ANOTHER PLANE OF MAGIC
(THE PHYSICIAN'S APPRENTICE)
The war was over.
The final battle won.
In fact, it had been over for more than seven months.
Looney Lovegood no longer spoke.
In fact, Looney Lovegood was dead. The girl who spoke of wrackspurts and nargles was gone. She had seen people kill others, not because of a nargle infestation, but because they wanted to. She had seen the bloodlust in their eyes.
Now, she was just Luna; the broken girl.
She still saw her spirits, of course, the wrackspurts and such; a flitter of purple smoke around someone's head, or a tiny pixie-like creature pulling someone's hair, but she never spoke of them. She retained her dreamy, waif-like exterior, but on the inside, she crumbled.
Xenophilius Lovegood was dead. Well and truly dead. A curse of the battle had stolen his arm, and he had died in his daughter's arms.
And so, Looney was gone. Somehow she couldn't believe in the world anymore.
Scars riddled her arms. A still healing wound was bandaged on her head. A rope-like welt twisted around her stomach. Luna didn't mind. She remembered what Dumbledore had once said to the Ravenclaws: 'scars are very important; they remind us of our losses, our victories, and our traumas, but most of all, they remind us to live.' She looked down at the scars and didn't wince. These scars didn't hurt much.
The dreams did.
'They're here! They've come for us!'
Shouts and yells, the train screeching to a halt.
'Oh, no, deary - we've come for one. Luna Lovegood! She in this car?'
'Right there!' exclaimed a Slytherin.
Luna shrank back behind Neville. She was closer to the window, and Ginny sat across from her.
A dining car - what a stupid place to sit.
'You're not taking her - I'll - I'll fight you!' Neville stood, shorter than any of the Death Eaters around them.
'You!' Laughed one, 'You an' 'oo's army? Yeh witchy friend here?'
Neville didn't respond, but Ginny did. It was the quickest bit of wand work Luna had ever seen - two hexes, four jinxes, and a curse, in the matter of seconds. Five hits.
And then, a display of brute force. Neville was bruised and unconscious, Ginny was bleeding and tied to her seat. Luna remained unharmed, unmoving.
'Alright, pretty? You're coming with us - your dear old man has been spewing lies about the cause - can't have him making any more trouble!' A lanky, unshaven Death Eater with wild eyes spoke.
'They aren't lies, you know.' Luna said quietly.
He snarled. 'Oh, but they are - and he will be punished.'
A threat to her father finally broke her from her stupor.
'Stupefy!' she cried.
The man crumpled.
'Impedimenta!' two more men slammed into an invisible wall as they rushed down the car.
She dodged a Stunner that flew past and smashed the window behind her. Spinning, she yelled, 'Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!'
She hit two more, but there were so many - she dodged another Stunner, and had to duck behind the table to avoid a nasty looking purple curse.
With a sudden burst of strength, she stood again, and yelled as many hexes as she could think of: 'Densageo! Avifors! Colloshod! Hielo Maxima!'
Only one spell hit its mark- one man doubled over as his front teeth grew long and disproportionate.
Luna turned as the door opened, and immediately felt a curse hit her from behind; a cutting charm through her shoulder - she shrieked, then another spell hit her from the front, doubling the pain. She struggled to stay up right, but a flash of red - she was out.
If she was lucky, that was where the dream ended. She'd wake up with a jolt of pure terror, yelling for her father.
But sometimes, it continued, as she was pulled through the air by a portkey, thrown down the hard stone steps, and plunged into darkness. In her dreams, Mr Ollivander wasn't there to comfort her - instead, she sat alone in the cold cellar, as the darkness pushed against her eyes and ate at her skin. In these cases, she woke slowly, unable to claw her way out of the suffocating dark, and when she finally opened her eyes, she still couldn't feel anything. It was the numbness that was unbearable.
