trans_9 | Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars! [Closed]

She drags her eyes away from his arm slowly, staring up at him with a look of such utter devastation that the tears brimming unnoticed in her eyes aren't even the worst part--it is the downturn of her mouth, and the disbelief in the arch of her eyebrows, the crease of sorrow pressed between them.

"None of these could possibly be your fault," she says, looking back down at his arm, running fingers over a burn mark, a deeper line, her other hand curling around his in an unconscious, but tender manner. She shakes her head. "If he's your father, nothing you could ever do should provoke these kinds of things. You don't...you don't raise children by force."

His words weren't doing anything to dispel the shadow around Luna. He hated seeing that thing hanging there, bringing tears to her eyes. He had to say something to make her feel better. Something to get rid of that shadow.

He forced a smile. If you looked carefully you could see how old faded scars caused the skin to pull in various places, "W-well, he's not here now, so it really isn't that big of a d-deal. As l-long as he's not h-here, then he c-can't hurt me any more, right?"

of course that was wrong. Things his father had done years ago were still hurting him now.

She swallows, trying to clear the knot from her throat, doing her best to listen to his words and let the emotion struggling to be anger roll off her back. Her eyes catch on a thin scar on his forehead, barely exposed through his fringe, and after staring for a moment, she brushes the hair away gently, smiling rather sadly.

"We talked about fairytales the first time we met," she says softly, her fingers barely skimming his forehead, following the line of the scar. "There's a legend in my world about a boy with a scar on his forehead--The Boy Who Lived, we call him, cursed by You-Know-Who in an attempt to kill him. The curse backfired, and the Dark Lord fled into exile, not quite dead, clinging to life through some Dark means, and though the Boy's parents were dead around him, his house in ruins, he went on. He grew up with Muggles that treated him poorly, and when he found out he was a wizard, he didn't know what to make of himself. And then he made everything of himself, and when You-Know-Who returned, more powerful than before, the Boy Who Lived became the Chosen One, and he sacrificed himself for the world. And he lived to tell the tale, though his scar told it for him. Just a little scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning, hidden by a fringe of hair in an attempt to be normal..."

She trails off, her hand falling to her lap, eyes growing distant, something of her own private sorrow lingering in the line of her shoulders. It shocks her, sometimes, how much she misses Harry, and Ginny, and all of them. What she wouldn't give to see them again...

Alex cast his eyes away, "I-I'm nothing so fantastic... He s-sounds like such a great hero, but he's just a legend. That s-sorta thing n-never really happens. This sc-scar wasn' so fantastic either... I-it's from one evening, I f-forgot ta prepare dinner, an' father c-came home, th-though he u-usually says out on Wednesdays an' eats at the bar. He was angry with me, an' he hit me with his empty beer bottle. He'd n-never waste alcohol on me..."

He smiled, "There were lotsa stories like that in our world though, p-people going against all odds, being a h-hero, saving the world, saving people. B-but people like that don' exist, do they? I've never heard of anyone."

"Oh, he existed. He was a year above me in school, and one of my very good friends. I was there when he killed You-Know-Who. He dyed his eyebrow yellow once. It still mystifies me," she says dreamily, having eased back into her typical serenity, though she does sigh at Alex's story.

"I don't understand your father. He's your guardian--he should cook you dinner, or at least help. It's such a silly thing to get angry over. The few times Daddy's been angry at me, it was over bigger things, like the time I accidentally blew out the roof when I got upset over the extinction of the Dodo bird."

The shadow faded away, and Alex relaxed, enough that he could be completely amazed by what she said. "Really? Wait... what?" Alex's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in shock. "You were... With a legend? An' you c-can blow off roofs? I had no Idea your magic was that strong! B-but, people like that really existed?"

