AN: Written for the QLFC round 13

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Keeper

Xenophilius Lovegood always wanted a child. Having grown up in a small family with rather distant parents he had always longed for a little girl to spoil and love the way his own parents had never loved him.

Luna was everything Xenophilius had ever wanted and much more besides. She was beautiful, kind, and loving and Xenophilius doted on her from the moment she was born.

Luna always had a very vivid imagination, and she enjoyed playing make-believe games with her parents. She would often run into the house claiming to have seen some kind of strange creature in the garden, which Xenophilius would then help her to hunt.

Pandora Lovegood worked for the Department of Experimental Charms at the Ministry. It was not the highest-paying position available in the magical world, but as far as Pandora and her daughter were concerned, it was by far the most interesting.

Luna could happily spend hours simply sitting in the corner of the room, observing her mother as she tinkered with yet another Ministry-commissioned item. Pandora tended to slip into an almost trance-like state as she murmured various Latin and Greek words, her wand hand dancing over her creation as she chanted. The process was beautiful and hypnotic to the young girl who could not yet perform even the simplest of charms.

Once the object was created, Pandora would look up at Luna and her eyes would light up.

"Luna," she would say, smiling despite the tiredness inflicted upon her by a long day's work. "I hope you haven't been sitting there all day." Presented with her daughter's cheeky grin, she would giggle before leading Luna by the hand towards the printing room. There, they would collect Luna's father before going outside to play.

The Lovegood family were perfectly happy, but unfortunately, all good things must eventually come to an end.

Tragedy struck the Lovegoods shortly after Luna's ninth birthday. At nine years old, Luna still loved nothing more than to watch her mother work. Her study was fascinating for a child, filled with various enchanted items, all of her mother's design.

One day, while working, Pandora made a sudden breakthrough on a project she'd been trying to complete for years. Without even noticing her daughter curled up in a chair in the corner of the room, Pandora left in a hurry to notify her department head of her sudden success.

Wondering what had caused her mother to rush off, Luna wandered over to her mother's project. Standing next to the desk was a mirror. From a distance it looked normal enough, but when Luna looked into it she gasped. Standing next to her was another little girl, one who looked very similar to Luna although a little younger. She looked like the younger sister Luna had always wanted. As much as she loved her parents she couldn't help but occasionally wish for another child to play with.

Clearly, Luna thought, this mirror is broken. Obviously her mother was upset by this realisation and that was why she had left the room. Luna's eyes roamed the desk next to the mirror and she noticed that her mother had left her wand behind.

I can fix it for her, Luna thought to herself, picking up the wand. She had never tried to use magic before, but she had seen her parents do it enough times to know what to do. She pointed the wand at the mirror.

Now, what was that spell for fixing things? she wondered. It sounds like repair. Was it Repario? Yes, that sounds right. "Repario," she said confidently, and a golden light shot out of the wand towards the mirror.

"Luna?"

Pandora walked into the room to see Luna standing in front of her project holding her wand. Her eyes widened as she saw the beam of gold reflect off the polished surface and fly straight towards her chest.

Luna turned around just in time to see the mispronounced spell strike her mother. A long, scarlet gash appeared across her chest and Pandora crumpled to the floor.

"Daddy!" Luna screamed as she ran across the room to kneel at her mother's side. She tried in vain to stem the bleeding with her bare hands as she looked into her mother's beautiful blue eyes.

"I love you, Luna," Pandora said weakly. "Remember that." Her eyes closed, and she knew no more.

Xenophilus ran into the room, summoned by his daughter's pained cry. He saw his wife lying unbreathing on the floor and his daughter clinging to her, sobbing against her bloodstained, lifeless chest.

"Luna, what happened?" he said calmly. He could not allow himself to grieve, not yet.

"I'm sorry, Daddy!" Luna choked out between sobs. "I only wanted to help. I just wanted to fix it." Xenophilius glanced quickly around the room, taking in the wand on the floor and his strange reflection in the mirror that showed a scene far removed from the one playing out before him. He quickly pieced together what must have happened.

