Yours, Luna Lovegood

Sight

Hermoine stood stiffly in the entryway to No. 4 1/2 Privet Drive, enveloped in Luna Lovegood's tight embrace. She wore a half-awkward smile and couldn't help but laugh as she returned her embrace with a quick squeeze and three soft pats, communicating without words "It's nice to meet you" as much as "Okay, we're done now."

Luna released her reluctantly, pulled back, and smiled with wide eyes.

At this, Harry stepped in. "Let me show you around."

He paraded her through the living room, potions lab, and dining room. The tour ground to a screeching halt as soon as they stepped into the library.

"Oh, Harry..." Hermoine spoke softly after a sharp intake of breath. "It's perfect."

There was no use pushing her along. For the next half hour, Hermoine languidly perused the floor-to ceiling shelves, here and there pulling ancient tomes and softly thumbing through titles with affectionate hums. After she'd traced the outer walls a second time, Harry called her name playfully; at last the enchantment broke.

"Oh! Right. Sorry." She smiled bashfully.

After a quick run through his loft, Harry led them back down the stairs to the living room. Luna took a seat directly next to Harry on the near side of the overstuffed, crimson red sofa. Hermione sat directly across from them in one of the leather wingbacks.

"You mentioned, Harry, that something had come up. It sounded urgent, and I've already wasted nearly an hour gushing over your library."

"Right." Harry hesitated for just a moment, then gathered himself. "We have reason to believe that in three days I'll be attacked by two dementors in an alleyway of Little Whinging."

Hermione's face was unreadable. "What reason?"

Harry stumbled. "I'm sorry. What?"

Hermione blinked. "Apologies. I meant, what reason do you have to believe that two dementors will attack you in an alleyway in Little Whinging?"

Harry began to respond, then hesitated. At this, Luna leaned into him, wrapping his left arm over her shoulder and lacing her fingers through his left hand. She held a steady, piercing gaze. With furrowed brow and trembling chin she spoke, her voice just breaking.

"I saw it. I'm a seer, Hermione. I saw the dementors attack, and I saw Harry bound and arrested by two Aurors, and I saw him stand before a divided Wizengamot."

For a moment nothing happened. Then the air in the room shifted, and everything was still, and it was suddenly cooler.

The slightest lift of Hermione's left eyebrow, and nothing beyond this, exhibited a restraint of which Harry did not know her capable.

"You... saw it?" She exerted every energy to withhold judgment.

Luna nodded.

"Okay. Um. Okay." Hermione gathered herself. "I'm not terribly familiar with..."

"Sight." Luna explained, her voice adopting a vague distance and melody. "The sight has been passed from mother to daughter in my family for over twenty generations. There has never been, at any known point, more than two seers in Britain, or more than seven in the world. You've been told that Professor Trawleney has the sight, but she doesn't. The sight always passes within a family, from mother to daughter, and only ever at the mother's passing. My mother died six years ago, and that's when the sight passed to me."

Hermione was watching, evaluating. She took a breath. "So you can... you see the future?"

Luna shook her head. "It isn't as simple as that. I have no control over the sight. It comes to me, sometimes. My mother told me that the frequency and duration increases with age, and I'm an especially young seer. But sometimes, seemingly at random, my experience of the world around me fades altogether, and for a time I see what will happen. And I know, with absolute certainty, that it will happen. And I know precisely when it will happen. And it has always happened, Hermione, exactly as I saw it, every single time."