Luna Lovegood, audition

[Luna Lovegood]

Character Name: Luna Ophelia Lovegood
Type: Other Canon - Harry Potter Series
Relevant info: Set during the Deathly Hallows (part two of the movies if that makes it easier to picture). I do dearly hope you get what I was trying to put across.
Your nickname: Jingles
Audition:



The cottage on the beach was the epitome of seclusion. White soft sand stretched for miles around, the soft edge to the cusp of crips green grass, drewy with morning fog. For as far as the eye could see, no other location of habitation was visible. The lapping water, gently nudging liquid reminders of its presence. Silence clung heavy to the morning air.


They truly were alone.


Luna had watched, sorrow filling her heart, understanding in her eyes as Harry clawed out a grave for the wone who had saved their lives with his bare, stinging fingers. It was a grave no other house-elf had been so honoured with, overlooking freedom itself. It was a grave Harry would be able to visit, shed tears at, be sad at and find peace at. A grave Luna would never know.


Luna closed her eyes to a lush light, like a halo to an angel, bathing a woman with white blond hair down to her waist. The delicate light illuminated the crinkle waves of cascading tresses. It highlighted shining pools of crystal aqua, crinkled in awe, wide with surprise and scrunched in pain. The slack mouth open, soundless in its agonising excitement, the sound stopped dead by the unexpected reality.


To the shimmering vision of Harry, desperate, digging through an opaque window loud with forgotten clarity, Luna's almost colourless eyes opened. The image faded, the edges first until only the whisper of a shroud remained. The vague impression of an older version of herself lingered, burnt on her eye lids.


And like a puff of smoke, it was gone.


Luna turned, eyes dry and not a tear shed, to Hermione, whose own shimmering orbs were bleak, leaking sorrow. The Ravenclaw placed a grime crusted hand on the other girl's shoulder in a quiet, unobtrusive gesture in the attempt to soothe the ilsoation and the hoplessness. Luna who knew those feelings first hand, felt only a dusting of sadness: her friends were hurting, her rescuer was dead. This was a grave time.


"He's in a better place now," her Irish lilt wafted gently through the still thick silence wrapped air. The atmosphere was so close and thick, the sound wrong, even to her own ears. It was as though she had shouted her well meaning statement from a hilltop downwind. She calmly acknolwedged Hermione's hurt stare.


"He's dead"


Luna nodded and smiled softly, sadly, carefully. Dobby's coporeal body did indeed case to draw breath, blink, speak, make sassy omments or flap his overlarge ears in an impossibly endearing manner. It was unlikely they would see Dobby again, anywhere but their cherished memories that allowed him to live in their hearts. They would carry Dobby everywhere for the rest of their lives as she did her mother. Their most faithful companion would never leave them.


He was gone, but he was not lost.


"He went out fighting. He saved lives. It's the way any noble creature should leave this world," Luna said looking Hermione in the eye before turning, gazing off to where his grave was nestled. "His heart is strong. He will find his way to his forebearers," Luna finished, not noticing Hermione's sceptical looks, and if she had, Luna might think she was right. The world was so dark, that perhaps the evil would penetrate the world beyond. Mist and shadow always found a way.


Luna believed, just as her father did that this world, this life, was only the beginning. The end did not come in the rushing dark, proceeded by pain, fatigue, and sorrow. The journey wasn't over just because the candle blew out, the whispering smoke rising lazily into the once light air. "His story isn't over," she said quietly to herself she believed this truly. She had to.


Her mother was with her. Always.


Luna turned away leaving them to their grief. It should and always would be an intrisicly private affair, intimate in their vulnerable moments chosen to share with others. Luna took her too calm presence, her too collected mind and her not emotinoal enough heart to collet a glass of water for Mr Ollivander.


They would need the old wandmaker, soon to answer questions he held all the keys too. But they would, in their time of need, their lack of time push before he was ready to move. Luna understood the necessity of asking information from the old tortured man. But harry, hermione and ronald knew not how he had suffered. He was as fragile as papyrus hanging by a thread over vinegar. Mr Ollivander needed time.


Time, no one had.


The count down had ong since begun. The game was set, the math in play and all the pieces were in motion. Luna was not naive enough to think only she could master her own fate. Choices were yanked from beneath people's feet every minute. Soon harry would be forced to ask difficult questions before surging onwards, and luna would eventually return to hogwarts, awaint harry's arrival. It was clear Hogwarts was where the fate of the world, wizard and muggled, would be decided.


Luna, for her part, with Ginny and Neville had taken to training everyone who wasn't a slytherin. They claimed it was for self defence, for good practice and to help keep them safe. But luna knew ll too well what they were doing. This wasn't for passing exams. This wasn't just in case. This wasn't a rebellion.


They were training them for war.


They all, in their own way, had to be soldiers. And acting in that capacity it was her duty to assist Ollivander's recovery, for a time. You never left a good soldier behind. Never a dear friend.


Luna padded up the stairs. She had yet to attend to her own bedraggled appearance. It mattered little to her. Ollivander's health weighed more heavily on her mind. She quietly knocked on the dark wood door before slipping side.


