Luna was not very fond of her private sessions with Dumbledore. She had to try and convince him of certain actions to take; he was forbidding her from making unilateral (and generally permanent) actions and trying to get information from her she wasn't inclined to share. It was all very stressful; she wasn't used to anyone questioning the necessity of what she did. Dumbledore accepted her assertion that the wizarding world was on the brink of war. He even accepted her belief that Voldemort was only part of the problem, and not even the biggest part. But he wouldn't accept that preemptively striking was the best way to win it, believing he could work in influence and politics to do what Luna could not.
Luna did believe that if it came to an open battle, she could try to keep Harry safe (from things that weren't Voldemort, anyway) and his reputation would likely keep the war at bay if he killed Voldemort. That did not really strike her as the optimal solution, though.
Still, there were things they could agree on; once he'd learned that Sirius Black was an innocent man, he'd agreed that they needed to get him out of prison. They needed some sort of plausible story, however, and that meant they had to get someone to realize that the rat couldn't actually be a rat - a story that would stand up in court without either Luna or Dumbledore needing to testify. Luna thought the best setup would be to get Ronald or Ginny to get one of the other professors to cast a detection charm on the rat.
It was a Saturday, and Luna was sitting with the group, when she got the opportunity. She was having a discussion with Ginny (about hair, of all things; Ginny thought it was unwise for Luna to use her wand to keep her hair up) when 'Scabbers' crawled up onto the table.
"Oh, your rat might get your food." Luna cut across Ginny's talking, gesturing at the rat, which paused guiltily.
"Scabbers! Stop that!" Ronald said, grabbing his rat. "It's weird, I almost never see him down here at dinner."
"Scabbers? Did you name it after your brother's old rat?" Luna asked.
"It is Percy's old rat." Ronald grumbled, as he held onto Scabbers.
Luna tilted her head. "Really? He must be magical, somehow. Rats only live a year or two otherwise. Have you thought about seeing just what he is? I'm sure Professor Flitwick or McGonagall could tell you. I bet you a galleon he's secretly a Dancing Mouse."
"He is not!"
Luna shrugged and pointed to the head table. "Well, go see, then. If I'm wrong, I'll give you a galleon." It might be a little bit cheating, but she should be distant enough to not have to testify, or at least enough that she could seem justified in her suspicion.
Ronald rolled his eyes, as Scabbers started to squirm in his hands. Still, he kept a firm grip as he headed over to the headtable, talking to Professor Flitwick.
Ginny sighed a little. "He's going to hound you for that now, you know, if you're wrong. Hey, have you started the Potions essay yet?"
"Finished it last night." Luna said, tracking the action with her eyes as Flitwick cast the spell and a look of confusion came over the small man's face.
"It was just assiged yesterday! Sometimes I think you should have been in Ravenclaw, Luna. What's going on there?!?" Ginny said, suddenly distracted by Scabbers turning into a rather ugly man after a charm of Flitwick's, knocking Ronald to the ground and standing on him before being Stunned by Professor Flitwick, Snape, and McGonagall at the same time.
"I.. think I lost my bet." Luna said with a smile, as noise spread through the hall.
Luna had stayed rather distant from things after that, not wanting to get too involved. She'd offered Harry congratulations when his Godfather had taken custody of him officially, but aside from that hadn't taken too much part in the discussion of events. She was happy for him, of course; she'd heard from Hermione what his home life was really like.
She was a little more concerned, as the year drew to a close, about what Dumbledore was going to do with her. He could undoubtedly confuse her father to agree to something or other, and she didn't believe for a moment that she'd be allowed loose - even with the tracker, she could cut loose in ways Dumbledore would not appreciate.
Luna was sitting on the edge of the lake, her feet in it, looking up at the sky. Exams had gone swimmingly, of course; her cover story had made the rounds and she was no longer making any effort at holding herself back. Aside from her worry about the future, the last few months had been one of the most peaceful times of her entire life.
She was supposed to have another meeting with Dumbledore later that day - less than half an hour, in fact, and he'd presumably tell her what she would be doing.
Luna heard the whir of the arrow before the impact, starting to roll aside when it connected, piercing her thigh. She cried out in surprise and pain, but managed to roll over to facing the direction the arrow had come from, spotting a group of three centaurs in that direction. Luna had not expected them to leave the Forest to find her; clearly that was a mistake. She needed to distract them long enough to stand or twist to apparate away...
With a single quick gesture, Luna pulled her wand through her hair, whipping it forward, slicing and transfiguring her hair to hold in spiky, hard forms, banishing them towards the centaurs. The one that had already fired at her was hit by several of them, dropping. The other two, however, fired more arrows at her; she banished one of them and used a shield charm to knock the other away. The centaurs, their ambush having failed, grabbed the injured one and dragged him away; they would be worried about conclusive proof of attacking a witch, Luna decided.
Or possibly they thought their job was done. Luna's leg felt like it was on fire; the wound was bad, but this was beyond that. Luna pulled the arrow that she had deflected out of the ground and sniffed at it. It was definitely poisoned.
