Chapter Text
*~*~*
Merle watched his brother cradle his girl on their makeshift bed toward the back of the tent. He hovered in the doorway and took a breath before going inside and zipping it back up behind him. Daryl lifted his head and glared over at him in warning. “Don’t fuckin’ push me, Merle.”
“I ain’t aimn’ to push,” Merle kept his tone low, matching Daryl’s hushed volume. “We’ve gotta talk.”
“Fuck that. There ain’t nothin’ I wanna hear from your mouth.”
“Too bad,” Merle stubbornly plopped himself down into the makeshift chair Luna had conjured to make their space more homey. He looked around at the magically expanded space and wasn’t surprised to see her touch all over the place. There was an honest to God full-sized rug running the inside of the entire tent, along with cushions of all sizes and types decorating their sleeping space. It wasn’t something that he’d ever put together for his brother. Daryl was… he wasn’t purple and gold pillows.
“If’n ya not gonna leave, at least be quick about it.”
“Your girl didn’t have to come back for me,” Merle drawled after another long hesitation. He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair and sat back in his chair, eyeballing his brother seriously. “No shit, man, she fuckin’ did something to me on top of that goddamn roof. That’s why she’s like she is now. I was trippin’ balls, hardcore. I went all asshole and the other yahoos put me down. Cuffed me to a fuckin’ pipe and left me. I was ‘bout ready to cut m’own hand off when she popped back in.”
Daryl held Luna a bit tighter at that, burying his face in the top of her head as if to reassure himself that she was still there. At this point, she’d been out cold for nearly an entire twenty-four hours. It was the deepest sleep he’d ever seen. There was absolutely no movement aside from the regular up and down of her breath. He listened to Merle go on, talking about how she’d somehow sucked the poison out of him, then collapsed.
“Man, it’s like I ain’t touched the shit before.” Merle looked uncomfortable and a little awed as he made eye contact with Daryl for the first time. “I just don’t want it. There ain’t even a twinge of cravin’.”
“She’d better fuckin wake up, Merle,” Daryl said quietly after a long silence. “I ain’t doin’ this shit without her.”
*~*~*
Luna wasn’t entirely surprised when she didn’t fade back into her body immediately. It seemed as if her unconscious mind was far from done with her, she mused as she stared out from the widow’s walk on top of the home she’d shared with her father since forever. It had been one of her favorite places to go to relax and organize her thoughts. The air was usually a bit crisper up here, but a few warming charms and a thick cloak had taken care of that quickly enough.
She idly sipped at the cup of chocolate her subconscious had provided and sighed at the decadent taste. It had been too long since she’d had the treat. It would probably be even longer before she had it again.
“I never tire of the view.” Luna turned a genuinely pleased smile to the men who had appeared behind her. Professor Lupin had always been nice to her and she’d been rather sad when he’d left his post at Hogwarts. In her opinion, he had been the best defense master they could have retained. She had gotten to know him a bit better during the last few months of the war, the older man seeking her out after a rather disturbing encounter following her release from the Malfoy dungeons.
She had listened in silence as he had talked for a while about utter nonsense before finally getting to the point. “Our scars,” he had said in that low, gentle way of his, “they don’t define us, Luna. They are a part of us, but they are nothing to be shamed for. They show what we have endured, what we have survived. They are a sign of strength.”
Those words had broken her. Finally, after months of holding in all the emotions and the trauma of what she had suffered, the dam had broken and he’d held her while she’d cried it out, sometimes screaming in a way she hadn’t done since she’d been too small to remember. He’d held her tighter as words tumbled out and she’d confessed all but the darkest of hurts. When she was done, he had tucked her into a peaceful nook in the front parlor of their safe house and made sure no one bothered her. She had slept for nearly an entire day. They hadn’t spoken of it again, and less than two months later, he was dead.
“Professor Lupin,” Luna greeted him now, then offered, “Would you care for some chocolate?”
He accepted the second cup and handed the third back to his companion, who was smiling at her in a fond manner that she thought was a bit strange. She hadn’t really gotten to know Harry’s godfather very well, mainly hearing about him secondhand from those who did know him. It depended on who you were speaking with on what type of person he really was. Harry had always idolized him, and knowing Harry as well as she did, Luna figured that was as good of an endorsement as she was ever going to get.
“You look like your father,” Sirius commented, smile widening as if he could hear her thoughts. “Xeno was an oddball but a riot to be around. He had the best sense of humor of anyone else in Ravenclaw, helped us with some of our more spectacular pranks, didn’t he Moony?”
