Weeks passed and the Circle of Peloresow continued to ignore the existence of the two girls in the dark tower in Devon. Their friends' apathy pricked Luna and Ginny like a thousand small wounds, one after the other. Tonks did not come back for another visit; it was the first time she had ever broken a promise to Luna. After sending her niece bearing a peacemaking gift, Cressida made no further attempts to contact her daughter. Over a dozen owl masks lay unused in Gwenog's warehouse in London, as only Mrs. Figg continued her work with the protests. The Circle seemed determined to forget that not so long ago, they had left the cloisters of Cornworthy and fought for someone other than themselves.

There was not so much as an owl. Luna and Ginny had to beg Andromeda and Mrs. Weasley for scraps of news, and indeed confirmation that the others were still alive. Eventually enough time passed that if their friends had wanted to write a letter or pay a visit, they would have done so. Some time later, Gwenog, Andromeda, and even Mrs. Weasley finally stopped making excuses for the long, unbroken silence. Sides had been chosen, and when the dust settled Luna found that she was even more alone than she could have possibly imagined.

Luna realized her miscalculation much too late. When she stormed out of the Circle in a flurry of shouts and tears, she was under the mistaken impression that she had the power to abandon them, the power to abdicate her own power. But with their silence, the Circle transformed her rebellion into an exile, and she was left paralyzed and impotent in its thrall. What did they care for her? She was nothing but a false prophet. A pretender who did not even have the power to write her exit from the annals of the Circle in her own words.

Lavender stayed away until the tendrils of autumn began to curl themselves around the final weeks of summer. The Squib protest at King's Cross was only days away when Mrs. Figg turned up at the Rook with a reluctant Lavender in tow. Luna had long since given up all hope in Lavender. She had always sensed an uncomfortable intensity in her friend, a blind belief that prophecy should guide her life, could even save her. Despite the hunger in Lavender's eyes for the certainty that she believed prophecies provided, Luna had thought they were friends first and foremost. It made her heart ache to realize that Lavender's friendship had always been contingent on Luna being the raven queen, on her willingness and ability to dispense prophecies like one of Mr. Weasley's Muggle machines.

"I can't believe it's been so long since I've seen you girls! I know you'll say I'm silly, but I think you've grown over the summer. You've both shot up like beanstalks!" Mrs. Figg said after Luna got her settled in the most comfortable chair in the front room and Ginny fetched her tea. Lavender hovered in the doorway, still levitating two battered suitcases with her wand.

"A whole two inches, if the old height chart in the library can be believed." Ginny grinned from her usual spot on the floor and stretched her long, freckled legs over the threadbare carpet.

"So, how are things at the Circle? And what's the stuff you've brought along? I think we already have all of our clothes and the equipment from the laboratory, don't we?" Luna asked.

"Come inside and sit with your friends, Lavender. Why don't you have some tea? Ginny, it looks like you've forgotten a cup." Ginny had rather pointedly only brought three cups of tea, but after a look from Mrs. Figg she huffed and trundled back to the kitchen.

"Thank you, Ginny. Now isn't this nice? Anyway, everything back at the Circle is wonderful, just wonderful. Bellatrix has had some brilliant ideas. We've been taking weekend trips to the coast to experiment with harnessing the power of the tides to strengthen our magic. Since the tides are governed by…"

"The moon," Luna breathed. Why hadn't she ever thought of that?

"Precisely! Just ingenious, isn't it? For all we know, that could very well be what that witch was doing in the cave in Cornwall."

"It's a very exciting time at the Circle," Lavender piped up.

"Mucking about at the seaside doesn't sound very exciting to me," Ginny said, and Luna could have kissed her. Lavender said nothing, only lowered her head until the tip of her nose nearly dipped into her tea.

"And the others are doing well? Padma and Parvati and Rania and Sylvia and all the others? We haven't heard from them in a while." Luna coughed to force the tightness out of her chest.

