CANYON MOON ▇▇▇▇ VOLUME ONE
━━ ❛ 𝒕𝒐𝒊𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒆 ❜

chapter no. 004!

     "SHUT THE HELL UP, BLANKLEY." Thursday morning to afternoon had been normal. Fawn woke up, ate breakfast, went to class, and raised her hand to answer questions. It was a normal Thursday for her. That was until the sixth year's after-lunch-free period rolled around, and someone decided to pick a bone with a very grumpy and upset Mabel Ebonywood.

     The Ravenclaw house preferred to do their homework and study out in the courtyards, but the weather that day had other plans. The blue-painted sky turned to rain, pouring upon Hogwarts as if it would never stoop. Droplets of water licked and lapped every solid surface they could touch, whispering and hissing the world's secrets. The blue sky was replaced with a murky grey one; dark, shadowed clouds floated, moving as slowly as the hands on a clock did.

     In a matter of seconds, the Great Hall was swept with silence at the sound of Mabel's loud, trembling voice. Fawn looked up from where she sat beside Harry at the Gryffindor table and over to her usual sitting place. The ginger-haired girl wore a face full of anger and frustration; her eyes were glowing green as they narrowed in on Trent, who had stopped laughing.

     "What's going on?" Ron whispered, gesturing over to the blonde's house. Fawn didn't answer as she anxiously waited for someone to calm Mabel down, but no one at the table moved to do so. The girl and Marietta had gotten into a fight sometime in between the first period and the previous one— the blonde didn't know what it was about, but she had heard them yelling at the other in the corridors earlier.

     The couple sat on opposite ends of the table, and Trent noticed this, already aware that they weren't on good terms at the present moment. Fawn assumed that the boy had opened up his mouth too much and pushed Mabel over the edge, hence, why she yelled.

     "Fawn?" Harry asked, and Hermione looked over to the beautiful blonde, frowning at the girl's facial expression.

     "I was only—"

     "Only what?" Mabel's voice was raised. Trent silently answered the fuming ginger as everybody watched the scene unfold upon them. "Only joking? Getting a few laughs?"

     Fawn made eye contact with Theodora, who was sending her panicked looks from beside Mabel, who was beginning to stand up. "Well, here's a little newsflash that The Daily Prophet forgot to put in your morning paper: it wasn't funny. Nobody here was laughing at your pathetic attempt at a joke." At her words, Padma turned around from beside Trent and glanced at Fawn, gesturing for her to do something.

     Of the five girls, the only one who could calm Mabel down would be Fawn, for she was the only calm, reasonable, and peaceful one.

     Fawn opened her bag, hastily shoving her things into it as the Golden Trio watched. "What're you doing?" Hermione asked softly, but she just shook her head, closing her bag.

     "Say one more thing about my fucking relationship, and I will not hesitate to drop-kick your flat ass all the way to the depths of Hell, where I will personally make sure you—"

     "Bel, that's enough." Fawn had made her way over to the Ravenclaw table quickly, grabbing onto the ginger's hand that was pointed at Trent. Mabel looked over at the blonde with glassy eyes as her bottom lip trembled. "Come with me, okay?" she merely nodded, and Fawn shot Trent a pointed look as the two exited the Great Hall.

     Not even a minute later, Fawn closed the door to the girl's lavatory shut and turned to face Mabel, who had tears streaming down her cheeks. Trembling arms wrapped themselves around the blonde's torso as Mabel sobbed into her chest. She rested her chin atop the ginger's head, rubbing up and down her back comfortingly.

     "Do you want to talk about it?" Mabel shook her head no in response as she tightened her grip on Fawn, her body shaking.

     For the rest of the free period, they stood there in the bathroom, arms wrapped around the other as the only noise heard was muffled sobs.

     Voices and footsteps could eventually be heard outside of the lavatory as students made their way to their next class. "We need to head to double Potions," Fawn broke the silence, and the girl in her arms nodded hastily, pulling away and wiping her tears. The blonde watched as Mabel placed a glamour charm on her face. The redness and puffiness of her eyes disappeared, along with her rosy red cheeks and tears.

     Mabel held onto Fawn's hand for comfort as they walked down the long dungeon corridor towards the classroom door, which was opened. "Trent's a tosser, I hope you know that," Fawn mumbled quietly.

