Luna knelt beside the stream, gazing into the still water. A young girl with straggly blonde hair and a thin, pale face smeared with black grime gazed tranquilly back through a pair of orb-like blue eyes. A thick layer of earth from the riverbank caked her skin like moist armour, nestling between her bare toes and in the creases at her elbows. Tucked behind her ear was an enormous sunflower—a sunflower almost bigger than her own head—its brilliant yellow petals flecked slightly with dirt.
Luna dipped her finger into the water, and her reflection shattered into a thousand fragments; seconds later, the stream became still once more, and the dirty blonde girl reappeared in its depths. Luna had always liked the sense of reliability, of dependability, that the water gave her. She knew that no matter how many times the river rippled, and no matter how many wrinkles formed, the little blonde girl would always be there, waiting, momentarily out of sight, for the chaos on the surface to reside. If Luna was just patient, the lost girl would always, eventually, return.
Luna passed most of her days outside alone (or else with the sole company of the lost girl beneath the stream), as she had given up playing with the other children her age a long time ago. The Diggory boy was older and a bit too down-to-earth and rational for her liking. She had thought she would like the Weasleys, with their flaming red hair and their funny lopsided house, but the boys had all either ignored her or laughed unkindly and called her "Loony." She liked the young girl, Ginny, for her cheeks were spangled with freckles that Luna liked to connect to form shapes, and she was also often just as smeared with dirt and grime as Luna was. For a while, they played together each week in the Weasley garden, chasing the chickens and climbing trees. Then, one day, Luna had suggested that they poke around for gnomes and goad them into nipping the girls' fingers, for her father had always sworn that gnome bites were lucky. She guessed that wasn't true, though, for Ginny had received a particularly nasty bite and it wasn't so lucky that Luna was never invited to play at the Burrow again.
Ever since she had turned nine (seven months, three days, and twenty-six minutes ago), Luna was allowed to accompany her father to Bottom Bridge to fish for Freshwater Plimpies, or to collect bunches of sunflowers from the bright patch that grew in the mud nearby. Her father would perch on the edge of the bridge, a fishing line in hand, while Luna scrambled up and down the banks, digging in the mud and splashing in the stream.
Today, however, her father was away on business—a week ago, he had returned from a trip to London with an alarming sort of creature. Xenophilius had balanced Luna in his lap, her hair draped in matted tangles across his legs, and he had explained that this churning metal monster was called a "printing press," and that it constituted the first step in his newest project: a magazine called the Quibbler. She had noticed that he had had that look in his eye—the wild, manic look that often unconsciously emerged when he told outsiders about the Rotfang Conspiracy in the ministry, or about his quest to track down the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.
Luna had also noticed that, more often than not, the recipient of her father's passionate speeches would wear a very different expression—their eyebrows would arch, their eyes would squint, and their lips would turn down at the corners. They would cross their arms, tap their feet, and shake their heads. When she had asked her mother about this curious reaction, Mrs. Lovegood had laughed and explained that these people were most likely the unfortunate victims of Wrackspurt attacks.
"Wrackspurts are invisible creatures that fly through people's ears and make their brains go fuzzy," Mrs. Lovegood had explained seriously. "That's what causes all the head-shaking: a fuzzy brain, what an unpleasant sort of sensation that must be! Plus, I've heard that a Wrackspurt attack can often make people very closed-minded. Of course they'd want to rid themselves of that."
"What does it mean to be closed-minded, Mama?" Luna had asked.
Mrs. Lovegood had smiled, but Luna had observed that her mother's blue eyes had remained pensive and perhaps even slightly troubled.
"Not everyone sees the world like we do," Mrs. Lovegood had responded. "Some people ignore the things—or the people—they don't want to believe. Others get angry, or irritated, or depressed. Many people refuse to believe the things they can't see, or taste, or smell, or hear for themselves. But an open mind, like yours, or your father's, can see the world as it truly is, and as it should be, and as it might be: simultaneously terrible, wonderful, and everything in between."
Luna had frowned. "And closed-mindedness…that's because of the Wrackspurts?"
Her mother's laugh had tinkled lightly through the kitchen. "Yes, Luna," she had replied. "It's because of the Wrackspurts. In fact, I do believe it's Wrackspurt breeding season—no wonder there's so much head-shaking going on these days."
