Summary: Luna Lovegood has a weird first year

Summary: Luna Lovegood has a weird first year. Her sixth year is even stranger as her whole world changes.

Pairing: Tom Riddle/Luna Lovegood

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Author notes: Sincerest thanks to my beta-reader, Mistress Siana.

Chapter 1

Ouroboros

For what it was worth, Luna Lovegood loved many things, both the obtainable and quite the opposite.

Sometimes she simply felt too deeply and her short coming was in letting others know. Why keep in thoughts? Surely they were made to be spoken. What else were they there for, and if she tried to hold it in, she found she couldn't. They were pieces of her and she wanted to throw them into the wind to take root and grow.

But when did she learn this or have the need, this natural habit of digging down within and grasping, searching for something?

In her mind's eyes, her beliefs were fairly reasonable. The Minister's private army of Heliopaths for instance…it simply must be true for her father had gone to the Ministry once, when he was an Auror and saw the elusive creatures himself. But…

Where had the gaps in her memories taken root? How had she been before? How had she seen before her mother died? As age sets in, it seemed the end was always at the beginning. She had always been Luna.

Her awareness was with the stories, contained within their effects. Someone once said it was because of her father's stories that her penchants arose, but that was a bare, uninformed assumption. Assumptions themselves always fell over time when they had no reason or rhyme.

She had heard the stories before they were told. She knew the tales before they were unfolded with delicate precision. It was unthinkably natural to her. Because there was never anything said without a bit of truth held inside. Words were like an ornate vessel. Often one looked at the design rather than question what was contained inside the vessel. The world was full of designs, as was magic. It was easy to get lost.

She had begged for the re-telling many times, just before she drifted off into slumber.

"What did they look like, Daddy?" she would whisper, her notable eyes wider than usual.

Her father stood up from his place by her bed. She watched as he raised his long arms high above his head, creating a shadow that loomed on the quaint and warm wooden beams with cinnamon-like swirls that supported the roof above her head.

"They were gigantic, massive. Taller than me, with flames burning everywhere. Looked like I had walked right into the belly of a dragon. There were thousands of them!"

His smile crinkled down at her through tired eyes.

"And you know why they're down there, in the heart of the Ministry?"

He bent lower, beard brushing her head.

"Why?" she asked.

"To protect us of course! It's the army against darkness, my Lunette."

He swept her in his arms, seeing she was far from sleepy, and asked her what other stories she would like to hear. He had any type of tale stored away in the back of his mind waiting to be untied and looked forward to the telling as much as his daughter awaited the rendition.

It had been a year since his wife had passed away.

Artemus Lovegood had come home to a quiet house that day and perplexed by the silence, journeyed down into the depths of his wife's study. Potions and brews were spilled across the table that had seemed half destroyed and a continuous drip of fluid made a larger hole through the stone floor. Cream papers hovered in every corner, burned and smeared, and in the center of the room, in such a way it seemed to be the center of everything at the time…at the very center of the disorder that still was in motion was Luna kneeling calmly near her mother, holding a spiritless hand.

It was an image he could not wash away from his mind. Silver eyes peering under waxy blonde bangs waiting patiently… For what he never knew.

He didn't think it was him, now that he looked back on it. Her gaze held him where it seemed like an eternity they stared at each other, trapped in the moment. Then his daughter seemed to have found what she was looking for.

"She wanted to say goodbye, Daddy, we did wait. But she left before you came home," Luna told him, calmly.

He fell into grief. Perhaps a better way to say it was that he plummeted into grief without being conscious of it.

For months, he could only sit in a chair, lost within his own reliving of his life, and wonder what might have been if he had come home sooner. The war was over and had been over for years yet he still continued…

A little hand snuck though his own and he looked to find his child by his side.

"She broke the equation, Daddy."

The girl's eyes were serious and contained with understanding far beyond her age.

"With her wit, she found her treasure. She had to find it or else there never was the question without the answer. She told me that our lives are acts, not ideas. She lived."

The words scared him more than any dark wizard could, more than a thousand days like that homecoming, in a march of repetition. She had an understanding that no child should have and more importantly, could have. And the worst to him was the crystalline presence in her eyes. Her eyes were not cold by any means. It was a clear-cut, tangible presence of reflections he could even begin to comprehend.

From then on, he covered for his absence. He was repaying for his wrongs as well as his rights, it seemed. He had given so much to others yet when it counted, he had missed what he had…his Lunette was the only part of his wife he had left.

He feared so strongly that her childhood would slip away, dissolved by the potions that could burn through solid stone. In his dreams, well, his dreams were fear, due to reasons that he couldn't admit to anyone and unfortunately even to himself.

