From Luna5862: Let me just apologize to everyone, especially Muffin'sback who has tried to keep me working on this, on how long it has taken to get this chapter up. I promise to put getting this story done back on my priority list. Again, I'm sorry. Forgive me?

Chapter 2

"Avada Keda…"

"Bombarda!"

The flaming ball of light rushed from the tip of the wand towards the cloaked figure. The figure turned to see the spell right as it made contact with their chest. The spell had been meant to simply destroy the Death Eaters wand and knock him back slightly, but the force of it pushed the cloaked figure backwards through the stained glass window and out into the night. As the shattered glass fell around him, the cloak's hood fell back to reveal the face of Xenophilius Lovegood…

Luna Lovegood's eyes snapped open just as lightning and thunder filled the night sky. Pouring rain and howling winds shook the house to the foundations, but Luna knew it wasn't the storm that had woken her so abruptly. She'd been reliving that night for weeks now, and every time she awoke crying. It just didn't make sense to her; either Xenophilius Lovegood, her father, had been accidently killed trying to help Ginny and Hermione fight off the Death Eaters. Or he had been about to kill Hermione and Ginny himself. Luna's heart refused to believe that her father, the kindest and gentlest man she knew, was a Death Eater, but there was something inside her that refused to dismiss the thought.

A flash of lightning illuminated the small bedroom just as the power flickered out. Luna remained lying in the bed, watching the storm rage around the house. She had never been afraid of thunderstorms or the dark, and her father had often had to drag her back inside in the middle of particularly bad storms when she would wander out to watch the majestic battle happening in the sky. She lay watching the storm for several more minutes before sighing and sitting up in bed. Grabbing a discarded hoodie off the end of her bed, Luna swung her legs off the edge of the large bed and made her way across the dark room to the door. She had been putting off going through her father's things since she had returned home, but with the funeral coming up in only a few short hours, Luna needed to put her mind at rest and find the answers to her question: was her father a Death Eater?

Luna slipped out of her bedroom, pulling a too-large hoodie over her head as she did so. The house was especially cool tonight since the storm had knocked the power out, but even with the hoodie, Luna could still feel a foreboding chill run down her spine. Once she reached the stairs, Luna made sure to keep one hand on the railing so she wouldn't fall head first down the unfamiliar staircase.

She had been happy to discover that the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic (now headed by Kingsley Shacklebolt) had rebuilt her home for her at the end of the war, but they hadn't been able to remake the house exactly the same. While they were able to recreate the house's original rook shape, they hadn't been able to build it around the spiral staircase as it had originally been built. The staircase now ran around the inside of the outside wall of the house, which meant the farther down one went down the stairs, the wider the space on one side became, making it much easier to fall off the edge of the stairs. And the house now lacked all of the things that had made it home. Her father's research no longer lay scattered around in the house in organized chaos. The doorframes and window frames were painted to match the walls, instead of the cheery yellow Luna and her mother had painted them in an attempt to bring constant sunshine to the house. It may look like her home, but the lack of the little things made the house feel cold and empty to her.

Luna stopped in front of her father's bedroom door. She hadn't been inside since the house was rebuilt and things were being moved inside. It was just too painful to see all of his things, but they had to be gone through eventually. She had planned on waiting until after the funeral to sort through Xenophilius's things, but Luna knew she would never get back to sleep with the storm raging inside her heart.

"It'll be worse the longer you put it off," a small voice in her head reminded her as her hand hesitated on the doorknob. With a deep breath Luna turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Luna took a tentative step over the threshold into her father's room, looking around at the stacks of papers and boxes that covered almost every inch of space. There had been no reason to restore Xenophilius's room in Luna's mind, so everyone had simply placed everything that had belonged to him inside the room and closed the door. There was no furniture, no lamps, and no pictures, nothing to remind Luna that her father had once called this place home. Luna grabbed a stack of papers and began sifting through them. The majority of it seemed to be research that her father had been working on for up and coming stories in the Quibbler, but the farther back in the boxes Luna read, the more disturbing the information became. Instead of letters from readers trying to help Xenophilius discover rare creatures, Luna found herself reading cut out articles from old Daily Prophets from the First War.

'He Who Must Not Be Named Defeated. Ministry Searches for Death Eaters Still in Hiding'

'Malfoy Mansion Raided in the Middle of Night. Whole Family to Stand before Wizengamot.'

The articles were faded and only the headlines remained, but Luna continued to go through the final box of her father's belongings. At the bottom, Luna found a worn leather journal lying beside a small pensieve. Something made Luna hesitate to pull these two objects out of the box. A sudden chill filled her at the site of these two things, and for some reason she had the urge to shove everything back into the box and lock the bedroom door for good.

"But you're so close to finding out the truth," that same small voice urged her.

"But if I don't like what I find?" Luna asked the dark room as she stared into the box at the pensieve and the journal.

"You deserve to know the truth…no matter what it may be."

Luna took a deep breath and pulled the small pensieve out of the box and set it on the floor in front of her. "Seeing it would probably come as less of a shock than reading it. There's no way I can make it worse by imaging what he's writing about," Luna thought as she leaned forward and began to feel herself slip into her father's memories.

"Do you swear to serve The Dark Lord until the day your heart stops beating? Do you swear to help rid our world of the Muggle abominations that call themselves wizards? Do you swear to obey Lord Voldemort's wishes and commands?"

"I swear."

"Then rise, and take the mark of The Dark Lord."

"Where am I?" Luna wondered as she stood at the edge of a large circle of hooded figures. She turned to the person to her immediate right and peered inside the hood of their cloak.

Luna took a step back into the midst of the circle. Their face was covered by a mask. A mask very similar to the ones the Death Eaters had worn in the Department of Mysteries and at the Battle of Hogwarts. She turned to her left and saw that the figures on that side wore the same kind of masks. Around and around she turned, searching for anyone who's face was not hidden behind one of the hideous masks of Voldemort's followers.

"Why would father have a memory of this?" Luna asked herself as she stood in the middle of the circle, still vainly searching for someone who's face wasn't hidden behind a mask. In front of her was Lord Voldemort, sitting atop a silver chair at the head of the circle.

"Xenophilius Lovegood."

"Yes, my Lord."

Luna spun around, her breath catching in her throat. It couldn't be. Standing before Luna, bowing low before Lord Voldemort, was her father. There was no denying it.

"Do you swear to serve The Dark Lord until the day your heart stops beating? Do you swear to help rid our world of the Muggle abominations that call themselves wizards? Do you swear to obey Lord Voldemort's wishes and commands?"

"No. No. No." Luna whispered, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Xenophilius Lovegood looked up, straight into Luna's eyes. "I swear."