"Harry."

Harry turned slightly, plastering a smile on his face with effort as Hermione caught up with him in the Defense corridor. "Hi, Hermione."

The slight crease between her brows showed him that she was not fooled. But all she said was, "Harry, there's going to be a Hallowe'en party at the Ministry tonight, after the Hogwarts celebration. Won't you come?"

Harry sighed silently, but gamely kept smiling. "Sorry Hermione, but I still have a lot of work I need to get done tonight." He kept walking until he noticed that Hermione had stopped. He looked back. "Hermione?"

"Harry, tell me. When was the last time you took your broom out flying outside of Flying Class?"

"I..." Harry hesitated.

"You don't remember, do you?" Hermione questioned quietly. "Do you remember, at least, what Sirius said in his Will? Do you remember why he left you the gift he did?"

Harry looked down, shaking his head slowly—not because he didn't remember, but because he could not deny the truth of her words. "Hermione, I know. I know that Sirius wanted to give me freedom, and he did it in the best way he knew how. It's the most amazing gift I can imagine. But...is there really freedom for any of us now? I just want to end it, Hermione. I want to do whatever I have to do to end it soon."

"Harry..." There was rare hesitation in Hermione's voice when she spoke this time. "Is that what you're truly looking for? An end?"

"What else—?" Harry started to say, but Hermione interrupted him.

"For eight months you refused to set foot in the dungeons. Even when you walked through the castle at night, you never went there, did you? But now— We never see you outside anymore, Harry. You're always buried down there, looking for...something. You disappear after dinner every night, and no one can find you until you show up for breakfast. Have you even noticed that winter's almost here?"

Harry, gazing blindly out at the riot of fading autumn colors, did not answer.

"Harry..." He felt a slight touch on his hands. The contrast of Hermione's hands against his made him suddenly realize how cold his own hands were. He looked down into Hermione's eyes. "I would be the last person to try to stop you from doing what you truly feel you need to do," Hermione told him quietly. "But there are other things that are important, too. Ron misses you, you know. He misses having someone to talk to, to laugh with. And Luna...Luna asked about you today. About whether you'll visit her."

Harry stared at Hermione for a moment, a tightness burning in his throat. Then he hugged her. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I know what you're trying to say. I'm sorry. And I'll try."

After a moment, Hermione nodded and said softly, "I think I understand. There are things only you can do. But just...don't shut us out."

Harry shook his head slightly. "I'll try. I'll...go flying with Ron tomorrow. And...will you come with me to see Luna?"

Hermione nodded slightly. "Of course," she whispered.

 

Visiting Luna Lovegood was always hard. It was not the distance, nor the long waiting for the multitude of security wards; the pain lay in white memories and the sight of a too-pale face and dreaming eyes that now stared too much of the time into a world not theirs.

Luna was gazing fixedly out her window when they entered the room, so colorless that she melded with the blankets of her hospital bed, statue-like. Harry hesitated by the door, immobilized for a moment by her perfect stillness. Then he walked over to her and knelt by her bed.

"Luna?" he called to her, very gently, and held his breath as she turned around to face him, her vague eyes devoid of all human expression. There was an almost visible struggle in the back of her eyes as the blankness faded into recognition.

"Hello, Harry," she smiled.

Harry touched her hand and smiled in return, thankful that she had managed to find her way back to them once more. "Hello, Luna. How have you been?"

She shrugged as if the question held no meaning for her. "They wouldn't let me go hunting for Hobbobbers. I saw one, hovering right outside. My father said that they can show you the way to the birthplace of the Leviathan."

"Luna," Hermione said patiently from the door, "Rainbow-tailed Hobbobbers live in the sea. It's not likely that you saw one here, this far inland."

"No, I saw one outside my window," Luna insisted. "It had rainbow-colored wings."

Harry hastily interrupted before Hermione could utter a correction. "Luna, would you like to come back to Hogwarts for Christmas? The house-elves say that they're cooking up the best feast ever, and there'll probably be food enough to feed ten generations of Hogwarts students. We would all really like to see you there."

