Sisters of the Moon

Sisters of the Moon

Chapter 1

Comeuppance

The dark-haired young woman strode confidently down the London pavement, her three inch leather clad heels shooting sparks with every step. Sometimes the Muggle girls asked her how she made them do it. "Just a little firespark charm," she'd tell them, and her answer always got a puzzled laugh. It was good to be young, free, and a witch in the London club scene. She made a handsome living giving rich Muggle men exactly what they wanted, or at least that's what they remembered. Finding her prey was easy. A man would show up at the club throwing money around, and generally making a drunken spectacle of himself. Then she would be there, handing him a drink. With a few drops of a very special liquid hidden in her ring she would be assured that the young man's attention was exclusively hers. Afterward she would leave him with a memory of wild debauchery and a raven haired girl who had done the most amazing things to him. He would also be left with a good deal less money. The charm was simple, but sometimes, if he was particularly good looking, the memory was real.

That was how it normally had gone, but tonight, well, tonight had been a bit different. He had come in the club: the hero, her former schoolmate, and the brother of the big Quidditch star. She'd watched him from afar when they were at school, wondering what it was that made some people heroes and others bystanders. His name had always come up when she and her roommates had talked in the night about who the fanciable boys in the school were, even if he was in bloody Gryffindor. Then he and his friends had fought the Dark Lord and, against all odds and logic, won. She had wondered then, as she wondered now, what it would be like to be held in those powerful arms, kiss those rich full lips, and most of all to know if the old saw was right, "red on the head, fire down below." She was grinning madly to herself because she'd know soon enough.

He'd brought his own goblet tonight; nothing terribly odd about that, some folks did. That had just made it harder to get the potion into his drink. She, however, had had a lot of practice. She had slid between him and his mates, placed her hand on the top of his cup, and batted her black and green eyelashes at him. A tap with the pinky finger on the side of her ring and the job was done. He hadn't even recognized her. She was a bit put out about that, after all she had been the prettiest Slytherin girl ever. However, he had been in a different house, and her hair and clothes were not what he was used to seeing her in. It was a good thing that he hadn't remembered anyway. She'd got him away from his friends, and managed to get part of a nervous dance out of him. Lastly, as he was fumbling his way back to his mates at the bar, she slipped him her address. Now all she had to do was get home, lift some of the concealing and protective enchantments at her flat, and wait for the potion to take full effect. He'd be there shortly.

From an alleyway across the street a pair of black eyes narrowed and watched her slide her wand from its holster on her thigh, and then a grim smile formed beneath those same eyes as the dark-haired woman undid the shield charm from her walkway that prevented apparition directly to her door. Pansy liked to see who her visitors were. The instant the shield dropped there was a loud snap, and before she could turn around a silky voice said, "Petrificus Totalus." A hand found her shoulder and steadied her before she toppled over. Another, ivory white with jet black nails, slid her wand from between her fingers. "You won't be needing this for a while," said the low sweet voice, and a beautiful Asian woman stepped into her field of view. Pansy recognized her immediately: it was Cho Chang.

"My sisters and I would like a word with you," she said, and the world was squeezed out of existence and into darkness.

Her feet slammed into hard rock, and her heels made sparks as reality flooded back. She was standing in the middle of a stone circle, and she could hear the nearby sea, crashing onto an unseen shore. Cho was still on her left, holding her upright. Another presence was to her right, but the only person she could see was the woman in front of her. She was blonde and dressed all in white; her robes, her shirt, her shoes, even the flowers in her hair were as pale as her skin. Standing there in the light of the full moon she glowed and shimmered. Pansy's eyes were watering from the brightness when the woman began to speak.

"You're very lucky, Pansy," said the blonde, in a tone she might have used for a friend who'd just got exactly what they wanted for their birthday. "If we hadn't been visiting Hermione when she got the warbler from Ron's goblet, she'd be here, and you'd have missed out on this great learning opportunity."

There was a chuckle from behind her and Pansy realized that there was someone else there. "Oh Hermione would have taught her a lesson alright, just not the ones we're going to teach." That voice was familiar too.

"Well, shall we begin?" said the blonde. "Cho?"

Pansy was suddenly free of the binding curse, and she rounded on Cho. "You have no right to kidnap me. You are in serious trouble. I...?"

An impossibly strong hand grabbed her by the collar, hoisted her into the air, and slammed her into the soft fur covering the woman behind her. Hot breath whispered in her ear as the woman's nails cut into the skin on her neck.

"As I recall, your beloved Professor Snape told you that you can't learn if your mouth is moving," said the thickly accented voice.

Cho was looking at her with a mixture of humor and pity, and the red headed woman to Pansy's left was shaking in silent laughter.

