Ring a Ring of Roses
Luna sat in her empty compartment, watching the wide expanse of green, yellow and sometimes red fields of the country flit by. A knock came at her door and she turned to watch Ginny walk in, her eyes puffy, her cheeks damp.
"Ginny?" Luna asked, worried. The girl looked up, shock written across her face.
"I'm sorry Luna, I'll go..." She turned, her robes and hair billowing behind her in her haste.
"Ginny! It's okay. I don't mind. Often when I'm upset I enjoy a good cup of hornsnack tea and a talk. I don't have any tea, but I'm happy to listen" Luna added a soft smile on the end, regretting not picking up a flask of tea before she left home. Ginny really looked like she could do with a sip.
"I'm not upset I... I have hay fever" the girl mumbled. Luna gave her a significant look before gesturing to the seat opposite her. Ginny wavered, uncertainty in every line of her body.
"Ginny!" a voice called. Her face hardened and she slammed the compartment door shut, sending Luna a taut smile. A figure flashed past the blurred glass of their door, not pausing. Luna heard them call for Ginny once more, but chose to ignore them.
"Do you not have a remedy for that?" Luna asked, pretending nothing had just happened "I thought you and your brothers were each given a bottle by your mother?" Luna tilted her head, hearing raised voices through the door. Ginny was slouched in her seat, her face tight, her lips pursed. At Ginny's question she glanced up at her, her face clearing.
"Er..." She winced as she heard her name again, but paid no attention to it "I must have left it on my bed. I'm always doing things like that" She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Luna reminded herself to give Ginny some cherries later on; they helped people relax.
"Well that's okay" Luna shifted, bringing her woollen bag over to her. The bag was multicoloured and knitted by her mother before she died. Luna always used it as a sort of carry on. She rummaged through it a while before her fingers brushed across soft, almost waxy, petals. She pulled out the rose, plucked by her father from their rose bush in their garden, and held it in the palm of her hand. "This will help" Luna said assuredly.
"How so?" Ginny asked, obviously preoccupied.
"Oh, it's quite simple really" Luna cast a separating spell, carefully dividing each individual petal. They hovered in a disjointed shape of the rose before Luna began weaving her wand. Each petal folded round itself, curving into a new delicate rose shape, no bigger than the pad of her thumb. Luna smiled at her work. Her father had taught her the spell many years ago; she was getting rather good at it.
"Wow" Ginny breathed, entranced.
"Splendid, aren't they?" Luna smiled, weaving the stem of the rose into a band, then attaching each tiny rose to it. It was perfect, the green a lush contrast to the ruby red of the tiny roses.
"Here" Luna leant forward, resting the roses on top of Ginny's head "They help keep the other flowers at bay, because they hold such strong aura's. It will help with your hay fever" Ginny bent her head, a flash of sun making the roses glisten and bringing out the golden red in Ginny's hair.
When she looked back up at Luna, there was a genuine smile gracing her lips.
Pocket full of posies
Luna was picking flowers on the grounds of Hogwarts. A little way off from her, his hands caked in mud, his face drenched in sweat, Neville was occupied with some sort of plant.
Luna found a particularly large patch of wild flowers, bursts of colour among white and blue wild flowers. Luna laughed delightedly.
Ignoring Neville's questioning look in her direction, she placed the flowers she already had in her hands and began to pluck the vibrantly coloured plants that littered this area of the grounds.
"Luna, I thought you were coming out here to help me?" Neville asked, coming over to where Luna crouched among the flowers.
"Oh, I am" Luna nodded, plucking a particularly gorgeous flower.
"How is flower picking helping? I meant to be harvesting porous fungi!" He laughed, crouching down next to her.
"Neville, you're full of worries, flowers like these will help" Luna smiled over at him, ignoring the look of disbelief that crossed his features, quickly covered by a look a cool interest.
"Yes, well... I'm going to go back over there" He promptly stood and walked over to his dig site. Luna didn't really want to know more about porous fungi, all she really needed could be found here.
She knew why Neville was so worried; the war terrified her too. Yet Neville thought everything that happened to people he knew was his fault. She didn't know what porous fungi could do for someone, but she did know what posies could do.
Whenever she was stressed, her father would give her a bundle of posies, promising her that by tomorrow, she would be able to sort it out, nice and easy.
Hopping to her feet, she skipped over to Neville, wrapping her arms around his waist. She slipped the posies into his pocket, smiling knowingly at him when he pulled back from the embrace. He laughed.
"What was that for?" He grinned down at her, his sweaty red face brimming with happiness. See, better already. Luna shrugged, her only answer a smile. Neville gave her a sweet smile before bending and picking a bright white flower with a sunny yellow centre, like a daisy but the flower head was the same size as her palm.
He tucked the stem behind her ear, the soft scent of the flower wafting about her face. She grinned up at him.
"There, perfect" He whispered.
She didn't know Neville knew about the joy enhancing properties of daisies.
A tissue, a tissue
It was winter and Death Eaters were running the school. Luna was shocked that they took as long as they did to take over, considering Dumbledore's death the previous year and disarray that ruled the ministry.
Luna lay on her back, her left hand clutching Collin's and her right a second year Hufflepuff that she didn't know the name of. Maybe she never would.
Luna had decided it would be a good idea if Collin and herself changed the components of a potion in their lesson. Snape had been less than impressed when one of his Slytherins changed to the different colours of the rainbow. They had been given detention indefinitely.
She didn't know what the Hufflepuff girl did, only that at that current time, she was sniffling loudly. Luna bit her lip. They were holding hands so that they didn't lose each other; after all, night time in the Forbidden forest brought all consuming darkness. The night was chilled, bringing bouts of harsh wind that thrashed at their exposed skin relentlessly.
