Chapter VIII: 48 Hours' countdown
Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.
Treize Khushrenada was very busy the night of Matthew Sisulu, Sirius Black and Esther Corel's disappearance. The Romefeller Foundation was making angry noises like he had been the one responsible for guarding the Entebbe prison, they had managed to keep this under the lid for now, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the rebels managed to find a medium that would publicize this, the situation in South Africa was bound to get worse very quickly and tie his forces needed elsewhere AND most importantly, the teleportation technology had made an appearance again. They had interrogated Corel's cellmate and he had given consistent if so unbelievable description of the events that the local authorities had refused to believe the man.
Treize sipped his coffee, willing himself to stay awake. It was much too early to be awake, but also much too late to fall asleep anymore. When the door slid open and let the harsher, white light of the corridor into his room he knew it was bad news before he raised his eyes from his cup.
"Report from team Sedna, sir. The Gundam pilots have disappeared from their surveillance." Commander Une spat these words that tasted foul in her mouth. She allowed the door to slide closed behind her back and paced like a caged animal, one full circle before standing in attention in front of his desk and he couldn't help noticing the lines around her eyes. Maybe it was partly because of the tight bun she had tied her hair into, but he realizes that while she was still quite beautiful she was getting old before her time.
Treize Kushrenada had a soft spot for two things and two things only in this world; he cared for much in a distant sort of way, for the future of humankind, and that noble, aloof concern allowed him to proceed with his grand plan. But there were only two things still in this world that could make him personally involved.
The first was his city. He didn't spend much time in Paris anymore, but he loved everything about it. With the possible exception of the Parisians, because the people all too often seemed to want nothing more than to threaten the scenic splendour of the city by stirring up strikes and conflicts that he had to have put down so that the city could enjoy peace. He tolerated the people well enough though, because they were a part of Paris and this fact simply couldn't be helped. The second was Commander Une. While she could be overzealous at times she was intelligent and competent and supportive, and most importantly she had been his companion for a long, long time.
"Guarding the Entebbe prison wasn't our responsibility, commander, and the Gundam pilots we will have very soon. Do not torture yourself," he pacified her and put his cup down; the coffee was still hot enough to scald his tongue. He watched the black liquid swirl and wondered if it was worth it to get up from the bed in days like this one. He was also hungry and he wondered how quickly he could get bagels at four am.
"Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of life isn't to eat bagels," he mused out loud. Commander Une coughed.
"You sound tired, sir. Maybe you should get a few hours of sleep," she suggested. But he had too much work to do, too much thinking to do, and soon he watched her red back disappearing into the corridor.
He had gone to some trouble to ensure that his office provided him with an environment where his eye rested and which stimulated his cognitive abilities. Water was represented by the different shades of matte blue and blue-gray on the walls while wood was represented by colour green on a painting of a forest. The dulled wine red of his desk represented fire as maroon and pink were a bit much for him, the cocoa brown carpet represented earth and metal was represented by the white of his ceiling and the gold and silver of lampshade. And under the golden and silver light that accented his manly beauty nicely he thought.
He had already figured the pilots were probably a lot younger than the general public assumed, but thirteen? Or even twelve? No, that boy couldn't be a pilot, for one he didn't see the body of a boy so young taking well to the drop through atmosphere or handling the recoil from bigger guns without injuries. But why send a child to do a man's job? He could only see that as a necessity. Pilot 04 would only have sent the child if a man couldn't have done his job. But 04 and many of his men besides had already teleported themselves. There was something he didn't see.
Excuse me, but which one of you is Matthew Sisulu? He had not known. I'm Harry and I'm rescuing you!
Such a childish thing to say. Might this Harry be acquainted with one of the escapees? Corel, he thought and it made a fair amount of sense. Sisulu's disciplines had both been saved and their worth to the resistance was obvious. Black's cellmate had also been rescued, but not Sisulu's. That meant there was something special about Esther Corel. But even if that was true there was still something he didn't see. Why a child, unless the child was somehow the only one who could?