"I'm just an old woman, you know. Lavender would know more about that. Why don't you ask her?" Luna saw straight through Mrs. Figg's clumsy attempts to break the icy silence between the three girls. Much as she loved the old woman, Luna could not bring herself to oblige her.

"You know what they say. No news is good news and whatnot," Ginny said while studying her fingernails.

"We all miss you," Lavender whispered, almost too quietly to be heard.

"That's a bit rich coming from you," Ginny snapped.

"W-what?"

"You lot have been icing us out for months, like we don't even exist."

"It's not like that! I've t-tried…"

"And now you have the audacity to come here and play the victim?"

"Luna said we shouldn't follow her! You sauntered off just the two of you and left the rest of us to…"

"I didn't mean to stay away forever! And I didn't mean you," Luna screamed, her voice so shrill she could feel it clawing at the soft flesh of her throat. Ginny sprang to her feet and pointed a finger at Lavender, ready to unleash one of her unholy tirades.

"That's quite enough! Stop it, all three of you!" Mrs. Figg cried. Lavender was sobbing silently and clutching her locket. Luna panted as she forced herself to swallow her next volley of shouts. Ginny let out an exasperated yelp, threw herself onto the sofa, and pummeled one of the cushions with her fists.

"I think we could all do with some space. Lavender, why don't you bring my things upstairs? I assume you remember the way to Cressida's room?"

"Yes, Mrs. Figg." Lavender shuffled towards the door.

"Hold on a moment." Luna realized with a pang that Lavender stopped instinctively at her command, like she was still someone to be obeyed.

"Why are you putting your stuff in my mum's room?"

"I'll be staying here for a little while. Your mother said she didn't mind. In fact, she's the one who suggested it."

"But why?"

"Well, dear, I thought it'd be best."

"Has something happened? Have they kicked you out of the Circle?" Ginny demanded.

"No, nothing at all like that. It's just become clear to me that I was perhaps getting carried away, hoping I would somehow unlock my magic. It was all a bit pathetic, I suppose."

"You're not pathetic!" Luna cried.

"I realized I was taking more from the Circle - time, resources, blood - than I was giving to it."

"We don't care about that!" Ginny rumbled at the same time Luna protested, "That's not true, Mrs. Figg!"

"No one's made me do this, girls! It's entirely my own decision. Besides, now that Maude, Joanie, and the lads are leaving, it felt like the right time."

"She kicked them out, didn't she? I told you, Luna! Didn't I say she'd go after the Muggleborns first thing? Once a Death Eater always a Death Eater," Ginny spat.

"We always knew they would only be at the Circle for a little while, while they were in hiding. Now it's finally safe for them to leave. It's a good thing! They don't have to live in constant fear anymore. They can go back to their families."

"Dex loves the Circle! He wouldn't want to leave, I know he wouldn't."

"You know that the Circle has always been a place created by and for women," Mrs. Figg said. She sounded tired and a bit patronizing, like Ginny was a toddler who was being deliberately contrary.

"So what? That was hundreds of years ago! The original Circle was a nunnery but do you see Bellatrix queueing up to take her vows? Floo Powder hadn't been invented yet. Are you not allowed to use that because the old Circle of Peloresow didn't?"

"Ginny…" Mrs. Figg rubbed a crease between her eyebrows.

"Joanie doesn't have a family. She's an orphan," Luna added. Ginny was being annoying, but that didn't mean she was wrong. And Luna didn't want to let Mrs. Figg just brush her off like that, not when something deep inside her was bristling.

"Yes, exactly! What's going to happen to Joanie?" Ginny asked.

"If you must know, Miss Nosy, Maude's adopting her. She'll never have to go back to that horrid care home. Is that good enough for you?"

"Maude could adopt Joanie at the Circle. And if Maude takes her back to York, Joanie won't have any friends. Joanie told me she doesn't want to go to Hogwarts. She'll get lonely with only Maude to tutor her…"

"Not everyone hates Hogwarts as much as you do, Luna, love," Mrs. Figg said with an indulgent little chuckle, "And besides, Minerva will be there to look after Joanie."

