AN: Sorry for the massive delay (I've had both this chapter and chapter 13 ready for quite a while but couldn't convince my muses to let me post them). So they woke up again today and informed me I was posting and posting now. I hope you haven't all lost interest. And Ookami, thanks again.
"Um, Healer Leysha? Sorry to bother you but we were wondering if Harry was here." Elani looked up, eye's surveying the two who had just walked into the wing. Harry had talked about them, praising them highly in fact. She reached out quickly.
:Harry, Luna and Neville are here looking for you. Would you like to see them?:
:Here now? Sure, send them in. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to work out where I was.:
:Ok, I'll let them through.: She Sent back and then addressed the teenagers before her. "Please, I've never been one for formality, call me Elani. As to Mr Potter, he just woke up a few minutes ago." Their faces fell and she waved it aside. "But he's well enough for visitors. Just don't wear him out, ok?" Their expressions reversed suddenly, bright smiles spreading across their faces. She stood and led them through the curtains around Harry's bed, pulling the drapes between his and the other occupied beds with a wave of her hand. But not before Harry's guests noticed Hermione. "I take it Miss Granger is a friend of yours as well?" She asked quickly, stopping the curtain's closure.
"Yes Hea- Elani." Luna replied, slightly ill at ease – for once – with the informality. "Is she well enough for us to speak to as well?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr Potter here was luckier then both the others involved. Miss Granger, whilst not directly in the path of the curse passed out due to some form of magical drainage. We're not sure how it happened but currently we're treating her for magical exhaustion. She should be better in a day or two." She allowed the curtain to finish closing. "I'll be outside, call me if anything happens." She slipped through the curtains and smiled, making her way back to her chair.
"Hey guys. Figures doesn't it." Harry said brightly, grinning ruefully. "First day of term and already in the Hospital Wing."
"You really should stop doing that Harry, if you're not careful this year you're going to get a personal bed." Luna said, only half-jokingly and he laughed.
"I know, I know. But I think I can truthfully say that I didn't run headlong into this particular mess." Luna sighed and shook her head.
"Maybe, maybe not. Just try not to do it again."
"I'll try." Neville laughed.
"And what do you think the chances of you succeeding are? Care to place a bet on that?" Harry shuddered.
"No thank you. I, unlike certain others," he grinned at Neville, "don't throw away money." He shook his head. "I am a bit surprised at how fast you found me though. Which of it was you?" Neville pointed at Luna and Harry nodded. "Should have guessed really."
"Yes, you really should have. I had a feeling something had happened but I couldn't quite place what. The Wrackspurts were being annoying you see." Harry laughed.
"I'm sure they were." Neville looked between the two, a confused look on his face as they both started laughing.
"I'm missing something here, aren't I." They both nodded. "And you're not going to tell me either." They shook their heads through the laughter and he shook his own in exasperation. "Well then, I'll just leave you two to laugh at each other," he said, putting on an aloof tone which just made them laugh more. "If you feel like explaining everything, I'll be in the library." Stopping at the curtain he turned back again, sobering. "Honestly though Harry, I'm glad you're safe." And with that he was gone.
"Thanks Neville." Harry said softly, before turning his head to look at Luna who had sat down on his bed. "So, you knew." She nodded.
"I can't really describe it. I just knew that something had happened that involved one of my friends." Harry sighed and cracked open his Sight.
"Sweet Merlin!" The exclamation slipped through his lips, almost like a prayer. His mind flashed outwards. :Bloody hell! Elani, I am about to call you in here. How could I have missed this!: The last part seemed almost an afterthought.
"Harry? What is it? Should I call the Healer?" Luna asked quickly and Harry shook his head.
"No, I'm fine. Luna, you remember what I told you on the train, right? About Avira." She nodded. "Well...I didn't tell you and Neville everything, there just wasn't time." He cocked his head when she laughed.
"Oh Harry, we both knew that there was more you wanted to say. We're not stupid you know." He blinked, reaching out with Empathy. "You're about to tell me something and you're not sure if I'm going to accept it. Just spit it out." He nodded shakily and then continued, keeping a close eye on her feelings.
"Well. I'm not quite sure how I can explain this but here goes. When I said I was away, I really was. I was a world away. In a place so different that I am almost thankful to return here, despite it's flaws. And the reason I was taken there was because I had a Gift of that reality. I've noticed more people here that have such Gifts as well – I'm not sure as to why. The girl in the bed there," he pointed at the curtains opposite Hermione's, "has one and so do you." He raised a hand to stop any protest. "Trust me, you do. I think you need to meet someone." He raise his voice as the woman before him started to react to what he had just said. "Elani, could you step in here for a moment."
