11Hehe. Woops. It's Saturday again isn't it? Sigh. Alright my dear readers, it seems like Saturdays are the days I like to write. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea haha. But you might want to start expecting these updates on Saturdays. If inspiration strikes and I am able to get them up on Friday I will certainly do so, so that you guys can read it a bit earlier, but don't count on it for sure. Apparently Saturday is just my day lol. Anyways, this drabble goes out doubly to LittleLionGirl for both requesting the word and a Luna POV. I've always wondered what it was that made Luna so Luna-ish, and this drabble explores that idea. I hope you all enjoy it! :D
**Word: Happy** Set during the seventh book, while Luna is being held for ransom. Luna thinks about her mother, the way she has lived her life, and her future.
For as long as I could remember, I had lived my life following my mother's mantra.
Do what makes you happy.
She always used to say that when I was little. In her mind, it didn't matter what other people thought, or whether you were normal, or liked, or safe, or even following the law. To her, the only thing that mattered in life was doing whatever made you happy.
"My Little Luna Belle," she would whisper to me when she tucked me into bed at night, "you only have one chance at life. Don't waste a second of it. Be happy. Always."
"But what if what makes me happy is wrong?" I whispered back.
She laughed her trill of a laugh. "My beautiful moon, if you're truly doing what makes you happy, it can't be wrong. No matter what anybody else thinks. After all, what could be more right in this world than happiness?"
Then she would kiss my forehead and leave my room, with a walk so light and free it looked more like dancing.
My mother followed her own advice as well. The one thing she loved more than anything was expanding her magical range. Testing her boundaries. It was during one of those experiments that I watched her die.
You'd think that would have really turned me off the whole idea. But the thing is, I don't remember the accident as 'my mother's death'. I remember her excitement, her passion, and the smile on her face even as the light of life faded from her eyes. For my entire life my Mum had been happy. I couldn't remember a time when I had seen her cry or yell.
I couldn't quite claim the same accomplishment, myself. I certainly cried and raged after she died. But it was at her funeral, seeing the bright colors draped everywhere and hearing the upbeat music playing, that I made a vow to my mother to live my life the way she'd wanted me to: just as happily as she had.
For seven years I kept that vow.
It was easy for the first two. My father was just as eccentric as I was and he encouraged my own oddities. Together we went on adventures to new lands and discovered unheard of creatures. We gathered magical artifacts and uncovered conspiracies. I helped him with his magazine and together we told the world about our incredible discoveries. Secure as I was in my house with my Dad, it never occurred to me that there were people in the world who didn't live by my mother's philosophy, who didn't believe in everything that my family did, and who would go out of their way to make me miserable.
But I learnt the truth soon enough. When I first arrived at Hogwarts at eleven years old, the teasing started almost immediately. The other students made fun of my Butterbeer cork necklace and Dirigible plum earrings. They laughed when I told them about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and wrote rude comments on my copies of the Quibbler.
By the end of the year, the teasing had become a permanent part of how the other students interacted with me. I don't think many of them actually knew my real name; they just called me 'Loony'. My belongings had started to go missing at such a rapid rate that by the time I boarded the Hogwarts Express I had less than half the luggage I had gone to school with. I sat by myself at every meal, in every class. And by the end of what was supposed to be the best year of my life, I had a grand total of zero friends.
For my first three years of school, things mostly followed this pattern. Maybe that should have made my life miserable. Maybe I should have succumbed to the peer pressure and just become what they wanted me to be. Maybe I should have become an angsty teenager who hated the world. But I never forgot the promise I made to my Mum all those years ago, so I never gave in. No matter where I was, who I was with, or what the consequences would be, I was always myself and I always did whatever it was that made me happy.
And, to my surprise as much as anyone's, my Mum was right and it worked. Well, mostly at least. I was content. I knew who I was and I loved myself. I didn't want to change one thing about my personality. Sure, sometimes I wished I could change other people, but I couldn't so I didn't torment myself thinking about it. Instead I ignored my classmates and focused on everything I did that made me happy. As a result, I was happy. At least to a degree.
But it wasn't until fourth year that I realized that what I used to think was happiness, had nothing on true joy.
In my fourth year I actually became friends with Ginny, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville. I joined Dumbledore's Army where I not only learned lots of new magic (something that always made me happy) but I also found my own small family at school. None of the other members of the club ever teased me. Sure, they may not have been inviting me to stay with them over Christmas or anything, but they were all kind and seemed to genuinely like me. No one ever laughed at my beliefs anymore. People defended me against those students who still insisted on teasing me. I went to a party as Harry Potter's date. When I would sit down in the Great Hall alone at a meal, it wouldn't be five minutes before someone joined me. They began conversations with me and actually made an effort to continue them. The oddest thing? They did all of this as though it was no big deal. As though it was normal. To them, I suppose it was. But to me, it felt as though my life was suddenly blazing with sunshine. I could never tell any of them how much their friendship meant to me.
