Chapter Text
Luna
Four-year old Luna Lovegood looks around, blinking into the sunlight as the dust clears around her.
“Oh,” she says.
Just moments ago, she’d been sitting in the laboratory with her Mummy, watching contentedly as Mummy had set up another experiment. Then, her Daddy had come in, and her Mummy had shouted something, and both her Daddy and Mummy had turned to her and pointed their wands at her and their lights had rushed at her and then- she can’t remember.
But now the house is really broken, her parents are nowhere to be found, and it looks like it might be up to Luna to find out what happened.
That’s alright- Luna has done hard things before, done things on her own. All she needs to do is follow the lights.
Luna’s whole entire life, she’s seen lights- shining and swirling and floating and falling, all sorts of colors and shapes and feelings.
Some she sees more often than others, like the ones that follow her Daddy (light blue and green, swirling around Daddy like ribbons) or the ones around Mummy (purple and blue, and sparking like little fireworks).
Some she doesn’t see very often at all- one time, her Mummy had pointed out a wandering unicorn to Luna, and she’d almost cried because the lights had been so bright.
She’d thought everyone else saw them too, but when she talks to Ginny about them, the other girl doesn’t seem to know what Luna is talking about. She is more than happy to let Luna tell her about them, though. Luna likes Ginny, she’s nice.
Maybe instead of following the lights, she should go find Ginny.
Luna considers it for a moment, then shakes her head. She needs to find her Mummy and Daddy. That’s the priority.
(That had been her Daddy’s word-of-the-day for her a long time ago, and it’s one of her favorites.)
“Pri-or-i-ty,” Luna repeats to herself, picking through the dust and rubble carefully, keeping an eye out for ribbons, or sparklers.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luna sees something spark, then disappear. She promptly turns to face the little light, picking her way towards it instead.
It’s not sparking like her Mummy’s magic- it’s more like a little static shock, but it is something, and so follow it she does.
Luna gets to where it’s hovering, and blinks.
There, coming out from under a particularly big chunk of house, is a hand. It’s not moving. There's a wand lying there, too- it's her Mummy's.
Luna picks up the wand, slips it into the front pocket of her overalls, and then looks down at the hand for a second. Then she turns back to the little white light.
She’s seen a light like this before- one time, at Ginny’s house, she’d seen a miniature version of it sparking around a doxie that had been torn apart by a cat.
The light is still sparking, but less so. Luna can’t be sure, but she thinks it might be fading- sparking away.
Luna reaches a hand out towards it. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but sometimes when she tries to touch the lights, they do something.
Sometimes they even do what she wants them to do.
Her hand closes around it and she frowns at the tingling feeling- it really is like a shock. Regardless, Luna pushes through.
It’s sparking even less now, fading fast. But- it’s not fading into nothing. Instead it feels like it’s… slipping off, somewhere else.
“Take me with you,” she decides, clenching her hand around it and holding fast.
The light gives her one last little shock- and then the world slips through a very small tunnel, and Luna is somewhere else.
Harry
Harry Potter is five years old. He’s also hungry, tired, covered in dirt, and really very confused.
“Hello,” he says, since he doesn’t know what else there is to say.
“Hello,” responds the girl- or is she a fairy? Harry’s heard about those, but he’d thought they were smaller. And had wings. And didn’t normally wear overalls.
The girl is also dirty, but it seems to be of the dusty variety. She’s got short wispy blonde hair that is sticking every which way. It’s the sort of hair that would have Petunia fainting right away- although it’s nowhere near as wild as Harry’s hair.
In comparison to Harry’s own dark skin, hers is so pale it looks actually white (although that might be the dust). Paler than the Dursleys’, even- if the girl isn’t a fairy, she might be a ghost instead. Her eyes are big and blue. Really big, and really blue. Maybe she’s an alien?
Regardless, she’s probably not a normal little girl. Harry hasn’t met many of those (or any), but he’s pretty sure they don’t usually appear out of thin air and land on top of you while you’re trying to pull weeds.
“Hello,” Harry says again. “Would you mind it very much if you got off of me?”
“You’ve got a lot of lights,” the girl says, not moving.
“Oh,” Harry says.
“I don’t suppose you can see them?” the girl asks hopefully.
Harry shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
The girl lets out a loud sigh, then finally pushes herself off of Harry.
“Have you seen my Mummy? I think she might be dead,” the girl says, matter-of-factly.
“Mine too,” Harry says reflexively, then furrows his brow. “And no. I’ve been in the garden all day.”
“Oh,” the girl says, looking a bit put-out.
“I’m Harry,” Harry says, a little proudly. He’d only just figured that out a couple days ago, after all.
“I’m Luna,” Luna responds, then sits back on her heels, looking a little lost.
“I’m sorry about your- your mummy,” Harry hazards.
Luna blinks at him for a moment. Then her face twists up and her eyes fill with tears. Harry watches in mild fascination as the tears spill from her huge eyes and pour down her face. This is nothing like how Dudley cries- she’s hardly making a sound at all!
Then he shakes his head. Harry isn’t sure, but he thinks you aren’t supposed to just sit and watch while people cry.
“Do you want to see something cool?” Harry asks, hoping that will do the trick.
Luna sniffles, but then she rubs at her eyes and nods.
Harry grins, then fishes around in his pocket. His hand wraps around his prize, and he pulls it up and out, presenting it to Luna.
“Oh,” Luna breathes, looking at the little green grass snake.
They sit in silence for a moment, just looking.
Then the snake asks very politely to be put down, and they watch as it slithers off.
“Do you want to be best friends?” Harry asks Luna, looking up at the girl.
Luna seems to consider for a moment.
“Okay,” she decides.