Darker Luna drabble

[black_hat]

Here's a drabble about Luna mourning for Ginny and one of her attempts to see her again. A morbid drabble, by the way. 

She became concerned when she could not think.

 

Her thoughts were practically crawling. Her mind was running on dust. Yet she did not sleep because she knew it was all a very bad dream.

 

One she did not want to wake up from too soon. Then she could appreciate life a little more. She could appreciate her friend a little more.

 

*

 

Luna kept Ginny’s old hair ties at first, running them back and forth between her fingers.

 

“This is not right.”

 

She heard their voices, and looked around. Not at them, not for them, but for Ginny’s books and her clothes and her wand. Counting them like prayer beads. She did not mind people taking her things. But she could not stand for them to take Ginny’s things.

 

They never tried.

 

“Keeping the dead girl’s things in her room. Is she crazy?”

 

Luna asked herself if she was. She found that she did not think so. Because crazy implied a loopy thought process, and she hadn’t thought in quite some time.

 

*

 

“Sweetheart. It’s time to—Mr. Weasley is here. It’s time to share, and you’ve had them for such a long time already.”

 

When they were at Ginny’s funeral, Luna had crept back to the Burrow and thought Ginny wouldn’t want her things to fade in the sun. She would want them to be nice for her when they met again, and no one else could be trusted but herself. She knew what went on in her head, but oh, who knows what goes on in their heads?

 

The doorknob moved, and then started to shake. Luna had been careful with her charms, and when she had seen Mr. Weasley walking along their bushes—not smelling the roses, for sure—she had sprung to the defense. No, they wouldn’t trick her with kindness.

 

The best thing about well-laid plans was that there was always a trap door underneath them.

 

When they opened the door, she was long gone.

 

*

 

“Good sir.”

 

Luna tapped the glass window sharply, Ginny’s hair tie around her wrist, and it felt like another part of her, a second skin.

 

She looked around the alley and brought her cloak further around her body. She had traveled in secret to London, Muggle style, to remain undetected.

 

“No one has called me that in a very long time.” The slot was open, and old Grimore eyes were peering through, his eyes the color of time. “But it is, after all, title reserved for mortals.”

 

“I’ve heard you deal in wishes.”

 

“If they are within reason.”

 

She bit her lip nervously. “I was told a secret a long time ago. But first I would very much like to know…”

 

“Go on.”

 

“I would like to know if I could have my friend back.”

 

“Try a potion…or employ your sparkling personality.”

 

He moved to slide the slot closed but Luna caught it with her hands. “Is there a potion to make the dead speak, sir?”

 

“…Ah.” It was an amused note. Her fingers were forced aside, and she cried out, in frustration and in pain. She wanted to kick at the door, as if Ginny were a part of her, and if she was suffering just within—out—of her reach. “Do come in.”

 

*

 

“There was one such person who knew all the tricks of the trade,” he hissed, his head covered in an odd sort of burlap bag with a smile stitching in place with wire. It bounced on his shoulders as he journeyed down the stairs. “The monsters got him.”

 

“Dark monsters?” Luna inquired. “Rather—big ones, with pointed teeth and a yellow submarine hat?”

 

“No monsters but his own. Do you have something of your friend’s?”

 

She held out the hair tie reverently.

 

“All this trouble…for a friend? Death is simply the next step in life, my dear.”

 

“I know.”

 

He paused to look over his shoulder, studying her through the knotted eyes of his masks.

 

“She promised to take care of me, once. That we’d always be together. She’d never break a promise of her own free will.”

 

“Death is quite a cell—but it is also the jail-breaker. Promises are for the birds that come for her in the morning, no?”

 

“She would come for me if she could. And she would, so something is holding her back. My mother never made that promise, sir. There is a difference. It’s purely logic, you know.”

 

“Right. You didn’t…just make a deal in a few pretty words, did you?”

 

“Oh, no!” Luna said proudly. “We are blood-sisters. It’s something Ginny showed me how to do. Just a little old nick, and there, it’s fixed. I didn’t have a sister—mum died while she was pregnant, you know. But Ginny said she’d be mine instead, and all she had were brothers. Another difference, you know, with me too empty, and her too full.”

 

“Ah.” He drew out that sound—that sound that Ginny used to make, as a matter of fact.

 

“You’re hiding something, Mr. Crowfeet.”

 

“I’m an open book. See, blank face, blank mask…you could write anything you wish.”

 

“Even lies.”

 

“Those, too.”

