A/N: I'm back. Here's chapter 2! I hope it's ok.
Disclaimer: Stares down the lawyers who are at the ready to pounce on any diclaiminglymentedness she might forget. They still aren't mine.
Chapter Two
I go back into the house and pick up my wand, which is sitting where I left it on a front hall table. It warms in my hand almost immediately.
"I know, I know, don't worry I'll get to use you again soon." I murmur softly to it.
Tucking it behind my ear, I stroll over to the kitchen. Our kitchen is what you could call homey. I suppose the same could be said for the rest of our house as well, there are odds and ends strewn about, things on tables, old issues of The Quibbler on chairs, empty butterbeer bottles in boxes near the kitchen door, pots and pans hang from the ceiling and there are mason jars filled with a variety of objects. Some have cooking utensils, another holds spare knuts, and a few have soil with herbs growing out of them.
I reached up to pull one of the jars off of a shelf by the window over the sink and watched the lemon thyme growing from it for a moment.
"I should make fish." I think and pluck a few sprigs from the plant.
A booming sound rattles the whole house and I drop the mason jar out of surprise. I look up at the corners of the ceiling where there are small trails of dust floating down, jarred out of their comfortable places by the shaking. They look pretty in the fading sunset, and it makes me feel warm. I step around the doorframe to look for Dad, but the hallway is just dark.
"Go see if there's anyone else around who might've heard the noise." I hear someone say. It doesn't sound like a very nice person's voice. It is a man, and his voice is smooth but cold. Very cold, like thin pond ice. I duck back into the kitchen, but who ever was sent out to find more people had already set their eyes on my form.
"Well, well, who do we have here?" I hear him mock me; his large, rather bulky form swaggers over to me. I look up at him as he gets closer to me, I can smell the drink wafting over to me on his breath as he speaks.
"Are you all alone here, poppit?" His teeth are very white and very straight, it amazes me that they could be that white. He mistakes my observing silence for me being frozen with fear. He takes this moment to peer around the house, through the window and back at me.
I take this moment to ponder why on earth I smelled lemon at a time like this. I glance down at my hands, which are in loose fists and I remember that I have the lemon thyme in my fingers. I suppose I must have pulled my fingers into tighter fists than I had thought at some point.
Well, that solves that mystery.
I look back to the man in my kitchen.
"Can I help you?" I ask politely, being surprised doesn't excuse bad manners. He guffaws at this and calls to his friend who is at present searching the rooms in the other parts of the house.
"Lucius! I think we've searched thoroughly enough, but come look what I've found!" I don't like the look on this man's face. There's something... unsettling about him.
"We have to be sure that there's no one else around, Avery." The friend of the Avery man said before rounding the corner into the kitchen.
"Ah, Miss Lovegood, it is a delight to see you, as always."
I recognise this man as Lucius Malfoy, he had once tried to arrange a relationship between his son, Draco and myself. Our families were a couple of the remaining pure blood lines in the United Kingdom, I suppose he wanted to keep the line going, although the Malfoys were distant cousins through marriage to our family.
I give him a small smile, and look down at the lemon thyme in my hand.
"I'm going to make some fish for supper, do you think lemon thyme would go best with it, or would dill be better?" I glance over to a different mason jar on the windowsill with tall sprigs of dill growing from it.
"Dad always likes lemon with fish better. I'd use this."
Avery looks over to Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Malfoy shakes his head slightly at him as I carefully put the now crushed lemon thyme in my pocket.
"You're going to be coming with us, Luna. Your father has had an unfortunate, accident." Mr. Malfoy tells me, in a tone that suggests there will be no arguing with him on the matter.
I sigh, look down at my toes and rub them on the floor a little; one of my big toes cracks and Mr. Malfoy winces at the sound.
"I know there's been an accident." I whisper.
"Alright then, come on now Miss Lovegood, be a good girl and don't give us any trouble." He reaches to grab my arm. I lift up my hands to tuck my hair behind my ears and grabbing my wand I quickly flick it at him.
"Stupify!" I say calmly. In that split second of watching Mr. Malfoy collapse on the ground I look to Avery, knowing that using my wand was no good, but at the same time figuring I had to do something to defend myself. I see the curses coming at me, but I don't move.
"Expelliarmus! Stupify!"
For a while there was nothing...
A/N: Sorry this is shorter than the last, I had to keep you readers wanting more, lol! Thanks for reading, there will be much more to come; I've got great plans for this story. Unless it decides to up and change on me, of course. Please R&R and let me know who's out there reading my story/ies.
Ninde Annare: Thank you so much for all of your excellent reviews! I meant what I said in the first chapter, reviews fuel my writing, I wasn't going to write anymore last night or today, but after I got all your reviews, I got a second wind to write more! Thanks, I look so forward to hearing more of what you think of my story.