This was the first time Harry had ever been on a wet ship in his life. Not that he had ever been on a space ship either, but that was beside the point. Anna the Atrocious Appaloosa – AAA for short, which Duo for some incomprehensible spacer reason seemed to find utterly hilarious – was an old but well cared chartering ship. It was owned by Stella Polaris Maritime Services, which was in turn owned by the Sweeper Company. The people there had been surprised when two Gundams and the Maguanacs' suits had appeared and asked for asylum, but not too surprised – and they didn't appear too worried either. No one said it out loud, but Harry got a feeling that this was more commonplace an occurrence than one might think. AAA was towing the suits underwater now. Harry had worried for them at first and then felt stupid. The mobile suits had been made to function in the vacuum of space, they should be able to handle little salt water.
The chip was chartering grains, fertilizers and cement from the Ivory Coast to Kemet. It was travelling at good speed and Harry enjoyed sitting on the deck in the warm sunlight, feeling the cool wind on his face and hair. The ship was so big it barely rocked at all and if not for the blue stretching to the horizon to more blue he could have thought he wasn't on ship at all, but on a really high building's roof. He was also attempting to transfigure a match into a needle and enjoying it a great deal less.
It wasn't that he hadn't gotten anything done. After good three hours of staring at it and repeating the incantation in his mind and in a whisper and even imitating the wand movements with his index finger he had managed to turn it sharp like a needle. But it was still made of wood and Harry again cursed the loss of his wand. He wanted to do something that couldn't be explained away with psychokinesis and turning a wooden object a metallic object had seemed like such a good way to do it. Turning pieces of wood sharp wasn't.
"This is so frustrating," he hissed to the match. It remained unrepentantly wooden.
"I haven't had much luck with unliving things," Luna's voice sounded from behind Harry. He turned his head to see her leaning on her knees, clothed in a long wine red tunic one of the women working on AAA had donated that made an acceptable knee-length dress for Luna, though the neckline was so wide it had flopped down on one of her shoulders.
"Sit down, please," Harry gestured to the spot of deck beside him, amusing himself with a thought of zombie matches wandering about and yelling for brains. "Are you good at herbology?" he asked.
"Yes. It's in the nature of plants to grow, I simply nudge them to the right direction," she said. Harry tried to come up with something to say, but herbology had never been one of his stronger subjects, though still better than potions or divination. Anything was better than potions.
"The thing is, I'm good at chemistry here. It's so maddening, I could have been good at potions like mum if Snape hadn't been such a berk," he said and only then realised that had come pretty much out of blue. But Luna just lifted her hand to her mouth and giggled a little.
"That he was. He didn't like me very much either. I think I annoyed him," she confessed, seeming both delighted and a bit startled by Harry's language. Really, in the magical world people were a lot more respectful towards their teachers; one of those old-fashioned things like quills and no television.
No television? That was so backwards it wasn't even funny.
"I think you are a bit strange, but it's good strange, you know? World would be a really boring place if everyone was the same and I like the way you take everything so calmly and always know what I'm trying to say. But I guess someone like Snape would be annoyed." He didn't see Snape as the type to be happy when someone made him feel transparent.
It was like his frustration had bled dry when Luna appeared and then it was merely a nice, sunny day in the middle of great blue sea and wind that smelled like salt water and freedom. Harry soon put the match to his pocket and lied on back beside Luna, watching clouds. He saw a shoe, a little lopsided rabbit, the coast of France and for a very short while the blurry shape of a woman holding an umbrella. Luna saw a mermaid, a Crumple-Horned Snorkack that Harry couldn't spot on account of having no clue what Crumple-Horned Snorkacks looked like, a calla lily that reminded Harry of both her grandmum and his mum and a Blibbering Humdinger that left him drawing blank also. In addition to this they saw lots of blobs and spots and laughed, pointing those to each other and trying to come up with as many ways to say spot as possible. It was peaceful if not for the steady rumble of the great engines that vibrated off the deck straight into his skull he might have been in the danger of falling asleep.
