Luna Lovegood was the most practical girl there was.

When she saw her father working diligently at the magical copiers, she took it upon herself to make breakfast for him, complete with sunny-side up eggs and toast. When she saw her mother frowning at the potion she had just created, knowing she would spend ages to resolve the potion's trickery, she grabbed a broom and started sweeping the Lovegood tower, up and down the steps until she had found every speck of dust hiding in the corners. When she saw she had no household chores left to do, Luna settled down comfortably with a book, tilting her head back against the window sill until she had the perfect balance between cold and warm—because, after all, the tower was always cozy and outside was always blistering with storms. Everything was perfect, completely silent and still with only the hum-hum of the magical copier and the blurp! of the newest potion every so often breaking the silence. But Luna liked that, and that was all there was to it in the odd little household far off in the countryside.

Luna was much smarter than anyone she knew. She knew that because she had already fashioned a thesis on the evils of Wolfsbane Potion: Whoever drank it would become so emasculated against its effects, so dependent. She had developed a theory on Arithmancy's latest problem: how to solve pi divided by zero, and she knew it was correct because, well, she had thought of it. (The solution lay beneath her bed locked up in her Moke Super Pouch QX31.) Her schoolbooks for Hogwarts—and she was going to Hogwarts, even if she was only nine years old now and hadn't received her acceptance letter—had already been read up to seventh year, tucked away in the trunk filled with strange spells. If she didn't know any better, she would say she was prepared, practical, and prime for a new adventure. The 3 P's.

She sighed and set down her book down, Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs by Dylan Marwood. It was quite an interesting read, to be honest; she hadn't known there were merpeople in the lake at Hogwarts. But Marwood's version seemed to be biased against the merpeople, having been nearly drowned in a merpeople community in Finland once, and Luna couldn't stand reading over the small quips such as "Merpeople are generally horrible at greeting outsiders" and "Merpeople do not favor sirens' company due to their loud shrieking sounds," especially when Luna had already met a mermaid once down by the stream and had a pleasant afternoon conversation.

So Luna swept her skinny legs from the sill and dropped the three feet to the ground, wincing at the slight pains in her thigh as she fell from the tall height. While her knees had repaired themselves from Mum's last experiment (it had caused her legs to vanish and reappear at will), she hadn't quite gotten over the effects of where her legs had reattached to the rest of her body. It kept a kind of diluted sense of touch and however long Luna spent trying to resolve this issue, she couldn't. Not, at least, without her mum's help…who was right now in the basement of the tower trying to create the Wolfsbane Potion she still hadn't yet completed.

Hobbling down the steps of the crooked stairwell, Luna made her way down one, two, three flights of stairs before hitting the first floor landing where Xenophilius Lovegood sat tinkering with his toy, the magical copier. He prodded the side of it twice, hit the lever, and waited as the machine hummed and went clank, whistling as he did so.

"Dad, are you sure we shouldn't get another copier?" Luna asked quietly, startling Xenophilius who proceeded to toss all his papers up into the air with a shout. "It's not exactly the sort of newer magic that wizards have these days. I'm sure even Muggles have something more—actually, I'm quite sure Muggles have their own version of a copier."

"Luna, darling," Xenophilius said, regaining control of his facial expression. He wiped his ink-stained hands on his shirt, panting slightly from the surprise, and bent down to retrieve his papers, still speaking to his daughter. "Could you, perhaps, come in a bit louder before starting up a conversation? It might help prevent my future breakdown." He wiped a sweaty palm across his forhead, smearing a small bit of leftover ink across his face before muttering underneath his breath, "And a good old scream could go along with that."

Luna moved forward to help him. "Sorry, Dad, I thought you heard me from the steps. The stairs are so rickety after all. It's, well, it's a bit distracting to say the least. I would have thought you heard at least something move."

"Distracting?" Xenophilius said, surprised once more. He twisted around to look at Luna. "It's the charm of the Lovegood household to have small sounds and appreciate them, darling. We wouldn't be able to live any other way! Imagine a house without the small hums and bells and whistles we have here! It'd be far too silent for my tastes. Besides, Hogwarts has better staircases than our home, they've got gravitationally oriented stairwells, and you do certainly want to go to Hogwarts, don't you? And those staircases are most certainly noisy, just like all things."

He held up a piece of paper from the stack he had just collected. "See here, Luna? I'm—"

"I'm seeing."

"—going to show you an old trick."

Luna rolled her eyes. She had seen this trick done many times in the past, and it wasn't too horribly entertaining. Her father would simply roll up the paper, tap his wand, and unfold the paper with a loud bang. Patiently she sat on her knees, wondering if her dad had ever realized he had repeated this trick so often that even Luna herself could recreate it even without a magic wand, because, of course, she wasn't allowed one yet.

Xenophilius rolled up the paper, tapped his wand, and unfolded the paper with a very loud "BANG!"

