"You alright, love? Why don't you give it a rest?"

"No! I mean, yes, I'm fine. A few more please," Luna's breath came in ragged pants. The scorching summer sun stood high in the sky and blazed down on her with a tangible throb, making her feel pleasantly baked and freckling her pale skin. When she reached up to push her hair out of her face, a cold trickle of sweat crawled down her back.

Mrs. Brown but pursed her lips but said nothing else. She pointed her wand at Luna and with a quiet word and confident flick of her wrist, sent a crackling but benign burst of sparks at her pupil. Luna ducked and rolled out of the way, grazing her elbow on a stray rock.

"Come now, there's no need to be dramatic. You would have done just as well with a simple dodge," Mrs. Brown scolded her.

Luna shrugged before sticking out her tongue and twisting her arm in an attempt to lick up the blood. She quite liked the coppery immediacy of its taste. Luna was used to blood, although she rarely bled accidentally anymore. Blood was a tool, a resource. She couldn't let any of the precious commodity go to waste if she could help it. Could consuming a few drops of one's own blood be used to work a spell? Perhaps a glamor, or a quick charisma-boosting charm.

"Blimey, Luna," Mrs. Brown rolled her eyes, interrupting Luna's train of thought.

"No use crying over spilled blood, I say. And besides, you should know I'm used to pain by now!" Luna chuckled, looking around the sun-shriveled fields and back towards the cluster of Circle buildings in the distance. Where's Lavender? She should be back by now.

"That's exactly what worries me. Is that back of yours still bothering you?"

"No," Luna lied, her hand rising instinctively to clutch her lower back. But after a knowing look from Mrs. Brown, she paused to take stock of her body, which to her chagrin had been growing noticeably softer and rounder despite months of drills with Mrs. Brown. Her muscles felt pleasantly sore. But the more persistent, nagging ache that had settled on her hips and back the last few days persisted. She couldn't shake it, no matter how many races she had with Ginny or defensive drills she ran with Mrs. Brown.

"More, please," she said, shaking out her limbs and striking a pose of readiness that somewhat resembled that of a Quidditch keeper.

"That's enough now," Mrs. Brown chided.

"Oh, come on, please?" Luna begged, eyes widening as Mrs. Brown collapsed the defensive dummies and folded them into a small bag with a wave of her wand.

"No, Luna. Maybe we should do some stretches for your back instead. Or you could ask your mum to brew you something," Eudora began gathering the rest of the supplies and making her way towards the dirt path which wended along the edges of the fields and back towards the Circle proper. Luna jogged to catch her up, stopping in front of her to block her path and catch her breath.

"What, all that just for a little pain? It's all part of being the raven queen. Occupational hazard, right? I must have been spat on by a pixie when I was born or something," Luna flashed what she hoped was a winning a smile at Mrs. Brown. She felt like a child begging to stay up past her bedtime, and worried that her uncharacteristically single-minded pleading was beginning to make her friend's mother suspicious. But Mrs. Brown did something else entirely. Something worse.

"Oh, love," she cupped Luna's tanned face in her hand and peered at her while Luna squirmed under her concerned gaze.

"Pain is a natural part of life, but it's not normal. You don't need to be in pain all the time. You do know that, right?"

"I was just kidding around," Luna mumbled. She had only been half kidding. It did seem like being the raven queen of prophecy meant dealing with more than her fair share of pain. The constant slashes and cuts she inflicted on herself to perform blood magic, the headaches that seemed to come with her most significant prophecies, the way her chest sometimes tightened with the worry and responsibility of being in charge of the Circle, with so many people's fates in her hands. She was sure this new back pain must simply be the latest manifestation of her burden. Her end of the bargain, her payment for being a child of prophecy. But when had she ever signed a contract?

"I don't care if you were kidding. You understand, right?"

"Y-yes, of course, Mrs. Brown," Luna stammered, her fingers trailing over the crisscrossing web of scabs and scars that adorned her arms like her mother's bracelets. She didn't understand what Mrs. Brown could possibly mean. Luna did need to feel pain to do her magic, to fulfill her destiny, to rebuild the Circle. It was expected of all of them, but of her most of all.

"You know, Luna, I've been thinking…" Mrs. Brown began, and from her slow and deliberate tone Luna was sure she was in for the scolding of her life. Whatever her mentor had seen in her face, she evidently had not liked it. And whatever Mrs. Brown was about to say to her, Luna didn't want to hear it. She shrank away from the older woman, scrunching up her nose to mask the unmistakable tingle she felt there.