 

This place was completely hollowed out, appearing like a decaying cavity in her eyes, but as it has been hidden under the Muggle flats for some time, the hallow was preserved. At least, one of them. There were lights like Japanese lanterns in some carved-in spaces, and they were subtle and soothing in contrast to the light of the sun. But she didn’t mind the sun sometimes.

 

“How’d you find me, little girl?”

 

“My mother had a favorite book. Under the cover was a little list. You were the third on it, and third time is the charm, as they say.”

 

“For good reason. I must ask you—why do you seek to do this thing?”

 

They had entered the chamber of pure white trees, and the trunks looked like giant people. In fact, she thought they were statues of aged people and a captive audience. She was a stage now, and she became a little more wary of the proper procedures. Also the whole cavern was mathematical. The trees were spaced in precise measurements and angles of a three to five triangle. More over, the curves were what one would expect to see in nature, in the veins of the leaves and the circulation of water down a sink drain.

 

Brilliant.

 

“…Love,” she answered simply. How could he deny her with such a reason as that? Love made the world go round, after all.

 

“So more than a friend…and I’m having second thoughts.”

 

“Then have a third thought,” Luna interrupted, frowning and increasing her grip on the hair tie ten-fold.

 

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the root of all evil is love?”

 

Luna laughed and laughed at that. Her laughter echoed across the whole of the place, sounding like a flock of birds. 

 

“Why, that’s a very silly thing to say.”

 

“Oh, you think so. What is hate besides a twisted love? What is vanity but self-love? What is greed but love for materials?” He tilted his head mockingly. “But alas, love is also the root of good. It just tends to get confusing at times, and you are quite young still.”

 

“But I have a promise to keep, and a friend to look after. At least show me that she is not being held against her will. At least show me that she is happy.”

 

“There is also such a thing as knowing too much,” Mr. Crowfeet exclaimed, but knelt down to the circle, sitting cross-legged into the middle of the crossroads. “And for the small matter of the boon…”

 

He rubbed his gloved fingers together.

 

“A boon,” Luna cooed, in awe of the word. “This is just like in the stories. Oh my. Well, I can give you a lock of my hair for you to spin into gold.”

 

“…I’m thinking something a little more acceptable at the pubs.”

 

She frowned and pulled out a small bag of galleons, the last of her mother’s savings, and handed it to him.

 

“Brilliant. Thanks, love.”

 

“Any—well, just this once.” Luna peered down at the circle and clasped her hands together nervously.

 

“One last question. This one’s the tie breaker. How did she die?”

 

Luna stared at him, her nails biting into her palm. “How does that matter?” she asked coldly.

 

“I’ve struck a nerve. Must have been either slow and torturous death, or a painfully embarrassing one. Choked on a piece of ice? Strangled by a cordless phone? That’s always the pits.”

 

She blinked. “Cor—she was murdered.”

 

“By who?”

 

“You-Know-Who.”

 

“People hand me that line all the time, and I’ve got to tell ya—I really don’t know who.”

 

“Lord…He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. The Name.”

 

“Among the billions of names out there. No matter, though. Pasty faced guy, right. Looks like he’s from outer-space or something on those lines…”

 

“Do you think he is?...No. Never mind. Please, give me my answer. I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain.”

 

“Sorry, I’m a bit morally exhausted,” Mr. Crowfeet said, yawning noticeably, the stitches stretching under the strain. “But some coffee will set me to rights.”

 

He sipped a cup that he conjured up—and making a grave mess in the process— and waved his hand full of thistles over the circle. “Behold, your bonny lass, from underneath the grass.”

 

Luna peered over the edge, and there—there was Ginny. It was as if she was merely in a frozen lake rather than…than that horrible thing, and she looked warm. Well, she felt warm, even if she was in a night sky without stars.

 

“Oh. She was quite a looker,” Mr. Crowfeet observed.

 

“Is. She is beautiful.”   Luna reached out her hand to touch the surface of the night space.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Even here, there are boundaries that shall not be crossed. Look but don’t touch.” He waggled a finger at her, and grinned.

 

She felt a ripple of utter sorrow touch her and spread out to her entire body, as if someone had twisted something inside of her…and then she understood about knowing too much.

 

He nodded, the burlap sack bobbing up and down with his motions. “See, I tried to tell you. I feel…I suppose it’s pity for you. Some go mad going through this, trying to take moment back…”

 

Her head did feel as if it had been stuffed with cotton, and it hurt. It hurt to think because all her thoughts would end here—in this dead end. So she didn’t.

 

“Are you cuckoo yet? Please, do hurry. I’ll have to plant you before long.”

 

She looked up blearily.