But that had been many months ago; Luna was beginning to wonder how long exactly a Wrackspurt breeding season lasted, for the head-shaking hadn't ceased one bit.
Today, Xenophilius Lovegood had gone to meet yet another client at the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade. As she sat atop a mound of dirt by the stream, Luna drew her legs closer to her body, rested her chin upon her blackened knees, and hoped fiercely that this new client was not as tormented by Wrackspurts as all the others had evidently been.
Carefully, Luna extracted the sunflower from behind her matted hair and gazed at its serene black face. She liked wearing a sunflower behind her ear—it felt like a third eye, or a sort of guardian; from what, she wasn't sure. Perhaps Wrackspurts, she thought wisely. She didn't like the idea of closed-mindedness one bit. Did it hurt when your mind closed off? Was it a permanent affliction, or could it one day be re-opened? She preferred to believe the latter, for it gave her some hope.
Recently, Luna had discovered a new way to channel her magic: cupping the flower in her palm, she took a deep breath and focused intensely on its brilliant yellow petals. Immediately, the petals began to curl and uncurl in a hypnotizing rhythm: the flower was alive, dancing, its petals playfully tickling the inside of her hand. They formed a motley crew, the dancing sunflower, the lost river girl, and Luna, but she was happy this way. Her life was as still and peaceful as the stream of Ottery St. Catchpole. She thought she could sense something bubbling, like a pebble about to drop, or a finger about to dip, or a ripple about to tear apart the water's surface. But for now, at least, the water was smooth as glass, her reflection pure and whole.
As she sat curled on the riverbank, Luna suddenly noticed a pair of wide hazel eyes peering out at her from between the tall stalks of the sunflower patch nearby. She leapt up, tucked her dancing sunflower back behind her ear, and tiptoed up the bank, her bare feet sinking slightly into the mud at each step. As she approached, the hazel eyes scrutinized her, but remained utterly still. She crept closer, her toes finding firmer ground as she withdrew from the moist bank of the river.
She could now discern a pair of long, furry ears, a cottonball tail, and four powerful brown legs—the owner of the hazel eyes was a large hare, its whiskers twitching playfully as it stared at her, daring her to come closer. She was only several feet away…three feet…two feet…and then, mesmerized as she was by the hare's bold gaze, her foot found a rogue twig, which splintered with a deafening crack. The hare scampered away so fast it was as if it had Disapparated.
Luna's heart plummeted. She was sure that there was no way for her to find the hare again, and she wasn't quite sure why she felt such a yearning for it anyway. But something in that creature's gaze had connected with her—its curiosity, perhaps, or its innocent daring, or the gentle wisdom behind those hazel eyes—and she dreamed of kneeling down among the sunflowers beside it, stroking its wiry fur with her fingers, whispering nonsensical words in its cavernous ears. But the hare was gone, lost somewhere within the still sea of flowers, their bright yellow faces turned boldly toward the sun.
Dispirited, Luna turned to trudge back to her spot by the stream. She planted her bare feet in the tiny pits that they had previously made in the mud—they fit perfectly, like a pair of damp soil shoes. For a second, Luna felt like she had been planted in the soil, and had grown from the earth; when she turned her face toward the sky and stretched her neck as far as it would go, she could imagine that she was a tall, especially filthy sunflower. Keeping her feet staunchly planted in the soil, she swayed for a moment in the breeze, fluttering her arms gracefully in the air like fragile leaves, and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of morning sunshine on her delicate sunflower face.
Reopening her bulbous blue eyes, she gazed up at the silvery rainclouds just beginning to form on the horizon. Luna's mother had often insisted that a raincloud was made up of a million tiny Nubblypunks—the gentler cousin to the Hinkypunk (those devious creatures that resided in bogs, and often attempted to lure unwitting travelers into the mist), these cottony critters preferred to travel in packs, billowing and drifting along in the darkening sky. Rain, Mrs. Lovegood had explained, was a harmless defense mechanism: whenever they felt angry or scared, the Nubblypunk expelled a continuous shower of fresh water from their aqueous bodies. Whenever it rained, Luna always felt a little sad—what terrible thing could have made these poor, innocent creatures so anxious? As she splashed and leapt through shimmering puddles after a storm, Luna often thought, if she strained her ears, that she could hear the rumble of the Nubblypunks' solemn, fretful murmuring.
