A/N: Hope you enjoy this!
He tried to scratch something with his fingernails but remembered that he had cut them the night before.
He tried to shout with his croaky voice but remembered the scarf tied around his mouth.
He tried to grab his wand and mutter a spell but remembered that she took it and broke it right in front of his very eyes.
How many times has she done this?
How many of them did she kill?
How many more?
.
"Ginny!"
Harry shouted on impulse when he saw the redhead walk by; he hadn't thought it all the way through.
"Yeah?"
"Um…I was thinking…wanna go to Hogsmeade this weekend?" He wasn't even sure there was a Hogsmeade trip that weekend, but it turned out there was.
"S-sure," Ginny stumbled. She smiled, but it seemed forced. Like she had something else to do that weekend.
.
"Do you need help with your homework, Harry? I'm very good at Astronomy."
Harry turned his head and saw Luna. "Oh hey, Luna. Um, sure, I guess. If you have nothing else to do."
"I was actually planning on catching some nargles, but I guess that could wait. I'm pretty sure there aren't any at Hogwarts, anyway."
"Oh okay then." Harry pushed his textbook towards the Ravenclaw and asked her some questions, but not without thinking that Luna Lovegood was the strangest girl he's ever met.
.
"Any last words?" The voice was familiar, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.
"Why do you do this?" he whispered. He didn't have any energy to do much else.
She jabbed the wand at his throat. "Does it matter?"
"I'm about to die so you might as well tell me."
"Maybe if I take off your blindfold you might understand."
"Maybe," the boy agreed.
She took it off.
His eyes widened and he started to say something, but a green light derailed his train of thought.
.
Harry was telling Hermione about Luna helping him with his Astronomy
"That's very nice of her. Are you doing well?"
"Much better than before." It was kind of the truth. Now he was passing.
Barely.
.
He could tell something was wrong.
"Ginny, what is it?"
Ginny shook out of her trance and smiled weakly. "It's stupid."
"Oh come on, you can tell me anything."
"Anything?"
"Definitely."
"I'm failing DADA."
"What?!"
Ginny looked at the ground. "I know, I know. I'm a failure of a girlfriend." She was only half kidding.
Girlfriend? Like, officially? Harry blushed. "You know that's not true, Gin. But you were great at the Ministry last year! How could you be failing?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I just…am."
"Do you want me to help you?"
"And ditch our date? Nah, it's alright."
"It wasn't going to be all that great, anyways."
She laughed. "Alright then."
.
"Oh my god," Ginny whispered. They were in an abandoned classroom–Harry was pushing all the desks and chairs to the side with his wand and Ginny was staring at something behind the desk at the back of the room.
"Oh my god," she repeated. Harry walked over to her. "What's wr–"
He stopped talking.
Piled in the corner was a bunch of dead bodies; one of them being Draco Malfoy's.
.
She killed 43 people so far; 42 muggles, 1 wizard.
Wizard, ha! She laughed. Like that boy was any different from the rest. At least the young Chinese girl brought her back for a minute or two. Draco Malfoy couldn't even bring back a hamster.
How the hell was she supposed to find a soul strong enough to bring back the dead?
.
"We have to tell someone."
Ginny was frozen on the spot. "Oh my god, oh my god…"
Harry didn't recognize anyone in the pile except for Draco. He still couldn't believe he was dead…
"Come on, let's go."
Ginny's legs followed Harry's, but it took effort.
.
"Hermione, there you are, I need to talk to you."
"What is it, Harry?"
His voice lowered. "Me and Ginny found a pile of bodies in the old Transfiguration classroom."
Hermione's eyes widened.
"Why were you guys in there? Professor McGonagall specifically said that all abandoned classrooms are not to be entered."
Harry was confused. "Hermione–we found a pile of bodies in the transfiguration classroom! Dead ones! And Draco was one of them."
Hermione seemed to wake up. She made a strange, high-pitched noise.
"Oh–that's…that's awful!"
"Should we tell Dumbledore?" Ginny asked.
Hermione shook her head hastily. "I want to check it out first. See what I can find."
"Do you want us to come with you?"
"No, it's okay. I'll meet you back in the Common Room in a bit."
.
"Luna!"
"Yes Harry? Oh, hi Ginny. Weren't you two supposed to be on a date?"
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Luna–we found a pile of dead bodies in the old transfiguration classroom."
She was silent. "We should have a ceremony, then. To remember them"
Harry hadn't even thought of that. Ginny opened her mouth to disagree. There were more important things at hand.
"That's a good idea. We'll do that after Hermione finds out who did it."
"Okay, you and Ginny can go down and I'll join you in a bit. My mum always said that you must look nice when you remember someone. That way they'll remember you, too."
.
"Hermione! What did you find?"
Harry and Ginny ran into the classroom and found Hermione crying against the desk.
Like the world had ended.
Ginny immediately ran to her. "What happened?" Harry walked past her towards the pile of bodies.
In that moment time stopped. Stopped before he could warn Ginny not to look behind the desk. Stopped before he could register what he was seeing.
It's not possible.
I'm dreaming.
This isn't real.
It was Ginny's cry that started time again.
He realized, all at once, that it was true. That it happened and that nothing could help change that.
Ron Weasley was dead.
.
"Sorry about your friend."
Luna walked into the room, wearing considerably nicer clothes. The colours didn't clash and the earrings were…normal.
It was quite un-Luna.
"He was the strongest of them all, you know. I got her back for a day."
Hermione and Ginny weren't even listening. Harry had to struggle to focus on Luna's voice. It was hard when the world was crashing all around them.
"But I realized something. The answer was quite obvious, really."
"It's your soul I need," she continued.
Harry couldn't believe his ears. Well, he couldn't believe anything but he definitely couldn't believe his ears.
"My what?"
"Your soul, of course. It's the only way I can bring my mum back to life."
Harry stuttered. "Luna," he whispered. "Necromancy is some really dark stuff."
"Does it look like I'm a fucking angel?"
Her sudden outburst made his heart stop. He had to be dreaming. He had to. Ron couldn't be dead and Luna couldn't be...couldn't be this.
"You've been a good friend to me, Harry. But I have to do this."
She slowly pulled out her wand from her hair. Yellow curls fell down onto her shoulders.
Harry couldn't believe that out of all the people who wanted to kill him, it was Luna Lovegood who finally did.
A/N: So yup, it was Luna! Sorry if this is a bit OOC, but Luna is the most un-evilest person (in my opinion, anyway) so this was super hard! I had a lot of fun writing this, though.
Written for The Duct Tape Competition - Penguin