Much to the distress of the Ministry, he resigned as an Auror.

"There is still a lot of darkness out there, Lovegood. Lift up some of these rocks and you'll be surprised what slithers out."

He looked away from Moody's disconcerting gaze as he pushed his remaining books into the bag with finality.

"I know what pain you're going through but think…you have to send your little girl out into a world that needs to be fixed," the older man growled out, arms crossed with the air of judgment.

Artemus grew angry despite knowing the truth of the words. He was not weak for giving up. Moody didn't understand, couldn't understand! Let Alastor go save the world. And under the older man's unwavering sight, Artemus left. He would choose his confessions for himself, not for his colleagues or friends.

Every night he found himself telling her stories, stories that he needed as much as she did. Sometimes he even believed them.

"You've seen a Crumple-Horned Snorkack!" she asked, eyes alight.

"A glimpse," he replied lightly.

"You should write down what it looks like," his daughter muttered sagely. "So everyone can know about them." She paused. "Will I ever see one?"

"If you believe in them, you will. Remember, Lunette, you can only see if you look."

He tapped her nose playfully. She always remembered.

And look she did.


She scanned her copy of the Daily Prophet carefully, knees folded up onto the seat. Her father had loaned her it for something to read on the train. She would rather read his rough draft of his paper. They had talked about it eagerly after she had received her letter to Hogwarts. He was pushing to get it published, and her heart fluttered at the thought that the Wizarding World would have more truths to search after.

A small knock drug her from her thoughts.

"Excuse me, can I sit in here? Everywhere else is full, and my brothers don't-I can't find them anywhere."

"I think you'd like that seat." Luna motioned at the one opposite from her. "It doesn't look like it has been sat on that often."

She had chosen the compartment near the very back of the train because the barren compartment seemed in obvious need of use.

The small red-haired smiled nervously and sat down very quickly, pulling a small, black book out of her bag. She seemed to sigh in relief and held it close, then noticed Luna watching her. She fidgeted under the unblinking gaze.

"Oh, well, I almost left my diary at home and that would have been horrible of me. My mother was rushing around so, and Fred charmed all my socks to wriggle away from me and I couldn't catch them. Erm, they were very quick and burrowed behind the furniture where I couldn't possibly reach them. By the time I got them all, mum was yelling, and I was in the car when I remembered I had left it behind!"

Luna nodded, picturing quite clearly that formable dexterity of socks, especially the right sock.

"I imagine your diary would have been lonely without your thoughts all year," she said musingly.

Her henna-wild eyes widened, suddenly alert. "W-What do you mean lonely?"

"Isn't that what it's made for?" Luna asked.

Her friend stared and her nose scrunched up in confusion. Luna noticed she had a great deal of freckles that found a place on the bridge of her nose.

"Ideas are part of you, and so a diary is a part of you. It's no good going around in pieces," Luna explained.

"Oh. Right, I suppose," her companion chirped happily, crossing her arms over a small book and hugging it close.

"I'm Ginny, by the way, Ginny Weasley. All this is so exciting, isn't it? I've been waiting to go to Hogwarts all my life, after my brothers. My whole family was in Gryffindor. I'm so nervous about where I'm going to be placed. I've thought it through and someone told me that no other house would really fit me. I hope he's right because my mum would have kittens if I'm with the Slytherins. They're a horrible lot and I would die if I was put in that house. Ron wouldn't tell me how they go about choosing our houses. Fred and George were whispering about a troll, but they hushed up when I tried to listen. Ugly prats…and I don't mean trolls. I've asked everyone, but no one wants to ruin the surprise for me."

She sighed heavily and after looking back at Luna, seemed to remember something.

"You must think I'm loony going on like that, and I haven't even asked your name."

Luna smiled lightly.

"I'm Luna Lovegood. If you are worried, chase it away with other thoughts. Worries hate that because they like their space and there isn't enough room."

Ginny laughed, much to Luna's surprise.

"You know, that makes me feel loads better. But, seriously, what house do you want to be in?

"Wanting and being are two different things but my mother was a Ravenclaw. I would like to be in her house."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters? I have plenty of brothers, no sisters. I'm the only girl in my family."

"I'm an only child," Luna answered. "And, like you, the only girl."

Ginny raised her eyebrows again, smiling, and searched valiantly for another topic of interest.

"I like your necklace. What are those...Wizarding bottle caps?"

"And Muggle ones too. I made it myself. They've been everywhere, you know. Maybe all around the world, on all sorts of bottles, pockets anywhere really. Perhaps they were right by each other, on the same shelf at the same time. Think about how many people held them. And now I am. Do you want to hold them?"