“That he did,” Remus agreed, leaning back against the railing. Luna wasn’t afraid of it snapping and sending him to his death. It looked much sturdier than it had when she was a child, and besides, he was already dead. She reached for one of the lemon biscuits on the tray and nibbled at it while the two men seemed to figure out what it was they needed to say. Sirius seemed a bit put off by her quiet patience, taking a couple of the sweet treats to occupy his hands. No doubt he was waiting for her to ask why they were there. It seemed rather silly, but Luna wasn’t entirely keen on moving this forward. She wasn’t in any big hurry to return just yet and seeing their familiar faces was enough for her for now.
“Luna, we need you to remember us,” Remus said finally, speaking in that gentle cadence that she identified as his trademark. “We need you to remember all of us… to Harry, and for Harry. All of our teachings and our adventures, they need to be preserved. This plague isn’t going to last forever, and your small group of Hogwarts students aren’t the only magical beings to have survived. You all carry the answer…”
Sirius made a small noise and gripped Remus’s hand, stopping him from continuing. He gave a stern look that seemed very out of place. Remus cleared his throat and squeezed his companion’s fingers, letting the touch linger. “Just remember us, yeah? Don’t let your magic go, keep it close and keep it strong.”
Luna felt a tug near her bellybutton, not unlike the pull of a portkey, and she calmly placed her cup back on the tray. “I’ll keep what I can,” she promised, then blinked her eyes and found herself staring up at the canvas ceiling of her tent.
*~*~*
It was as if he’d walked through an electrical field, all the hair on his body came to attention and there was that burning pressure just under his skin. Harry stumbled and would have fallen if Ron hadn’t been right there next to him to grab his arm. His tongue felt thick in his mouth and his eyesight went blurry, a buzzing in his ears made hearing anything but muffled sounds impossible. Dimly he felt himself being lowered onto a downed log and Neville was kneeling in front of him, large, rough hands touching his face.
“L-Luna,” he managed, his chest impossibly tight as he recognized what it was. He could smell lavender and lemongrass, so light as if to almost not be there. It was the scent he always associated with Luna’s magic. Gentle and clean, yet powerful and bright. As quickly as it had come over him, it faded back. It was still there, but it wasn’t as overwhelming. He felt hysteria start to rise and uncontrollable laughter spilled out, even as he started crying.
“Harry, Merlin’s balls, man, we don’t have time for ya to lose yer shite now,” Seamus sounded both concerned and exasperated, causing Harry to clutch his sides and laugh harder.
“L-Luna, sh-she’s all right,” Harry managed after a couple minutes, making the other boys freeze.
“What’re you on about,” Neville demanded, dark eyes riveted on Harry’s, a sudden spark of anger lighting up his face. “Harry, I swear…”
“No,” Harry reached out and grabbed Neville’s hand when it looked like the other man was going to storm to his feet and away. “No, Nev, she’s really… I can’t explain it, but I can feel her, like I did before, only closer. She’s so fucking close.”
“Can we follow it the way we did before?” Ron asked before anyone else could interject with other questions. If his best mate had finally cracked, then they would soon know for sure. If he hadn’t, then they’d be finding their lost comrade. “Using you as a compass?”
Harry closed his eyes and concentrated, visualizing the path in front of them and imagined the yellow cord that connected him to Luna. It tugged and he stood up, determination lighting his green eyes. “Yeah, yeah we can. We need to go.”
*~*~*
“Hey, there, bright eyes,” Daryl greeted her when she stirred in his arms, a small whimpering sound escaping as she processed the ache that seemed to have seeped into every pore of her body. He sounded relieved and there was a vulnerability to his voice that made her turn her face into his chest. “Nice ta have ya back.”
She found that her voice was missing again, crawled back into her throat where it seemed to be pouting. Her senses were all scrambled and it felt like she was deep underwater. Everything felt difficult and even the smallest of movements seemed to take so much effort.
“Shh, darlin’,” Daryl stroked her gently, his big hands moving over her shoulders and spine. She could feel the warmth of him, the solidness of his body anchoring her. She wanted to tell him about the strange dreams she’d had, but it was stuck and she was so tired. “It’s alright, baby. It’s okay, I’ve gotcha. You’re okay.”
Because it was Daryl, she believed him. She felt his breath against her temple and a hint of wet against her skin, then she was fading back out into a more normal sleep.
*~*~*