The grass was cool and wet under Luna's bare feet.
That didn't necessarily bother her. It was just the first thing she noticed when she awoke in Marston Park. She wasn't even terribly surprised to find herself standing beside this fountain. She had been dreaming of the Park since her mum's funeral all those weeks ago. So it seemed quite reasonable to her that she would have walked out here.
A fine mist clung to the lawns. The moon blazed in the January sky, turning the Park a ghostly silver. There would be snow, but not tonight. And when there was, she would come back here and she would make snow angels until she couldn't feel her legs. Her mum had taught her how to make snow angels when she was six. They had both flopped over beside this fountain and waved their arms and legs madly, giggling like a couple of daft bananas. That was what her father had called them, but he had been giggling too.
They had made thousands of snow angels since then. Luna watched the waters of the fountain scattering the bleached moonlight at a million brilliant angles. Her mum was a moonbeam. That was what her father called her, for as long as Luna could remember. Even now, all these months later. Her mum would never make another snow angel.
Her heart burned in her chest, and her breath turned to ice in her lungs. She wanted to scream and howl and tear down the world before the fury and agony ripped her apart. She stood in the grass in her bare feet and pyjamas, and watched the water surge out of the fountain. She didn't move, hardly breathed. The cascade warped in the still night.
She heard footsteps, and blinked. The tumble of water returned to its usual arc. Luna turned, and peered silently across the Park. A figure materialized out of the mist, tall and moving slowly, wrapped in a cloak with a hood pulled up against the cold.
A woman's voice reached out through the pearly shadows. "Luna?"
"Mum?" The figure paused. It was not her mum. Luna knew that he mum never would have paused. Then the woman took another few steps and the fog parted around her. She reached the fountain, and Luna looked up at her. "Hello, Mrs. Diggory."
"Are you alright, dear?" Demeter Diggory asked, gentle concern in her voice.
Luna glanced to the fountain. The water fell into the pool at its base in a perfectly ordinary flow. Luna chose to believe that it had never done otherwise. "I think I am."
"Amos saw you from the window of his study," Mrs. Diggory explained.
Luna turned back to this woman who had emerged from the mist like a prophet in a dream. Mrs. Diggory's dark hair spilled out the sides of her hood around her neck. It was majestic, the rich color of soot. It was, Luna thought, the hair of a Countess.
Mrs. Diggory watched the girl, and asked: "What are you doing out here?"
"I don't really know," Luna answered. "I think I sleepwalked."
Mrs. Diggory took another step toward her. "You don't have any shoes."
Luna wiggled her toes, enjoying the sensation of the cool, wet grass under her feet. "I don't wear shoes to bed," she explained as if that much should have been obvious.
Mrs. Diggory paused, and flashed a tiny smile. Then she produced her wand, and with a flourish and a mumbled incantation, conjured a pair of sneakers out of the chilly air. Luna gasped in a delight. They were exactly the shade of fuchsia that would match the wisteria-colored socks her grandmother had given her for Saturnalia. She took them from Mrs. Diggory, pulled them on, tied the laces, and admired them from above.
They were just her size. She looked back up to Mrs. Diggory. "Thank you."
"Of course," Mrs. Diggory said. She smiled so beauteously that Luna couldn't help smiling back, and all thoughts of tearing down the world were banished. At least for one night. Luna turned and started through the Park, back toward the road that would take her home, when Mrs. Diggory called after her. "Do you want me to Apparate you?"
She paused near a wide stone bench. "I know the way."
"Okay," Mrs. Diggory said, hesitant.
Luna took a few more steps, but then she paused again. She turned back to see Mrs. Diggory standing in the mist in her hooded cloak with the soot-colored hair of a countess. Luna looked at her sneakers, and asked: "Do you know how to make snow angels?"
Mrs. Diggory shook her head with a kind smile. "I'm afraid I don't, dear."
"I can show you," Luna told her, and she smiled. "When it snows."
