Was she real? Or was she a figment of his imagination, a way his brain was coping with his imprisonment? Mr Ollivander didn't know. All he knew that one morning (morning he called it, as he had just woken up, but day and night had lost their meaning in the dark dungeon), the girl had appeared in his cell.
She couldn't be real. She was just so much out of place here. In the faint light that fell through the keyhole, her blonde hair was almost shining, giving her a ghostly appearance, if she hadn't been so lively. She was wearing bright radish earrings, and wore a very odd necklace with a butterbeer cork.
He wanted to stretch out his hand towards hers to make sure she wasn't a ghost or a hallucination, but he was tied to the dungeon walls, and she was too far away.
"Who are you?" she asked him.
"I'm Mr Ollivander. Who are you?"
"Luna Lovegood," the girl replied.
He remembered. Eleven inches, oak, unicorn hair. A fine wand. But probably lost, now that she had been taken prisoner. Or was he imagining things, matching an imaginary wand to an imaginary girl?
"What date is it?" he asked, having lost any measure of time.
"It is Christmas Eve tomorrow," Luna answered.
"Which year?"
"1997."
So one and a half years had passed since he had been taken prisoner.
"Tell me a story. Anything. I just need to hear a human voice again," he asked her.
The girl's tales turned out to be even more surreal than her appearance. She told him about creatures he had never heard of, of Nargles and Wrackspurts and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
But no matter the contents of her tales, it was such a relief to hear a kind human voice again, something else than the crushing silence that was only disrupted by the harsh insults of his captors.
Either he had already lost his mind and all this weirdness about her was a product of his own insanity, or she was the one keeping him sane.
He had no similarly creative tales to tell, but she listened patiently to his lectures on wandlore, maybe simply understanding that he needed someone to talk to after a long time of being alone in this cell.
One day, he woke up and noticed that something was different. The girl was sitting next to him, and he felt her arm against his. She was, after all, real.
"Hold still, Mr Ollivander," she said. "I'm cutting the ropes with a rusty nail, and I don't want to hurt you."
How odd it was, that after all they had been through, she was still careful to not scratch him with that rusty nail. He felt the ropes snap that bound his arms together, and for the first time in many days, he spread his arms freely.
"Thank you, Luna," he answered. He felt like embracing her, but then he remembered that he was covered in filth, and besides that, old enough to be her grandfather.
Their imprisonment went on, and he almost thought that the Dark Lord had forgotten them here. Their only visitor was the Malfoy boy, who brought stale bread and some water every day, just enough to keep them alive. And he never talked to the prisoners. He was as pale as if he was living underground with them, and Luna said he looked sad and afraid.
And then, one day, Harry Potter and his friends, as well as the goblin Griphook, were thrown into their dungeon.
Luna had told him much about Harry Potter. Ollivander remembered him as the shy little boy who had come alone into his shop, and had purchased this remarkable wand. Of course he knew about some of his heroics at school, but from Luna's stories, he had gotten to know Harry Potter, not the Chosen One, the Boy-Who-Lived, but the boy who had befriended the weird lonely girl and the boy who taught the other students defence when their teacher wouldn't.
As Ron Weasley lighted the deluminator, the light almost blinded Mr Ollivander. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness during his year-long captivity. Suddenly, a tumult broke out. Before he knew what was happening, Dobby the free house-elf took them to a house on the seashore. He had always thought Dobby was just another on Luna's inventions.
Only there, now he was in safety, he noticed how much his captivity had weakened him. Could this be real? One moment, he was in a dark dungeon, and the next one, he was in a comfortable bed, and the Veela-like Fleur Weasley was nursing him back to health. Shell Cottage was too good to be real, but if it wasn't, why was he still feeling weak from the months of imprisonment?
And Luna was there with him. As soon as he was strong enough, he promised, he would make her a new wand. And he kept his promise.
"Thank you, Mr Ollivander," she said, as he handed her the new wand.
"No, Luna, I made this to thank you," he replied.