End of the World, Luna style
Summary: The story of how Professor McGonagall became convinced that there was a deity somewhere that hated her, and why, on the contrary, Headmaster Dumbledore really likes cute little Luna Lovegood.
Rating: K+
Genre: humour/parody
A/N: The title (whole story actually) is of course a pun on today. R&R!
Dumbledore sighs. He has been walking in circles around his office for such a long time that there is a noticeable trail in his carpet: this is where he usually stops reflecting alone, where he decides that he is not able to solve the problem by himself and that he should seek help.
Well, seek help he shall, then. He hops down the staircase. Preferably the help of another carpet, because this one is too worn down. He goes up a flight of candle-lit stairs, finding himself in a long corridor.
"Did I not lose a lemon drop here yesterday?" he wonders aloud, and starts going up and down the hallway on all fours in search of the sweet, nose against the stone floor. When he eventually finds it, he cheers.
"Hurray! – Oh?" To his surprise, there is a door to his left that he is pretty sure must have appeared after he concentrated on his quest. Perhaps he may find a carpet there?
Unfortunately, there is no carpet in the room, which only contains a desk and writing utensils. It is as though the castle wants him to forego the step of carpet-walking and go directly to the part in which he asks for help.
Why not? He pens a letter to whoever wants to read it, goes to the window that suddenly appears, and ties his delivery to the owl that knew to wait for him there. He barely has enough time to begin humming in amusement before the distinct crack of an Apparition, though distinctly louder, resonates in the room.
As he turns around in amazement, a young woman in blood-red robes and long dirty blonde hair salutes him.
"Hello! I am loony and I was sent to help you."
Meanwhile, or perhaps really later, though it could be also be argued that the two hypotheses are each as valid as the other depending on which point should be used to indicate the now, this same owl that has just left Headmaster Dumbledore finds itself in the middle of a pandemonium taking place in the Department of Mysteries.
It is indeed this owl that caused the disorder, but it is not this owl's fault! Hogwarts told it to make sure the note is given to someone who can help, and that someone just so happens to be the head of the department, who could not be reached otherwise.
To be honest, it is not the department's head, Mr. Extrasharp – though that is only a codename –, that is responsible for this chaos either. Mr. Extrasharp is only pounding on Escargot's head because that brown-nosed man poured coffee on several vital documents. What's more, that Escargot is under suspicion of being a spy for the French government!
Though with a codename like his, who would think so? Would it not be counterproductive for him to bring attention to his spying? Unless he is playing on that! This is why he is merely suspected and not outright accused of being a spy. Really, the owl should be happy that Mr. Extrasharp is finally taking care of the Escargot problem that is much too confusing for an owl anyway. Owls eat snails! This owl would have been a much better department head, in its humble opinion. It does not matter that this owl does not understand much about these magical tuna-nuclear bombs for which Mr. Extrasharp has been drawing plans.
This owl only wanted to see the cute plans and give Mr. Extrasharp its note, it did not mean to make Escargot stumble and spill his coffee...
"Stupid owl!" bellows Mr. Extrasharp. "Get out of my sight!"
The owl hoots in indignation and drops the letter into a random open folder. That will teach him!
The Ministry being what it is, the note gets lost in the folder, which ends up in a drawer in Escargot's desk that is transported to another department after Escargot gets fired.
In August of 2020, a wizarding riot, much more dangerous and explosive ("The explosions, oh, the explosions..." - P. Patil, Minister of Magic) than its muggle counterpart around the same date, wrecks a great deal of destruction on the Ministry.
The lost note makes its way back to its original department through pure coincidence: during the reconstruction, a zealous employee notices the little purple spot on the right side of Escargot's desk that marks it as belonging to the Department of Mysteries. Of how the desk came here, this employee has no idea, but he carefully carries it back down.
The recently appointed chief of the Unspeakables, Tinnitus, gets a hold of the letter when looking for a new desk for his office. It is strangely enough addressed to "whom it may concern", and has no date.
"Hey, Titus," says Tinnitus to his most trusted colleague, "I bet you this is another of those pranks from the Quidditch department."
Titus, who is otherwise occupied at arranging cardboard boxes on the ground so that nobody trips on them, grunts.
"No need to be snappy," Tinnitus grumbles. "I'll just put it on someone who's expendable then."
He of course sets his sight on Bunny Hops. Bunny Hops is the single most annoying Unspeakable Tinnitus has ever seen. Today, she has apparently forgotten to wear her mask, judging by the fact that he can see her glossy blue eyes scouring the ceiling instead of working with her hands at classifying important documents scattered around her knees.
She is sitting on the floor. A grown woman on the floor! Why does he keep her again?
"Hey there, Bunny Hops, want an easy mission?" He feels quite giddy thinking about her face when she will realize that this request for help is as bogus as the one that sent Titus on a wild chase for a prophesying broom last week.
Seriously, they had been excited about that broom. It was a big disappointment when Titus came back empty-handed. Damn Quidditch department.
