I'm so tired: the last time I slept, Voldemort was still alive. It's been a long time already.
Nobody wants to sleep, though. It's an important day, maybe the most important of my lifetime. Voldemort is dead. The world is going back to normal.
I don't remember normal, really: Voldemort had been defeated when I was born, but they only thought that. This is peace, I suppose, but I'm too exhausted to appreciate it.
Nobody wants to sleep through history, they say, but didn't we sleep through History of Magic with Professor Binns? One dead man talking about too many others. Someday he'll talk about the battle and people I knew-Fred, the funny Beater and Colin, the curious child-will be just as boring as Quigley the Quixotic was to me.
I shouldn't complain, though. Harry's just come over now, and he must be even more-Well, maybe not. I suppose being dead is rather relaxing.
Nevertheless, I say, "I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me."
"I'd love some," he replies with more emotion in his voice than I expect.
"I'll distract them," I say. "Use your cloak."
I leap off the bench and point out the window. "Ooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!"
But there is no Blibbering Humdinger, and I know it.
Perhaps there never were any Blibbering Humdingers?
It is not having seen death that has changed me-that, I knew well enough already. But this destruction all around me and maybe within me too, that makes me wonder. Were there ever any? The Snorcacks? The nargles? What can I be sure of, now?
Your friends.
The voice is woven with a dozen countermelodies. I am certain no one else can hear it.
You betray your truths, your belief, for the comfort of another?
Quit…rambling on! I tell it, whatever it is.
I do not come to scorn, Luna, I come to praise. You have sacrificed much, but earned much in return.
Who are you?
Who am I? What am I? I am real.
And I see it: only a faint reflection in the glass, as if it was standing next to me.
Peace, then, but pride too. The last of my energy fades as I climb to my dormitory. It has been months since I last slept there, but I immediately sink into dream.
