"Percy Weasley."
A young woman with long, pale yellow hair stands in an ancient forest clearing, nearly shadowed by towering trees. The meadow is a flat respite from the mountainside's relentless slant—a little terrace of lumpy grass. No paths lead here, and no sounds of humanity can be heard. Only the song of birds, the rustle of leaves, and the patter of autumn rain. Below is an open valley stretching from snow-covered mountain to snow-covered mountain.
"Luna! What are you doing here?" Percy Weasley sounds surprised and a little alarmed.
"It seems to me that you ought to know. It's odd that you shouldn't." Luna lets her hands run over the bark of a stupendously large tree.
"What are you implying? I'm not certain what you're getting at."
Dreamily, Luna hugs the evergreen close and mumbles, "Galloway Forest is a wondrous place of tall, dark pine trees and mossy heaps of rocks that once were the hearths of mean tiny houses. Do you see?" She lets go of the tree for a moment to point. "There! And There! Lived generations of poor folk until the black plague left their village in ruins."
"Yes, so they did… " he falters.
"There was no road leading here. Just a track, barely enough for an ox and a cart. Now, of course, there's nothing." She contemplates the rocky lumps.
Percy mumbles. "This is... it is unexpected, running into you here. Quite a coincidence. Improbable, even."
Luna lets go of her tree and, like an impassioned lecturer, starts walking and gesturing. "A long time ago, this valley was a patchwork of fields. Potatoes were grown here. If you look, you can still see the remnants of the stone walls separating the patches."
"I suppose one might see that if one looked hard enough," The pine tree Luna's arms could not encircle stand to Percy's left.
The grasses sway in the valley below.
"In the twilight of a late afternoon," she intones, "two lost, wet, and hungry souls stumbled across that pasture."
"I have never been quite so lost…" Percy's eyes are caught by her outstretched hand and the wrist and follow the arm to the heart-shaped face.
Luna starts down the hillside, and he follows, sliding and slipping as she continues talking. "As if the little hamlet wasn't wretched enough, the potato famine was stealing their one source of food. And there they were, our travelers in time and space. Naively scrambling up the hill for sanctuary, for shelter."
"I recall the events more vividly than I care to, but do I wish them away?" He is staring at her now. She is infinitely far away. Unattainable. Like a star.
"What is it you remember, Percy Weasley?"
At the sudden directness, he dissembles and fiddles with his wand. "Last time we spoke, I think I told you I prefer it if only my mother refers to me as Percy Weasley."
"Last I spoke to that fellow traveler was over a year ago." Luna's hair has caught on a thorny bush, and when gentle coercion doesn't release it, a sharp incendio turns it into ash. "I sent him thanks. I invited him to watch the dying stars."
Percy watches Luna set another grabby bush ablaze before returning to the ruins again. "I sent him owls, owls that waited in vain for answers and returned home sad and forlorn."
Hands clenched at his sides, and with a breathlessness that doesn't seem entirely attributable to the climb, Percy says, "I wanted to respond. I did. But the weight of my responsibilities — I couldn't afford the luxury of reminiscing! I didn't have time to come and stargaze."
She's not looking at him, but she's stopped walking, and he continues more quietly, "I almost died here in Galloway Forest. You said we were displaced in time and space by a comet named Swan! Ridiculous. How could I answer? What would I say? I wasn't sure it was real until I found this place last fall."
She's not answering, but she's still not leaving. A crooked smile briefly appears on his face.
"I found the chimney of the old witch's house a couple of months ago." Percy trails off, then continues, "I keep thinking… I keep wondering what would have happened had the comet not brought us back to the present. "
He's looking at her, and finally she's turning.
"What brings you here then, Luna? Please tell me. Surely you didn't apparate here by accident."
He's waiting, and then she's answering. "I came here to think about destiny and how it brings people together and tears them apart."