Yin and Yang
Yin and Yang
Tonight, was the night. The moon was shining bright and cold through the stone windows as the brave trio descended the steps down to the dungeons. Luna always found comfort in the moon, she liked to think the moon frogs were looking down on her with the same fondness as she had for them. Finally, they reached the first floor and had to creep down the hall to the entrance that would take them to the dungeons.
“Goodnight moon frogs,” whispered Luna softly as she carefully closed the door behind them. There would be no more windows for the next part of the journey.
“Shh,” both Ginny and Neville shushed in unison. They pulled the heavy door closed as quietly as they could, despite their best efforts it slid into place with a single but ominously loud click. They all crouched on the step behind the door listening for any sign that anyone else had heard the treacherous click. Luna could hardly hear anything over the pounding of her heart, but finally Neville stood up.
The Carrows are on patrol tonight,” he muttered nervously as he hefted the oblong bundle tied to his back with a bedsheet.
“It’s not the Carrow’s ears I’m worried about its Mrs. Norris.” Ginny started down the stairs as briskly as she could tiptoe.
Luna felt a stab of hope at the thought of Mrs. Norris, she had specifically left sprigs of mistletoe around the cat’s food and toys when she had had detention in Filch’s office in the hopes that nargles and the cat distract each other from their usual habits of tormenting students. It had been difficult to do while she was in the stocks, but none of Luna’s possessions had gone missing in the last few days nor had she seen Mrs. Norris so she judged the experiment to be a success. She was so caught up in considering the chances of success that she smacked right into the back of Neville causing the bundle to fall off his back and clang down several steps while all three of them charged after it. Ginny being the most athletic of them by far caught it first, snatching it out of the air just as it bounced up and fell point down threatening to bury itself into the stone stairwell.
The silence was very loud after that as they all just stood there staring at each other in shock. Finally Neville cleared his throat,” is it…is it ok?”
Ginny shook the remnants of the bed sheet off the ruby handled sword, “It looks ok. It looks just like the real thing. What is it made out of, Luna?”
Luna shook the wrackspurts out of her head, this was no to let her thoughts get fuzzy. “I don’t know really,” she craned her head to look closer at the sword. “Some kind of metal I suspect.”
Ginny made a noise in her throat and then asked, “where did you get it from though.”
“Oh,” Luna smiled glad to be asked a question that she knew. “I asked the room of requirement.”
“You asked the room of requirement?” Neville repeated a little weakly.
“I asked politely,” Luna clarified, “I been asking Room for things since the year I had no shoes.”
“…and the things just appear inside the room?” Ginny looked apprehensive as she asked the question.
“Mostly Room just takes me to where the thing is,” Luna smiled remembering the time she had surprised the Patel twins by walking out of their wardrobe while looking for her lost earrings.
“Where did it take you to find the sword?” Neville asked curiously.
“A dusty room filled with cabinets, and wigs and all kinds of things,” Luna said seriously, “Room likes it better when you put effort into the things you ask for.”
Ginny and Neville looked at each other again but didn’t say anything for a moment. “We’d better hurry,” said Ginny finally, “it’s only a matter of time before the patrols make the rounds again.
Finally, they reached the potions room and Snape’s office. “Alahamora probably won’t work,” Ginny glanced at Luna as though for confirmation.
“Probably not,” agreed Luna. She put on her spectrespecs and pressed her eye to the keyhole not that she expected wrackspurts to be in the lock, but she wouldn’t put it past Snape. “Specialis Revelio,” she whispered. The area around the door lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Oh no,” whispered Neville.
Luna just stared at the lights of the revealed spell as they slowly faded. It was a localized spell that much was clear. Perhaps some kind of listening charm. Alahamora, she thought at the door with as much clarity as she could. The wordless spell had been done correctly she had felt it leave her mind, but she heard no corresponding click of a lock opening. “Maybe you should try?” Luna looked at Ginny.
Ginny took a package out of her pocket that contained small metal items that looked like the things Hermione’s parents held in pictures of while they were working on muggles teeth. “I’ve been practicing on my trunk,” Ginny said her voice steady again, “Fred said they should work on doors just the same.”
“What are they called,” Neville peered down at the metal implements unimpressed.
“Lock ticks, I think,” Ginny knelt in front of the door but as soon as she pressed her hand on the door, it swung open in front of them. All three of them gasped sharply. Before they could enter there was a loud pop and sharp taunting voice cut through the air.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” They all turned their heads at once to see Bellatrix LaStrange standing behind them. Wrackspurts flooded Luna’s brain briefly before she could vanish them.
Neville let out a low noise somewhere between a moan and growl, with an amazing speed that Luna had never seen him use before, his wand appeared in his wand. “Stupefy,” he screamed. Bellatrix deflected the spell with a lazy wave of her wand without bothering to say the deflecting spell out loud. She laughed delightedly, “shall we duel little Longbottom? I’ll send you the same way as your parents…”
“Crucio,” both Ginny and Luna gasped as the word left Neville’s mouth, but only Bellatrix screamed briefly before swishing her wand angrily severing the spell.
