Howling at the Moon

19. Redemption

The next morning Faith was sitting in the Hufflepuff common room, her eyes puffy and sore. Mary Nettle was rubbing her hand comfortingly. It was time Diondre faced up to her actions and apologized to the girl who had become her friend.

"Marry, if I could have a moment with your sister please?" She asks, Faith looks up alarmed.

Marry looks to Faith for confirmation. She nods at her younger sister telling her it is alright.

Diondre took the seat Mary vacated. " Look, what I did was very wrong..."

"So you do think it was wrong?" Faith butted in.
Diondre, confused decided to pull in the other girls emotions. It gave her a much better idea of what this situation is, and almost made her keel over with even more guilt.

"Oh goodness Faith, no!" She took the girl's face in her hands. " How could you think that, I'm not in any way disgusted about kissing you, girl or not. You're beautiful."

Faith was feeling very thrown about, she'd gone from being elated to confused and then depressed caused by only one girl. Diondre had been pretending she didn't exist ever since that kiss. She was sure Diondre was disgusted with her for kissing her. It was the only explanation in her mind, that she felt ashamed of her. And now here she was caressing her cheek and calling her beautiful.

"I don't understand.."

"When you kissed me it was magic..I wasn't expecting to feel that way about a girl. And you've always been so kind to me, and you're the closest friend I've ever had. You've certainly made me realise that I like girls, but I also like boys. One boy in particular and by kissing you I betrayed him. He cut everything off with me and I never even realized we had something real going on. I hurt him and I hurt myself, because now I've lost him. And it's not fair to you, my beautiful Faith if was to continue with you when truly I belong to someone else." Diondre took a breath, it was a lot she had to say, the words had to be careful. "It also wasn't fair to you for me to ignore you, I had no idea what was going through your head and I should have thought about that. Truthfully I was kinda angry at you, like my actions were your fault. But they're not and if ever there was a person that didn't deserve to be hurt the way I hurt you, it's you."

Faith wasn't sure how to feel, or what to say. Her head was cloudy with so much going on. Diondre loved someone else but she didn't hate her for kissing her. No matter what she felt she knew the two could never be friends the way the once were. Diondre understood this and they went their separate ways. Each had done something couldn't be undone, it's mark would be indelible.

Having gone some way to fixing the mess she had caused Diondre only had to wait three more days until she could see Remus and try and make him forgive her.

_______

It wasn't Remus Lupin that stood behind the desk in the Defence Against the Dark Arts class when the day came.

Snape stood at the front of the Hufflepuff class, his second least favourite group of people, with a face like a bat out of hell. The only person to not loose their house any points or have received a detention was Diondre. He had always been fair with her. She had a way with teachers, well with everybody by simply talking to them like they are her favourite person in the whole school. Snape would never admit it but it was nice to have someone who liked him, in tern he returned the favour by not scowling at her.

Today however Diondre's usual respect of this teacher was wearing thin with every dig at Lupins teaching. Why wasn't Lupin here... Was it a full moon tonight? She flipped through her calendar when the professors back was turned. It was. Knowing why he was gone didn't help her mood in the slightest. More guilt and worry ripped away at her.

Finally the class came to a finish and everyone was free to leave except...
" Miss Gargoyle, wait a moment." Came the silky voice of Professor Snape.

Diondre put her bag back on the table with a sigh.

"I notice you're not your normal exuberant self today." He stared down at her.

"It would seem I'm not professor, mindless teenage drama. I'm sure you know how it can be with us girls, don't even need a reason to sulk." This was the correct thing to say, he steered from that line of questioning immediately.

"I've also noticed your grades have gone up, is that book serving you well?"

"Yes, it has helped tremendously."

"Good, well we needn't speak of it again. Good day Miss Gargoyle." He excused her to leave. "Oh and for heavens sake cheer up a bit, if I was anyone else I would be concerned."

______

Diondre waited anxiously by the window in the her dorm for the moon to go in. She had to be extra careful with not allowing her emotions out with the stress she was feeling. It wouldn't do to have the whole dorm up pacing back and forth for reasons they didn't know.

The day passed so slowly, classes felt longer, conversations seemed to never end, never mind dinner. It was the longest thing she had ever sat through, picking at little pieces of bread, her stomach in knots. There was a piece of chocolate cake she'd wrapped up in paper, her peace offering to Remus when she went to see him. The moon began to dim as morning began to rise, she hadn't slept a wink of the night, it was 5am now and finally the time to see him had come. She almost wished it never would, her nervousness left her choked.

She snuck out of Hufflepuff with ease and the rest only got harder, everytime a step was taken towards his sleeping quarters her heart clenched tighter. Would he be there? Is he still out in the woods somewhere? If he is will he just throw her out in a fury? She stood outside his door now building the will power to knock, when she did it was soft and unsure and got no reply.

"Alohamora," she unlocked the door. Inside was a sight worse than she had imagined.