"Er, no thank you. They are very nice bottle caps though…"

After a moment of silence, Luna noticed that Ginny's hands kept moving as if to open the book in her lap but then stop, almost in a self-scolding manner.

"If you want to write down your thoughts, go ahead. I don't mind."

Ginny looked relieved and after muttering a quick 'Thanks', she took to writing furiously in the small book. It was hard to determine if she ever raised the quill from the paper. The quill made a very dry, crinkling sound, rough around the edges. Luna returned to her carefully folded paper.

It was silent the rest of the way save for the scratching noise. She was thankful for the silence because it was hard to find the pattern in the newspaper without concentration as it was hard to read each word backwards and forwards. Upside down was the most difficult but she enjoyed it nonetheless. Secret messages were secret for a reason after all.

"You do know the Prophet is upside down…don't you?"

Luna looked up again to see her friend had paused in her writing and was studying her with a new look on her face that Luna couldn't decipher. Before she could explain, the train pulled to a slow stop and someone was bellowing for the first years. Ginny gave her one last departing glance before gathering her things and hurrying out, her bag banging against the door frame notably.

Luna didn't mind. She just didn't prefer hurrying. She might miss something along the way.

It was much better to take your time and notice the fabric of the different cloaks and how longs strings hung down further than others. That the glass was smudged by a traveler who had pressed his face against the panes, and it left a rainbow pattern while the window shook from the window as if someone was trying to get in, maybe a chameleon creature. The grass here was taller and greener and slightly curlier, with the shadows of birds darting though and the tracks were scrapped with red paint. She liked the feeling of the wind caressing her earrings against her face. She would have to get a bigger pair of earrings some day, maybe a pair that jangled. The stones were smaller along the path and nestled shyly into the dirt. She made sure not to step on too many so they could still see the light and be seen by others who walked this way.

She was shorter than most of her peers, she noticed, while peering around curiously. They were all quite tall, and she could measure them by more than just a few pairs of boots, if she were to place her father's boots by each of them specifically. It was great game, trying to find the source of the summoning voice while in the thicket of such a gamely gang. Sometimes the voices would interweave and she would have to pry them apart.

As she chose the most mute of the boats (for the moment of the crossing) she wondered if they would teach them a charm to walk on water. She had always wanted to walk on water but then again walking on air would be better and one could go more places and in more directions, she was sure. Her fingers were brushing the water in a languid motion and something brushed her fingertips. She didn't look at what it was. She imagined.

Luna was certain the castle had eyes. There was a light deep inside. It was a welcoming shadow of the past. The dusk was slinking through the cracks, like a prowling, grappling thing of old, like an old, wrinkled face. The light her mother had had was in the eyes. She had come home.

The boat itself was nervous, it seemed, so she stood on the prow, positioned and pretending about piercing through barriers. Her boat mates were not pleased. She noticed a tug around her neck.

The barrier, she thought alarmed. But one blonde, chaffy boy fisted his hands in her cloak.

"Oh, you're a great help," she said, cheerfully.

...Sometimes she just didn't understand people. Life is so full. Don't they have ideas, wonderful ideas that zing and sizzle and spark, and shouldn't they want to enjoy that they can think? She wished they would show more expression on their faces. They reminded her of cocooned caterpillars that never came out.

"My, my…" the hat whispered above her. "What a mind you have."

She listened closely, wondering how many heads this hat had sat on. She tried to picture each and everyone. She wished she could see their lives…especially Gryffindor. Didn't he fight dragons and ride Griffins? The thought of the tawny hair in her fingers as she flew through the air made her made her hands itch.

Though, to be fair, she wouldn't mind seeing Fen with those fenny fellows.

'Our greatest strengths are our greatest weakness," the hat whispered. "Your mind is …so rare. I haven't seen one quite like yours before…" the old voice shied away. She waited.

"You are loyal and very brave. Though…I don't think you've known much fear, have you? But you are a thinker. Don't get too interwoven in your thoughts, my dear, as strong as they are."

"Ravenclaw!"

The hat shouted while Luna wondered at the statement. As the hat was lifted off her eyes, she saw the reserved Ravenclaws politely clapping. It wasn't what the Gryffindors did at all. They howled and laughed and there was that one boy who kept trying to enchant the other's Prefect badge. She caught sight of an apparently bewitched fork that was doing cartwheels.

She realized she hadn't gotten up. The older, green robe-adorned woman with sharp features looked down at her with her lips pursed. Luna admired the color especially the splash of gold on the tips of the robes. She wondered what the symbols meant near the edges, wishing she could trace them and look them up later.

