Fade in the Light

Luna ran through the barrier to Platform 9¾ and passed from the Muggle world to the Wizarding one once again. The noise didn't get any easier to bear, but the smells changed. The Muggle world always had a metallic smell to it, while the Wizarding one always smelled more of earth and wood. She wasn't sure why; there was plenty of both sources of smells in both worlds.

Unlike most of the students bustling about the platform, she wasn't lugging around a cart full of trunks. Instead, she had her pack over her shoulder and Tutela by her side. Her homunculus padded along beside her, keeping an eye and ear out for trouble. And whatever other senses Rose had given her.

Luna took another whiff of air, picking through scents for one in particular. She closed her eyes and concentrated, but with so much going on, she realized she wouldn't be able to find his scent.

Luna rolled her eyes at Tutela.

They continued forward towards the train, with Luna stopping every few steps to listen or smell for her friends. She'd gotten good at tuning out white noise, something that was necessary at every meal. When she boarded the train, the noise died down, and the smells were easier to pick up on.

A familiar scent reached her nose, and she nearly squealed with excitement. Tutela hopped into her pack, and she walked quickly down the cars. The scent of pine grew stronger, and she could almost feel the warmth of Toad's embrace. She felt a sense of serenity and safety wash over her as she neared the source of the smell. The scent of books and doubt accompanied it, and she knew she had the right one.

She slid open the compartment door and found Brain and Toad sitting together. Toad's face lit up when he saw her, and she threw herself into his arms.

"Oh get a room!" Brain said, closing the door behind Luna before returning to her seat.

"Well," Toad said, "if you'd be willing to find another compartment…"

Luna blushed as Toad's voice trailed off. Brain rolled her eyes, but otherwise remained still.

Luna and Toad sat down in the seat across from Brain, who took out her pack and drew a familiar journal.

"Thanks for letting me borrow these," she said, handing the journal back to Luna. "Your mum was brilliant! She must've single-handedly pushed runic studies ahead by centuries!"

Luna blushed again and took the journal from Brain. Holding the journal brought her some comfort. It was like having a piece of her mum with her all the time.

"Are you surprised?" Toad asked, putting his arm around Luna.

"Not really, no," she said, laughing. She pulled out her own notebook and flipped to a marked page. "It actually helped me on something else on which I've been working."

She showed them a runic design, and Luna immediately began putting it together in her head. It was like the runic puzzles her mum used to make and leave lying around for her to work on.

"Erm… okay," Toad said, furling his brow at the page. "Okay."

Brain opened her mouth to say something.

"Oh!" Luna exclaimed when she'd worked it out. "That allows for telepathic communication."

"Erm… yeah, that's right, actually," Brain said, looking at her notebook again. "Did… did you already work out something on your own?"

"No." She pointed to one of the clusters of runes. "Those are carrier runes, which means something's being transported." She pointed to another one. "Those are empathy runes, which means it's thoughts or emotions." She pointed to the last set of runes. "That's the key rune for the carriers, which is the special, unique rune all the nodes need, and those bind it all together."

"That's right!" Brain exclaimed. "I didn't know about the empathy runes before, but I found them in your mum's notes. I'd already seen the carrier runes, so those were easy, and your mum explained how to bind standard and circular runes."

"It's not too complicated really," Luna said. "Can that be imprinted on a person?"

"Sure. It's got to be near the base of the skull."

"Of course, that's the only place empathy runes work."

"Of course," Toad said.

"I've spent hours practicing how to draw it, and I think I've got it. Want to test it out when we get to school?"

"Why not right here?"

The train hit a bump and they all rose a little way off their seats.

"Oh, right."

Luna immediately began thinking of a solution to drawing a precise rune on a moving train.

"If only we could remove gravity in the compartment," Brain said. "Then we'd be able to do this no problem."

"Which one's gravity?" Luna asked.

Brain held out her notebook and dropped it on the floor.

"That one's gravity." She kept talking while she bent over to pick it up. "If we had some sort of neutralizing force, we could do this, but I can't think how we would do that."

