I do not own anything you recognize (including the song). Then again, I don't own a lot of things. Everything you recognize (except the song) belongs to the benevolent JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. The song is an English folk song.
A/N: This story just kind of came to me during choir practice (Go CSNYC!) when we were singing this song (Early One Morning). It's kind of a cliché HPLL story, but, oh well. If you have any questions please feel free to post them in a review. Review even if you don't have a question. No flames please I am a very emotional person. Starts sobbing hysterically for no apparent reason (friend on phone) "…" This is my first fanfic so bear with me peoples!
Harry Potter was sitting alone on the grounds of Hogwarts under an eave facing the lake. (He would've been soaked right now if Lavender and Parvati hadn't have come along and told him it was going to rain. He was skeptical at first but decided in the end to believe them as they had recently achieved O's for their owl scores in Divination and had moved on to the advanced class.)
Harry came out here often these days. Ron and Hermione were 'together' now and constantly either whispering to each other, giving Harry sympathetic looks (which he was really starting tire of by now), or a mixture of both. Everybody needs somewhere to escape to right?
He was almost ready to get up and walk back to the entrance hall when he heard a distant sound of a person warming up their singing voice.
Whoever that is has a very beautiful soprano voice. Harry thought idly.
"Me-ee-ay-ay-ah-ah-oh-oh-ooh-ooh," The last "ooh" went up a half-step.
The notes rang in Harry's ears like crystal. Slowly, a shadow emerged from behind the much larger form of the castle.
"Me-ee-ay-ay-ah-ah-oh-oh-ooh-ooh," the voice went up another half-step.
Harry watched the figure making slow progress down the slightly sloped grounds toward a clearing near the edge of the lake. She continued with this warm up until she reached an impossible note (which seemed to Harry like an inhumanly possible note to make without breaking your voice) and started coughing.
Hmm, Harry thought. She should Give lessons to the Fat Lady. He chuckled silently to himself remembering the singing incident in his third year.
Once the singer had regained composure, she seemed to take several cleansing breaths before turning her head towards the sky and beginning a trilling song.
"Early one morning just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below," the mysterious girl sang. "Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, never leave me." The song became very emotional and strong. "How could you use a poor maiden so?"
Harry realized he was still in a 'getting up' stance and after a quick debate with his mind, sat back down on the cold stone floor.
"Remember the vows that you made to me so truly? Remember the promise made beneath the willow tree? Lovely the garland, fresh are the roses I've gathered from the garden as I remember thee."
Harry vaguely recognized this song. He couldn't quite grasp where from though.
"Here I now wander alone as I wonder. Why did you leave me to sigh and complain? I ask the roses, 'Why was I forsaken? Why must I here in sorrow remain?'"
Oh gosh, Harry thought. Blimey, that's the lullaby Mum sang me when I was a baby. Harry was surprised he remembered that.
"Thus sang the maiden, her sorrow bewailing, thus sang the maid in the valley below: 'Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, never leave me. How could you use a poor maiden so? How could you use a poor maiden so?"
The beautiful song ended on a long note. Harry found water on his face and instinctively looked up at the stone eave above him for a leak. No water came forth. Harry was weeping. It was such a beautiful old song. It brought him memories of his mum he never knew he had.
The figure, finished with her beautiful lament to the heavens, was now slowly leaving her spot by the rough waters and making her way, in my direction, Harry realized with a shock.
Just as he was making a clean get away back to the castle doors, a hand was felt on his shoulder.
"Hello, Harry Potter," a familiar dreamy voice came to meet his ears.
Shocked, Harry turned around to face his serene friend. "Luna?" he managed to choke out.
"Yes. It is I.
Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud at this statement. "Er, yeah. Luna? I was just going to head back to the castle and…"
"Why are you afraid of me Harry?"
"What?" Harry said incredulously. "Why would I be afraid of you?"
"I don't know," she replied calmly. "Why are you trying to run away then?"
"Well, I was sitting over there in my 'thinking place' and I saw a girl singing an old lullaby my mum sang to me as a baby down there in that clearing. When she finished she started coming my way so I started up here and then you caught me," Harry explained. He was surprised at how calm he sounded.
Luna took Harry by surprise when she grabbed his hand and started pulling him in the opposite direction. "I bet you didn't know it, Harry, but our mum's were in the Hogwarts choir together in their seventh year. Early One Morning was the song they sang as a duet at their graduation."
"You mean to say that was you singing down by the lake?" Harry asked, astonished.
"You mean singing here by the lake, Harry."
Harry looked at his surroundings. Sure enough, There was the lake. He distantly noticed he was now rain soaked.
"You want to see a trick my mum taught me when I was little, Harry?" Luna asked.
Harry nodded vaguely in reply.
"If you stand by a lake and look up into the rain clouds, during the hour of 2:00pm, on the second Thursday in the month of February, concentrate on a person who has passed beyond the veil, and sing or listen to a song associated with the person in your mind, they will appear amongst the clouds and see you from the beyond."
"Okay, so what are we going to do now?" Harry asked.
"You're silly Harry. Look into the clouds, concentrate on your mum and listen."
Harry turned his face towards the sky and thought of his mum. Luna started to sing again.
He listened and watched the heavens. Slowly, as though pushing its way through water, emerged the beautiful figure of his mother. As Luna finished the song and his mother started fading back through the misty sky, he heard the woman's voice as though blowing through the forest with the wind.
"Your father and I love you Harry. Always listen to your heart."
And with that, she was gone. Looking up, Harry noticed the rain seemed to have followed his mother back to the beautiful place where both belonged.
Luna turned to him. "Harry," she said with her voice full of genuine concern. "why are you crying?"
"Don't worry," Harry said. He hadn't realized the tears in his eyes until they brought to his attention by the dirty-blonde, blue eyed, oddball standing less than a foot away from himself. "They're happy tears. Not sad ones."
With that, Harry leaned towards the reassured girl, took her around the waist and kissed her on the lips.
Harry pulled away to find a (shockingly) shocked Luna Lovegood. However she was back to her regular state in a mater of seconds.
Taking his hand once again and walking back towards the castle she looked very pleased with herself for making another person so happy. "Our mums were good friends all through their days at school. She talked of your mum constantly when I was old enough to listen to her. The last thing she told me before she passed on was 'Luna don't worry about me. I'm going to see Lily again. I love you so much. Always Follow your heart.' And then her eyes closed."
Harry was deeply moved by this. "Why do the best people in this world always have to leave so early in life?" he asked rhetorically, mainly to the air around him.
To his surprise, Luna answered. "Nobody will ever know Harry. We can't grieve forever though. Think about it. Your father and your godfather are reunited again, right? And our mums are back…together."
She looked at him hopefully as she said the last word.And for the first time in the many months since Sirius' death, Harry smiled. A true Smile.
Yay! I finished! Its 10:30pm and I've had about 15 hours of sleep in the past three days so I think I'm going to bed now. Please review! Should it be a one-shot or a multi-chapter fic? Give me ideas for later chapters (if there are any)! By the way, I when I write Luna, its coming straight from my heart because she really reminds me of, well, me.
Gone Like a Freight Train,
Me
(PS. Anyone who identifies the 'Gone Like a Freight Train' thing gets a cookie!)
Word count: 1,337