🌕
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🌙 A Change in the Air
It was nearing midnight, and Hogwarts felt… strange.
The moon outside was enormous — a glowing silver coin in the sky, casting an eerie light across the forest.
Aarav was on the Astronomy Tower, his legs swinging over the edge, humming an old tune his grandfather used to sing. His divine senses had begun to tingle faintly hours ago — not danger exactly, but pain. Close. Animal. Human. Both.
He didn't like it.
"I smell tragedy," he muttered, looking toward the Forbidden Forest.
And so, barefoot, in his kurta and a red scarf, he walked into the dark.
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🐾 A Creature in the Shadows
In the underbrush, something growled.
A shape — massive, furred, and trembling — staggered between trees. Yellow eyes glowed in the dark.
A werewolf.
Aarav didn't flinch.
Instead, he pulled out his flute — the same one he'd used in the Trophy Room — and sat on a mossy rock.
He began to play.
The melody was slow, ancient, warm. It wasn't spellwork. It was… comfort.
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🐺 The Wolf That Wept
The werewolf froze.
It twitched violently, clawing at its own fur. Saliva dripped from its jaws. But the music didn't stop.
Aarav kept playing, his eyes soft, kind.
"I know you're still in there," he whispered. "You're not a monster. Just a soul trapped in pain."
The creature slumped.
Its growl became a whimper.
Then — impossibly — it lay down at Aarav's feet, eyes closed, still trembling.
Aarav conjured a glowing golden cloth and draped it over the beast like a shawl.
"I'm not here to fight you," he murmured. "I'm here to see you."
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🌌 Who It Was
By dawn, the transformation reversed.
In place of the creature lay a pale, exhausted man with scars down his arms.
Remus Lupin.
Aarav didn't say a word.
He simply passed him a cup of hot haldi doodh (turmeric milk) and sat beside him in silence.
Lupin — ashamed, shaking, and not quite sure how he got there — finally asked, "Why didn't you run?"
Aarav smiled gently. "Because someone once told me: every cursed soul still carries a spark of light. You just have to sit long enough to see it."
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🍃 A Shared Memory
They talked.
Not about magic, or werewolves, or gods.
About food. About childhood.
Lupin confessed, "I don't remember what it's like to sleep without fear."
Aarav said, "I don't remember what it's like to fear anything at all."
Both truths were heavy.
So they shared stories until the sun came up.
One divine. One broken. Both human.
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🏰 Back at Breakfast
The Great Hall was buzzing with gossip about how "something howled last night."
Aarav just smiled and passed the toast.
Hermione asked, "Where were you?"
He shrugged. "In the forest. Talking to the moon."
Ron mumbled, "That sounds weirdly normal for you."
Harry said nothing. But he noticed something:
Aarav looked quieter today.
Not sad.
Just… deeper.
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🪔 Aarav's Journal (Later That Night)
> "He wasn't a villain. Just a man too used to hiding."
"Power means nothing if I can't use it to sit beside someone who thinks they don't deserve company."
"Even gods can learn gentleness from men like him."