Luna moved to the seat with Brain in it and took out her mum's notes.

"Mummy's done plenty on neutralizing forces, but mostly with incoming attacks."

"The basic principles should be the same."

Across from them, Toad drew his sword and a cloth and began to clean it.

"Let me know if you need a test dummy," he said.

"Okay!" the girls said.

They were no closer to turning off gravity when they arrived at Hogwarts.

"That's unfortunate," Brain said. She tapped the page of her notebook with the telepathic rune on it. "Still, at least I'm still good for something."

"You can always do survival training," Toad offered.

Luna smiled, still excited from her work with Brain. She'd always been good at understanding runes, but never at putting them together to make something brand-new like Brain could. The most advanced feat she'd ever accomplished was the strap she'd given to Toad for the second task. If she could learn to think on her feet like Toad could, then maybe she'd be able to put something together in combat that would help, like how Brain helped them. As she was, she always got lost on the way towards putting things together.

And that was when she did anything right. Usually, she was just the damsel in distress. Rose had to save her from the bullies her first year, then she was taken prisoner while her friends fought the Basilisk for their lives, then Rose had to save her from Ravenclaw Tower again. A few months ago Toad had to save her from Umbridge.

"What about me?" Luna asked. "Can I come?"

"What?" Toad laughed. "No, it's a little much for you, Moon."

"Oh."

Luna tried not to show her disappointment. He was right, of course; it was too much for her.

The three of them sought out an empty classroom after they arrived at Hogwarts. Luna fought off the feeling that something was odd. She didn't know what it would've been, so she dismissed at as nerves. When they arrived, Luna demonstrated her ability to draw the new rune, and was thus selected as the person to draw it on her two test subjects: Toad and Brain.

Luna had imprinted runic tattoos plenty of times before with her mum, and of course, the rune on her forehead, so she knew what to do. She tied her hair in a loose bun so it wouldn't get in her way, drew her wand, and began muttering incantations under her breath as she drew first on Brain, then on Toad.

"Done."

"Alright, let's give it a shot," Brain said. "Toad, you can hear me right?"

"Sure."

There was silence between the two, then Brain started laughing.

"It worked!" she exclaimed. She swept up Luna and Toad in a hug. "It worked!" After releasing them, she drew her own wand. "Alright, Moon, now—"

"I'm going to go to bed," Luna said quickly. She was starting to worry something was wrong, and adding a rune into the mix seemed like a bad idea. "We'll do me tomorrow morning."

"Are you sure?" Toad asked.

Luna nodded.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

She wanted to tell him that something was bothering her, but she didn't want to worry him. It would just be one more reason that he had to save her, and she was difficult enough. Brainstorming with Brain had been fun, but Toad listened to her no matter what. Even when he didn't understand, he always believed her. She didn't want to be a burden to him if she didn't have to be.

"I'm fine," she lied. "Just tired."

She was certain neither Brain nor Toad believed her, but they didn't push any harder than that.

"Is it alright if I walk you back to Ravenclaw Tower?" he asked. He glanced back at Brain for a moment, but didn't say anything. At least, nothing Luna could hear. She caught a familiar scent, one she'd smelled around Toad many times in the past few months. It wasn't his normal scent, but she loved it anyway.

"Of course."

She smiled, barely containing a fit of giddy laughter. She didn't understand why, but that smell always made her feel giddy.

The two of them walked up to Ravenclaw Tower, hand in hand. Luna nestled as close to Toad as she could without tripping over him. Given how coordinated she was, it was a lot harder than she'd have liked it. They remained silent the entire walk up, but Luna didn't mind. She was happy just being with Toad.

"Good night, Moon," he told her when they arrived.

"Good night, Toad."

He kissed her goodnight, and her heart soared. For that moment, she felt as if she would fly away. She walked inside, climbed up to her room, and sprawled out on her bed. For hours, all Luna did was stare at the ceiling and think of Toad and Brain. Her two best friends. She'd never really had a best friend before. She liked it a lot.

Long after her roommates went to sleep, she felt something wrong again. With her attention back on the problem, she realized almost instantly why she recognized it.

