[ Author's note, I full on stole something from JRR Tolkien in this chapter. I am doing so simply because his lines were so beautiful I simply could not bear to use some lesser thing in their place when these lines inspired the entire scene. I claim no credit for them. If you don't like the scene, that is on me, but the lines are freaking epic and need to be used for epic scenes.]
Fred, George, Milicent, Hermione, and Harry poured over the Marauder's map and Hermione's notes.
"Item one. We know Ravenclaw's diadem is a Horcrux." Hermione said
"Only reason we are torturing ourselves like this. Groaned Harry.
"Item two. You can feel a Horcrux if you are ever near to it." Hermione continued, unsympathetically.
"Which is why I'm not training for my third task, I am spelunking in this bloody great castle!" Complained Harry.
"Item three, we have searched the whole castle and not found it." Hermione said, frowning slightly.
"Which means we are doomed. Voldemort wins, the world burns, can I nap now?" Harry begged.
"Cheer up. Our map of Hogwarts," Said Fred.
"Was complete when we stole it." Added George.
"And we have added three rooms." Mused Fred,
"Four secret passages." Agreed George.
"Lost a corridor." Complained Fred.
"Lost two bathrooms, one of them we were hiding stuff in." Cursed George.
"A bedroom with a sleeping sphinx." Remembered Fred.
"And on alternate Thursdays one door opens to Iceland." Cheered George,
"In a bakery." Sighed Fred.
"With Randalin." Said George.
"Mad muggle cake high as Draco's nose" Enthused Fred.
"More layers than Milicent's plots." Sighed George.
"Creme filling thicker than brother Ron." Agreed Fred
Harry blinked at the twin speak, then over at a frowning Hermione. He sighed, and goblined up.
"So back to work, back to searching. Voldemort is clearly coming for me in the last task to complete whatever back from the dead bullshit he got from "Horcrux a History" when he had Head Boy access to the restricted section. We need to find Ravenclaw's diadem so the only Horcrux left is the snake, and that one is ruddy hard to miss." Harry said.
Hermione looked stunned. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes lit like a prophet that had just received the word of the god of the printed word.
"HARRY, this is important, is there such a book as 'Horcrux, a History!' " Hermione said, pinning Harry to his chair.
Milicent looked at her twin lions and said. "Right, this is where sane snakes and housebroken lions run away like sane creatures."
Harry was protesting. "It was a joke Hermione, because you are always on about Hogwarts a History!"
Hermione was on him harder than an owl on unprotected bacon as Milicent and the Weasley twins slipped from the room, and left him to his fate.
The Horcrux search would continue. It wasn't a good plan, but it was all they had. Horcrux didn't just drop into your lap because you needed them. Reality just didn't work that way.
- Classroom next to Ravenclaw tower.
Draco Malfoy had never been this close to murder. Well he probably had, but that was during an actual fight. This was the closest he had ever been to premeditated murder, and he found that what it required to get him to this point made the thought of just killing some muggle randomly because you needed it to make your evil slave brand stick was even harder to justify. Have to have a word with dear old dad about that decision. Draco tried to keep the murder from his voice as he coaxed a crying Luna.
"Here Luna, you need to drink this blood replenishment potion. It's really good. I was working with Neville on it and he said some nonsense about explaining to the plants this was to help people heal and they didn't object to having their leaves harvested. Supposed to make the potion work better. You don't argue with Longbottom about huggy stuff or plants, so this has to be good."
Luna smiled as she took the potion in shaking hands. Her body was thin, she had lost enough blood to be life threatening in a muggle, still not good in a witch. Someone had used her blood to make a blood ward on the Ravenclaw tower door. A blood ward that ripped the blood from her body when she attempted to go to her dorm to sleep.
Luna took the potion and drank it, as the gathered fairies and shape shifting Pooka around the table laughed, the Silver Lady, Ravenclaw's ghost and the red haired regal fairy maiden beside her frowned. Luna's colour came back, and she hugged the blushing Draco.
The wild queen of the fairy who sat at Luna's table sipping tea began to show spots of red upon her cheeks and fire in her eyes as her hands fell to the bronze sword at her belt, and the tall staff that stood as if rooted in mid air behind her.
