What Luna Said
By SilverCrystalArtemis

AN: I'm a little disappointed here, guys. So many views, so few reviews. Pwease? Wuv me? But aside from that, from this point on, the story's actually going to be following 2 count 'em, 2! different times. So watch for the amazing bar of scene change, K? And, as always, I can't wait to hear what you think, whatever it is.

Okay, so I just noticed that FFN buggered my flashback scene. This is a repost, not a new chapter. Sorry.

What Luna Said
Chapter Four

"Luna's coming?" Asked Ginny, shock in her voice. And rightly so; nobody had seen Luna since Cass and Leo were born, four years ago. She had gone on some long, arduous Snorcack discovery mission (again) with her husband, and nobody had been able to contact her. They all had tried. "How were you able to get in touch...?"

Neville smiled, and reached into a pocket in his robes. When he pulled his hand out, Scorpius was confused; all he held was a galleon, nothing special.

Then he heard Harry and Ron laugh. "Is that...?"

Neville chuckled himself. "Yeah. Never could bring myself to get rid of it. Luna, either, apparently."

As Ginny started laughing, Bill, Fleur, Victoire, Lily, and Scorpius looked at the four confusedly. Finally, Fleur spoke up. "I don't get eet," she said looking to Ginny. "What ees so special? Eet ees just a galleon..."

"You would think that," Ginny replied, smiling at her sister-in-law. "But it's actually something Hermione came up with in her fifth year, for the DA members. It's how we kept in touch about meetings."

"The DA?" Scorpius asked, because though the answer appeased Bill and Fleur, himself, his wife, and Lily were still wearing puzzled expressions.

"Dumbledore's Army. It was the club your mum, and Harry, and Ron started in their fifth year to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts." The more Ginny talked, the more confused Scorpius found himself. The more he realized just how much he didn't know about his parents lives before him.

"Why did Harry need to teach, though? Didn't you have a Professor for that?"

Ron answered this time, a smile still on his face. "Well, yes, but you have to understand, Scorpius. When we were in school, DADA Professor wasn't exactly a long-term position. And that year, we had the worst teacher imaginable. And your mum thought it would be a good idea to start this little secret club of ours, right under that bint's nose. It was one of the first times I'd ever seen her excited about rule-breaking."

Scorpius wanted more. He suddenly regretted every opportunity he missed, where he could have asked his parents about this sort of thing. He'd always taken it for granted their history, always just assumed that the only exciting thing they'd done was fight Voldemort. He'd known his mum was clever; he'd never known she'd invented anything, though. He'd never known she'd made an illegal club in school. A part of him wanted to walk back to his parents' room and hear everything from their own lips. But he knew he couldn't do that; his father needed this time with his mother. He couldn't be cruel and take her away from him in any regard, now.

He looked up at his extended family, seated in this room. They all knew his mother so well. Surely, they could tell him what he wanted to hear.

"What else did Mum do?" Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Neville looked at him, surprised. They looked at one another, then Harry spoke.

"What do you want to know? She did an awful lot."

"Everything."

"Well, your mum was born-"

"Oh, Harry, stop teasing the poor boy." Ginny smacked him lightly on the arm, a smile back on her face.

"Well, then, let's see...." Harry sat back in his chair, thoughtful. He could mention that she could do magic before even stepping foot in Hogwarts... He could mention how she figured out the Basilisk their second year.... He didn't think Scorpius would care much for those stories; he already knew how smart his mother was. He could tell him about saving Sirius.... but that story would take far too much to explain....

"Did you know your mum dated Viktor Krum?" That was Ron, always focusing on sports.

Scorpius looked surprised; he remembered, as a child, idolizing the Bulgarian Quidditch player. Though now that he thought about it, he finally understood every time his father would grumble when he mentioned Krum. "Nothing special", he would say. He could have laughed. "Really?"

"Yea, back in our fourth year. He was a Triwizard Champion" here Scorpius nodded. He knew Krum's entire biography by heart from the time he could read. "He took your mum to the Yule Ball and everything. Even saved her from the lake."

Scorpius remembered reading about Krum's Triwiard adventures. The second task; where the Champions had to save their "treasure" from the depths of the Black Lake. He couldn't imagine his father taking too kindly to his mum being another man's treasure.

"How'd Dad take it?"

Ron looked confused. " 'Scuse me?"

"How'd Dad take it? Mum being another man's Treasure, I mean."

Ron smirked. "Well, Scorpius, your parents weren't together at the time. In fact, I don't think they were really even on speaking terms. What, after your mum punched Draco in the face the year before..."

"What?!" Now this was something Scorpius never expected. He had imagined his parents had been just like him and Victoire; love at first sight, almost. He never thought his mum would ever have violent towards his dad.

"Yea, well, he deserved it. Great bloody git, your dad was."

"Now Ron, be fair. You know as well as I do why that was. And I think he more than made up for it. I mean, he did save her life-"

"What?!" Scorpius was overwhelmed. Exactly how much was there he didn't know?!

"Well, I guess we know where to start, then," said Harry, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Your mum and dad had been enemies, absolutely hated each other, up until around the end of fifth year."

Scorpius was baffled. "But how could they have hated each other? They're mates. You don't bond with someone you hate."

"Well, I suppose I should say your mum hated your dad. Draco only acted like he hated her."

"Harry, dear, I think you're going to have to explain that a little bit."

