I do not own the Harry Potter series or Pokémon.
Some scenes and dialogue are derived from Prisoner of Azkaban
Chapter Twenty Seven: Confrontation
The only good thing that came from Harry being caught outside of Hogwarts was that the tension between Hermione and Ron lessened. It seemed that having his idea backfire on his best friend gave the redhead a pinch of humility, and he began acting civilly towards Hermione again. The unease between them didn't vanish, but things began to turn in that direction.
The days that followed the incident were weird to say the least, the most notable thing being the time Hermione had arrived late to Charms despite being near Ron and Harry the majority of the trip. Moon was a bit skeptical when the boys relayed the story to her on their way to Divination, but it wasn't inconsistent with the brunette's recent actions. Hermione had been having troubling keeping up with all of her classes for weeks. It was no surprise to hear that she was starting to slip.
It wasn't entirely unexpected that things finally boiled over in Professor Trelawney's class that same day.
The classroom, as smoky and mystical as ever, had changed since the last lesson. Crystal balls sat in the middle of every table, with white mist swirling in the center of each orb. The four broke apart, the golden trio heading towards one table and Moon heading towards an unoccupied one. Crystal-gazing was not a partner based exercise, and so the classroom was more spread out than usual. A few other people, like Neville, were also sitting alone.
"Good day to you," Trelawney's voice rang as she emerged from the darker part of the classroom. "I have decided to introduce the crystal ball a little earlier than I had planned."
Trelawney sat in a chair, her back to the fire and her face veiled in shadows. "The fates have informed me that your examination in June will concern the Orb, and I am anxious to give you sufficient practice."
A snort came from the other end of the classroom, followed by Hermione saying, "Well, honestly… 'the fates have informed her'… who sets the exam? She does! What an amazing prediction!"
Moon suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, even though no one would see it. There had to be a good reason for Professor Trelawney to shift the lesson plan so suddenly. Seers weren't known for doing stuff on a whim, even to impress large audiences. Even if the professor wasn't a Seer, messing up her schedule for dramatic effect was pointless. The students had already decided whether they believed in her abilities or not.
"Crystal-gazing is a particularly refined art," the professor said mistily, as though she hadn't heard the interruption. "I do not expect any of you to See when you peer into the Orb's infinite depths. We shall start by practising relaxing the conscious mind and external eyes"—someone from the other end of the room giggled, most likely Ron—"so as to clear the Inner Eye and the super-conscious. Perhaps, if we are lucky, some of you will See before the end of the class."
It was a relaxing process. Clearing the mind and distancing oneself from unwanted sensory input was similar to some forms of meditation that Moon had come across. She had never tried it herself, preferring to spar with her pokémon if she was trying to unwind or work through some problem, but she had to admit that it was effective. She might try it more often when she got back home.
If only she didn't have to struggle with keeping her eyes open.
The mist inside of the crystal danced slowly, morphing between different shapes and patterns. The mutterings of the classroom blurred around her, the occasional thought became a distant whisper. Her own breathing was magnified in her ears to the point where it sounded like wind.
The mist became blank squares, each the same size and each paper-thin, fluttering downwards towards the table the orb rested on. The squares—were they paper?—came to a stop, scattered. Something that was partially a hand, partially a claw, snatched one away—
Laughter broke Moon's concentration. She blinked. Scowled at the crystal ball. She was just turning her head to see who laughed when Professor Trelawney's voice cried out.
"Now really! You are disturbing the clairvoyant vibrations!"
Trelawney went over to Harry's table, and even in the dim lighting, Moon could see their happiness melt away as the woman gazed into their crystal.
"There is something here!" Trelawney whispered, ducking down to get closer to the orb. "Something moving… but what is it?"
Everyone's attention was on them, although it was blatantly obvious what was coming. Moon would have said it herself if it wouldn't have been so rude to steal the moment.
"My dear…" Professor Trelawney said, her voice wispy and fearful. "It is here, plainer than ever before… my dear, stalking towards you, growing ever closer… the Gr—"
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" Hermione shouted, breaking the classroom's trance state. "Not that ridiculous Grim again!"
Trelawney was shocked at first, and then her gaze became furious. She wasn't the only one in the classroom who was angry; Parvati and Lavender were glaring daggers at Hermione. Trelawney rose to her full height, towering over the students sitting at the table.
"I am sorry to say that from the moment you have arrived in this class, my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don't remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly Mundane."
The room was as silent as a vacuum for a moment. And then Hermione spoke.