Luna liked the idea that there was an entire world up above in the heavens, invisible to those who remained confined to the earth—perhaps, she thought, there was even an entire civilization just like theirs: witches and wizards, quietly going about their everyday lives, bustling along among streets paved with stars and towers of ivory cloud.
Maybe that was even where souls went when they died, Luna thought, as she plopped back down onto the riverbank, digging her toes deeper into the mud. In her mind's eye, she conjured up a scene where her grandparents, their hair graying and thin, fine wrinkles carved into their leathery faces, sipping tea in a kitchen in the sky; in a cradle by their table, Luna's stillborn baby sister would be nestled in a quilt of the softest cottonball cloud. The image brought a smile to her face. If this was true, she mused, then no one was ever truly gone: everyone and everything she had ever lost was still somewhere in the sky, waiting for their little Luna to find them once more.
A quiet rustling awoke Luna from her reverie. Something light and feathery tickled the fingers of her right hand; she looked down, right into the familiar hazel eyes of the lost brown hare. She grinned, her misty eyes lighting up, for here was absolute, solid proof of the truth of her mother's famous mantra. "The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, Luna," Mrs. Lovegood would remind her, whenever she complained of a lost shoe, or a stolen butterbeer cork necklace, or a missing pair of Spectrespecs. "All we ever need to do is remain patient." More often than not, these words were followed by batch of pudding, whipped up by Mrs. Lovegood, especially for Luna to enjoy while she waited for her lost possession to return.
Careful not to make any sudden movements, and wishing vaguely that she had some pudding, Luna slowly lifted her hand and stroked the hare between the ears. It twitched its nose in pleasure, its whiskers grazing her palm, and sidled closer, continuing to gaze sagely at her through its almond-shaped eyes. In one fluid motion, Luna cupped her palms and cautiously scooped the hare up, holding it tight in the crook of her arms as she jumped up and scrambled back up the riverbank.
She raced past the sunflower patch and past Bottom Bridge, stopping briefly for breath at the bottom of a hill. Atop this hill, a solitary, towering structure was perched: this was the Lovegood house, in which Luna had been born and raised—the only home she had ever known. It was constructed of spiraling ebony stone, much of which was carpeted in dark green moss and twisting vines. A number of small round windows were scattered at random upon the rook-like structure, almost as if they had been added as an afterthought. A set of crumbling steps had been carved into the hill, and these led directly up to the house's deteriorated front gate.
Every window of the house was dark and lifeless, with the exception of one: random, colorful flashes of light flickered in the kitchen, and a thin pillar of gray fog billowed from the open window. As she cuddled the hare closer to her chest, Luna wondered vaguely what her mother was doing in there—some sort of magic, she presumed, for Mrs. Lovegood often liked to conduct experiments on various types of spells and charms. Luna had often watched her mother dance around the circular kitchen, waving her wand in intricate, complicated patterns through the air, deftly conjuring jets and sparks of rainbow light. Xenophilius always insisted that Luna stay upstairs when her mother did this (for her own safety, of course), so Luna would sit on the second-floor landing, her legs dangling from the balcony overlooking the kitchen, and peer down at her mother's gracefully whirling form.
As she began to climb the steps leading to her home, Luna noticed several things: one, the gray Nubblypunk rainclouds had drifted closer, blocking out the sun and forming an ominous mass on the horizon; two, the flashes of light in the kitchen window seemed to be occurring more frequently, just as the pillar of steam appeared to be thickening; and three, a distant rumble of thunder shook the air, joined by loud, insistent bangs that had just begun to reverberate from the open window of the house.
She arrived at the broken-down front gate with a certain sense of unease swelling in the pit of her stomach. Luna hugged the hare to her body, nestling her chin in its soft brown fur, and hesitantly pushed the rusting iron gates open. She tread lightly through the front garden, following the winding stone path through patches of Snargaluffs, Gurdyroots, and Dirigible plums, and finally up to the rook-shaped house's coal-black front door. Two ancient crab apple trees, bearing berry-sized fruits and white-headed mistletoe, framed the door; when Luna was six, she and her mother had carved divine faces into the bark, so that they gazed sternly at each visitor through knowing brown eyes. From its perch within the branches of the right-hand tree, the Lovegoods' pet owl hooted serenely, turning its flat, hawk-like head to watch Luna as she approached.
