Luna was the first to arrive at Parvati’s side. Yet, she was too late to help. Neville, Seamus and other defenders of Hogwarts, who answered the cries, now stood mutely to Luna’s right. Parvati Patil, her robe soaked with blood from a wound in her side, was distraught, kneeling over a quiet, dark form lying motionless in the nighttime grass.

“I’m sorry! I’m…soooo...sorry,” cried the young woman, as she stroked an unfeeling hand.

Seamus reached down, pulled his sobbing housemate to her feet and took her into his arms. He whispered soft, consoling words into her ear, but the words did nothing to stem the flow of anguished tears. Onesimus Austin, a brown haired Ravenclaw, lowered his wand to move the body into the school. As he moved, Luna reached out a hand and touched him on the shoulder. “No, Nessie. She’s a friend. Neville and I will take care of her,” she told him.

Neville stowed his wand in his robe’s pocket and leaned over to pick up the body in a fireman’s carry. After he had steadied himself, Neville began a slow march toward the school. Luna with her wand lit, reached onto the ground to pick up her friend’s wand and a small golden heart shaped locket. The locket was opened and she saw it contained a picture of a newborn baby and a smiling dark haired man. She touched the image of the child with her index finger and felt a sad kinship with the now motherless infant.

Luna caught up to Neville just as they arrived at the entrance of the Great Hall. As they entered the room, she saw to her left Seamus with his arm around the wounded Parvarti near the end of the queue of those who were awaiting Madame Pomfrey’s ministrations. Directly in front of Luna laid a line of those whom were beyond Madame Pomfrey’s aid, their faces stared up blindly toward the magical ceiling Neville made a slight adjustment to his load and preceded toward the far end of the line which was near the raised platform that usually held the staff table. As they had walked about a third of the way down the line, Luna recognized a familiar face. “Neville place her here,” an even sadder Luna said.

Neville turned and waited for Luna to gently move the surrounding bodies to the side to make room. It wasn’t until he had gently laid Tonks on the linen sheet which covered stone floor that he saw who was laying next to her. “Professor Lupin,” escaped his lips. Neville seemed to shutter enraged and stood up straight to his full height. The young man’s fists were balled up as if ready to punch something.

Luna looked up at her friend and said, “I’ll take care of them. Go outside and see if there are others who can still be helped.” Neville nodded and taking long strides walked out through the doors.

Luna turned the bodies so that her hand lay upon his. She conjured a water-filled basin and a wash rag. By hand, she gently cleaned the blood and grime off Lupin’s face and gently fastened the locket back around Tonks’ neck. As Luna finished arranging Tonk’s hair, Ginny, her eyes red from grieving for Fred just up the line, found her friend in the Great Hall.

”Tonks! How?” asked Ginny.

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” answered Luna. “I saw it. After He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named announced his ‘cease fire’, Tonks saw Parvati Patil bleeding and stumbling toward the school. Tonks stopped to help her. Suddenly out of nowhere, Lestrange Apparated next to her and fired the Avada Kedavra. Tonks didn’t even have a chance to defend herself. It was murder,” Luna recounted, feeling an ache in her heart.

Somewhere in the middle of Luna’s description of Tonks’ death, Hermione Granger showed up. Luna had never seen Hermione act this way. She looked as if she was lost and confused. Hermione stared unblinkingly at the blank wall.

After about two minutes, Ginny waved her hand in front of Hermione’s face. Hermione’s head snapped up as if surprised by Ginny’s presence in the room. “Snape is dead,” she announced, with no emotion in her voice.

”Good!” spat Ginny, “Who did it? I want to shake their hand.

“Voldemort did it. He used that giant snake of his to kill him. As Snape died, he gave Harry…..something. Harry’s looking at it now,” Hermione said, seemingly rambling.

Luna thought about Professor Snape. She had once spent a half an hour thinking about how happy she would be if they could somehow get rid of him. However, Hermione’s news on top on everything else just left her feeling even sadder.

“They can’t get away with it anymore,” Ginny blazed at Hermione and Luna. “We’ve got to stop him and Bellatrix. She killed Tonks. Who will be next? As long as they’re alive, no one is safe. I’m going after her and I’m taking her out,” Ginny said, the fire from the early days of the second D.A. flashing through her eyes.

“She’s too powerful for you, Ginny,” Hermione calmly replied, “However, she might not be too powerful for the two of us.” Hermione looked at Ginny and matched her steel to Ginny’s fire.

Ginny stuck out her hand palm down, “All right, we do it for Tonks.”

Hermione nodded her head and placed her palm on top of Ginny’s hand and with sad determined voice spoke, “For Tonks.”

Without even considering what she was doing, Luna found her hand resting on top of the other two hands and she heard herself say, “No, for friends.”

The three young women, their hands still in the pile, looked into each other’s eyes. Each knew the price they might have to pay, but each pair of eyes showed an acceptance of this task. Luna thought that it was like they had been selected for this job long ago. Harry had taught them in the D.A. They had learned of Bellatrix’s evil though Neville and his parents. They had fought clumsily and yet held their own in the Ministry. They had defended the school twice now from the Death Eaters. The three of them had each put their lives on the line for the cause all this year. If Lestrange was going down, it seemed natural that they should be the agents of her downfall.

“Got a plan, Hermione?” Ginny asked.

“Only one, we find her and take the Bitch down,” she replied in a matter of fact voice.

“Well said,” Ginny grinned amazed that Hermione would ever speak like that.

