Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
[A/N]: A little different from canon. Final Battle happens a few months after the original. Luna never gets captured.
Also, the Wrackspurts are kind of evil.
This is written for a practice round in The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. The prompt was an inter-species relationship. This contains a mild slash, mostly implied. And I had some optional prompts to work with, which are:
(occasion) New Year's Eve party;
(word) free
Team: Ballycastle Bats
Position: Beater 2
Enjoy!
Luna likes silence. She likes it when she can't hear the noise of students' chatter, she likes it when she can't hear her Daddy's printers spitting out The Quibbler. She likes being outside, when the quiet wraps around her like a cloak, and she can hear nothing but the soft rustle of trees, the whisper of cool breeze.
When that strange buzz no one but her seems to be able to hear fades into the background.
It is a rare thing, nowadays, that quiet.
She hates the noise.
She hates the Wrackspurts.
Something is different tonight, Luna knows. She listens to the Wrackspurts' excited buzz.
More excited than usual.
But she can't pinpoint why. Why is it so different tonight?
She finds out soon enough, the moment she steps into the Great Hall for dinner.
The House tables have been vanished, save for the Slytherin table where most of the House of Cunning are seated. Some look gleeful, most impassive – others downright ill.
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students huddle together with the Gryffindors. Everyone is afraid. Her stomach twists. She sees Neville standing tall in the centre, and makes her way to him.
The buzz is almost deafening here.
Amycus Carrow speaks, but she can barely hear him over the din of noise. She catches snippets of what he is saying. Celebrate a year of victory… purge the world of taint… rightful place…
She tries to pay attention, to figure out what is going on, but all she can think is that the buzz is getting louder.
"And, our guests of honour," came the male Carrow's nasally voice. There is a mocking tone in it, laced with sadistic humour that lets Luna know that these guests of honour are not going to enjoy this. The doors of the Great Hall creak open, and the buzz of noise simply explodes.
She stares at the man that stumbles through the door, wrapped in chains that Alecto Carrow holds with a pleased look on her face. He is filthy, covered in grime, and his ribs jut out even from under the baggy rags he wears.
This is what the Wrackspurts are excited about.
She stares at him even more closely. There is a look of fear and confusion in his eyes – and something out of place. Something strange. The look of absolute disbelief as his gaze scans the expanse of the Hall and the ceiling above him.
Swallowing hard, she realises that he is a Muggle.
A woman is pushed through after him. Another Muggle. By the way they each strain against their chains, they know each other.
Luna tries to beat back the noise. She succeeds for a bit. She hears the murmurs of the Slytherin students, the ones that are eager to watch. She can hear the ragged breathing of the prisoners in front of her, the man's cries for the woman and her curses at the strange people who kidnapped her and forced her here.
Then, the moment of clarity is gone.
She drowns in the noise.
It's a New Year's Eve party, Amycus said in his speech. On a day of magic and power, we will sacrifice animals to the Darkness. Neville stares at the Muggles. Humans. Not animals. But with the way Amycus looks at them, they might as well be dirt on the floor.
His jaw clenches when he hears the Death Eater speak. "For the opening act, we have Vermin," Amycus points at the man. "And Filth." He points at the woman.
"Creative," drawls Neville. He tries to sound at ease, but it is difficult when Luna is at his side, hands swiping at thin air. He feels irritated, because even though he knows she can't help it, now is not the time for her made-up creatures.
Amycus continues, as though Neville has never interrupted. "First, we will have Vermin come up."
He pauses, his grin grows wider as he looks Neville in the eye, a sight that sends fear coursing through Neville's veins. "And the esteemed Neville Longbottom," he finishes.
Neville stiffens and does not move. Alecto uses her wand and Summons him forward, so that he sprawls carelessly at her feet. There will be bruises where he slammed into the cold concrete but he picks himself up, refusing to make a noise, while Alecto eyes him with undisguised delight.
"In order to celebrate this night of magic and power and victory," says Amycus, his voice carrying over the Muggles' sobs. "We will sacrifice Filth to the Darkness, with, of course, Lord Longbottom's assistance." He laughs out the title.