Bunny Hops skips up to her chief with a content smile. "Yes please!"
Tinnitus hands her the note... and she disappears.
If this is a genuine note from Hogwarts's current headmaster, Tinnitus will be killed for sending her off again. He should have learned his lesson from the last time she was trusted with that kind of responsibilities.
"Hello!" peeps Bunny Hops, a lovely young Unspeakable from about forty-five years into this Albus Dumbledore's future, after giving a short look at her surroundings. "I am Luna and I was sent to help you."
She is met by honest incomprehension.
"I am Luna, but I think you may as well call me by another name. Where I come from, why, my name was Bunny Hops only a moment ago!"
Dumbledore, coming to a realization, shakes her outstretched hand. "What a charming surprise! To say that you would arrive so soon after I asked for you!" He sounds quite satisfied. "The Ministry really is outdoing itself, is it?"
"Oh yes, it is," she nods gravely. "You would not believe me if I told you just how quickly we processed your request. This delay broke all set records."
They exchange pleasantries for a few moments until Dumbledore allows himself to ask the question that is on his mind.
"If you'd allow me, Miss Luna," he says, "how did you Apparate into Hogwarts?"
Luna shakes her head. "I didn't, Headmaster. Hogwarts made me come when I touched your letter. Really, it is not so seldom seen, we get this all the time in some departments," she adds when his expression shows his disbelief.
"Well, would I not remember seeing Unspeakables and other Ministry workers popping into existence in my castle?" he asks in a gentle tone.
Luna sends him a slightly dreamy smile. "Why would you? What happened to me may not yet have happened to you. Am I from here and now?" His eyebrows rise and she blinks, somewhat owlishly. "Are you from here and now? I seem to have operated from the assumption that I was taken to you, but it may as well be that you and the world were taken to me. From my perspective, it may be either of the two, while from yours, it can only be the first, because why would you and the world be taken to someone that you have never met? Such a difference can a mere point of view make!"
He regards her with new appreciation after her passionate yet detached speech, rubbing his chin.
"You are one of a kind, Miss."
"Thank you, Headmaster."
Dumbledore chats with the newly baptised Luna Rabbit as he leads her through the corridors. He seems to take some gratification in escorting her with linked arms, to the utter amazement of a few students passing by who have never seen the more or less batty headmaster in so close proximity to another human (his phoenix does not count). James Potter almost tries to trip them but refrains at the last moment out of self-preservation.
They arrive at a room guarded by a rather fierce-looking Professor McGonagall. She glares at them: one can guess from the hair escaping her tight bun and the way her cloak and hat are askew that she has been having a lot of trouble from the time Dumbledore left her to fend the problem by herself.
"At last you are there! Headmaster, Frank is –"
"Tut-tut, Minnie," Dumbledore answers, winking at her. She instantly straightens, affronted to be made fun of when in a state of disarray. "I have brought someone who should be able to solve Frank's little problem, or at the very least, to give us some peace of mind. Miss Rabbit," he says, turning to Luna, "this is our very own Deputy Headmistress, Professor Minerva McGonagall. Minnie," he addresses the older woman, "this is Miss Luna Rabbit, a Defence against the Dark Arts specialist."
Professor McGonagall looks Luna up and down with pinched lips. Dumbledore chuckles as he walks away, probably toward the Great Hall.
Luna takes her time to embrace the image of the castle around her. It has been a long time since she last set foot into her second home: years ago! Much too long. How she missed the moving paintings! She still has not quite gotten the trick that gives life to portraits, but is herself getting rather close to making painted grass sway into the wind, which is not as easy as it sounds. Oils are after all not as malleable as watercolour sometimes.
"Well?" Professor McGonagall says after a while, when she is tired of waiting for Luna to reintegrate the physical plane of existence. "Are you going to go in?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Luna exclaims. "What should I do?"
Professor McGonagall (Luna decides to mentally call her Minnie, like Dumbledore does, it sounds more friendly) regards her with something akin to pity.
"Professor Frank Senator is dead," she deigns to provide.
Luna gasps. "Frank Sinitra is dead? Was it a murder?"
"No, Senator, not Sinitra. Our Defence against the Dark Arts Professor," Minnie rectifies, looking crossed. "It was technically a suicide. His right hand turned against him during a duel."
"Was it an ambidexterity conflict? These are getting more and more common among wizards, are they? Do you think they are due to the relative widening of the ambidextrous population? The wizarding ambidextrous families have been interbreeding for the last thirty years, you know, I did a study on that!" She frowns a bit. "Though whether those thirty years are mine or yours, I have completely forgotten."
"No, he was left-handed," Minnie corrects again as soon as she is given room to talk, choosing to ignore Luna's chatter. Those who know her can guess by how deeply her lips are pinched into her mouth that she is close to getting angry.
"I see!" Luna concludes, nodding thoughtfully. "In the end, the right hand was envious of the left!"
Minnie's arm twitches, making a grab for the wand hidden in her cloak.