Someone was inside her head. Someone or something had been inside her head from the moment she'd stepped foot into Hogwarts. It sparked more familiarity, and she flipped through her new diary. Entry after entry flew by, until she found some notes she'd made at the start.

Something's messing with my dreams. I can't remember them properly.

She brought up her Occlumency shields, trying to force whatever it was out of her head, to stop it from taking her memories, but she wasn't good at that either. Tutela picked up her head from her place at the foot of Luna's bed.

Luna ran to the window and tried to throw it open. It didn't budge. She looked closer. The window was locked from the outside.

It was still in her head.

"No," she breathed. "No!"

She grabbed her pack and raced down the stairs. She stopped for breath when she reached the common room.

It was still in her head.

"Get out!"

She raced out of Ravenclaw Tower. Torches, portraits, ghosts, they all flew by. She ran as fast as she could, trying harder to lock down her thoughts.

It was still in her head.

She reached the cavity where all the floating staircases were, and looked over the edge. It was a straight drop to the ground floor. There was no faster way out of Hogwarts.

It was still in her head.

She took a few steps back, then leapt over the edge. Tutela jumped after her. They landed a few seconds later and sprinted towards the entrance hall.

It was still in her head.

Coincidentally, Sally-Anne and Ron happened to be on the ground floor that night, doing their rounds. Ron didn't tell Sally-Anne much about his holiday, nor did she say much about hers. It was fine with her; she didn't want to talk about it. Guilt nagged at her, as she felt like she should be asking about Ron, but she couldn't draw up the strength to care.

They were getting ready to return to Gryffindor Tower when they heard a crash up ahead. After a quick exchange of glances, they raced towards the source of the sound. They arrived in the floating staircase cavity just in time to see Luna and Tutela racing off down another corridor.

"Was that Luna?" Ron asked.

"It's someone that's in a lot of trouble," Sally-Anne said. "More if it's not, because that certainly looked like a dog."

The two of them chased after her. Sally-Anne had the advantage of frequent practice with the Shield Rune. She'd found it worked off some part of her cardiovascular system, which meant the more she used it, the more in shape she found herself.

She glanced at Ron as they ran. He wasn't slowing down either. Knowing Rose, she probably made him run a few miles for her own amusement. Then she'd have justified it with something about "run speed" and "endurance is good for you" or something.

"Luna!" Sally-Anne called.

Luna didn't so much as slow down.

"Accio Luna!"

Luna slowed for a moment, but Tutela grew to twice her size and shoved her forward.

Sally-Anne tried throwing a wall in front of the Ravenclaw, but it appeared just short of them.

Of course. She probably knows the range by heart.

Up ahead, Luna and Tutela took a hard right through a false wall. Sally-Anne and Ron skidded to a halt. She looked around in the dark, hardly able to see a thing.

"Lumos!"

Ron's wand lit up, and he started knocking on the wall. Sally-Anne joined him, and together they found the false wall.

"How'd she know this was here?" Sally-Anne asked.

"Never mind that!" Ron exclaimed, sprinting through the wall.

Sally-Anne ran after him, but they found only a short corridor. When they reached the end of it, they were back in the entrance hall, with no sign of Luna.

"Come on!" Ron shouted, heading for the door.

"Wait!" Sally-Anne hissed. "We can't—"

"Of course we can! If you didn't hear it when Luna opened the door, then no one else will hear it when we do!"

Ron pushed the door open, and the two of them looked out into the night. They looked around, but there was no sign of Luna.

"She'll have to show up tomorrow," Sally-Anne said. "We'll talk to her about it then."

They slid the door shut, taking care to be as quiet as possible. They took a moment to catch their breath, then headed back up the long walk to Gryffindor Tower.

Neville watched the clock tick away in Gryffindor Tower, urging it to go just a little faster. There were 605 seconds left in curfew, but each one felt like it took a day.

"If all the clocks are synchronized, I can't get away with skipping out early," he said to himself. "But if they're not, I could just say the one here is running fast."

"What was that?"

