Author's Note: This is an AU from the point of view of Luna Lovegood that primarily parallels Harry Potter's time at Hogwarts. The story diverges from canon in multiple ways, including the introduction of original characters, spells, and new forms of magic. There are three primary divergences:
1) Luna's mother is a Seer named Cressida.
2) Luna is one year younger than canon, making her two years younger than the trio and one year younger than Ginny Weasley.
3) Luna does not attend Hogwarts. With her mother, she founds a witchcraft school for girls.
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October 31, 1981
Blood red claw marks streaked the sky, marring the pocked surface of the moon. It ached to look at the moon. Large and pale and swollen like her breasts. The only source of light in this world of darkness and blood, black and red. But so many people, people with haggard faces, averted their eyes from its cool radiance. They scorned the moon. Why? She did not know.
The people seemed to shrivel around her, their bodies contorted, lumps of skin flaking off of their shadow-creased faces. Yet still, they rejected the moon. She found herself drawn to its light, which had cast off its bloody red tint and become pure white. A few other women were walking towards the moon, arms outstretched, and she joined them. Somehow she knew they were women from the curves of their hips and breasts and lips. She could not sense whether the other people on the ground were men or women or something else. Their bodies seemed too damaged and fragmented to be anything. The women were whole. They seemed to float above the detritus, and she floated with them.
"Come," she offered her hand to a crumpled lump on the ground, "the moon will heal you."
The figure shrunk away from her, wheezing. When she touched the part of its body that she imagined must have once been its shoulder, its entire mangled arm came away in her hand. She opened her mouth to let out a shriek but no sound would come. She fell to her knees, trying to reattach the arm even as it crumbled in her hands. She felt her own skin melting off of her face and arms and stomach.
Another woman approached her and with the gentleness of a mother's touch turned her back to the moonlight. When the other woman spoke, she heard her own voice.
"My child. You will be scorned, we will all be scorned. They will not see the light, at least not yet. First we must reclaim the moon and rebuild her sacred circle. They will not see the light until the light is bright enough to blot out the shadows. A dark queen, a raven queen will rise and she will be powerful enough to bring them the light. And she will be of your blood. The blood of the moon and the womb and of all of us. She will rise and make us the advisers and shapers and crafters of the world once more. She will nourish the world. The moon will nourish the world once more. The moon will rule once more."
She felt her eyes drawn to a figure rising above the mass of bodies. A long-haired woman rode a broomstick higher and higher, impossibly high. She traversed the sky, gesturing wildly with her hands and throwing her body into strange shapes that made the women below gasp. One by one, the red clouds surrounding the moon dispersed. The women continued her work. Occasionally she seemed to tug at her hair, which trailed over the edge of the broomstick like a curtain. Eventually there was nothing in the sky but the moon and the witch on her broomstick.
The woman turned to face the moon, obscuring her movements from the crowd. As she moved her hands in the air, over her broomstick, over her own body in passionately synchronized movements, undulating primal sounds came from her mouth.
A drop of blood fell from the sky and into the group of women. Then another. Then another. The third landed on her cheek with a soft metallic noise.
The drops began to fall in earnest and the women began to scream, believing blood was raining down upon them. But it wasn't blood. It wasn't even rain.
She was one of the first to hold her hand out to catch the pale liquid. It felt thick and slightly gelatinous cupped in her hands. The smell was earthy, primal, and sour. It felt natural on her skin. She threw her head back and opened her mouth to the deluge, sticking her tongue out with the inquisitiveness and reckless abandon of a child.
It was milk.
"It's milk! It's not blood, it's milk!" She shouted to some of the others who had cowered trying to protect their skin.
Other women began to taste the moon's milk. It healed their wounds. Their skin began to glow. They took off their clothes and splashed in the puddles of milk, laughing and frolicking together. She linked arms with a few others and began dancing in a circle, spinning faster and faster, shrieking with delight and relief. Their bodies were theirs and new and fresh and cleansed and beautiful. They hadn't realized how much their old bodies ached until they found relief.
Even the crumbled masses huddled broken on the ground were restored. Their bodies slowly began to take shape again and the gashes in their skin healed. The moon will nourish.
She looked around the joyous crowd for their savior, but the woman with the broomstick was nowhere to be found. The moon will rule.
Cressida Lovegood awoke to find her breasts leaking milk and her swollen belly glowing with strange colored lights. She sat up with a start and prodded her belly sharply. There were several tortuously long beats. It was only then that she remembered the fairy lights Xenophilius had enchanted to swarm around her belly for Halloween. She finally felt a kick beneath her expectant hand and sighed with relief. Good baby.
"Here's your juniper tea, my goddess…oh, what a sight." Xenophilius stood in the doorway with his hand over his heart. Cressida smiled, sitting up in bed to take the mug from her husband's hands.
"Are you sure you don't want my help in the garden? You know how much I love the Halloween harvest…" she wiped a smudge of soil from his nose as he kissed her on the cheek. His lips grazed her neck and the hollows of her collarbone before moving to kiss the breast milk, which had already stained the dried flowers and leaves of her homemade Halloween dress.