"No," snarls Neville. "I won't do anything to her, no matter what you try."
"Oh," Alecto smiles maliciously. "No, you won't touch Filth. The ritual, you see, has certain requirements." Neville has no doubt this is a lie. The Carrow twins have a vicious sense of 'humour' that usually involves pain as entertainment. He watches as Alecto's eyes harden. "You will torture this lovely thing here." She nudges the Muggle man with the toe of her shoe and promptly Scourgifies it. "Break it."
Neville feels the blood in his fade drain dramatically. He hears the Muggles' screaming in fear and anger at Alecto's words. In his mind's eye, he sees his mother blankly handing him a sweet wrapper. He sees his father staring out the window, rocking back and forth, mouth moving to form silent, senseless words.
"No," says Neville, his fists clenched. He tries to keep his voice from shaking. From Amycus' vicious grin, he isn't sure if he succeeds. "No fucking way. Go fuck yourself."
Alecto gives her brother a maniacal grin and trains her wand on Neville. "Crucio," she says, almost calmly.
Neville screams.
Alecto stops after ten seconds, and Neville sicks up on the floor, muscles shaking uncontrollably. "Torture the Vermin, Longbottom," says the Carrow twin softly. "Or it'll be you I drive into insanity."
He spits in her face.
Slowly, deliberately, she wipes it off. There is a murderous look in her eye as she roars, "CRUCIO!"
Neville yells and yells and yells. The pain is all that he can think of. He thinks someone else is screaming, but he can't be sure. All he knows is the Carrows have never put him under the Cruciactus for this long.
He feels as though Alecto is putting Fiendfyre through his veins and burning his nerves up from the inside. It claws at him, starts from the tips of his fingers and makes it way up, up and up. Closer to his heart.
This is it, he knows. This is the end for him.
Something in his mind feels like it is being stretched thin. It's close to snapping. Neville feels a kind of relief, because, at least, the pain will end, then.
It stretches – it's close, so close.
The Fiendfyre reaches out for the pounding mass of flesh and muscle in his chest. It flicks out a tongue, closer and closer, to taste.
The pain stops.
Luna remembers the noise. She remembers resurfacing, and seeing Neville on the ground, twitching. She remembers screaming, because she can hear the Wrackspurts' hum.
Louder.
And louder.
It's almost a thin wail of noise.
"STOP!" she begs. She can't even hear herself over the Wrackspurts. "PLEASE, STOP!"
Alecto keeps the curse up, and Luna can almost see the dull, lifeless look in Neville's eyes that would mark his insanity.
Desperate, she whips out her wand.
Alecto lifts the Curse to defend herself and Amycus starts forwards.
But it is unnecessary, because Luna isn't attacking them.
Luna looks at Neville. Listens to the excited buzz in the air.
Her hand trembles violently, her tongue feels thick in her mouth, but her lips form the word anyway.
"Crucio."
Neville doesn't look at her when the Carrows finally let them go. He stalks off, as quickly as possible, never looking back. Nobody looks at her, except for the Death Eaters and their sycophants. All with appraising looks in their eye that makes her sick.
And she does throw up.
And she sobs.
And she screams.
None of her friends look at her. She can see their disgust, their horror.
She runs.
For silence, for quiet, for peace. Away from all that buzzing. It makes her even sicker, makes her want to break her wand into tiny pieces so she can never use it again.
It hurts even more, because she can hear it loudest around the Muggle man, louder than when he was first brought into the Great Hall.
It hurts because she knows she caused it.
But at the same time, she can barely hear it around Neville.
Some of her tears are ones of relief.
Luna doesn't know how she ends up in the Forbidden Forest. She wonders vaguely if one of the Blibbering Humdingers guided her here. They did like to misdirect people, after all.
She does not know, either, how long she sits at the base of this tree. It could have been seconds, minutes, days, months. She sits there, legs drawn up to her chest, pale eyes staring fixedly on a patch of moonlight on the grass before her. The cold does not bother her. She can't even feel it.
Numb.
She does not hear the rustle of leaves, and the soft thud of hooves in the hard ground. She does not feel the presence behind her, looming and threatening.