     Mabel chuckled, "I know he is, but that doesn't change the fact that what he said was way out of line."

     "What did he say?"

     "Nothing your innocent ears should hear." Fawn rolled her eyes as the ginger laughed softly.

     The two Ravenclaws entered the dungeon classroom. The air was, once more, filled with vapors and odd smells. Different cauldrons were brewing and steaming, a range of colors dispersing from them. Professor Slughorn wasn't present yet as the two girls took their seats across from Theodora and Calarook. "Are you okay?" Theodora whispered, and Mabel sat her bag on the table, shrugging.

     Fawn's eyes drifted around the room and landed on the trio that was already looking her way. Harry tilted his head, giving her a questioning look, and she gave him a small smile.

     "Good afternoon, good afternoon. Now, everyone, scales out, potion kits, and don't forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making." Slughorn announced, waddling his way through the desks and to the center of the room. "Today, we will be brewing the Elixir to Induce Euphoria. Can anyone tell me what it does— yes, Miss Depraysie?"

     "The Elixir induces a sense of inexplicable, irrational happiness upon the drinker and can sometimes cure depression. It is most commonly used for Veterans of Wizarding Wars or witches and wizards suffering from severe side effects of two of the Unforgivable Curses." Fawn answered.

     Hermione smiled slightly as she watched the blonde speak, the familiar sensation of butterflies filtering through her stomach. That feeling always came around when Fawn Depraysie was near or mentioned. She and Fawn never talked until this week; they had the same classes together every year yet never said a word to the other.

     The bushy-haired girl was grateful that Harry had happened to befriend the girl. She wasn't sure she would have ever talked to her if he hadn't. Hermione wasn't one to become anxious over talking to others, but with Fawn, she was very anxious.

     "Very good, very good, Miss Depraysie. Does anybody know the side effects— Miss Granger?"

     "Side-effects of the Elixir are excessive singing and nose-tweaking," Hermione breathed.

     "Brilliant! Ten points to both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor! Now, today, we will be concocting this little angel. Since this class only lasts a little over an hour, I have decided that everybody can pick a partner to brew the potion with," Slughorn said, giving Fawn a jubilant smile. "Everybody, please turn to chapter three, pick a partner, and let the brewing commence!"

     Acting in the spur of the moment, Hermione made her way to the Ravenclaw table. "Do you want to be partners?" she asked, and the blonde looked up at her.

     "Yeah, sure," Fawn responded, smiling.

     Macmillan passed by the Ravenclaw as she walked to the trio's table, belongings in hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy sit next to Calarook, giving him a friendly smile. "Everything okay?" Ron asked as the blonde set her bag on the floor.

     "Yeah, everything's good," she responded, grabbing her textbook.

     "What about Ebonywood?" he asked, and Hermione shot him a glare.

     "She's okay. Trent was just being Trent, nothing new." Fawn mumbled, opening her copy of Advanced Potion-Making to Chapter Three.

     "And you? Are you okay?" Harry asked.

     Fawn merely glanced up as she nodded. "I'm good."

     "Now that you two have pestered her, we should start on the assignment," Hermione interjected, and the boys rolled their eyes.

     "I'll go ahead and grab the ingredients," Fawn called over her shoulder, heading to the cupboard. Some of the other students clustered around her, everybody's greedy fingers wanting to get hold of the ingredients before they were all out. After grabbing what she needed, she returned to the table where Hermione was going over the instructions, reading them out loud to herself quietly.

     The brilliant girl beside her looked up, locking eyes with the Ravenclaw. "I went ahead and started boiling the water. We should be able to add the Shrivelfig in a moment."

     Fawn checked the scales to ensure they were correct as Hermione continuously glanced over at her. "We can add it now," the blonde broke the comfortable silence between the two, and the Gryffindor looked away before the latter could notice she'd been watching her.

     Hermione added the Shrivelfig as the blonde skimmed her eyes down the textbook page, tilting her head to the side as she read the instructions. "Wait a moment," she mumbled, capturing the bushy-haired girls' attention, "it says that we need to add the porcupine quills next, then stir four times anti-clockwise, and add a sprig of peppermint to counteract side effects. That can't be right..."

     "What d'you mean?" Hermione questioned, leaning over to look at the textbook.