"They drew your blood to use against you? They worked blood magic against you, my host? As your guest it will be my pleasure to strike them down. I am Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, let me slaughter them for this crime." The Tuatha DeDannan was no slim and pale maiden fit to grace a tower awaiting rescue, her arms were corded with muscle that left Draco feeling a touch unmanned and she moved with the kind of deadliness that reminded him too much of Milicent Bulstrode when she forgot herself.
Luna shook her head. "They didn't draw it. It was that time of the month, and they must have taken my tampon before House Elves banished it. They didn't steal my blood, because technically, I threw it away."
Draco blanched, as he knew in the old religion, a woman's menstrual blood had a great deal more power magically than blood from her body. It was tied to the magic of her bloodline, magic over her entire line, the living, the dead, the unborn. To use such blood magic against the person whose blood you stole would not get you a ticket to Azkaban, it got you tossed through the veil in the Unspeakables wing of the Ministry.
Queen Mab rose, sword in hand, and her hair rising around her as if swept by an unseen wind. her eyes were without pupil, just blue gemstones in white orbs, and they blazed now as the light around her seemed to fade, leaving her a single flame in growing darkness.
"They have dared to use the blood magic against you, my host? I will give them such a death their families will curse the fact they even let them be born." Queen Mab said and her will beat the air so strongly that Draco felt himself hit the floor, head bowed, even as his occulmency shields locked down hard to keep the madness in her voice from driving him to follow her in depopulating Ravenclaw tower.
Luna alone seemed unaffected. She reached over and stroked the bronze sword in Mab's hand, and blood flowed from Luna's hand.
Smiling, she wove it in the air, like she so often wove flower crowns from the flowers she took from Nevilles ever growing greenhouses, only this crown was made not of flowers, but thorns.
As Luna wove, she sang to the thorns, weaving the rune poem of Thurizaz, the thorn rune into something between a charm and a rune stave, she wove her blood into a crown of thorns made from interlocking runes made of her own charmed blood, and wove into it all Luna's hopes for Mab's protection. Luna sang of her desire that her friends never be harmed, never be bound, never be afraid, and her magic and intent wove into the crown. The power of Fairy was wild in the night, this close to Yule the powers of the fairy ran wild and dark, and both loved the magic of blood far too well not to answer Luna's call. Mab found her own magic answering, and almost without thinking, she joined her voice to Luna's, her magic to Luna's. Draco let his shields fall as he realized Luna did not have power enough to finish the work she had started, as far beyond her alone as lifting Hagrid with her arms would be.
Draco joined his voice and his magic to the working, and as he sank his magic into Luna's blood he felt his own blood answering. He had the chance to resist, but he could not both resist and still have the power to finish the working before Luna gave her life to the spell rather than let it fail. Luna's mother had been one of the handful of witches given the right to experiment with charms, and she had died in such an act of spell creation, for magic was never without cost. The greatest magics always demanded sacrifice, and Luna, like her mother, would deny magic nothing.
Draco let himself be bound to her blood, as he tried with the pouring of the last of his magic, to at least bind Luna to life. There was a rush of magic from Hogwarts itself, the Cauldron of Dagda itself rang like a deep bell whose voice sang in the stones of the castle, and the magic of Hogwarts answered. The wash of the magics of stone and rock, water and wave, fire and hearth, storm and sky washed at the blood crown and rooted it deeper in both magic and reality than the working of witch and Fairy alone could weave, and it was done.
Luna stood, and being of much lesser stature than Queen Mab, the Queen was forced to sheathe her sword and sit to be crowned. Luna placed the Blood Crown upon the head of Queen Mab, and its magic sang to hers, and hers to it, as the Queen of Air and Darkness was crowned in blood by the least beloved daughter of Ravenclaw in the heart of winter's darkness.
Queen Mab laughed, and the Fairies of this most dangerous of all tea parties laughed with her. The Queen bowed her head to Luna.
"Very well, little Ravenclaw. I will not slaughter them for their crime. Still, you have given me a very great gift, and crowned me with a great and terrible power. I cannot allow myself to be bound by such a debt. A gift for a gift is the way." Queen Mab said, her smile was terrible to behold, but Luna smiled back happily.