Harry chuckled. "I'm not quite used to this storytelling, I suppose. You'll have to forgive me, Scorpius." Scorpius nodded, quickly becoming fascinated in this, up until now, undiscovered aspect of his parents' history. "Well, you know about your grandfather, I suppose?"

"Lucius? Yea. I mean, I never met him, but Dad told me he was a Death Eater."

"He wasn't just any Death Eater, Scorpius. He was in Voldemort's inner circle." Another blow to Scorpius. "And though Voldemort had resurrected in our fourth year, nobody believed any of it- nobody in power aside from Dumbledore, at least- until the end of our fifth year. There was a battle at the Ministry, and Voldemort showed himself."

Scorpius nodded. He remembered studying Voldemort's second rise to power in school. Of course, they never mentioned the Ministry's ignorance, but that was to be expected. And frankly, from what he'd heard of the Ministry at the time, he wasn't surprised.

"Well, when Fudge and the aurors showed up, they arrested all the Death Eaters present. Including Lucius. It was more or less expected he wasn't going to see the light of day again. And that's about the time your dad started pursuing your mum."

"He waited five years? Even knowing it was her?" Scorpius couldn't imagine how that would feel. Unrequitted love was one thing. Unrequitted bonds...

"He had no choice. Your grandfather would've killed her, had he known. He wasn't at all sensitive to Veela needs; your grandmother, on the other hand, pestered Draco every chance she got if he'd found his mate, so I've been told."

Scorpius took a moment to process this. He'd seen blood prejudice, here and there, growing up. Even after the war, there were those who thought Muggle-borns were still inferior to Purebloods in some undefinable way. He'd known the war was fought over blood purity; he'd known all about Voldemort's propaganda- he'd learned all about that in school, too. He still found it jarring that it hit so close to himself; it was something you read about in textbooks, it had a sense of the foreign. He never expected that level of prejudice was something his parents had had to go through. Then again, he'd never considered the idea.

"So what happened?" he asked Harry. "Lucius was imprisoned. Did Dad just walk up to her one day and tell her?"

Harry laughed. "Not quite. You're father's a smart man, Scorpius. I'm pretty sure he realized that if he tried anything like that, it would result in another fist in his face. No, he was a bit more subtle about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for starters, he started using her name."

"He started calling her Hermione? Just out of the blue?" Scorpius thought that was rather suspicious sounding, still.

"Oh, no. He started calling her Granger." Seeing the question about to come from Scorpius' mouth, he explained, "He called her Mudblood before that."

Harry could see the shock on the young man's face. He was quite enjoying this; dropping bomb after bomb, not even at the juiciest parts yet, and he was already overwhelming Scorpius. "He had to keep up a front, remember. He hadn't thought of blood purity, so he's said, since he set eyes on your mother. But he couldn't let anyone know that. Not with Lucius as a father.

When he started just calling her Granger, we figured it was a sense of self-preservation kicking in; his father was just imprisoned for Death Eater activity. Why would he do anything that could out himself as the same? It wasn't much, at first. But then things started piling up, and adding together. Your mum saw it before any of us did, though. No surprise there, I'm sure." Scorpius nodded.

"It really wasn't much at first. Like I said, we all thought he was just acting to save his own skin. But then the letters started coming."

"Letters?"

"Hermione started getting letters from a secret admirer, of sorts. And even they didn't start out as much at all...."

Hermione, Ron, and Harry were sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, circled around the fireplace. They were all quiet; Harry was brooding, and Hermione and Ron were wary of saying anything, lest they set him off again. The common room was oddly quiet for this time of year; usually, with exams over with, students would be talking, laughing, enjoying to the fullest extent the rest of their time at Hogwarts. But it was subdued, and with good reason. Even as they spoke, the Evening Prophet was being delivered, with news of Voldemort's return.A sharp rap came to the window, another owl delivering mail. Most likely another letter from a scared parent, telling their child they would come collect them immediately, or warning them not to make eye contact with anybody on the platform tomorrow. Somebody near the window let the owl in, and it circled the room for a moment before, to the surprise of the three friends, landing in Hermione's lap.

"Hermione, who-?"

"I don't know, Ron. I mean, I doubt it's my parents. They stopped reading the Prophet as soon as I told them they were lying about Harry... Besides, this looks like one of the school owls..."

Hermione pulled the letter from the owl's leg, petted on the head, and it flew away. As she opened the envelope, a small bracelet fell out. Aside from the bracelet, only a small note lay within.

"Oh, my. I thought I'd lost this weeks ago. I wonder who found it."

She read the note, hoping she'd be able to thank the kind soul. All the note said was,

I noticed you left this sitting in Potions class. I figured you'd want it back, as I've never seen you without it before.

Enjoy your summer.

Hermione was puzzled. She couldn't recognize the handwriting. Neither could Ron or Harry, when she showed them. Also, who paid that much attention to her, to notice when a piece of jewelry was missing?

Then again, she wasn't the only observant person in this school. For all she knew, it could have been anybody, just trying to do a good deed. Probably a Slytherin; it would make sense then, that the note wasn't signed. After all, what Slytherin wanted it broadcast that they showed kindness to Mudbloods?

She smiled at her good fortune, and took it for what it was. A random act of kindness.

"Of course, since he never signed it, we didn't know it was your dad until considerably later. After the other letters came. And come they did. All through the summer, in fact."

"And when did she realize it was Dad?"

"Oh, Scorpius, that's the best part of the story..."

AN: Well, there you go. Flashback number one. There will be MANY of these, so be prepared. As always, leave your love in the little blue box. Thanks!