     "Well, if we were to add the quills next, and then eventually the peppermint to counteract, that would do the exact opposite of what we want. True, peppermint will yield off side-effects but putting it in before the quills will make it, so there are no side-effects at all." Fawn looked up, watching as the girl before she furrowed her brows in concentration.

     "If we do that, the potion will be safer for the drinker to take," Hermione mumbled, looking up.

     Fawn smiled lightly, "I know you aren't one to break rules, and I'm not either, but I want to get this right."

     Hermione looked at the Ravenclaw, who was staring right back at her with a sparkle in her sky-blue eyes. "Okay," she nodded and added the peppermint, stirring four times anti-clockwise.

     The murky grey potion turned to a pearly white that reflected the girls' reflections when they looked into the cauldron. Pulling away, the blonde grabbed the quills and measured their length before dropping them in.

     Hermione let out a sigh of frustration, and Fawn looked over to see that she was trying to cut open the sopophorous beans with the blade of a silver-plated knife. "Crush the beans— don't cut them," Fawn advised. Hermione glanced up and furrowed her eyebrows, nodding hesitantly, breaking another rule from the instructions.

     The Ravenclaw on-looked as the bushy-haired girl crushed and added the six beans to the potion, the liquid rippling into a light brown. Fawn measured out the Wormwood and dumped it in, stirring six times anti-clockwise. The two girls peered over the cauldron anxiously and watched as the light brown bloomed into sunshine-yellow that smelt faintly of peppermint.

     A large smile settled onto Hermione's face, and she beamed over at Fawn, who looked quite happy to have done the assignment correctly. "I guess breaking the rules can be a good thing sometimes," Hermione mumbled happily, and the blonde looked over at the girl, her smile widening once her eyes rested on her.

     "Oi! How come yours looks better than ours?" Ron quipped, and the two girls looked to the boys across the table. Ron and Harry both appeared annoyed and stressed; the raven-haired boy's hair was messier than usual, and the redhead's hair was sticking out randomly.

     "Probably because we did it right," Hermione stated pridefully, and Fawn's face scrunched up as she looked at the mushy, dark brown potion resting in the boys' cauldron.

     "It looks like your potion overdosed on U-No-Poo," the blonde mumbled, her eyebrows furrowing as Hermione let out a laugh, covering her mouth to hold back her giggles.

     Harry rolled his eyes while Ron overlooked the unknown creation in the cauldron, looking as though he was considering Fawn's words to be true. "You're not wrong," he shrugged.

     Fawn tucked her hair behind her ears as Slughorn clapped his hands three times, the room silencing after a few seconds. "Time's up! I will walk around to all the different groups and see if you have correctly produced the Elixir. Now then, now then, Mr. Zabini and Mr. Malfoy, let me see what you have here..." Slughorn said as he stopped at the Slytherin table. "Ah, pity..." Ron snorted as both Zabini and Malfoy's faces dropped.

     Moments passed as everyone waited silently for Slughorn to judge their creations; some were more anxious than others, and some— Harry and Ron, for instance— were dreading hearing the Professor's commentary.

     "Sorry to say, but I was expecting a little more from the two of you..." Slughorn sighed disappointedly to Calarook and Macmillan, shaking his head sorrowfully. Theodora snickered as both boys' faces dropped. Macmillan glowered at the brunette girl, and she simply smirked while Calarook stared intently at his textbook.

     Slughorn had finally made it to the quartet's table and looked down at Ron and Harry's potion, a look of disappointment clouding his features. "Harry m'boy, I was expecting a lot more from you, yes, yes I was. You as well, Wallenby." Slughorn sighed deeply and moved onto the girls' cauldron. Once his eyes locked on the sunshine-yellow liquid, he gasped jubilantly. "Merlin's beard! It's perfect! Absolutely perfect! Not that I'm surprised; clearly, the two of you working together would only ever produce great results. Yes, yes it would. And is that peppermint I smell? It's quite rare for the extract to still be distinguished once the Elixir has been completed; it truly is. Twenty points for both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor! Not to mention ten extra credit points on your N.E.W.T.s. at the end of term! Brilliant work, ladies."

     The mouths of nearly all the students dropped at the announcement. "Bloody hell, the one day you forget to bring that bloody, barmy, manky book of yours is the day we could have gotten extra points on our N.E.W.T.s," Ron grumbled as Harry glared at him.

     "How was I s'posed to know that Slughorn would go all moony and toss around extra points today?" he asked exasperatedly.