"Nonsense, my love. You need to rest. The herbs will be just as potent; it doesn't matter who does the harvesting, as long as it's All Hollow's Eve," his fingers roved the contours of her pregnant body. The large fairy wings they had constructed together out of willow and petrified butterflies fluttered as he grazed them.
"I'm not so sure, part of me think a woman's touch makes a difference. And I'm not an invalid, you know, Xeno," Cressida bristled crossly, shifting to find a comfortable spot on the bed. She was already bursting at the seams of the dress she had made less than a week ago.
"Of course not, my love. But not many are blessed with your gift. This sacred day is about more than the harvest. If you feel well enough for the bonfire, perhaps you may See something."
Cressida's fingers drummed on her belly. "I think I might have done, while you were in the garden. About the baby."
"On All Hallow's Eve? What did you See? Oh, how splendid, my queen, my fairy queen!"
"I don't remember much. There was a queen, actually. A dark queen. And the moon. I think she's going to be a girl." Her husband's eyes were rapt upon her face as he cupped her belly in his hands.
"She's going to be important. She's going to rule the moon...something about restoring the moon's circle. There was milk, but maybe that was just because I was leaking, and blood. She's going to be queen of the moon. We should call her Luna."
"Luna." Xenophilius whispered.
"We're both fair but maybe she'll be dark. Your mum had darker hair, didn't she? And there's Andie of course. Maybe she'll be born during a full moon."
The tea lay cold and forgotten as the Lovegoods continued their Halloween festivities. Xenophilius blessed the harvest and left a selection of crops under the oldest tree in their garden as thanks to the goddesses and fairies who had blessed them. They started a bonfire and burned a potent combination of acrid herbs in an attempt to induce further visions. They cut open the lushest pomegranate and read the omens of its seeds before rubbing it on Cressida's belly. The fruits of their harvest and the sweat of their bodies caused their homespun organic costumes to disintegrate and fall away. They danced naked in front of the fire until Cressida grew weary. As they lay in bed struggling to keep their eyes open, they both said it was the happiest night of their lives.
That year, they wished for a more bountiful harvest than usual, thinking of more than themselves and their garden. They thought only of Luna.
Cressida awoke the next morning to Xenophilus's voice. Still drowsy, she smiled and rolled over to nuzzle him. But he wasn't in bed.
"Protego totalum…repello inimicum…," came her husband's muffled voice from the window.
"Xeno? What's happened? What's wrong?"
"More people are being killed. People we know. No one's safe…fianto duri," he cast another charm out the open window.
She held her stomach. "What? Who's been killed?"
"The Potters. James Potter and Lily Evans. Remember them? Gryffindors? He must have finally convinced her to look twice at him after we left Hogwarts, the clod."
"Well, I'm very sorry they're dead, but I can't say I'm surprised. Their little group was never the brightest nor the safest, were they? Toast for breakfast, love?" Cressida held the bedpost for support as she hobbled out of bed.
"No. Don't go downstairs. Not safe. Here, wear this." Xenophilius draped a string of garlic, herbs, dirigible plums, and other vegetation around her neck.
"Xeno, if people reacted this way to every murder, no one would ever leave their homes! Besides, we can't harvest some of these herbs again until this time next year, we have to use them sparingly, remember?"
"It's not just James and Lily. They have a son. He wanted to kill their son. He's after babies now, too." Xenophilius paced across the room. His hands reached out to Cressida and her stomach, pulled back, fingered the protective wreath around his neck, tapped against the walls as he paced.
"No. Not the baby, he didn't kill the baby." Cressida fell back against the bed, clutching her stomach. Her husband crossed the room and put a hand to her back as she sat down.
"The boy is still alive. No one knows why or how, but he survived the killing curse."
"What? What do you mean, he survived the killing curse?
"So many theories swirling about. We'll need a special issue to discuss all the possibilities, yes, yes. My first instinct was that Lily was aware of the Dark Lord's intentions and concocted some kind of protective potion for him. Was she privy to some Muggle remedy of which we are ignorant? Or perhaps an uncommon herbal recipe…" he paced to a pile of books on the floor and picked up a particularly worn volume.
"Xeno, tell me what's happened!" Cressida's voice became high and strained as she struggled to stand up again.
"Marshmallow has been out of fashion for years now. Others think the child isn't really a child at all, but is an adult in hiding under the effects of an extreme anti-ageing potion or Polyjuice Potion. Perhaps one of the Potters' less savory friends, or Dumbledore himself. Some suspect it was the power of the mother's love that saved the child. She apparently sacrificed herself for him. But some are suggesting the child was already undead in some way…"
"It was the mother's love," Cressida said with absolute certainty.
"Yes, yes, very old magic, apparently. But I'm still inclined…"
"No, I can feel it in my bones. I would do the same for her, for Luna. And it would save her."
For the first time in her life, Cressida felt magic coursing through her body without a wand in her hand. She felt powerful.