Hermione gave him a sharp look, but Luna was already shaking her head. "I can't. I can't leave here until I find Neville," Luna replied serenely. "I promised him."

"Luna," Hermione said gently after a pause, "Neville isn't here anymore. He's gone away."

"No." Luna shook her head emphatically, sending long hair flying, suddenly all agitated motion. "He's only lost. But I'll find him. I will!"

"Luna..." There was a worried crease down Hermione's forehead, as if she could no longer tell whether Luna was still speaking of the world they inhabited.

"I'm sorta hungry," Harry interrupted. "Luna, would you like some tea?"

"That would be nice," she replied vaguely, abruptly stilling again, eyes straying back to the window.

Hermione nodded and called the hospital staff to ask for tea. Luna continued to gaze out the window at a row of precisely-trimmed shrubbery as she absent-mindedly dropped butter into her tea and stacked her toast with sugar cubes. Neither Hermione nor Harry commented.

Hermione stood after the tea things had been cleared away. She said softly, looking at Luna with a trace of guilt, "I'm sorry, Harry, but there's some research at University that I need to look into."

He looked up at her and smiled a little in reassurance. "It's okay, Hermione. I'll stay with Luna for a little while longer."

Hermione nodded. "Be well, Luna," she said gently from the door, but Luna did not seem to hear her.

Harry stood and conjured a chair by Luna's bedside after Hermione had left. He took Luna's thin hands in his in an attempt to give her a focus for their own world. "Luna?"

Luna turned a little toward him, tilting her head curiously as if she could not quite place the name he had just spoken. He squeezed her hand, and called again, gently, "Luna."

There was recognition in her eyes once more as she looked up at him. "Hermione left. I frighten her," she observed sadly. "She doesn't want to know about the other world. She's afraid to discover that the Veil between the two worlds isn't as strong as she thought it was."

"Most people are," Harry told her quietly.

"But it's beautiful there, Harry," Luna murmured. "There are roads made of stars and ships of moonlight and shadows that transform into dragons with diamond eyes. You can find hobbobbers outside your window or run with unicorns beneath the sea. And I can see my mother there..."

"Luna..." Harry whispered.

"But it's okay to be a little afraid, you know," Luna continued in a more subdued tone. "It means that there's still something that you don't want to part from. Something that you love enough to keep you here."

"I..." Harry hesitated.

Luna looked out the window once more. "I think that's why you were chosen, Harry. That's why you are our best hope against Voldemort. There are those who would give not only their lives, but their souls for you. Because they love you that much. That's a form of magic, too."

"I don't deserve that," Harry murmured painfully.

"Have you ever heard the story of the Leviathan and the Phoenix?" Luna continued as if he had not spoken. "It was on the wireless today. Let me tell it to you." Without waiting for a reply, she began:

"In the beginning of the world, when gods still walked the newly-created earth, a child was born of a union between a god and a giantess, which was forbidden. This child was born in the darkness of the deepest sea, in the shape of a great serpent. The gods declared the serpent a monster, and chained him there beneath the waves, forbidding him from ever walking the golden halls of the gods in the sky.

Millennia passed, and the gods in their glorious perfumed palaces forgot about the serpent, but he had not forgotten them. In his lonely solitude beneath the dark sea he had plotted his revenge upon the gods, and when he finally reared from the waves he had grown into a great dragon—the Leviathan—who was so gigantic that he encircled the earth within his coils, wrapping it in darkness.

The Leviathan reached towards the skies, breaking the chains that had bound him since his birth, and laid siege to the sky palaces of the gods. It was only after a long, bloody battle that the immortal gods were able to grievously wound the Leviathan and throw him back into the sea, but they could not kill him. The gods were most concerned, for they knew that the Leviathan would attack them again and again, wreaking devastation upon the earth and the skies, until he was destroyed. They spent a long time debating how they would rid themselves of this monster, until finally they agreed upon a course of action: they would create a weapon that could be used to kill the Leviathan and bring peace to the seas and earth once more.

