If you see her out there, climbing the wall,
trying to get away,
tell her she can't escape.
Whole damn world is a cage.
See Her Out (That's Just Life) - Francis and the Lights
•
Luna sat across from a very old Peruvian witch named Elena. This was Luna's eleventh time visiting with Elena, and she was quite fond of the woman. Elena was a descendent of Incas, coming from a long, powerfully magical line, her ancestry dating back to the shaman who served Viracocha, the Sapa Inca of the early 15th century. She had grown up outside of Cusco and had been educated at Castelbruxo, and she was one of the few people alive who knew both modern magic as well inheriting the secrets of the traditional magic of her ancestors. Her branch of expertise happened to be soul-magic. She had made an immediate judgement of Luna's character upon their first meeting, and, over the course of their visits, taught Luna all she knew about the Inca concept of soul-splitting, something that could occur when the soul experienced a number of different traumas. Their last few visits had been devoted to Elena's explanation of the ritual of soul-retrieval.
"The process of uniting the soul can be very painful, and without guidance, without assistance, a person may not survive it," Elena explained. "It all depends, you see. It depends on what it was that split the soul, if it was intentional or otherwise. And what was the intent? Those who have split the soul with evil intent are the least likely of all to survive, for they have committed a crime against the very soul itself, and to heal such a grievous injury is the most painful experience known. And understand this, girl," the old woman said, raising a finger, "the soul-owner must want to be restored. If they do not, you may as well shout from the top of Huayna Picchu and hope they hear you in Cusco."
Luna found her sessions with Elena to be of great professional and personal interest, and it didn't hurt that Elena also happened to be one of the cleverest and kindest witches Luna had ever met.
They were in Elena's home, sitting at her scrubbed wooden table. Violetta crawled under the table, keeping herself entertained with Elena's little black Goeldi's marmoset, who was equally fascinated by the little girl and chittered with happiness every time his and Violetta's hands touched. Doyle Huxley stood guard outside the front door, pacing back and forth.
"We're leaving soon," Luna told Elena. "I'm afraid I will miss you a great deal. Thank you for everything you've shown me."
"Of course, of course," Elena said, waving a hand, speaking in heavily accented but otherwise perfect English. "You are a good girl; you will take care of our knowledge, I know it. I will miss you, and also your beautiful daughter. Thank you for spending some time with an old woman; you have brought me a great deal of joy."
"And you to me."
"I will keep an eye out for this Umgubular Slashkilter you suspect might be around this area."
Luna smiled lightly. "If you do see one, let me know. I would be most interested."
Elena eyed Luna critically for a moment. "Don't doubt yourself, girl."
"I..." Luna's voice faded out as she considered what she wanted to say. "I suppose it's just that I rather doubt you will see an Umgubular Slashkilter. There was a time when I would have been quite sure of it, but now I'm not sure at all. It's possible I'm just learning there are things that simply don't exist, but I feel as if I am losing a part of myself, that I'm losing my faith."
"I haven't known you for long, but what I see is not a girl who has lost her faith. You believe everything I tell you, don't you? Perhaps you just have found better things to believe in. Perhaps you find the world extraordinary enough already."
A squeal of laughter came from under the table, and Violetta went running out on her little legs with the monkey following behind her. The little girl then ran up to Luna's side, pulling on the sleeve of her sweater. "Chase!" she told her mother, before running off again with the marmoset in close pursuit. Luna watched her daughter with a smile, the faintest echo of an ache in her heart.
"You see him in her, don't you? You still are so broken-hearted over the little girl's father?" Elena asked shrewdly.
Luna's smile faded a bit. "Yes. I think I might always be. He was very important to me." She had never spoken about Tom with Elena, but she knew it was pointless to lie to the woman. She was far too astute, and Luna far too poor a liar.
Elena nodded, then held out her ancient hands across the table, gesturing for Luna to take them. Once Luna had done so, she gently squeezed Luna's hands. "That's alright, that's alright. That means you loved him with your soul. Remember your strengths, girl."
