Regulus Black and the What the Hell ( by gonzoclock)

Untitled part

: 1- Prologue

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.