“I’ll torture you in front of your idiot parents,” she hissed, “Accio wands.” Both Ginny and Neville’s wand flew towards Bellatrix, but Luna had tucked her wand tightly in her pocket. She clamped her arm down on it and thought Finite Incantatem over and over again until it stopped wiggling.
“What is the meaning of this?” Snape’s normally snide voice was roar as the door to the potions room flew open with a bang. His small black eyes took in the scene in a flash. He sneered at Bellatrix. “Surely if you wanted to interrogate students you didn’t need to bring them down here, Bellatrix.”
“I know you’re up to something down here,” she snapped back, “I know you’re hiding something from the dark lord. Bellatrix turned her wand briefly on Snape. “I may be forbidden from interrogating you but these wee little minions of yours.” She waved her wand back to Ginny, Luna and Neville, “They will tell me everything I want to know.”
“Has your paranoia reduced you to dragging students down to my office to make them confess to my supposed crimes? Five minutes of your Crucio and they will confess to being Harry Potter in disguise in any room, there was no need to drag them down to the dungeons. This one,” Snape gave Luna a sharp shove, so she was standing in front of Ginny and Neville, “probably already thinks she is Harry Potter anyway.”
“Stop pretending that I didn’t find them loitering outside your open office,” Bellatrix’s eyes narrowed at Snape, “what are you trying to hide?”
“You found them…” Snape’s perpetual sneer faded from his voice as he turned his eyes from Bellatrix and raked them over the student trio, finally resting them on now badly wrapped hidden sword on Neville’s back. “Don’t let them leave,” he yelled angrily right in Luna’s ear, she flinched as he swished suddenly through his open office door.
“As if I needed your instruction,” Bellatrix growled. “He sooooo faithful to my lord and yet there is no record anywhere of him doing such service at the ministry of magic. I find that odd, don’t you?” Bellatrix walked up to Luna and gently placed her wand on Luna’s forehead almost stroking it across her forehead. “What are you hiding in there? Legili…”
Before she could finish the spell Snape burst back out of his office his pallid oily face even paler than usual. “The sword is gone,” he shouted, “the sword of Gryffindor…” Luna glanced at Ginny in shock, but Ginny looked just as surprised as she was.
Bellatrix’s mouth dropped open in shock before splitting into an ecstatic grin. “My lord will be very displeased to hear this,” she purred as her wand slid away from Luna and pressed down into the dark mark on her arm.
“Not as displeased as he will be that you were keeping me out here in the hall while the sword was being stolen.” Snape shot back, “go ahead call him before we even looked to see what happened. See how pleased he is with you.”
Bellatrix’s smile faded slightly, she turned her wand again towards Luna and her friends, “Accio Sword.” The bundle on Neville’s back zipped towards Bellatrix with such force he slammed into Ginny and Luna before he could shrug out of it. The door to Snape’s office slammed shut at the same moment with a huge metallic clang. Bellatrix stripped the sheet off the sword holding it aloft as though she intended to use it. “It’s a little late to lock the door now Severus,” she sneered. Luna risked a glance back at Snape who was muttering incantations over the door accompanied by sharp flicks of his wand. Snape barely glanced at her and to Luna’s horror Bellatrix tucked the sword into her belt and turned to Luna. “How did you get in his office, Luny?” The tip of the wand was resting lightly against Luna’s forehead again as though Bellatrix could lift her memories out and examine them even without a pensieve.
“I didn’t,” Luna forced herself to look up at Bellatrix even as the wrackspurt flooded her brain.
“Lies,” snapped Bellatrix, “Legilimens.”
Immediately visions of Luna’s mother floated to the surface of her mind. Memories of the last day that Luna had ever seen her. Then it was replaced by her father’s weeping face as he tried to tell her that her mother was gone but he couldn’t get the words out. More recent memories started to bubble up; students calling her Luny, constantly finding her shoes missing. Luna tried to make her mind blank, but Bellatrix was too strong all of the wrackspurts that usually provided a comforting barrier between her and her tormentors were gone leaving her with nothing overwhelming memories bubbling up crystal clear from the depths of her mind. With the last little bit of control she had left, she pushed out her wand so the tip was digging into her thigh and thought with the tiny amount of strength she could muster she focused every available thought she could into one-word Confundo. It was not a very well-cast spell, Confundus when done properly should make it impossible to think properly for hours. Instead, Luna was filled with a dull cloudy feeling as all the painful memories shattered and disappeared into the mist. It was almost the same as wrackspurts. Maybe it was wrackspurts? Maybe the confundus charm was just a whistle call for wrackspurts. Luna tucked that thought away to consider later as the hallway slowly came back into focus.
“She threw me out of her mind,” Bellatrix sounded scandalized. “You threw me out of your mind.” She poked Luna in the forehead with her wand.
“I threw me out of my mind too,” Luna responded. Her voice sounded far away as though she was hearing it from the bottom of a well.
Bellatrix threw back her head and laughed at that.
“Are you done having a battle of wits with the village idiot?” Snape sounded angry but bored. “If you are, I need to make safer arrangements for that sword.”
“As if I would trust it back to your care,” Bellatrix didn’t even look at Snape as she spoke. “I want this one.”