"I am deeply sorry for Mr. Sinitra, but if I may ask, how is that related to –"
Minnie does not let her finish her sentence before she bodily pushes Luna through the door that she was guarding, before stomping away.
Luna finds herself facing a short and pudgy man with a mop of translucent hair. In truth, the man's whole body is also transparent, and moreover, not set on the ground. The man is in the process of tearing a blackboard from the wall when he squints his large clear eyes at her, probably trying to replace her unknown face.
"Would you perhaps happen to be Mr. Frank Sinitra?" Luna inquires with politesse, as she has been taught.
The poltergeist, since he has a noticeable grip on physical objects and thus cannot be considered a mere ghost, nods at her (she has quite an accent; he did not notice the clipping on his name). "And you are?" he spits.
Luna takes it in stride. "I am an Unspeakable. You may call me Miss Rabbit."
The short man snorts at her and rudely turns his back, going back to his activity of destroying the room.
"I have heard that you are causing problems for the fine people that administrate this school, Mr. Sinitra. I apologize, but I must ask you to stop bothering them."
He blows her a raspberry. This; this, Luna does not forgive.
"Mister Sinitra!" she exclaims in horror. "Is that the behaviour by which you want your loved ones to remember you after your soul passes on?"
"I will not pass on!" he declares, hovering stubbornly two meters from her, his fat arms crossed protectively on his equally rotund belly. "You can't make me!"
"Yes, I can," Luna says. "We Unspeakables often deal with poltergeists. Why, just last week, I exorcised a two-century-old poltergeist named Sir Johansson in a Scottish castle. It was not as big of a castle as our Hogwarts is, though," she muses. "And by exorcising, I really meant that I convinced him to go willingly by threatening to harm him."
Frank shivers, but his pallid skin bloats in anger. "Hogwash! Nonsense!"
"Do you want to know the methods we developed as a way of torture for uncooperative and recalcitrant poltergeist like you, mister Sinitra?" she deadpans. "They are quite imaginative, you would love them."
As he is not inclined to listen to her, she recites a list of those that she has personally seen being used in front of her eyes as a young employee. She has never actually used them herself, being more of a non-violence oriented kind of girl, but she is no liar: even that thing about cutting ectoplasms with butter thread infused in a special potion has been tested before her.
It is a rather green poltergeist that nods weakly and agrees to visit the afterlife when she is done talking.
"Minnie!" Luna hails the Deputy Headmistress as she sees her crossing a hallway with a folder in her arms.
The poor woman is so badly surprised that she jumps a whole meter (but thankfully does not drop her papers, that would have been a drag to pick up).
"Miss Rabbit," she states, glacially.
"I am glad that you remember my name, Professor," Luna answers in all seriousness, with a bit more respect than was previously implied in her calling. "I wanted to say goodbye, as we will not see each other until a number of years unless I am called again."
Minnie stares at her. "Goodbye," she says shortly, and storms away.
"This year's haul should be interesting, Minnie," Dumbledore chortles as he gives the Great Hall a swiping glance as if to embrace it. "We have been waiting for one particular student for a long time."
Minerva raises an eyebrow.
"– Any questions?" the older Deputy Headmistress says in front of the new batch of first years, after this traditional entry speech of hers that comes moments before letting them enter the Great Hall.
"Yes! What a pretty hat you have!" a young voice squeals from the first row of children. "It is so big and green! Did interesting creatures make a nest into it before you asked them to lend it to you? I'm sure it has seen at least two generations of Doxies, those stains near the tip cannot be anything else!"
Professor McGonagall blanches at the voice and lowers her head to take in the sight of a short blonde girl with wide blue eyes. She looks and sounds familiar.
"Oh no," the Professor says, putting two and two together. "Oh no, Merlin, this is the end of the world."
"Ah? Because of Doxies? I feel fine!" Luna chirps.
Omake 1:
"Thank you very much for helping us, and so swiftly too," Headmaster Dumbledore says jovially. "Will you be getting home soon, or would you grace us with your presence at dinner tonight?"
For the first time this day, Luna seems upset.
"I'm supposed to touch the letter again when my mission is done to go back, but…" she hesitates. "It is usually Hogwarts that decides that I completed my mission. I went to that room from which I came before coming to see you, and the letter wouldn't bring me back."
Headmaster Dumbledore put his chin on his hands, examining her. "We need a new Defense against the Dark Arts Professor," he mutters after a while, deep in thought. "I wonder?.."
She looks up at him, eyes full of hope. He smiles. "How would you like to stay a year here as our temporary professor until we figure out a way to send you back?"
Omake 2:
"Good morning class!" cries a cheerful Luna at a room full of fifth years. "My name is Luna Rabbit and I am intimately convinced that pasta cooked with butter tastes better than pasta cooked with oil. How about you?" she asks, pointing to a random student.
James Potter acutely regrets abstaining from tripping her the previous day as he is made to admit that he does not like pasta.
Unseen by her students, Luna jots down "useless" information about a select few of them to give to their offspring.