Queen Mab turned to the black cat, far closer to the size of a panther than a normal cat, and whispered to it. "Cat Sith, mighty hunter. Find in this place a crown fit for a Ravenclaw, a crown fit to match the Blood Crown I am gifted, a crown fit to answer for the blood that was taken this night."
The cat that had been growling since the hunt for blood and vengeance had been called off perked up at that, and as he bolted through the castle, Draco could feel the dark and savage joy that filled it. Whatever gift Cat Sith sought, would be more terrible in its way than the slaughter he had been denied.
"Draco?" He came back to himself when he heard his name. Draco turned and looked to see Luna holding out a muffin cleverly made to resemble a human heart. Only Luna would find a way to bake muffins that looked like a human heart freshly ripped from the chest because it made her tea party guests happy.
It was a sign of how much these tea parties were taking out of him that Draco bowed his assent, and took a muffin that to all outer respects looked like a human heart. Yes, Draco shuddered, it had been charmed to beat.
He bit into the human heart and while his gorge tried to rise as hot red liquid thick as blood entered his mouth, he found himself moaning in pleasure. Strawberry tart, hot as blood, thick and sweet, with the "flesh" of the heart being red velvet cake.
House Slytherin would crown Luna their queen or run in terror before her if they knew she baked enchanted muffins like beating human hearts that surpassed the best strawberry tart Dobby or the Hogwarts elves had ever made. Draco would sell his soul for tarts like these, if he wasn't sure a Malfoy's soul barely rated a cookie. Good thing he was stinking rich and good looking. There would indeed be other muffins.
Draco was so lost in his third muffin, ignoring the two very different smiles from Luna and Mab at the look of his red stained lips and chin as he feasted on beating human heart/muffins, he missed the return of Cat Sith and its prize.
In the Come and Go Room, the Room of Lost Things, Ravenclaw's diadem had been hidden by Lord Voldemort all those years ago when he returned to ask for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts from Dumbledore. The Room of Lost Things was where things went when they were lost at Hogwarts, but things that were lost in Hogwarts could not be found. No magic that summoned or searched could find them. The Room of Lost Things did not accept the magic of finding things. No, this room was about loss and loss alone.
Cat Sith was the mightiest hunter of Fairy and as any creature of Fairy, he knew the old bargains. He knew the darkest workings of magic and nightmare, of madness and pain. Cat Sith was cat beyond all other cats, he delighted in the fear and suffering of his prey far more than the simple kill, and he delighted in the kill.
Cat Sith called to the Ravenclaw diadem with magic it could not deny, for he called it not to be found, but tempted it with what could yet be lost.
Innocence, sanity, control, hope, immortality, and lives, oh my yes, the potential for death and deaths of such exquisite horror that Cat Sith almost drooled were in his call, and the Horcrux corrupted diadem of Ravenclaw, mightiest mind witch of her or any other age, heard and answered.
Running back to his Queen's side, he dropped it in her hand. The corruption and darkness of the greatest Dark Wizard since Grindelwald was nothing to the inhuman soul of Cat Sith, and less to the Queen of Air and Darkness, yet to any human it would be mind and soul destroying.
Voldemort's most bitter failure, the Diadem of Ravenclaw focused the mind of the wearer tenfold, giving it's intent and will a power beyond all human limits. The manipulation of mental magics, the manipulation of the unreal in the act of transformation, the weaving of the unreal to bend and bind reality itself in spatial magics were all magnified, but with his soul severed, and a fragment of his soul forever trapped screaming, its rage and hatred magnified by the diadem tenfold, to place the diadem upon his own head would be to lose himself to madness that left him incapable of anything save burning himself out as he slaughtered and raged beyond control until the magics he channeled either burned him out, or left no world for him to stand on.
A weapon he could not wield, and dared not destroy. Voldemort lost it in the place where nothing could be found, and only the prospect of a far greater loss drew it out again. Draco was too slow, too terribly slow. For all his Seeker's reflexes, he was just a mortal boy, and some things are simply too terrible to face and not be shocked, if only for a moment.
Queen Mab placed the Diadem of Ravenclaw upon Luna Lovegood's brow, the Seer of the Unreal, the girl who lives forever in the shadow between reality and chaos, in the heart of the darkest part of the year, was crowned by the Queen of Air and Darkness with the Diadem of Ravenclaw, corrupted and empowered by the soul of Lord Voldemort.