This weapon they created in the shape of a bird, the Phoenix, whose light would destroy the darkness of the Leviathan completely. They gifted her with the beauty of the brightest star in the morning sky and a song that could enchant even the most aloof of gods. They gave her one purpose only: to entrance the Leviathan and slay him, and they sent her streaking down to earth.

In the shape of a young woman the Phoenix walked the ocean's shore, vainly searching for the Leviathan. But the Leviathan had hidden himself well beneath the waves to tend to his injuries.

Many days later, the Phoenix was sitting upon the beach watching the sun slowly approach its rest beneath the waves, when she saw a man walking out of the white foam wearing dark green seaweed as his only garment. Water ran in little rivulets from his long black hair down the slope of his pale chest and back. When she gazed into his eyes, she trembled as if caught within a net; his eyes were the darkest sapphire, revealing to her secrets of the deep ocean that she had never known existed.

The man came up to her and held out his hand to her, and when her hand met his her heart soared across the space of their bodies, and she knew that she was lost forever. His arms came up around her, and she leaned her head against his chest and heard the beating of their hearts as they melded together. And the Phoenix cried aloud with the perfection of it, a joyous sound so beautiful that even the ocean hushed to hear it. But as the man raised a hand to touch her hair, a gentle wonder brightening his eyes to the color of the sky above the clouds, the last rays of the sun sank beneath the waves. The man leapt back, shadows spinning from his body as the night called forth the dragon from his soul.

The Phoenix, which had been created as a weapon by the gods, transformed into a bird wrapped in an inferno of flame, and this time her cry was so terrible that the skies wept to hear it. The lovers faced each other across the expanse of white sand, one a dragon woven out of shadows, the other a bird fashioned with light. The Phoenix ascended high into the sky and dived at the dragon, deadly talons bared. But the Phoenix could not bear to destroy the one to whom she had yielded her heart, and so she filled herself with so much light that she burned to ash before she reached him.

The Leviathan raised his head to the skies and cried a sound filled with so much sorrow that the echo of it reached even the gods in their halls of light. Then the gods looked to earth and gathered the ashes of the Phoenix, and gave her birth again from her own ashes. Thus resurrected, the Phoenix gave birth to two children, one of gold and Light like their mother, the other of sapphire and Darkness like their father, both so fair that all the gods loved them and gave them a special place upon the earth. But the Phoenix pined away in the sky palaces of the gods, for she had been created to kill her love, and would be compelled thus if she were ever to return to the earth.

Her sorrow and faithfulness moved the gods, who finally agreed to give the Leviathan a place in the sky among the stars, and the Phoenix a place there beside him."

"That was a beautiful story, Luna," Harry said softly when she had finished.

Luna looked down at their joined hands lying on the coverlet. "All the tales had happy endings when we were children, didn't they?" Luna observed sadly. Her eyes grew distant, and she murmured softly, as if to herself, "Once upon a time, in a place far away, there was a knight who loved a fair damsel with hair like spun sunlight and eyes the color of the midsummer sky, and the damsel loved him in return. The knight begged her father for his daughter's hand in marriage, but the damsel's father, a great lord, disdaining the knight's lowly position, assigned him an impossible task as the condition for his agreement: the knight was to drink from the lost Chalice of Purity, which only one who was pure of heart could taste and not die. The knight agreed, and, promising his love that he would return with the Chalice, set off on his adventure.

After many trials and hardships the knight found the Chalice, but he hesitated. How could he know if he was truly pure of heart? Certainly, he had aided others, and served his lord faithfully, and loved the lord's daughter with an all-consuming passion, but how could he be sure that no splinter of evil had hidden itself deep within his heart? So he took the Chalice with him, and set out once more into the world to prove to himself that he was truly worthy of drinking from that cup.

So the knight journeyed far and wide, always seeking a way, a sign to tell him that he was true, and worthy. Years passed, and every day he longed for his home and his love with a pain that was like a thorn stabbing into his heart. Yet still he hesitated, because he was only a humble knight, and how could he be sure—truly sure?