Neville glanced over his shoulder and saw Harry coming down from their room.

"Nothing, just talking to myself," he replied, keeping his attention on the clock.

"That doesn't help," Harry said. "Trust me, I've been there."

"I know, it just feels like years since I've gotten to see her."

Impatience welled up in him, and it felt like he would scream.

"How was your holiday?" Harry asked.

"Fine," Neville replied. "Moon, Brain, and I got together to celebrate Snowy Time."

"Great. I stayed with Sirius and Alavel at Grimmauld Place. The three of us plus Remus went out one night." He laughed. "Alavel and Sirius convinced Professor Dumbledore that I needed fresh air, but Professor Dumbledore insisted that three people be there to watch me. So the four of us went out to a few pubs."

Neville frowned and turned to Harry.

"Yeah, I know," Harry said, a broad smile on his face. "It was Sirius's idea. Alavel kept an eye on me, and Remus was miserable the whole time. Alavel insisted we go home after Sirius started talking about 'The New Marauders'."

"What about you?"

"Oh, I had a blast!" Harry said. "Sirius was plenty entertaining enough, and I've never really been… well, out anywhere."

"Is this about your little excursion?" Sally-Anne asked as she descended the stairs. "I heard all about it from Mrs. Weasley on the platform yesterday. Sirius will be lucky if he's allowed out with you again."

"He's my guardian," Harry shot back. "It will be tricky if he's not allowed out with me."

"I'm sure," Sally-Anne said, turning to Neville.

Her look gave him a bad feeling. Not just the glare; he was used to that. But the way she was glaring at him, as if she were doing everything she could not to cry. No, not cry, scream.

"And you."

"Me?"

"Your girlfriend gave Ron and I quite a lot of trouble last night. Bolting through the corridors like she was running from a bear."

"She what?"

Neville forgot the clock and focused entirely on Sally-Anne.

"If you two are sneaking about after curfew, I will find out, and you will be punished. I don't care what Rose told you, but you can't be out past curfew."

He opened his mouth to explain that Luna hadn't been feeling well, that it couldn't have been her, but thought better of it. After sizing up Sally-Anne, he determined that she wasn't in the mood for people to correct her.

"I'll talk to her," Neville said. "She'll listen to me. It won't happen again."

"It'd better not. I won't go easy on any of you just because you're my friends."

Harry muttered something Neville couldn't understand.

He decided he didn't care. Turning back to the clock, he stared at it for the remaining few seconds until curfew ended. He and Sally-Anne walked to Ravenclaw Tower together, which meant it took at least twice as long as it would've if it'd just been him. When they arrived, they didn't find Luna waiting for them as Neville would've expected.

"She usually waits for me here," Neville said.

Sally-Anne grabbed the attention of one of a few of the Ravenclaw girls.

"Have any of you seen Luna Lovegood this morning?"

"Why would we?"

Sally-Anne took a deep breath, making Neville even more concerned. She never got frustrated. He was aware that Sally-Anne had broken up with Viktor over the holiday, but this seemed a bit much for her.

Searching through the departing students, he spotted Melody.

"Melody!" He ran over to her. "Have you seen Luna?"

"No." She looked around. "Isn't she out here? I thought she always waited for you."

"No, I can't find her."

"Probably avoiding me," Sally-Anne said. "Come on, we'll have to find her eventually."

Neville had a bad feeling, both about Luna and about Sally-Anne. This wasn't like either one of them.

After breakfast, he grabbed Harry and had him check the map.

"Erm… I don't see her," Harry said, frowning. "I mean anywhere."

Panic began to set in, but Neville deflected it with ease. Since the third task, he'd found that the more he panicked, the easier it was to stop.

"She's probably in the Room of Requirement," Neville said. "Thanks anyway."

Neville and Harry checked the map a few more times that day, but there was never any sign of Luna. He and Hermione went to the Room of Requirement, but without knowing what she'd be doing, they couldn't work out what she'd used to activate the room.

"I should've imprinted her with the rune," Hermione said. "At least then we'd be able to talk to her."

