Author's Note: Written for the Triwizard Tournament! I love how all four of the champions are sitting here two days before the deadline going 'we have nothing done'. I'm super glad to say that I finally finished this! I'm especially glad 'cause I missed the choosing our dragons thing. Anyway, go 'Puffs!
TASK 1
4. Ukrainian Ironbelly: The largest breed of dragon, weighing up to six tonnes. It is a metallic grey colour, and the egg it is protecting is iron-coloured and very heavy. Genre: Supernatural [H]
3. Bedazzling Hex - temporarily blinds any observer. (Blind!AU)
7. Extinguishing Spell - puts out fires (word) Inferno
11. Jelly Brain Jinx - affects the target's mental processes. (scenario) stuttering or struggling to speak
Burning. That's her first memory. Flames shooting out, licking her cheeks, touching her lashes. She remembers the smell of soot more than she recalls the sound of her mother's voice, she remembers the rebirth and the force of nature propelling her out of the sky and into the velvet night. She knows that there was a before. There had to have been a before; everyone had one.
It just isn't there.
She remembers soft words, she remembers shrieking. Most of all, she remembers falling. Falling and burning, burning and falling.
Falling, her lips parted in a shout as she slipped, slipped down from the shining lights.
Falling, her arms reaching out to hold tightly onto the stars as she was dumped onto the gravel, her wings burned into her back and her fingers smoking.
Falling and burning, they are her two friends and her foes, a memory that she wears as a burden on her back. She doesn't want to forget, she can't forget. It would hurt too much.
So she remembers, she holds it with her from the moment that she skids across the rocks, she keeps it deep in her heart when she sets off on her own to find the before and to look around for the lost family she knows that she has, because angels are never alone.
It takes Luna three weeks to find the first one, and then the rest arrive right after in a series of shooting stars. His name is Theo and he's empty inside, his frown audible as he clicks on the keys of his smart phone.
Humans are amazing to her.
They threw together lines of wires, they created communication where there was nothing before.
Your memory will come back soon, Theo tells her, paying for her fancy phone with a card that sounds crisp and clean as he swipes it. It'll be fine in the end. Text me if you need anything.
She sits at a diner for three hours, playing with the buttons. There are little dips on the keys so she knows where her fingers go, and they make a satisfying click when she types. Theo gave her earbuds and a cane, and she listens to the phone prompt her on how to start a message.
Nearby, she hears a snicker as she idly picks at her eyelashes, a snide little giggle that hits the air. From the direction, it's aimed at her.
Luna blinks, slowly, and types out a message for Theo.
(3:34 am): i quite like raspberry ice cream
(3:35 pm): you're such a fledgling.
(3:35 pm): try raspberry chocolate chip on for size.
She spent three weeks wandering around the eastern seaboard of the United States, not quite sure how she got there. People ask her where she's from, they say her accent is strange, her syntax is different.
I am from Heaven, she tells them. She gives them her truths and they give her weird looks; she gives them kind thoughts and sends them off with hope.
She meets Ginny Weasley, fire and heat and anger. Where are you from?
Above, the girl says, sharp words and misery mixing. Luna smiles, slow and proud. There is someone like her.
There are more of them.
They exist they exist they exist they exist.
You are my sister, Luna shouts, light and airy. I've found you!
She adds Ginny to her chat, she finds the seven others that Ginny knows and sends them texts upon texts upon texts.
She decides she likes to wander the earth, she likes the way that she can talk to the humans even if they are sad and broken.
They aren't all happy. They can't all be happy. There has to be misery somewhere in the world, and Luna finds it to draw out the sunshine within.
She meets Neville Longbottom that way, and at the sound of his voice she texts Theo and Ginny, all wide eyes and confusion.
(12:19 pm): why is there a boy with eyes as blank as our slates? why does he carry the weight of the world on his shoulders?
(12:25 pm): he is unhappy. humans are so beautiful in their grief.
(12:30 pm): not everyone can be happy. they pray to us for help, or did you forget?
(12:30 pm): humans are full of sadness
(12:30 pm): who is this human you're so enthralled with?
(12:31 pm): hello, theo.
(12:31 pm): greetings, red-one. when did you meet our fledgling?
(12:32 pm): his name is neville and his heart is a weeping willow
(12:45 pm): his heart could be an inferno of sin. be grateful.
He is nephilim and she should be disgusted, she should resort to violence and throw something at him. Theo told her, so it was right.
Theo was always right. He was older, he knew what he was talking about. Ginny was just as old, but she was enigmatic, she made sure that Luna worked to find the answers.
But Neville is someone she isn't supposed to be near, someone she isn't supposed to interact with. He's dangerous, he's… something of the sort. He's curses and emptiness and wrong. Her head shrieks it over and over. Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
She had hit him with her cane, her cane with vines trailing upwards and flower petals dripping off, and he hadn't been as crude as she had expected. He had sighed, he had apologized, he had bumbled and fumbled and stuttered.
Luna was used to people being rude to her, she was used to the hissed words and the missed comments. She didn't quite mind it anymore; she was still searching for her memory, searching for the things that were gone and lost and forgotten but still there.
I'm sorry, he says, and she feels the words resonate deep in her soul, she feels the sympathy and the generosity and how genuine he actually is.
You are forgiven, of course. And she is gentle as she stands, knowing that he is fragile- she can feel it, she can feel his heart thrumming as he stands a few feet away. She can't see his face but she is certain that it's fixated into puzzlement, she's sure that she would know if she felt it.
But it's not puzzlement, it's relief, it's relief and softness. I know where you're from.
I fell, she tells him, reaching out her cane. She knows he's there, and the little tip touches what could be his ankle, his shin… She does not know where his legs end, and when he stretches out a hand it touches her cheek. I fell and I burned.
I can tell. Are you here to kill me?
