Under the Black Moon
Chapter 1
"It will be fine. We are going to be in there with you every moment you are on the stand," Neville said with a gentle smile. The small huddle of friends gathered close to Luna, enveloping her with their support as they offered reassuring nods. Neville, Ginny, Harry, Hermione and Ron had all assembled that Tuesday morning to stand by their friend as she gave her court testimony. They had all participated in some variation or another since the end of the War. Kingsley Shacklebolt, their older comrade in arms but also Minister of Magic, had told them all that it wasn't a necessity. That written affidavit would suffice. But all of them, including Luna, had obliged the ceremonious proceedings before the Wizengamot. In part to get the truth heard by as many as they could in their own voices. But also, deep down, each and every one of them hoped for a little bit of closer on the terrors they had born witness to.
"Just tell them as much as you can."
"I will tell them how I died then." She said plainly, her wide blue eyes catching the uncomfortable shadow that crossed their faces. Ginny and Harry looked away awkwardly and Ron muttered something about her being mental to which Hermione elbowed him into silence. Neville's expression was one of concern. Luna had spoken little of her time as Bellatrix Lestrange's prisoner but it was clear that she might never fully be the same. He was only thankful she had survived her ordeal better off than his own parents whom had been victims of the dark witch's torture.
"You don't have to do this if you aren't ready, Luna," Neville said, timidly reaching out to hold her. Despite their budding romance since the war the Gryffindor still had all the boyish awkwardness of new love.
"It was only a joke. Not a good one though." she said with neutral airy tone. Luna had never been good at jokes or reading social cues but she had practiced through the years in what to do when she made others uncomfortable. Divert, evade, redirect the conversation. Let the other person talk about themselves; people, she found for instance, really enjoyed talking about themselves. What they liked, what they thought about this or that. If she asked just the right question Luna discovered she could be completely reprieved from ever having to say a single word more than "is that so?" or the ever popular "tell me more".
Neville was the only one that this parlor trick did not seem to have the desired effect. He was comparably more astute than others his age and furthermore always able to discern when she was avoiding participation in the conversation, but what she liked even more about him was he could appreciate comfortable silence as well.
"You can do this," Neville reaffirmed. Each of Luna's friends took turns giving her one last hug before the court attendant called her name. After that Luna only heard the steady click of her rainbow colored mary-janes on the courtroom floor and the murmur of voices coming from the lofted benches of where the Wizengamot members sat.
After a brief introduction the room was called to silence where the residing wizengamot leader addressed Luna and beckoned for her to recount her experiences to the gathered community. With her hands firmly at her side, she practiced the words she had rehearsed both in the mirror and in front of Ginny and Neville. She told them everything and spared no details even as the aging witches and wizards of the wizengamot shifted in their seats in agitation or became pale with horror.
Yes, Luna thought to herself. She told them everything.
Save but the most important detail. There remained one odd fact that she had left out even when she spoke of the imprisonment to her friends.
Quite simply: she left out the part of how Luna had, in face, died.
It was a truth she carried with her like an albatross around her neck. She had come close once or twice to telling Neville but each time the words died on her lips and the secret festered a little more. For all that they shared: hopes and laughter, a humble loft in London and dreams for the future there was still things Luna kept from him. Like how she could not remember the last night she slept or how sometimes she would black out, losing hours of her day. She tried to tell herself it was fatigue, that the missing spots in her day were simply times her mind abruptly turned off in self-preservation. But all the same it was unnerving and the lines of reality felt increasingly blurred. She had been taunted all her life as Loony Lovegood, did this mean she truly had lost her mind?
Later that night when they crawled in between the sheets of the bed they shared she pretended to fall asleep, only opening her eyes when the steady snoring confirmed Neville had dozed off. Sometimes Neville would toss and turn, crying out in his dreams. She had her albatross but so did he.
They all did. With countless scars and the invisible nightmares that perched on their shoulders, the title of war hero seemed of little value for the price of the reverberating anguish that echoed in their bones. Tonight, Luna was thankful that the only restless one was herself as Neville's eyelids fluttered with the slumbering peace afforded on too seldom occasion. She sat upright, draping her frail arms over her knees as she tucked them up to her chest.
"Are you there?" She whispered.
There came no reply but she did not need one. It's presence was there like a dark shiver down her spine. Luna's breath hitched as her skin prickled from an unnatural chill in the air. Was it real? She wondered. How much of her experiences only existed in her mind?
The shadows on the wall flickered, reminding her of the night it all began. She closed her eyes knowing she was going to relive it all over. Over and over…
Bellatrix's shrill laughter boomed in the dimly lit study. Luna sat perfectly still in the plush folds of the armchair, her body was paralyzed from the dark witch's spells. She could not move nor speak under the strain of her magical binds. Hours must have passed in that room but Luna had already checked out mentally. She was somewhere else, walking through a meadow and following a herd of thestrals. If she tried hard enough Luna could imagine the warmth of the sun on her face and the glisten of the paper skinned creatures grazing nearby.
"Oh no no," Bellatrix cooed. She slapped Luna hard across the face several times until the young woman was clearly back in the present. Mutely Luna levelled her gaze until dual sapphires matched the crazed black ones of Bellatrix. "You need to stay with me for tonight's little show. I have something special planned just between us girls."
