The Moon Has Spoken

Fiddler’s room had quicky became their favorite gathering spot. Crookshanks and Triskelion –as Fiddler had named her wolf-like sturdy dog-, would ward the entrance, and since they were still in the Gryffindor Tower, not even Snape could have said that they were off boundaries after curfew. It was brilliant.


It was there they were that night, anxiously waiting for Harry, who had promised he’d bring along the Two-way Mirror Sirius had given him on their fifth year. But the hour was growing late and still there were no signs of him.

“Knowing his luck, he probably got caught by Filch and now he’s at Snape’s dungeons scrubbing rat brains off the ceiling”, said Ron gloomily, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog.

“Oh, Ron”, said Hermione reprovingly.

“What? You know it’s true. He’s got the worst luck ever!”

“But brighten up”, Ginny said giving Triskelion a Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean. “If he is indeed stranded with Snape, we can always send Fiddler here to release him”.

The kids all roared with laughter, and the rational part of Fiddler’s brain suddenly asked her: And why exactly are you blushing, Fiddler, my lass?”

Oh, shut UP. I am not blushing.

“Why would you send me, if may I ask?”, she spoke out loud.

“Well, apparently you’re not afraid of Severus”, Ron said mockingly. “And you seem to stand up for him quite a bit”.

“I’ve never!”

“Oh, no? What of ‘let’s pity him for he was a taunted boy?’ What of ‘He’s not the kind of man that enjoys exposure?”, Ron brandished his index finger on Fiddler’s face in unmistakable victory: “What of ‘I call him Severus when I see him?”

Damn the kid!, she thought. And then she wondered why had she thought that.

“Oh, yeah— Well— I—”, was all she could stutter.

“You like him!”, Ron wailed with Weasley sense of logic.

“Well, I don’t ike ike him”, Fiddler said, evenly. “He hasn’t been mean to me or anything… Just… wary. But polite”.

“Polite?”, Ginny cut in. “What about those points he docked off you?”

“Oh, that was petty vengeance, I thought we’d agreed on that one”.

“Yeah, yeah… Keep defending him”, fumed Ron, eating yet another Chocolate Frog.

Fiddler was about to retort, but decided she wouldn’t dignify Ron’s taunting with an answer. She went to her dresser to grab her hairbrush and a rubberband and busied herself on braiding her long strands out of her face. After a moment of silence, Ron spoke again.

“Well, where the Hell is Harry? Do you think he fell off the stairs and died?”

“RON!”, exclaimed both Hermione and Ginny.

“Well, you know Trelawney keeps saying he’ll die young”, replied defensively. “Speaking of which, you should have heard her in class today…”

“Oh, spare me. I can’t believe you’re still taking Divination”, Hermione replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

But Fiddler was interested.

“What did she say?”

“Fiddler, she’s a right old fraud, you don’t want to—”

But Ron was already making a full account on that day’s class, much to Fiddler’s amusement because even though she hadn’t met Sybill Trelawney personally, she thought of her as a really funny character indeed.

“So, apparently, we’re going to be teached how to Foresee”, Ron said, somewhat mockingly. “I don’t know how many times she has predicted Harry’s horrible death since we started the class but if she keeps this up he’ll kill himself just to get out of it”.

“If it was me, I’d kill her instead”, Fiddler said, and the kids didn’t dare ask if she was serious. With Fiddler, you never knew.

“Oh, but she talked about you”, Ron continued. “Have you met?”

“No, we haven’t”.

“She’d kill herself allright!”, Hermione said contemptously. “Fiddler could take over her job anytime and successfully I might add”.

“Oh, come on… I told you I am no Seer”.

“Nor is she!”

“Come on, let’s be fair here”, Ginny said. “She has made two real prophecies…”

They burst into cackles and then Fiddler asked:

“So what did she say about me, anyway?”

“Oh, just her usual babbling… She said an evil force was fogging her Inner Eye and that she could see the dark mane of the Moonwitch approaching… She then said the Fate wouldn’t let her know if the Moonwitch was good or evil… But she did mention something about Birth links between the One born in Ostara and the One Born in Lughnassadh… She also said that those born from the Ocean would vanquish darkness”.

“Good grief, what do you smoke in that class?”, Fiddler laughed and Hermione joined her gladly.

Ron was about to make what he thought was a scathing retort when the door sung open and a slightly breathless invisible someone glided in. Harry tossed aside the Invisibility Cloak and slumped on a chair.

“Harry! What took you so long?”

“Who do you think? Snape was fluttering around here like the big bat he is!”

“Around here, as in around Fiddler’s room?” Ginny asked, amazed. Ron pulled up a horrified face and opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t you dare, Ron”, Fiddler admonished.

