Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter four: Genesis

"I'm sure," Luna had replied.

"Breathe, Luna," Ginny said in the present moment. The red-headed witch grasped Luna's hand in her own, and Luna felt a surge of gratefulness at her presence.

Less than an hour later, the process no doubt sped along by Madam Pomfrey's skilled Healer magic, Luna heard a cry and Madame Pomfrey said, "Well done, my dear, you've done it!"

Luna collapsed backwards into her pillows, sweating even with the pain-killing potion and Madam Pomfrey's attentive care and assistance. The nurse busily inspected the crying baby, waving her wand over it, cleaning it up. Then Madam Pomfrey wrapped the child in a blanket, calming its cries, and crossed to Luna. Luna easily found the energy to sit up again, and Ginny leaned forward expectantly as Madam Pomfrey laid the swaddled infant in Luna's arms.

The moment Luna laid eyes on her baby, the world seemed to stop. Tears budded along her lower eyelids then freely fell down her cheeks, dripping onto the child's blanket. The softest black curls were sprinkled across the baby's scalp and enormous grey eyes stared up out of a tiny face. Luna's heart felt it would nearly explode. All the fears and doubts that had plagued her pregnancy fell away. In that moment, it seemed that everything in her entire life had brought her to here, to hold her child, to protect her child, to love her child.

"Congratulations," Madam Pomfrey said. "You've had a daughter."

Ginny was grinning uncontrollably. "Luna, she's lovely. She has your eyes."

Luna felt she had lost the ability to speak, and she was unable to tear her eyes away from her daughter's face. The baby made the smallest noise, and Luna's heart swelled even further.

"What will you name her, my dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked, discreetly wiping away a tear.

Without missing a beat, the name came to her, and Luna found her voice again, saying softly, "Violetta." She had not decided on names ahead of time, but looking at her daughter now, there seemed to be no other name possible.

"Violetta Lovegood," Madam Pomfrey said, then moved to write it down on the magical birth certificate she had prepared. "Born the thirty-first of October, at thirteen minutes to nine o'clock in the evening, in the year 1998. Mother, Luna Pandora Lovegood. Father, unknown. A middle name, my dear?"

Luna hesitated. "No. No middle name."

Later that night, after Ginny had gone to send owls to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville then off to bed, and Madam Pomfrey had retired to her private quarters, Luna bent low over the cot in which Violetta lay sleeping. She watched the infant's tiny chest rise and fall. She counted ten fingers and thumbs on her two little hands, with the littlest of nails. Luna brushed a hand along her daughter's head, touching the soft black hair there, then touched one of the baby's hands. In her sleep, Violetta grasped her mother's finger with the hand, closing around the end of Luna's finger.

A smile came to Luna's face. She supposed there was nothing in the entire world, not a magical creature proven to exist or otherwise, which was as astonishingly unbelievable as her daughter. "You're my universe," she whispered, and Violetta slept soundly, as though she already knew.

•

Caractacus Burke smoothed his greasy hair back and peered at the young man standing before him on the opposite side of the shop counter. Burke glanced down at the parchment again. "You want to work here?" he finally said suspiciously.