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Evening of April 2, 1983
"How's your Umgubular Slashkilter model coming along?" asked Pandora as she came into Xenophilius' study.
"Quite nicely," her husband said happily. "Of course, I will need to put it someplace where Luna can't get at it." Lately the toddler had taken to playing with her father's creature models even though Xeno had repeatedly warned her they were not toys. Just two days earlier Luna had accidentally broken Xeno's Blibbering Humdinger model and it had taken several different spells to get it functioning fully again.
"You take care of that, I'll go and tuck Luna in," Pandora told him before heading upstairs. "Luna?" she called out. "Time to get into bed, sweetie." But there was no sign of the little girl. Pandora wasn't too worried; Luna loved to play hide-and-seek with her from time to time.
"Oh dear, my little moon's not in here!" the witch said loudly. "Where, oh where could she be?" Then, peeking under Luna's bed, Pandora cried, "There you are!" Luna squealed and quickly crawled out from under the bed before running around the room, laughing hysterically with her mother chasing her. She then climbed onto her bed and started jumping up and down while continuing her raucous laughter.
"My, you're a little bundle of energy tonight," said Pandora, smiling. "Now come on, it's getting late. Time for little girls to go to sleep."
But Luna was not listening; she continued to jump up and down on her bed.
"Is everything all right?" came Xeno's voice from the doorway.
Pandora gave him a helpless look. "I can't get Luna to settle down," she said over the two-year-old's continued giggles.
Xeno stepped up to the bed. "If you settle down now, Daddy will tell you a story." Immediately Luna stopped jumping and got under the covers, then looked up expectantly at her father.
"Now," the blond wizard said as he sat on the edge of the bed, "this story is going to be a bit different. It is called 'The Legend of the Blue-Beaked Boobagoll.'"
"Bwue-Beaked Boo-ba-goll," repeated Luna slowly.
"Exactly." Xeno then held up a copy of the April edition of The Quibbler and pointed to the cover, which showed a picture of what looked like a hippogriff except for the long blue beak. It was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding sky.
"Every year on Easter Sunday," he continued, "the Blue-Beaked Boobagoll soars across the sky dropping these special eggs." Xeno opened up the magazine and turned to page four, where he pointed to a magenta egg with cyan speckles. "The eggs come in different sizes, but they all have this same color and pattern. Now, when they hatch, they release multicolored butterfly-like creatures called Vernaflies, which help make forests and gardens even more beautiful. And unlike dragon eggs, they do not need heat in order to hatch."
"Pwetty!" Luna breathed, pointing to the Vernaflies in the picture.
"Indeed," her father agreed. "Now, as you saw in the picture, the Blue-Beaked Boobagoll is very good at blending in with the sky. In fact, it has only ever been seen once by a human. Also, anyone who can find at least one of its eggs will have good luck for the rest of the spring." He reached out a hand and gently stroked Luna's long blonde hair. "As tomorrow is Easter, we will all go outside and see if we can find one."
Luna beamed. "Night-night Daddy, Mummy."
"Goodnight, moonbeam," replied Xeno.
"Sweet dreams, Lu-Lu," added Pandora, kissing her daughter on the forehead before she and her husband quietly left the room. Luna grabbed her stuffed Crumple-Horned Snorkack and held him close; she was asleep within seconds.
April 3, 1983
The next morning, right after breakfast, Luna was about to run outside when Pandora called out, "Just a minute, sweetie. Mummy needs to get you dressed first."
It took over ten minutes as the toddler was squirming around in excitement, but when she was finally dressed the Lovegoods headed out to the garden. "Right," instructed Xenophilius. "You two look here in the garden; I shall look in the wooded area nearby. Pandora, if you and Luna find an egg, send up green sparks. I'll do the same if I find one."
Pandora and Luna had been looking for several minutes when Luna suddenly cried, "Mummy, wook! Squiwwel!" and began to chase after it.
"Now, sweetheart, remember what we're looking for." Luna stopped and began to search near the crabapple trees while her mother searched under one of the Dirigible Plum bushes.
About 15 minutes of searching, then -
"Mummy! Egg!"
"Oh, you found one?" Pandora asked, hurrying over to where Luna was pointing; there, just outside the gate, was a magenta egg with cyan speckles.
"Great job, sweetie!" The witch raised her wand and conjured green sparks, and a few minutes later Xeno came running. He beamed when Luna proudly held up the egg.
"This is excellent!" he said happily. "I have been searching for many years and never have I managed to find a Boobagoll egg. And this year my little girl has found one for me! Thank you, moonbeam!" He picked Luna up and gave her a hug.
The family decided to spend the day outside to ensure they didn't miss the egg hatching. Around lunchtime Pandora brought out a picnic lunch of Freshwater Plimpy-and-pickle sandwiches, Dirigible Plum pie, and pumpkin juice, which everyone ate while watching the clouds drift across the sky. Afterward Luna played with the squirrels and rabbits while her mother fed the birds.
Around sundown, Luna was chasing some multicolored bubbles that Pandora had conjured with her wand when she saw her father standing under one of the crabapple trees holding the egg in front of him with a frown. She toddled up to him and asked, "Daddy sad?"
"No, moonbeam, Daddy's just worried," Xeno answered. "The sun is setting; this egg should have hatched by now. Boobagoll eggs usually hatch an hour or two after they fall from the sky." He sighed. "I suppose there's nothing for it but to leave it out here in case it does hatch later."
With that the Lovegoods headed back inside; Pandora went to get supper started while Xeno headed to his study to continue working on his Umgubular Slashkilter model, and Luna went to her room to play with her animal figurines.
Meanwhile, Amos Diggory sat back in his chair, a satisfied smirk on his face, thinking about that morning. He'd known Xenophilius since their days at Hogwarts, and he had always thought the long-haired wizard wasn't quite right in the head. Every year around Easter, Xeno had talked about someday finding a Blue-Beaked Boobagoll egg and showing it to all the naysayers who had made fun of him. Amos had told him multiple times what utter rubbish his belief was, but of course Xeno never listened to him. Not to mention he had likely roped his wife into going along with it along with all his other mad ideas.
And as for his daughter...As concerned as Amos was that much of Xeno's strangeness was likely rubbing off on her, he didn't exactly mind Cedric hanging around with her from time to time. In fact, he thought maybe if they spent enough time together, his son might be able to make Luna more normal.
Amos knew that sooner or later Ophelia would realize there was an egg missing from the kitchen and ask what had happened to it. She was not going to be happy at all when she found out what he had done that morning, but a furious wife was but a small price to pay for teaching Xenophilius Lovegood a lesson about looking for things that simply did not exist.