Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing you recognize.

One morning in late May, Luna was lying in the grass in front of the Rook, staring up at the clouds and humming softly to herself. She was looking at a cloud that resembled a two-headed hippogriff when she felt something land on her hand. She sat up and saw a bluebird resting on her hand.

"Oh, hello there," the little girl said with a smile. "You want to be my friend, don't you?" The bird gave a happy chirp. "You must be hungry," Luna added, scooping some birdseed out of a bag and holding it out to the bird. It gobbled up the food and chirped in thanks. "You're welcome, little friend."

Just then Pandora poked her head through the front doorway of the Rook. "Luna, darling, come in quickly! I've got great news!"

"Goodbye," Luna said softly to the bluebird as it flew away. She then rushed into the house and said excitedly, "What is it, Mummy?"

"I think I may have finally come up with a cure for your sleepwalking," answered Pandora. "Of course, I will still need to test out a new spell on it to see if it will produce the desired effect, and I figured you'd like to watch me."

"Of course I would!" the nine-year-old cried ecstatically. She followed her mother into the lab, where there was a cauldron full of an aquamarine liquid standing in the middle of the floor.

"Right," said Pandora briskly. "If this spell succeeds, the potion will turn indigo. You will only need to take it once for the sleepwalking to cease permanently." Luna smiled; even though she'd gotten used to taking the awful-tasting potion every week, she rather liked the idea of never having to do it again.

"Now remember, Luna," the witch continued, "if anything out of the ordinary happens, get out as quickly as you can, understand?" Luna nodded.

Flicking her wand over the potion three times, Pandora cried, "Aresto Somnambulum!" The potion slowly darkened to a deep purple, then suddenly turned orange and frothed madly; the cauldron began to smoke.

"Luna," Pandora said, turning to her daughter with an anxious look on her face as the potion frothed harder and the smoke thickened more and more, "you need to go - now!"

"But Mummy, why is it doing that? You said - "

"GO!"

Luna did as she was told; she had barely reached the sitting room when a massive, deafening BOOM! sounded from the lab, causing the house to shake. Trembling, the little girl made her way back to the lab, calling, "Mummy?" Only a dead silence greeted her. "Mummy, what happened? Are you all right?"

When Luna stepped back into the lab, she was horrified at what she saw. Potion bottles and containers of potion ingredients lay in pieces on the floor, their contents strewn everywhere. The cauldron had melted, the potion within having splattered all over the walls and floor. And lying beside the remains of the cauldron was Pandora.

"MUMMY!" Luna cried, rushing to her mother's side. The pale witch struggled to keep her eyes open as she focused on her daughter; she then weakly reached her hand up to the young girl.

"L-Luna..." she whispered.

"What is it, Mummy?" the nine-year-old asked fearfully. "What went wrong?"

Pandora opened and closed her mouth several times, but no sound came out. Next second, her arm fell heavily to the ground as her eyes rolled back into her head and closed.

"Mummy, no!" Luna wailed. "You have to get up! You have to be okay!" Her mother simply lay still. "No...no...Mummy, please!" Tears welled in her eyes as she violently shook her mother's lifeless body. This went on for several moments before Luna snuggled against her mother's body and sobbed, having realized the horrible truth.

Pandora Lovegood was dead.

That afternoon, Xenophilius stepped through the front door of the house with an excited smile, having returned from a meeting in London regarding the featured article in the following month's edition of The Quibbler, which stated that Rubeus Hagrid had recently started breeding Umgubular Slashkilters in the Forbidden Forest. He could hardly wait to tell Pandora and Luna all about it.

"Dora?" he called out. "Luna? I'm home!" Silence. "Hello? Where are my lovely ladies?" Just then he heard running footsteps, and in the next second Luna was clutching him tightly around the legs, sobbing uncontrollably.

"What's the matter, moonbeam?" asked Xeno, frowning. Luna simply continued to sob. "Oh dear, it seems like you have a serious Larmespurt infection. Hang on a moment while I - " Luna interrupted him with a rapid shake of the head before grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the lab.

"Luna, what are you - ?" Xeno demanded over his daughter's continued hiccupping sobs. Soon they reached the lab, and within minutes Xeno let out a loud, long howl of anguish.

"NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

That night found Luna lying awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to her father's loud sobs from his bedroom. It seemed so difficult to believe that not even 24 hours ago she had been relaxing outside, enjoying the warm weather, and befriending a cute little bluebird...and now, just like that, her mother had been taken from her.

"It's just Daddy and me now, Hans," the little girl whispered, holding her stuffed Snorkack close as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Mummy was such an amazing witch, you know. She was so nice to everyone and so good at magic too. I wish she didn't have to die." She then remembered something her mother had often said: "The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect." So perhaps, even though Pandora would never come back to this world, Luna and Xeno would meet her again once their time was done.

Luna continued to snuggle with Hans as she eventually drifted off to sleep, her face stained with tears.

A/N: That was a very tragic day indeed. :(

Well, folks, this story is just about finished; all that's left is the epilogue. I hope you enjoyed it.