:I know you've been piggybacking. Do you have any experience with Foresight?:
:I'm afraid not Harry. And neither does Avira. We've got what we've been taught about Foreseers, but neither of us have ever had any experience training someone in that Gift. The basics are always mostly the same though.:
:All right, I guess we teach her those basics and use that time to try and learn what we need to know about Foresight.: Elani responded with a surge of agreement and then stepped through the curtain.
"Luna Lovegood, meet Elani K'Leysha, one of my teachers from that world." Luna gaped for a few seconds and then recovered.
"I knew there was something off about how the Wrackspurts get on swarming around you!" Elani arched an eyebrow at Harry who shrugged.
:She's who she is:
:So I see: Luna looked between the two and cocked her head.
"Why do I get the sudden feeling that you two are somehow talking to each other without me realising?"
"I am cut to the quick, Miss Lovegood, that you would think we would do something so underhanded and decep-" She rolled her eyes and mouthed Dumbledore. "Damn...you've got me there." Harry exclaimed. Elani seized the opportunity to cut in.
"Luna, I will admit we have a slight problem with your Gift." She sighed. "Both me and my partner – yes, that would be Avalorn – have a lot of experience in teaching Gifted. Unfortunately neither of us have any experience with Foresight and with a Gift as powerful as yours we really need a proper teaching." Luna's eyes widened.
"Foresight?" She whispered. "You mean I'm going to be able to see the future?" Elani shook her head.
"Not exactly. From what little I know of it, a Foreseer will see many different possibilities of the future, only really knowing which one will happen a candlemark – sorry, an hour – at most before it occurs. Some say they get feelings about things that will happen in the next month or longer, but they're vague at best." She paused, considering a last thought. "Considering what I've heard though, the few people who have had Foresight as powerful as yours are wickedly dangerous fighters."
"We know what's coming before it happens..." Luna's voice trailed off, her mind suddenly jumping out ahead of herself, thoughts travelling pathways that she had never imagined. "And that explains it." Her voice strengthened. "I have seen things since my mother died, strange things, some more horrible then I would ever wish to describe. I recognised parts of some of them but I never gave them any thought." Elani winced.
"Powerful emotional upheavals have been known to trigger the awakening of Gifts. Luna, I hesitate to ask but I need to know. When did your mother die?"
"Seven years ago. She was quite a talented witch, but everyone said she was too curious for her own good. One of her spells went awry one day and she.." She swallowed and Harry quickly enveloped her in a warm confidence. "She died." Harry reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
"Thank you." She nodded, shaking her head.
"It's nothing, really. It was seven years ago and it was qui-" A gentle hand covered her lips.
"I have a confession to make Luna. I told you I have a Gift of Elani's world. I actually have two, but the important thing is this. I have an Adept level Empathic Gift, both projective and receptive." He smiled sadly. "I never knew my parents Luna. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to loose the woman who – I hope I don't presume much here – took care of you for most of nine years." She shook herself, shaking his hand off but her eyes were sparkling.
"No! It was seven years ago! People die every day and it just happened that fate decided her time was due! I-" Tears were streaking down her cheeks now and Harry reached out with both his hand and his Gift.
"Luna Lovegood, you were a friend to me when I needed it most. You believed me when everyone around me thought I was mad and you followed me into deadly danger on the strength of that conviction. You have never truly grieved for your mother, not in all those seven long years of visions and signs." He pushed himself up with his other hand and shimmied down the mattress until he was beside her. "Don't try and lock your sorrow away with platitudes, it will only hurt you."
"I...I..." She raised her head as he slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. Their eye's locked and she remembered.
-FLASHBACK-
Thick, oily smoke billowed into the summer sky, marring the day's beauty and she rushed towards its source.
"Mummy!" Her bare feet pattered on the ground as she hurtled across the garden towards her mother's laboratory.
"Luna! No!" Her father intercepted her just short of the wooden building, catching her up in his arms as a group of green clad men and woman appeared from the open door into the laboratory. She struggled against his hold, but she was only nine.
"Where's Mummy, Daddy? Where is she? And why are there people from the big hospital here? And why were they in Mummy's Laboratory?" The questions poured out of her and in later years she would recognise the expression that crossed the Lead Healer's face. It was pity. Pity and a sadness that would break your heart.
"Mummy's just fine love, she was just talking with these nice peo-"
"Then why is there smoke?" Luna asked indignantly. "Mummy says to never light fires in her laboratory!" The Healer touched her father on the shoulder.
"Sir, we have to move her if she's going to have a chance." He said softly, but urgently.
"Fine, fine. Just let me get my daughter away, I don't want her to see this." He started towards the house, trying to placate Luna every step of the way. "Mummy's just fine Luna, she was just playing with a new spell and made a mistake, she'll be perfectly fi-oof!"