She does feel the sword pressed against her neck.
"You are dangerously close to the territory line, human," comes a low voice.
She barely registers his words, instead focusing on the feel of the blade on her skin. She shivers at its cold steel. How simple it would be, to just press her throat against it and slide. She deserves it, after all, for what she has done.
As though sensing her thoughts, the man pulls the sword away. "Foolish humans," he mutters. Luna tilts her head upwards ever so slightly. She catches a glimpse of him, and makes out his silhouette, the vague idea of his shape.
Not man – a centaur.
He retreats into the shadow, however, not giving her the chance to see him properly. She lowers her gaze, knowing from Harry and Hermione's stories, as well as her own knowledge of them, that centaurs are the proudest of the proud, and take offence easily.
He is so silent she thinks he has left, deeming her not a threat.
Then, she hears a noise as he shifts.
"One shines bright in you," he speaks, an edge of disdain in his voice. "Mars, for that which he values. Do not let it go out."
He gallops away. Feeling bleeds back into her. The buzz in her ears die a little.
She returns almost every day after that. Sometimes he is there. Most of the times he isn't.
She isn't sure why he comes. But she doesn't question it.
The first time she speaks to him, it is because she can barely remember her own voice anymore. She tells him how most of the people she knows shun her. She tells him that Neville tries to talk to her sometimes, saying that he knows why she did it and that he is thankful, and how she sees the pain and conflict in his eyes so she never responds.
He does not say much. Half the time she isn't even sure if he is listening. She wonders if he thinks she is boring. But he doesn't say anything, so she keeps going.
Soon enough, she talks to him constantly. Even the nights she knows he isn't there, the words spill out of her lips anyway. It fills up the silence, lightens up the weight of it that presses down on her. She imagines he is there, in the darkness, listening.
With every word that she speaks, the numbness releases its hold on her a little.
The silence comforts her. She doesn't hear the Wrackspurts anymore.
It's nice.
She starts asking questions. It's little things. His name. His life. If he has family.
He doesn't say anything, except to reply that his name is Bane.
She repeats it, liking the way it feels in her mouth. She tells him her name.
The eve of the summer solstice brings about new change. Voldemort lays down new law that all students are now to remain at Hogwarts year round. Or at least, the Ministry does.
Luna almost laughs.
It is an open secret that the Ministry is controlled by Voldemort. It seems like a bad joke, but Luna knows it's reality.
To protect the younger generation from the ongoing war, is the Ministry's excuse.
She tells Bane this, and she swears she hears him chuckle. But she turns and he is not there.
The dawn of summer solstice comes with a darkness she has almost managed to forget in the past months.
It starts at lunch, this time, in the Great Hall.
When she walks in, she tries to run back out again. But Alecto has predicted this and she Petrifies her. A woman lies in a crumpled heap on the floor. Next to the woman, a boy who looks like he is her son, and also, Luna is horrified to see, looks like he is barely Hogwarts age.
"Have a little present for you, Lovegood," says the Carrow twin. He is wearing that gleeful smirk that means someone somewhere is about to get hurt. "Since you played with the last one so well."
Luna's heart thuds against her ribcage violently when the meaning sinks in.
"Now, I know you are all about the Light, like Dumbledore," Amycus sneers at the name. "So let's make this a little more fun."
Most of the people in the Hall hoot and laugh. It's not many. The Room of Requirement holds more than half of Hogwarts' population now.
Amycus sets her down while his sister picks up where she left off. "It's simple, Lovegood," says Alecto. "You pick one to torture, and the other one lives. Either the half-blood kid or the blood traitor mother gets to stay here and live a happy life." She snickers at that, and Luna knows why.
Nobody here is ever happy. Sadistic, twisted, excited, maybe. Never happy.
Amycus Ennervates the woman and the boy. They blink their eyes open slowly, before waking up completely as the panic sets in.
When Alecto releases the Body-Bind, Luna asks, "And what if I don't pick either of them?"
"Then we torture and kill both of them," says Amycus. He looks almost wistful, as though he is hoping that Luna refuses to pick.