Every now and then rain would splatter onto Luna's face, mingling with the odd tear. She knew why the little girl was sniffling; a cold was more than likely when exposed to night after night of harsh weather. It wouldn't be so bad if they were allowed a simple solution for the common cold, but even that was denied them. Winter brought about many illnesses and apparently, the Slytherins were using up the entire stock.
The girl had a runny nose but all Luna could think about was the fact that last time any of them made a noise, they were forced to do a lap of the lake before standing on the edge of a hill, no protection what so ever against the elements. The only reason they were lying down now was they discovered they lived longer. The fact made Luna feel sick.
She heard footsteps approaching and panic filled her; she could not survive another ordeal with the lake. Desperate, Luna shoved her hand into her robe pocket, praying to anyone who would listen that she still had her handkerchief... She didn't, but she did pull out two fairly clean tissues. Their whiteness was only just perceptible in the darkness.
Luna fumbled for the other girls hand, clasping it at the same moment the girl sniffed loudly. Luna stilled, her heart thumping erratically. The girl snatched the two tissues from Luna and the sniffling quieted. The girl's hand joined Luna's, squeezing painfully hard. She had heard the footsteps too.
They held each other's hand, so very scared.
Luna shut her eyes, remembering her garden back home, full of flowers and herbs, insects buzzing in the air. She added her friends to the picture, her father chatting comfortably with Mr and Mrs Weasley. Ginny and her brothers, Neville and possibly his Grandma, Collin of course... Harry, Ron and Hermione were there too because in her head the war was over and everyone was okay.
She heard one of the Carrow twins snarl above her and knew that the night wasn't nearly over. She steeled herself for the torment that was about to ensue, determined that the sun-filled picture in her head would come to pass.
We all fall down
There were about twenty of them, scattered about the top of the stairs, spread across the first floor. Older members of the Order were guarding the main entrances, other members were dispersed through the halls. Luna had joined with the rest of the DA, her wand held high and steady, waiting for the first wave of Death Eaters to hit, prepared to fight with every fibre of her being.
She had been tortured, confined in a dungeon within Malfoy Manor, returned to a Hogwarts that wasn't even a shadow of its former self and was now determined that those responsible wouldn't go unpunished. They had done unthinkable things. It was time they paid.
Luna never saw that Hufflepuff again. Luna never saw Griphook after he helped her survive Bellatrix's insanity. Luna hadn't seen Neville smile in such a long time. She hadn't heard from her father.
Her heart hurt so much that she was surprised she was still standing. She set her jaw. She wasn't going down now. Not now.
She knew when the last layer of the school's defence was breached. She heard the loud explosion of the bridge, knowing that at that moment Neville and Seamus might be dead. Luna heard the faint sounds of screams and shouts of terror and knew that it had begun. She braced herself.
Silence reined. Then, in one bone shattering, blinding, ear piercing explosion, Luna and those nearest to her were thrown backwards. She slammed into the wall, dropping to the ground moments later.
Her head swam and around her people lay, lifeless. They danced out of her vision, splotches of red swimming across her eyes. She heard a cackling laugh before she blacked out.
It felt like mere moments later when she opened her eyes to flashes of green, red, blue and the sounds of people screeching spells at each other. Luna cowered into the wall, searching the ground around her for her wand. Several feet away she spotted it, peeking underneath a body of a boy.
He had ginger hair.
Luna looked away, groping blindly for her wand. She didn't want to know which Weasley lay there, which one's life had drained away as she lay next to them. After grabbing a fistful of jumper, Luna's fingers curled around her wand.
She whipped around, casting a blocking spell just in time to deflect a nasty hex. She returned it with a flourish, surprised at how little remorse she felt when the Death Eater fell to the ground, convulsing. The next few hours passed in a blur of people, spells, explosions and desperation. At several points she met up with people she knew, only to lose them.
Tears often fell down her face; sweat poured from her body and in a frantic attempt to find sanctuary, Luna ran to Ravenclaw tower. She wasn't surprised to find Harry, whispering urgently to the Grey Lady. Luna smiled knowingly, before a particularly loud explosion cracked the foundation above her. She darted down the stairs as the ceiling began to crumble, stone and debris falling to where she once stood.
Over and over she searched. Firing spells kept her breathing, but to keep her sanity she needed to find someone, anyone.
The battle neared to an end somewhere in the early hours of the morning. She was exhausted, completely wiped of energy and the will to carry on. Several Death Eaters remained but most of them were circled but three or four Order members, obviously overwhelmed. Luna made her way to the main hall in a daze, only to be barred by holes in the floor and mounds of rubble.
"Here" She turned to find Neville, his cardigan ripped and bloody, a cut tracing the entire curve of his face holding his hand out to her. She took it without thinking.
"Where are we going?" She asked, pain in her leg blossoming into existence. She wondered when she was hit. Wondered if she should care.
"We're going home." She followed without saying a word, the warmth of Neville's hand bringing her out of the dark world in her mind, as well as the world of destruction about her.
Not everyone died on that day, but everyone knew someone who did. Luna stood next to Neville, and placed a wreath of roses next to a gorgeous bouquet of Posies. She grabbed his hand in a vice like grip and dabbed her eyes with a bundle of tissues. So many memories haunted her as she read Collin's epitaph. So many in fact that she buried her face into Neville's shoulder and wept.
Collin Creevy.
One of the Heroic Fallen, but never one of the Forgotten.
Forever in our hearts.
A/N- This was written for a very good friend of mine, Rubeus172, and inspired by another FanFic that had the nursery rhyme at the very beginning, so please review and let me know what you think :)