"This is so nice. So soothing," he mumbled. Luna gave him a smile that suggested she was feeling sleepy as well.
"I am being peaceful. People don't usually notice," she said. Harry wondered if she meant that she was making him peaceful too and decided it didn't matter. It was a nice day, especially after the hectic days before the ship.
"You would make a good therapist," he told her.
"I am going to be a magical girl. My name is Final Nargle Invoker Luna. What kind of colour scheme you think I should go for in my uniform," she answered and Harry drew a complete blank.
He had a vague notion that magical girls had something to do with anime, maybe. He wasn't even sure which of him this nugget of information was courtesy of. Uniform, he wondered, was that like a school uniform or an army uniform? He watched Luna who was patiently waiting for his answer, the wind flapping her wispy blonde hair against the harsh metallic deck and the image of Luna in army fatigues fit that image rather well. She was the type who needed green grass and flowers and unicorns around her, not bare metal, and while he couldn't supply her unicorns in this world grass and flowers and pretty school uniforms – with ribbons –were doable.
"Pastel colours should go well with your hair, but I don't know if there are any pastel uniforms. White and blue are good colours for you, but yellow and pink should suit you too. And you should definitely have ribbons," he told her, realizing that it was so obvious now that most of his friends were girls; there was no way Ron or Dudley could have answered this. But at least he had been able to help her. It was funny, the way he most of the time had little idea what they were even talking about, but it didn't hamper the conversation any.
"I'm sure I'll be able to find something. I would offer for you to be the mysterious bad boy, but you aren't very mysterious or bad," Luna continued. Well, Quatre thought he was plenty mysterious, but at least he had managed to disabuse him of the notion that Dursleys were abusing him. He hoped.
And they watched the clouds some more. The Blibbering Humdinger made reappearance and turned out to be his now mauled coast of France. He imagined it with a beret perched on top.
Quatre couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the light humidity in the sea, for he was still much more comfortable in dry heat when trying to have rest, or maybe it was because his sleep schedule had been atrociously discombobulated since the beginning of the war, having to get up at any hour and taking catnaps whenever he could. Or maybe it was all the caffeine catching up with him, he didn't know, but whatever the reason was tonight, he just couldn't find comfort in sleeping. Quatre lay on his blanket with his head cradled by his folded back arms, staring up at the white ceiling of the small cabin. He had a bunk, not a bed, and there was a small metallic table by its side. There was a closet embedded into the wall and door that led to the bathroom, which had a real bathtub.
Granted, it was a small tub, the kind you had to sit on with your legs pressed against your chest, but it was still a real bathtub and taking a hot bath was feeling like a better and better idea all the time. He found it surprising how enjoyable he found that even in such hot climate. But at least now he could feel completely clean in a way the Umoja camp hadn't been able to provide due to the lacking room and time; guerillas didn't waste time with baths when showers were perfectly serviceable. Water was a resource to use carefully, if not outright ratio, in space too, but they certainly weren't short of water now, or of ways to desalinate it, and Quatre indulged himself in a long, if somewhat cramped, midnight soak.
He thought about the day before, as he rinsed his hair and white foam got into his eyes, making them sting. He thought how Harry had so strongly insisted that his family didn't abuse him, how he had first seemed surprised and then felt guilty… Quatre didn't change back into his pyjamas when he had toweled himself dry, but into his clothes. He felt a bit more relaxed now, but not sleepy.
"Maybe a little walk on the deck would be a good idea," he muttered and left his room, taking care to shut the door behind his back very quietly. The ship itself was making steady rumbling noise, but Rashid had the cabin next to his and the man was a very light sleeper, or rather a sleeper who was roused by sudden or deviant sounds. Quatre didn't want to wake him just because he couldn't get any sleep.