"So your best plan is to shut...the fuck...up," the voice said, and the hand set her down.

Pansy whirled to face this other woman and tell her what she could do, but the retort was lost in her throat as she stared into the beautiful and terrifying visage of a werewolf.

Pansy's knees threatened to abandon her as a wave of pure fear swept through her. She backed into Cho. The redhead was having trouble standing too, but her trouble was from mirth. Framed by the rising moon the werewolf stepped up to her, bent low, drew a long sniff up her body, and said, "Delicious." Pansy's world contracted to a small circle far away down a black hall, and she felt a little urine trickle down her leg.

"Lavender," the blonde said. "Let's be nice."

"If we must." the werewolf sighed, and stalked back to her place in the circle.

Pansy's world was coming back now. Her fear-addled brain was furiously trying to negotiate with her memory to place these women. As Cho nudged her back into her place in the circle to face the blonde, it all snapped into focus. The Auror Cho Chang she had already recognized; the woman on her right was the werewolf Lavender Brown; behind her, she realized, was none other than Ginny Potter, wife of the chosen one. This meant that the blonde could only be Luna Lovegood. Pansy was standing wandless between four very important and powerful witches, and she quickly concluded she was in very deep trouble indeed.

Pansy began to blubber. "I'm-m sorry, whatever I did I'M REALLY SORRY."

Luna looked deep into her eyes. "Hmm, well you're sorry you got caught, sorry that you're here, but you're not yet sorry for the act... of violating another woman." There was a strong note of pity in the last statement. She walked away in a clockwise circle around her. "Women have come together under the full moon since magic first arose, to learn and to teach, to celebrate and to mourn, to laugh and to cry," - she smiled and looked sideways at Pansy- "and to save a wayward sister from time to time." Luna raised her wand. "We conjure thee, great circle of power, that we might share our magic, our strength, our souls." The other women had their wands out too, and they waved them in great sweeping arcs above their heads. There was a rippling in the air around them and a vast clear bubble formed over the circle. Pansy had never seen this before, and she was frightened and awed by the power she felt charging the atmosphere.

"You have followed a very selfish path, Pansy," said Cho. "We're here to show you where that leads, how to turn from it, and most importantly why." She reached out, took Pansy's hand, and in a kind voice said, "Look at me."

Pansy looked into the black pools that were Cho's eyes, and she barely heard Luna whisper, "Legilimens." The world fell away and she was swept down into those eyes. Then suddenly she was Cho, cheering in the stands in front of the entrance to the maze. It was the day of the last task in the Triwizard Tournament. She was waiting for her champion, her love, her lover, to emerge from the maze. Two had been eliminated so far. All that remained were her friend Harry, and her most cherished Cedric. Then they were there, and her heart was joyous. The band struck up, and she rushed forward to properly congratulate her hero, but something was wrong. Harry was lying across Cedric quietly sobbing. Cedric's father wailed and cried as her eyes met Cedric's and found nothing there. Her world shattered into pain, grief, and loss. She was drowning, she couldn't breath, she couldn't see, all she could feel was her ragged throat as scream after scream was torn from it. Then Harry was gone, and she was in his place, her hands on Cedric's collar. She was pleading, begging, demanding that he come back to her or take her with him. Cho collapsed, and the whole of her universe was shock, sorrow, and desolation.

The vision vanished and Pansy was on her knees, sobs wracking her body. She had lived that moment of Cho's life, felt every emotion, every physical nuance as if it were her own. How could one person hold so much agony? she thought. Quivering she rose to her feet and faced Cho. "I-" was all she could get out before she succumbed again. Cho took her hand.

"We invest all we are in our loves. We give our hearts to this person to hold and care for. If we're lucky they do care for them and treat them gently, and if we're even luckier they give us theirs." She squeezed Pansy's hand so that she would look up at her again. "The Dark Lord took Cedric from me, uncaring in his selfishness. No woman should ever act that way...should ever do that... take another woman's love." She released her hand and stepped back.

Ginny moved forward. Where Cho was dressed all in midnight blue, Ginny was completely draped in red. "This is the lesson that I choose to share with you Pansy; you weren't there for it the first time." Ginny's eyes swallowed her.

Her brother was dead. It couldn't be, but it was. Fred, who had always been there to shield her from her other brothers when they got too rough; Fred, with his laughing eyes and his kind heart. Her beloved Fred, who had taken the blame for her wrong doing so many times, was lying in the middle of the great hall along with the rest of the victims of the Dark Lord's vendetta against Harry. He was gone, and her mother was inconsolable. Ginny's heart had a hole where he should have been. They said this was "numb", but how could she be numb and in such pain at the same time? Then that hated voice had come again, telling lies. It had said that her only love, her reason for being was dead too, and that could not be. She ran down the steps to see for herself, and Harry was there, lying before the feet of the Dark Lord. She screamed Harry's name as rage and grief consumed her.