And then the Department of Mysteries happened and I couldn't have been more thrilled. Two things still on my list of Things to do that Make Me Happy were ride a thestral and engage in violent battle for the good of wizardkind. And I accomplished both in one night. Sure, some people might say that night should have been traumatic, that I should have been afraid for my life, but the entire time all I could think about was my Mum, dying so happily, and I had no fear of death. If I died at that moment, I would have died the happiest I'd ever been. What more could someone ask for?
For the rest of my life, that night of battle with my five friends would be blazed in perfect detail in my memory.
I was finally living the life my mother had always wanted for me. That I had always wanted for me.
But then came the day when I realized that my Mum's philosophy wasn't true.
Sometimes, the things that make you happy are wrong.
Unfortunately, I underwent this moral crisis during a kidnapping.
I was being held ransom by the Death Eaters because my Dad had been doing what made him happy: writing to support Harry Potter in his magazine. Now I was locked in a basement, being tortured every night, and told that I would only be set free when my father agreed to stop writing his 'lies'.
At first, I tried to hold on to my mother's way of life. After all, it was by following her advice that I had made it through the worst times of my life so far. It was by following her advice that I had become who I was.
I felt sure that it would work. If I could just focus on my own happiness, I would be able to ignore the pain and the misery. But I hadn't counted on Bellatrix, who had been trained in how to extract every ounce of pain a person can feel without dying, who was unable to feel empathy, and who could only feel joy when she was harming another living creature. I hadn't counted on the cold and the darkness, seeming to suck away the little happiness I could scrounge up. I hadn't counted on the boredom, locked in a dirty basement with absolutely nothing I could do that would make me happy. I hadn't counted on the emptiness, the feeling of being totally alone. But most of all, I hadn't counted on the endlessness.
The Death Eaters claimed that once my Dad stopped writing about supporting Harry Potter they would let me go. But I wasn't an idiot. I knew that, as happy as those articles had made my father, I made him happier than anything else. If I was in pain, he would do anything to stop it. The moment they'd told him to stop writing he would have, and he would have meant it, for the rest of his life. He would have been willing to make an Unbreakable Vow. So I knew that the Death Eaters already had their official ransom. What they were waiting for now was the hidden request.
Harry Potter.
It was no secret that Harry and I had been friends at school. If they had me here anyways, they might as well keep me and try to get my Dad to hunt down Harry in order to secure my release. But I knew what the Death Eaters didn't know, or at the very least didn't care about.
I was the one who was friends with Harry Potter, and I didn't even know how to find him. My father who had only met him once? He had no chance.
So I knew that I would never leave this basement. Never leave this hell. Not until either the war finally ended after who knows how long (assuming our side pulled off some miracle and actually won) or I died, and joined my mother in the afterlife.
After one particularly brutal session with Bellatrix, I lay curled on the dirt floor in the pitch black, rocking back and forth, and I battled with my pain, both emotional and physical, in an attempt to find even a glimmer of happiness inside of me.
I fell back to my old methods and began to think about my mother. Not any particular memory, just of her. Who she was.
I thought about her laugh and her kisses. I thought about her confidence and her smile. I thought about the radiant joy that emanated from her. I thought about her life's philosophy. I thought about her funeral. And I thought about my vow to her.
I wanted to keep my vow. So, through the pain, I tried to decide what it was that I wanted, what it was that would make me happy.
At first it seemed like there was no answer. But there was. Of course there was. And of course I knew it. It was obvious. I just didn't want to face it.
That realization hit me like a lightning strike and suddenly every decision I'd made in my life, every philosophy I'd based my identity on, every belief I held, crumbled into dust around me.
What was it that would make me happy? If my Dad found Harry, turned him in, and freed me from this hell, of course.
But that was wrong.
That was so, so wrong.
I should not wish that. If that happened, the entire wizarding world would fall. Every good human being left would die.
How could that possibly be what would make me happy? It just wasn't right. My Mum was wrong. She had always been wrong. Happiness wasn't always a good thing.
And so I made the decision that cut through my heart like a knife. Bellatrix's torture had nothing on this pain. Because for the first time since her death, I refused to make my Mum's dying wish for me come true. I would not do what would make me happy. I refused to hope for it.
Curled up in a filthy basement, bleeding and bruised, I broke the vow I made to my mother.
And the first tear I had shed since her funeral slid unseen and silent down my face.
AN: I hope you all liked it! Normally my drabbles end on an uplifiting note... this one is a bit sadder. If anyone is feeling sad, just remember that Luna gets freed and ends up married to a naturalist, discovers awesome creatures for a living, and has two kids. Wowza. I think we can all agree that she does end up living a happy life, but in her own way. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the latest drabble! Please leave me a review to let me know what you thought. And as per usual, word requests are being accepted!