Anna the Atrocious Appaloosa – Quatre frowned, the name made him feel like there was a joke going on that he didn't understand – was a big ship. It was Suezmax, the largest size that could traverse the Suez Canal, with deadweight of two hundred forty thousand tons and width, or beam by nautical terms, of fifty meters and the distance from the surface of the water to the highest point was seventy meters. Most of that impressive size was taken by the cargo holds, but there were room for easily fifty people to live in the upper levels of the ship. Quatre found it a bit depressing: narrow, grey corridors with mouse-coloured carpets, small cabins, a canteen filled with long tables without tablecloths and bright, eye-catching red plastic chairs and one lonely artificial fichus tree trying to cheer the place. Duo claimed the homely places were the private places and the odd levels.
Quatre had asked what odd level meant. Duo had said there was a skull of an ox over the office of one of the recycling technicians. He had said that people usually didn't want to remember it, but they dealt with all the daily waste a human body made, making it into fertilizer and water, and sometimes even bodies after the funeral and that made people unique. This was a "wild ship", as they called the Sweeper ships, and the people had the freedom to be as strange as they wanted. Duo had said that the skull was the sign that the person working in that office was a cyber bokor. Quatre had wondered if that was the same as a hacker and decided he didn't really want to know.
At times it was painfully obvious how different their backgrounds were. A cyber voodoo black magic practitioner?
He was thinking of this when he walked past Duo's door on his way to the staircase and he noticed a faint line of light that came from under the long-haired boy's door. Happy that he wasn't the only one awake, he knocked to the door. A click of the door unlocking and a muffled get in later he opened the door and stepped in. Duo was sitting cross-legged on the thread-bare fake-oriental rug on his cabin and his fingers were dancing on the keyboard of is laptop, his bangs hiding his face. His expression could have been content or enraged, sad or joyful for all Quatre could tell, but when he lifted his face he saw there was a devilish smile playing on the other boy's lips.
"Feeling restless, Kitty-Quat?" he asked. Quatre felt a corner of his left eye twitch.
"Must you call me by that atrocious name?" he asked, then remembered something he had inteded to ask for some time now. "Speaking of atrocious, what is the matter with the name of this ship? I take it is some kind of pun?" This made Duo chuckle.
"Yeah. You know, AAA?" he said. Even when he was watching Quatre his fingers continued their work surely as though he was reading Braille.
"There is something humorous about Anti-Advertising Agency?" Quatre asked, making Duo shake his head sadly.
"No, no, Alien Authorization Agency. You know, that means Alliance's On-World Immigration Agency. Which we are calling atrocious and a horse's behind." This coaxed a chuckle out of Quatre, though it was more out of start than real mirth – jokes were rarely funny when they had to be explained.
"Must no be circulating in L4," he said, though it might have been that he just hadn't spoken with the people who would make jokes like that before he had already been taken to Earth. "May I ask what you are doing?"
"I got this greatest new virus from the bokor I told you of, it overwrites the mainframe of pretty much anything, and I'm making the stuff it overwrites with." Duo turned the laptop on his lap so Quatre could see the screen and pressed command-enter.
There were animated characters that had clearly been based on Treize Kushrenada, Commander Une and the Lightning Count, all very small and chubby and cute, and the background was from a simple platform game that looked kind of familiar, though Quatre couldn't tell what game it was. Kushrenada was sitting at the bottom with his legs crossed in a feminine way, sipping wine with his pinky finger crooked and his teeth glittering with huge sparkles; very unflattering image of him. Commander Une was appearing here and there, the platform around her exploding with bright yellow and red flashes, with subtitles for maniacal laughter appearing around her. Zechs Merquise simply floated in the air, white hair around him like a saint's halo in an old icon.
"I'm going to make Heero chase him across the screen in the Wing," Duo said and ended the display. Quatre imagined every single file on a mainframe of an Alliance system being replaced by this and several chuckles escaped him, this time out of real amusement. Still…
"Isn't this kind of involved and pointless?" he had to ask. Anything would have done, a single line that said BAD OZZIES, NO COOKIE. Allah, he almost shuddered as he caught himself thinking that, he was beginning to think like Duo; it was contagious!