Even in her waking hours, some scenes haunted her. Sitting in the Room of Requirement as Lee Jordan's shaking voice reeled off the dead, holding back Susan Bones as the older girl sobbed and screamed, throwing herself in front of a first year as Amycus Carrow's wand slashed down, shaking in pain while Mr Ollivander held her after a particular day when Death Eaters practiced their curses on her, holding Mr Ollivander after the same happened to him… They went on, and on.
She saw ghosts in the broken halls of Hogwarts - some real, some simply memories. She couldn't escape them, as she had nowhere else to go; her house was destroyed, father dead, remaining family far away, and friends (who were just as haunted as she) could only offer shelter for a few days at a time.
Sometimes, Luna sat with Ginny on the edge of the lake and forgot about the war. There was nothing particularly positive to talk about, so they didn't speak, just leaned on each other's shoulders as they had in the Room of Requirement during those long, scream filled nights.
Xenophilius Lovegood was buried by his wife, under a weeping willow tree. Luna visited every week, and sat by the tree for hours. She felt his hand on her shoulder and smelled her mother's perfume.
She sat in the Hogwarts library, one of the only places left untouched, and read with Hermione.
But, no matter what she did to cope, her hands never stopped shaking.
One day, as she helped to rebuild the wall of the Charms corridor, she found something.
It was a bright, clear day, and the sky was visible through the wreckage of the wall. She and a small group of others were slowly magicking the bricks back into place. Luna stood in what had once been a disused classroom, focusing very hard on the wand movements, and forcing her hands to follow them.
"Reparo." She pointed her wand at a large cornerstone that had been split in half. It snapped back together, and a small, metallic jangle echoed in the debris. Luna thought nothing of it.
"Erecto Fortis!" The huge brick flew into place, and the proper bricks fell around it, reforming the wall.
She continued, rebuilding the other two collapsed walls, then attempting to repair the more fiddly desks and chairs. A bookshelf had just been finished when she noticed the glint of metal.
"Ah." She muttered to herself. "That'll be the sound."
Sitting cross legged on the floor, Luna reached for the piece of metal, and tried to look at it closely. She quickly gave up on that, as her hand shook so bad, that she couldn't even see it. Placing it on her knee, Luna finally saw what it was: an elegant silver signet ring, with a rearing dragon engraved on it.
"Hello." She whispered to the dragon. "I feel like I've seen you before. Where are you from?"
For a moment, it looked as though the dragon twisted it's tiny head to look at her, but then it hadn't moved at all.
Luna frowned. Perhaps this particular dragon only responded to certain things. "Well, if you won't tell me… I suppose I'll just throw you away…"
This time, she was certain it moved - a miniscule jerk of the head - 'no'.
Luna smiled.
"Well, where are you from?"
The dragon's claw pointed downwards.
"Here? Really?"
It nodded.
She carefully poked it with a shaking finger so that the dragon faced her better. "Are you sure? I've never heard of a dragon like you on a British Isle. Perhaps you were made in a time of different dragons?"
Another nod.
"Hm." Luna said. "Well, your enchantment is very nice to keep you around for so long. I've always wanted to learn enchantments like that -"
"Did you do all this yourself, Luna?" It was Oliver Wood, standing in the partially repared doorway. "What are you doing?"
Luna looked up from the dragon ring. "I've found a dragon!" She replied excitedly. "I was asking where it was from."
Oliver's face softened. "Must be a very small dragon. Can I see?"
"Oh, yes! He's very handsome, and silver - I'm not sure how old he is, though." She held out the ring.
The older boy crouched down and gently grasped her shaking wrist so he could see her find.
"It is very handsome." He frowned. "You said it spoke?"
Luna nodded enthusiastically. "A bit."
"It doesn't seem to be talking anymore -"
"I think he only responds to threats or promises… Wendigos are like that, and they're descended from the dragons of old." She scooted closer to Oliver. "Do you have a name?" She asked the dragon.
It didn't move.
"Are you sure it spoke?" muttered Oliver.
"Oh yes, he was moving around and everything. I will throw you out if you don't tell me!" She added to the dragon.
It still didn't move.