The old woman's eyes fell shut and she began swaying almost imperceptibly back and forth. Luna knew what she was doing, as Elena had done it several times before now, and had even taken the time to teach Luna how to do it herself. But she was still moved when the light appeared, streaming steady and white off of each of them, as if each of their individual atoms were the tiniest beacon of soul-stuff. The faintest barrier was present between their two energies, where one of them ended and the other began.
Elena opened her eyes and smiled at Luna. "Your soul. You have a good, strong one. You will do just fine."
•
Back at their temporary home, Doyle offered to take Luna's cloak upstairs for her, as Violetta was repeatedly insisting she was hungry, even though she had just eaten quite a bit at Elena's house. Luna handed Doyle her cloak gratefully, and he disappeared up the stairs to put it in her room for her.
She prepared some food for Violetta, who promptly began refusing to eat as soon as she sat down at the table. "Play, Mummy," she said sullenly, pushing the plate away from her.
"Violetta, you said you were hungry," Luna said, propping her tired head on her hand.
"Violetta's not hungry," the girl argued.
"I've prepared all this food for you, and now you don't want it."
Violetta paused, frowning at her mother. For a moment, she was all Tom, and Luna was fairly sure a tantrum was on its way. Instead, Violetta reached out a hand, grasped a single handful of food from the plate in front of her, and shoved it into her mouth. "All done?" she asked, mouth full.
A laugh bubbled up inside Luna. She stroked Violetta's hair. "Yes, very well, a valiant effort. You can be all done."
Just as Violetta ran off to play, Doyle cleared his throat from the doorway. "She's funny," he said as Luna looked up. "Real sweet, real smart. Didn't want to hurt your feelings."
"She is," Luna agreed.
"Got quite the temper on her too, hasn't she?" Doyle said, sitting down at the table across from Luna.
Luna tilted her head to the side. "Yes. I do apologize again that she shattered your Sneakoscope the other day when you took it back from her."
"No worries, Miss Lovegood, it wasn't an expensive one. I wonder where she got that from, though."
"What do you mean?" Luna asked.
"Well, surely it wasn't from you," Doyle explained. "I've never seen you get mad, Miss Lovegood. Must've come from her father, I suppose."
Luna stared at him steadily, assessing what he meant. The young Auror met her gaze for a few seconds, then dropped his eyes to the table, where he twiddled his fingers. Doyle wasn't supposed to know who Violetta's father was; it had been under the condition of secrecy that Kingsley had permitted a non-Order member to be her bodyguard. "Yes, I suppose so," Luna said after a moment.
"Sorry, Miss Lovegood. I wasn't meaning to pry."
"It's fine, Doyle," she said benignly, though she still watching him without blinking. "We should discuss the moving plans, since we leave the day after tomorrow for London."
•
In the early hours of the morning after putting Violetta to bed that night, hardly much after midnight, Luna awoke suddenly to a sharp pain in her left hand. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she realized that Othello had bitten her, something he had never done before, and he was now staring at her, his fur on end, eyes reflecting the faint moonlight in the room.
Immediately sensing the Kneazle's signals, Luna found herself wide awake. She listened to the quiet house intently. At first she heard nothing - then the unmistakable sounds of movement downstairs, of someone trying not to be heard.
Terror rose like bile inside Luna's throat in a way she had only known since becoming a mother.
Luna scrambled out of bed as quietly as possible. She crossed stealthily to the door and cracked it open to listen better. The moment the door was open, Othello darted out into the hall and disappeared into the dark, much to Luna's distress, though she dared not make a sound to stop him. It sounded as though there were potentially several people downstairs. Where was Doyle?
She tiptoed back across the room to where her cloak hung on a hook by the window. She plunged her hand into the pocket, reaching for her Dumbledore's Army coin to call her friends to her aid - but it wasn't there. Heart thudding so loudly she worried they would hear it all the way downstairs, she quickly reached into the other pocket, still finding no coin. She double-checked both pockets, knowing she had had it in her cloak when she went to Elena's earlier that day - and then she knew. Doyle had brought her cloak upstairs. Doyle had betrayed them.