     Hermione rolled her eyes at her two best friends and turned her attention back to Fawn, who was smiling to herself as she dumped her things into her bag. "We make a pretty good team, don't you think?" Fawn asked, immediately regretting ever opening her mouth, and Hermione's cheeks burned pink.

     The shy and small smile that graced Hermione's lips put the blonde's mind at ease, pushing away all thoughts that maybe she had been too bold in her question. "Yeah, we do," she breathed.

     Once the class had ended, Fawn fell in step with the trio, making their way to the Great Hall. "D'you think that the Half-Blood Prince is still alive?" Ron asked Harry quizzically, and Fawn glanced over at the two, Hermione walking on the other side of her.

     "I dunno... Possibly," Harry mumbled, shrugging tiredly.

     A loud and exasperated sigh came from the bushy-haired girl, "I still think you should turn that book in."

     Harry rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day, already knowing where this conversation was going. "Not bloody likely. He's top of the class, Hermione. He's even ahead of both you and Fawn! Turning that book in now would be stupid." Ron butted in, and Hermione glared at the redhead.

     "I don't care. I have a bad feeling about that book," she stated confidently, and Fawn nodded in slight agreement. The blonde found the book intriguing, but something was off. Maybe that was because she somewhat recognized the handwriting. She wasn't entirely positive if she knew who it belonged to, but she had definitely seen it somewhere before. She just couldn't remember.

────

     THE RAVENCLAW COMMON ROOM WAS ALWAYS AN ATMOSPHERE FILLED WITH COMFORTING, SAFE, AND LOVING ENERGY. It was rare for one to feel anything else but those feelings when there, but tonight was an exception. Mabel and Marietta were facing each other in front of the large, elongated, smooth black wooden bookshelf diagonal to the large, glass round table where most of the students did their homework. Theodora, Padma, and Fawn sat at the table with Calarook and Trent, eyeing the two girls apprehensively as they attempted to do their work. The tension was so thick that Fawn felt like she was suffocating.

     "Pansy Parkinson?" The name caught everyone's attention, and all eyes at the table trailed over to a guilt-ridden Marietta Edgecomb. "Out of every goddamn girl in this school, you choose her to cheat on me with?" Mabel snapped, stepping forward.

     The apple that Theodora had bitten into fell from her mouth and landed on the table with a soft thump as the dynamic in the room changed drastically. Padma looked dumbfounded while Trent and Calarook appeared at a loss for words, unable to grasp the fact that Marietta— the most loyal person they knew— cheated on Mabel— the girl who was constantly standing up for everyone. Fawn paused in her writing and the quill she held fluttered to the floor as her chin dropped an inch.

     "Bel, it isn't what you think—"

     "Then what is it? Hmm? You better have a damn good explanation because not nine hours ago, I saw the woman I love snogging Parkinson in the girl's lavatory!" Thick tears were streaming down Mabel's face, and a sinking feeling filled the blonde's chest. Anybody could easily see how much this hurt the ginger by the heartbroken and torn expression littering her face.

     Marietta was silent as tears matching Mabel's filled her honey-brown eyes.

     "That's what I thought," the ginger whispered, her voice cracking. The two stood staring at each other while the other five sat awkwardly at the table, observing from afar. "Do you know how much it hurt to see you kissing another girl?" Mabel asked. The flow of her tears had begun to cease, and a new flame in her eye reflected in the light.

     Marietta gulped harshly and adverted her eyes from the girl, her heart throbbing in pain because of what she had done.

     What happened next— nobody saw coming.

     The sound of vengeful footsteps filled the common room as Mabel walked towards the round table, her eyes landing on the girl who had been there for her earlier that day. Her footsteps halted as she cupped Fawn's cheeks and kissed her. Nobody said a word as they watched Mabel keep her lips pressed to Fawn's. Fawn was helpless and frozen to her spot while her eyes were wide.

     Mabel pulled away after a few seconds and smiled triumphantly at the fallen look on Marietta's face. Fawn sat in her seat, dumbfounded and speechless at what had just happened. Theodora and Padma both had wide eyes as they stared at her, waiting for her to do or say something. The two boys sat still, perplexed by the whole situation.

     "Why did you do that?" Marietta asked, her voice cracking as she wiped away tears that had just now trickled down her face.

     "Doesn't feel too good now, does it?"