There came a day when his yearning became too much for him to bear, and he turned towards his home, still carrying the Chalice with him. His heart overflowed with joy when he finally set foot once more on his homeland. He stopped next to a small stream beside a cloister and dismounted to drink. But as he bent down, he caught sight of himself in the reflection of the stream, and saw that there was white at his temples, and wrinkles on his brow. He had grown old while he hesitated. Then the knight despaired, for how could his fair lady love him like this?

But before he could decide to leave the land he loved forever, a cry made him look up. A woman dressed in the robes of the cloister was running towards him, his name on her lips. And then knight gazed into her eyes, which where still as blue as the sky at midsummer, and he knew her to be his love. He touched her fair hair wonderingly, for there was silver amidst the golden strands, and tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. For she, too, had grown old while she waited for him faithfully within the walls of the cloister.

They gazed into each other's eyes, and they saw the love that still remained there, after all the years, and they laughed, and cried, and their tears fell with rainbowed sparkles into the Chalice. Then, holding hands, they each sipped from the Chalice, and the knight finally knew that he was true of heart, and had been worthy of drinking from the Chalice all along. He watched with amazement the wrinkles fading from his lady's face, and her hair becoming as radiantly full and golden as it had been when he had first met her. When he glanced in the stream, he saw that the years had melted from his own face, leaving him young once more. Then the knight and his lady embraced, and married, and lived happily ever after."

"Happily ever after," Luna repeated in a dreaming, distant voice. "Isn't that how all stories are supposed to end?"

"Luna," Harry said, tightening his hold on her hands, but she began again:

"Once upon a time..."

"Luna..." Harry called again, but Luna only sank deeper into her own world of dragons and golden-haired maidens and unicorns beneath the sea. Her words softened into jumbled murmurings beneath her breath. Finally, Harry released her hands and slowly stood. "I hope you find what you're looking for, Luna. I'll see you again soon," he said softly, but she gave no sign that she had heard as Harry gently closed the door behind him.

[[center:***]]

Walking through the maze of security wards that protected the new site of St. Mungo's Hospital of Magical Maladies and Injuries, Harry bleakly recalled the first time that he had visited Luna in this place. It had been a little under a month after the last great battle between Voldemort and the forces of Light, and the smell of blood had still permeated the halls beneath the pungency of sterilization spells and medical potions.

They had found Luna, they told him later, wandering alone in the snow of the battlefield in torn robes and bare feet, calling out a name. An Auror, following the sound of her voice, had discovered her shortly after she collapsed in a snow-bank, almost completely buried by the snow. He had brought her immediately back to St. Mungo's, but though they had Healed her frost-bitten feet, she had never walked again.

For days she had said that one name, whispered it, cried it, screamed it, showing no recognition at all of anyone who came to visit her. Then, abruptly, she had fallen entirely silent and unresponsive, and remained that way until she saw Harry standing in her doorway.

He could still so clearly remember the first time he had seen the vagueness fade from her pale eyes and recognition flood them with color. There had been no hatred and no accusation in those eyes, though it might have been Neville standing there in her doorway instead of him, if only he had been a little quicker, a little stronger. The emptiness in her eyes had pierced through him like a long poisoned needle.

"Oh, Harry," she wailed in a shaking voice. "I can't find him. I can't find Neville in the world beyond the Veil. I've lost him."

Harry had sat down by her side and stroked her hair while she cried out her loneliness against his shoulder...

Harry angrily pushed away the memories that threatened to unbalance his own carefully-erected barriers. He had one more visit to make before he left. He asked a question of the Auror standing guard at the entrance to the Closed Ward. Then he took a deep breath and turned at the end of the corridor, stopping before a plain whitewashed door. He quietly knocked and opened the door.

The witch sitting on a chair inside turned at the sound of his footsteps, tilting her head so that the stream of sunlight pouring in from the large glass windows behind her burnished her hair red-gold. "Hello, Harry," she smiled. "I'm so glad you could come."

