Chapter One
Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since the Battle. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since George had last spoken. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since Luna had lost herself. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since Harry had disappeared. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since Hermione and Ron had set of looking for him. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty six hours since Ginny had gone home. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since Neville had left for Asia. Three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since the world was free. And three weeks, two days, twelve hours, and thirty two minutes since their world was broken.
Luna sat at the empty kitchen table, nursing a cup of chai tea. She barely registered the creaking of the printing press, and her father's incoherent mumbles. She barely noticed when the creaking stopped, and when Xenophilius Lovegood came downstairs, hair in a topknot, and two suitcases levitating behind him. She heard from a long tunnel how he was leaving, how he needed to find himself, and if she needed him he would be in the Andes mountains, searching for the rare Clastorphorus. She didn't move when he hugged her goodbye, and she didn't move when he apparated away.
She didn't move at all. Luna didn't know how long she sat there, staring through her cup of tea, mind empty. It seemed as though all beauty had been sucked out of the world, all magic, and all excitement. How could she be expected to be okay when Harry was gone, Hermione and Ron were searching for him, and Ginny and Neville were nowhere to be found? She had been abandoned, abandoned by the people who swore never to leave her. And now, without them, she was haunted.
The screeching laugh of Bellatrix Lestrange echoed around Luna's head, and the curses she tortured Luna with bounced through her skull. She would be woken by a stream of water, dragged out of the dark basement, and thrown into the center of leering Death Eaters. They took turns torturing her, far after her voice became hoarse from screams, burning her body in malice. As she contorted beneath their feet, they laughed, and mocked her, calling her weak, a blood traitor, a filthy faggot whore. And all the while, Draco Malfoy stood near, jaw clenched, hands stiff by his sides. She looked into his eyes, and she saw his fear. She saw his heart, beating out of his throat, screaming, This is wrong! She is innocent! She believed you! She never hurt you, never lied, never slandered you, never hated you. The one person who didn't hate you, liked you, even, tortured by your family.
Luna saw his fear, and his weakness, and his intense, unfiltered hatred. So much anger-so much hate. His hatred for his family, hatred for his weakness, his passive nature. And yes, hatred for the dark arts he was drowning in. It oozed off him, like black oil, puddling by his feet and dripping off his nose. It seemed unending, unstoppable, a sleepless death that had already enveloped the boy. But Luna saw the oil was not plentiful; it dripped because it couldn't get into Draco. Some small part of him was uncorrupted, uncorroded by the crimes of his family and himself. And Luna forgave him, in that moment, for all he had let be done to her. Because he didn't have a choice; his path was laid out, and it was follow, or be led.
The doorbell sounded, shaking Luna out of her nightmarish trance. She got up, wrapping her blanket around her wiry frame, and opened the door. There stood George Weasley, deep circles around his eyes, his flame red hair faded, the spark in his eyes gone. He stared at Luna in shock, at her drastically changed appearance. Her eyes were dull, lids drooping in defeat. Her dirty blonde hair was almost white, an effect of the torture she had undergone. Her frame, formerly healthy and curvy, was frail, like an old woman, with bones sticking out and shoulders hunched.
"George?" Luna whispered in disbelief, staring at the lanky form in front of her. "Yeah…" He croaked, the first word he had spoken in weeks. They stood there, eyeing each other in disbelief, for a few minutes. Finally, Luna opened the door up, allowing George entrance. He walked in, steps lacking his trademark saunter.
"Tea?" Luna asked, already pouring some into a cup. George sat down, nodding slowly. The two hadn't known each other before the D.A., but their mutual affection for Harry and Ginny brought them much closer together. More still during Luna's sixth year, when the two kept in contact during Voldemort's reign.
"What bring-what brings you here?" Luna stuttered, her hand shaking as she poured her own cup. George just stared into the hot tea, watching the tendrils of steam curl and wind their way into the air. His eyes were sunken in shadowy abysses, and their was long gone. Everything about George seem faded, a mere imprint of what was once a bright, vivacious wizard. His face didn't even seem his; it was pale and sickly, and the edges seemed to blur in Luna's eyes. His hair had lost its vibrancy, reduced now to a stained auburn color.