"Fine!" the brunette said, standing up and forcing her textbook into her bag. "Fine!" she repeated, almost hitting Ron when she swung her bag onto her shoulder. "I give up! I'm leaving!"
And with that, Hermione stormed away from Trelawney, kicked open the trapdoor, and descended out of the classroom. The room immediately broke into an excited chatter. Everyone knew that Hermione despised Divination, but leaving in the middle of class was entirely unexpected.
Professor Trelawney looked as though she had just run a mile, her face was so flushed and her breathing forced. Her hands clutched at the shawl around her next, pulling it tighter than strictly comfortable.
"Ooooo!" Lavender yelped, grabbing the attention of the classroom. "Oooooo, Professor Trelawney, I've just remembered! You saw her leaving, didn't you? Didn't you, Professor? 'Around Easter, one of our number will leave us for ever!' You said it ages ago, Professor!"
Trelawney relaxed, giving Lavender a sugary smile.
"Yes, my dear, I did indeed know that Miss Granger would be leaving us. One hopes, however, that one might have mistaken the Signs… the Inner Eye can be a burden, you know…"
Moon was conflicted on how to feel about Trelawney's prediction. On one hand, it was amazing and scary to see a prediction come true, especially given the long stretch of time that had occurred. One the other hand, she had hoped that she would be the one leaving around this time. Although she was far more attached to Hogwarts and some of its inhabitants than she had ever expected, the longing to go home was still there.
And, of course, there was a tad bit of jealously towards Hermione for her ability to storm out of the classroom, something that she herself lacked. For as much as she enjoyed the class, Moon wished she had the chance to leave Defence Against the Dark Arts.
The Defence class had become nearly unbearable since Harry had been caught outside the school grounds. At first, Moon thought it was just her being petty, holding an unnecessary grudge against Lupin for calling out her friends. But the more she tried to focus on her work and ignore her feelings, the more she noticed the different atmosphere in the room. It was subtle, but it was there; in the way Hermione wasn't asking as many questions, in the way that Ron and Harry focused on the board rather than on the teacher, and in the way that part of Lupin's previous enthusiasm seemed to have chipped off.
So it was not just her that was still miffed about the Hogsmeade incident.
On top of that, the Slytherins were becoming nastier and nastier towards the Gryffindors. That might have been because of the approaching Quidditch match—Hufflepuff vs Gryffindor, with both houses having a reasonable chance of winning the cup—but Moon was inclined to believe part of the attitude was due to Harry pelting Draco Malfoy and his lackeys with mud. Professor Snape's hostility toward both Harry and Lupin only furthered that behaviour.
In all honesty, while Moon knew his behaviour was not entirely unwarranted (unlike some people's attitudes), she found Lupin's coldness to be worse than Snape's malevolence. Maybe it was because she was used to Professor Snape's hatred of Gryffindors. Maybe it was because she had been given the perfect opportunity to despise the man who had, up until that point, been too nice to hate.
Frankly, Moon didn't care where her reason for being frustrated with Lupin stemmed from. She was simply glad to have a half-decent reason on hand to actively avoid him.
The last Defence class before the Easter break ended a second before the bell. The students rushed to pack up. Moon joined the stream to exit the classroom, her bag's outer pocket still partially open from stuffing the day's notes inside. She held it tightly to her side, not wanting it to spill on her way out but not wanting to stop and fix it until she left the room. She did not want to stay any longer than strictly necessary.
"Moon? Would you please stay for a minute?"
She froze mid-step. Dean clipped her shoulder as he tried to swerve around her. The boy gave her a sheepish grin as an apology as he exited the room. Moon put on her best neutral expression before she turned around to face Lupin.
He wasn't paying attention to her, choosing to spend a few precious moments cleaning papers from his desk as the last of the Gryffindors filed out. He looked as calm as Moon did, which said very little about how he actually was feeling. Lupin was one of the more animated professors, but the young champion doubted that he would be one to let his anger show in front of students. Or anyone, for that matter.
She resisted the urge to lean on a desk or shut the door when the last student left. If she looked like she was prepared to leave at any second, she might be let out earlier.
Lupin closed the main drawer of his desk before he looked up at her. His calm demeanour didn't hide his hesitation, or how he was regarding her like a Sneasel caught munching on an egg. Not with anger, but with a mixture of weariness of confrontation and disappointment that she was there at all. Which was strange, considering that he asked her to stay back.
"You wanted something, professor?" Moon asked as politely as she could. Her eyes flickered toward the small clock near the tank. She wouldn't be missing any classes, Defence was the last one of the day, but she wanted to know how long the conversation would be. She'd calculate the time it took later.