“What?”, Harry asked, puzzled.

“Some stupid teenage taunting Ron was doing before you arrived”, Fiddler said smugly. “Nothing important. Did you bring the mirror?”

“Yeah”, Harry said and produced it from his robes. He held it in front of him and spoke clearly: “Remus Lupin”.

The rest of them came to stand at Harry’s back, all glancing towards the mirror, until gradually, a blurred image formed in the mirror’s surface.

“Er—”, Harry said.

Hermione cleared her throat and Ginny burst into incontrolable giggles. Ron was very red in the face and apparently couldn’t find a spot to place his eyes upon.

“Hello?” Fiddler said, trying not to laugh as well. “Are we interrupting something?”

The two figures in the mirror disentangled from each other abruptly and the very blushed face of the werewolf peered at them from the mirror.

“No— No— Er— Tonks and I were— I was merely—”

“She had something in her eye, I know”, Fiddler said cheerfully. “Next time give me a call, it could require a doctor’s expertise”, she added, ironically. “Anyway, Harry wants to talk to you. Go on Harry, field’s clear”.

“Harry!”, Lupin exclaimed, instantly worried. “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Er— yeah”, Harry replied. “Nothing’s wrong, technically… We just wanted to tell you something. Do you have time?”

Remus Lupin blushed again and mumbled.

“Yes, I have time”.

So Harry told him about their previous musings and the blush slowly disappeared off Lupin’s face.

“I’ll make sure I mention it in our next meeting”, he said finally. “But for now, I don’t see what else can we do—”

“When are we going to Grimmauld Place?”, Harry asked, and Fiddler sensed the contradictory feelings he had towards that house.

“I don’t know, Harry. Dumbledore hasn’t said a word about it, but I am sure he’ll let you know if something comes up”.

“Yeah… I am sure, too”.

“So how’s our famous guest getting along?”, asked Lupin.

“Oh, I am fine, thank you. Fitting in just nice”, Fiddler replied.

“Harry told me that Snape gave you a hard time the other day?”

Fiddler gifted both Harry and Lupin with one of her withering looks and said:

“Boy, you can’t stop talking about him, can you? I am starting to find that a little suspicious…”

“Oh, Professor Lupin, don’t you speak mean of Snape in front of her”, Ron warned him. “She liiiiikes him!”

“Shut up, Ronald Weasley!”, Fiddler roared amongst the other’s laughter, and then Lupin said:

“Well, I’ll make sure to tell him that too when I see him, it might just be what he needs to cheer up a bit”.

If Fiddler had thought they were laughing before, that was nothing compared to what they were doing now. Even Hermione was howling with cackles!
And her own furious blush wasn’t helping her mood, either.

“Well, as fun as this is, I am afraid I have to go”, Lupin said when he got his wind back. “I’m on duty tonight”.

“Yeah, duty all right”, Fiddler said sullenly. “Go on, keep an eye on Tonks—, I mean, things. We’ll interrupt you no further”

And with that, Lupin’s image banished from the mirror.

“Well, that was useful”, Fiddler said when Harry put the mirror away.

“What do you mean? It was great!”, Ginny said, still giggling.

“Oh, yeah, spiffing”, Fiddler mocked. “But we didn’t solve anything, did we?”

Everyone’s smiles banished at that.

“You know something, she’s right”, Hermione said. “I mean, he’ll mention it at the meeting and then they’ll handle it. And they’ll cut us off again”.

“They still don’t trust us, do they?”, Ron asked.

“Nah… We’ll always be kids to them”, Ginny agreed.

“Specially if you keep acting like kids”, Fiddler said acidly. “Anyway, I think we should all get some sleep now. It’s getting late and you’ve got classes tomorrow”.

“Yeah… Snape at first hour in the morning, though”, Ron said, brightly. “Sure you don’t want to join us for once, Fidd?”

They all burst into chortles again, and Fiddler said, evenly:

“You know, I might just do that”, because she guessed, and guessed right, that it would be enough to shut him up. “Good night, kids”, she added and walked to the door to drop the wards. They wished her a good night as well as they climbed out the disguised door, and Fiddler was about to close it when Ginny’s bright red head poked back inside.

“Don’t mind Ron, Fiddler”, she said in a hurry. “You know… that’s the way he behaves when… he’s got a crush on someone. He’ll get over it”.

And with that, she was gone.

~§~§~§~

“Did you hear that, Trisks?”, Fiddler said one she had closed the door. “Now it turns out the kid has a crush on me. Unbelievable”.

Triskelion looked at her, nonchalant as usual, and yawned widely.

“Yeah, I know you couldn’t care less”, Fiddler said. “Now, move , I , I want to sit there”.