"I hope you don't mind, but I brought you some water," Luna said, a small smile on her lips. "It'll help replenish your mind. Alertness assists in the deterrence of Wrackspurts," Luna said sincerely and seriously. The infiltration of them to Mr Ollivander's mind would be detrimental to his recovery.


"i'm afraid I can't check how bad the infestation is," she added, troubled by her inability to help him. She smiled at his weak chuckle and offered him the clean glass housing the cool, slick, transparent water.


Her fingernails were smudged black against it.


She sat down on the edge of the old quilted bed, glad for the lack of hideous squeak from the disused bed springs. She would have liked to have come here, in a more peaceful time. The quaint little cottage was adorable and she was sure there was a species of Crinkle File Schnaps living on the shoreline just under the water, a lingering glimpse of a forgotten world. But her curiosities were for another time. Right now, it was the mission that mattered.


"You were the most pleasant of company," He said, voice grainy to her ears as though he were forcing it from his lungs. She didn't really know why. She thought it may have been her Ravenclaw spun knowledge and constant chatter about the forgotten, the weird and the unusual. Luna had done it because she ahd recognised it kept his mind busy and she had been glad for the warm distraction. With that, she could pretend she was in an underground cavern looking for Dorbingles. Maybe the Maloyf's did have a few...


Or it could have been her Gryffindor like tendency not to be afraid of the wreck of fury that was Bellatrix Lestrange, or the pitiful snivelling one. Luna was asking him questions, the thought provoking kind that got his noodle into a twist. Apparently she was so inclined to make him actually acknowledge reality he scampered off and forgot what it was he came for. Mr Ollivander wouldn't be called for another several hours after that.


The truth of the matter was, living in Malfoy's basement hadn't been all that awful or terrifying. Not for her. It was more on par of the time she had dad went seeking Niggled Flinks in the South Downs because Phillipus Bilgewobble had claimed there had been three sightings of the rabbit like creatures that realised a pollen which made you sneeze ferociously (but rid the body of bad Karma), by muggles, no less. They had ended up staying in this tiny little hut with one straw mattress, a dusty hardwood floor and a dysfunctional outside toilet - that really did not like being used. And every six hours an odd man dressed in green would ask them about their day. Luna had eaten nothing but hard cheese and hardening break for a week.


It really was like the most uninspiring holiday she had ever had to endure. The dim light of three candles had been just enough to allow her to help Mr Ollivander and Griphook with their aches and pains, but without a wand, there wasn't much she could do. The mud floor hadn't been the nicest of things to sleep on but it wasn't jagged like straw, grew cold like stone or as unyielding as wood.

She had had nothing to give them.



Luna, was quite obviously leverage. The fat rolling man had explained it between gnashing his teeth like a hamster. Her father had written things they didn't like. She had dad had always openly supported Harry and Professor Dumbledore even when the world thought them crazy - perhaps, especially then. Of course Dad had a way with words and the Quibbler sales were up now people were boycotting the Ministry. He had a bigger audience now. They couldn't risk him rallying support for Harry Potter. So here she was.


There was a knock on the door and Fleur floated in, her Veela air giving her the most charming grace. Luna quietly slipped out so as not to overwhelm Mr Ollivander in his delicate disposition. He needed to rest and he could not do that surrounded by gawping young folk. With nothing else to do Luna entered the nearest bathroom to wash some of the grime away. There would be plenty of time for showering and cleaning herself up properly later. She really did need to use the bathroom. The Malfoy's had the poorest facilities for guests.


She stood, moments later, in front of the mirror. Dirt. Grime. Thick crusts of solid mug grudgingly peeled away from beneath her over grown fingernails. She would hae cut them by now in normal circumstances. The nightmare which had been Harry's Problem, Harry's Life, had become hers.


There was not a child who wasn't reeling from the regime flip in Hogwarts. The first years whose oblivious parents had told them to go to school suffered the most. Plunged from relative comfort and safety they had been dropped into a Blast-ended Skrewets nest face first. They lived in constant fear of the Carrows or vicious defence lessons. Their only reprieve was in the subjects who held their original masters. The older students barely dared to breathe a word to them: McGonnagal, Flitwick, Slughorn in case they were suspected for cultivating a kind of treason. The Professors were constantly watched. And so Luna, along with Neville and Ginny encouraged the younger students to partake in Dumbledore's Army. Not one of them had wanted to change the name, more poignant now their beloved Headmaster had died. Each of the equal leaders had also secretly amongst themselves called it something else: Harry's Squad. It was in his name, and Professor Dumbledore's that they continued to teach as he had. His efforts had saved their lives, so perhaps they could save the others. A fighting chance was all anyone could ever ask for.


Water gushed over her hands, the tap straining slightly from disuse. Luna stared at her hands, dirt lined, turning spotless. She shaw them small for a moment, tiny snippets floating in front of them like ash. Luna plunged them beneath the streaming water, filling her cupped hands with liquid blue. It teemed down her face, lingering on cheeks as she stared with pale wide eyes into the looking glass. She saw herself older for a moment, long silk smooth hair, bright blonde, pale eyes, mouth slack. Luna turned her stinging eyes away, shut to the infrared image burned on the back of her eyelids. Death came to everyone. Death would find her too one day. But it would not be this day. It would not be tomorrow. Harry Potter needed her.


He would need them all before the end.

[John Egbert]

1/2 Approved