He nodded, not sure how that'd help. She'd still need to talk back to them, and if she'd wanted to do that, they would've found her. Unless she'd been taken hostage by Umbridge. He didn't bring up that particular possibility around Hermione. They were still under orders to avoid the topic with her. She'd managed to make it through class that afternoon, but Neville was still concerned that she'd have a hard time if he mentioned the idea of Umbridge taking Luna off school grounds.

"Status would've been helpful too," Hermione said. "Some sort of automatic empathy rune. The one I made has to be triggered, but an automatic rune would gradually take energy from its bearer, so I figured it would've been too much to ask of people."

Neville nodded again, lost in his own thoughts. He hated doing nothing. Luna was out there somewhere, probably hurt, and he had to find her and help her.

"Sally-Anne said she and Ron saw Luna running out of the castle last night," Hermione said. "What if she never came back?"

"Why wouldn't she come back?"

"I don't know. What if… Why couldn't she have told us what was bothering her?"

"Cos she's Luna. Of course, she didn't say. It takes a lot for her to open up to people."

Wednesday night, after no success finding Luna, Professor Dumbledore announced at dinner that she was missing. Anyone that saw her was to report it immediately.

Neville still sat at the Ravenclaw table. He tried to plan his next move, but people kept talking to him. They kept trying to reassure him, as if he needed reassurance. He didn't need reassurance, he needed a plan.

After dinner, he walked outside on the grounds. He walked along the vegetable patch, the exact path Luna always walked. As he walked, he looked for footprints, either human or animal.

He traced her path to the Whomping Willow, hoping that he'd find her there. As with the last several times he'd tried, he found it empty.

He stood for a moment not far from the Whomping Willow, watching people walk about in the cool winter night. It was already dark, and he could see his breath. Even then, he turned his attention towards the Forbidden Forest. If Luna had never returned to the castle, it was the most likely place she'd be.

The wind picked up and rustled some of the trees on the edge of the forest. Their branches cast an eerie shadow in the light from Hagrid's Hut. Neville knew the forest better than anyone. It wouldn't be hard for him to go inside and come back before anyone noticed he was gone. He'd thought about it plenty of times that day. He'd probably have to wait until Saturday, when he could be gone for a long period of time without anyone noticing.

"Wherever Lady Moon is, Tutela will keep her safe."

Neville wasn't sure how Rose had managed to construct Alavel with a sixth sense for students about to get into trouble, but he put that sense to good use.

"How'd you know where to find me?"

"You've been to this spot four times today that Professor Hagrid has counted. He's worried about Lady Moon too, and thought you were too interested in the idea of going into the forest."

"Of course."

Something occurred to Neville that he realized should've occurred to him long ago.

"Has someone written her father?"

"He was informed yesterday. Professor Babbling is planning to go out to visit him this weekend. She believes he will want the company."

Neville nodded, then imagined the inside of the forest. He could still see many of the clearings in his head. He knew the path along the river to reach the centaur camp, the entire path to and from Aragog's nest, and how to get back to Hogwarts from anywhere inside the forest.

"She'll set up camp near the water so she can stay clean. She hates the feeling of grease in her hair. It'll have to be away from the centaurs, otherwise they'll attack her. Once she's set up camp and established a home base, she'll…"

He realized he had no idea why Luna would've chosen the Forbidden Forest. What was she doing in there? She couldn't have been lost; she could talk to the trees. The river could tell her the right way to go. Tutela could fly her up to the top of the trees, or just straight back to Hogwarts. Luna was still in the forest, which meant she intended to stay there.

"What's she doing in there that she's got to stay there this long?"

"I wish I could tell you the answer. I trust that she's alright, and I suggest you do the same. My Lady Rose handcrafted Tutela to keep Lady Moon safe. She's virtually indestructible, and can find Lady Moon no matter where she is. I understand that you're afraid, Lord Toad, but I urge you to have faith in them."

Neville looked out at the forest again. Luna was somewhere inside. He didn���t know when, but he would find her. It wasn't just about her being safe. He wanted nothing more than to see her again.