"MUMMY!" Luna screamed and she broke from her father's hold as two Healers exited the building with a pale, blonde haired woman she recognised. Daddy tried to catch her, but he was too slow and she sprinted across the distance to her mother to stop short. "Mummy?"
Celosia Lovegood was a woman of normally pale complexion, but now her skin was almost completely white. Her breathing was slow, almost slow enough to not be there at all and her eyelids flickered open and closed as she was carried outside. When Luna called her she started slightly and for a moment Luna thought that it had all been a game; Mummy was about to spring up and tell her everything was all right. The moment passed. The Healers caught her before she could get to her, caught her and lifted her gently away, shielding her eyes. She fought tooth and nail but again, she was only nine.
"Mummy! What's wrong! What's wrong with here? Tell me! Please!" The words poured out of her to be met by more sad looks, more pitying glances. The two Healers holding her mother vanished with the signature crack of Apparition and she went limp, all of her energy leaving her as her mother vanished from her world.
Her daddy had said everything would be fine. He had lied. When the Healer came to fetch him with the same look on his face, she knew. When he tucked her into bed that night, refusing to answer any questions as he usually did, she knew. And so her sorrow was buried, hidden beneath layers of bitterness and betrayal-wrought pain.
-END FLASHBACK-
Luna collapsed into tears as the pain so long denied release crashed down upon her. Her emotional barriers, set deep inside so many years ago to protect herself and pushed far beyond their breaking point by both physical comfort and Gift, shattered. Harry almost pulled away as the girl gave a strangled cry and then threw herself onto his shoulder and sobbed. But he stopped himself, somehow. He felt her pain pour through her like water and he hugged her awkwardly, the simple action only redoubling her cries. Sorrow stabbed at his heart, rippling around his friend, but not remaining. His Gift reached out of its own accord, wrapping them in a shroud of emotional 'warmth' and lifting Luna away from the pain as it poured out of her.
"I never forgave him for what happened that day." She whispered, bitter tears flowing down her face. "I tried, but I just couldn't. He lied to me and robbed me of the last moments I should have had with my mother." Harry didn't say a word. He simply held her, his Gift lifting her away from the crushing grief and slowing its inexorable advance. Bitter tears moistened his robes as they dropped from her chin.
It took almost twenty minutes for the tears to stop coming, but Harry wouldn't have cared if it had taken twice that. He had known grief, but in it's own way what had happened to Luna had been worse than anything he had ever experienced. She had had time to know and love her mother before being robbed of her, far more time then he had had to get to know Sirius. And as young as she had been, she had probably rationalised her Foresight as something her mother had kept away, feeding into more pain and something very close to hatred directed at her father. As the sniffles slowly faded away, she pulled gently out of his arms. She looked up at him tentatively, her normally carefree eyes hooded and filled with apprehension. He reached out to her and squeezed her hand, smiling sadly.
"I understand." Those two words almost undid her again. "Not fully, but I can relate to what happened to you." Their eyes met and he dropped his mask. Her rebuke died on her lips as it fell, his eyes swirling with sorrow and regret. An instant later it was gone, but she had seen what she needed to.
"Thank you Harry." Emotions swirled between them, emotions Harry could not name or understand. There and gone again, he could not translate their fleeting nature. Unconsciously moving closer, Harry suddenly remembered the original meaning of their talk. Looking up he saw that Elani had vanished back into the infirmary.
"Luna, do you think you're up to talking about your Gift again? Or would you like some time to absorb it all?" He asked softly and she smiled.
"Can I just...sit here for a bit?" She asked tentatively.
"I guess so. If you're sure it will help." She nodded and moved closer again, hugging her friend.
"It will. I...I feel safe here Harry, here with you. I have not felt safe in so very long." She smiled up at him and he felt a tide of emotion sweep through him. Peace, sincerity, joy and complete trust all poured into him across the medium of his Gift and the sheer intensity of the emotion scared him. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped and slowly laid back, Luna beside him. As his eyelids began to droop, he spoke.
"Luna?"
"Hm?"
"I'm about to fall asleep." She tensed slightly as he continued. "You can stay if you want, I just wanted to make sure you knew." He felt her smile.
"Thank you Harry. Tell Elani to wake me up for dinner."
AN: So there you go, have another Gifted. Yes, it's cliché and I'm sorry about that but my muses told me at the very beginning that Luna was getting Albreich level Foresight. I'm basically going to work her Gift as Albreich's (for those that don't know what that means you can either look it up or wait and see). I think there will be some interesting stuff for everyone in the next chapter, although I just realised I need to do some more editing. So expect it up sometime in the next week (as long as my university courses allow it – which they should). I hope you liked this one and please feel free to drop any thoughts into a review or pm.
Edit: Sorry I forgot this Shinju (please don't kill me). Many, many thanks go to ShinjuKuroba for continuing to beta.
Wind to thy wings