"I've noticed that you've been rather on edge as of late," Lupin remarked, as though he was discussing the weather.
Moon gave a small shrug. "Stress of the term," she replied.
"That's common around this time," he said, a hint of a fond smile appearing. "Easter wasn't ever a holiday for the students here. However, I've seen you work. You don't have issues with your essays and projects."
"I've been helping some others with their work. Tutoring isn't as easy as I thought."
Not a flat-out lie; trying to get Ron and Harry to study was taxing, but that wasn't the reason she was 'on edge'.
Lupin didn't look convinced. "I've asked some other professors. They're good at spotting stress, and they haven't noticed anything odd."
He moved around the desk so that there wasn't anything blocking him. "If you're having issues with my class in particular, it'd be best if I knew about them now, rather than just before exams."
"I do believe my last essay was a solid E," she said. That only drew a larger smile out of the man.
"Yes, and your previous work was mostly O's, with very few exceptions."
"Maybe this was just another exception," she said, her jaw becoming stiff in an effort to not clench her teeth. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and for a brief second she saw his nostrils flare—was he trying to see if she was lying by scent?
"I'm not sure if that's the case," he said carefully. "The previous E's were because of a few sentences that were hard to comprehend. This one was more… basic, cut and dry, than the others. You usually put extra effort into fleshing out the topic and creating something meant to be read, rather than just reusing information from the textbook. It might have been worth an O if there weren't any spelling mistakes—also different from your other essays."
She tried not to grimace. He wasn't going to fall for her saying she was stressed when he had asked the other professors. She could control her expressions and body language enough to lie convincingly in most cases, but that was a doomed path if he could know she was fibbing by her scent. Her best shot at getting out of the classroom unscathed was to say that she was too uncomfortable about her reason for being irritable the past week to speak about it. That wouldn't be too far from reality to count as a lie.
"If there's something going on, unrelated to schoolwork, it would be best to let me or another professor know before things get out of hand."
Moon looked at him directly, noticing for the first time that his eyes were a hazel-green colour. She was suddenly, intensely aware of the fact that her own eyes were blue, exactly as her father's eyes were. The comparison hadn't been made in years, but she knew that most people who knew her father remarked on that one similarity. Being found out for something so small would stress her out plenty. She chose to stare at the floor.
"It's not really my business to talk about it," she stated. Lupin's brow creased.
"I understand not wanting to be a snitch, but if someone's threatening you—"
"It's nothing like that," she said, a touch too quickly. Arceus forbid that Lupin starts thinking she's being harassed, or that she couldn't handle negative attention.
Lupin straightened to his full height. He always seemed to be tilting his head down or something else that made him appear shorter than he really was.
"Then explain it," he ordered gently. "Whether or not it's your business, it's bothering you enough to interfere with your schoolwork."
She removed her eyes from the floor. Debated if it was worth a potential detention to get every thought running rampant in her head in order for the rest of the day. Then she decided that she was going soft, if a small detention was the worst thing she imagined as an outcome.
"It's about what happened when you confiscated the map from Harry, sir."
Relief flickered across the professor's face, followed by confusion. He had been expecting her to say something else.
"Go on," he said.
Moon hesitated for a moment. Took a deep breath.
"Pardon me, professor," she said as evenly as she could, "but I don't believe that what you said to him was entirely fair."
"And that is what's been bothering you this week?"
"Yes."
Lupin nodded, his shoulders relaxing as though some invisible weight was taken off of them.
"Unfair how, exactly?" he asked, not even the slightest bit irritated with her criticism. That was one of the main differences between him and the other teachers; none of them would face scrutiny from the students with that much composure.
"I know that he shouldn't have been sneaking out," she said, although she herself would have sneaked out of the castle if given the chance, "but saying he was gambling with his parents' sacrifice for something so minor is a bit harsh."
He nodded again, slower. Going by the way his expression became cooler after she spoke, he understood what she was saying, but didn't actually agree.
"If Sirius Black wasn't still on the loose, I would be inclined to agree with you," he said. "Unfortunately, he hasn't been caught, and Harry is… well, particularly at-risk for being targeted by that man."
Moon didn't think that the professor would appreciate her thoughts on that matter. Everyone was convinced that Sirius Black's only goal was to kill Harry.
"I'm sure you've heard rumours about the last two years, Professor Lupin," she said. "An incident with the Philosopher's Stone and Voldemort at the end of the 1991-1992 school year that left Harry in the hospital wing for days. How he fought a Basilisk and nearly died from its venom just a year ago."