"Ah, ah, Kitty-Quat! Involved and pointless is half the fun! You should give it a try." Duo was shaking his finger, admonishing him. Quatre wasn't used to associating war with fun, but that was Duo for you, always searching for the silver line in a cloud and if none were to be found he made one.
"Well, maybe you could give Merquise a bad hair day whenever Heero catches up with him?" he proposed and settled down gracefully. The carpet didn't offer much cushion, but Quatre was used to sitting on ground and it didn't bother him.
"I love the way you think," Duo said, voice a low purr, as friendly as always.
"I should hope so, considering that you expect me to help you making cartoons. I suspect I'd be ordered to report to a psychologist for evaluation if anyone were to learn I agreed to it." Quatre went for his best dry voice, the one he had copied from his father. He didn't like to think of his father, the way their ideological differences had created a rift between them, but he had to admit they were similar in sheer stubbornness if nothing else.
"No way, I've got it covered! It's a training exercise, you see. You're just de-moralizing the enemy with devious propaganda," Duo explained with exited voice. And Quatre was quick to let his tone drop.
"Ah. That will look much better on my schedule than playing with video games." Bantering with Duo was fun, but there was still something he had decided to ask after all. "You said you got the virus from a bokor. Is that the same as a hacker?"
"Kind of, except it's also a religion to them. I don't know too much of it, always seemed like silly business to me, but they are good. The legits are called houngans and mambos."
In the end Quatre didn't do much, just sat there and offered moral support for Duo's venture to de-moralize the Oz. The ship was so big it didn't sway much, but he could feel the movement in his bones, sitting unmoving on the floor, mostly silent as well, letting Duo's chatter wash over him like a soothing rain. His eyes began to droop after an hour or so and he excused himself, returning to his own cabin. The day after tomorrow the story of Matthew Sisulu and Sirius Black would make the headlines. The day after tomorrow they would have to leave the ship before they left the international waters for Kemet's. He would have to part ways with Duo who had missions of his own to carry and Harry who would return to his home. But tomorrow he could still enjoy their company. Thinking of the next day Quatre finally fell asleep.
Finally it was almost time to go home and although Harry would miss Luna, Sirius, Quatre and Duo he was very happy about getting back to mum Petunia, dad Vernon, Dudley and his friends, even to his studies that he had neglected in an appalling way. They had eventually come up with a good story for Harry. It made him feel rather silly for not realizing sooner how easy it was. It was even true enough that no one could prove it wasn't all true.
"True enough is my favourite kind of lie," was how Sirius put it and something flashed in his eyes that reminded Harry of the man who had laughed in his parents' wedding picture. He felt a pang as he remembered that he had lost that picture too, the he would never again see him mum and dad wave at him, but he pushed the thought to the side.
Now they were sitting in a circle on the deck. Quatre had procured a red and white chequered quilt and a tea set somewhere. Their little picnic looked very out of place on the clanking metallic, sparse deck, gray and some painted red and white lines, but he had to have gotten it from somewhere in the ship. Quatre was at Harry's right side, Sirius was at his left and Duo was facing him. Duo was eating sweet bread and drinking already his second mug of coffee there. Quatre was having what Harry knew to be his fourth cup of tea that day. He had concluded they were both hopelessly addicted to caffeine and pitied any Oz soldier who might attack them in the morning before they'd had their fix.
"I like that," said Duo to Sirius and saluted with his coffee mug. Sirius glanced at him, but turned his head towards Harry soon. He seemed to hate leaving Harry out of his sight for long, like he might up and vanish. It was getting kind of stifling, actually, but he bore it. He had gotten to spend some me-time with Luna yesterday and he was leaving soon anyway.
"I thought you didn't lie?" Quatre asked Duo with a confused pout much too cute for anyone who could fly a flying behemoth like Sandrock.
"Not the lying, his attitude about it," Duo clarified… maybe. Quatre didn't seem much more enlightened than Harry felt.
