Work Text:
The door to her cell clangs shut. The bars are spread wide enough for Ginny to reach a hand through, but she knows there's a spell in place to stop her. It's both comforting and confining. Protection for which she's grateful. Protection that she resents.
Luna blinks at her through the bars. Ginny resists the urge to pace; she needs to conserve her energy. The beast inside is already waking, uncoiling from where it sleeps dormant for most of the month.
"Leave," she tells Luna.
"No," Luna replies.
Ron usually stays with Ginny, but he's still out of the country with Hermione trying to source more Wolfsbane, which has become rare and elusive under current Ministry restrictions. This is the second month Ginny has gone without.
"I don't want you to see me like this."
"Like what?"
Ginny can't hold Luna's gaze. Her head drops. "I'm a monster."
The moon rises to its peak. Even through the stone wall and boarded up windows, Ginny feels it bathe her in its horrifying light. The change rips through her, bones breaking and knitting themselves back together, a gruesome jigsaw puzzle reshaping Ginny into her greatest shame. She contains her screams, only just, but a loud roar fills her ears.
The beast.
"I only see you."
Those are the last words Ginny hears before she submits and becomes the thing coiled inside their shared body. The wolf rises. Ginny's vision becomes blurry, tunneled, as if she's sunk down into a deep well. She can make out Luna though, still standing on the other side of the bars, unfazed.
"Your monster is beautiful," Luna says, her words muffled as if traveling through water.
It's so very Luna, absurd, yet somehow soothing.
Ginny wants to laugh. The wolf throws her head back and howls instead.