Grabbing the robes she had taken off earlier, she pulled them on over her pajamas, her purse of Galleons inside the pocket, slipping her shoes on as quickly as possible, knowing she might need them if she had to run. She had just picked up her wand when there was a great commotion downstairs, as a horrible screaming sound broke the silence of the house, followed immediately by shouts of pain. It sounded as though Othello had attacked the intruders while caterwauling.
Violetta awoke from all the racket and started crying, afraid. Luna picked her up and held her in one arm, her wand in the other. Crossing to the window, Luna tried to open it only to find it enchanted shut. Unlocking charms did not work, and when she tried to shatter it with a spell shot from her wand, the spell bounced right off the magically-enhanced glass and struck the opposite wall with a bang. Doyle had clearly thought of all of these things ahead of time.
There was still a great deal of noise coming from downstairs. The intruders, knowing their cover had been blown by the Kneazle, were no longer trying to be quiet at all, and were instead yelling and sending spells back and forth, no doubt trying to curse Othello.
Crossing the room to the door again, Luna flung it wide open and hurried down the hall with Violetta in her arms. She crouched down low as she approached the stairs, though with Violetta crying, she was sure the intruders knew exactly where she was. In the dark, it was difficult to see what was going on, but there were several dark shapes in the main room, and when spells lit the room with flashes of light, Luna could make out several Death Eater masks.
Terrified, but knowing they had no way out upstairs, Luna began down the stairs, hoping she could make it to the door and escape.
"Dammit, you're hitting me!" cried one of the Death Eaters as he was hit by a jinx that was aimed at Othello. From what Luna could tell, the Kneazle was leaping from Death Eater to Death Eater at high speed, inflicting as much damage as possible with his teeth and claws before bounding to the next to avoid being struck by any spells.
One of the Death Eaters' dark shapes broke from the rest of the group, bobbing around the edge of the room towards Luna and Violetta. "Crucio!" cried the Death Eater, a female voice - Bellatrix.
Luna dropped to the ground just in time for the Curse to go whizzing over her head. Bellatrix was now between Luna and Violetta and the door. Another Death Eater seemed to have noticed Luna was downstairs, and he pointed his wand towards her as well. Unable to properly fight back with her child in her arms, Luna began to retreat back up the steps, trying to stay low to avoid being hit. She was halfway up the steps when a hand closed around her ankle, pulling her down, her elbow thumping painfully on one of the steps.
"You will not get away this time," Bellatrix panted, holding tightly to Luna's leg even as Luna tried to kick free. "That child does not belong to you."
Upon seeing Bellatrix's mask up close, Violetta shrieked ever louder. Some invisible force seemed to hit Bellatrix in the chest extremely hard, causing her to topple down the stairs, letting go of Luna in the process.
"Well done, my love," Luna muttered to Violetta, scrambling back to her feet and rushing up the rest of the stairs.
Othello was still doing his best to keep the Death Eaters at bay, but another one now barged up the stairs after Luna and Violetta. Once at the top the staircase, Luna pointed at it and whispered, "Glisseo!" The Death Eater on the stairs face-planted and slid downwards as the staircase transformed into a smooth slide underneath his feet.
Rushing back into their bedroom, Luna pushed the door partially shut behind her. She had bought herself precious moments with the slide trick, but now what? As adrenaline pumped through her veins and Violetta wailed in her ear, Luna was briefly at a loss and felt as trapped and hopeless as an animal in a cage. Her bodyguard had betrayed her. He knew the house, all the windows would be like the one in this room. She could not Apparate out, due to his anti-Apparition spells placed under the guise of her protection. He had even taken her D.A. coin. She had no help, and she could not get out. She could not get Violetta out.
An idea flashed like lightning in her mind. Skidding to a stop in front of her trunk, she sat Violetta on the ground and ripped the trunk open. Tearing through her things, throwing them across the room, she found the Time-Turner.
On her knees, she gathered Violetta into her arms. "Othello!" Luna cried, praying the Kneazle would hear her and make it to them in time. She could hear the Death Eaters slamming up the staircase; she wasn't sure if they had reversed her spell, or if they were clumsily scaling the slide, but it didn't matter; they would be there soon.