“She’s a student not a parcel,” Snape sounded suddenly apprehensive.
“I have no intention of reporting your failure, Severus, I handled the situation after all. What would I report that other than that I did my job while your actions remain hidden in the shadows as usual?”
Suddenly Bellatrix grabbed Luna’s shoulder and reached into her pocket with her other hand. Luna felt a sudden tug in her navel as though she was being pulled by a fishhook. Then suddenly she was in a cold stone room alone with Bellatrix.
“Do you know how I did that,” Bellatrix asked. “One can’t just apperate in and out of Hogwarts you know.”
Luna’s eyes slid around the room it was bare except a cot, a trunk and a single small table filled with what could only be described as carefully arranged junk even by Luna’s standards. She thought for a moment, “Portkey.”
Bellatrix smiled, “very good. I asked Draco that and it took him much longer to figure it out.”
This did not surprise Luna as Draco rarely seemed to have any other thoughts than insults for other students and considerations of what his father would think. She said nothing.
“I know how they treat you,” Bellatrix’s voice did not have a trace of sympathy in it. “Why don’t you fight back? You are by far more powerful than any other student I have seen here.”
Luna thought about it, “if I let their actions dictate mine that wouldn’t make me powerful, would it? It would make them powerful instead.”
Bellatrix sneered, “the words of the weak. I would never allow others to disrespect me in such a way. You have the power and cleverness to stop it, instead you chase fairytales and nonsense. I could teach you how to use your gifts instead wasting your time on foolishness.”
Luna smiled and looked away towards the table. This was not the first time she had had this conversation even if it was certainly the most frightening version of the conversation. It was hard to explain that all the things that everyone else dismissed as imaginary were the very things that showed Luna how to do the spells she did. That you had to follow the trails of things that you couldn’t explain before you found the things that you could. That connection to the real things, the real spells, made all the things you couldn’t prove real and useful. “You can’t be disrespected if you don’t care about their respect.”
“Everyone cares about respect,” Bellatrix snorted halfway between a laugh and sneer. “Listen to me girl. When I was your age, everyone expected to stay the little box they put me in too, it was a very different situation, of course,” she sniffed disdainfully. “Uphold the family name, marry well, produce male heirs to carry on the family. No one thought that a mere girl like me could do anything else. I showed them didn’t I.” Bellatrix leaned froward deep into Luna’s face. “Didn’t I.”
Luna couldn’t help but wish that Bellatrix had, in fact, not showed them, but she couldn’t deny that this life was indeed as far as one could get from being a noble housewife. She took a tentative step back away from the woman. “I can’t imagine anything more different,” she agreed.
“You will do the same,” Bellatrix said decidedly, “I will teach you true power and show you how to wield it. We will be the most powerful servants the Dark Lord has ever had.” Bellatrix wasn’t even looking at Luna anymore she was so wrapped up in her own dark fantasy. “First things first,” the older woman drew her wand, “take your wand out girl. Curse me.”
Luna froze sharply, “I…” She opened her mouth to deny the presence of a wand, but her throat closed up.
“I know you have it,” Bellatrix insisted asshe cleared out her pockets tossed the used portkey as well as Ginny and Nevilles wands on the floor. She took a mocking fighting stance. “I will cast Crucio on you and you will cast it back on me until you learn to mean it, and I will make you mean it. Then you will understand the importance of power. You’ll hate me won’t you, for a little while anyway, but later you’ll understand, and you would do the exact same thing in my position.”
Luna had been slowly stepping away from the ranting woman until the back of her knee was pressed against the corner of the small table. “I might do one thing differently,” she said thoughtfully to herself.
“You would forgive?” Bellatrix sneered as she turned back to Luna. “You leave others to their own paths?”
“Maybe,” said Luna, “I might do those things. But I certainly wouldn’t kidnap someone and take them to where I hide all my portkeys.” Then she grabbed the leg of the small table and flung the contents on it at Bellatrix.
Bellatrix laughed and ducked but there were so many portkeys on the table they filled the air and several of them hit her in the face. Her laughter turned to shriek as suddenly her body was distorted as the multiple portkeys pulled the witch in different directions. The witch’s midsection twisted and distorted in the air in terrible ways as her body fought to keep itself together. There was no door to the room only a small window with bars.
Bellatrix waved her wand and screamed incantations as one by one she disabled the portkeys using spells Luna had never heard of before. Luna was impressed despite herself at the strength and will Bellatrix had to wield magic despite being literally pulled apart. It was undeniably impressive. When there were only two portkeys left pulling on the older witch Luna began to worry that she might indeed be trapped. Just as the second one stopped pulling on Bellatrix, her stomach went back to its normal shape as the final portkey now uncontested in it’s hold on her pulled her away.
Luna sighed with relief and sunk to the floor. Shakily she crawled over and retrieved Ginny and Neville’s wands. It was a pity Bellatrix hadn’t taken the sword out of her belt, or maybe she considered suddenly, it wasn’t She couldn’t stay here long. She would have to either choose one of the unused portkeys or try to climb out the window. But for just a moment now she could sit and breathe and ponder how different the world could look from a different set of eyes.
Legilimens
