Pandora Lovegood got many of her ideas for spells from her husband's research. Her newest invention involved the recently issued Quibbler article on wrackspurts and spectrespecs. Pandora was a bit more practical than her husband. As such, she realized that ostentatious eyewear drew unwanted attention from the majority of the wizarding world which still denied the existence of wrackspurts. Spectrespecs wouldn't sell well if the people that bought them couldn't wear them inconspicuously to avoid scrutiny from the public. Xenophilius would have no problem standing out in the crowd, but most people would. For that matter, Pandora didn't want to make a spectacle of herself.

With her concerns of visibility, Pandora set out to find a way to duplicate the effect of the spectrespecs without having to wear the actual glasses. She studied the spectrespecs, made her calculations, performed the necessary tests, and eventually came up with a spell. Quickly, she cast the spell on herself ready to see the world through magically enhanced eyes. To her grave disappointment, the spell failed. Not only did she not see any wrackspurts, the world around her looked exactly the same as it always had. Her spell didn't alter her vision at all.

Pandora stashed her wand and cleared up the room. Currently, she was in Xenophilius' sister's basement, something which would greatly upset said sister if she knew. Zephyra Lovegood disapproved of Pandora's experiments, at least when those experiments were being executed in her house.

Once out of the room, Pandora headed to the guest room where she guessed that her husband would be telling adventurous tales to their daughter even though she was too young to understand much less appreciate the stories. In the doorway, Pandora looked upon the scene -exactly as she envisioned- with a fond smile on her face. She hated to break up the bonding moment between father and daughter, but Xenophilius would never get his work done if she didn't push him to it every once in awhile.

Stepping forward, Pandora gathered Luna into her arms. "Pan, we were just getting to the good part," Xenophilius protested.

Pandora smiled indulgently at her husband. "Is it the part where Gilfried talks circles around the sphinx and confuses it to the point where it forgets the answer to the riddle it proposed?"

"Of course! Gilfried was a wordsmith. Let me finish the story, so Luna knows that words can solve problems where force fails."

"You told me you wanted to finish the article on the floo conspiracy tonight. Let me take Luna on a walk, and you can finish up your story after you've completed your article."

"Alright. Don't be long. Zephyra should be home in a minute, and she wanted to talk to you about an idea she had for a spell."

Pandora nodded hiding her grimace. She loved her sister-in-law, but her spell suggestions always consisted of spells that already existed. Even after all her years of knowing the woman, she still couldn't tell whether it was an elaborate joke or not. Pandora wanted to ask her outright but avoided doing so out of the fear that Zephyra was sincere and her question would be insulting.

As Pandora walked through the various cottages in the quaint wizarding neighborhood, she spotted a house she was sure wasn't there in the morning. Figuring Zephyra had new neighbors, Pandora ambled over to the house in order to welcome the family into the neighborhood. She shifted Luna in her arms so that she could knock on the door without loosing her hold on Luna. As she stood there waiting for an answer, Pandora was entirely oblivious to the panic she just caused beyond the door.

James Potter laughed merrily as he chased his son as he sped around the room on his toy broom. "Go, Harry! Escape the madman!" Lily urged on from her place leaning against the entryway between the living room and the kitchen just in case Harry tried to make an actual escape.

James crashed against the wall besides Lily as Harry raced passed giggling adorably. "The mad man?" he asked affronted. "I'm mildly miffed at the most."

"Not that kind of mad," Lily chided fondly.

James nodded in understanding. "Ah. In that case, you should have gone with the completely bonkers man. Mad is too light a description for me."

"Don't I know that better than most." The couple laughed before watching their son stop the broom and tumble off finally having gotten bored of zipping around. Harry twitched around, sat up, and started picking up the toy broom and turning it about, studying it.

"I think he's trying to figure out how it works," James mused.

Lily chuckled. "I think he's trying to figure out the best place to gnaw on."

James started to respond -probably with a quip about how the bristles were clearly the choice gnawing region- when a loud knock boomed against the front door. The two parents froze briefly before simultaneously rushing forward to snatch up Harry. Lily beat James to it and hugged Harry to her chest as she stared at the door in apprehension.

"You weren't expecting Sirius were you? Or Dumbledore?" Lily whispered fearfully.

"Sirius doesn't know the meaning of the word 'knock'," James whispered back. "And Dumbledore wouldn't come without some sort of warning or signal. And it can't be Remus or Peter. Remus is still abroad, and Peter always sends word ahead."

"Maybe it's an emergency. Maybe Peter didn't have time to send word."

"Then he should be breaking down the door, not waiting patiently for us to answer it."

"Well, it can't be Voldemort or any of the Death Eaters. I highly doubt they'd politely knock on the door before trying to kill us."

"You never know. Voldemort does have a flair for the dramatic."

Lily shook her head. "Ok. Maybe it is Peter. I love him, but he can be amazingly absent minded at times."

James took out his wand and gestured for Lily to stand back. "I'll open the door. Stay back with Harry until it's safe."