According to this masterful blend of truth and lie Harry had been showing a boy whom he only knew as Qays Bitar around Smeltings, minding his own business, when a blonde girl who had introduced herself as Luna Lovegood had appeared and said that "a friend" had helped her escape and told where to go. Harry hadn't heard more because at this point Qays had ordered her to not speak of it until they were alone. And he had taken Harry captive so he couldn't alert the authorities to the going-ons. (Quatre had mumbled something about how that had basically been it and Harry had been too busy being a willing accomplice to notice to Duo, but Harry was convinced that it couldn't actually count as a kidnapping unless you forced the other party to come with you.) After this Harry had been taken to a cheap hotel room and left there under watch until Qays and his men had returned with three adults in tow and taken Harry with him to somewhere tropic that Harry was almost sure was Africa – there had been a jungle and monkeys and only dark-skinned people, and while jungle and monkeys weren't Africa exclusive the skin colour in the surroundings had been pretty solid proof.
Harry hadn't understood the language spoken in this camp, though he could repeat a few choice words that would indentify it as Swahili. This was true. He could describe the insides of the camp as long as he didn't mention the small air port or their water collecting plant or give them a corrects layout of the place, and he wasn't supposed to be aware of details like that in any case since he had been kept under lock and key until he had been stowed to the mobile suit again.
"You will in all likelihood be asked to describe the innards of the suit you were in," Quatre said. Harry nodded solemnly.
"I'll lie through my teeth. But, um, what parts am I supposed to lie about?" he asked. He had a good memory and he could describe the monitors and screens and other thingamajigs. He just wanted to know what kind of things he was supposed to lie about.
"Here, take this," Quatre ordered and handed Harry a small data pad. Not even a real laptop, only an electric notebook, and there was a list of apparatus, what they had looked like and what Qays had done with them. Harry scrolled the list down until the flicker of black and white made his eyes water. It was a nonsensible to him, but he figured he only had to be able to parrot it.
Then Harry had been taken to another small African rebel base where they had spoken a different language – this one would be identified as Karamojong. After a few days he had been dropped off on the coast of England. This was an elegant solution that would allow Harry to return to his family, Quatre feed strategic misinformation to the Oz via snippets Harry had "happened to listen in on to" while not compromising anyone and ensure the press publicised that Harry had not been mistreated in any way beyond restricting his movements, but it all hinged on Harry's ability to pull it off convincingly.
"They will be predisposed to believe you, as you are a victim, but they will debrief you thoroughly to get all pertinent information concerning us and they will become suspicious if you fail to keep your story consistent," Quatre told him, face stern. It was McGonagall kind of sternness, the kind that only meant for his own best, and the way Harry cracked up as he imagined Quatre with the transfiguration professor's bun and glasses and long, green robes didn't help Quatre's glare any, but damn, McGonagall's prim expression on Quatre's face was a funny thought. And Quatre in tartan. "You will also be expected to have counselling as this has been a traumatizing experience. I wouldn't recommend feigning anything as complicated as PTSD, but you will have to be affected."
"Don't worry, I can do that," Harry assured him and Duo and Sirius. Lying had never been his forte, but then again, he had always had to make his lies up on the spot; this time he had a ready-made story. As for the counselling, well…
There had been the Dementors, grey, decaying faces with only hungry mouth without lips cloaked in black, that had made him relive his barely-existing memories of his parents' death, made him listen to his father ordering his mother to run and his mother to plead Voldemort for his life. Then he had been sent there, and it wasn't like being Harry Dursley was a fate worse that death, unlike the Kiss, but he had lost Ron and Hermione and everyone, and maybe he hadn't lost them for good after all and then he would have to pick and there was no way to do that without betraying someone and he didn't want to betray anyone. He had been replaced by Harry-two. And, of yeah, in the grey space he had seen a vision of his parents having sex. He made himself not think of it again, but he nodded, feeling suddenly tired rather than mad. He was sure he could squeeze some trauma out for the therapist.
