Moonchild

Chapter 13

Seleneo

The morning of November fourteenth had finally arrived. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but Seleneo knew that something was going to happen tonight at midnight. V. had made that clear. Luna was already at breakfast when Seleneo arrived, and she looked like she was ready to be sick.

"What's the matter?" he asked when he sat down. "You look ill."

"You know what day it is, don't you?" she said, opening her mouth just barely enough to let the sound out. "It's November fourteenth."

"Yeah, so?"

"So?" Luna cried. "That's when V. said to be at the Astronomy tower! You never did tell me what McGonagall said to do."

"Oh!" Seleneo exclaimed. "Right, I'd almost forgotten about that. Well, she said she'd be watching the post that comes in, and I'll think you'll find that V. hasn't sent anything else since then." Just then an owl swooped down and dropped an envelope in front of Luna. She tore it open and read it over, and then thrust it at Seleneo.

"Tonight's the night. Are you ready? –V."

"Well, are you?" he asked.

"Are you mad?" Luna cried. "Some creep that I don't even know wants me to just go up to the Astronomy tower at midnight, and you're asking if I'm ready? It's like you're not even worried!"

"Well," he said, "I'm not, to be honest. You'll be fine. Even McGonagall said she thought it was just someone trying to scare you but that there wasn't any real danger. If it makes you feel better, I'll go up there with you."

"That would be wonderful," Luna said, still looking ill but not quite as so.

"Alright, well that's settled," said Seleneo. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, there's a certain trio of Gryffindors that I have business with. Filius wanted me to talk to them about their Charms work." Seleneo got up and headed over to the Gryffindor table without looking back at Luna.

"So, everything is a go, right?" he asked once he reached where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were seated.

"Yes," Harry said, "assuming you've taken care of your end of things. We're all ready."

"Ginny?" Seleneo said. "What about you? Are you in?"

"You bet," she said, beaming. "I can't wait!"

"Good," Seleneo said. "Very good." He turned to head back to the Ravenclaw table. "I'll see you then," he said, and went to rejoin Luna at their table.


It was a very tense Saturday for Seleneo and Luna. He tried his best to reassure her that she was in no danger from this V. person, but she didn't seem to want to listen to him. That afternoon, as he and Luna were each doing their homework in the Ravenclaw common room, there came a knocking sound, which was soon revealed to be an owl pecking at the window. Luna let it inside, and it dropped an envelope in front of Seleneo. He took it, and it perched on the back of the sofa.

"Fantastic," said Seleneo in a very unenthusiastic way. "Apparently Horace wants to see me in his office tonight. Says he has a lot of work for me to do, so I'll be lucky if I get out of there before one." He scrawled something on the back of the note and put it back in its envelope, which the owl took and flew away with. Then he took a second bit of parchment and scrawled a note on it. He got up and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Luna asked in a very disappointed way.

"The owlery," Seleneo replied. "I made a deal with Ginny Weasley that if something happened and I couldn't get up to the Astronomy tower with you tonight that she'd take my place. I just have to send this to her so she knows." He stepped through the door and started down the spiral staircase that led to the rest of the school.


That night, Seleneo headed up to the Astronomy tower. Luna and Ginny were already there, and he had to sprint to catch up with them.

"Seleneo!" Luna said in surprise. "I thought you weren't going to be able to make it tonight."

"I told Slughorn what was going on, and he let me leave early," Seleneo gasped. "Said I could finish another night."

"So it looks like you have two bodyguards now," said Ginny coyly. Together the three of them headed up the steps to the Astronomy tower.

"Damn," said Ginny when she tried the door. "It's locked."

"No it isn't," said Seleneo, and he produced a set of keys from inside his robes. He tried several before one finally would turn, but he eventually got the door open.

"When did Sinistra give you a set of keys?" asked Luna. "I didn't think she even gave those out to other staff members."

"She doesn't," Seleneo said. "Last time I was at an Astronomy class she told me to lock up, and I did a Duplication Charm on her keys." With the door now open, the three of them headed up to the observation deck where V. would be waiting for Luna. When they were finally out under the open sky, there was no one to be seen.

"I don't get it," said Luna. "The note said to be here at midnight on the fourteenth, so where's V.?"

"You clearly didn't read that note carefully," said Seleneo, stepping away from the other two. As he did so, Ginny stepped back, leaving Luna on her own. "That note said 'he'll be waiting for you there', not 'I'll be waiting'. V. was talking about someone else."

