House: Hufflepuff

Position: DADA (Stand-in)

Category: Standard

Prompt: [Theme] Trying to be something/ someone you are not

[Dialogue] "It's in the box under the bed."

Word Count: 1897

A/N: AU. We only see Luna through Harry's eyes. With that in mind, we know her as always being odd, but also always being comfortable in her uniqueness and sort of being without any inclination to conform. Having been a teenaged girl myself at one point (back in the dawn of man), I find this self-assurance hard to believe. I'm certain that Luna must've had moments where she at least wished she fit in better, and that she maybe even tried to do so. I'm exploring that notion here while also being aware that we have no indication from JKR at any point that this is indeed troublesome for Luna. With that in mind, I am marking this as AU.

There are no references for Xenophilius' parentage, only that he had them. The name Xenophilius comes from the Greek for xenophile or love of/ appreciation of foreign peoples, manners, customs or cultures. I created a name for his mother, Etnia, out of the Greek for nationalist by way of a joke; ethnikistis which I whittled down to Etnia.

Daffodils represent rebirth and new beginnings, and tie in to Luna's beliefs in an Afterlife in some form.

Any and all references to the myth of Pandora's box are intentional.

Hope

Xenophilius Lovegood wasn't what one might call 'observant'. Even prior to Pandora's accident, he was as likely to forget to eat or change his clothes as he was to notice something beyond the end of his own nose. Now, it was even worse; less from a lack of caring and more so as an inability to understand his own feelings. Pandora had always done that for him. Not the feeling part, but she'd helped him understand what he was feeling; how he was feeling.

'How to be comfortable with my feelings,' he lamented to himself. How was he going to manage it all alone? It was a problem that had stymied him into immobility, both physical and mental. When his mother arrived at his doorstep a week after the funeral, he was still wearing his mourning robes. She walked in with her hands full. In one, a small valise; in the other, what seemed to be an overly large dog of some sort.

"Mother?" Xeno stood, squinting in the sudden burst of sunlight. When had he last been outside?

"The child is still wearing her dress robes from a week ago!" she boomed, pushing past him with the odd beast in tow. "And I see you are no better. Good thing I'm here."

And it was. Loath as he was to admit it, Xenophilius Lovegood had retreated so far into himself, he'd utterly forgotten the one ray of sunshine he had left; his beautiful daughter, Luna.

From the outside, one might've guessed that the wild, filthy, blonde-haired tumbleweed that careened about outside the Lovegood cottage was a magical creature as much as they might have imagined it was a human child. Of course, Luna Lovegood had been as much a child of nature prior to her mother's untimely demise as she had become afterward, if with fewer baths.

Even from the time before she could walk, Luna had dirt beneath her fingernails and on her knees. She'd loved bugs and digging in the garden, even if she didn't have a trowel. She would talk with small animals and could be found laying in the grass watching clouds or tracking constellations. She was filled with boundless love and light and curiosity. She was Alice in a wonderland of her own imagination, free and unfettered. Luna felt no shame in dancing in toadstool rings or collecting acorn caps or weaving daisy chains and offering them up to her father with utter joy upon her face as he placed them upon his head and wore them until they wilted. She loved everything and everyone just as they were.

That, more than anything, reminded Xeno of his Pandora most of all.

It was heartbreaking now to see how his neglect of himself had spiraled out of control. He was so busy nursing his own fragile emotions, he'd been oblivious to the one person left who meant more than himself, but he hadn't known how to stop it.

It only took a few hours for the Lovegood home to be aired out and cleaned up. Etnia Pearl Lovegood was a force to be reckoned with, even on a good day; and this was not one of those. She practically threw her son into the shower with the implicit threat that if he didn't do it for himself, she'd see to it as she had so often done for him as a child. It was more than enough inspiration to spur Xeno to attend to his hygiene. She was far more gentle with her neglected granddaughter, as one might expect. Etnia soon had the house set to rights with a hearty stew bubbling away on the stove and sunlight streaming into the kitchen through newly cleaned windows, whereupon she sat her freshly-bathed granddaughter and attempted to comb through the knots that riddled her long, curly hair.

The physical needs were easy.

"What will you do now?" Etnia asked Xeno quietly, her fingers absently caressing the sleeping girl's head as it rested in her lap. Luna had drifted off hours ago, and she and her son sat and sipped tea, gazing into the fire.

"I have no idea," he replied, his voice low and sad. "What am I to do without her?"

"Don't forget all that you have," she hissed, her eyes falling on Luna before looking up at her son. "Don't let go of what you and Pandora set out to do together." She sighed, heavily; it was a sound of grief and regret so deep that it was almost palpable. "Don't forget who you are," she whispered. "It is who Pandora loved. And it is who Luna needs."

For all the pretence his mother put on, her heart was in the right place. He never forgot this moment, or her words. Although he had his faults, he worked to be both mother and father to Luna, and to show her the value of being one's self by pursuing his work with passion.