The dark witch spun on her heel, her black dress twirling like she was in some sort of debutante's ball. She skipped gleefully to a nearby table and retrieved a dagger from the confines of a velvet laced box. The weapon's hilt was encrusted with a delicate encrustment of obsidian stones that swallowed the light as Bellatrix held it up against the fireplace's flames.
"My Lord doesn't know that I know his secret," Bellatrix purred as she stepped closer to where Luna sat immobilized. Inches from Luna's face she bent forward until their cheeks pressed together, Bellatrix's voice was but a faint whisper in her ear. "About his horcruxes."
She punctuated the word horcruxes with a distinct hiss that made Luna's stomach lurch with terror even if she did not fully understand what it meant. Bellatrix lovingly stroked her hand through Luna's long blonde hair. The young woman had distant memories of her mother once doing the same and they were now tainted by feeling of Bellatrix's hand across her head. The unstable witch continued speaking, but this time it was mostly to herself. "My Lord doesn't realize that he needs me to protect him...what is immortality without me by his side?"
"But that's where you come in, my sweet little moon," Bellatrix said with a manic smile. "Because I have a way to make sure I am always there with him."
If Bellatrix had not stolen Luna's voice she might have cried out when the woman lifted her wand and with a swoop Luna was tossed to the hardwood floor like a petulant child's ragdoll. "Your precious pure blood will be a necessary sacrifice, I'm afraid. But don't you be scared it will all be over soon."
No matter how futile, Luna fought against the invisible weight that kept her from even defending herself. Her heart rate quickened as Bellatrix muttered the first words of her incantation. The air around them cracked and sizzled with the sickening dark energy that was being summoned. She could hear laughter, a grotesque noise that did not sound even remotely human. Luna only vaguely realized that it had not been coming from Bellatrix but somewhere else altogether.
Her whole world was spinning like a carousel gone awry so that Luna could not focus on the dagger in Bellatrix's hands as she raised it above her head. There was only a brief moment at the precipice of the spell's completion that it registered for Luna what was going to happen.
There was searing pain as the blade pierced her chest. She choked on her silent screams as the agony licked her body. Smoke combusted from her wound and filled the space in a hideous cloud of dark magic. Luna thought that when the time came she would welcome death. She pictured it like a warm blanket that would erase all the pains of her human body. Perhaps I will see Mama, Luna told herself and the idea had comfort.
She had at first thought that Harry or some friend would rescue her. She had been so confident in this belief that Luna had not worried about enduring her stay under her torturous capture. It had been two weeks or so as captive of the Death Eaters before reality set in. By then she had already seen another prisoner killed by Bellatrix. After that she stopped preparing for a rescue as she started preparing for the end of her life instead. As it had been she had given up the hope she would ever see her father again. It pained her to know he would be alone in the world when she was gone.
But facing death now, what struck her about the moment was that as the blade drove deeper into her heart Luna was not prepared for the sensation of the air leave her body. It was like being thrown into a very deep lake with boulders on her feet. Her lunges were suddenly on fire as tears streamed down her face unbidden.
Deeper into the abyss she plunged until her mortal heart stopped beating altogether.
It was with relief she relinquished her life into the cold outstretched hand of the grim reaper.
Or so Luna thought.
It wasn't the grim reaper, as she quickly realized. Nor did it turn out ot be that comforting black blanket she had imagined. It was a sinister energy that wretched its claws into her soul and devoured her senses.
In that darkness something else took hold of Luna, seizing the invitation Bellatrix had mistakenly offered with her dark invocation. As the heat of the spell dissipated Bellatrix realized it had not worked as she had hoped. Instead of immortality of her own she was left with the burning rage that it had not worked at all. She screeched, throwing the dagger against the wall where it remained.
Luna gasped and Bellatrix cast a confused look at the young woman's crumbled unconscious body. Luna's breath was shallow but still existent.
"Why aren't you dead?" Bellatrix said with an obvious pout. The crazed woman was far too absorbed with her evening's failed attempt to even notice that there was nothing but a silver line where her blade had stabbed Luna. The dark-haired witch summoned the resident werewolf, Fenrir Greyback and with a wave of her hand dismissed the creature to remove the evidence of her failure.
When Greyback brought Luna back to the Malfoy Manor's dungeon her porcelain skin was stained with soot. There was an uneasy look in the werewolf's face as he deliberately avoided the gaze of the witch in his arms. Putting the young woman down on a pallet of blankets that only vaguely resembled a bed, Greyback left quickly and without a single word. The other occupants of the shared cell hesitated to approach her at first, wondering whether it was best to let her be or offer comfort. Although at this point they were forced to acknowledge a singular truth: what comfort could any of them offer? They were all in hell together.
Garrick Ollivander pushed past the others, hobbling urgently to her side.
"Luna! LUNA!" Ollivander said as the old man tried to inspect the young woman for wounds. She did not respond.
After a few moments, Ollivander shook her but she merely stared ahead with unfocused eyes. Catatonic. There was a panic in his voice as the young witch went completely limp, her blue eyes open but unblinking. If not for the faint pulse and quiet inhale and exhale of breath he would have thought she was dead.
The aging wizard looked at the dungeon door screaming in a raspy voice at who ever stood beyond it: "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"
His voice echoed against the walls of dungeon as he held her.
What did you do to her?
What did you do to her?