As James ordered, Lily stayed in place as James crept towards the door slowly. Even so, she took out her wand from her robes in case James needed help, or in case she needed to make a quick escape with Harry, but she didn't want to dwell on that scenario.

Cautiously, James opened the door. He stared in surprise at the blond woman holding a baby younger than Harry in the fold of her arms. "Hello. You must be new to the neighborhood," the woman greeted seemingly indifferent to the wand leveled at her. "I'm Pandora Lovegood, and this is my daughter, Luna. We're staying with my sister-in-law, Zephyra, for the next few weeks."

Neither James nor Lily could make heads or tails of this unexpected occurrence. How and why had this woman gotten past the Fidelius Charm? James tightened his grip on his wand. Pandora seemed innocent enough, but people didn't just break through a Fidelius Charm by accident.

"Tell us how you got through the Fidelius Charm," James demanded threateningly.

Pandora furrowed her brows. "The Fidelius Charm?" Understanding flooded her face, and then a large smile broke out. "Oh, how wonderful! My spell did something after all. I can't wait to tell Xenophilius!"

James was starting to get annoyed with this woman's games. He had a wife and child to protect. "Do you see this?" He asked moving his wand a bit to get Pandora's attention on the weapon. He didn't know why she was immune to having a wand pointed at her, but he wanted her complacency to end immediately. "I may not get up to the same sick tricks Voldemort and his followers practice, but I have some tricks of my own that made more than a few of those followers beg for forgiveness. I suggest you answer my questions before I show you what they experienced firsthand."

"Oh my. That's not very neighborly," Pandora said with a disapproving frown. "Then again, having a Fidelius Charm is unneighborly in itself. I can't imagine wanting to dissuade visits so much that I cast a charm on my house to make it undetectable to others."

"Enough idiocy!" James roared. "What are you doing here and how did you get past the Fidelius Charm?"

Pandora finally started to feel a sense of danger coming from the tall, enraged man in front of her. She definitely didn't like this man. She came over to welcome him to the neighborhood and was met solely with hostility. The man hadn't even introduced himself after Pandora had introduced herself. The red-haired woman in the background hadn't even said a word. This family clearly had no manners.

Despite all that, Pandora couldn't pass up the opportunity to share the news about her invention. "That's actually quite the funny story." From the man's face, he didn't believe that the story would be funny. "I was trying to duplicate the function of spectrespecs while ridding the need for wearing the spectrespecs, but the spell didn't work as I intended. I thought it was utterly worthless at first. Then, I saw your house as I was taking a walk, and I figured you had just moved in, so I came over to welcome you to the neighborhood. I realize now that my spell allowed me to bypass the Fidelius Charm, and you probably didn't just move here."

Lily and James stared back at Pandora completely baffled. That had to be the worst lie that had ever been fed to them. A beat later, they thought it had to be the truth. This was way too intricate and subtle of a plan for Voldemort. If he had any way of breaching the charm, he'd barge in and start flinging spells right away. Of course, the realization that Pandora told the truth brought about a whole new list of problems. If she had a spell that made the Fidelius Charm useless, it was only a matter of time before Voldemort got a hold of her. He would force Pandora to teach him the spell and to reveal the location of the Potters.

"We need to contact Dumbledore. Right away," Lily told James.

James nodded still keeping his eye and his wand on Pandora while slowly backing towards his wife. As he neared her, Lily snatched onto his arm and apparated away from the house and the strange woman on the porch.

Pandora blinked at the empty space that used to be occupied by two adults and a baby. They must really hate guests to vacate the house as soon as someone visited. Pandora gazed around the inside and outside of the house wondering whether she should close the door for them or just leave to respect their wishes of living in solitude. Just as Pandora decided it would be prudent to shut the door to block out windblown leaves and such, a loud crack of apparition whipped through the air. Stunned, Pandora spun towards the source. Even she recognized the gaunt, snakelike face before her.

"You," she gasped.

"Yes, me," Voldemort said holding off his kill, so he could brag about himself first. Murdering just wasn't as fun if he didn't tell his victims how incredibly talented and canny he was. "Did you really think you could stay hidden from me for so long? Nothing can stay hidden from me!"

"I didn't know I was hiding from you yet. Xenophilius' article revealing your secret plan to rob Gringotts using nifflers while we're all distracted by the war hasn't come out yet. How did you already find out about that?" Xenophilius and Pandora had already talked about how they'd have to go into hiding once Voldemort found out they knew what he was really after, but they never expected him to discover their intel before the article came out.

Momentarily thrown, Voldemort stopped in his tracks. With a short shake of his head and a cold laugh, Voldemort continued his glide towards the blond woman. "What nonsense are you blathering about? Is this part of your ridiculous disguise? Did you really think I would just leave you alone if you changed your appearance with Transfiguration? I'm much cleverer than that, Lily Potter. Now, step aside so I can kill the boy. There's no need for you to die too."

Pandora scratched her head. Lily Potter. Who was that? "I think you have me mistaken with someone else."

