Lost
Moving: Outside, Unknown; an abandoned house, Unknown
25th september 2003
“See?” Luna crows even through her chattering teeth, as she at last witnesses my probably euphoric look. Her own smugness, filtered past the pinched exterior caused by the deep chill she supposedly still suffers from, makes me want to stick my tongue out at her.
And I do just that, before helping Neville with moulding his Warming Charm to be thicker and steadier, not to mention able to shield from any sharp wind – although Luna words it as “the spears of the angry tuluso.” (Well, no, I haven’t found my family book yet, although the Black one has been found in the Blacks’ chateau in France, the last known residence of Arcturus Black, the last lord of the House Black. But there’s the famous saying that necessity breeds invention, no? So I just borrowed heavily from that adage for this inherited penchant of mine, with countless dummies as the victim before I managed to find a feel for it.)
“Where do we go from here, Harry?” she asks as I do up her Warming Charm, next. “Do you think you can call on your other parents from here? Do you think we could get some kind of antidote for the cold climate? Do you think anybody here could be affected by wrakspurts or nargles? I was never long here!”
“There’s no antidote to any climate, Luna, you know that,” Neville laughs, with an abundance of affection of a special kind in his voice that begs to be teased mercilessly.
So I do just that, as we make our way gingerly away from the… doorway… which is just a spot of different-feeling air between two huge, ice-layered boulders, similar to the corresponding one on earth – or rather, Earth, since we’re now most likely in a different planet that Luna claims to be inhabited by giant blue people.
`Hmm. On earth…. What a concept!` No rocket launch; no long travel; just… here.
And, looking up to the sky to check, I’ve just found the three moons hanging there, nearly above our heads. The sky itself is so alight with stars as if it’s day – a pretty, silvery daylight.
The landscape feels… broken, though, sadly, and barren of any life even of the wild kind, and there’s even some physical evidence to it, namely the jagged top of some suspiciously smooth rock walls, the absence of tiny critters wandering about or skittering away from us, and the remnant patches of what might be giant cobblestones without the wild grass that usually peeks through those.
It’s like we’re walking through a ghost town that even the wildlife shuns.
My friends seem to catch up soon to the sad and unnerving environment, or maybe they’ve just realised that I haven’t been participating in the banter for some time already, because they peter out by themselves and look round tensely.
“Shall we go back?” Neville offers. There, that again, a Gryffindor being sensible….
“I never saw anything like this,” Luna offers in a small, unsure tone. “So many Humpingers. I didn’t realise this before. But then, sometimes they’re covered up or I got too distracted. – War happened here, or maybe a bad robber-raid. Humpdingers love those places.”
Her solemn proclamation, as Luna-esque as it is, chills me immensely, while the climate here somehow hasn’t managed to do that much.
And then I realise something…. “Do any of us know the way back?”
Our tiny party goes to a spontaneous halt on that.
“I guess, this means none of us thought of marking the way?” I clarify, resigned.
The patch of Neville’s face that’s visible under the hood of his cloak pales considerably. I don’t think I’m faring better.
A glance at Luna’s serene countenance, though, and I have to do a double take, ending up with gawking at her. “Luna?”
She smiles gently, dreamily. “You can lead us,” she says, with firm confidence that I don’t share at all.
“If you forgot, I found this place at the same time and in the same way as Nev here,” I point out dryly. “Come on, Lu. I’m starving and my foot’s still hurting. We could come back here some other time, and we ought to bring something to mark the way, then.”
She shakes her hooded head, in response. “No-no-no. Look into yourself, Harry. You’ll find it. Didn’t you feel it when you first came here?”
Is she referring to my… dream? Memory? Fantasy? Of the cocoon and my cocoon-mate? But if so, how did she know about it? It’s my best-kept secret, something that not even Voldemort with his infernal link with my own mind ever dug out. Or did she notice my elation when I first set foot here, while I was preoccupied with myself?
My mouth dries up. – That bit of myself is private; even more than the night my parents died, because the latter has somehow turned into public spectacle these two decades or so. But if I confront Luna about it now, Neville will inevitably ask – or at least wonder about it – and I’m not ready to share this titbit with him; neither am I ready to prolong the discussion that will sprout from it, for that matter.
Neither am I ready to share it with Luna, but, somehow, the cat is already long out of the bag with her, so to say, and you can’t prevent spillage from a glass of milk that has spilt, can you?
So I give her a shrug and, ignoring Neville’s curious look, propose a respite for the three of us somewhere nearby, sheltered from the cold wind that’s beginning to blow harder and harder. My foot does hurt, still, and my stomach does protest most enthusiastically to its empty status; so, physically, I’d welcome the rest heartily.
I’d rather avoid all the mental and metaphysical reasons altogether, at least for now that I’m still rattled by what Luna may have known about things that I’d rather nobody nows.
Thankfully, we find a more-or-less-intact building nearby and immediately set to preparing dinner, therefore forcing me to set aside my conundrum for the time being. Our impromptu campsite is at least roofed and walled, although huge chunks are missing from two of the walls and a section of the roof; the latter of which seems to actually be the ceiling attached to the second story, given the hint of a collapsed staircase on the farthest corner where the hole is.
I light a Bluebell Flame in a shallow tin jar on the cleanest and evenest bit of floor we can find, all after separately exploring the immensely spacious – for us – floor and comparing observations. Luna puts a pot full of the soup the house-elf caretaker of the lodge has prepared for us on top of the flame-in-tin, while Neville gets out the bowls and an oilcloth package of thick-crust bread.
“Do you think we could forage for some winter berries?” he asks tentatively as I help the soup to boil faster, with a tiny nudge of a Warming Charm aimed at the pot.
“Where do you think we can find those? Are they edible? We know nothing about this place, you know?” I shrug. “I’m all for an adventure, but only when I can predict that it’s not terribly dangerous and I’m sure I can go home again. – There’s nothing alive nearby, so we must go farther afield, and… well… we’re lost enough as it is, I’d say.”
“The rumours at school said otherwise,” Luna comments, smiling. “They said you deliberately chose to find adventures to further your good name and popularity.”
“And you believe those?” I retort, half-hearted.
“Touché.” She sounds apologetic now, and a little bit baffled. I shrug at her inquiring stare and choose to busy myself looking round, searching for something that might tell us why this place isn’t lively, as she indirectly described. It’s better than trying to confront her about what and how she knows about me and the cocoon and my cocoon-mate, or thinking about how stranded we are, which has partially been her fault.
Neville is giving me a similar stare, unfortunately, now, probably catching up with the awkwardness between me and his “special expedition partner” – as I so often like to tease him. So, not knowing what else to do, I excuse myself to look round this first floor of the building we’re sheltered in, to search for some information about what happened, armed only with a Lumos on the tip of my wand.
And then, the weak light I’m maintaining reflects on something peeking out from the bottom of a rubble-pile below one of the missing chunks of wall.