With fairy magic unleashed and empowered, grown mad and potent beyond reason with the magic of Hogwarts, soaked so very deep in the stone that the castle forced itself to exist in both reality and unreality, a mind that wove chaos as easily as her fingers wove flower stems was gifted the power to twist space and time, matter and energy, and had every humiliation and pain of her life laid bare before the tenfold rage of Lord Voldemort, long lost to the pain of his self inflicted soul torment.
Luna blazed in a ghostly light that lit her flesh from within. Her voice sang in unholy harmonies that wove through realities that were, are, could be, must never be, and blasted from existence at her voice.
"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Diadem freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"
She lifted up her hands and from the Diadem that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Draco seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. " Luna said, and reality trembled at her voice.
The Silver Lady cried out in horror. "MOTHER NO!"
Turning to the Silver Lady, the ghost of Rowena Ravenclaws only daughter, Luna smiled.
"It is time I reclaimed my tower, and took back what was mine."
Draco fell to the floor, blood streaming from his nose, tears from his eyes as power flowed back into him, the magical exhaustion of before banished, and his magical core screaming as power ten times what he could hold tore through his body and his mind. He was dying, on some level he processed this, but that was not important. Not yet. Not now.
"Luna no!" He called out, reaching towards her.
She caressed his hand as she passed, but would not look upon him. A single tear fell down from her face, and burned like a star as it fell to the floor to solidify into a diamond that burned with its own light.
Walking past Draco, she strode to the doors of Ravenclaw tower, where her less than loving dorm mates had woven a ward in her own blood to rip all of her blood from her should she attempt to pass.
With the Diadem of Ravenclaw upon her head, and the power of the Unreal beating at the walls of reality, demanding to be let in, Luna stepped forward.
Blood exploded from her body, soaking her robes until she was clad in a gown of flowing scarlet blood. She took her wand from behind her ear, and flicked at the door, and the stone warded by one of the Founding Four was ripped out and scattered before her.
Lisa Turpin and Cho Chang stared at Luna. Cho finally shouted out. "That is impossible, you cannot be here. You aren't strong enough to break a blood ward!"
Luna stopped and smiled, it was not a cruel smile, in and of itself, just wild and strange. Her voice was airy, almost bemused as Luna answered softly.
"I was always strong enough. I was always strong enough to do everything but make you care, but now I don't anymore, so that is alright. You always had it backwards. No that's not right. You had it upside down.
I was never less than you, for you to trample on. I was always greater than you, so very worried that you would break if I wasn't careful.
Now I see though. I can't fix any of you if you are upside down. If I cannot fix you in this upside down world, I will have to fix it."
Luna began to chant words that Lisa and Cho could not understand. They cast disarmament, then stunning, then blasting, then magic cancelling charms to the limit of their power again and again, but Luna ignored them.
Luna sang to the universe, because she knew it was wrong. Up was down, down was up, right was wrong, and the world simply didn't have enough screaming.
Laughing softly, she began to set Ravenclaw tower right.
Dumbledore cried out, McGonagall as his deputy fell as well, lesser in connection and power both, as the whole of Ravenclaw tower was ripped from the castle and inverted to hang upside down above the highest spire, the magics of the wards twisting and churning space, time, magic, and reality in ways that Dumbledore had to tear his eyes and mind away from lest he be lost in them.
Filius Flitwick was bound to Ravenclaw Tower in ways those not of the House would not understand. The Master of the Tower of Eagles was bound to his tower and his charges by the intent woven into the very stones of the Tower by Rowena Ravenclaw herself. Those bound to the stones as master of her House could not be free of their duty while they lived. Her daughter failed in that duty and was bound to the tower even dead.
Filius Flitwick had done his best to always be true to his charges, loving the difficult and moody House of Eagles, even though its endless creativity and bright minds were often so consumed by competition that they turned on themselves in ways others expected only of Slytherin. He loved his house, but he knew it. Half goblin in the tower himself growing up, too bright to ignore, to obviously inhuman to accept, he knew full well the feeling of the Eagles claws on those the house could neither ignore nor accept. He had failed to find a way other than fear to end his own bullying, but he never stopped trying.
He saw through the charms he had woven into the common room the coming of Luna Lovegood, clad in a gown of her own blood, tears of pain and rejection on her face, along with a soft dreamy smile that said she had found a way to set everything right.