Voldemort gave another empty laugh. "Silly girl, you can't fool me." He raised his wand pointing it at the baby. "Avada-" Recognizing that -mistaken identity or not- her daughter was in danger, Pandora turned her back as Voldemort finished the second part of the spell to move Luna out of the way. "-Kedavra."

The green light hit Pandora directly in the spine of her back. She let out a small cry cut off by her death. Voldemort watched dispassionately as Pandora crumpled to the ground dropping the child as she did so. He walked over to the screeching thing dangling the wand between his fingers. "Your fool of a mother died for you, Harry Potter," Voldemort said not letting the infancy of his victim get in the way of his bragging routine. "But now it's your turn to die. 'Power the Dark Lord knows not'. Let's see how much that helps you as you lie crying on the ground before me. You were no match for me. No one is. Avada Kedavra."

Luna stopped crying as the green light darted towards the center of her forehead. Voldemort smirked at the child's demise when the spell hit its mark. His smirk disappeared as the spell rebounded off the baby and redirected itself straight towards him. The resulting explosion destroyed the nearby house and shattered the Fidelius Charm. People peered out of the windows of their house to see what all the noise was about. As they saw a burning house and multiple bodies on the floor, they sent up alarms for help.

Two hours later, Lily stared up at Dumbledore with disbelief as he said Luna Lovegood must have been the child mentioned in the prophecy all along. James was given Harry watching duty in the next room to keep him from going after Peter Pettigrew for his betrayal. "Excuse me, Professor, but I don't think that makes sense," Lily said hesitantly. She had a great deal of admiration for the man which meant she couldn't just come out and say that he sounded bloody bonkers.

"Of course it does, my dear girl," Dumbledore said with certainty. "Voldemort tried to kill her, but failed leaving her only with a scar shaped as a question mark without the point. The prophecy said that Voldemort would mark her as his equal."

"He," Lily stressed. "The prophecy said, 'the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal.' Luna's a her."

"It was a gender neutral he," Dumbledore explained. "Prophecies aren't allowed to give too much away lest we try to prevent them, so they often use the gender neutral he. It doesn't necessarily mean that the subject of the prophecy is male."

That didn't sound right to Lily, but she didn't know enough about prophecies to dispute it considering the only prophecy she ever heard was the one she thought involved her son. "But what about the part that says, 'born as the seventh month dies'? According to you, Luna was born on February 13. That's the middle of the second month, not the end of the seventh month."

"Ah, yes, but February is seven months after July." Dumbledore smiled triumphantly at Lily.

"While true," Lily said slowly. "I don't really see the relevance of that."

"It's quite simple actually. We originally thought the prophecy referred to the seventh month of the year making us think that either Neville Longbottom or Harry Potter was the subject of the prophecy. The prophecy actually meant that the subject would be born the seventh month after who we originally thought the prophecy referred to was born."

Lily was starting to get a headache following Dumbledore's questionable logic. "Ok. Even if we assume that's true-" and Lily was seriously starting to doubt that no matter how much she respected Dumbledore's brilliance "-it still says, 'as the seventh month dies'. How does that fit?"

"Ah, that one is even more tricky. You see, Lily, 13 is the inverse of 31, and the 31st is the end of many months. Besides, 13 is considered the number of death to many people."

Lily thought it over. Thirteen really was related to death. Everything Dumbledore said sort of made sense, in a way, even if it seemed rather absurd. Still, Lily trusted Dumbledore, and Luna had somehow beaten Voldemort. She supposed she would have to accept that Luna was the child in the prophecy.

"Wait," Lily started having thought of something else. "The prophecy also said that the parents thrice-defied Voldemort. How did Luna's parents defy him?"

"Luna's father is in charge of a magazine that her mother co-edits. The Quibbler turned out three different articles insulting Voldemort in various ways. So you see, my dear girl, it all works out."

"I guess," Lily said uncertainly. She decided it was time to end the conversation on this matter and move on to another topic. "How did Luna defeat Voldemort? Do you know?"

"I have a strong suspicion. I believe it was love."

Lily waited for Dumbledore to elaborate, but he just stared back at her expectantly. "Love? What do you mean it was love?"

"I mean that Luna's mother sacrificed herself to save Luna out of love, and that love formed a protective shield around Luna that backfired on Voldemort when he tried again to kill her. It's the power that Voldemort knows not."

Lily sat for a bit in silence letting everything Dumbledore had told her sink in. It all seemed pretty preposterous if she was being honest, but the truth was often stranger than fiction. "I'm going to check on James," Lily announced as she stood up. For one thing, she didn't think she could handle anymore strange discourse with her old headmaster. She was beginning to think he had gone a bit barmy after all. For another thing, she wanted to see the son she would have lost if not for the strange woman that managed to see through a Fidelius Charm at the exact wrong time. Or exact right time, Lily thought guiltily. If it hadn't been Pandora, it could have been Lily or James or Harry or maybe all three of them.