Title: Lovegood Women
Author: smolder
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Angel the Series belongs to Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt. Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling.
A/N: These drabbles won't always be in strict chronological order.
A/N 2: Yes, I have started these again, but I won't be posting them regularly like I was doing the last two batches. Just a fair warning.
A/N 3: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Luna had been surprised in wandmaking to find that core wasn't quite a true term. You didn't hollow out the wood, you infused the magical component into it.

It was a slow exacting process that made her realize why Mr. Ollivander had her going out and collecting components for so long from, what were deemed by most to be, dangerous creatures.

Because that was the simple part.

To start the process, once you had chosen and prepared the wood, (which was a whole separate set of almost ritualistic steps with determining factors to be figured out like proper length, thickness and such. When she had tried to explain it once to Draco and George she hadn't been able to get past there before they had met each others' eyes and exploded into laughter. And people said she was strange) you had to find its middle. This was relatively easy with most woods but when you got into knotted ones and wands that just weren't exactly straight (were more springy. This had elicited more laughter and she just decided to try again later when they didn't obviously have wrackspurts infecting their brains) it became harder. And you had to be precise - you couldn't have your unicorn hair, or such, going too far off center.

Once that was done and the wood was braced, you took your core (also previously put through another procedure that made talking to Fluffy every time you entered the forest for months until he agreed to let you have one of his teeth in exchange for singing him Christmas carols while you scratched behind his ears – all six of them of course, until he fell asleep. You couldn't just take while he was unconscious after all. For one that would be horribly wrong and something she would never do. But also, for it to work correctly, the component had to be freely given). If the core component wasn't previously the length or width to fit properly into its new home, it was made so. Then, you had to take the edges in your bare hands (the power licking at her skin – is this what being a heliopath feels like?) keep a steady pull as it fought you the whole way.

Because things weren't meant to share the same space.

Finally it would settle – cooling, perhaps. Except there was no heat, just energy. (So much magical energy that she feels full of it and she wonders some days if she will transform into some kind of magical creature herself. If she has already – if anyone would really notice the difference.) That is one reason you always had to make sure your wood and core were compatible before starting, refusing to meld wasn't the only consequence.

Early on, while attempting to try something new, the entire thing had exploded on her. Willow wood shards half mixed with phoenix feather going at high velocity around the room. One had become embed in her leg and she had gone to Hannah to remove it (which her friend did, sighing in exasperation and telling her she should have gone to the actual hospital and not the Greenhouse just because she knew it was her day off).

The incident had shaken her a bit though, brought forth memories of another Lovegood woman who had always tried to experiment - to push magic.

She Flooed Fred as soon as she got home. Chatted casually about this and that – school, friends, and family. More to settle herself than anything else. Because she knew Fred was going to do the same thing. Try to figure out the things no one else explained, do things that no one else did. Mix magic and science.

Experiment.

And she knew the past Fred, the memories her daughter has that push her to this. But it was even more than that, because she knows her own memories as well. (A tall woman with her blonde hair in a quick messy bun, wearing goggles and bent over a cauldron. Eyes going wide as it starts to react in an unexpected way, she turns around to warn her little girl to get down. But before the words can completely leave her mouth - an explosion.

Not as loud as it should have been, she always thinks later.

Luna can only stumble forward from where she had ducked under a table and watch as her mother, covered with steaming liquid, struggles for breath a few times before it finally stops.

It all just stops.

Her eyes are still wide and panicked behind her goggles, but now they aren't blinking. And they never will. Luna doesn't realize she is screaming, a loud and continuous wail, until her father runs in. And then, then when he sees her too (makes it real), it is almost worse).

So this sort of thing, the need, the push to work on the edges of things. It isn't only coming to Fred from her dreams. It is in her blood. This is the way Lovegood women are.

That night when Draco gets home, she tells him what happened as soon as he comes in the door. He just stops and stares at her for a long moment. Then he closes his eyes, balls his hands into fists at his sides, and swallows hard – pushing down the emotion. Like he was taught to do.

They have dinner and he never mentions it, his manner tense and stilted. Draco's eyes though, his quicksilver eyes, often travel down to the area on her leg, covered by gauze and clothes, which would probably permanently scar - the nature of magical components being what they were. And she wouldn't mind the constant reminder to always double check. That it was ok to take chances, yes. But, to make sure you were being as safe as you could. (If only not to have that tight look on his face. If only to not have her little girl end up like her - with the memory of the smell of the burning flesh of her mother never forgotten).

But later in their bed Draco holds her tightly against him, so tightly that neither of them could possibly be actually sleeping. Because even though he might not have the sorts of dreams or memories they do, he knew them. Knew they wouldn't stop doing this. And he would never try to demand it of either of them, his moon-lover or his sun-child (both so far away at times - alien and strange, yet essential to him).

And that – that lack of control, lack of knowledge and ability to protect them from everything (from themselves really – is this is how her Father felt?). To not be able to be sure he wouldn't lose anything else precious to him (because nothing had been more precious to him than them). It terrified him.

Luna squeezed his hand, her pale fingers laced through his equally pale ones, and whispered into the dark, "We'll be careful, my Dragon."

He let out a shaky breath, stirring her hair; his hold on her became a little less desperate. And she wished she could offer more comfort, but that was the only truth Luna could give him.