"Professor McGonagall's not quitting Hogwarts after all?" Discovering all this was whiplash after months without an inkling of the goings-on at the Circle. It was difficult to believe that so much had happened in such a short span of time, even with the restoration of the true raven queen.

"No. Minerva's decided that she needs to devote her full attention to Hogwarts. I don't know if she would have ever really gone through with it, anyway. You know how Dumbledore is, I think she wants to keep an eye on everything."

Ginny whistled. "You're dropping like flies over there! Has anyone else left?"

"No! In fact, we have a few new girls who are thinking of joining us for the new school year. That will be exciting, very exciting."

"Wh-what," Lavender cleared her throat, like she was losing her voice and it was a great effort to speak, "What about Madam Bones?" She had been following the exchange from the doorway in rapt silence, her fingers still tangled in the chain of her necklace.

"Yes, well, I suppose we haven't seen Amelia in a while," Mrs. Figg conceded, "But you know how little she was involved to begin with. She's a very busy woman."

Luna did some quick counting on her fingers, "It's the first time in the Circle's history you've been shrinking instead of growing."

"Didn't you hear me say about the new girls? It's a very exciting time for the Circle. Lavender, the bags?"

"Right, sorry," Lavender startled as if waking from a trance and pulled her wand out of her pocket, "Wingardium leviosa."

"What's that on your arm?" Ginny asked.

Lavender tugged her sleeve back down, but wasn't quick enough to hide the constellations of deep gashes crisscrossing the flesh of her arm. They stood out pale and pink against her dark skin.

"Why would you care?" Lavender grunted as she left the room, bumping one of the suitcases on the doorframe on her way out.

"Is she okay? Those looked like a lot of cuts." Luna turned to Mrs. Figg, who only sipped her tea.

"What does she even need that much blood for? Has she started a new experiment or something?" Ginny asked.

Lavender stomped back into the room. "Are you quite finished talking about me behind my back?"

"Lavender…" Luna began. Now it was Lavender who was determinedly dodging Luna's gaze.

"If you're all settled in, Mrs. Figg, I should be getting back. May I use the Floo, please?"

"Er, yes, of course. You know where the powder is." Luna said. She was forced to address the back of Lavender's head as the other girl stooped to give Mrs. Figg a hug and a kiss before vanishing in a puff of smoke in the fireplace. The silence settled over them like snow, making the room feel muffled and claustrophobic.

"More tea, Mrs. Figg?" Luna offered.

Mrs. Figg only shook her head. "I'm disappointed in you, girls. You have no idea how difficult it was for Lavender to come here today."

"She has no idea how difficult it was to be ignored by literally everyone we know for the entire summer," Luna said. She tried to make her voice fiery like Ginny's, but it only sounded hurt and sad. Mrs. Figg hobbled to her feet, and both girls rushed to help her. The old woman laid her wrinkled, liver-spotted hands on their sun-tanned ones.

"There's something else...well, no," she coughed and brought a hand to the base of her throat.

"I'll just say this: for someone so smart, sometimes you miss what's right in front of you."

Mrs. Figg slipped into Luna and Ginny's life in Ottery St. Catchpole as swiftly and easily as Lavender slipped out of it. She began cooking most of their meals and spent the rest of her time reading, knitting, and organizing for Squibs United. The only marked change the girls noticed in her was that she no longer attempted to practice blood magic.

Luna did not see Lavender again, except in her nightmares. They were confusing, twisted dreams where she felt like she was trapped in a rabbit warren. Always, Luna found herself pursuing Lavender in a dark, winding labyrinth, but her former friend eluded her at every twist and turn. Occasionally Luna caught a snippet of Lavender's face, her mouth moving like she was speaking. But no sound came out.