"Mum! Luna!" They could hear Lavender before they saw her, but she eventually came into view, galloping down the dirt path, squinting to see if Luna had succeeded in her mission of stalling her mother.

"Oh, hello, Lav," Mrs. Brown said, frowning as Luna wriggled free of her grasp and turned away to greet her friend.

"Hey, Lav. Thanks for the extra practice, Mrs. Brown. Gotta go!" The girls had already sprinted halfway across the field before Mrs. Brown could get a word in edgewise. Eudora watched them go, her hands on her hips.

"Did you find anything?" Luna asked, catching her breath as they came to the girls' favorite grove and settled themselves in the universally beloved tree, which was usually the subject of many territorial disputes. This time they found it mercifully empty while the other girls were otherwise occupied with circle meetings or independent study.

"Not like we were hoping," Lavender sighed.

"You didn't get caught, did you?" Luna prodded. She had already had to stop sneaking around the women's dormitories because Professor McGonagall and Madam Bones had caught her lingering one too many times. The astute older ladies naturally suspected Ginny as her co-conspirator, but Luna didn't have the heart to tell Ginny about the insurmountable void she saw every time she tried to make a prophecy. So she had turned to the more discreet Lavender to carry out her reconnaissance mission by proxy.

"Well, no. It's just…I found my mum's diary. And she's been writing a lot about my dad lately. She says that everything that's happening reminds her of how things were last time, before the last war. She writes a lot about my dad, because she's been dreaming about him more. She says she dreams about getting killed by Death Eaters and leaving me an orphan," Lavender's lip quivered.

"Oh, Lav," Luna reached out to pat her friend on the shoulder, but Lavender buried her face in her hands.

"W-what if it's t-true?" Lavender's shoulders shook with sobs, but she wouldn't lift her face.

"No offense, but your mum's not a Seer. I'm sure she's just worried about all this stuff, and that's why it's turning up in her dreams," Luna rubbed Lavender's back a few times and then stopped for fear of annoying her.

"B-but how do you know? You haven't been Seeing a-anything lately! What if this is it? What if this is the huge thing you can't See around? What if there's a war coming, and, we're all going t-to die?"

"I guess I can't know that for sure," Luna said simply. She didn't want to lie to Lavender, but this only seemed to make the other girl cry harder.

They sat there for several minutes in silence, apart from Lavender's sobs. Luna got up and adjusted where she was sitting to shield Lavender from the sun. Eventually, Lavender's sobs turned to snuffles and she lifted her red-rimmed eyes to look at Luna with a mixture of despair and anguished hope.

"D'you see why this is so scary for me? Are you sure you haven't had any kind of prophecy, anything at all? Even if it's something really bad, I'd rather know than…this," she gestured to herself, slumped over with a tear-stained face and nails bitten to the quick.

"I swear. Every time I try, I can't see anything but black. Sometimes my mum's face. That's it. If anything, I guess it means my mum might die. Definitely not yours," Luna tried a week smile, but Lavender's lip only started twitching again.

"But you haven't been trying lately, have you? Your mum keeps asking you to read the runes for us and you won't. You won't even touch her crystal ball. And I know you didn't like water scrying, but maybe you should try again. Something is better than nothing, right? You should try everything. Anything." Lavender's voice broke, and Luna couldn't bear to hear how desperately her friend was pleading. She had never heard Lavender ask for anything.

"It's not just that I didn't like it," Luna retorted, "None of you understand how bloody horrible that vision was! So vivid. I saw Ginny as clear as I see you sitting in front of me. And then…" she shivered at the memory of the rotting hand reaching out of the diary and choking Ginny. And worst of all, the sensation of drowning as she clawed her way out of the vision and into the real world, her lungs filling with water as she thrashed and spluttered.

"I can't do it again, Lavender." If water scrying somehow magnified the horrors of her visions, made them more viscerally real, Luna knew she couldn't bear whatever the surface of the water would have to tell her about the monumental, black abyss apparently before them.

Lavender's dark eyes searched Luna's face just like her mother's light eyes had done a few short minutes ago. But this time, Luna fought to hold her gaze. She wanted Lavender to see her fear, to recognize the truth of what she said.

