Written for Smile Life Away's Not Another AU Challenge where the one defining factor is Voldemort won. My character was Luna Lovegood.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Harry Potter had always been a great friend to her. She, however, didn't see it until it was too late. Perhaps it was the Wrackspurts that floated in people's heads making their brains go fuzzy. Perhaps it was the fact that she had lost her mother at such a young age that she never let anyone in all the way, afraid she would lose them too.
No matter what the cause though, she knew when Hagrid brought Harry Potter out of the woods that horrible day, she had lost not the great and powerful wizard everyone saw him as, but a great friend.
Many years later, she remembered what she had told Harry one time. "My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect." Most of the time she had gotten her belongings back after her fellow students had hid them, but so far Harry hadn't returned. And Voldemort terrorized the country.
The Order crumbled, at least what was left of it. The most fearful left for other lands – France, Bulgaria, India, the US – attempting to get away from the terror. Luna stayed in her childhood home, not a stone's throw from The Burrow, and lived as she normally did, as an outcast.
"If there's anything I can see from this, it's if you stick your nose in too far, only bad things will come," her father had said when he banished her from partaking in any activities that "Weasley boy" was planning or helping "Norman" Longbottom think of a way to get around the Ministry. And there was no way she was going to the funeral for that no good Boy-Who-Lived.
But Luna snuck out. She feigned ill while her father went off to find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. The funeral was held in Godric's Hollow, far away from the prying eyes of Voldemort, in the middle of the night. If he had caught wind of anyone planning a funeral for Harry Potter, he'd kill them all. It went off without a hitch – Hagrid delivering a beautiful speech about dropping Harry off with the Dursleys.
After that, after she said goodbye to a friend she wished she'd known longer, she went home. She didn't disobey her father and she traveled with him. She was in Sweden when she heard Neville Longbottom had been executed in the middle of London for all to see because he had killed Nagini, Voldemort's snake. She was in Romania when word came that Ron Weasley had taken Bellatrix Lestrange with him to the grave for murdering his mother, brother, and sister. She was in Russia when her final friend, Hermione Granger, was killed by Lucius Malfoy just for being Muggleborn.
When she finally returned to London, eighteen years later and after her father died, it didn't look like London any more. Diagon Alley hadn't been rebuilt and instead was a pile of rubble. Muggle London too had been destroyed by Death Eaters. Voldemort had named himself Minster, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the only member of the Wizengamot. He had killed every Muggleborn he could get his hands on. He had massacred halfbloods and purebloods that didn't agree with his ways. Muggles had flooded out after Voldemort took over.
All that was left were a few pureblooded families. Everyone else was either gone or dead.
She supposed Voldemort had it coming. He thought he was so much better than the others and delusional, thinking because he killed Harry Potter, he couldn't be killed.
In the end, it was Draco Malfoy who did it.
He was crazy, just rushing up to the Dark Lord and yelling the curse. Luna thought that he was just trying to get Voldemort to kill him, not thinking he could actually kill the Dark Lord. He was a hero. With Voldemort gone, it was easy to regain the Ministry. George Weasley rebuilt Diagon Alley with a little help from Lee Jordan. Kingsley Shacklebolt became Minister of Magic and helped restore order to all of Britain - Muggle and Wizarding.
She often remembered what she told Harry. The last of the pigments dripped from her hair and she couldn't see a Snorkack if it was right on top of her. She would sit on her bench in her yard and close her eyes, remembering her fallen friends, the friends that she lost so long ago.
She never married, but from her home she could see all the young families moving in and out. The most popular names in Wizarding England were Draco, Harry, Neville, and Ron for boys. It seemed that every little girl she met was named Hermione or Ginny. Every time she met one, especially a little black haired boy named Harry, or a redhead named Ron or Ginny, or once she met twins named Neville and Hermione, she thought of her friends.
Because the things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.
Thanks for reading!