Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

Warning: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers.

Author's Note(s): This story was originally written for "The Advent Challenge" hosted by the Facebook page MayWeWrite. It follows The Schrodinger Effect and precedes the upcoming fic Trammeling Masks which precedes Through Feline Eyes. Collectively, I've been calling this continuity/'verse "To Make a Difference" as that is the commonality between all the pieces. All pieces may be found together on AO3 in the series by that name.

Song Recommendation: "Take Me to Church" by Megan Davies

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Defying Veils

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"To keep the goddess on my side, She demands a sacrifice." – Hozier, Take Me to Church

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Luna drifted. Fog surrounded her—the magical kind that permeates the spaces that lay simply between places. She had only been to Avalon once, when she was nine. Her grandmother had presented her to the other fey families of Britannia. Still reeling from the death of her mother barely six months prior, Luna could barely remember the meeting, but the feeling of passing the border would stay with her. Just like then, the border didn't feel so much like a solid veil so much as a pool upon whose waters one could coast forever just filled with the shifting hues of green, blue, and purple.

The memories of the life she had left behind drifted with her. The sorrow at the loss of her family did not seem as crippling anymore. She could see now how she had been holding herself together for her father, only to have him been already dead. Her father had been a good man, and he had done his best by her, but she could now admit that he hadn't known how to raise a feyling. He had been lost after her mother's death, and with him, she had been as well. Grandmother could only do so much, and then she had been stolen from them.

Green rippled through the fog around her. Its richness and depth soothed her. Thoughts of quiet mornings conversing over tea filled her with a steady current of connection. She could hear the echo of a tenor singing a muggle hymn as she fell asleep between two warm bodies. There was the feeling of understanding, awkward but so right, even when she was speaking more to the off-set creatures she saw than to him. He was important, touched by the Fates and blessed by Destiny. He was simply everything and needed to be protected.

Harry, her mind supplied as the color shifted to a faded blue that brought an entirely different male to mind. The smell of unwashed musk was strongly tinged with the coppery scent of blood. It was a warrior's scent and brought to mind a compatriotic friendship that had been forged by fighting back to back with someone. He had been a solid presence, sheltering and protective like the stones which made up Hogwarts herself. His voice washed over her, not singing like Harry's had been, but simply a healing flow of words about anything which popped into his head. Neville!

Identifying her former companions acted as a catalyst to the fog. No longer did she mindless drift through it. Instead, she zipped through the colorful clouds. As she went, the pull grew, drawing her forward even faster than she had ever gone on a broom. The clouds grew denser after a while, and with that change, she began to slow.

Then she stopped.

Only the pull continued. It felt as if she was being drawn into a wall made of hard clay. She sank into it by the millimeter. For one long moment, she was helplessly trapped inside the veil, too bound to even scream. Black spots grew in her vision.

'Not Harry! Please!'

Red exploded around her with the words. She also passed through the final barrier. After the ambiguous fog, it was startling to be back in the physical world. Had it always been this dark? Or this cold?

Vaguely, she could make out the perimeters of the space in which she found herself. It was a small space, cramped with a couple of shelves and a cot. The stale air smelled strong like old blood and fresh lily-of-the-valley blossoms. In the dimness, she could just barely make out a shivering figure laying on the cot. He was breathing in tiny gasps as if it hurt to breathe. He was also staring right at her.

"Aunt Petunia says that freaks don't have angels," the boy whispered. His pupils made his eyes appear black, they were open so wide. He chewed his bottom lip for a moment before he continued. "They are too wicked to be protected. I bet you are an angel though… you have the look of one."

'What's an angel?' she thought, distracted from her task by the unexpected designation. She should have ended up in her bedroom at the Rookery. All the arithmancy suggested that she would move along her personal timeline to the autumnal equinox before her eighth birthday. This was not the Rookery, and judging by the cold, it was not early autumn.

"Father Henry says that they are God's warriors," the boy answered. He gave a wheezy cough as if he were too tired to do so any harder. "They fight evil and protect people. They glow as they follow people, especially sick people. They escort the dead to Judgment." He coughed again and she realized how much the conversation was costing him. He was very pale. "Have you come for me?"

'I'm not an angel.'

The boy just sighed in response. His eyes closed as he sunk into himself. He shook himself. That's when she saw the jagged scar on the center of his forehead, a dark mark on his pallid skin. The dying boy was Harry, her Harry. She drifted closer to him, by instinct. She had never seen Harry look so defeated. Even in death, he had seemed defiant. He always had this spark about him, a fire of determination. He never gave up, never surrendered. To see him like this…it was wrong.

'What is the date?'

"I don't know," he breathed. "It's only a few days 'til Christmas, I think. Time does funny things after a while in my cupboard."

'The year?'

"1988."

'How long have you been sick?'

"Dunno," he slurred, obviously tiring. He huddled into the ratty baby quilt that covered him. She reached out to touch him, to hold him as she would have if they were both back home. As her hands passed through him, he shivered violently. It set off a coughing fit that left him gasping for breath. With a small puff of air, the gasping stopped and Harry was still.

'Harry?' The boy didn't move. Luna began to panic. This couldn't be happening. Harry had survived. He couldn't—all this was pointless without him. They had plans. They were going to save him—he couldn't— 'Harry!' she wailed internally. Harry couldn't die—oh, gods, not Harry!

Magic burst forth from her, glowing brightly in the darkness of the cupboard. It settled over Harry's body like a fine green dust. Then it flared a fiercely pure white before sinking into his skin. His body seized once before he sucked in a deep breath. She had the satisfaction of seeing that breath followed by the deep and easy rhythm of someone sleeping before being sucked away once more.

This time when the world stopped spinning, Luna was hovering near the bare ceiling of her bedroom in the Rookery. On the bed below her, a younger version of herself sat in lotus position clearly meditating. Judging by the tinge of pink to the sky outside the window, the longest night was yielding to the newly reborn sun.

All would go as planned.

She couldn't lose him a third time.