The bit about his father might have sounded rather odd to Luna, but Alex had a hard time imagining a household where things like that didn't happen. His father had fooled him for a very long time, telling him that every little boy had to have 'private visits' with older men, and that sometimes there was even a lady that would want to play with him too. It wasn't until he talked with Mikel that he thought there was anything different, and even then he had chalked that up to the fact that Mikel didn't have a father who could arrange those play dates for him.

Still, Alex wasn't going to go any further into that, not after having managed to get rid of Luna's shadow. He was sure she wouldn't take any of that well, and it was the only thing he really avoided speaking of. He might use a euphemism to explain it in passing, but he would refuse to go into it. Even with Mikel, he avoided speaking of it, but he would rather explain than lie. He hated lying and he hated liars. At least, after hearing that his father caused most of the scars on his skin, most people saw no need to pry further. Most people accepted that as a reason for the way he was, even though he found it easier to take he cigarette burns and the back hands.

"Oh yes," she says, nodding. "Harry's a wonderful person, and magic can do almost anything. It's why they send us to school--if we don't learn how to control our magic with wands and words, we could be terrible. Not that wands and words stop some from being terrible, but it becomes a conscious decision, rather than a mistake."

"People like that exist all over the world. My Headmaster--well, he's...he's dead now, I suppose, but he was one of the legends. I wouldn't be surprised if people everywhere knew his name, and You-Know-Who was a bit of a legend himself, as was Grindelwald. Harry and Professor Dumbledore were some of the truly good ones, though."

If he ever chooses to tell her about that part of his life, she will be suitably horrified. She will cry, that time.

Alex continued to stare in wonderment. "I-I c-can't think of any heroes in my world, not any recent ones at least... Your world, i-it sounds so g-great. I wish I c-could've lived there. A w-world where legends were real... Then, s-since Harry Potter was so well known in my world 'c-cause of the books, he r-really must have b-been special."

He decided then that he would have to find and read the books that told of Luna's world. If she knew the famous Harry Potter, then maybe she would be in the books as well.

A moment later he wondered aloud, "Wh-what sorta things can you do with your m-magic anyway?"

"I'm sure there are heroes in your world--you just don't know about them. And anyway, my world was wonderful, but also terrible. I'm just grateful that I wasn't born during the first of You-Know-Who's wars."

Her smile grows, and she almost glows as she says, "Harry was really wonderful. In my fourth year, he and Hermione, and sort of Ron, formed this secret club where we went to learn how to defend ourselves against You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters, because the Ministry had gotten rid of our functional Defense Against the Dark Arts program. They were convinced that Harry and Professor Dumbledore's claims that You-Know-Who was back were just attention-grabbing antics, and that both of them had gone round the bend. So we learned from Harry, and at the end of the year, we went off to save Harry's godfather, and fought off Death Eaters, and Harry fought with You-Know-Who himself. His godfather died, which was sad, but he'll see him again. I know he will."

"Oh, all sorts of things," she says. "You can Summon things, conjure things, transfigure things--well, supposedly. I'm quite terrible at Transfiguration. I barely passed my O.W.L. in that class."

She pauses, pulls her wand from behind her ear, and says "Avifors!". The small block of plaster at which she had pointed turns into a flock of small, yellow birds, chirping and circling Luna's head merrily. "Really, the only thing we can't do is bring the dead back, and even that has been almost accomplished."

Alex looked a bit troubled by the tone Luna took when talking about Harry. She seemed so happy to talk about him.

Was this... Was he jealous?

He stifled the feeling, and smiled wider when the stone was turned into birds, but he then shivered at the idea of bringing the dead back. "D-death one t-time around generally brings e-enough sadness, an' anyone whose death is little mourned, w-well, I dunno if I'd want them back, ya know?"

He smiled again though as a bird landed next to Alice on his shoulder, sending her squeaking down his sleeve. "B-but being able ta do all that, it's r-really amazing!"

Luna fails to notice the troubled look lingering on Alex's face, her eyes focused on the birds fluttering around the place.