"Hello, Ginny," he greeted her quietly. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry I haven't visited sooner."

Her wide eyes focused on his face at his touch, and she shook her head. "It's all right, Harry, I know you've been busy." Then she reached without looking for the wand lying on the small bedside table and cast a quick silencing charm over the two of them. "The nurses had to give them sedative potions today," she commented softly, and Harry gazed sadly at the two people lying so frail and worn in their white linen beds.

"She still calls for Neville in her sleep, even though she never does when she's awake," Ginny whispered. "But it seems to help her when I'm here, so I come as often as I can. Luna comes too, sometimes, when the Healers let her out of her room. She tells such beautiful stories."

"I know," Harry murmured, not trying to control the expression on his face; he knew that even with the touch spell his face was only a blurred mass of colors to Ginny now.

But Ginny, it seemed, did not need her sight to read his feelings. "Oh, Harry," she smiled gently as she raised one hand to touch his cheek. "Stop feeling like you're the one responsible for all of us. None of this is your fault."

"But—I—" Harry began.

"Harry James Potter," Ginny shifted into the strong, stern voice that Molly Weasley used to rebuke her wayward sons, and Harry cringed a little. "You will stop feeling sorry for me, because I certainly don't need anyone's pity. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Harry said with feeling, and Ginny laughed.

Then she said softly, "Harry..." Harry tensed, reading the question in her suddenly serious face. But she only shook her head a little and said, "I don't know much about what's going on now, but...you'll let me know if there's anything I can do, won't you?"

He gazed at her wordlessly, suddenly overwhelmed by the longing to lay his head against her shoulder and tell her everything. But he couldn't burden her with so much, not after a distant golden afternoon when he had told her that he would have to leave her behind. He couldn't be so unfair to her, not now. Not ever.

"Ginny...I'm sorry, but I...really want to know. Don't you...hate me for...leaving you...then?" he faltered.

She was silent for a long moment. Then she replied, "I don't think I...ever hated you. But I was hurt...for a very long time. I wanted it to work, I really did." She gave a little laugh. "I didn't want to believe that there was something I really wanted to do that I couldn't do, you know? But then Mum said something to me—she said that she was in love with someone before Dad—"

"Mrs. Weasley was?" Harry asked, startled.

Ginny smiled. "That's what she said. But it didn't work out. And she said that she didn't think she could love anyone else until she met my dad. That's when she realized that love isn't like water from a pitcher that you pour into people's cups, so that if you give someone a little bit more, someone else will get a little bit less. She loves Dad as much or even more than she loved the other person, but it's a love that's slightly different. She couldn't have loved the other person in the same way she loves Dad. Do you see? So I can love you for all the things that make you Harry, but when I find that person for me, I will love him in a different way. And it'll be the same for you."

"Ginny—" He hugged her hard and buried his face in her hair.

"So when you find that person you want to spend the rest of your life with, just know that it won't change what I feel for you," she whispered. "Because I do love you."

He shook his head. "How did you get so wise? I'd envy whoever you chose."

She chuckled. "You sound like you've been taking charm lessons from Bill!"

Harry raised his head and huffed a laugh. "I should be so lucky! Instead, I've been taking 'how to gnash your teeth to pieces' and 'one hundred and ten ways to stop yourself from hexing someone' lessons from Auror Adumbeus."

Ginny laughed with him for a moment, then sobered. "So Ademeus has managed to make a nuisance of himself already? I hear that he's a nasty little prick and no one really listens to him, but that he's got an ugly temper and a knack for getting back at people, so just watch your back, okay?"

"Got it. I'll pass that on to Malfoy, too. Oh, did you hear about that?" At Ginny's inquiring look, he launched into the tale of Draco's Confundus Charm.

For a moment—for just a moment, he allowed himself to lean on her strength. And he silently promised the still forms of Frank and Alice Longbottom, caged away in a nightmare world created by Voldemort, that he, like Neville,would not falter on the path of his destiny, wherever it might take him.