Suddenly, a flash of grey darted into the room through the crack in the door as Othello appeared, his lion tail flying behind him. He bounded into Luna's lap and immediately began to nuzzle Violetta's cheeks, wiping away her fearful tears with his furry head.
Luna lifted the chain of the Time-Turner to enclose all three of them in it together, then wrapped her arms around her family. She hesitated for a split-second as she stared at the little hourglass, terrified of going back in time, of what awaited her in the past. A loud blast echoed in the hall, then the door was blown off its hinges, revealing several masked Death Eaters. Violetta wailed louder and buried her face into Luna's shoulder, and Luna had no more time to think as one of the Death Eaters raised their wand - she sent the hourglass spinning on its axle.
The Death Eaters filling her vision suddenly began dissolving, and Luna, with her daughter and her Kneazle, were suddenly ripped backward in time. Othello's claws dug into Luna's skin, and Violetta seemed to be shrieking louder than ever, though Luna could not hear it as the sound disappeared into time as soon as it left her mouth.
Luna had been kneeling when she used the Time-Turner, and when the three of them suddenly arrived in the past, the ground met her knees painfully, and she toppled over, rolling quickly with Violetta and Othello in her arms to avoid landing on them. Her back instead landed in something very cold and wet, and Luna gasped for air to steady herself, realizing her eyes were shut tightly.
After several deep breaths to slow her racing heart somewhat, Luna began to take stock of what was going on around her. Water was falling steadily on her face - rain, it was raining, and rather hard. Violetta was still crying. Luna opened her eyes, blinking away the raindrops, and forced herself to sit up. She released her death grip on Othello, as he was now struggling to stand on his own. He hopped off her lap to look around, but stayed by her side. She began murmuring comforting words to Violetta to calm her with only minimal success and peered around herself.
It was nighttime, dark out, and the rain had been persisting long enough to allow large puddles to form in the cobblestone alleyway. A cold wind whipped along the alleyway past them, fluttering Luna's robes. No one else seemed to be around. To her immediate left was a store with a sign over it that read Tallow and Hemp Toxic Tapers; to her right, a large shop named Borgin and Burkes with what appeared to be a mutated skull in the front window. Luna shivered, wishing she had had time to put on a cloak as goosebumps broke out across her skin and the cold water seeped through her clothes, chilling her to the bone.
Dropping kisses into Violetta's hair, Luna stood up from the ground, wrapping Violetta under her robes to try to keep her out of the rain. Glancing around, she spotted a narrow staircase leading off the alley, with a dingy, dark looking pub partway up the stairs. A worn wooden sign hanging out front advertised the pub as The White Wyvern. Gathering herself, Luna hurried up the steps towards the pub with Othello at her heels.
Blessedly, the pub's door was unlocked, though Luna had no idea what time of night it was. Luna, Violetta, and Othello spilled through the door, Luna pulling the door shut against the rain behind them, then stood dripping inside, the wind howling menacingly just beyond the door.
It was not much lighter inside than it was out in the night, the only light coming from three dim, cobwebbed lamps hanging above the bar to the right. The front of the bar was lined with moth-eaten stools, and behind it were shelves of dusty, dark bottles with rather ominous-looking labels, none of which Luna was particularly interested in trying. To the left were several small wooden tables with chairs around them, though they were all empty at the moment. A narrow, misshapen staircase led upstairs in the back corner, and behind the bar was the pub's current only occupant. The barman was a short, thin wizard, hardly taller than Luna herself, with a bald head, leathery skin as though he had spent far too much time in the sun, and an enormous grey mustache. When she entered, he watched her with suspicious brown eyes.
"We don't allow beasts in here," he said in a reedy voice, pointing a crooked finger towards Othello, who had begun grooming the water out of his fur at Luna's feet.
"I'm sorry, sir," Luna said, bowing, eliciting a look of surprise from the barman. "I was just wondering - please, is there someplace where we could stay for the night?"
