I originally had a note at the top, but it seems to have disappeared. The challenge for this story was found at Loony Lovegood.



My little Luna had never been completely average – not in looks, not in mind, not in interests. She had once been better, much better, so unique and prosperous and alive. Through her first nine years Luna made friends; though she had a hard time when they didn’t understand her, it was caused only by interests, not by ailments. I had been so proud of her during those years – she had been taught at home by my wife and made solid grades, she was so amazingly gifted; she waited birthday after birthday for her chance for Hogwarts, and I knew, I just knew, that she would make lasting relationships there.


Then, months after her 9th birthday, an event happened that changed her whole outlook on life.

Luna and her mother, my blessed wife Denise, had been at home while I worked at my job as the editor of the Quibbler. I had asked Denise to experiment and try out a new spell that someone had reported to make Kneazles sprout out of its tip. The spell backfired, killing her in front of Luna, and breaking my heart indefinitely. If not for the fact that I had caused Denise’s death I was distraught over the effects that it had had upon my daughter.


Luna became psychotic; she lived out the next two years in a mixture of grief and eccentricy, becoming even more silent and gargoyle-like than before. I worried constantly about her health; she had become pale and thin; her eyes were deep in their sockets. With the pale face and cold eyes she frighteningly resembled a snowman.
I made her eat numerous times; she didn’t seem to have a reason for the behavior but she seemed to forget she was hungry sometimes. And beyond the fact that her physical health was deteriorating before my eyes, Luna acted very differently than before. I worried that demons and voices were in her head, all swimming around. I searched thousands of books to find a way to somehow release them; I wanted my daughter back.


Years passed and I saw her off to the Hogwarts Express. I remember her letters. I kept them all.


Daddy,
I am a Ravenclaw. All the other girls are always giggling when I try to go to sleep. They give me a headache.

Most were like the one above; the letters were filled with complaints and what seemed to me to be cries for normalicy.
Some detailed the changes that had happened since my wife’s death.

Daddy,
On the way to Hogwarts we rode in carriages. Everyone else seemed to think that the horses pulling them were invisible. They laughed at me when I said that I saw them.

Most were short, but there were a few longer letters; in them she always critiqued everything and everyone. I cried after I read these; most eleven year olds don’t have such a negative outlook on life. Luna had always been so cheery, even if she had been strange as a child. She used to be optimistic and wide-eyed. Now she was cynical and uncooperative.



I prayed every night, every morning, every meal that she would change. She never did.



Year after year she pulled farther away from me. She pulled farther away from everyone.






My daughter Luna Lovegood died from her own killing curse.
She was 17.


Author's Note: I have several other fictions on this site. Please review.