appeared. "Thanks, Kreacher. Right, so if you want to use any wasabi, you've got your own dish. Now, technically it's fine to use your fingers when you're eating sushi, but I think it's a bit more correct to use chopsticks. Have you ever used them before?"

"No," Luna said sheepishly. "I guess you'll show me?"

"Yeah, in a minute." He gestured to the sushi on the tray. "Ok, now this is called nigiri. Kreacher didn't seem to send any maki up, but that's alright. This is the good stuff anyhow. So, most people think that sushi is raw fish, but it's actually not. It's the rice that's been prepared in vinegar. That's what gives the rice its flavor and also helps it keep its shape. Raw fish is called sashimi. Now, I'd say a lot of this stuff is smoked, but even if it is raw it's alright because they have to keep sashimi at -35 degrees Celsius for at least 24 hours according to FDA regulation. I dunno what it is over here but I'm sure it's similar. That way it's still raw but any bacteria that was in it is dead. It probably doesn't matter though because I imagine there's some magical means of sanitizing it."

"You know a lot about this, don't you?" said Luna.

"I take food seriously," said Seleneo, keeping a straight face as long as he could before he broke out in a grin. "Right, so I don't know your preferences, so we'll start with something that's usually a safe bet. This is sake nigiri –"

"I thought that drink was sake?" Luna interrupted.

"Different kind of sake," said Seleneo, "but very good, you were paying attention. No, this sake in Japanese is salmon. Right, so you've got your soy sauce, but before anything, we each take a cup of sake," he poured a cup and passed it to Luna, "and in Japanese culture people are supposed to make sure each other's glasses are filled, so you'll pour mine," she took the flask and poured Seleneo's cup the rest of the way full, "and then we say 'itadakimasu'."

"Ita-daki…masu," Luna said, trying her best to say it right.

"Very good. So that's 'I humbly receive.' Ok, so then you take your chopsticks in your wand hand like this," he showed Luna his chopsticks, and then helped her set hers. For a moment a sensation like an electric current shot through Seleneo's body as their hands momentarily touched. "Ok, and then you use these fingers to operate them, you see? Right, so then what you want to do is take your piece of nigiri and dip it fish-first into your sauce. You don't want to get any on the rice because for one thing, it'll take away from the vinegar flavor, and it'll also make it fall apart. Ok, so now once you've done that you want to just pop the whole thing in your mouth with the fish side down. That way all the soy sauce and fish flavor hits your taste buds first." And so, Seleneo did just that. He popped his piece of nigiri into his mouth, and he savored every second of it.

"This is fantastic!" Luna exclaimed. "What else is here?"

"Ok, let's see," Seleneo mused as he scanned the tray. "Looks like he's sent up saba, that's mackerel, maguro, tuna, ebi, that's shrimp, and unagi, that's eel. I've never actually had unagi before, so I dunno what that's like. All I know is I could eat this stuff til I puke."

"Lovely," Luna said. It sounded sarcastic, but she didn't seem to show any sign of disgust, so that was a good thing as far as Seleneo was concerned. He and Luna ate their fill, until they both felt like they would burst.

"And now that we're done," said Seleneo after the tray and sake cups had vanished, "we say 'gochisōsama deshita'."

"Gochisōsama deshita," said Luna with a nod.

"It was a feast," Seleneo reiterated. "Well, I had hoped to get some work done tonight, but I much prefer the way I spent the time I would've used for that."

"Me too," said Luna, looking up at Seleneo from under her eyelids. "It was nice." Seleneo hesitated for a moment, lost in those grey eyes that shone like the moon.

"Yes, well," he said awkwardly, "I guess I should get to bed then. You probably should, too."

"Yeah, I guess so," Luna agreed.

"Well, good night then," said Seleneo, and he turned to head up the stairs to his private dormitory.

Way to go, Slick, said a voice in his head. You just passed up a great chance. You may not get an opportunity like that again.

"I know, I know," he answered himself. "God, I'm an idiot."