The elderly barman eyed her, taking in her dripping hair, her face that betrayed her desperation, and Violetta, who was still hiccupping and sniffling quietly in upset, her black curls just peeking out of Luna's robes where she was wrapped protectively. He seemed to teeter on the edge of a decision, then frowned when he appeared to have made one. "I have a room upstairs that I rent out at times. It's nothin' fancy, mind you, but it's a far sight better than sleeping out on the street. Your little beast can stay with you, but it's not to come down to my pub, you hear?"
"I would very much appreciate it, sir," Luna said gratefully.
The barman pursed his lips at her, saying nothing in response, and tottered out from behind the bar. He beckoned her to follow with an arthritic hand as he moved towards the narrow staircase at the back of the pub. Luna followed, gesturing to Othello to come with them.
Up the stairs was a dark hallway, numerous crates piled up haphazardly on either side, exacerbating the general claustrophobia of the building. The barman lead her along the hallway, walking along the faded rug that ran the length of it. "This is my office, and this is my private quarters," he said, pointing to the first two rooms along the hall, "and you're to go in neither. The toilet's through there, and it's the only one besides the one for customers, so we'll be sharing family-like. And this will be where you'll be staying, then." They had stopped outside the fourth and final black wooden door along the hall, with an ancient brass knob. The barman pushed the door open, then reached in his pocket to pull out his wand. With a wave, he lit the lamp hanging from the ceiling.
The light revealed a small bedroom, sparse and clearly rarely used. The bed sat on a heavy, carved wooden bedframe with old yellowed sheets. A small wooden desk sat in one corner, a full-length mirror with grimy glass in the other. The walls were covered in peeling wallpaper in a brocade pattern of black and dark green, and long thick curtains were pulled closed over the only window, lending a cave-like feeling to the space.
Luna turned to the barman. "It's lovely, it's perfect. Thank you so much. What do I owe you?"
The barman blinked, obviously having expected a less enthusiastic reaction. "Six Sickles per night."
Finding her money pouch in the pocket of her robes, Luna counted out the appropriate coins and pressed them into the barman's hand. "I'm Luna Lovegood, by the way."
Pocketing the coins, the barman gruffed, "Lazarus." At that moment, Violetta gave another sniffle, drawing Lazarus' eyes. Then he turned back to the room, viewing it critically under wild grey eyebrows. "I suppose you'll need...." He waved his wand again, and the bedside table suddenly was Transfigured into a cot for Violetta. He turned to go.
"Lazarus," Luna said, causing him to look back at her. "One last thing - do you have a copy of today's Daily Prophet I may have?"
"Accio newspaper," Lazarus said, pointing his wand towards the staircase at the end of the hall. A moment later, the newspaper zoomed up the stairs, down the hall, and into his hand. He then passed it on to Luna. "It's after midnight, so it's technically yesterday's paper, but you can have it just the same."
"Thank you again, sir."
Beginning to totter away from her down the hall, Lazarus muttered, "Don't need to run around calling me 'sir'."
"Goodnight," Luna said to his retreating back, which earned her a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement and nothing more. As his stooped back disappeared down the stairs, Luna stepped inside the room she had just rented and shut the door behind her.
Othello leaped up onto the bed at once, then continued to groom his fur. Luna laid The Daily Prophet down on the desk in the corner, then moved towards the bed. She sat Violetta on the bed next to Othello and then reached in her pocket for her wand.
"Mummy," Violetta protested, raising her arms to be picked up again.
"My love, we have to dry your wet things, you're sopping." Luna hovered her wand over her daughter, using a Hot-Air Charm to dry the child's clothes.
Luna then took a moment to scratch under Othello's chin appreciatively. "You were very brave, you know. You saved us. You're not hurt, are you?" The Kneazle licked her hand in reassurance.
She used the Hot-Air Charm on her own soaked robes, shivering as she did so. Then, seizing the newspaper again, she sat beside Violetta on the bed. Violetta promptly began to crawl into Luna's lap, so Luna picked her up under her arms and plopped Violetta into her lap so they could look at the newspaper together.
The date across the top of the front page read 6 November 1948.