6th December, 1895 — Near the Black Lake, Hogsmeade Outskirts

He could never fathom how those three nights a month didn’t drive Kieran completely insane. Jude felt it, the toll of them, even without any excruciating pain or loss of self or the aches and illness that led up and lasted long after the full moon. No, his complaints were far milder – a few nights spent cooped up in the attic in his animagus form, keeping an eye on Kieran and merely doing his best to dodge out of the way or up into the rafters when the wolf got especially snappish.

For his few years of being an animagus, Jude had mostly kept the use of it to that – perching in the attic and trying not to have his feathers clawed out. But if the three successive nights of sitting up in his albatross form usually left him with anything, it was a peculiar sort of hunched up ache in his shoulders and a yearning to get out – and a way to do it, too.

He had managed a broom passably in his schooldays (not competently enough to dare go near the quidditch pitch), but Jude’s ability in flight of this kind was still a little hit and miss. He had taken off in Hogsmeade, because if albatrosses were uncommon here, they were less common in the middle of London – and there was a chilling wind rolling off the lake today, so he didn’t expect to encounter many people out here. So he had circled for a while, coasting on the updrafts until he felt almost comfortable there, and maybe almost like half-dozing in the air.

Too comfortable, clearly – because when an unexpected gust of wind swept in, it upset his balance. Unprepared by the force of the turn in the weather, Jude barrelled off course – and on his sudden plummet downwards, he crashed into someone bodily with his six-foot wingspan before he could see them or swerve, and keeled to the ground.

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With the more snowy, winter seasons came more obscured skies. This meant more freedom for Monty to roam about and wreak his special brand of havoc during the daytime. Another bonus that came with being undead was that the cold did not bother him all that much anymore. So he could dress as fashionably as he damn well pleased and need not cover it up with an overly large coat in a simple bid to stay warm. Not that he had ever sacrificed fashion for comfort when he had been properly alive but he had also had magic then.

He was feeling practically joyful as he walked along the edge of the lake. Sometimes he felt more like a ghost than a vampire some days and that did not sit well with him. He was a man who enjoyed being seen. In the distance, Monty could make out things like ornaments and he was pretty sure he could see a wreath hanging on some doors. That could only mean that the Yuletide season was upon them. Or Hogsmeade had decided to become even more tacky with their outdoor decor.

Oh, how quaint. Monty might have been a humbug about a lot of things but he did enjoy this season. Especially if it meant people giving him things. He idly wondered if any of those more bleeding heart types even considered coming to the caverns to do some caroling. The idea was so hilarious, he had to chuckle to himself a little. He could not imagine that ending well.

He wondered also how annoyed his lover would be if he were to return to their cave to find it decked out in tinsel with an evergreen tree taking up the space. It would annoy him too but it might be worth it for the laugh of seeing Ishmaels face. Thinking of Ishmael turned to daydreams of doing a special sort of seasonal celebration by firelight when something fell out of the sky and crashed bodily into him.

When it came to this unexpected reunion of friends (which Monty was presently not aware was one such reunion, being that he had no idea Jude was an animagus, let alone what form he took), Montys mood shifted spectacularly.

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To make matters worse, not only had he tumbled out of the sky, the person he had hit was unexpectedly strong, so that it felt as though he was smacking into a brick wall – but he had knocked the man down with him. Jude lay there in a dazed mass of feather for a moment, but as he righted himself onto webbed feet, the person’s features became clear.

“Monty?!” he exclaimed, or meant to – it came out in a braying kind of squawk. In the past couple of years, Jude had seen him less and less... whether it was because it hadn’t done to look too close to friends of a certain, suspect, occupation during his campaign for Minister, or because Monty had become a vampire and had disappeared for some time because of it, Jude couldn’t say.

But, no matter that he and Monty had never been the best of friends, Jude was pleased to see Monty looking so well. Or, as well as an undead man could. He nudged him in the chest with the end of his bill in some attempt to ask how are you?, before remembering that he was still a bird.

Hurriedly, he hopped off him and, hoping he wasn’t too dizzy to manage it, transformed back to human form.

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