Pansy had managed to stay on her feet this time as the other woman's emotions had seared through her, but it hadn't lessened the impact. Ginny had sustained two enormous blows to the heart, and Pansy had felt it all. A love and a brother taken at nearly the same time; Pansy wondered at how Ginny had not been destroyed. "Our family and our loves are our strength, our shelter, and our solace. It is a great evil to disrupt that," Ginny said simply.

Trembling, Pansy turned to Lavender. Her beauty was obvious. Tawny brown fur covered her body, and it was punctuated by several white dots on her waist below her left breast. There were four long jagged white lines across that same breast and four smaller white lines across her left thigh. A small gold ring gleamed on her finger. Her hair, framing the wolf's face, should have been odd and out of place, but Lavender had had it cut and coiffed so that it fit. The wolf's body was lithe and powerfully built, but undeniably feminine. She smelled of flowers and grass, and she was terrible and fascinating to behold. Lavender was just recognizable beneath the wolf, and that's what frightened Pansy most of all, to see her there encased in the monster. "Do you think you know fear? Do you think you know sorrow?" The words were almost unintelligible, hidden in a growl. Pansy stared at the ground. "Look at me!" Pansy looked up into Lavender's eyes, and those golden orbs took her.

She had cried all the tears that she thought she had, but her supply seemed endless. Madam Pomfrey had kept her sleeping most of the time, to help her heal she had said. Lavender knew though, it was to keep her from the thoughts that were currently consuming her. Physical beauty was what had defined Lavender Brown; she had no real image of herself that didn't revolve around how she looked. Now that beauty was gone. Scars riddled her left side where Greyback had bitten and clawed her, and hot new tears stung. There were always more. She raised her hand, cupped her scarred breast, and wept again.

Some friends had come to see her, Parvati mostly, not many others. They had held her hand and offered platitudes, but her new senses told her more. In all but Parvati she could smell their fear. She could see how their eyes moved when they were around her, like trapped rabbits. Their skin flushed, their hair prickled, and all these things made a deep part of her want to chase them down in the moonlight. To see their trapped eyes, smell the sweet tang of their fear, and bathe in their blood. That she would do this if given the opportunity, to any and all of them, caused waves of terror and self loathing to sweep through her.

The first full moon was tonight. She was still too weak to bear the side effects of the potion, so Madam Pomfrey had arranged for her to be moved to a room that could contain her, and yet let her not hurt herself or anyone else. Lavender had told Madam Pomfrey and her staff that they had been very generous, and she would try to be as little trouble as possible. What none of them knew was that Lavender would be dead by her own hand before the sun set. She had her wand, she had a mirror, and she knew that the last unforgivable curse when fired into a mirror would kill the caster. She called for parchment and quills to write letters to her family and friends. Madam Pomfrey thought that was a good sign. Lavender could barely see through the tears as she set her first line down.

Dear mother,

I love you so, and I'm so sorry to say goodbye this way...

And she was in despair.

Pansy couldn't breath. A dead weight was constricting her chest, and at last a keen of misery escaped her. Her breath came in heaving sobs. She was lying curled on the ground hugging her knees. The werewolf gently lifted her to her feet, and drew her into an embrace. "And that...is why we howl," she said, and Pansy hugged her with all the force she could muster. The wolf was warm and gentle as she stroked Pansy's hair. There was no fear now. Pansy thought she could stay there forever in Lavender's safe, warm arms, But, she thought, they brought me her to learn, and learn I have. She drew away from Lavender and looked up into her face.

"I see now," she said as she wiped her eyes. "You have all been through so much." She looked into infinity over Lavender's shoulder and shook her head. "So much," she said in an awed voice, and then she looked at the ground in shame. "It was wrong of me to be so selfish. I should never have tried to seduce Ron."

"That's a good part of it, yes," said Luna, "but more will come to you as you look back on this night."

Cho held out Pansy's wand to her. She took it, and silently slid it into her holster.

"You can leave now, if you want," said Cho.

"But there's still more to learn, isn't there," Pansy said as she turned to Luna.

"Yes." This from Cho.

"And I have to ask, don't I?"

"Yes," Luna said her smile fading, "though these final lessons are not for the faint of heart."

Pansy straightened herself, swallowed hard and said, "I was taught by Severus Snape to fear no knowledge. You have taught me much; I would know it all."

She looked deep into Luna's eyes. "Please, show me."

Luna nodded and looked at her as mother would to a child: kind, wise and loving. "This is where the dark path leads; this is why we fight, and this is what sisters do." The world flew away into darkness.