 

“Oh, not that sort of planting,” he said, laughing and running a finger across his disconnected stem of a neck. He motioned to the bone white trees around them.

 

 “All them—the grove. They’d rather make like a tree and leave their souls in my hands than face the truth. For the truth is such a horrible, mean thing at times, a little terrier that wears you ragged and thin. It would be best if you had thicker skin…”

 

“They all asked the same question?!” Luna burst out; holding her hand to her chest to make sure her heart was still beating. She was angry, enraged. She didn’t care about the answer, as long as the question was right. Wrong or right answer, she could learn from that. But the question was the most important piece of the puzzle.

 

She had been tricked.

 

“Nothing new under the moon, I’m afraid. Shame. And you looked so deliciously interesting that I could have gobbled you right up. But it’s time to settle down and return to your roots.”

 

Her body was starting to seize up, and her skin was turning snow white.

 

“Mr. Crowfeet, may I ask you a question now?”

 

“Why, most certainly, love. Best make it a good one.”

 

“Words are powerful here, right?”

 

“Well, duh.” He burst out laughing, cackling. His features elongated, and his thin arms were like rakes now. The wires stretched in his mouth and he was trying…he was trying to open his mouth all the way. To make good on his promise to gobble her right up! There was a smell, now, one of meat gone rotten, and she gagged, trying to keep control and failing.

 

 Her arms were forced upwards in a V, and her fingers—she could hear them cracking and splintering, and it was unbearable. She pretended she was at home, making crowns out of twigs. Yes, that was right. On her head was a crown of flowers. She cracked an eye open.

 

“And you’re dead, aren’t you?”

 

“As dead as a dormouse in a bottle in Davy Jones’s locker. Don’t be such a sap!”

 

Another burst of laughter, and it matched her heart beat.

 

“Third times the charm, little girl. Go on. Ask me, and I will tell you no lies, as goes the code.”

 

Luna raised an eyebrow. “The code of the ancients, the universal code between this world and the other. It’s the bloody green light. Now, go on, ask about the meaning of life. Ask me what lies beyond. Ask me what your no-nothing, speck of soul is!”

 

It was in a rage, and Luna knew it was telling the truth.

 

“What eats dead things?”

 

It froze for a spiraling minute, where the weight of her words filled the cavity of the hall, and it tried to clamp its jaw shut suddenly with its hands. But there was the code to consider, and she knew all things—no matter how lawless or wicked—followed the code.

 

“M-maggots.”

 

And suddenly, his burlap sack was filled with…she looked away, not able to move or flee from the sight.

 

Her limbs were free and unbound, and she fell to the ground in a heap. The forest was alive with sounds—moans, cries, and cheers. The cheers were by far the loudest. The bark was toppling off the figures like dandruff, and robes from all the ages were appearing at long last.

 

Luna backed away, unwilling to make everyone’s acquaintance. She looked down, and with a stab of horror, saw that the pool—the well of water where Ginny had been suspended—was gone.

 

The hair tie was gone.

 

Lovegood. My favorite oxymoron.

 

He hissed in her ear, and she fled, running up the winding steps, hoping her legs didn’t give way from underneath her. Her breath tore from her throat, and Luna didn’t realize when she had reached the streets.

 

It was with the greatest relief that she reached a light, and she sank down underneath it, trembling.

 

She reached down to pat her pocket, and found her mother’s list was still there. Luna had discovered that her mother had quite unusual acquaintances and this was only the first of them.

 

Luna heard something flutter in the darkness above her, and jerked her head in that direction. She saw that a large black bird had alighted upon the streetlamp.  It winked at her, and dropped a golden hair tie at her feet.

 

Till next time, kiddo.

 

The bird threw itself into the darkness, and left Luna quite alone, wondering. She pondered a great many things, and spied some bloke in an eighteenth century cloak trying to get a Muggle ladybug car with checkered sides.

 

She sighed and held up the list. Some of the names had been smudged out by time—or by a human hand on purpose. The map that had led her to Mr. Crowfeet had been done by a perfectionist, no doubt, but it was not in her mother’s quill.

 

Hmm. Where to go? What to do?

 

Look but don’t touch.

 

Luna wondered if she should Obliviate herself right this moment. Write herself a letter with the instructions not to follow the road on the map. She had the sense that she had gotten lucky this time. Not to mention, she had forfeited her bag of galleons in exchange for a very rotten deal.

 

Ginny had looked at peace. But Crowfeet had looked askance at the knowledge of their ‘blood’ relation, and that promise.

 

 

 --
Credit: The joke about the cordless phone is not mine. It is Pablo Francisco's. :-) 

 The theory of love is from Dante.