"How do you know this?" Luna asked hesitantly.

"I know who V. is," he said simply. "That's how I knew you weren't in any danger. Now that you're up here, though, I'd like to show you something." He motioned her over to a telescope that was set up next to the parapets. "There's a very interesting celestial phenomenon occurring tonight. Look." He positioned the telescope so that she could see out to the starry heavens, and directed it so that it was facing a particularly bright object.

"What is that?" she asked, apparently having completely forgotten about being worried out of her wits just moments ago. "That doesn't look like anything Professor Sinistra had on our star charts."

"It's something much more amazing than anything she had you chart," he said. As he said this, the object in the telescope grew larger and larger until Luna was almost certain it would crash right into the tower. Before it did, Seleneo stepped in front of the lens, obscuring her field of vision.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "I can't see."

Then Seleneo turned, and was delighted when he saw Luna's look of astonishment. In his hands was the most bizarre item, but Luna took it when he held it out to her as if it were the most priceless treasure on Earth.

"Is this what I think it is?" She seemed almost on the verge of tears.

"It may be," said Seleneo. "You see, I was at a loss. I wanted to make an impact, but I wasn't sure how, and then it hit me: help is always available at Hogwarts to those who ask for it. So I went to those certain Gryffindors for help – you can come out, by the way," he called out, and suddenly there appeared Hermione Granger standing next to Ginny, and off to the side were Harry and Ron both holding broomsticks. They all looked pleased. "Well, these three told me about the time they visited your dad, and how he was trying to reconstruct Ravenclaw's diadem. They described it to me, and, well, see for yourself. I did modify the design a bit, though," he said. Sure enough, the item she held in her hands was tantalizingly similar to the headdress that had once adorned Xenophilius Lovegood's bust of Rowena Ravenclaw. It was a brown leather headband that peaked in the center. In the center was also a large stone that shone remarkably in the moonlight. Even in the dark of night the prismatic colors that shone from it were visible. On either side radiating away from the central stone were stones of green, white, and blue. There were also a number of pure white feathers and red flowers with black centers.

"That one in the center is moonstone," Seleneo said, reveling in Luna's astonishment and pride in his work. "Then going outside is peridot, diamond, and sapphire. You did say you were born in August, right?"

"Yes," she said through a few tears.

"Excellent," said Seleneo. "I did some research before I put this all together. Those are all your birthstones; traditional, modern, mystical, and Ayurvedic. I don't remember what that last one is, but it seemed important."

"It refers to the ancient medicine and philosophy in India around 1500 BC," Hermione interjected. Ron shot her a reproving look.

"Really, Hermione?" he hissed. "Even I know better."

"Sorry," she whispered and took a step or so back.

"Anyhow," Seleneo continued, "the flowers are poppies since that's the birthflower for August, and the feathers came from a Pegasus."

"You shouldn't have!" Luna squealed, and threw herself on him. He staggered a bit, not quite expecting her sudden lunge, but he steadied himself quickly. "But I don't understand, Harry, Hermione, all these people…they all knew about this?"

"Very much, so," Seleneo said. "They helped me along the way. Harry and Ron helped me get out of the castle so I could apparate away to get the stones, Hermione had on Harry's Invisibility Cloak and was casting a disillusionment charm on the two of them while they flew it down here to the observation deck, but really you have Ginny to thank for all this actually happening."

"Is that so?" Luna inquired, and then turned to Ginny. "What hand did you play in all this?"

"I convinced him to do it," she said. "He sent me an owl during our Hogsmeade weekend. He wanted a reliable source to tell him whether or not he was wasting his time with this whole plan, and I told him he wasn't because it was true."

"I had originally thought I'd give you a necklace or something," Seleneo admitted, "but I think this screams Luna Lovegood much more than something so…mundane."

Luna put the headdress on, and to Seleneo's great relief it fit perfectly. While the item itself looked ridiculous, even to him, when it was on Luna's head it somehow looked oddly right, in some bizarre way. She turned to face the rest of her friends.

"Well," she said, wiping tears out of her eyes, "what do you think?"

"I think it's starting to get bloody cold out," said Ginny. "Do you plan on kissing him or what?"

"Yes, I think so," said Luna, and soon every nerve in Seleneo's body was surging with electricity as his lips met Luna's for the first time.