"They say that when someone looks like that, they've been taken by the fairies."
Hermione jolts out of her exhaustion at the voice far too close to her and whips out her wand, a spell already beginning to burn at the tip before she realizes who it is. "Hello, Luna."
The dirt and dried blood smeared on the girl's pale face crinkles into a smile. "Hello, Hermione. It's good to see you alive." Without waiting for an invitation, she sits on the crumbling steps beside her. In the few hours since the end of the war, she's changed into a dress, a long white one with smudges from where she absentmindedly toys with the skirt.
After a few minutes of silence, Luna asks, "What are you doing here?"
Making sure that Harry's alive, because I thought that he was dead once and that will never, ever happen again. Aloud, she says, "Keeping Harry company."
Luna looks out to where he is leaning against the trunk of the half-destroyed Whomping Willow, his head in his hands. Hermione can see his shoulders shake even from here. "Why aren't you with him?"
"He just wants to be alone right now." Pointedly, she adds, "We all do."
Luna hums in agreement. "It's nice to have friends."
Hermione doesn't know how to respond to that, so she changes the subject. "What were you saying earlier?"
Luna brightens. "Oh, the fairies! They steal people away sometimes, you know."
"No, I didn't." Her voice is sharp with annoyance at this girl who can talk about her imaginary creatures while the castle still smells like blood, but she doesn't seem to notice.
Luna tilts her head to the side and looks over at Harry. "I wonder if there's a word for when they want to be taken?"