Luna looks at the woman and the boy. The boy is spitting in anger, but the mother looks resigned. She gives Luna a minute nod, jaw clenched.
Luna glances at the boy with his wide, angry eyes. She thinks he will hate her forever. She thinks she doesn't blame him. She thinks she will hate herself forever.
She remembers the nights spent in the Forbidden Forest, whispering her secrets to Bane. It was freeing. A weight off her shoulders and a breath of fresh air that brought back happier times. When life was still roses and peace. She remembers hoping that the feeling will stay with her forever.
Luna points her wand at the woman.
How stupid.
She thinks of the Wrackspurts, their recent silence, and knows that if she still heard them, she would've known this was coming, just like on New Year's Eve. She would've known to stay away.
How naïve.
She hates herself for that, and hates it even more because she knows that she hates herself more for her foolish fantasies than she will hate herself for what she is about to do.
"Crucio."
The incantation echoes in Luna's mind. The numbness descends on her again. It takes away the self-hatred. Makes it easier when she has to listen. She hears the mother's choked wails of agony. She hears the boy's sobs. Feels his loathing.
She knows what she is. Its shackles weigh her feet down.
Monster.
The hum of Wrackspurts grows. It fills her mind and surrounds her.
Monster.
She tears at her hair. It doesn't help. She can't feel.
Monster.
Luna doesn't return to the Forbidden Forest. Her days are spent in a haze. She isn't quite sure what the date is anymore – or even, what season it is.
She wonders if Bane misses her.
The thought barely surfaces before it drowns in her mind again.
She glances outside her window. She can see the Forest from here.
She sits up suddenly, grey eyes wide.
She thinks she sees him, standing there, at the edge of the forest. It has to be him, she reasons, even though she has never seen him before. Very few centaurs would have reason to come right up to the edges of the Forest, beyond the boundary lines that protect them, just to stare at a castle tower.
Luna raises a hand, wondering if he can see her.
A flash of grey and white, and the centaur vanishes back into the forest.
Luna thinks of the way the moonlight ripples across his body. Beautiful.
The next time she sees him is at the Battle of Hogwarts. He is fighting next to her, a curious sight for many. Centaur and witch working together to beat back Voldemort's forces. His kin assist from the Forest, raining arrows on enemies.
Only he stands with them.
Somehow, in the heat of the Battle, she manages to marvel at his beauty. She feels a strange sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that she was right. As she twirls around with her wand, she catches glimpses of him.
He fights with his sword, elegant. Almost as if he is dancing.
His dark hair is long and silky, strands of it whipping through the air as he cuts and slashes.
He looks free.
If she dies, it is because she is entranced.
In the aftermath of the Battle, Luna stays close to him. People around her mourn the loss of their loved ones. She sees, in a distance, the redheaded Weasley family, crowded around a body. She isn't sure who. She doesn't want to know who.
Bane's warmth draws her in like a moth to a flame. She has forgotten how it feels like to be around him. She leans against the wall, watching as he gives Firenze a nod.
She closes her eyes, savouring the muted noise from the Wrackspurts.
Bane speaks first. "The light of Mars wavers."
Luna keeps her eyes shut and does not reply. A few moments later, she feels his hesitant touch on her shoulder. She suppresses a shiver. "I can't," she says finally. "I'm not strong."
She can feel his piercing gaze. "Stronger than many."
She tries to ignore the tear tracking its way down her cheeks.
Bane's next words are slow. Awkward, as though he isn't sure how to say them. "What you call… Wrackspurts. You are the first of your kind that I have known to be able to sense them. In this manner, at least. Usually, those that can hear the, ah, Wrackspurts are often… not all there, I suppose you would say.
"That you have managed to not fall to insanity is testament to your strength itself," he says. "Have faith."
"I'm already insane." Luna leans into his hand. "You have just said more to me than you have ever said to me before. All the times combined."
"Indeed," he sounds amused.
She is a monster.
The Wrackspurts' buzz surrounds and clings to her. She will never escape it.
But she can feel the warmth of Bane's hand, and the texture of it against her skin.
She smiles.
It's nice.