"Oh, I agree entirely. And those that have succeeded have received imperfect results. Things like Inferi." She swallows, the edges of a shadow creeping into the air at that word. How many nightmares she has had about the Inferi...

"It's incredible, yes. I don't know what I would do without magic."

"I-Infe- N-nevermind." Seeing the shadows that word brought made Alex decide against inquiring further, and instead abruptly changed the subject. "S-so, what sorta games and stuff do you have in y-your world?"

She smiles a bit at the subject change, though the expression looks, for once, a little strained.

"We don't have games in the sense that Muggles do--they have those odd elec...tonic? ones. We have...well, we have Quidditch, and Gobstones, and chess, and card games, and some people trade Chocolate Frog cards for fun. The WWN is quite entertaining."

"E-Electronics," Alex corrects, only to promptly inquire, "G-Gobstones? Q-Quidditch? WWN? W-we have chess an' c-card games too. Y-you mentioned Ch-Chocolate Frogs before too. Th-they're not real frogs, a-are they?"

He hoped that if he just kept things up, that her expression would start getting a little less strained.

She shakes her head slightly. "Electronics, yes. I never got a chance to take a Muggle Studies course, so I get a lot of the words wrong." She pauses, her expression easing. "Gobstones I can't say I know much about--I've never played it. All I know is that they squirt this foul-smelling liquid at you if you do poorly. It would make the Common Room smell for days. Quidditch is our main sport, played on broomsticks. It's a wonderful game--there are six goal posts, three on each side, and the goal is to get the Quaffle through the other team's hoops. But there are two other kinds of ball on the playing field--there are the Bludgers, which rocket around, trying to knock players off their broomsticks, that are beaten off by the Beaters, and there's the Snitch, which is a tiny golden ball with wings that flies around for the entire game. If the Seeker catches the Snitch, the match is over, and the team of the Seeker wins 150 points. The WWN is the Wizarding Wireless Network. It's our version of the radio. They play lots of good music, and news broadcasts. Daddy always hated it when I turned it up when they played the Weird Sisters, but their music is so good!"

"W-wait," he says, still several sentences behind, "Y-you r-ride broomsticks?" That wasn't just part of stories? The wands, okay, they made a decent amount of sense, but the brooms? He totally missed the explanation of how the game was played, and barely registered what the WWN was. His mind was too busy trying to register the whole broomstick thing.

"Broomsticks, yes," she says, nodding. "They're bewitched to fly, though these days it's much more complicated than that. They have to be finely tuned and regulated to meet safety standards, because Quidditch is quite a dangerous sport, and that's without riding a shoddy broom."

Alex, once again, stares at Luna, absolutely amazed. "Y-you fly?"

He imagined there had to be a shadow eater somewhere that had the ability to fly, but it still struck him as fascinating. "Wh-what sorta regulations are there?"

"Oh, yes. Wizards have flown since the 900s, but always on broomsticks or carpets. Carpets have been banned in Britain, though--they're hazardous to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, because it's quite hard to make them invisible."

She has to think for a moment, eyes drifting ceilingward.

"Well, I suppose they regulate speed and aerodynamics, to keep players from flying too quickly, and there are all kinds of spells and charms put on to protect against tampering and shattering, though that didn't stop Harry's broom from shattering that one time, though I suppose not many things could survive hitting the Whomping Willow. I don't really know the half of it, though--I commentated a few school games of Quidditch, but I'm terrible at broomstick flying. I prefer thestrals."

Alex continues to look at her completely shocked and lost. Quidditch, broomstick flying, magic carpets, a Whomping Willow? Thestrals? Wizarding Secrecy?

He was stunned into silence for several minutes, wondering if Luna would explain anything more.

Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars! [Closed]

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Alex needs a shocked icon that doesn't look like he just saw someone murdered.

He really does.

I drew him sleeping in my notebook in Japanese class o///o

Eee! <3

just need to get it on my computer and figure out art-y things on this new OS

:3

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