"He seems to be very prone to danger, and that's exactly why I don't want him to go wandering around Hogsmeade without permission," Lupin said.
"The last few times he's been in danger at the school, he's been rewarded for risking his life," Moon argued. "I'm not going to say he doesn't deserve recognition for saving the school—twice—but I don't think that praising him for nearly dying and then criticizing him for spending time with his friend—with an invisibility cloak on, in broad daylight, and not being noticed by any teachers or by anyone until that slip-up, might I add?—and saying that that of all things was risking his parents' sacrifice… sir, I'm not sure you did anything other than reinforce the idea that his life is worthless in his mind."
For the first time since their conversation began, Moon saw a flash of anger appear in Lupin's eyes.
"And what makes you think he has this idea?" he asked evenly, his voice free of anger. She wondered if she had just imagined it.
"As I said, he's been praised for nearly dying before—technically for his heroic actions in saving the school, but still, nearly dying was a part of that—and I've heard… terrible things about his relatives, how he ran away from them back in the summer, and they don't sound like people who'd be too concerned if their nephew got killed."
She watched him become tense once again. The thought that Lupin had been close to the Potter family before that Halloween night, that he adored the then-baby boy like he would his own son, took root in her head.
Dumbledore had said that Remus had left Britain after the funerals, and that he was distraught from his friends' deaths, but the headmaster didn't say anything about how Remus reacted to being told that Harry was being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. She wasn't even sure that he was told that much. Dumbledore might have just claimed that Harry was safe and that it would be best if Lupin didn't disturb the family while they were adjusting.
Maybe that explained why Lupin was so close to Harry and yet so distant. Had the Potters not been killed, he would have been a huge presence in the boy's life. Instead, whether it was because of Dumbledore's orders or his own reservations, he was only the Defence teacher. The best one the school had had in years, perhaps, but still another teacher.
"He trusts you, sir," Moon said. "If I had to guess, you're one of the few people whose opinion he actually cares about. And that probably made it hurt more."
Lupin was silent for several moments as he contemplated what she said.
"I still think he should have shown more caution, considering the circumstances," the professor replied. "However, I will talk with Harry sometime after the break and amend what I said to him."
"Thanks, professor," Moon said. For the first time since school started, she felt the sense of unease about him being her half-brother lessen. Perhaps if she talked to him more during the last few months of school, she would work up enough courage to tell him that they were related.
"Thank you for being honest with me, Moon," he replied. "That is all, I suppose. You're free to go."
She smiled genuinely. A quick glance at the clock told her that she had been there for ten minutes. She turned around to head out the door, allowing her arms to swing a little—
Her bag bashed against the corner of a desk. This wouldn't have been a problem if the outer pocket hadn't been open. As it was, her notes from class, along with the pictures she had left in there over the weekend, spilled out onto the floor.
She huffed, then kneeled on the floor to try to gather the scattered paper. She saw Professor Lupin out of the corner of her eye handing her one stray photo and reaching for another. She took them and the other ones he managed to get to before her while sorting the photos and notes into a neat pile. After she had gathered everything she could see and what had been handed to her, she put the pile into the side pocket carefully and sealed it shut. She turned towards Professor Lupin to thank him, but the words got caught in her throat when she saw him staring down at the one photo she had missed; the one with boxed edges and yellowing paper, the oldest picture she carried around.
The last family photograph that was taken before her parents got divorced.
Lupin's face was slowly becoming pale, and if Moon looked in a mirror, she would see the same happening to her. With as much tranquility as she could muster, she held out her hand expectantly.
"Thanks for your help, sir."
There must have been a dozen or so alarm bells going off in the man's head, but he was still shocked enough to hand over the old photo. Moon held it between her fingers as she walked out of the classroom. She closed the door gently behind her and leaned against the wall. She examined the photo, already knowing what it was but still hoping that she might have been wrong.
The seven year-old version of her smiled brightly up at her. Her mother was still as graceful as ever. Her father was looking at them and not the camera, as though they were the only things in the world that mattered to him. As though he loved them like nothing else. As though her mother was the first woman he loved, and that she was his firstborn.
Moon crushed the photo in her hand. She unclenched her fist and let the paper fall, walking away before she could see it touch the stone floor.
It was just an old photo, anyway.
This reveal method was an idea I thought of long before I wrote the actual chapter, so it was really satisfying to write. Most of the little ideas I have are thrown away, so it was nice to hang on to this one.
(Now that I think about it, I could write a few short parody scenes with some ideas…)