I do not own the Harry Potter series or Pokémon.
Some scenes and dialogue are derived from Prisoner of Azkaban
Chapter Twenty Five: Power and Ambition
Betrothal arrangements.
That was what Pansy had been in a snit over.
It was also what Draco had been embarrassed about.
It was also what everyone and their mother had been hinting at all night, not that Moon had noticed.
If she wasn't upset at herself for being so blind, Moon would have thought that the whole idea was hilarious.
"It was a possibility that everyone was considering," Narcissa explained when they reached a private area for Moon to clean the punch off her face. "You're an exceptionally skilled witch, with your own fortune and career, as well as proper manners. It would be idiotic not to consider a marriage arrangement."
"I thought the fact that I was a half-blood would negate that?" Moon asked slowly, letting a little disdain creep into her voice. It had the desired effect, as Narcissa winced at her words.
"As long as you can prove that you belong to a magical family—and there are tests to prove that, no need to recite your family history—most people are willing to overlook blood status."
"Don't people need four magical grandparents to be considered pure-blood?"
"That's one of the oldest definitions, yes," Narcissa agreed. "Nowadays, as long as a child has two well-respected magical parents, they can be labeled as a pure-blood."
'Anything to keep the title of nobility,' Moon thought bitterly.
"And… you thought that setting up an arranged marriage between me and… someone else was a good idea?"
"It's not an arranged marriage, not in the typical sense," Narcissa said. "If you're not married by the time you are twenty one, it is a sensible option to have adults you trust match you with another person to ensure the continuation of a bloodline."
"Twenty one?" Moon wondered aloud. "That early?"
Narcissa pursed her lips. "When were you expecting to get married?"
"A few years later than that."
"It's tradition for witches to be married at that age. It certainly worked for me," Narcissa added.
"So then, Pansy and Draco…?"
"There was an understanding between our houses. It made sense for the two of them to marry when they got older. Not so much so now, with that outburst earlier," the blonde woman said tersely. "Such behaviour is inexcusable."
"She thought I was taunting her," Moon said, reaching for the towel that Narcissa held out for her.
"She attacked you, the guest of the Malfoy family, because she made a mistake. That is what's inexcusable. If her family still wants to be on good terms with us, they'll need to find a way to apologize for Pansy's behaviour."
Moon didn't return to the party that night. It was already late, and some guests were starting to leave when the punch incident occurred. She returned to her room marginally less soaked than before, fluffy towel still in her hand.
Needless to say, the rest of the Christmas break was awkward.
There was a heavy guise of politeness over every conversation, every interaction, and every glance in her direction. It was practically the same as before, except Moon knew what the two adults had had in mind, and what Draco had been trying to avoid discussing.
Moon was glad when it was time to head back to Hogwarts. She did appreciate the chance to play her role as a champion again, and she did enjoy the presents she received for Christmas, but she would be glad to get away from the overhanging idea of a future relationship.
Of course, returning to Hogwarts meant stepping back into a whole other kind of crazy.
"What the hell do you mean, you got a broomstick from Sirius Black?"
"It's not from him," Harry said. "It couldn't be."
The Come and Go Room was once again in use, except the group was down to three, as Hermione had taken to avoiding Ron and Harry. The brunette had believed that the Firebolt Harry had received at Christmas came from the escaped convict who also happened to be his godfather (apparently) and, unfortunately for Harry, McGonagall agreed.
"How could he have even gotten a Firebolt?" Ron said angrily. "Everyone's looking for him. It's not like he could just walk into a store and buy one."
"He couldn't have done that," Moon agreed, although she privately wondered if the man had been the one to purchase the broomstick.
"Who else could have done it?" Hermione questioned later when Moon confronted her in a corner of the library. "Those are expensive brooms, no one would just purchase one and not specify it was from them unless they weren't able to."
"Assuming that Black was somehow able to purchase the broomstick in the first place, and that his only goal is to kill Harry," Moon said, ignoring the way Hermione tensed, "why not just get a cheaper broom? A Nimbus 2001 wouldn't have gotten as much attention."
"If the Firebolt hadn't been confiscated, there'd have been nothing that would keep Harry from trying to use it," Hermione argued. "He loves flying far too much to even think of the danger."
"If there's any danger at all. We still don't know if the broom is jinxed or not."
"Why would Black send him a broom and not jinx it?"
"Why even bother to jinx it? It's not exactly comforting, but there are plenty of easier ways to kill someone than sending a highly expensive broom with some sort of curse on it on the off chance that they are the first one to ride it."
Hermione gave her an incredulous look. "Are you… critiquing a plot to murder someone?"
"How else am I supposed to tell if it makes sense or not? Run it through a machine?"
"Maybe don't do anything that makes you sound like a potential killer?"
"You have to admit, murder by broomstick isn't the most efficient method."
