Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, nor is the idea of the character Moon, but the interpretation and this plot is all me.
AN: Don't expect me to comment often, I don't like it much when other authors expound so I will attempt not to do so. I'm writing this as a way to get the idea off my mind. It's been driving me crazy for a couple weeks now and I had to get it out. I've never written before so I'm not sure how I'll do. I try to give out constructive advise when I'm reviewing others so I'll attempt to not become a hypocrite. Review if you want but I'll keep my pace and my mind. I have an idea of where I want this to go, with a few scenes mapped out, so unsolicited advice might be listened to but most likely not. However constructive criticism is always welcome. Enjoy.
Chapter 1: The Voice in the Dark
June 2, 1994
Walking down the empty hall, my footsteps were the only sound breaking the stillness of this corridor of the ancient castle. Here there are no staircases to boom and crash while playing with the unwary, no clang or grind of suits of armor moving to challenge each other or the occasional passerby, or whisper or swish of secretive, yet lively, portraits gossiping about lives they can no longer participate in. Even the ghosts, the most numerous and unpredictable of the castles oddities avoid this quiet space. This was why I liked to go there more than any other place in the school. With no distractions I'm able to think more clearly there than anywhere, and right then I really needed to think.
Pushing my dull brown hair out of my eyes and taking a fist full of it at the back of my neck, I slowly walked back and forth through the quiet corridor. The measured pacing of my slightly small, average, frame, back and forth, usually helping to clear my head of unnecessary distractive thoughts like 'I wish my eyes glowed like Potter's or sparkled like Dumbledore's. All mine do is be mud brown.', or 'The banana pudding was a bit too sweet tonight. Wonder why?', allowing better concentration for the problem on hand. Tonight however, images and fractious thoughts keep intruding and breaking my concentration. Images of my mum and da in their offices in the Berkeley. Thoughts like, 'I wonder how they're doing', or 'would they be proud of me right now, or am I over-thinking things?' Emotions such as exasperation at my parents overprotectiveness accompanying them. Raising more associated thoughts of death eaters, old magic, libraries, and the limitations of continuous research with them.
I paced till late into the night, no answers coming to my plagued mind. Without anyone waiting for me in the overly crowded Ravenclaw common room I don't have to worry about things like keeping people waiting, or someone missing me. I've never been much of a people person; always too much into my studies to interact much. I've got this theory that I'm workin on, a unifying theory of magic production and utilization. I like to think that when I'm done it will revolutionize everyone's views on magic. I've been slowly workin on it since my first year here, spending every moment trying to get more information. Analyzing every assignment and theory to see if it fits, and if it doesn't whether I'm missing something or if my theory needs to be revised. Not that I'm a great student scholastically. I might spend hours testing different uses of spells, the effects of different amounts of power and emotional components, how alternate wand movements and words effect the outcome, etc., but menial tasks like doing homework, turning it in, and getting the spell right in class time seem to hold me to the average. Doesn't help that with all my tinkering I'm usually a spell or two behind everyone else. Not typically a good thing in Ravenclaw, where house standing is based on academic success, but since everyone tends to ignore me I get by ok.
Before I came to Hogwarts I used to get picked on a lot by bigger guys due to my studious nature. I was a 'two for one' as they used to say, a short nerdy dweeb. I tried harder and harder to avoid notice and after a while they stopped and seemed to forget I existed which was fine by me. It bugged me every so often that since they're not hounding me someone else is gettin it even more, but I used to be able to justify it to myself. "They were gettin picked on anyway" I would say, "it only happens slightly more now" and then I'd get back into my studies and forget. Even in a house of scholastics you still have neanderthal bullies, just here they've got a different targets to go with their aggressive superiority complex. Here they go for those with lower grades and new ideas. They pick on those that go against the Ravenclaw ideal, but so far I've been able to avoid notice, fade into the background and ignore everyone around me. But after hearing her voice, I'm not sure if I can do that anymore.
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June 1, 1994 - near midnight
I was trying to sneak back into Ravenclaw tower from the library after loosing track of time and staying after it closed. I've been able to ghost around in the background, avoiding notice for years now. Even Madam Pince seems to forget I'm around most of the time. That night I was researching possible correspondences between different runes and wand movements ... but that's besides the point (There is one by the way, just in case you were curious). As I turned the corner on the stairs up to the fifth floor I stopped, something catching the edge of my awareness. At first I panicked, thinking it was Filch or a professor, but after a moment I dismissed that as the voice, as I now knew it to be, was far too high pitched and dreamy, yet despondent, for it to be one of them. My fear gone, I started to get curious as to who it could be and why they were so sad. I'd been observing my housemates in detail since my first year, and everyone else in the other houses, to a lesser degree, just as long, but I'd never seen or heard someone sound as miserable as whoever possessed the melancholy voice. For some unknown reason I decided to do something spontaneous for a change, and find out what I could. I knew it had to be a raven as we're the only ones who are ever in this part of the castle after dark (the fifth floor of the west side of the castle was sparsely populated at the best of times), and it had to be a girl due to the higher pitch but other than that I was completely mystified. As I slowly approached where she was sitting, I gradually came to understand more of words between the high-pitched sniffs.