"Mum seemed to think getting out of the house would be good for me." Even his voice had lost its life, a soft echo of his liveliness instead of a demonstration of it. "I dropped by the Longbottom's, but Neville's grandma didn't seem to interested in company. Something about her son gallivanting off…"
"He's been gone since the battle ended. Taking a sabbatical in Asia," Luna murmured, a sharp pain piercing her heart at the thought of her friend alone in the wilderness, coaxing a flower from some exotic and rare plant. She had offered to come with him, but Neville declined, leaving before Luna had fully realized his intentions.
"That'll explain it…" George replied, his eyes still fixated on the steam, now slower, rising from his cup. Luna took a hesitant sip, staring at George with her large, luminescent eyes. Suddenly, his head jerked up, and a half-hearted attempt of a smirk flitted across his face. "Look at us, sitting here like a couple of old hags. Old Voldy really did a number on us, didn't he? Bet he'd be proud of his handiwork."
"He doesn't decide what we do with our lives now. We do." Luna whispered, not looking up from her cup.
"That's the problem, though, innit? I dunno what to do with it now. Not anymore." George said, sighing.
Luna got up very suddenly, almost upsetting her cup. George watched, bemused, as she wandered around the room silently, looking around the empty, disheveled kitchen. With a sudden conviction, she dashed outside. George got up and followed her, mildly interested for the first time in weeks.
George followed Luna over a lush green hill and into a cove of trees. She walked with conviction, looking neither left nor right, and never deviating from her path. George followed Luna silently for the better half of thirty minutes, until she came to an abrupt stop in front of a slim willow tree. Luna sat down slowly, crossing her legs under her and staring at the base of a willow tree where a small grave lay. George stood a few feet back, feeling as though he was intruding on an intimate moment.
"Have you ever heard the muggle story Cinderella?" Luna asked, not looking around at George. She seemed to take his silence as a no, and continued. "There are several versions of it, but I find comfort in the original Brothers Grimm one. Cinderella's mother dies, and her father remarries to an evil stepmother and two terrible stepsisters. They hate Cinderella, so they make her life miserable. She cries every day on her mother's grave, until eventually a magical tree grows from her tears.
"One day, there's a ball thrown by the Prince, and Cinderella wants to go, so she asks her stepmother. In response, her stepmother throws a pile of lentils into the ash of the fireplace, and tells Cinderella if she can pick up all the lentils and finish her chores, she can go. So Cinderella cries, because she knows she can't do all that in time. But Cinderella starts to sing, and a bunch of birds come and pick up the lentils.
"Still, though, Cinderella's stepmother doesn't let her go, since she has nothing to wear. So she runs to her mother's grave and makes a wish. The magical tree gives her a beautiful dress, and glass slippers, and Cinderella goes to the ball. Then the next evening, she returns to the tree, and she gets to go to the ball again. And again, on the third day. And the Prince is in love with her, but she doesn't want him to know she's just a servant girl, so she leaves before he can find out. Except on the third night he spreads pitch on the steps of the palace, and she loses her glass slipper.
"The Prince uses the slipper to find Cinderella, and has every maiden try on the slipper, but everyone's feet are too large. Finally he gets to Cinderella's house, and both of her stepsisters try to fit the shoes on by cutting bits of their feet off. But the magic tree tells the Prince, and he returns each time. Finally, he finds Cinderella, and she fits the shoe, and they get married and live happily ever after."
After Luna finished, a comfortable silence fell over the two. They were both too preoccupied with their own thoughts to think about the other. Finally, Luna spoke again, her voice soft and weary, tangling itself in the gentle wind which whistled the willow leafs.
"I always liked that story, even before my mum died. I planted this here, once we buried her. I even used to save my tears in old bottles so I could bring them here. Didn't work, though. I wish magic was like magic in the old muggle stories. Arbitrary, sure, but much better than what we've got."
George shuffled forward and sat next to Luna in silence. The grave was almost too small, only about half a meter tall and 30 centimeters tall. It was just a slab of rough grey stone with the name Pandora engraved on it. No dates, no messages.
"I like that. The Cinderella story." George said, still gazing at the tree. "Our mum never really told us muggle stories. Guess she was never really exposed to them."
Luna smiled sadly. "My mum was half blood, so she grew up with them. I've got her old Brothers Grimm fairytale book in my room. It's over a hundred years old. Passed down from mother to daughter. A family treasure.
"I wonder if I'll have anyone to pass it down to."