She frowned. "You're rather rude - do you not like Oliver?"
Minutely, the dragon's head nodded.
"There!" She exclaimed. "It's just that he doesn't like you - no offense to you, of course."
Luna looked up at Oliver, who had an odd look on his face.
"I think that you are very tired." He said softly. "You did a really great job on this room - it must have drained you. I think you ought to get some rest."
He pressed the ring into her hand and looked at her expectantly, eyebrows slightly raised.
Luna carefully put it onto her left ring finger, then looked up at Oliver and realized that he was doing what so many people did nowadays: instead of denying her beliefs or patronizing her, they wouldn't say anything, and instead, ask about her health or say she was tired. She knew what she had seen - the dragon had moved - and there was no evidence against it, so it most obviously had happened, but he would not understand.
Slowly, she nodded. "You're right. I am tired, and perhaps I imagined it - it didn't speak, it just shifted. Maybe a trick of the light. I will go and lay down."
It felt mechanical. But the thing she wanted least of all was to worry people.
Taking Oliver's extended hand, she stood up, and was surprised that she did actually feel rather tired. As he led her out of the room and down the corridor, for a brief second, she wondered if she had imagined it, and if, like so many things, there was no magic behind it; just the complexities of the human mind.
It can't be disproven. She thought. Therefore, it happened.
It happened.
It happened!
By the time she was back to her room, she was once again certain of it. She sat on her bed and smiled at Oliver, who had accompanied her all the way there. "Thank you, Oliver. I will rest."
He nodded, smiled crookedly, then awkwardly patted her shoulder. As she looked up at his face, she noticed his eyes flit to her lips for just a second, and subconsciously licked them.
He nodded again and quickly said, "I'll be going then," before leaving the room.
Luna looked after him, feeling slightly confused, then turned to look out her window.
It was a very good thing that Ravenclaw tower was so secluded, she thought, as it had only sustained exterior damage, and the inside was still perfectly habitable. Because of this, she slept in her old room, and had most of her possessions still intact.
Each Ravenclaw student had a small room with a bed and a desk to promote quiet studying. Each room also had a small bookshelf that produced random selections of books, and over time customised to its owner's taste in reading.
Luna reached for a book with a blue-faded and thread worn spine, called Alice in Wonderland. She had never read it before, and from the motionless pictures, it was a muggle book, but the faded yet bright colours were tempting. Opening it and releasing the musty book-smell, she decided that she already liked it.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
Luna smiled. Books did get quite boring without descriptions or pictures.
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
There was a funny picture of a rabbit wearing a waistcoat, spectacles, and holding a pocket watch. "Rabbits don't usually talk," Luna muttered to herself, "but this one does, so why can't you?" She asked the dragon on her finger.
It shrugged.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
Luna smiled sleepily, and continued reading even as her eyes grew heavier and heavier.
It was a while later, as she was reading about a talking mouse and a pool of tears, that very suddenly, she decided to go to sleep.
Her dreams were even more muddled than they usually were, and far more alarming.
She was falling down the rabbit-hole, spinning so fast that bile was rising in her throat. It took a minute for her senses to catch up with her - first her sight, and she could see that the walls of the hole were coated in blood and hung with skulls, then her hearing, but all she could hear was a cacophony of screams and shrieks. And then, she could smell - the scent of blood filled up her nose and mouth, and she was vomiting, the bile flying past her face as she continued to fall, and the screaming continued, almost as if she was inhaling the sound. Luna flailed, tears being whipped out of her eyes, and began to yell, adding her voice to the many around her.
She couldn't stop falling, but just as she was beginning to give up, she felt herself slam to the ground, pushing the air from her lungs and sending a worrying jolt of pained numbness up her spine. Luna turned tenderly onto her side and retched again, whatever else was in her stomach leaving her.
