Chapter Text
The cellar was completely dark, a darkness that tended to suffocate its occupants.
Heavy, labored breathing filled the air. There was a certain wetness with each breath that spoke of sickness left untreated.
“Luna, please, just hold on till we get free…”
A hand found a forehead and flinched from the burning warmth, an antithesis to the cold dampness of stones she was lying on. The fingers traveled down slowly, with a hesitant gentleness till it found the limp hand of the sick girl, which they curled around with a desperate grip.
“It’s okay, Dean… I have people waiting for me… up there.” Her smile was serene and peaceful, though there were none to see it in the darkness. “I’m sorry… for leaving… you and… Mr. Ollivander here. Tell my dad… that I love him… will you?”
The boy felt the tears streaking down his face, landing on the still form of the girl. His hand found the wrist of the girl and felt for the pulse point, the beat of her heart. There was a weary sigh next to him, the old man who had been there longer than the two children feeling the weight of his years and his helplessness. (It should have been him, not the small girl who would now never reach her prime.)
They stayed by her body till life fled from it and flesh turned cold and hardened in the rictus of death.
(It took a day and a half for their captors to realize that one of their hostages was dead. The boy with grey eyes would look on in horror as the woman with black hair and a maniac grin told the house elves to dispose of the body . It would fuel his rebellion, begin the turning of his loyalty, and hasten the end of that bloody war.)
So the darkness reached in and took the bright soul of Luna Lovegood away before her time.
*I*I*
Luna smiled as she opened her eyes to the pure white that surrounded her.
How odd. She was at a train station.
There was only one other person there. He was wearing a dark cloak, face hidden by the shadow of the hood. The shadows shifted, as if he wasn’t completely existent—and perhaps he wasn’t. He seemed feathery, like see-through black silk, cloaked in a tentative reality. He turned as she approached him, and Luna was pierced by a pair of familiar emerald eyes.
She frowned a little. They looked very tired.
“There are nargles spinning around your head, Harry,” she said.
There was a slight hesitation, as if he had trouble connecting the name to his person. “No one’s called me that in a long time.”
He sounded so defeated.
She looked at him closely. The ring on his hand, the cloak around his shoulders, the wand stuck through his belt. The bruises under his eyes and the pale, marble skin. (Remember: stories told near bedtime, true myths that most had forgotten or dismissed. Remember: a boy of destiny, crows converging on his shoulders, and a threat that should have been long since vanquished. Remember: magic passed down through generations.)
“The Hallows,” she said, understanding.
The abrupt change of subject startled a laugh out of him. He leaned against one of the pillars and seemed so light that if he fell he would descend in increments.
“I just want to rest.” This was said so softly Luna almost didn’t catch it.
She came up to him and gently enclosed one of his cold hands in hers. She traced the marble-like flesh in fascination and curiosity, touch feather light and gentle. Peering into the vivid green, she made her decision.
“I’ll take it for you.”
Harry jerked upright, desperate hope tucked away, unable to break free, in his eyes. She smiled brightly at the look.
But then he shook his head, slowly, trembling, want battling against a crushing responsibility.
“I couldn’t do that to you.”
There was a terrible sadness in his eyes, a sadness that was incomprehensible, that had seen the ends of time and the death of a thousand universes. The vivid green was too real, the rest of his body fading to nought against its reality. But her eyes too reflected his in that moment, tied together in that transition place, in the train station outside of time.
“Tell me, did we win the war?”
“Yes.” Harry’s eyes closed, remembering. (He hadn’t tried to remember in too long; it was painful to think too much of a time when he had lived.)
“You saved them.” It wasn’t a question but rather a reminder.
“Not all of them, not enough. I didn’t save you. ”
“Harry, you’re not a god. I chose not to be saved.”
He look at her, a frightened child gazing out of those old eyes.
“You may have been the hero, may have had a task, but the villains have been defeated. Heroes deserve happy endings.”
Her eyes curved into crescents, and her lips quirked up in a way that spoke of understanding and love. (Luna had always given her whole heart to those few friends of hers.) She slid the ring off his finger and placed it on her pinky, where it shrunk to fit exactly.
“You have people waiting for you.”
She slipped the cloak off his shoulders, grounding him, making him smaller, more human. It settled on her shoulders, and she flickered between realities before solidifying.
“Let me carry your cosmos.”
Luna took the wand. It lit up in her hand, a brighter, more comforting glow than the sterile atmosphere of the train station. In the warmth of the Elder Wand, Harry looked too vulnerable by himself, too worn, too tired. She gave him a light push toward the train.
“Go be happy.”
Harry suddenly threw his arms around her.
“Thank you,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
Luna hugged him back and then watched as the train pulled away with its sole passenger, a young-old dark haired boy with green, green eyes.
He was laughing.
*I*I*
That was <brave> of you .
The voice sounded without sounding: her mind registered the words, but her ears did not. It sounded stilted, as if it did not know how to use words, language. It said brave, but Luna quite thought that somehow, it didn’t mean that at all .
“Bravery is for Gryffindors.” Her voice came out almost sharp, pointed.
The <Hallows> were never meant to be a <burden>. Their holders were supposed to be <travelers> <jumping> from between <realms>.
“Harry was tired,” Luna commented in a nonchalant voice, an undercurrent of blame and iron threading the words.
She received the feeling of secondhand guilt and an old regret.
He could not <hear> us. But you, you we can <take>. Do you <agree>?
Luna nodded slowly.
She closed her eyes and let herself be swept away. There was a scent of lily flowers and a too light mist and then nothing.
*I*I*
And she opened her eyes to a world filled with violence and death.
(the perfect birthplace for a <xxxx>)
Her new name was Uchiha Tsukiko. She rather liked it; Tsukiko meant child of the moon, and she thought it only natural that it translated to her original name. (She was named for the gods of the night, for those beings that shed light in the deepest darkness; she was named accordingly.) Tsukiko had black wispy hair, but Luna had kept the grey eyes. (She was rather relieved; eyes were the windows into the soul—if she had had different eyes, then would her soul have been blind?)
The Uchiha clan as a whole were rather stuffy; she gave a gummy, cheerful smile to one of her caretakers, but they only replied with a minute easing of the stiff rigidity of their face. She crawled to the edge of the doorway and looked out before she was caught and put back into the center of the room. It took a while to coordinate her limbs and move faster.
A sigh was heard as she began crawling again.
“Tsukiko.”
She tilted her head, looking back at the person trying to balance a snowstorm of paperwork on the low table, while attempting to write a formal document and take care of a two year old all at once. After a moment her eyes were wandering again, peering curiously at the walls and the ceiling. The room itself was rather bare, but clean and nice-smelling.
Luna plopped down and promptly stuck her wispy hair into her mouth. It tasted… sort of sugary. Hmmm.
Spying a fallen piece of metal, she speed crawled over to it. After inspecting it, she bit it. It was hard. She shook it, perhaps it had an invisible nest of Karfnots infesting it?
Oh. It was rather sharp. And pointy.
She gave the poor, lovely hardwood floor a sincere apology.
The sudden sight of feet (they were extremely nice feet) made her look to the blurry mass standing over her. Two hands came and raised her above the floor, lifting her into a warm lap, and she snuggled into the comfort. She felt the exhale, heard the whoosh, but there was no complaint and the arms tightened minutely around her.
They stayed in that position till she fell asleep.