"Okay," Lavender finally said, much more steadily. She seemed calmed by the panic and pain in her friend's eyes, "But do you promise to at least try harder? Please?" She caressed the locket around her neck.

"I promise."


"Bugger," Luna swore under her breath, closing her eyes and counting to five. When she opened them, the patterns of the runes were still indecipherable to her, a seemingly random assortment of stars that she couldn't connect into any coherent constellations.

She had tried everything, even her mum's crystal ball. She had drunk an infusion that was supposed to boost the inner eye. Even simple three rune spreads seemed unfathomable. When she closed her eyes, she saw shadowy figures shrouded in black, and she couldn't make out anything else in the darkness. Luna wanted to give up with every fiber of her being. But she had promised Lavender.

Under normal circumstances, Luna might have put the runes away, gone to find Lavender, and snapped at her. Lavender had no idea what it felt like, trying to See and knowing that no matter what you do, it will feel like banging your head against a wall over and over and over again. After trying dozens of times, why keep trying? Luna could feel the wall inside herself, obstructing her Sight like a dam stemming the flow of a river.

But the memory of Lavender's tears and shaky smile held her back. Clutching her head in her hands, Luna stooped so low that the scattered runes occupied her entire vision. She twisted her head in every possible direction, to no avail. Finally, she laid on her back, lifted herself into a bridge, and peered at the runes upside down.

"Is everything alright, dearie?" came a squeaky voice. Mrs. Figg stood in the doorway, turning her head sideways to peer at the upside-down Luna with a bewildered smile on her face.

"Oh! You scared me, Mrs. Figg," Luna nearly hit her head as she tumbled to the ground and righted herself.

"I'm sorry, dear! But I have to ask, what were you doing down there?"

"Trying to read the runes. Sometimes I like to do something different, to see if it might shake something loose."

"And did it work?"

"Not really," Luna dejectedly kicked a few of the runes with her foot.

"Well, now, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure I don't have any wisdom to offer. Eudora told me your back has been hurting you? It's no wonder, with you going and twisting yourself like a pretzel!"

"Well, it doesn't hurt very much," Luna had to admit that her acrobatics hadn't exactly helped her back pain, but she didn't want to say so to Mrs. Figg.

"Well, would you like to come help me fix up a healing potion? I've been working on my potioneering work. Last week I gave something to Mr. Tibbles and I could swear it helped his hairballs a pretty sight." Luna opened her mouth as if to say something, but Mrs. Figg only smiled as she led Luna to the laboratory building.

"Could you get some dittany for me, there's a dear," she asked, taking out the box of matches which was kept for the express use of the Squibs and underage or otherwise wandless witches of the Circle. She lit two small fires under two cauldrons on the long, scuffed work surface.

"Erm, Mrs. Figg…" Luna began.

"If you make it along with me, I'm sure yours will be much more effective. But I enjoy the process."

"Mrs. Figg, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Luna persisted as she opened several drawers in search of the dried dittany.

"You want to know why I bother trying to learn magic when I'm a Squib?" Mrs. Figg said, without looking up from her task of chopping wormwood.

"Oh, um, yeah, I suppose," Luna shuffled her feet and didn't dare raise her gaze from the cabinet to see if Mrs. Figg was looking at her.

"No need to tiptoe around it. Well, the answer is that a part of me has always wished I had some hidden reserve of magic. I think it's the same for all of us Squibs, you know. We're resigned in some ways, but we always live in hope," there was a slight quiver in Mrs. Figg's voice, and she gripped Luna's hands for a moment when Luna brought her the dittany before continuing.

"And you have discovered some truly amazing magic, young lady. Maybe you'll find something that will unlock mine. Especially with all this blood stuff. Squibs have blood just the same as witches. And even though I can't do magic, I come from a witching family. Is it in my blood? Perhaps. But perhaps not."

"But you work so hard, harder than anyone else. You come early and stay late, and you do all that research with Professor McGonagall. What if nothing comes of it?"

"Well, dearie, then I'll have learned a lot and been a part of something wonderful, won't I? Now, don't forget to add the dragon liver. And perhaps a little valerian, for back pain in particular. Do you think we should add it while stirring, or wait until the end?"

"But…" Luna protested. She had been neglecting her own cauldron, and Mrs. Figg had to reach across and add the dragon liver for her, as the potion was turning a dangerous shade of green and beginning to spit.