He saw Luna stretch out her hand, and turn Cho Chang and Lisa Turpin into the monsters they had chosen to be with Luna. She reshaped their flesh and their minds with a wave of her wand, but left them the awareness of the humanity they had lost so they could gibber and howl in fear as they fled before her. First of the Ravenclaws to encounter the Seer of the Unreal as she ascended to her throne.
The Inverted Tower had been taken.
The Seer of the Unreal had claimed her throne, and all of Ravenclaw would look upon her in love and terror as she showed the tower of the wise all that was hidden in the universe. She filled their minds with the knowledge that humanity was not ever meant to know, and the tower of eagles and ravens sang with screams and laughter as the would be wise drank from the knowledge of the seer and were unmade by it.
A lone boy stood, wiping his nose from the blood that continued to pour, and idly wondered why that didn't' seem to bother him.
"Broom. I need my broom. Can't really do anything stupid and heroic without a broom." Draco muttered.
As the assembled witches and wizards worked great and powerful arts to attempt to undo the magics that stole a tower, to reach the innocent students of Ravenclaw tower, one boy sought out a broom with a sneer on his face and a chant on his lips.
"Idiot, idiot, idiot. Mother is going to murder me if I live. She is going to murder me twice if I die. Stupid Gryffindorish nonsense." Draco was muttering as he shoved past Professor Dumbledore and Flitwick to jump out the shattered stone where the base of Ravenclaw tower ought to be.
The blood from his nose was now falling upward, which he suppose shouldn't surprise him. He juped onto his broom, and managed to dodge both Dumbledore and Flitwick's attempts to bind and summon him back, which did surprise him for a bit.
"Mister Malfoy, I cannot allow you to risk your life just to save those innocent students." Dumbledore said in his most commanding grandfatherly tone. Malfoy's grandfather Abraxis Malfoy, had bought his way out of a death sentence for crimes committed under Grindewald, so it didn't have quite the same effect on Draco.
"I'm not a hero to save innocents. I'm a bloody dragon. I'm off to save the wicked witch."
Draco thought if he was to have a line to put on his tombstone, it should be one of his own, not Dumbledore's light headed idiocy.
He didn't mind dying so much as being remembered as a hero.
Following his blood as it twisted and flowed through skies that flowed through wonders and horrors of worlds that might be, should be, once were, or he seriously freaking hope never came to pass, he followed a rainbow covered with dancing bunnies through a lake of blood where babies tore each other apart in endless canabalistic fury, across a dance floor where two figures spun in a dance Draco almost recognized.
There was a black high collared dress with threads of silver and red woven through it so the deep black swirled always with hints of darkness and blood. No one was in it, yet the trailing gossamer fabric was filled out as if someone was, and the figure was familiar.
The suit that danced with the gown was green and silver, with a half cloak of blood red over one shoulder and a great goblin silver sword at his hip.
His blood seemed to flow into the suited figure, so in a move so stupid it had to be the answer Draco turned his broom into a dive and slammed himself through the dancing male figure.
Reality shuddered as a hand of blood far larger than a giant reached out and seemed to snatch Draco Malfoy from existence.
Minerva McGonagall whispered. "Albus, is he dead?"
Professor Dumbledore sighed. "I fear so Minerva. The Hogwarts wards have just informed me that I have lost a student."
Filius Flitwich felt his hands white knuckle on the wand that had failed him at last, for no magic of his would get him into the tower, or pull his student's out. At last, he had a shred of hope.
"You are incorrect Headmaster." Spoke Professor Flitwick in a goblin growl.
Dumbledore frowned, unwilling to accept any criticism of his own magic, or supremacy in connection to the Hogwarts wards and magic.
"How so, Filius?" Dumbledore asked softly.
Flitwick glared up at Dumbledore. "Do not so readily write off Mr Malfoy. My own wards tell me there is an intruder in Ravenclaw tower, and a boy in the girl's dormitory."
Three of the most powerful and knowledgeable mages of Europe looked upon the inverted tower of Ravenclaw and the twisted space that bent all magic and reality to hang both before their eyes, and beyond all reach and sighed.
Whatever happened, it would be beyond the power of anyone outside the tower to affect.