Summary: Luna Lovegood is on the way home for the Christmas holidays, when evil boards the Hogwarts Express.~3,000 words.
Author's note: ahhh, yes, so here's this. I know, I know! I have two WIPs I should be working on instead, but I was compelled to write this before my motivation left me. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and please don't hesitate to leave a review. It's the only payment we fanfiction writers get. :D
Taken
Luna sits resting against the window of the train compartment, silently watching the scenery flash by. She raises her damp sleeve to wipe the condensation off the glass, but she doesn't move her head. She hasn't moved for the last half hour. Running through her mind is the soft "goodbye" her father said to her when they last parted ways at the station, the gentle squeeze he gave her shoulder after his usual bear hug. Her eyes close while her fingers tangle in the chain of her necklace- a small locket that her mother gave her years ago.
Neville, who sits across from her, is quiet too. They made conversation for the first hour of the journey but they both had a lot on their minds, so eventually the compartment had fallen into companionable silence. He looks like he's asleep, and he looks so tired. She doesn't think he's always had such a tired face. He looks older, somewhat drawn. She supposes she does too. War gives one so much to think about, so much time to lie in bed awake as the hours tick by.
And there it is again, she's thinking about the war. It almost doesn't seem, well, real. Because there's a war on and yet here they are, on the train coming home after just another school term- well, not just another term. More like one of the hardest few months at Hogwarts the students had ever endured. Of course they all look tired; it comes with the territory now. She's become used to, though no less sad about, the small faces of the first and second years hurrying around the castle in silent groups, always looking over their shoulders, not laughing or joking like they should be. Always so tired, so weary. It isn't fair on them. On anyone.
She glances at Neville again. He's definitely asleep. His mouth is slack and open, and the rumble of the train doesn't seem to be disturbing him. She's never been able to sleep on trains because of the noise. The constant click click click of the wheels distracts her too much. She's so used to falling asleep at home in the country, among the whoosh of the wind on the hill, or in her dorm at Hogwarts, where the only noise is the soft breathing of Ginny and the other girls, and the occasional patter of rain on the windows.
Ginny comes in to sit beside Neville, and Luna finally moves, giving her a little smile. Luna knows that the usually perky redhead is trying hard not to look sad, and that she isn't doing very well. The corners of her mouth seem to be perpetually pulled down these days, ever since Luna saw her at Bill and Fleur's wedding and her brother disappeared to God knows where.
"I've just been talking to Dean and Seamus, but I thought I should come back to see you. Neville always falls asleep on the train," Ginny says.
Luna can guess what she's been talking to Dean and Seamus about: the war. It's always the war now; that or the current situation at Hogwarts. No doubt they'd been plotting against Snape or the Carrows.
"It's okay, I was just thinking. He'll wake up when the trolley comes around anyway."
There's a short silence, and Luna knows what's coming next. It can't be avoided.
"Do you... do you think we did the right thing, coming back to school?" Ginny asks. She looks like she knows the answer already, though it might not be the one she wants.
"Yes, I think so," says Luna kindly. "We wouldn't be any use anywhere else because we're still underage."
"I just- I just really wish we could do something!" She lowers her voice as Neville stirs. "I feel so useless."
"I know it's hard, but we're needed at Hogwarts. The younger ones need us, the DA needs us, and we need each other."
Ginny looks at her hands resting in her lap as Luna looks at her, and across to Neville. Her friends.
Neville shifts in his seat and blinks wearily awake. Luna can imagine that he doesn't feel too great after only an hour's sleep. He rubs his neck with one hand and stretches his other arm out to the side, almost hitting Ginny. She jumps quickly out of the way and he looks over, moving his hand away from her face.
"Oh, sorry Ginevra, didn't see you there." He stretches again, but more carefully this time.
She gives him a sarcastic little smile as Luna watches them with interest. Neville is side-eyeing Ginny as he stretches, and she's trying to pretend she doesn't know. They've become quite close friends over the last couple of terms, as what with Harry and Ron gone it's just the three of them that hang out together now. He eventually turns away to look out the window, through which they can just see the outline of a castle in the distance and a large flock of birds flying haphazardly around its turrets.
Ginny coughs and said, "So Dean and Seamus and I were talking about the Carrows-"
Of course.
"-and we think we should up the ante next term."
"Wait," says Neville, "you think we should give them even more crap?" he rubs absently at a spot on his arm where Luna knows he has a burn mark, courtesy of Amycus Carrow. Apparently swinging back on one's chair is an offense punishable by scorching pain these days. Amycus set Neville's sleeve on fire and the reek of Neville's burning flesh had hung around the classroom for the next hour, causing an outbreak of coughing that had driven their Dark Arts teacher to distraction. His class ended up with an extra three feet of homework. The student who put the fire out received even more.