So it was to his great surprise when his bright and lively daughter returned from her first term away for the holidays a very different girl.

He had complimented her much-tamed hair, and went out of his way to make note of her much improved spellwork in the hopes of drawing her into a conversation. She'd only nodded, quietly, and looked down at her plate.

"It is quite the fashion of late," she said, tossing the end of her long plait back over her shoulder.

"Well, fashions do come and go," Xeno smiled. "I've never been one to keep up."

"No, I guess not," she returned to her meal without further comment.

Her quietness had him baffled, but he was thrilled just to have her back and chalked it up to fatigue after the long train ride home. However, after a few days, he started to grow more concerned.

Watching his daughter turn into a young woman was difficult for Xenophilius. Not only did she remind him more and more of his beloved Pandora, but he realized that he was not equipped to help her in the ways a mother could. He found himself withdrawing, as a means to give her privacy, but it also served to give him relief from his feelings of inadequacy and loss. Now, as Luna was starting her education at Hogwarts, he felt the distance from her in a way that he recognized as wrong. Still, he did not know how to fix it.

As he might've predicted had he thought about it, he went about it in entirely the wrong way.

"I haven't seen your radish earrings lately," he piped up one evening over dinner. "Did you leave them at school?"

"No," Luna replied, "they're here." She fidgeted on her chair. "I don't wear them anymore, though."

"Oh? They used to be your favourites."

"Well," she hesitated, her hand absently reaching up to caress an empty earlobe, "they're just not something I wear much right now."

Xeno felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. Luna had never been a forceful girl, unless you considered her hugs. 'Those were always vigorous,' he thought with a smile.

Were. He paused to look at his daughter; her face, her demeanour. Everything suddenly seemed older, sadder. He was flummoxed as to what to do or say next, so he said nothing. This was when he missed Pandora the most.

It continued on like this for days, even as they gathered with family and loved ones for festive celebrations. Luna was polite, but subdued, not just for Luna but for the Lovegoods in general. Most certainly, it was not overlooked.

"Is she alright?" Etnia asked her son as they prepared to ring in the New Year. "She seems so reserved."

"I haven't been able to get much out of her," Xeno admitted with chagrin.

Etnia eyed her son, intentionally. "Well, then," she smirked, "you know what to do."

"Mother!" he hissed. "I can't do that. I'm her father."

"If you don't, I will," she tinkled as she moved away from him to engage the visiting neighbor's in a conversation so as to avoid his protest. No one liked to snoop like his mother, but Xeno wasn't his mother. He wouldn't.

Still, as the holiday drew to a close, and Luna remained withdrawn, he felt himself tempted.

Luna had taken herself out on a forest trek one clear, frosty morning, and Xeno thought he might not have a better chance. He stood outside her closed bedroom door and hesitated to reach out to even touch the doorknob. He had all but abandoned the idea when he saw the quick gleam of light bouncing off of something metallic catch his eye. On the stairwell, just a few steps away from her room, a small, earring in the shape of a radish glinted in the sunlight abandoned in her haste to get outside.

It was unexpectedly easy upon Luna's return.

He held out his hand and showed her the earring. "Do you have the other one?" he asked, gently.

"It's in the box under the bed," she answered, "with the rest of it."

"Show me."

Luna brought it out and opened it gingerly, reverently. It was filled with keepsakes, treasures of a childhood she seemed determined to put away.

'Pandora's box,' he thought, glumly. Was this how deeply his daughter's grief was still felt?

"This isn't what she would want, you know," he said quietly. "She would want you to celebrate who you are."

"Did she mean for me to be so odd?" Luna blurted out, and it was then that Xeno realized she was crying. He gathered her up into his arms as best he could and rocked her for the first time he could remember since she had been a small child.

"You are not odd," he cried with her. "You are unique, and curious, and loving." He squeezed her that much tighter. "You are your mother's daughter." The tears flowed freely now and they sat together, hugging each other until they thought they might not breathe again, and then hugging still tighter.

After a while, they were able to let go and start over. They were able to open the box, and go through it with love and heartache. Her first gardening trowel, and birdhouse made of pinecones; a bouquet of daffodils Luna had brought to her mother's funeral that Etnia had preserved to never wither; a picture of Luna and Pandora tangled up in a garden blackberry bramble whilst chasing gnomes, and a collection of old vegetable seed packets in the pocket of a child-sized garden smock.

"This is beautiful, Luna," Xeno said, finally. "I miss her, too, but I don't need a box full of treasures to remember her by. I have you." He gulped, afraid he'd be unable to finish. He closed his eyes and fought for the words. "You are all I will ever need to remember how much I love your mother."

"Thank you, Daddy," she whispered in his ear. And all was right with the world again.

Xeno's only regret was that they didn't have more time together, but she would be home again soon enough. He knew as he packed her off to the train with her radishes dangling from her ears, that she was as right as rain. She was Luna — and she was all the hope he would ever need.