Lavender did not come to the Squib protest at King's Cross on the first of September, but Urgnok the goblin did. Luna's eyes kept drifting to him throughout the demonstration. The goblin lingered at the back of the crowd. He was not wearing his Gringotts uniform this time, and he kept the brim of his hat pulled low over his face. He found Luna after the crowd dispersed and she was clearing up rubbish. Ugrnok refused to accompany her back to the warehouse with Gwenog and the others, instead leading her to a Muggle cafe near the platform.

Back when Gwenog first told Luna that Urgnok had come looking for her at the London headquarters, Luna guessed that something must have happened to change his mind. She was right. He would not tell her where or how, but Urgnok had seen vials of blood at Gringotts, wrapped in ancient, crumbling bits of parchment with strange writing he could not read. He did not know what it meant, but he suspected the worst.

Beads of sweat formed on Ginny's forehead. A damp strand of hair fell over her face, and she blew a huff of air in an attempt to get it out of her eyes. Both of her hands were occupied carving the last and best sample of elder wood. Her fingers trembled from holding the knife so tightly.

"Here, let me." Luna reached across the table and tucked the hair behind Ginny's ear.

"Thanks. Pass me the chisel, would you?" Ginny said, taking the tool from Luna without looking up.

Ginny took a deep breath, positioned the chisel, and made a single motion with her wrist. A small chunk of the elder came away in a dusting of wood shavings.

"Do you want to take a turn?" Ginny asked as she offered the chisel to Luna.

"I don't want to spoil anything." If she kept spoiling things, Luna reckoned she was going to make a habit of it.

Ginny cocked her head, "You won't spoil it. You know I'm not like, prophesied to make the Elder Wand, right? It's just as much yours as mine."

"Yes, I know," Luna said, her voice softening around the lie.

"Seriously, have a go. You should do a little. We're doing this for your dad, after all." Luna feigned a few more moments of reluctance, trying to hide her yearning, aching hunger as she looked at the half-born wand. She wanted to conjure the memory of her father and bask in his pride. She wanted to savor this moment of infinite potential, before she made a mistake or did something she couldn't take back. She wanted Ginny to gently nudge the tools into her hand. She didn't want their work together to be over just yet.

Eventually it was time; Luna could feel it in the curl of her fingers and the surging of her pulse in her ears. She weighed the wood in her hands, looked at it from every angle. Then she made a cut with the knife. Then another.

"Well done! See, you didn't mess it up."

"Not yet," Luna said, but she was smiling.

"Here, I think we need a curved knife to get this bit here," Luna pointed, "But you're better with all the fancy tools." She felt a rush of heat when she handed the wand back to Ginny and their fingers brushed. Was the elder so powerful that it had already started manifesting its magic, before they had even added the core?

"Can you believe this is really happening? Years of work all come down to this. I won't know what to do with myself once this bloody thing is done. Even if it doesn't work, I'll be done. I can't pour an ounce more of myself into this." There wasn't a trace of irony or banter in Ginny's voice, only sincerity and a streak of vulnerability.

"I just want it to work once. I don't care if it's crap and doesn't work ever again, I don't care if we never have all three of the Hallows all working at the same time. I just want it to work once, for my dad." Tears welled in Luna's eyes, blurring the whorls of the elder's grain and the freckles of Ginny's face.

"He knows." Ginny whispered. The silence between them was velvety and sweet as they worked.

"Pass me the measuring tape, please? I think this is about the right length."

It was. Now came the most delicate part of the operation: splitting the wood to insert the core. The opening had to be long enough and wide enough to fit the thestral tail hair, but not so wide that the gash couldn't be immediately sealed by the swell of magic when the core bonded to the wood.

Ginny took a shuddering breath. She lowered the knife over their creation and paused.

"I believe in you," Luna murmured.

The knife came plunging down. The wood made a rough cracking sound, like a tree being struck by lightning in a storm. They both winced. There was only a shallow slit. Ginny would need to try again.