"Yeah, but we should try not to be so obvious about it. Bring them down quietly, you know?"
Luna and Neville exchange a look.
"We're not going to change anything," says Neville. "They'll just keep doling out the punishments and eventually they'll get sick of us and, I dunno, get rid of us somehow. They're Death Eaters."
"I'm not giving up," says Ginny stonily. "I thought you'd understand that Nev."
There's a moment of silence. Neville appears to be thinking hard while Ginny glares out the window. Finally Neville sighs.
"Okay, fine, but next term we're going to have to get properly organised. No more rushing in willy-nilly and getting everyone hurt."
"I don't think you can avoid getting hurt," says Luna softly. "But you can decide who the best people to handle it are." She looks straight at him, and he shifts in his seat, slightly uncomfortable. He knows what she's getting at. A lot of the responsibility of keeping Gryffindor together when McGonagall wasn't around last term had gone to him. At some point a large portion of the students- and even some of the teachers- had realised that he was the one to rally around; perhaps that was because of his ever increasingly strong presence at the DA meetings, which he had, more than once, taken tentative charge of.
As she thinks about all of this Luna notices that the train is slowing down. The wheels screech on the track. The noise from the rest of the carriage rises as students step out into the corridor. There's a distant scream, and Neville jumps to his feet.
The last time the Hogwarts Express stopped in the middle of its journey was a harrowing experience, so obviously all those who remember the Dementors' visit are slightly panicked. Ginny sits wide eyed in her seat as Neville peers out into the corridor. He sees Dean running down the gap towards him with Seamus in tow, pushing through a throng of students already out of their compartments. Dean stops in front of Neville, gasping for breath, and Seamus speaks up quickly.
"There are Death Eaters on the train," he says. He looks simultaneously frightened and furious.
Ginny's hand covers her mouth and she gives a little gasp, and Neville pulls out his wand. Luna sits still as her mind races. She thinks first that they're here to attack the students, but that seems unlikely- with so many students on the train that could be dangerous for them. They're probably here to take someone, or send a message. Either way, them being here is not good.
Dean and Seamus pile into the compartment and Neville closes the door behind them, but he doesn't sit. He watches the corridor intently with his wand at his side. Several students flash past the glass, running frantically, some calling for their friends or siblings; any of them could be in danger. To Luna everything sounds very echoey, as if from another dimension or a dream. She rises from her seat and goes to stand beside Neville. He looks too alone, standing guard at the door, so she takes his arm with one hand and pulls out her wand with the other, and they're still standing there like that when a man in a mask and a long sweeping back robe stops right in front of their compartment. He briefly turns to his right and calls someone over, then turns back.
He looks right at Luna as he slowly takes a folded piece of paper from his pocket, which he presses it against the glass, showing her that on the piece of paper is a picture of her face, and that it isn't just a piece of paper at all but a photograph. Her father is in it too and they're laughing, each holding a toffee apple. She recognises it from the time they went to a village fair in Ottery St Catchpole last year. She stops for a moment to wonder where he got it but there isn't much time for that. Three of them are outside the compartment now and they all have masks and robes and wands and they're pulling the door open and grabbing her roughly and shoving Neville out of the way, and she hears "Stupe-" before his spell is blocked and he's sliding unconscious to the ground. Ginny is screaming and Dean and Seamus are moving in front of her, trying to grab Luna back, and there are people up and down the corridor staring at her, yelling at the men, but doing nothing to help.
Dean has a hold on Luna's arm and his wand in his other hand, and he aims a silent spell at one of the men. The man drops his wand but the spell misses and shatters the window behind him. The Death Eater snarls and instead of wasting time by picking up his wand punches Dean in the face. Dean stumbles back, hand over his bleeding nose, into Seamus and Ginny. In the resulting confusion one of them shoves a black bag over Luna's head while another binds her hands together, pulling the rope tight enough to bruise. Neville's face, with his eyes closed and his mouth slack, as if he's sleeping like before, is the last thing she sees before darkness encloses her and they drag her away.
Out on the track are even more of them. If Luna had been able to see she would have observed a dozen Death Eaters watching her being dragged out of the train. Without a platform the drop to the ground is much further than usual, and Luna feels glad that they decide not to push her off. Instead, they laugh at her while she tries to navigate the drop herself. Without her sight the track seems miles away, and even when she does finally manage to touch it the many rocks on the ground throw her off again. She doesn't move until the three Death Eaters who had been on the train jump off too, and one of them comes forward and pulls her roughly away. Around her she can hear the pops of apparition, and she steels herself to be taken along with the one clenching her arm any moment.