Luna frowns deeply, trying to wrap her head around the words. Why? You radiate sadness and turmoil. I am here to help.
Help? You can't even see, he says, and his words sting, but she stays, because she is full of hope.
(8:30 am): the animals volunteer to become eyes for the humans
(8:31 am): have you ever heard of something so sweet?
(8:35 am): they sing songs for the dead, they place flowers and stones on their graves and pray to us to lead them through these times
(8:36 am): and through it all they cling to their creatures for the brief years that they wander the earth
(8:37 am): deep-fried oreos are holy as well
He has lost his entire family, and at first Luna believes he means that he misplaced them. His grandmother has recently returned to Heaven, and from what she can gather the woman was fiercer than anyone she has ever heard of.
Was she like me?
Neville doesn't answer each time she asks, he brushes it off and moves along, pressing food to her plate and guiding her hands to the silverware he has set out. There are things they don't talk about, little things that they bypass as he leads her through his days.
In the morning, he gets up, he stumbles, he fumbles. It takes him thirty minutes to become the Neville she is used to, thirty minutes of him standing in the middle of the room and trying to find himself.
His family is lost, and so is Neville, and Luna wants to help him find his soul so that it can sing once more.
I don't like to talk, he tells her one morning. She can hear the shaky smile, she can hear the way that he tastes the words before spitting them out. She wonders if they are sweet, or bitter, or empty.
Each time she talks the words taste like a blessing, a gift. She doesn't know if sight is the same way, but Luna dreams that it is, and she taps her cane against the ground when Neville is slowly being created. I will talk for you, and you will see for me. I will give you holiness and you can bring me to the ground.
So she moves in with Neville, she picks a room in the corner of his big, lonely house. I got it from gran, he says, and she begins to decorate her room in the middle of the night.
Theo taught her now to make paper snowflakes, and that is what she starts with, cutting the paper as best as she can without being able to see. She feels for the holes, she makes them thick so that they don't tear.
Luna likes to put them up at all hours of the day, just her little room, and then the rest of the house. She doesn't know if they're in places that work, she isn't sure if Neville even leaves them up, but sometimes she'll feel for the places that she knows they're there just to see. They're always there, silent little warriors poised just where she can feel them.
They spend their days together because Neville doesn't work. He quietly tends to plants in the backyard, he sings to them, he takes care of them. Twice a week they go into town and to the store, and he quietly tells Luna about the people around them.
Good morning, Neville, the old ladies say, and she hears him swallow, she feels him tighten his grip on her arm.
She moves to speak for him, but he tightens his arm again, and she smiles. Whenever the went out it took him hours to ready himself, hours to make sure that he knew what to say.
G-good m-m-morning. His lips chatter and his heart thumps, and she knows, she knows that he has finally accomplished what he has hoped for.
He teaches her about what is happening in the world, and Luna weeps. Small strengths don't seem to matter now, but the cords of family are wound just as tight. Each morning when she wakes up she struggles to remember things that Neville has told her, and each morning she thinks deeply about everything that has ensued around her.
She is sad, but she knows she will pull through. She is taking Neville's misery and making it her own, she is pulling the happiness out of her and pushing it towards him. Neville is better, now, he is warmer than before, he has hope pouring from his fingers.
She is helping, so it is all that matters.
And he helps her- he always helps. He is her eyes, he describes things to her in ways she would understand.
Theo calls Ginny 'red', she says, her hands clutching at Neville's. His calloused fingers wrap around her wrist, tracing flowers and other nonsense shapes.
He describes it for her in soft words. Her hair is heat and anger, fingers too close to a flame. It's the feeling you have when you're being brave, the thrum of your heart.
(4:01 am): theo, how long does it take to find out who you are?
(4:02 am): you are stardust and hope, fledgling.
(4:02 am): you are my sister, that is who you are
(4:13 am): how silly it is to think on these things when the humans around us falter. i weep for them, theo. my heart is coming out of my throat.
His words come easier now, but her sight has remained the same. While Neville flourishes Luna feels like she is faltering, slightly, in comparison.
His stutter is gone, mainly; it returns only when he feels under stress, when he is struggling to speak in public. He still remains silent around the house, only talking silently to Luna when the vastness becomes too similar to falling.
She still struggles to remember, she still tries to get the thoughts in her head to arrive in a distinct order. She taps her cane against the ground each time that a text from Ginny or Theo comes through, she listens to them slowly and replays each one thirteen times.
She feels the silences and sadness deeply, she pulls the misery through his heart and takes it away, and he tries to be a comfort to her.
I have found out how to be human, she tells him sadly. You feel deeper than your body can, you give up all for those you love.
Oh, he responds, slowly. D-do you r-really love me?
She takes his hands, gently, and doesn't speak. Luna isn't sure what he is thinking, but she hears his heartbeat and tries to understand. Love love love love thumps in her fingertips, and she hears rustling as he steps closer to her.
His cheek was rough with a three-day old beard, but his lips were soft and gentle as they brushed up against hers.
Is this human? she asks, her unseeing eyes wide.
Luna can hear his laugh in his sweet, stuttering voice. Y-yes, it is.
They don't talk about what they are, because talking is too much. They just accept that they're together, that they're something. Luna isn't quite sure, but she thinks that he has become the breath in her lungs, the pounding of her heart.
She can't see his face, but she is sure that it is full of words and colors, happiness and hope and purity and light.
What color are you?
He takes a deep pause, he holds his tongue and is silent, stoic as the snowflakes that she knows still riddle the walls. Yellow, he says, tasting the word. Yellow.
And me?
He doesn't hesitate, this time, he links their fingers and he touches the vine-wrapped cane. You are the entire rainbow.
(5:02 pm): i miss my wings
(5:02 pm): me too, fledgling. me too.