"Luna, I'm about to tell you something that might seem hard to believe. There are worse things in the world than not having magic. I've had a good life, all things considered. I have a lovely, accepting family, I've loved a wonderful man, I have Caroline and all you girls. I can still fight for what I think is right, like I did during the last war. I could have done a lot worse for myself."

"I suppose I haven't thought of it that way," Luna admitted.

"Not many people have," said Mrs. Figg brusquely, nudging Luna to pay her cauldron heed.

"It's just so hard to imagine not having magic," Luna dutifully began stirring, imitating Mrs. Figg. Despite being a Squib, she had apparently paid much closer attention during the potion circle meetings than Luna herself.

"I flatter myself that being deprived of magic has made me a more, empathetic person. And, if I may say so, it's made me grateful for any brush with magic I can get. Some of you girls don't realize how lucky you are. I feel lucky for even having the opportunity to learn alongside you, even if I cannot put things fully into practice as you can. And you don't understand why I'm so thrilled by things like herbalism and weaving, which you think are so boring. But these are the things that even I can do! And that's just thrilling, to an old Squib like me."

Mrs. Figg's tone was kind, but Luna was so chastened that she could not speak. They worked in silence for several minutes while Luna worked up the courage to ask the question she had originally wanted Mrs. Figg to answer.

"If you could have magic, like with a snap of your fingers, would you do it?"

"You know, I've wondered about that for a long time. There will always be a part of me, a large part, that thinks I should say yes in an instant. But there are a lot of scammers trying to prey on us Squibs, and we have to be careful. And we ought to remember that fairy tales teach us to be careful what we wish for, particularly when we are offered something that seems too good to be true," Mrs. Figg reflected as she added the valerian root and passed some to Luna.

"So I suppose that if I were to get magic after all this time, I should want to work for it, so I could truly appreciate it, and be sure it was real. Which is why I keep pottering on at the Circle, and why you all think I'm such a fool."

"I don't think you're a fool," Luna said quickly, but the lie tasted bitter on her tongue, and she was sure Mrs. Figg could sense it too.

"Now, add the valerian and then once the steam turns blue, add a few drops of blood," Mrs. Figg, whose potion was already enveloped in roiling blue steam, took out her small knife and obediently pressed it to her forearm as if to draw blood. Luna saw the scars in the wrinkled folds of the old woman's skin and felt a hard knot build in her throat.

"No, Mrs. Figg, let me," she insisted, taking her own knife and dribbling a few drops of her blood into Mrs. Figg's cauldron and then her own. The cauldrons flashed purple and began simmering promisingly.

"Oh, dear. You have no idea what a kindness you've done me," Mrs. Figg said, tears welling in her eyes as she bent over her potion and inhaled the purple steam wafting from her cauldron like it was amortentia. This was clearly the first time any of her attempts at magic had turned out at all to plan.

"Don't mention it. And thank you for helping me along with mine. Potions has never been my strong suit. Too exact for me," Luna tried to make her voice sound breezy even as she worked to swallow the lump in her throat. Mrs. Figg looked like a child on Christmas as she bottled her potion before offering it to Luna.

"Oh, no, you keep yours," Luna said, putting her own potion into a vial.

"Are you sure you don't need it for your back?"

"No, no, this one you've helped me with will do me just fine," Luna took a small swig of her potion and smiled at Mrs. Figg before stoppering it and tossing it in her mokeskin pouch for later.

"Well thank you, dear! This won't just be going to the cats, I assure you!" Mrs. Figg wrapped her first great success carefully in cloth before nestling it in her pocketbook and jostling it a few times to make sure the vial wouldn't break.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Figg," Luna stood up and began tidying away the potions supplies, blowing out the fires, and wiping down the cauldrons with a damp cloth. She heard a small gasp and then Mrs. Figg's delicate cough.

"Oh, my dear! You're bleeding."

"What?" Luna first looked to her arms and hands but saw only the small nick she had given herself for the potion, which had already begun to clot.

"Oh, no, dear. It must be your first…oh, your mother will be so happy!" Mrs. Figg motioned for Luna to turn around and pointed to the back of her robes. Luna was suddenly conscious of a wet stain blooming between her legs. She began patting herself. Had she sat on a dragon liver?

Her fingers came away scarlet and wet with blood.