The screaming was different now, not just howling voices, but familiar people with emotion behind them - pain, anguish, anger, and horror. Slowly, she raised her head and looked around. She was in a corridor full of people - people fighting, spells flying, bodies colliding, sweat and blood splashing on the walls and floor, and so much noise. Raising herself off the floor, Luna felt for her wand, and unsteadily stood up. The world was still crooked, as though her head was tilted, and maybe it was - Luna couldn't tell - but she staggered forward, even though the movement made her retch again. Somehow she knew that she needed to get to the end of the corridor, through the fighting.
Struggling forward, Luna managed to get past a pair of dueling people, around broken bodies that she refused to look at, and continue on, until a spell flew past her head, making her flinch. Looking around wildly for the source, she saw a tall man with long robes and a black mask standing, as though unaffected by the fighting, behind her. He swung his wand, sending a green spell at her, which she dodged. As quickly as she could, she pulled up a shield charm, and planted her feet. With another swing of his arm, he sent two more spells slamming into her ward.
Luna could taste the magic, and she remembered what to do: Stunner, Disarmer, Stunner again.
He simply stepped out of the way of all the spells.
As another barrage of attacks hit her shield, Luna felt her feet being pushed back, and suddenly she realised that she was being pushed in the right direction.
Slowly, she began to back up, reinforcing her shield charm as she did. As she took a shuffling step backwards, she tripped over somethin- someone, and her shield slipped. A cutting jinx grazed her head and she staggered, breaking out into a full run, tripping over herself and dodging spells. It didn't matter - she had to get to the end of the corridor.
But there was something wrong; the magic in the air didn't feel right - it's tendrils were snatching at her, scraping against her very soul.
'Luna'
At first, it just seemed as though the voice was part of the battle - distant but close, loud but dull.
'Luna'
This time, the voice was louder, pulling her focus away from the fight almost forcefully.
'Luna!'
With a jerk, she moved her head to look around - it wasn't a call of panic, it was something else. A deep, rough voice that reverberated in her skull.
'Where are you?'
She called desperately, dodging a spell and deflecting another.
'I am everywhere with you.'
Luna actually had to throw herself to the ground, as one of the acromantulas practically flung itself over the nearest battlement.
'Well that's wonderful, Mr Nobody,' she thought bitterly at what-ever-it-was 'but as I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, I won't be very helpful to you.'
There was a long pause as the dull sounds of battle continued, but Luna continued on, certain she needed to get to the end of the corridor - maybe it was her father, her mother, or someone else who needed to tell her something.
CRASH! Barely feet away from her, a huge, clawed paw hit the ground.
'Hello Mr Dragon.' she said in surprise and mild terror.
It was the dragon of the ring; tall and elegant with bronze-black scales and huge, golden eyes.
It's mouth curled into a smile, exposing it's sharp teeth. 'Hello, Luna Lovegood.' it growled, 'I believe that it is time that you experience… another plane - another plane if magic.'
And then, the world faded away. The battle was gone, the sense of foreign, wrong magic dissipated. Luna looked up at the dragon - the only thing left.
'Am I going somewhere?' she asked, feeling apprehensive.
'Oh, yes, young witch.' the dragon hummed, head bobbing. 'You are very intuitive. I am bringing you to my time - one of true magic and glory. You are destined to guide the One and Future King.'
Luna gaped at him. 'I believe many things, but the idea that I am great enough to guide King Arthur, to see - that means the time of… the time of Merlin!' she shook her head. 'I can't believe that. I am not that great. I don't deserve it.'
Very slowly, the great dragon lowered his head to the ground and looked into her eyes. 'You have seen much, done much, and changed much. But you - you deserve to see the world the way your mother did… the way you used to. It seems the only way the Fates can conceive this is to send me. And so, it will be.'
She stood in silence. So many ideas whirled in her head that it felt as though the very world was spinning and changing.
And for her, it was.
Luna Lovegood's prone body, lain out upon her bed began to shimmer. On her left hand, the silver signet ring glowed brightly. Her body began to shift and shudder - getting smaller. It was almost as though she was un-aging, if that were possible.
In her mind's eye, she saw the dragon's eyes blink, once, twice, thrice -
And then, she wasn't.