"It's my fault, Daddy!" Luna cried tearfully, bringing Xenophilius' attention back to her.

"No, Luna, it isn't," Xenophilius said, thinking quickly. "It was the Wrackspurts."

"Wrackspurts?" Luna asked, her natural curiosity warring with her guilt and grief.

"Yes, sweetheart. They're little creatures that swarm around your head. They make your brain all fuzzy and stop you remembering properly."

"But Daddy, I did the spell…" Luna said in confusion.

"You can't have done, Luna," Xenophilus replied. "The Ministry would have sent a warning because you're underage. There's no owl, so you must be remembering wrong."

"So what did happen then?" Luna asked, her grey eyes still swimming with tears.

"Your mother must have cast the spell herself." Xenophilius reasoned. "It must have reflected off the mirror and hurt her. Now, come along," he said, gently pulling Luna to her feet and embracing her tightly for a moment. "You'll have to go to the Burrow while I floo the hospital. It's best that you're not here when they arrive."

"Can I say goodbye first...please Daddy?" Luna asked, glancing back at her mother. She knew enough about death to know that she didn't want to be there when the body was dealt with. Xenophilius thought for a moment, before ultimately deciding it would be cruel to deprive her of the opportunity for closure and nodded.

Luna dropped back to her knees and hugged her mother's body tightly, more tears falling from her eyes.

"Goodbye, Mummy. I love you too." she said as she dropped a quick kiss onto her mother's lips. Xenophilius fought to hold back the tears that had been threatening to pour from his eyes ever since he had walked into the room. Luna rose from the floor and took hold of the hand her father held out to her.

Having left Luna in the capable hands of Molly Weasley, Xenophilius returned home. A quick check of his wife's wand revealed that the last spell cast was one he was unfamiliar with. He wondered briefly if it had been one of Pandora's newly created spells or simply a mistake on Luna's part, but then decided that it wasn't necessary to know. Drawing his own wand he advanced on the mirror that had tricked Luna into doing this. It was a dangerous object, he knew, but he could not bring himself to destroy the fruits of his wife's labour. Instead, he pointed his wand at the intricate frame, careful to avoid looking into the reflective surface, and carved a warning for the next unsuspecting soul to encounter the mirror.

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

Hopefully, he thought, that would make anyone pause and consider the power of the object rather than fall into its trap. Pandora had created it with only the best intentions in mind, but Xenophilius had no doubt that this was an object of pure evil.

A few weeks after the funeral, Luna wandered into her father's printing room, staring dreamily into the distance as she had constantly since her mother's passing.

"Daddy, maybe you should put a warning about wrackspurts into the paper," she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "People should know that their memories are not safe."

"You're right, sweetheart," Xenophilius replied. "I'll put it in the very next edition."

Once Luna had left the room Xenophilius buried his head in his hands. He had acted rashly when he convinced his daughter that a fairy tale was to blame for her mother's death, but she had believed it readily enough. Unfortunately, in order to keep her already fragile psyche from breaking he would have to continue in the lie.

Xenophilius pulled out a sheaf of parchment and began to write a quick report on the abilities of wrackspurts and why the public should be wary of them. Hopefully, he thought to himself, his readers would consider it a joke and not hold it against the integrity of the magazine.

Over time, Xenophilius' hopes were dashed as Luna became unnaturally interested in creatures that were considered mythical even among the magical population. Quests for crumple-horned snorkacks became normal in the lives of the Lovegoods and reports of nargles infested his magazine like they did mistletoe, according to Luna.

Xenophilius, ever afraid that Luna would realise the truth about Pandora's death, encouraged his daughter's flights of fantasy readily, feeling a little more guilty with every falsehood he told her. As much as he realised he should have just told Luna the truth to begin with, Xenophilius did not truly regret deceiving her. He had already lost his wife, and he knew he would never be able to handle the loss of his daughter too.