She wandered slowly over to her table. She felt eyes watching her. The Slytherins snickered. She wondered if they had caught sight of the fork as well and smiled. The plates were quite nice here, though at home she had painted as many in swirls. That is why she liked radishes; they had lots of swirls if you looked.

A brown headed girl was looking over at her bemusedly.

"Nervous?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you nervous or something? You shouldn't be. We don't bite."

Luna blinked. Who said anything about biting? How strange.

"I'm Marietta Edgecombe. Luna, isn't it?"

"Yes, that is what my parents called me."

Marietta lessened her smile. Unknown to Luna, the girl had interpreted her reply as sarcastic. To Luna, that was the answer, nothing less and certainly nothing more.

The boy across from her started to laugh behind his hand. Luna assumed he suddenly had a thought.

Next to Marietta was a beautiful girl with raven black hair. Luna was about to comment on the appropriate nature of her hair for this house. The light caught it like a rainbow again; glinting slightly were long earrings, plain silver. Yes, Luna wanted bigger earrings than that.

"Um, what are you staring at?"

"You," Luna said honestly. The girl gave her a narrow look. "Well, your hair, actually. It's very pretty in the light."

"Right," Marietta said, amused, and relaying a signal of annoyance down the table.

Such was the relationship with her house mates.

Then came the words. The bloody words on the wall, words so powerful that everyone changed…

But fear only changes so much.

One night she came back late from the library to find her trunk missing.

She stood in the middle of the dorm room in quiet wonder. All her books were in there…as well as her deciphered Prophets. Could it be that the Ministry caught on to her investigation?

By the second month, she had found bits and pieces of a code.

'He. In Hogwarts. Fool daughter. Wait…'

Nothing direct but she was getting there. One had to count, and usually three letters made one letter. This pattern swayed through the articles on page six like a particularly elusive S.

Somehow she doubted anyone had come in the middle of the night to sweep away her findings. Then the House Elves wouldn't have moved it to be cleaned more. She bent down to see if it had been knocked under her bed by accident. She had been in a hurry and had moved it. She definitely recalled that.

It made her feel terrible. She didn't like misplacing things and some of her mother's pictures were in her album. Once she turned in her library books before she realized it and noticed her hands weren't carrying any books at all. That only happened when her thoughts were extremely busy, for instance, her thoughts were on the number of steps at Hogwarts and the ratio of how many steps on would take and see a ghost as a result or the turn of a stairway. She had made a chart which was also in said invisible trunk. Hmmm…

Luna tried to place her hand on where the trunk should have stood.

A slight snickering while she was on her hands and knees made her look up and see the curtains of her dorm mate, Eliza Wordsworth, snap shut. The noise made similar ones arise and soon it sounded like a monsoon.

She didn't understand the 'why' or the 'what for'. Moreover, she didn't understand what she should do or how she should respond. So she laughed.

It drowned all the petty snickers and curtains drifted open with startled faces. By now, though, she truly found it humorous. Novel joke, trunks disappearing, though she would have hoped for something more imaginative…

That was what amused her so…the lack of imagination. No jumping books, no rewriting texts, no transmuting quills, or a trunk that eats you! Just a lost trunk!

She fell to the floor with laughter. Now the curtains were fully open.

"She's gone mad. Off her rocker!"

"What do we do?"

"How would I know?"

"She could suffocate. Go get somebody, Eliza!"

"What's wrong with her?"

She calmed down and stood up and the room was graced with silence. Luna brushed off her robes, gathered her bag, and left without a word. A shocked pair of girls ventured to close the door, slowly, as if they were about to be attacked.

"She really is a loony…" Eliza muttered, stunned, into the shadows from the safety of her bed.


Dear Lunette.

How are you? I've been well, and the Publication will be coming through

soon. Don't have a name for it yet. I was leaving that part to you. How is Ravenclaw? Hope you have made friends. I was thinking about having a lunch with you to read over it and maybe you can ask a few of your friends to come along. It would be nice to get more opinions on it.

With love,

Dad

Penelope Clearwater tapped her on the shoulder as she read her letter by the fire.

Looking up questioningly, Luna smiled.

"Yes, can I help you?"

Penelope frowned and sat across from her.

"I've heard some things from your dorm mates that rather concern me. I won't name the girl but she told me your trunk was taken. Why didn't you come to me about this?"

Luna blinked. It hadn't occurred to her to go to a Prefect. Her dorm mates wouldn't have taken the trunk if she was to tell and she didn't like telling on silly people for silly things.

"Oh, I don't think they meant any harm. It came back. Most of my things do."

Penelope paused for a moment, studying the first year.