"Why do they do it? Why do they always have to make everything so hard? "
"Yes I know it will help but I can't do that"
"Why can't you just tell it to let me in? Why can't you help me find my things?"
"Yes I understand, but can't you at least help me a bit, anything? I know it would go against some of the rules but ..."
"but!"
"fine ... yes ... I hear him too"
It was like I was hearing half a phone call, which confused me even more as I know phones don't work on school grounds and I couldn't think of anything else in the Wizarding world that would sound the same. Even flue calls had some muffled background noise. Well, thats a ridiculous example seeing as at that moment I wasn't near any fireplaces. Curiosity burning, and my cover apparently blown, I slowly turned the last corner and came face to face with the last person from which I ever expected to hear anything negative from. Tear stains marked her porcelain skin and dampened the ends of her long dirty blond hair. Her protuberant eyes a oddly frightening combination of near solid red and silvery grey. Her school uniform and robes were rumpled and torn in places, seeming to having been lived in for a long period. Sitting bonelessly on her knees in the corner of the corridor, she had the most heart-rending expression on her face, somehow caught in-between dreamy and devastated.
I've always tried to keep my distance from Luna Lovegood, believing that the temptation of someone named Luna near a man named Moon would be too much for some people to bear without comment. Not wanting to add to her burden or attract attention to myself, I decided leaving well enough alone was for the best. Looking at her now, it evidently wasn't good enough. Part of me, the part that keeps me safe and ensures my survival, wanted to turn right back around and leave her as I found her. Her problems are hers and its none of my business to get myself involved. She could go back to talking to herself and I could continue my existence. But my much ignored inner voice, the part of myself that wants more than anything to be a good person, couldn't not talk to her and wouldn't take no for an answer. In that moment I wanted to help her, to stop whatever it was that made anyone that broken. Much as I'd tried to do for Su so long ago.
"Why are you sitting out here?", I tentatively asked in a half abrupt, half curious tone.
Ok not the most comforting or supportive thing I could've said, but as I stated before I'm not the most social of persons.
"I can't get in", she responded matter-of-factly with surprisingly little of the emotion she was earlier displaying.
Now I'm extremely confused. The questions the raven door knocker asks for admittance to the dorms aren't usually that hard, always staying to questions in the repertoire of the student questioning it. Asking first years, first year questions and so on. I've never heard of a Ravenclaw being unable to answer and get into the dorms after a bit of thought. So logically I ask, "Why not?"
Sitting up slightly she answered indignantly, "One of the upperclassmen confounded it to always ask me the same question and it won't accept the right answer."
"Maybe I can help, what does it ask?"
"It asks me 'Does the crumple-horned snorkack exist?'. I keep telling it yes, but it won't let me in! I've been out of the tower since yesterday. Before I was able to enter with other people when they answered, but everyone's been avoiding me lately."
Then I understood, either some well intentioned self important snob was trying, in their own way, to help the 'poor deluded girl' by forcing her into accepted ways of thinking, or some obnoxious jerk was hazing her for her odd beliefs. Innocent that she is, she didn't seem to understand this. "You have to realize", I said " the person who set the question probably is as close minded as a lot of people around here. On subjective questions like that you should acknowledge how they might answer the question, even if it's not true."
Upon hearing me talk, and realizing I wasn't going to tease her she began to relax a bit. Her eyes became less red and her posture relaxed just a bit. After hearing me covertly defend her beliefs and insult her detractors her back and head cracked up again like a whip, her eyes bugged out so that I could've sworn they were on the verge of falling out. Quickly, with hope in her eyes and a slight tremble in her voice she asked, "Does that mean that you believe me?".
I turned my body slightly so could avoid her pleading gaze, I replied in as firm and confident a tone as I could, "We live in a world where the impossible is possible. Laws of nature are ignored and the only limits are imagination, willpower, and ability. In muggle society creatures like unicorns and dragons are regarded as myths and legends, and anyone that believes in their existence are regarded as delusional nut-cases. I'm not sure why in magical society, where we know unicorns and dragons exist, we find the idea that we don't know everything so frightening. Snorkacks could exist, I'm not saying the do mind you, but they could. I've never heard of them being around, but I don't have any reason to automatically say otherwise. I've found it's better to pity the close minded then let them bother you."
As I talked a light seemed to ignite in her eyes, a new understanding in their depths. The imperturbable look that I remembered reappeared on her face, nodding at my words. A slight flash of disappointment crossed her features when I admitted that I didn't personally believe in the Snorkack, but that was immediately banished when I didn't discount the possibility. When I finished she jumped to her feet, and faster then I could react, hugged me around my stomach. Understand that I'm not a very physical person. I hug my mother and occasionally my father, but rarely with any of my aunts and uncles and never with non-family so you can understand that at that moment I was decidedly uncomfortable. The fact that my head was leaning backwards as far as I could and that my hand was awkwardly patting her on the back didn't however seem to detract her.