And with a gut wrenching whoosh they're gone, leaving the Hogwarts Express behind. Luna's insides churn and her head swims dizzily during the brief period in-transit, and when they land she feels as though she's been clubbed over the head with a blunt object. They give her no time to get her footing and when the man holding her arm pushes her along a path of crunchy gravel she falls heavily to her knees. The stones dig hard into her skin. He barks at her to get up and they carry on. She hears the sounds of birds cooing around her, and when the path ends she stumbles up three stairs, and then into the warmth of a room that reeks of candle wax and the scent of sickly-sweet flowers, which seems to be covering a more evil smell of death and blood. It's so putrid it makes her eyes water.
When they remove the black sack she finds herself looking down a dark stairwell. The man walks her down and pushes her through a doorway, then swings a door of heavy iron bars across it. He uses his wand to lock it and then he's gone, and she's alone in a strange house, trapped in what looks like a dungeon.
She tries to think as calmly as possible. During her capture everything moved so quickly that she barely had time to think, but now that they've left her alone without any distractions, the worries start clouding in. She imagines her father's reaction when she doesn't get off the train in London, watching while all her friends disembark, waiting until the last person steps out onto the platform and the train begins pulling away again before realising that she isn't there, that something is wrong. More than anything she wishes she could explain it to him, tell him she's okay and not to worry too much. Of course he would worry anyway; she's his Luna...
A sob escapes her, and she sits on the cold floor, holding her stomach. She thinks she might throw up, but instead the sick feeling simply persists while her tears fall into her lap and her shoulders shake. It's the shock of her sudden capture more than sadness that causes her to cry, but nonetheless the grief in her heart and the pain in her head and the memory of her father's goodbye have her curled around her knees for a good ten minutes, until she feels she can cry no more.
Finally she wipes her eyes and stands and for the first time has a proper look around the dungeon. The room is large and grey and cold and slightly damp, and there are stone pillars scattered here and there. Some of them seem to be growing a layer of moss. She comes to the corner furthest from the door and right there, in a room she thought was empty, is an old man sitting against one of the pillars, staring at the wall. He looks up as she appears in front of him. She's so surprised that at first all she can do is stare, but then he gives her a weak smile and she says softly, "hello."
"Hello," he replies. His voice is very weak. She has a sudden image of an eternity spent in this dungeon, always growing older and getting weaker but never dying. This man has white hair and a frail body, and his fashionable clothes are filthy. Luna gasps as she suddenly realises who he is. His hair is longer and whiter and his face more wrinkled, but it's quite obvious.
"You're Mr. Ollivander, aren't you?" she says.
"Yes my dear, I am. Tell me, did you buy a wand from me or another wand-maker?"
Luna wonders how long it's been since this man saw a friendly face, so she goes along with the casual conversation, deciding to leave her own questions for a little later.
"I bought mine from you when I was eleven, Sir." She frowns and adds, "I think they took it though."
"A shame... yes, I think I remember. Lovegood, is it?"
"Luna Lovegood, Sir."
"Your wand was 10 inches, cedar, unicorn hair, slightly springy... Your father is the editor of the Quibbler, is that right?"
"Yes, Mr. Ollivander."
He scrutinises her. His piercing grey eyes make most people uncomfortable, but not Luna. She looks back at him for a few moments before sitting on the ground in front of him.
"Do you know where we are?" she says.
"I believe this to be Malfoy Manor," he says. "Although the Malfoys aren't the only ones living here now."
"Oh. Who else is there?"
"Many, many Death Eaters stay here during the week, and more come and go. I also have reason to believe that He Who Must Not Be Named lives here when he is not taking care of business elsewhere." He watches for a flash of fear in her eyes, but his expectations are dashed. She merely nods, and sits back against the cold wall. She stares at her hands while she ponders what to say next, and he patiently waits.
She looks up. "How long have you been here, Sir?" she finally says.
He frowns. "In this dungeon? A long time, my dear. Some men came to my home one night and took me away... that was in July of last year."
"It's December now Sir. Almost Christmastime," she says sadly, thinking it's likely that neither of them will be with their families for the festivities.
They fall silent for a few moments. Ollivander's eyes close and Luna suspects he's about to fall asleep. Just as she's about to stand he speaks quietly, halting her. "I'm sorry you're here, Luna. I really am. And I hope, for your sake, that we get out of here soon."
He sighs, and the fatigue of his long stay is evident more strongly than before. She whispers back, "Thank you." She stays where she is, because after all this time, she thinks, the old man probably needs some friendly company.