To be polite, Luna clapped her hands.

Xenophilius mock bowed. "Thank you, thank you!" He smiled at his daughter who lowered her hands and was waiting for the next step. "Now, do you understand the importance of sound? Good." Without waiting for her answer, he rambled on: "Shall we finish the headline for today? I've got a good one."

Curiously, Luna stood up, not at all bothered by her father's ignorance of her true answer, and squinted at the miniscule print. It read:

DRACO MALFOY GETS LARRY POTTER JAILED

Luna raised an eyebrow at her father. "Is this some sort of joke? Draco Malfoy such a tool, and I'm sure Larry wouldn't be too fond of your using of his former last name. After all, the Potters are famous for a much different reason, and Larry's not really a part of the lineage, just has the name. I'd be surprised if you don't go to the Wizengamot for this."

"Don't be silly, my darling Luna!" Xenophilius exclaimed. "The Wizengamot is only for criminal trials, not for mere appropriation cases!" He spun around gleefully, arms outstretched. "We'll have our best report yet! Peoples upon peoples will read The Quibbler, and we'll finally have our first fan base with this headline!"

"Dad, I don't think printing rumors will help your newspaper at all," Luna protested. It'd been a while since the neighboring kids had mocked her for her father's occupation and she by no means wanted it to start up again. "It's just going to be same again, just like the Evans' story you published. Remember what happened? Mr. Evans came down waving his wand angrily and we all had boils for a week!"

"But my darling Pandora solved that problem! We only waited a week before my lovely-and-genius wife fixed our 'little' problem!"

"And the Verres?"

"Pish posh, my Luna, they were completely unharmed! And besides, they had been hiding mandrakes and using them on the Muggle schoolboys and girls!"

Luna sighed. There was no point in explaining to an adult such as Xenophilius. It was hopeless. Hopeless.

She turned around and let her father continue tinkering with his toy.

"Mum?"

Downstairs at the lower level of the Lovegood tower potions bubbled, dripping asphodel and moon dew onto the already-splattered pavement. Pandora Lovegood's eyes grew in size as she examined her latest brew through a magnifying glass, amplifying the silvery-grey specks that Luna found in her own eyes. A tiny drop of aconite and the froth doubled in size.

"Mum."

This time Pandora looked up, still frowning at the potion hissing clouds of deep blue smoke. When she saw Luna, her face lit up wonderfully, easing the tensions in her face.

"Darling Luna! I never see you down here anymore!"

She ran up and hugged her daughter, who promptly wrenched herself backwards to avoid the aconite staining her pants which would lead to an unplanned death in her own home. Carefully, and with a bit of disgust, Luna took a towel with only a small yellow stain in the corner and wiped the eerie blue-shaded ingredient off her clothes. Then she looked up and screamed.

"MUM! Don't scare me like that, your glasses are terrifying!" Luna jumped backwards, breathing heavily. Her fingers barely avoided the greyish muck that she presumed to be a bad potion.

Pandora frowned, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her gloved hand. Luna noticed it still had a yellow stain. Probably honeywater…or spider pus. She tried to avoid retching up her breakfast.

Her mother glanced at her, noticing her disdainful expression. Quickly she pulled off her gloves, setting them down next to the boiling potion before reaching out to touch Luna's face affectionately. "Darling, what is it? You never come down unless you have a problem. Do you need more tonic for your legs?"

"No," Luna mumbled, face flushing. She didn't realize that she only came down to visit her mother when she had a problem. It was rather embarrassing, in fact, to note that she had neglected her duties as a daughter. Not practical at all. "I just wanted to see if you had thought about my thesis on your Wolfsbane Potion."

"Darling Luna." For a moment, Pandora had a faraway look in her eyes. "It's a horrible thing to become a werewolf, you know. There isn't much we can do to help—the effects at least. All I want is to keep them safe. Safe, darling."

Luna's mouth pressed tightly. There it was again, Pandora's lunacy. It only came out every once in a while—and though she knew her mother was a genius, it was still heartbreaking to note the times where she wasn't normal, wasn't sane. Luna had thought long and hard about the potion's effects…So why couldn't her mother see that? The craziness would lead her straight down into the hands of bloodthirsty wolf-men who would scream at her and claw at her until she gave in, handing over batches of this potion over and over again in an endless cycle.

But what use was it to say anything?

Pandora turned around, still in her dreamlike state, and absentmindedly picked up a vial of clear liquid. She shook it slightly before pouring it into the blue frothing cauldron. Luna narrowed her eyes at this. Clear liquid…was that horklump juice? Or syrup of moonflower? She couldn't tell.

