From her place at the back of the Room of Requirement, Luna Lovegood watched as Ginny Weasley and Dennis Creevy approached the front. Though it had taken the same form as the last time Luna had been inside for a meeting of the Hogwarts Harry Potter Fan Club, today it felt strangely large.
Many of the adults were still in the Great Hall, finding the bodies and tallying the losses. No doubt Harry, Ron, and Hermione were somewhere alone with each other, grateful to longer have to fight. In this room, Luna sat with those schoolchildren who, like her, had not given up on Harry under the tyranny of Death Eaters through the past year at Hogwarts. She sat with her classmates who had chosen instead to band together and fight back in any way they could. All of them shifted uncomfortably today, unable to fill the empty spaces that should have held those friends who had not made it through the last fight.
Luna blinked and returned her attention to the front as Ginny began to talk. "I call to order the final meeting of the Hogwarts Harry Potter Fan Club," she said, a small twist to her lips that could as easily have been a grimace as a smile. "This club was formed by Colin Creevey after Amycus Carrow used the cruciatus curse on his younger brother and his brother's best friend." Behind her, Dennis bowed his head as many of the room's occupants turned their eyes on him. Ginny continued on. "He knew that the skills Harry taught us two years ago in Dumbledore's Army could be used now, to save others. Just as Harry helped us once, so now we could follow his example, perhaps not by learning curses and fighting Voldemort outright, but by being there for each other, by helping to keep each other whole and sharing information, so that if Harry did need us to fight one day, we would be prepared to help him destroy the evil that was tearing apart our world and our school. Colin fell to that evil yesterday, defending the ideals he believed in."
Everyone bowed their heads with Ginny. Luna remembered the kind boy who had never once mocked her. He had always listened to her theories with interest rather than the derision she received from many of her peers. She had not even known he was in the battle too, until she ran past his corpse while dueling a Death Eater. His presence had not surprised her, but she had cried later when the battle was done.
After a respectful moment of silence, Ginny continued to speak. "Many of those who fought with us and helped us throughout the past year did not live to see this day. Their cause is triumphant, but that their lives were forfeited for our victory is no less a tragedy for that. Those of us in this room right now have the rest of our lives to be happy and live. Today, we should remember our friends who were not so lucky." Ginny's voice broke, and Neville abruptly stood up from the front of the room to offer her a hug. Luna had always liked Neville as well; he was such a kind boy, though he never really seemed to understand her. In spite of their differences, he had never made fun of her either. Ginny shrugged him off after a moment of comfort.
"We have built armies and clubs and proved that House and blood matter little when it comes to friendship, loyalty, strength, and compassion for all," she said, voice shaking only a little. "Though there is no longer a point to this group now that Voldemort is dead, I would like to propose that we use this one last meeting to remember our friends who died for those beliefs so that we could live. We can spend today on remembrance, because we have tomorrow and the rest of our lives to spend on success."
The room remained silent for several moments, before Seamus stood and grinned shakily. "I couldn't have said it better myself, Ginny," he said. "I know I for one could share a couple stories about Terry that I know he'd prefer to be remembered by." Several people smiled as they, too, remembered the fiercely intelligent Ravenclaw boy.
Shortly after, the room began to fragment into smaller groups as everyone came up with their favorite stories by which to recall their friends and comrades. The still silence transformed into a buzz of activity, with Luna a quiet island at the edge.
No one but Neville noticed when Luna slipped away. The crush of awed students as him to recount his killing of Naginia kept him too occupied to follow, and after a few minutes, he forgot his friend's departure.
o0o0o
A short while later found Luna wandering aimlessly through the edges of the Forbidden Forest. Remembering the dead was all well and good, but it would not bring them back. She knew that well from all the hours she had once spent staring into painted images of her mother's face, only for her mother to remain stubbornly gone. If only there was something she could do this time. So many lives had been ruined by this war, and Luna ached for them. She knew what it was like to be lonely, afraid, and misunderstood, and this war had brought those feelings upon so many good people who otherwise would never have reason to be unhappy.
Really, she thought, it all went back to a boy named Tom Riddle who had gone so wrong somewhere along the way in his life. She had heard Harry speaking to Voldemort in the Great Hall, in the final moments of the battle. She had heard Harry accuse the monster of being unable to understand love, unable to regret the pain he caused. While those were understandable traits in a monster, had Tom not once been a little boy? Luna did not believe that he could have been born evil.
But sometimes loneliness put ugly thoughts into her head, and made her feel as though she would never understand the people around her. Befriending people in her fourth year had been like a burst of light and color into a steadily darkening world. Without that light, she wondered, would she have ended up going from not understanding people to killing them? She did not think so, but she had also been raised with an open mind, to not discount possibilities even if they seemed unlikely. So, she had to wonder, could Tom Riddle, and thus the world, have been saved if someone had shown him he was not alone? It was a silly question now, but even silly questions were sometimes useful.
As she wandered, Luna was brought out of her musings by a muffled honking in the underbrush. Curious, Luna crouched down and glanced into the bushes at the very edge of the forest, head cocked slightly to the side and blue eyes open as wide as they would go. The creature that shuffled towards her out of the underbrush would likely have sent most students screaming for the castle; Luna beamed in unexpected delight.
The creature waddled on stubby legs that brought seals to mind, except that it was the size of a small horse. It had a pair of rough, bat-like wings curled against its sides, and a ridge of small spines down the middle of its back. The most interesting feature, however, was the curling, malformed horn protruding from the creature's head, a horn that could easily be described as 'crumpled.'
"You're a Crumple-Horned Snorkak, aren't you?" Luna asked, blue eyes wide in excitement. The creature bobbed its head in what Luna imagined was a nod. This was perfect!
Crumple-Horned Snorkaks were the rarest of the creatures her father had told her about. She had always wanted to see one, but they only appeared to those of great need and pure intentions. She had hoped to see one for months after the death of her mother, but nothing had ever shown up. Now though, perhaps Tom Riddle had given the wizarding world a great enough need to call one of these beautiful creatures to Hogwarts.
"Have you come to help me change things?" she asked, and the Snorkak executed its head bobbing nod again. It seemed to beckon her forwards, and so she moved closer to it. "I always knew I would see one of you one day. I promise I will not let you down."
The Snorkak watched her through filmy, deep-set eyes. They judged her, but Luna was not afraid. It would not have shown itself at all had she not been deemed worthy already. She would be able to stop everything. All she had to do was show a sad and lonely boy how to care about the world. No easy task, considering who that boy was, but Crumple-Horned Snorkaks never judged wrong, not if anything her father had ever taught her could be believed. She made the final step bridging the gap between herself and the Snorkak and reached out her hand. In response, the Snorkak lowered its horn to meet her hand.
As hand and horn touched, warmth spread through Luna, and she could have sworn an ancient voice whispered in her ear, "Be careful, child, and do not fail. Keep your heart pure, and you may succeed. But be warned. If you cannot change the child's heart, then you must stop it or risk the future of your world."
With that, Luna Lovegood disappeared forever from the Hogwarts grounds of 1998.
AN: Look, I'm back years and years later! I've done very minor edits to this chapter, though I suspect anyone who read this years ago would still have to reread anyway.