A child stepped off the concrete stairs leading up to what appeared to be her house. Before sitting down, she did a quick mental check of her person. All seemed in order: her hair was brushed, her radishes worn, the bottle caps strung around her neck, and a once numbingly green- although now quite faded- bowler hat lingered in her fingers. She crossed her ankles and collapsed around them onto the steps behind her, tucking a long skirt beneath her with ungainly fingers.
The hat lay upside-down in her lap. Inside of it, past the black-silk brim lining, was a list written on the back of a grocery receipt. The list was composed of a collection of numbers and labeling letters, at all of which she frowned. Although unintelligible to the average person, she had two advantages: one, she had written the list, and two, she was not an average person by any means. To her, the list was plain and simple. It was a compilation of the contents of the yard, counted sometimes by clumps, sometimes by individual items, and sometimes by random pointing and guessing. For example, next to G, which stood for grass, she had written, 'too many clumps to count.'
That was plainly a lie.
There was very little grass on her yard by now. There was very little grass down the whole block, even. The neighborhood, although very little of it residential, had turned bare; it was stacked field by field of concrete and sweating with worry. This, she feared, was her fault. She had argued that it wasn't originally her fault- first it was the Riddles', then it was Tom Riddle's, then it was Harry Potter's, then it was Voldemort's, then it was Potter's, and so on and so forth until finally it was the M.O.M.'s fault for not taking any sort of notice until an acquaintance of hers was beheaded in the Ministry building. A moment afterwards a friend of hers was nearly murdered, too, but she cared a bit more about the state of the statue at the moment. Lastly it was her fault, though, for telling her father about the 'problem.' Word spread fast when there was only about five citizens in her part of town.
She told the bowler hat all of this extensively, blinking more than usual throughout it to hold back any cheesy threatening tears. She poured her heart out to it, and it absorbed everything, still green. The hat said nothing.
She had been sent out, protectively, by her father to recount everything in the yard, because he was a bit worried that some local Blibbering Humdingers may have stolen something of their possession. Recently she didn't bother counting. She knew there were no local Humdingers, and that if there were, they wouldn't be stealing her objects. Instead, all this time she spent on the doorstep, fingering the hat absent-mindedly.
The hat, the hat, that hat wasn't hers, exactly, and she winced knowing that she'd taken it. Of course, it wasn't as if the previous owner really wore hats anymore, being out of business and whatnot. All the same, it was stolen, wasn't it? It was hers now; wrongly, but hers. It was like an affair during marriage. Pleasant, thrilling, immoral.
Her father called, "Luna."
She ran a finger around the brim of the hat and started burning imaginary holes in it with her stare. She'd stolen it for good causes. This accessory powered a balding monster. Cornelius Fudge was attached at the skull to this hat. Goblin murderer, as he was known to her father's readers, and just plain dull, as he was known to nearly everyone else by now. He was once the minister, and although showing so much hate for him, Luna preferred him to whatever animal the current one was- a lion, she believed, if she'd correctly read her father's notes. They'd said he was a royal lion, one disguised as a minister. Luna said he was duller than the last.
The bowler hat was the fossil fuel for the Fudge. It was like a soul in a jar. She had captured life force. She could lead him to tell her father- the editor of the Quibbler- everything that he knew of his secret conspiracies.
However, most importantly, it was a lovely color.
She traced the brim once more and stood, stepping a foot away from the stairs. Her father called again, "Luna."
Luna stepped once more out onto the bare black and brown dirt and listened to it crunch beneath her feet. Her skin was sixteen years old now. Her father protected her like she was nine, and she was nine. She was seven years younger than she had to be and her mother was dead. Her list found itself crumpled like the horns of a Snorkack.
The green dye in the fabric of the hat had rubbed off onto her fingers, and gazing hazily at the tint of her fingertips made her think of turning to an alien. And then it made her think of everything she had known since her father took the job. Like Snorkacks and Humdingers. Well, everything she'd believed.
"Luna," shouted her father, and feet shuffled on the upper floor of the two-story house.
Luna threw the list onto the ground. This was the first time she littered. If she was going to deface property, it was going to be her own. The receipt unfolded slowly to show the prices of eggs and milk and snacks, things they didn't need because they had everything to survive before then. Her father was afraid.
Her father was afraid, and she needed to look up to him.
The feet were shuffling, then they stopped and thunked dully down a set of wooden stairs. And outside the house, Luna's feet shuffled, stopped, and lightly walked yards down to the gaily decorated and unfortunately painted with graffiti. There were warnings of Voldemort and messages about nargles and the likes on the outside of the door. It was locked on the outside, which was her father's choice.
The footsteps stopped because they'd reached the door.
Luna leaned over the gate and unlocked it. Opening it, she stepped through and turned to face her father.
"Luna," he warned.
"Father," she replied, and looked to the hat. The lime green bowler hat said nothing.
She flipped it daintily onto her head. With a shuddering sigh, Luna left her property.
She left to buy more eggs and milk.