"Harry nearly died in our first year because of a jinxed broom," Hermione stated. "The Defence professor tried to kill him during the first Quidditch match."
"Did the professor jinx the broom before or during the match?" Moon questioned. She got her answer through the Gryffindor's scowl.
As much as Moon disagreed with the idea of Black trying to kill Harry with the Firebolt, she couldn't exactly think of anyone else who would even bother giving the broom away without signing their name. It was simply too expensive. Unless there was a mysterious, long-lost relative somewhere who had a ton of money they were willing to dole out anonymously, she'd have to at least consider the possibility of the escaped convict being the one to send the broomstick.
That idea was a constant itch in the back of her mind, more prominent than any of the other topics she was concerned about. While she never actively tried to think about the criminal like she did with school or with her work at St Mungo's, she'd find herself drifting in the middle of doing homework, wondering how the broomstick ended up in Hogwarts in the first place.
Life at Hogwarts kept her busy enough that she didn't have a chance to think about it too much. Her main concerns were keeping up with her schoolwork, as the teachers saw fit to start whole new topics once the holidays were over and assign essays relating to them, and attempting to contact Fawley to ask about what his grandmother said. She sat down a few nights after returning to school to pen a lengthy letter to the Healer and sent it the next morning. Moon waited for a reply for a week, but didn't receive anything. It was starting to irritate her.
"Stop fidgeting," Lavender said during Divination. "I can't read your palm."
"Sorry."
They had moved onto palmistry in Divination, which was a nice change of pace from the constant tea-drinking. That didn't stop Professor Trelawney from predicting Harry's death every class, of course, it just solidified the woman's belief that the kid was going to drop dead at any moment.
"You're ambitious, according to the text here," Lavender hummed. "Anything in particular that you want to do?"
"What I want to do right now is send a Howler to a guy that's ignoring me," Moon said through gritted teeth. Lavender raised an eyebrow.
"You have a boyfriend?"
"Oh—Merlin, no. I'm working on a project right now with someone, completely outside of school. I asked him some questions and he hasn't written back yet."
"That would fit with ambition, I guess," Lavender said, "and your heart line is all wonky…"
"Unlike yours," Moon replied.
"It's no secret that I'm a romantic," Lavender said with a smile.
It wasn't until the next morning that Moon received her reply. She handed the owl a piece of sausage before she opened her letter.
Meet me Saturday at 11 AM.
-Aidan Fawley
"That's it?" she said, mildly confused. "No explanation whatsoever?"
She scanned every inch of the parchment to see if the Healer had slipped in a secret message somewhere. There were no markings, no indentations, nothing. Just the sentence.
"Jerk."
Moon ended up Flooing to St Mungo's by herself, as Fawley wasn't there to pick her up half an hour after eleven. She stormed through the halls of the hospital, flashing her consultant's pass at any Healer who got within five feet of her. She thought of looking on the third floor for Fawley, but got the odd feeling that he wouldn't be anywhere so public. That also excluded the staff room, the other above-ground floors, and the waiting room.
Room B120 was the last logical place to go.
She tapped her pass against the circle, causing the door to swing open to the lab room. Fawley was in the back, scribbling out notes to add to the clusters of paper scattered around the room.
"I think I found what we need," Fawley said, sounding frazzled. "A drop or two of the Draught of Living Death can reset a person's sleeping schedule completely. Mix that with the venom, and we might get rid of the fatigue. Let them sleep for a while before waking them up, and—"
"Aidan."
The Healer stopped rambling. He turned his head a degree towards Moon.
"I didn't think you were the type to attend galas."
"I didn't think you were the type to keep a huge secret."
"Oh yeah, I'm the one keeping secrets," Fawley laughed, completely devoid of humour. "Not like you are a self-made millionaire, politician, et cetera."
"That's a little less relevant than having a family member dying because of the disease we're trying to eradicate," Moon stated.
"It's still a secret."
"Did you really think that a girl from a dimension where carrying around mythical creatures in your back pocket was common would be perfectly honest and easy-to-read?"
"And I am?" the Healer asked, looking directly at the teenager.
"You're happy," Moon said, ignoring the question temporarily. "Constantly, irrevocably, happy. You've been this excitable ball of energy up until now. This project means the world to you. You've been waiting for an opportunity like this for years, it feels like. I'll be damned if your attitude and your past aren't linked."
Fawley waited for a moment, not moving a single muscle apart from blinking. It was a strange shift from being one of the most animated people Moon knew.
"Are you a Seer or something?" he asked, breaking from the frozen state.
"I take Divination."
"Well, you seem to be pretty good at it," he said. Fawley stood up from his chair, leaving his notes behind. "You're right; I've wanted to end lycanthropy since my brother died. Not out of revenge, though."
He glanced at Moon, who nodded. She wanted to hear his reasoning.