"Lightly, lightly. Don't cut all the way through."

"I know." Ginny placed the tip of the knife in the slight hole she had made on her first attempt and twiddled her wrist so the blade went deeper, then deeper still. She pulled back to admire her handiwork. It was a good cut, running nearly the full length of the wand and only slightly wider than the tail hair.

Luna cut Ginny's arm and Ginny cut Luna's, a tender nick that was more anticipation than pain. Working quickly, Luna dipped the thestral tail hair into their blood and took it out, dripping. It looked like a jewel-bright thread in her mother's loom.

"Gently, now," Ginny chided. Luna squinted and closed one eye as she lined the hair up with the razor-thin crack in the elder. They held their breath as it fell into place.

The wand emitted a small smattering of sparks and a soft sizzling sound, causing Luna to jump to her feet and Ginny to nearly fall out of her chair. Once the sparks faded, they saw that the core had hewn to the wood and mended the gash, leaving only a small seam that was almost completely camouflaged by the grain of the wood.

"There it is. The elder wand," Ginny breathed.

"An elder wand," Luna corrected her, "Ours. Try it." Luna nudged the wand towards Ginny's freckled hand.

Ginny barely let her fingertips graze the handle of the wand. "Lumos."

A burst of blinding light illuminated every corner of the room like a searchlight. It was the brightest light either of them had ever cast, brighter than any simple wand-lighting charm had any right to be.

"Oh, Ginny, you did it!"

"No, we both did it. Together. Just the two of us." Ginny was averting her eyes and smiling shyly and the sun shining through the kitchen windows made her freckles and her long, long hair glow gold. Before Luna knew what she was doing, she cupped Ginny's face in her hands and kissed her, breathless and lightning-struck.

The Elder Wand clattered to the ground. Luna let out a small yelp, jumped back, and dove to retrieve it. Ginny stood with her fingertips pressed against her lips.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Luna stammered. Her face felt hot enough to fry a hippogriff egg on, "There's just so much happening, I guess I got carried away in the excitement. Please don't…"

"Sorry for what? Taking so long to kiss me back? I figured I was bad at it or you just didn't fancy it, since it's taken you so long to return the favor." Ginny's eyes were soft, but her smile flashed with mischief and something else, tender and frightened.

"W-what?"

"Well, last time it was me who kissed you."

"I...we were so young! And I thought that was just a joke, to seal the spell! And I broke my arm straight after!"

"I don't need excuses. If you want to kiss me now, do it." Ginny lifted her chin and leveled her eyes at Luna. It was the same face she made when she was daring Luna to do something reckless and wonderful.

Luna took a half-step forward. Ginny waited for her, her eyebrows raised expectantly but a nervous little smile turning up the corners of her mouth. When she pressed her lips to Ginny's, Luna resisted the urge to pull away and mumble some excuse. It was clumsier this time, now that it lasted more than a moment, and she didn't quite know what to do with her nose. But then Ginny's lips parted and Luna closed her eyes and let her fingers tangle in Ginny's hair. The Elder Wand fell to the floor again, emitting a small storm of golden sparks.

"Well done, you," Ginny murmured as she broke the kiss, "Now it's my turn again."

They kissed until they lost track of whose turn it was and their lips tingled and the light in the room faded from golden to pink to a dusty gray. At the back of Luna's mind, she knew that this wasn't the best time to act on her feelings for her best friend and roommate and research partner and co-conspirator. There was so much going on, with the protests and Gringotts and the Circle, and so much left to do with the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility. There would have to be a conversation, many conversations, about what this meant for her and Ginny. But for now, she closed that door in her mind and relished the glorious pocket of happiness she and Ginny had carved for themselves. Just the two of them.

AN: Thanks for reading! Hope you like the chapter. It was an intimidating one to write since it's been in the works for so long. Any positive feedback and encouragement encouraged as I work on the last few chapters!