“Oh, I don’t think so. By comparing Bellatrix Lestrange to a dog, it seems to me that you are giving her way too much credit,” Luna said, trying to come up with a more apt analogy.

Ginny giggled and Hermione grinned widely at her comment. Luna had no idea why they reacted that way.

Luna watched as Hermione and Ron skulked out of the Great Hall. She could almost see Harry under his magnificent cloak leading them toward some private celebration. As the duo disappeared into the hall, she turned to her left and saw Hannah Abbott using a cloth and a potion in her tender ministering of the burns on Neville’s forehead. Neville was obviously exhausted. Yet he was being pelted with requests to reenact his killing of the great snake with Gryffindor’s sword that lay on the table in front of him. Luna turned to her right and saw Ginny with her head on her mother’s shoulder both women with their arms intertwined. Luna felt very alone and yet not alone enough.

Without drawing any attention, she walked out of the Great Hall, past the location of the destroyed doorway and onto the front lawn of the castle. Luna found a patch of flat dry ground and seated herself on it. She sat there watching the sun finish its rising in the sky feeling numb and at a loss of what to do next. For the last three years, she had been part of Harry’s little army out to destroy Voldemort. Now, he was dead. Now what?

Luna sat on the school’s front lawn absorbing the sun’s warmth and light, when she saw something flop just beyond a destroyed Gargoyle. She got up and walked over to discover a small Thestral with an injured leg. The young woman sat down on the ground next to the skeletal creature, talked gently into its scaly ear and stroked the animal’s head to comfort it while with her oft hand gently inspecting the foal for the injury. Luna took her wand out from behind her ear to summon Hagrid, but she stopped. She would take care of the little flyer by herself.

Starting at the creature’s left hind quarter, she examined the leg and found that the creature’s problem was a fracture in its cannon. If she left the poor thing alone, it would eventually thrash around until the fracture caused enough injury to become fatal. However, Luna had seen too much death to allow one more victim today. With her wand she summoned two pieces of wood from the shattered oak school doors to fashion a splint. She looked around for some rope to tie it off but none was available. She was about to give up when a flicker of inspiration hit. She pointed her wand toward the Gamekeeper’s hut and silently flicked. Out of the door flying like some bizarre white bird was a skein of unicorn hair. She put a few hairs out of mass to bind the splint after she had set the bone. The improvised treatment worked. The Threstral foal stood and after some initial difficulty moved toward the rest of the surviving herd that was feasting on the carcasses that strewn the grounds. She smiled as she saw the foal nuzzled a female and began to nurse. In a day of death, she had just given back a life.

As she watched her still gimpy patient, Luna noticed beyond the Thestrals was Buckbeak licking his right foreclaw. She walked over and bowed low to the animal. Buckbeak, who was use to her being around Hagrid’s hut, returned the bow as his acceptance of her presence. Luna saw blood on the hoof. On her second try at stopping the bleeding, she was successful in bandaging up the noble warrior.

As she stroked Buckbeak’s large, feathered head she heard a familiar voice from behind her say, “I knew I’d find you out amongst nature.”

“I can’t stand to be inside for long. After Shell Cottage, I snuck out of my safe house every night so I could be under the stars. Even the Great Hall was too confining, besides these animals fought bravely on our side and no one seems to care that some of them were hurt. No one but me,” Luna sighed, as she turned around to face the bowing Mr. Ollivander.

“So now what, Luna? What will you do with your life?” he asked his eyes on Buckbeak. She shrugged in response. “You’ve a natural affinity with these creatures. I remember my adoptive father once telling me... Oh well, maybe I’ll tell you later,” he murmured.

Luna got the impression he was hiding something from her. She tilted her head to the right looking at the old man. In all of their months together, Mr. Ollivander had never once told her a story about himself. He had only repeated the stories Professor Burbage and the other previously moved. She knew no more about him that she did any other stranger. “You were adopted?” she queried.

“Oh, yes,” he answered waving off the question like some bothersome insect. “Luna, if I might be so bold to make a suggestion. You should go out into the world and see the Dragons in Romania, the Yeti in the Himalayas, and all of the other magical creatures. You should tour the world, walk in the rainforests of Brazil and New Guinea and every old wood forest you can. Find the trees with the most Bowtruckles on them, and get a feel for the wood. Does that sound interesting to you?” he asked, as a small smile appeared on his face.

“Yes, but I’m afraid that it might just be an easy form of hiding,” Luna answered surprising herself with her own insight.

“After what we’ve been through, Luna, we will need to take some time to heal. You should make no decisions today, but go home and talk things over with Xeno. Just because you are out exploring doesn’t mean you have to fall completely off the face of the Earth,” he added, looking into her face in a fatherly manner.

“You want to say something to me, but you are afraid. I can tell by the way you are breathing. After Malfoy Manor, how can talking to me make you afraid?” she asked.

Ollivander paused and an internal battle seemed to be being waged. Finally, a smile grew on his grey, wrinkled face. “I’d like to make you a proposition and tell you a secret that is well over two thousand years old. If you say no, I will have the right to remove the memory of it from you. Do you accept this condition?” he asked.

Luna, who had begun to feel a little drowsy from fatigue, felt a wave of new energy surge through her entire body, replied, “Of course, Mr. Ollivander.”

“Luna, Ollivander’s are found not born. For over two thousand years, Ollivanders has passed from Ollivander to son. However, the noble tradition may end with me,” he continued.