She'd have to take the chance Dumbledore could help her; she managed to struggle to her feet after a great effort and twist enough to apparate, although with a much louder pop than normal, black appearing along the edges of her vision as she appeared in the headmaster's office.
"Help." Luna said desperately, stumbling forward into his desk, not even noticing the man and boy who had had the appointment before her as she passed out onto it.
Sirius Black was having the best year of his life. Or the best year he could remember currently, anyway. He was told that the happy memories would gradually come back as he managed time without exposure to the Dementors. But he would gladly take his current joy. He even managed to avoid being bitter a good five or ten percent of the time.
Right now, though, he was finally getting to meet his godson in person after several exchanged letters, even if it was just a meeting with Dumbledore included to introduce himself in person and arrange taking over his magical guardianship. "Hello, Harry." He said with a wild smile as the black haired boy - James to the smallest detail, aside from the eyes - offered a slighter smile and took the other chair in front of Dumbledore's desk.
The meeting's contents were actually fairly dull. It was mostly paperwork they both had to fill out, though he also got the story of Harry's adventures from Dumbledore, much to his concern. He was just getting filled in on the events with a basilisk earlier in the year when a loud crack rippled through the room, the sound of apparation. Which was impossible, since he full well knew that apparation didn't work in Hogwarts. In spite of that, a blond girl (who couldn't have been more than a second year at the oldest!) had appeared and fallen onto the headmaster's desk. "Luna!" Harry had cried in surprise, and Sirius recognized the name as the girl whose bet with Ronald Weasley had exposed Pettigrew.
Dumbledore moved rapidly, taking an arrow out of the girl's hands after that, adjusting her on the desk to lay her out better. Sniffing at the arrow, he said "Sirius, quickly. There is a small supply of beazor stones in my cabinet. Harry, you may want to look away." Dumbledore was using his wand to wordlessly extract an arrow from the girl's leg, cutting as little at the flesh as he could before magically dressing the wound. Sirius came back with the beazor, and Dumbledore administered it to the witch, sighing. "She should recover from that, relatively quickly. I would not want to get Madam Pomfrey involved, as well." He admitted, looking Sirius over appraisingly.
"Not get Madam Pomfrey involved, Dumbledore? She was attacked, probably by centaurs judging by the method, and you're going to hush it up?" Sirius said, outraged by the idea.
"Sirius, there are issues.." Dumbledore looked distant for a moment. "I was planning on this conversation being with Arthur Weasley, but I suppose you two will work as well. She won't like it, but she'll prefer it to having you obliviated, and I see no half-truth that would work in this case."
"What do you mean, Sir?" Harry asked, confusion evident on his face.
Dumbledore smiled at Harry. "I need your word that you will keep this to yourself. Even from Miss Granger and Mister Weasley, until Luna is ready to tell them."
Harry looked hesitant, but then looked at Luna and nodded. "You have it."
"Miss Lovegood is not as young as she looks. There are legendary rituals that will supposedly allow you to travel through time, in various ways, to alter the past.." Dumbledore hesitated here, ignoring the looks of disbelief on Sirius and Harry's faces. "Though I'll note that she claims that that is a lie, and that after arriving she found that instead she had effectively unintentionally murdered the spirit of the version of her that was native to this reality, in case either of you are tempted."
Harry gave Luna another look, stunned. She was beginning to regain a little bit of color. "You can't mean that, can you? You're saying she's.. some sort of impostor?"
"She's your friend. She came back intending to save her friends; from what I've gotten from her, Luna and her world's Hermione Granger were the only survivors, and Hermione sacrificed herself casting the spell to send Luna back to her most emotionally painful moment, the death of her mother."
Dumbledore went on, describing what he knew of her actions since returning, before concluding, "The problem is that Luna was taught to kill, and she seems to have done it for a long span of time with a great deal of skill. She needs to be watched, and to be taught other things, to be reminded what friendship and love are and just how powerful they can be. I was going to have her stay with the Weasleys for the summer, as I said; Xeno Lovegood is taking an expedition to South America for the summer without her. However, since you've seen enough and I've been compelled to explain, if you two are willing, you might be a better option for several reasons."
Sirius sighed at that, considering. He'd really wanted time with Harry, alone, to try and make up for the time lost to prison. "Why would centaurs attack her, then, Dumbledore?" He asked, realizing there had been no explanation for that.
Dumbledore grimaced. "Luna knew they were after her; she had me ask them about her as evidence when she told me her history. Not just centaurs, but any creature or person with an affinity for divination is likely to want her dead. The presence of someone like her in the world is enough to render all prophecies and scrying invalid, with one exception: they can successfully see the name and an image of the disruption. In many cases, they'll feel duty-bound to remove it."
Sirius nodded at that, thoughtfully. "I'll take her for the summer, then, Dumbledore. I'm sure she can tell me further details."
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AN: It's not really polite to pass stories. Remember that if you ever travel in time - don't tell anyone who might tell someone else.
