Chapter Five

Travelling through
darkness, lungs screaming for air, the rush of activity from a
thousand places, gone in an insant, straining to hold on, straining
to keep his grip on Hermione's limp hand, a tunnel of air but not a
drop to breathe, and--

They landed on
their knees in the middle of a half-scorched field. Young flowers
poked cautiously through the cracked black earth, checking to see if
it was safe to come out yet. Beyond them, low hills rose solemnly
against a candlelight sky.

Harry groaned and
looked up, clutching the place of the pain in his chest, which seemed
to have intensified tenfold after such vigorous Apparition. They were
sprawled in front of a large black stone tower, crumbling where it
stood. It had the look of a ruined chess piece, like one from his
first year in school, and it, like the field, seemed to be recovering
from a very disastrous event, one that had left its windows shattered
and its garden, once illustrious and bright, completely dead.

Harry didn't think
he could manage even walking up and knocking on the front door, but
he knew he had to get Hermione and himself inside before night set
in. Struggling onto his hands and knees, he crawled toward the steps
up to the tower door, painfully aware of not just his chest, but the
numerous other wounds and injuries he'd received from Macnair and the
others, and the ache in his bones from the countless Cruciatus Curses
he'd been subject to. Everything hurt now, and hurt bad. But the
worst of it all, worse than any cut or bump or bruise, was the
feeling in his heart, the lump in his throat. The film strip of his
mind that told him once more, Ron's dead. Ron's dead. Ron's dead.

He heaved himself
up the stairs, his eyes blurring with the pain of it all, and as
strongly as he could muster, knocked his fist against the blackened
wood door. There was no reply, a deadly silence that rang through his
ears like a gunshot. Ron's face bloomed suddenly out of the darkness
and vanished; little stars popped at the corner of his vision; his
head felt like it would split open. Suddenly, he was beginning to
feel quite sick, quite sick indeed. Something sour rose up to his
mouth and he retched, vomiting out what he felt sure was his entire
digestive system.

And then the door
opened. Luna Lovegood stood over him, in all her strange glory, her
hair tousled and wearing some sort of full-length pumpkin-colored
nightgown. Her eyebrows shot skyward when she saw him slumped there,
sick and exhausted and broken, and if possible, they went up even
further when she looked out and spotted Hermione, sprawled unmoving
in the middle of a patch of new weeds.

“Oh dear,” She
said, with a signature Luna sigh. “I think you should come in.”

Harry was given a
pot of disgusting Gurdyroot tea and a Dirigible Plum Cake, which he
took but didn't eat, feeling as though he wouldn't be able to hold
anything down ever again. He was left alone on Luna's torn purple
couch while she went out to attend to Hermione, tucking her sleeping
body into the guestroom. She then came back into the living room,
where Harry lay waiting for her.

“What happened?”
She asked, her face expressionless. Harry looked at the crack-ridden
ceiling, unable to reply.

“Where's Ron?”
Luna tried again, and this time Harry couldn't hold it in anymore.
Tears seeped out of the corners of his eyes and he bent his head,
shoulders beginning to shake. Harder, harder, until even his tears
couldn't satisfy him. They flooded forth in sobs that racked his
beaten body, and he nearly screamed with the effort of forcing them
out. He felt the sour feeling in his throat again and he lunged for
the Gurdyroot tea, ejecting whatever was left of his insides into the
painted cup. The sobs kept coming, longer and longer still, and as he
wept unabashedly for a friend whom would only ever come to him in the
darkness, Luna simply watched him and understood.

“I know,” She
whispered, and her voice was unbroken, yet Harry saw through his
swimming eyes, a single tear rolling steadily down her cheek. “I
know it hurts. I feel it too.”

Harry bent his
head, trembling from head to toe, and buried his face in his hands.
“That's—not—even—the—worst—part,” He choked, feeling as
through he would very much like to cry so hard that he could drown
himself in a river of tears, like in the old Muggle story, Alice in
Wonderland. “Because—Luna. . . . . I—chose—him.”

Luna took a sharp
breath, and the world pitched forward, spinning so fast that the sour
feeling rose in his throat for a third time, but he couldn't see the
teacup, he couldn't see anything clearly. I killed Ron. I killed
Ron. I killed Ron.

The spinning
stopped, Harry gasped, and the lantern winked out.

When he could see
again, it was morning, and Luna was clattering noisily in the
kitchen, apparently fixing up a spot of breakfast that filled the
room with the smell of burning fruit. Oblivious to this, she hummed
merrily to a tune that only she could hear, but every so often her
voice would falter or warble for a moment, and Harry knew that for
the first time since he'd met her, Luna wasn't being totally genuine.
She was keeping face. Penning the tears in.

He, Harry, had no
tears left inside. He struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain, and
hobbled over to the kitchen table, which looked as if it had been
cracked in half and hastily repaired again. Here and there he could
spot bits of Extra-Durable Spellotape keeping the edges together.

“How's Hermione?”
He asked as soon as he could settle himself into a semi-comfortable
position. Luna glanced over at him, then back at the burnt
strawberries she was slicing. “Oh, just fine,” She replied, but
her voice seemed overly cheerful, nothing at all like her usual
mystic tone. “She'll be up and running in a few days, you'll see.”
Luna set a plate of underdone scrambled eggs in front of him, along
with a small cup bursting with strange and brightly colored fruits,
burnt strawberries among them.

Harry nibbled
cautiously at the corner of an innocent-looking orange slice and
stared around the Lovegood home. It seemed that everything was back
in order since they'd last come. With a cringe, he remembered how the
Death Eaters had arrived unexpectedly during their visit, and the
triggered horn of an Erumpent had subsequently torn up the home, all
due to the summons of Xenophilius Lovegood himself.

Xenophilius. . .

“Hey, Luna?”
Harry asked tentatively. Luna looked up from turning all the knobs on
the stove, whose flames jumped, bright purple. “Where's your dad?”

Luna heaved a sigh
and turned back to fiddling with the knobs, cooling the flames to a
more innocent lavender. “He's at work for the Quibbler. Business is
booming, you know. He moved headquarters to Hogsmeade, and he's got a
little apartment there where he stays, in between hunting for Nargles
in Northern Ireland and Crumple-Horned Snorcacks in Spain.” Harry
clutched the edge of the table. “Luna, he can't possibly be hunting
for—for Crumple-Horned Snorcacks, after all that happened, he
should know they're actually Erumpents, they're dangerous!”

Luna looked up and
stared coolly into his eyes for a long, long moment. Harry,
determined to convey to her the truth, did not break away.

Finally, she looked
down and sighed again. “The Crumple-Horned Snorcack exists, Harry,”
She told him wisely. “Daddy just made a mistake in recognizing its
horn. It wasn't crumpled enough, see.” Now it was Harry's turn to
sigh.

“Anyway, he'll be
back soon.” Just then, Luna turned to him abruptly and put her
hands on her hips. “Harry,” She said seriously, her dirty blonde
hair curling around her pale face. “You never told me who did this
to you and Hermione. Who made you. . . choose.”

Harry stared at
her. For one simple, blissful moment, he'd actually allowed himself
to believe that nothing was wrong in the world, that he was simply
having a simple visit with Luna at her kitchen table. But of course,
he was lying to himself. He wore the scars of a new battle, and
Hermione slept on in the next room, to scared to awake and face the
day. And they were out there, the ones who'd done it all, plotting,
planning, determined to prevail where their master could not.

“The Death
Eaters,” He told her. “The Death Eaters have risen again.”