God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs
Harry debated following her, but she immediately turned back around and he realized she was walking back and forth to activate the Room of Requirement. He watched her for a second, and the door to the Room popped into existence.
"Let me show you something." Luna said.
Harry followed her into the Room. Luna had picked a smaller configuration than the DA room, one about the size of his bedroom at the Dursley's. It had two chairs facing each other, and to the left of one of them, an old hand-cranked record player, with a large metal horn coming out the top shaped somewhat like a flower. It had a record already on it.
Luna sat down and looked at the other chair, and Harry sat there. She tapped the record player with her wand, and the needle lifted up and positioned itself about a third of the way through the record, and a song started playing, in a distinctive booming voice that Harry had never heard before. But he had certainly heard the song.
God rest ye merry, hippogriffs, let no one you offend.
For if they do you will attack those who condescend.
To keep you all from biting us we bring you all as friends.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
On mountain peak in forest deep, a phoenix can be found.
You live forever but you now are old and brown.
We bring you all these words until your youth can come around
O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
Shrinking in the corner, a moke hides in the room
Shy as violets, we will hurt you, that you do assume
But now we give you these words instead of your expected doom
O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
Luna tapped the record player with her wand and the music cut off. Harry was astonished. He had thought that Sirius had made up those words last Christmas for Buckbeak.
He was about to ask Luna about it, but noticed that her eyes were filled with tears. He put any questions about Sirius out of his mind and asked, "What's wrong?"
"My family had this record, dad bought it for mum after they got married, she was a fan of the Hobgoblins while they were dating. Although I think this was their last record and it's not very good. But each Christmas we would dance to it. My father, my mother, and me. Not holding-hands dancing like couples do, like what you wanted to do, but jumping around and waving our arms and just having fun. The last thing I-the second to last thing I remember about her is dancing with her to this song. She died two weeks later." Luna tapped the record player with her wand and it stopped.
Harry had never seen Luna so unsure of what she was saying before. He refrained from asking what Luna's last memory of her mother was. She could see thestrals, he knew what that memory had to involve.
She smiled at him. "So I didn't want to dance in the first place, and when that song came on..."
Harry nodded. Now, how to get her talking about it? He did some quick math. Last year, shortly before the DA had been caught and disbanded, Ginny had mentioned that Luna had a birthday, and he had wished her happy birthday. So she was almost exactly a year younger than Ron, which made her fifteen now, so if she was nine at Christmas-
"So, six years ago in three weeks?" he asked, and she nodded. "That must make Christmas..." He trailed off, unsure where to go from there.
"Sad." She looked at him. "I don't know why you should help me with this. It must sound silly. You lost both your parents, and your godfather. I just lost my mother."
Harry was on surer ground here, "Luna, I don't remember my parents. So I didn't really lose them, I didn't-I didn't ever have them to start with. They were always absent."
"Doesn't that make it worse? Not remembering?" Luna asked, still looking at him.
Harry shook his head. "I guess in some sense, but not really. You only miss things when you've had them. I wish they were here, I wish I knew them, but that's just how things are, that's how they're always been. It's Sirius that I really miss."
Luna looked at the record player. "I don't want to not remember her. After-after the accident, after I woke up and got out of hospital, they offered to Obliviate it from my memory. I wouldn't let them. I didn't want to forget anything about her."
Harry hadn't realized she had been injured in the same accident that killed her mother, but that wasn't the thing to focus on right now. He tried bringing the topic back around the start. "But you won't dance?"
Luna looked at him, slightly confused. "I don't want to forget her."
Harry thought about the absurd song Luna had just played. He realized he wanted to play it for Christmas this year to remember Sirius. "If she liked dancing, if she liked dancing with you, I think maybe you have it backwards." Harry said. "Dancing doesn't mean you forget, dancing means you remember."
Luna stared at him for a second, and then smiled. "I didn't think of that. Thank you, Harry."
And Harry suddenly had a flash of Luna-like level of intuition, and realized that Luna wasn't really okay, she had just said she was because she didn't want to think about it. So he brought up something else instead.
He pointed at the record player. "No, thank you, Luna. You just reminded me of my favorite memory of Sirius, when I heard him singing this song last Christmas."
Luna frowned. "Harry, after Ginny told me he was your godfather, I did some research. The Quibbler was wrong, he wasn't Stubby Boardman." She looked a little unhappy admitting the Quibbler had made a mistake. "Stubby Boardman had been singing since 1965, so unless Sirius started a singing career when he was a small child, or Stubby started Hogwarts when he was 25 or so, they can't be the same person, even if they look alike."
Now it was Harry's turn to be confused. "What?"
Luna looked at him, even more confused in response. "What do you mean, what? You said you heard this record last Christmas?" She spun the record around so it oriented where he could read it. Harry leaned over and read 'Stubby Boardman and the Hobgoblins' curved across the top, and 'I Saw The Snidgets On Christmas Day' across the bottom.
Harry said, "What?" He wondered if he would ever become unconfused at this point. "Stubby Boardman sang this? The man that the Quibbler claimed Sirius was last year?"
She said "This is Stubby Boardman's Christmas album. Not Sirius Black's. You said you heard it last year but said that Sirius sung it. They're not the same person. I'm sorry if the Quibbler mislead you into thinking that was Sirius."
Now Harry realized what she thought he meant, although he didn't really understand entirely. "No, I didn't hear this record last year. I heard Sirius sing this song in person. I thought he had made it up because there was a hippogriff staying in the house. I had no idea it was a real song until right now."
"Oh!" Luna seemed to follow him. "I thought you recognized it when I played it. Stubby had a distinctive singing voice, there's still a lot of impersonators out there."
Harry shook his head, "I grew up with Muggles, remember? I've never heard him."
He added, "I'd love a copy of this record if you know where I can get one." He knew he couldn't just take that copy from the Room, it would disappear when he left, as Hermione had discovered when she had attempted to leave with some books. She had been annoyed, she thought she had found a infinite supply of books.
Luna nodded, "Right." She thought for a second and frowned. "It is a rather unlikely coincidence that Sirius would be singing that song. I've never heard anyone else sing it, it's not a very good song. After I ran out of the party, and could think again, I realized that they were intending that music to be God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, not the parody."
But Harry had been thinking about that also, and had figured it out.
He smiled. "Luna, I now have two things to thank you for. Not only did you just now remind me of that memory, but you, or at least the Quibbler, caused it in the first place, with that crazy article. Ron and Ginny's father gave a copy of that Quibbler to Sirius a few months before Christmas as a joke, and he probably was singing that song for that reason. It was Christmas and there was a hippogriff in the house, so it was an obvious choice of Stubby songs."
"Was he any good?" Luna asked.
Harry laughed, "No, he was absolutely horrible."
Luna smiled for a second, and then laughed along with him, "My mother couldn't dance either. She kept stepping on everyone's feet, even her own. We had to make her dance barefoot while we wore shoes, so it didn't hurt."
And just like that, Harry knew Luna would be okay.
He stood up, and tapped the record player. As it started God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs again, he held out a hand and said, "Luna, would you like to dance?".
She smiled, stood up, and said, "I would love to. Would you like to sing along?"
He nodded, and they danced and sung their way through the song. Luna couldn't dance, and Harry couldn't sing, but that seemed just about right.
Afterward, he gave her a hug, and they headed back to their respective dorms, Harry whistling and Luna skipping.