"Right ..." I nervously said as I tried to disengage myself, "lets head back to the tower. I'll get you in tonight, but it's up to you to think of how to answer in the future."
Nodding her assent she slowly stepped back and followed when I started to walk. For the next few minutes we discretely made out way to the west wing of the castle. Or at least I was trying to be discrete; Luna, back in her own world, was skipping along beside me humming to herself. Trying to think of some way to bring her back to attention it suddenly occurred to me I'd never asked her about what initially brought me to her. "Luna " I asked hesitating slightly with uncertainty, since I wasn't sure she wasn't having a conversation with herself which would confirm that she was at least slightly insane, "who were you talking to before I arrived?"
"Oh ..." she replied in a surprised tone. She stopped her skipping for a moment, a pensive look on her face. Then abruptly she started to play hopscotch on the flag stones of the hall as she answered matter-of-factly, "I was having a conversation with Hogwarts."
Now I was sure she was insane. It was worse then answering your own questions, she was talking with inanimate objects.
A cross look flickered across her features before she tapped me on the back of the head before reprising me, "Remember your words. Just because you have never heard of it does not mean it is not real. It just so happens that so much magic saturates the area that long ago Hogwarts attained a kind of consciousness that has grown and learned. Enough people talked about Hogwarts as if it was alive for so long that magic made it so, bringing out the spirit that exists in everything and giving it power. She is actually very wise, but unfortunately also very impartial when it comes to disputes between her children. So she could not help me with my missing belongings."
Smarting slightly from the reprimand and feeling a bit annoyed with myself for such blatant hypocrisy, I tried to think of it all from her perspective. I'd learned very early on in my studies during first year that all of magic is just different wavelengths of energy that wizards are somehow able to produce, which can effect the matter of the universe. If this was true, it could be one of the missing links in my research. Excitedly I hypothesized, "If, as muggles believe matter is just a form of energy that is conscious why couldn't another form of energy be conscious? It would explain why people transfigured into objects and back retain their minds afterwards, and why sometimes they are aware of the world in that transfigured state even without sense organs. It would explain ..." then the last part of her sentance hit me. "What do you mean missing belongings?"
Looking down at her feet Luna replied, "Since my first year my things have had a tendency to wander. At first it was little things, like quills and parchment, but after this year began more and more disappeared. Most of my clothes seemed to have walked away. Single socks go off to have adventures without their friends, which I admit is rather fun for me as I can make the most interesting combinations. Then my books seem to have developed wanderlust which is quite annoying. I found them a few times in my roommates bags where they had stowed away to escape. Finally my personal effects decided that they were being left out and joined the jaunt. In some of the cases wackspurts probably found them fun, in others cranditiy-crawlers, but a few must have had help escaping from my roommates which is why Hogwarts will not help."
Slightly angry and bewildered I asked her, "Did you talk to Professor Flitwick? He should be able to help find them and keep them in place?"
"Oh yes I have talked with him often," she earnestly replied "and he was able to find them a few times, but they always wandered when he left. Eventually I stopped asking as it was more trouble then it was worth. Flitwick mostly found my things staying near my roommates and their friends, so I am sure they might be able to find their way back when we leave to go home."
Probably seeing my pensive look Luna continued soothingly, "I am sure they will all be back soon enough. Their guilty consciences will not let them abandon me. Everything will be back before the train comes. Now are you going to get us in?"
Startled for what felt like the tenth time that night I realized we were indeed at the door to the dorm. Stepping forward to gain the raven door knocker's recognition, I waited for my question.
"In order to enter" I heard emanating from the door, "please answer this question. What time does the library close?"
Embarrassed at being caught by a door knocker of all things I quickly reply eight pm and enter with Luna on my heals. After giving me a grateful smile and nod Luna headed for her room while whispering over her shoulder, "Do not worry about tomorrow. I will not draw the attention to you that I know you do not like. Good night and thank you for caring. ". Then she walked out, leaving me a mess of confused thoughts, emotions, and impulses struggling for dominance.
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Walking along my silent hallway I tried to figure out why I'm so confused. The chaotic hurricane I'd been in when Luna left had persisted ever since, leaving me questioning everything in my life. How I lived my life, my goals, my decisions, nothing felt right anymore. I never will understand how one little conversation, a chance heard voice, could somehow destabilize every single thing. I rationalized, I could easily go on with the status quo keeping my head down, ears open, and mind working. Luna said she wouldn't say anything. I could pretend that conversation never happened. At this my pace stopped dead.
As the echos of my footfalls faded to still silence I was suddenly terrified. Dread slowly filled me, almost drowning out confusion, as one constant thought emerged from the disorderly heap.
I can't forget.
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