It happened just as Luna stretched out her fingers to grasp the eagle-shaped knocker on the front door: an earth-shattering scream tore the air into a million jagged fragments. A mass of metallic smoke billowed out from the very foundation of the house, hissing menacingly as it rose into the darkening sky. The owl gave a frightened hoot and fluttered from its roost, soaring gracefully away until it was lost in the gray haze. The creature in Luna's arms trembled slightly, but did not make any attempts to escape.
The front door burst open of its own accord. As Luna crossed the threshold of her home, she noticed that the bolt holding the door closed had melted, forming a grotesque mass of dripping iron. Opaque clouds of smoke drifted through the perfectly circular kitchen, lapping at the cupboards, and leaving angry scorch marks on the wooden appliances. Solid jets of green and gold light burst through the clouds, reverberating off the walls; one especially fierce jet streamed past Luna through the open door, coming within inches of the sunflower still tucked in Luna's ear.
The hare was trembling more vigorously now—or was that Luna? She could no longer tell. Her arms were locked in their cradle position. Her brain felt fuzzy and unclear, as if some of the smoke had entered through her ears, and was now swimming through her head. She thought wildly of Wrackspurts. Somehow, amid all the confusion and haze, Luna had drawn closer to the wrought-iron spiral staircase in the centre of the kitchen. Looking down, she noticed that her feet were moving of their own volition, but her gait was jerky and disjointed.
At the base of the staircase, she found a pile of crumpled black robes. She wondered vaguely why her mother had left her dirty laundry at the foot of the stairs. Then she noticed the tangle of wild, dirty blonde hair, tumbling from the neck of the crumpled robes. Then, she noticed the delicate hand resting on the stone floor, its fingers outstretched toward a thin holly wand, which had rolled just out of their reach. And then, finally, she noticed her mother's ashen face: her thin lips were parted in a perpetual gape, her bony cheeks were bloodless and pale, and her bulbous blue eyes were wide—her features were frozen in an expression of endless wonder and amazement.
That was when Luna's body finally seemed to unlock. Her arms dropped to her side—the hare plummeted to the stone floor and scampered away, but Luna had eyes only for her mother's broken form, lying heaped at the foot of the staircase. She knelt, her grimy knees tingling painfully as they slammed against the cold stone of the kitchen floor.
As she bent to peer closer at her mother's lifeless face, a flash of sunshine yellow caught her eye: the sunflower had fallen from behind her straggly blonde hair, and now lay, crushed and limp, beside her mother's body. For some reason, Luna found she could not bear to look at the dead flower; averting her gaze, she stared instead into the still, astonished blue eyes of her mother.
She didn't know how long she remained in that position, her eyes locked upon those of her mother, her fingers scrambling for some hold on the smooth, unforgiving stone floor. It could have been seconds, or hours, or days, or weeks—she became aware of a dull roaring in her ears as rain began to fall in thick sheets, pounding against the stones of the house and streaming in through the open window, but still she did not rise.
Eventually, of course, Xenophilius Lovegood had to return home; by that time, the brief storm had resided, and a deep, glassy puddle had formed on the floor of the kitchen. Eventually, Luna had to get up from beside her mother's still form and wash herself off, for she really was quite filthy from all that scrambling in the mud by the stream. When she came down, she found her father sitting beside the puddle, gazing, expressionless, into its depths; quietly, Luna sat beside him, cross-legged, and joined him. For a second, their reflections were still and clear—then, a droplet of water fell from the still-damp windowpane, rippling the puddle and shattering the silver-haired man and the thin blonde girl in its depths. Drip.
Eventually, the water was still again, their reflections pure and whole; eventually, the two remaining Lovegoods had dinner, consisting of Freshwater Plimpie soup, silence, and a conspicuously empty third chair. Drip. Eventually, the Lovegoods hosted a quiet funeral—the Diggorys attended, as did the Weasleys, their flaming red heads bowed in respect. Drip. Eventually, the lost brown hare showed up on the Lovegood doorstep, its hair matted and tangled, but its eyes as serene as ever. Xenophilius helped Luna set up a hutch for it in the yard, right beside the "Pick Your Own Dirigible Plums" patch. Drip. And, eventually, the kitchen windowpane dried; the stream of droplets ceased, and the puddle was glassy and still for good. When the last droplet had fallen, and the final ripples had lapsed, Xenophilius and Luna sat in silence for another moment. Then, Xenophilius heaved himself to his feet, waved his wand in one fluid motion, and the puddle evaporated. And life went on.