"Mum…are you sure you're adding in the right ingredients?" Luna asked nervously, fidgeting slightly. She wanted to move closer to examine the clear liquid and the now violently-shaded indigo potion but she didn't want to step on the moon dew splattering the floor. Moon dew caused hypothermia and—and lunacy…

Luna froze, staring at her mother who carelessly threw in an eel eye into the cauldron without chopping it first into pieces. Even at age nine, she knew that breathing in moon dew would cause near-permanent damage to the brain, splitting the skull in half, dividing them between the veil world and the real world. And here was the moon dew, splattered on the floor since the last time she'd been down here. She breathed hard, reeling back in her memories. When was the last time she had been down here? It couldn't have been that long ago, only a few days, perhaps a few weeks. Nothing too horribly long, she hoped. But…the last time had been the vanishing legs potion, hadn't it? Hadn't she avoided the basement for a while?

She couldn't shake the feeling that the moon dew wasn't the only problem, though. Something more was causing Pandora's lunacy, more than the moon dew. It was only a small step. Moon dew had to be consistently breathed in for many years before its effects took place unless it was directly consumed. In that case, moon dew would be highly effective in causing madness immediately. And Pandora had been intermittently off her rocker since…since when?

Luna jerked a leg forward, ignoring the pains in her thigh and the bits of moon dew collecting on her shoe. A hypothesis…I need to create a hypothesis. That would be the only solution to resolving the madness. The madness, oh what a wonderful thing it would be if she could find the cause of Pandora's strangeness and eliminate it. But where was it? Where was the root of the lunacy?

Pandora tapped the cauldron's side one, twice before plopping a stirrer into the cauldron and mixing the brew. Luna blinked. Hadn't her father done something similar? But he wasn't quite insane, not really, just a poor man who couldn't think of better titles to tell its readers that he cared about reporting or magical media. Not really. Where else would Luna find solace? Her mother was always working, always working down in the basement trying to find the perfect combination to Wolfsbane Potion, and her father was always working, always working upstairs trying to find the right readers. And there she was, caught in the middle between a loving but half-crazy mother and a father who didn't really connect with her.

But Luna knew the tapping was important. Where did it come from?

"Mum," she said croakily. "Why did you tap the cauldron's side?"

Pandora smiled dreamily at her daughter. "Tapping keeps the Nargles away."

"Nargles?"

"Nargles, darling. They float around your ear and make your brain go fuzzy."

Luna stared, wondering if she should be gaping in disbelief. Nargles? What were Nargles? She'd never heard of such creatures until now, and she'd already read all existing books on the subject of magizoology.

For a moment, Luna was unsure of her next step. Would she move forward to her mother and try to 'restart' her? Or go back towards her father, make a cup of nice, warm Comed tea to bring down again, and forget about this whole lunacy with a good laugh? After tea, her mother always seemed to calm down, just enough to resume her work without muttering strange comments. Strongly, Luna felt the urge to do just that. But, it was practical, yes, wasn't it? To resolve her mother's problem here and now, to fix her until she didn't stay down here all the time with the toxic moon dew and an unknown variable bringing out the madness.

Again she moved forward, stepping on the fine asphodel powder mixing with moon dew. Asphodel…not quite strong enough to cause a reaction with the moon dew. Too light and too fine to properly combust or collide with a human's mind.

What would?

Luna quickly ran through the list: Serpent's blood, erumpent tail, dragon liver, lacewing fly, octopus powder—

Weren't all these ingredients composed of animal parts? And her mother, she was human, if she had touched the moon dew and had mixed it with her blood by accident even once, she would find the madness coming on and off, the infected blood rushing to her brain every few hours in a cycle. And her father, who may or may not have been infected, would have kissed his wife and become mad but only slightly, enough to appear sane. It made sense, and for once Luna didn't know how to solve the problem.

"Mum, have you ever cut yourself down here? Even by accident?" she asked, so close now that if she wanted she could reach out a hand and set it on her mum's shoulders. But she didn't, not wanting to fill herself with the infection and dive into the madness.

"Of course darling!" Pandora laughed gleefully with hands full of moon dew vials. "Of course I have! I'm a potions master darling. And," her voice lowered to a whisper. "I have to see what happens on the Other Side."

"The Other Side?" Luna said, so quietly that her voice was nearly carried away by the hum-dum of the potion's frothing.

"The Other Side of the Veil, my Luna. That's where you'll find all things lost to us, that's where I'll find the solution to my Wolfsbane Potion! What's lost in a werewolf, even for a moment, is its humanity. And we can only retrieve it by delving into the world beyond our senses."

Pandora leaned against her daughter, resting her head on Luna's shoulders. Her hands clutched Luna's robes, grasping them tightly in a squeezing, desperate embrace. Luna, surprised, didn't move, even when the strange clear liquid dripped onto her shoes, mingling them with the moon dew and asphodel.

"My Luna, my Luna," Pandora murmured. "There's so much you must learn still. The Other Side is waiting for you."

And without looking, she scooped up the moon dew, asphodel, and clear liquid from Luna's shoe and poured it into the frothing blue potion.

It exploded.

"The sky has lost a star."