In the Melancholy Moonlight, Part 5: Dark Matter

Chapter 257: If I Lose Everything in the Fire

August 18, 1997. The moon was full and on the rise.

Lucy had argued with the other three about silencing spells. She wanted to silence herself so they wouldn't have to hear the transformation. They wanted to know about what was happening in the room as much as possible. Lucy won the argument in the end, saying that Harry could order Kreacher to pop in and out of the room periodically to make sure she was okay without causing unnecessary worry with either the noises that she was making or, arguably worse, complete silence. They relented after bickering a couple minutes longer, so once Lucy closed the door behind her, she cast a silencing spell in addition to the other protection spells.

It had been a difficult goodbye for everyone. Well, no, not a goodbye, a "see you in the morning." They avoided the g-word at all costs those days. They'd each hugged Lucy tight, Harry the tightest of all. They'd agreed that if, somehow, someone sinister arrived at Grimmauld Place while Lucy was transformed, they'd keep her secret at all costs and sort the matter without her. She was almost as worried about the other three as they were about her. Almost. Almost.

Once Lucy closed the door behind her and her silencing spell muted her, Hermione cast the protection spells on the other side of the door with a shaking hand.

"That should do it," Hermione whispered. "Let's head upstairs."

They'd chosen to spend the night in the room directly above Lucy's transformation room. On the off-chance she escaped, they thought she was more likely to go downstairs than upstairs, and they wanted to be close by just in case Lucy needed something. They could, theoretically, just blast through the floor and reach Lucy in seconds if she was injured and needed help immediately in the morning. They hoped that wouldn't be the case, though. They hoped and they hoped and they hoped and they hoped.

Ron drew his pocket watch from his pocket, the one Hermione had enchanted almost two years prior so Lucy's closest friends could keep track of when the moon was beginning and ending. He rested it on the floor in the middle of the loose circle he'd formed with Harry and Hermione, and they all waited for the melancholy piano note that signaled the start of the transformation.

Fred and George were similarly gathered around Fred's pocket watch, sitting at the kitchen table with the pocket watch resting beside the orb. George's pocket watch was upstairs on his nightstand. He planned to give it to Henry next time he visited the shop, so he could track the full moon as well. The twins only needed one pocket watch anyway, since they weren't planning on being separated any time soon. They barely left their flat those days. They were being watched, and while they'd never shied away from attention and weren't afraid of a fight, they were Weasleys. They were loyal, and they were smart. They knew that if they got into trouble, it could reflect back onto their family, and they would never risk endangering their family like that, especially not Ginny, who would be on her own at school. So they stayed in the flat and filled mail orders and tried not to become consumed by anxiety or by boredom, which they agreed should not be allowed to coexist yet, somehow, did. They were visited nearly every day by Henry and Archie, but those boys were spending the night in Henry's flat. They told Fred and George they were determined to find out once and for all if Cormack McLeod was a Death Eater, and they were using the stressful and sleepless night of the full moon to come up with a plan.

Ginny was sitting on the back steps of the Burrow, clutching the pocket watch and glaring at the sky. She hated being alone. She hated the full moon. She hated the whole world. She wished she could hate Lucy, too, for leaving her and for keeping secrets from her and for worrying her so much, but she couldn't. She wished she could hate the way she loved Lucy, despite all of the bitter resentment, but she couldn't. She loved Lucy and she knew she always would. She would never be able to hate Lucy, not truly, no matter how angry she was with her. Ginny loved Lucy, so much that she found that the hurt was inconsequential in that moment, on the brink of the full moon. She wanted nothing more than to be with Lucy in that moment. She wanted to cradle Lucy's fever-flushed face in her hands and tell her it would be okay. She wanted to run around the forest with her all night and make sure she got home safe come morning. Harry was home for Lucy, Ginny knew that. In a way, Lucy was home, wherever she was with Harry. But just the same, Ginny wished she could be there too.