Hands and Knees

July, the summer before Luna Lovegood began her third year at Hogwarts.

She walked through her forest. Trees grew tall and thin around her. It was as familiar to her as the shelves in her room and the rickety furniture of her home. It was her home. She hummed quietly to herself, having found a grackle-sack on her walk. She was so pleased. As the trees began to grow fewer and farther in between she caught sight of her beautiful little house.

And the second she did she knew that something had gone wrong. It was peaceful, it was quiet, and it was never quiet. There were none of the bangs and clangs that made the place cozy. And the person that made those noises—the person that made this home—was nowhere to be seen.

Her gut sinking into her shoes, Luna dropped the basket she brought on these excursions and ran back to the house. She threw open the front door and glanced about. Cautiously she stepped over the threshold. Heading toward the bedroom her father occupied, she whispered without knowing why. "Dad?"

The bedroom door swung open unbidden, as it was apt to do. Luna stood frozen, wishing beyond wishing that she couldn't see what she saw. The door swung back and forth, temperamental as ever.

Close, she thought. The idea reverberated hollowly through her skull. Close. Close.

It swung shut again, but her eyes stared at the door, still seeing what was behind it: Xenophilius Lovegood hanging by his neck, eyes open and unseeing.

"Daddy?" she choked, try as she did to stop the strangled sound escaping her throat. The indignity of it added insult to injury. Tears began to flow, and drip down her flowery dress. She could remember picking it that morning, and his compliment on it, and his suggestion she go walking for the day. A good, old-fashioned exploration. And while she was away...? She felt stupid. She turned away from the door, which had again swung open to reveal her dead father. His shocking white hair and blue robes limp on his body. She pretended it wasn't there and tried to work out what to do.

Luna had no one else in the world. Not a mother, not an aunt, nobody. She didn't even have a neighbor. She had no friends. Neither had her father. She had to tell someone. She needed an adult, and there was only one she was certain she could trust. The only authority figure she trusted farther than she could chuck a red-faced Triggleskenk.

So after hastily crafting a letter she stood in front of her house and watched an owl fly away, far away to Dumbledore. Her tears dried in a twilight breeze, and she sat down to wait for him.

It was hours until he made it to her. Dumbledore had received the owl and Apparated without a second thought. Luna was sitting on her steps, hugging a knapsack to her chest when she fell asleep. He discovered her like that, folded in on herself and trembling with cold. Dumbledore carefully stepped around her. He had been here once before, to interview with Xenophilius for the Quibbler. The story had been dropped when Dumbledore had failed to comment on the supposed Goblin heritage of Cornelius Fudge.

Dumbledore knew what awaited in the bedroom from Luna's letter. Gingerly he pushed the door open, with everything in his body fighting against his movement. It never got any easier for him, seeing people with the light gone out of their eyes. He levitated the body and set it magically down on the bed, trying not to vomit. Dead bodies always made him sick. Unsure of what to do with it after putting it in a more manageable position, he turned away and stood for a second.

Now that was... reasonably dealt with, he'd have to see to Luna. He wondered why this fell on his shoulders.

Night had fallen long ago, and it was pitch-black in the country. Dumbledore joined Luna on the step. He took several deep breaths, stood before her, sat down once more, then stood again. How best to approach this? The shaking of her perch woke her and she sat calmly up, and looked at him with empty, red-rimmed eyes. The twinkle so familiar to all his students was absent from his eyes as he returned the gaze.

"Hello, Professor," Luna said quietly, and it calmed them both.

Dumbledore smiled gently. "Hello, Luna." He finally joined her on the bench and they sat in silence for a while, both thinking, Dumbledore panicking. She was depending on him, this little girl. Just like Arabella. He didn't know what to do then and he didn't know what to do now. They sat until Dumbledore felt he might burst.

"I can't pretend it's up to me where you go, Luna. And despite the wishes you expressed in your letter the Ministry of Magic must have a certificate of death on file, which means somebody needs to take care of the body." Her face reddened.

"Nobody will want me," Luna said frankly. "Do I have to go to a children's home? Is there a children's home for wizards?"

"Don't you have any relatives?" Dumbledore asked, hearing the desperation in his own voice. He wondered for the seventh time why this was all up to him.

Quieter than she'd ever said anything, she whispered, "I used to have an aunt. My dad's sister, his twin. She's died, two months ago, while I was at school. He loved her - " Her breath caught.

"...So much. I used to have a mum, too," she said and looked up at him. She'd told him the story before, but she faced it again. Her chest filled with some emotion she was too tired to label, and she found strength enough to keep speaking. "But she's dead too. Everyone's dead."

His eyes crumpled in painfully genuine sadness, for her and in a way for himself. "I'm very sorry."

Luna wondered whether she should've told someone that her father cried in the mornings, and that he'd spend whole days in complete silence, without eating or sleeping. Luna wondered whether this was her fault. Her head bent under the weight of that thought, and Dumbledore studied the fall of her hair in front of her face.

Suddenly, the ever-spinning gears of his consciousness had set upon an idea, latched onto this most radical and strange notion. Finally, a plan began to formulate in his mind and he set it in motion. With this, the entire course of Luna's life was changed. With this one thought, Dumbledore ensured Luna would live forever in the hearts and minds of millions. With this, Luna was condemned to death.

It could've turned out differently - but it didn't.