"I was five at the time. Tristan, my brother, was ten. I don't remember much of what happened that night, of course, I was sleeping. I recall hearing my parents shouting and spells being fired. The one who attacked Tristan wasn't anything like Greyback, just a wanderer that was too close to our house that night.
"Of course, no one believed him. My parents were members of the Werewolf Capture Unit—that's how they managed to stop him before he got the rest of us—he broke into our house when rumours of werewolves working with You-Know-Who started circulating, and my brother was dead because of the amount of injuries he had. He was sentenced to Azkaban for life without much of a trial.
"What I do remember well is him crying," Fawley said distantly. "He seemed to be grieving more than my parents over Tristan's death. He was completely distraught, practically begging everyone to believe that it was just an accident. That he never wanted to hurt anyone. And I believed him."
"That's why you're a Healer?" Moon asked.
"That's why I'm a Healer," he echoed. "I don't want anyone to end up like that man did. The sooner people can be free of that danger, of that possibility of hurting someone by accident, the better."
It was not the reasoning most people would have expected to hear, and yet Moon was glad to hear it. She leaned cautiously against one of the cabinets, evaluating Fawley.
"One of the weirdest things I learned when I got here was that my father was originally from here."
The Healer met her eye again, the confusion apparent on his face.
"He was a wizard who specialized in handling dark creatures. Somehow, just as the war was starting, he ended up in my world and met my mother. They weren't exactly young when they had me. My father was just over fifty.
"What I never expected to hear was that my father had a family prior to meeting my mother," she confessed, breaking eye contact with Fawley. "A wife, dead, and a son, still alive when my father disappeared from here. Still alive now, in fact."
Moon glanced back at Fawley. She could see the curiosity in his brown eyes, urging her to continue.
"He's a werewolf."
His eyes lit up with understanding. "One I've met?"
"No, don't think so," she said, the small lie slipping off her tongue. "He isn't… I haven't bothered to write him a letter or anything, he doesn't know that I exist, that he has a sister."
"Do you plan on telling him?" he asked.
"Not really," she answered. "I get the feeling that I should. It's not exactly fair of me to decide to keep this a secret. But of course, I can't exactly see why I have to tell him. If he never learns about me, then there's no problem."
"Except if he does learn you two are related."
Moon nodded slowly. "That's a possibility, admittedly not one I like, but there's nothing I can do about that. I just hope that I can eventually tell him, or avoid him."
'Rather difficult, since we are in the same building 99% of the time,' Moon thought.
"I'd say you should write to him as soon as possible," Fawley stated. "If I had a little sister, I'd want to know."
Moon nodded again, filing away his advice for later consideration.
"Don't suppose I have to tell you to keep this a secret?" she asked. Fawley shook his head. He swiped a stack of notes from the desk.
"If you don't mind, I'd like you to look these over."
Fawley's notes were surprisingly detailed, and Moon had to wonder how he had managed to get so much work done since she was last at St Mungo's. A drop of Living Death, mixed with one vial of venom and diluted with enough water to fill a goblet, and they had their cure. The Wiggenweld Potion would be given to the patients twelve hours after the cure, waking them up and relieving them of any serious fatigue.
It was nearly perfect.
"Not something we can just slip into someone's morning tea though, is it?" Moon wondered aloud.
"Well, even if you could, it would probably taste disgusting enough that someone would think they're poisoned," Fawley said.
"Sugar can't fix that?"
"Strangely enough, sugar ruins most potions, and the few it doesn't are usually sweet anyway."
Moon hummed, flipping through the stack of notes. "You've been keeping me out of the loop, haven't you?"
"You've had schoolwork. And galas, apparently."
"What else was I supposed to do with my Christmas?"
"Stuff your face with candy and open a metric ton of presents, of course. Set off firecrackers in the hallways."
"Your Christmases sound vastly different from mine."
"Commoners tend to have more fun, your majesty," he said with an exaggerated bow. "Speaking of which, how are you a countess if your father is from here?"
"The Sevii Islands are a tourist destination, and one of their main selling points is selling noble titles. A friend of mine thought it was hilarious, bought one for each of us just so we have to write the thing out each time we sign an official document."
"Now that's just mean."
"Never said all of us champions are nice, did I?"
She went back to Hogwarts on her own, feeling much more comfortable Flooing by herself than she did before.
The letters came more regularly after that. Fawley had started writing every few days to alert her on how the potion was progressing. The method they had decided on appeared to be the least-risky option they had.
The trouble was then patenting it.
'Since the venom is used alongside two other potions, there's some ancient copyright claims we have to work through,' Fawley wrote to her one day. 'As we're just using the potions to counteract side effects, we should be fine, but it will take a while. The end of May is what we're looking at for a worst-case scenario.'
"Knowing my luck, it will probably be just that," she grumbled.
