In the Melancholy Moonlight

Chapter CL: Evermore

HARRY:

"When's the full moon this month?" Ron asked, his voice low even though the common room was loud.

"The seventh," Lucy and I responded in perfect unison. She glanced up at me with a small smile.

"A week from tonight," Hermione added.

Lucy nodded. "Yeah. A week from tonight."

Even though the full moon was so close, Lucy had been in surprisingly good spirits about its approach. I wondered if something I had said that night on the hill had resonated with her, but I knew better than to take credit for it. She'd been better over the course of the last month, and I was growing increasingly convinced that Quidditch was the primary reason for her rediscovered ability to bounce back. She still had setbacks, still jumped at unexpected touches and loud noises and bright flashes, still clenched her jaw for the duration of DADA, still had to pause to breathe from time to time, but for every setback, she rebounded. For every down, there was an up. After watching her struggle through valley after valley after valley, it was nice, so nice, to see her scaling hills again. One day, I knew she'd pull herself up the mountain from which she'd been so violently pushed, stronger than ever and ready to fly again.

It was just a matter of time. I knew it.

"What are you doing, Ron?" Hermione asked, realizing that he was writing on parchment without any textbooks or notes out for reference.

"Oh, writing back to Mum," he replied. "She says hello to all of you, by the way, and she's looking forward to seeing Harry and Lucy again at Christmas."

"Christmas?" Lucy repeated, her face suddenly and inexplicably pale.

"Yeah, she wrote a letter this morning saying you and Harry were spending Christmas with us at the Burrow. Your, er, legal guardians decided it would be best — and by best, I think she means safest — for you to be with us since Umbridge is here and You-Know-Who is everywhere else. Hermione would be welcome too, but she's going... er, what was it called again?"

"Skiing," she answered without glancing up.

I nodded, feeling somewhat relieved. I had expected to be at Hogwarts for Christmas, maybe with Lucy, maybe alone. Christmas at the Burrow sounded far more enjoyable, even if Sirius wouldn't be there. But then again, I reckoned it would be easy enough for him to Floo over for a couple of hours, surely he could do that much at least.

I could tell from the look on Lucy's face, though, that she felt very differently about this turn of events. She looked sad, and scared, and, for the first time in a long time, small. Though I knew the fever was burning her from the inside out, her face was pale, and her knuckles had whitened around her Transfiguration textbook. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but thought better of doing so in front of Ron and Hermione. I'd get her alone and ask then, I knew that was the best way to get an honest answer.

"Wait, legal guardian?" Hermione asked. "Who's your legal guardian, Lucy?"

"Mad-Eye, technically," she replied without looking up from the page she was reading. Her voice trembled almost imperceptibly. I watched with despair as her expression closed off, her stormy eyes went blank, her hands relaxed around the book, and the redness rushed back to her face. She was hiding, packing it all away, running, trying to push down whatever it was she was feeling. "They found something Mum wrote several years ago saying she wanted him to be legal guardian for Cedric and me if something happened to her and my dad. It makes sense. Mum was an orphan and Dad was an only child whose parents were killed in the first war. Mad-Eye was one of the only people Mum trusted, and Dad generally trusted Mum's judgement, so that's how that happened."