Quatre's hand seized his arm suddenly, making Harry start and then wince as the grip wasn't light.
"There is something wrong. You keep insisting it isn't the Dursleys, but no one living quiet middle class teenager life should have to feel like that!" The wind was flowing Quatre's hair around his face and Harry's hair in front of his eyes, but nothing could hide him from this confrontation.
"How can I make you believe me when I can't even convince you of my, forget it!" Harry was moving his arms in frustrated circles. He didn't like lying, he only ever lied to keep out of trouble and now his lies were getting him into troubles, but it wasn't that he was even telling lies, he just wasn't telling the truth because if Quatre wouldn't believe he was magical how could he believe Harry when he said he was from another dimension? And now he had made Sirius glare. There was a pressure building inside him, hot and searing, end everything snapped into sharp focus in Harry's mind, sounds terribly clear and sharp, his vision so sharp he could see and count every individual hair that flew to Quatre's face, every eyelash around Sirius' worried, dark eyes. And he pointed to Quatre's silly, flower-adorned teacup with his forefinger.
"Hedgehog!" he ordered it, hissed it in the language of snakes, and in his mind's eye he saw it, an utterly satisfying vision where there was a hedgehog on the deck and Quatre would have to believe him now. And just like that his reality took a different shape and where there had been white and blue and golden porcelain now there was a small, cute animal, brown and all spikes.
Silence reigned.
He figured he always performed best under pressure.
And then there was much pointing and gaping and stuttering and gaping and disbelief that Luna Lovegood found very amusing, but also strange. She knew things, saw things, heard things. This tended to make her life rather difficult. It was partly because her Sight seemed to be where other people kept something else, something vital that let them be together with other people. Luna, she wasn't often together with others, but the others just happened to be there. Other part of it was that for all her knowledge she didn't understand everything. She was just a twelve-year-old girl, although a mature one, and while she had no difficulties understanding why nightingales sung and talking with fairies and seeing the beauty in the skeletal horses that pulled the Hogwarts' carriages much of humankind left her flummoxed.
(She had always liked words like flummoxed and sizzle; she liked words that sounded like what they were. In her experience honesty like that was rare in words and people both.)
Sleeping in the little cabin she had been given in Anna the Atrocious Appaloosa was a little like sleeping in a dragon's stomach; it was dark and so hot she had to kick the blankets away and still the sheet clung to her sweaty skin, and the rumbling and gurgling sounds the ship made sounded from below her. She was staring to the ceiling that had been painted white and tried to fall asleep. Dim light, starlight and moonlight and yellow shiplight, came in from the small, round window on the wall and cast lighter patches on the walls. Luna wondered about what Anna had done that she was so atrocious. She was thinking about onomatopoeia and words like rumble and gurgle and how they were like flummox. It was like the old joke.
Knock-knock. Who's there?
Luna was thinking about Harry and how trouble seemed to follow at his heels like a well-trained dog. She was thinking about how he was nice enough to not care about her Sight and how he was together with her instead of just there. This made her feel all warm inside, but it wasn't dragon heat like the ships', it was nice warm. She had a real friend for the first time in her life and while she was sad her parents were so worried – she had been allowed to speak with them for a little while – she didn't regret anything.
Boo
Luna knew other things were approaching fast, adult flummox-things. There was a little thing and a moderately big thing and a huge thing that left her most flummoxed of all. Why should the world be so surprised and scared and elated and, and flummoxed that he had something as natural and right as magic? She knew well people could be mean and cruel to those who were different, but she was a little twelve-year-old girl and didn't understand the greed and ambition of adults very well.
Boo who?
Luna Lovegood didn't get much sleep that night.
Don't cry, I was only joking
AN: Nothing gets you reviews like asking people to help you swear. That is, thank you all for your help! There were some surprises; female dog, for example, isn't nearly as bad a word in Finnish as it appears to be in English. I guess some of Molly Weasley's ire was lost in translation.
Current day: June 2. (Or 3, the time of night is undetermined.)