Triskelion yawned yet again, stared at her, slowly stood up, circled around the seat in front of the window, and slumped back into it, almost boldly.

“Oh, that’s very nice of you, thank you”.

Fiddler cleared out the rest of the sweets feast and dragged a chair to the window, sitting to face the darkness outside, with her chin propped up in her hand. There was only one thing she missed from her Muggle house, and that was the freedom to listen to her music before she went to sleep. Of course, no electrical device worked on highly magic grounds such as Hogwarts’, and although Hermione had tried to charm her CD player, nothing had worked so far, and Fiddler missed her music. Sometimes it seemed like the only thing she had, apart from her animals, her books… and medicine.
What a pathetic imitation of life, she told herself.

She wasn’t really looking through the window, she was more like using it as a reflection for inner thoughts. She was alone now, so she could indulge herself and sing, however low, to herself…

Toll no bell for me, Father
But let this cup of suffering pass from me
Send me no shepherd to heal my world
But the Angel - the dream foretold
Prayed more than thrice for You to see
The wolf of loneliness in me
...not my own will but Yours be done…

She sighed.

You’ve done it again, you know it, don’t you, part of her brain spoke from a side of her mind.

Yeah, I do. What can I tell you, some of us just never learn.

Oh, and you want to go through all that again?

Well, it’s not like I have a choice, is it? I didn’t mean this to happen, so stop harping at me.

You could have stopped it if you’d only—

If I’d only what? Don’t give me that bull, you know some things… can’t be stopped.

Yeah, she knew that all right. And that part of her brain that happily nagged her all day long obviously displeased at such disgraceful things as feelings or longings, should have known that as well.
Fiddler was starting to doze off when an angry growl from Triskelion startled her off her slumber.

“What’s wrong with you?”, she asked the dog. “What did you see?”

Triskelion was arched up with his nose touching the window, almost as if reading himself to jump out, barking madly at the darkness outside. Fiddler peered out but saw nothing more than the stars and the tops of the trees slowly dancing in the nighttime wind. sig sighed and blew a warming breath to her hands. It was a cold night.

“Triskelion, I don’t see a thing, you paranoid lump… Now shut up or you’ll wake everybody up”.

But the wolf-like dog wouldn’t shut up for the life of him, and Fiddler, conditioned from a lifetime of having stubborn pets, rummaged through her stuff in search for anything that even remotely resembled a lantern. Of course, there was none.

“You know, Trisks, I am not the heroin kind at all. I would never go out and find out who made that strange noise outside my do—”, and she went silent, because Triskelion had indeed jumped out the window to the forrest beneath it. Shattered pieces of windowpane flew everywhere and Fiddler took a step back to avoid being hit by one.

“TRISKELION!”, she yelled, poking her head out the window. Her dog was running hastily into the darkness, and he appeared to be unharmed. “Well, it’s not a long fall after all”, she said pensively. “Stupid animal…”

She wasn’t one to go and find out the source of mysterious noises, all right, but she was certainly the one who’d walk out in the cold night to collect her astray nutter pet from wherever he was. She sighed and put on a warm jumper. She was wearing one of her surgery scrubs, navy blue this one, and she supposed the thin fabric would hao doo do, because she wasn’t about to change right now. She found her trainers under the bed and put them on, and finally made it to the hallway, plucking a torch on her way to the main entrance. Thankfully, she didn’t run into anyone on her way out, not even everpresent Filch or his tittle-tattle cat Mrs. Norris.

“TRISKELION!”, she yelled onutsiutside, walking against the frantically blowing wind and shivering all over. Damn, it’s cold out here! “Triskelion, come ON! Get BACK here, you little piece of—OUCH!”

She tripped on a root and sprained her ankle, like only she knew how. She tried to avoid falling over by moving both her arms like a mad windmill but failed dismally and fell down on her backside. The torch went out leaving her sitting on really sore buttocks and no better , su, surrounded by darkness.

“Oh, nice move, Fiddler”, she said out loud, struggling to get on her feet. “Really nice move…!”

She limped forward, hesitantly now that there were no lights, and yelled again, with all the might of her Banshee voice:

“TRISKELION! GET BACK HERE NOW!”

She heard a clatter and some barking coming from a bush somewhere to her left and she shuffled towards it.

“Gotcha”, she mumbled evilly as she bent to crawl into the bush. But the creature that greeted her there was certainly not Triskelion. It was a real wolf.





A/N.

TBC, please R & R!!!!!

Thanx a lot to my kind beta Ian for his BRILLIANT thoughts!!!


Disclaimer: All characters and HP universe belong to J.K. Rowling, except for the ones you don’t recognize. The plot as well is mine and solely mine!! No profit is being made!!!!