"Luna, you might try to be…more…" Penelope struggled for a word. Luna watched her hands wave about her face as she searched.

"Sub..restrained with your dorm mates. I think if you tried…to talk about their interests."

Penelope seized the words with fervor.

"You know you could try talking about classes, or, or music. Maybe clothing, I know Wordsworth likes that…"

"Oh…yes, she does." Luna said, wishing she could say more.

She didn't quite know what Penelope was on about. She was getting along, smiling and everything. And clothes were just so boring but she did pretend to like them.

"I know what you're thinking. Listen, I am a Muggle-born and I didn't have the foggiest idea what my friends were talking about my first year. But I made an effort to learn about their interests. It's just best to get along, Luna."

Luna remained silent. She was interested in her dorm mates. Honestly, she was. She tried talking to them, about earrings and classes. Why wasn't Penelope talking to them about being interested in her ideas?

Luna nodded.

Penelope rose up with a smile.

"I'm glad we had this talk, Luna. I hope your year goes better."


It was past curfew when Luna looked up from her book. She was in a corner in the library, reading about the life story of Uric the Oddball and imagining his adventures, especially about the wild hunt. She pictured herself in her mind as him and was quite lost. She didn't realize the time had passed into a foreboding number.

Eleven-thirty, thirty minutes from the time the horns would blow and the hounds would be released to the hunt in a wild euphoria of dance, spears, and howls.

Ring the bells, the hunter is coming.

But Luna should be in bed, safe behind the suit of armor. Unless she was to be the hunted.

She danced away quickly, pretending to be fleeing as well as any quarry should. She didn't desire to run into any Prefects and most definitely not Penelope for reasons she didn't quite know. With her swiftness, she avoided the prowlers and things that lurked from the shadows, arriving at the suit at thirteen seconds till twelve.

"The basic use of Dragon Blood is as follows: besides being just a transmutation point, the proper anesthetics of the precise concentration can lead to prolonged life. It can be a summoning charm for ghosts and a looking glass if applied correctly with elder and reed. It can react with any form of poison, breaking down the basic structure of the composition especially with Runespoor venom. With lizard tongue, the blood becomes diluted and is applied for healing exercises, particularly with the charmed connection of Merrick's theorem. Both users can enter upon an unbreakable life blood where even their hearts are in sequence. For the Dark Arts, necromancy cannot be stabilized without it. During the reign of Grindelwald, the Ridgeback breed was almost wiped out due to prolonged use. Diluted dragon's blood can increase Legilimency, if dripped into the eye in precise concentration. Also for protection uses, for reference, there is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where every stone was melded with dragon's blood to ensure safety and endurance. In reference to immortality, check Hogwarts: A History, page. 186, line 60 for Nicholas Flamel."

She waited for the suit to spring aside. It did not. Luna's brow furrowed. The password, she was sure she had memorized it by heart. Had she missed a word? Then the monsoon came again.

"Tell you what, Loony…you say something that makes sense and we'll gladly let you in."

Luna was unaware that her house mates had come to the conclusion that she was having a jest at them all. She was very unaware and quite confused by what Wordsworth meant. Penelope Clearwater had changed the password that very morning and had told the Ravenclaws to inform anyone missing of the changes.

"Um, you like clothes…"

A burst of laughter followed and Luna felt she had been quite badly advised by Penelope. It was now nine seconds to twelve.

"Without sense, you can make no change…"

More laughter…

Time was running her down. It occurred to her that what they were looking for was a plea. It was clear and struck her hard. She couldn't and she wouldn't.

At midnight, the girls opened the entry to find that Loony Lovegood was gone.

Luna walked quickly back to the library, to her nook where she could wait till the light of morning eases all places for the monster of Slytherin to lurk. She began to think about what was out in the Forbidden Forest. She had stumbled upon some tracks during her last visit.

Could it be a new undiscovered creature?

It was patterned and bent and never left the ground. It didn't even seem to have feet. Perfectly parallel, never crossing, and bent many a bush. She tried to follow the tracks but suddenly they disappeared right into thin air. What she really wanted was a Lunascope, so that maybe with the proper illumination, she could see the creature.

It must be able to fly.

She was busy deciding what to call it. Rolling-Land Hippocampus had a ring to it!

She ran into someone rounding the corner. She dropped her book and fell backwards. It took a while to move her hair from her face. There in front of her was her friend from the train.

"Ginny?"

Please review so I know how I'm doing. I made a reference to Uric the Oddball and the Wildhunt by Ariana Deralte. It's a wonderful story, so check it out if you have not. I have a certain approach to this story planned. Also Ginny's part in this bit is more of an introduction. Luna will meet Tom directly in further chapters.