It feels good to be out of the rain, even if it's a Wise Woman's barn and it smells. Luna sneezes. "Percy?"
"I don't feel well," he mumbles.
"Let me help you up."
"I don't want to get up. I don't want to move at all. Gods, I feel so ill."
Rolling him over takes all her strength. He's barely come to a rest on his left cheek before vomit wells out of his mouth. It seeps chunkily through the straw, acrid smell mixing horribly with manure and the musky scent of mould.
She thinks it must be semi-starvation when the first stab of pain goes through her middle. Crawling out of the hay, throwing up in a little ditch. Gasping. Pain. Spasming and retching until empty. World full of pain.
Arm wraps around her, lifting, wobbling. Water and mud and limbs everywhere.
"Come on," he says, pulling, pushing. "Get up, get up!"
She doesn't understand. Wants to stay, lie still. But he won't let her. Stumbling back into the dark, oppressive forest. Soaked and wet and dark.
Distances. Hard things hit her knees and face. Soaked and wet and dark.
When she comes to, they are under their little outcropping. Back in the forest. Ill, dizzy, disoriented.
The trunks of the tree are important. Standing row on row, they guard something old, something inexplicable. Menacing.
Leaves. Leaves with rain. Wet leaves gleam in the moonlight. A large, heavy moon. A blue moon. A rare and magnificent moon. Cool breath in through her nose expands her lungs, filling her with moonlight.
Trees are moving. The guard is marching, moving into place, hiding the beauty of the mountains.
Cold, cold-hearted Muggles of the mountain. Who won't open their minds to strangers who say, Here we are; we mean no harm.
But no. They are closed off. Hidden away like the beautiful view.
She cries. Cries for their ignorance and the well she'll never dowse for them.
"The stars say the comet will come soon," she whispers.
Pictures it. Touching the comet's icy tail.
"I wanted to see the stars, Percy. That's why! Don't you want to see the stars? All the stories are up there." She points to the sky.
"Every culture's children's stories are full of stars. That's because they are the constant."
"Yet they are dying. Did you know, Percy Weasley? Some of them are already dead. I can hear the lament. The dead stars sent us their last light as a gift."
Inexplicably, Luna's lying on the ground, staring up and up.
"That old hag poisoned us, didn't she?" Percy says suddenly.
"Gyromitra esculenta," she says dreamily.