Days inched along for the young champion. She mechanically went through her schoolwork, never letting herself receive anything below an E. Her heart and mind were far away from her work, even from the castle. Fawley's letters became mixed with a few short reports from the Ministry, giving her a few details about the progress her friends were making on finding her. Notes about how much the group missed her were tacked on to the end on the reports, and Moon could only imagine some poor Ministry worker having to write out the letter with Blue and May telling them to pass on whatever dumb remark they thought of that week.
Her classmates were stuck in a whirlwind of sorts as the work steadily grew more complicated. The Gryffindor trio had the most chaos surrounding them, naturally, as the tension between the three was constantly rising. The Ravenclaw-Gryffindor match was approaching, and the Firebolt had neither been returned nor discarded by McGonagall. That feeling of tension was leaking into the lives of the other Gryffindors, namely the Quidditch team.
On top of that, Harry was taking special lessons from Lupin to try and learn the Patronus Charm, something so complicated that it wasn't even commonly taught even in NEWT-level courses. It made sense, because of the Dementors, but it was also ridiculous. Harry was strong enough that he could possibly manage something beyond a weak shield, but how long would that take? It would take an extremely powerful and intense situation without Dementors for him to produce a corporeal Patronus.
When, on that Saturday, she saw the Gryffindor Seeker proudly show off the Firebolt, Moon had to deliberately ignore the sensation that something awesome was going to happen to keep herself from grinning like a madwoman.
The weather was clear and bright that day, if a bit chilly. Moon wanted to tag along with Hermione and Ron, thinking that the reappearance of the Firebolt would mean that the two would start mending their friendship. However, the two seemed to be staying as far apart as possible while remaining in the same area. Moon ended up sitting near Parvati and Lavender in one of the higher rows.
The match hadn't even started yet, and Moon could sense the joy from the crowd. Faces were smeared with paint to indicate who was cheering for who. Hufflepuffs, even after their defeat, were cheering for Gryffindor, while the Slytherins were on the Ravenclaw's side. It was an event that everyone attended, unless they were physically unable to.
It wasn't anywhere near the level of a top-tier pokémon battle, but it was close.
The sound of a whistle cut the air, and the teams kicked off the ground.
"They're off," a Gryffindor commentator—Lee Jordan, according to Parvati—announced gleefully, "and the big excitement this match is the Firebolt which Harry Potter is flying for Gryffindor. According to Which Broomstick, the Firebolt's going to be the broom of choice for the national teams at this year's World Championship—"
"Jordan, would you mind telling us what's going on in the match?" McGonagall interrupted.
"Right you are, Professor," Jordan responded, not sounding the least bit sheepish. "Just giving a bit of background information. The Firebolt, incidentally, has a built-in auto-brake and—"
"Jordan!"
Watching people flying for sport was a league away from experiencing it herself. Seeing both teams fly so elegantly almost made Moon forget about the wobbly, terrifying lesson she had. A streak of red followed by blue caught her attention. The Seekers had dived towards the Snitch. Harry would have caught it right there if a Bludger hadn't distracted him. One of the Gryffindor Beaters sent one right back to Ravenclaw.
"Gryffindor lead by eighty points to zero, and look at that Firebolt go! Potter's really putting it through the paces now. See it turn—Chang's Comet is just no match for it. The Firebolt's precision-balance is really noticeable in these long—"
"JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!"
Gryffindor's lead didn't last forever. Ravenclaw managed to score three goals before Harry located the Snitch again. He was blocked by Chang and lost track of the small ball. The teenage boy went up to search again, with Chang tailing him.
He must have caught on to her plan, as the Gryffindor Seeker went into an extremely sharp dive, pulling back seconds later and leaving the Ravenclaw to flounder. He then darted towards the Ravenclaw's end of the pitch. Chang followed him, only to cry out a second later as something below caught her attention.
Moon saw the three cloaked figures standing on the pitch. They resembled what she remembered of the sketch of a Dementor in her textbook, but there were several issues with them. They weren't floating, for starters, and they certainly weren't flying up to target Harry. The biggest red flag was that there was none of the rumoured cold sensation or misery that accompanied the creatures.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A brilliant, glowing stag of all things came thundering down from the spot where Harry was at microseconds before. The pseudo-Dementors collapse in an odd way, breaking halfway down their tall bodies. It was almost…
"Two children standing in a trench coat," Moon muttered over the roaring cheer that came with Harry finally catching the Snitch.
She didn't stick around much longer. Being dragged to a common room party when one didn't belong to the house could not be a pleasant experience, even though she wanted to speak with all three of her friends there.
Moon went to sleep that night, wondering what was going on between Ron and Hermione, and if there was any way she could solve it.
I've been attacked by several plot bunnies since Saturday's update. Nothing related to this story, mind you, just a bunch of random ideas that I'd like to make into stories, but probably won't. Extraordinarily frustrating.