the next great adventure

It was completely dark inside the cellar.

An old man and a boy knelt on the floor next to the prone body of a young girl. She was breathing heavily, laboured gasps filling the empty coldness of the shadows.

"Luna, please, just hold on till we get free…"

"It's… okay Dean… I… have people… waiting for me… up there." Her smile was serene and peaceful, though there were none to see it in the darkness. "I'm sorry… for leaving… you and… Mr. Ollivander here. Tell.. my Daddy… that I… love him… will you?"

The boy named Dean held her hand tightly, tears streaking down his grimy face. The old man sighed, feeling the weight of his years heavy on his shoulders. It should have been him, not the little girl who would now never reach past her prime.

So the darkness reached in and took the bright soul of Luna Lovegood away before her time.

*I*I*

Luna smiled as she opened her eyes to the pure white that surrounded her.

How odd. She was at a train station.

There was only one other person there. He was wearing a dark cloak, face hidden by the shadow of the hood. The shadows shifted, as if he wasn't completely existent – and perhaps he wasn't. He seemed feathery, like see-through black silk. He turned as she approached him, and Luna was pierced by a pair of familiar emerald eyes.

She frowned a little. They looked very tired.

"There are nargles spinning around your head, Harry," she said.

There was a slight hesitation, as if he had trouble connecting the name to his person. "No one's called me that in a long time."

He sounded so defeated.

She looked at him closely. The ring on his hand, the cloak around his shoulders, the wand stuck through his belt. The bruises under his eyes and the pale, marble skin.

"The Hallows," she said, understanding.

The abrupt change of subject startled a laugh out of him. He leaned against one of the pillars.

"I just want to rest." This was said so softly Luna almost didn't catch it.

She came up to him and gently enclosed one of his cold hands in hers. She traced the marble-like flesh in fascination and curiosity. Peering into the vivid green, she made her decision.

"I'll take it for you."

Harry jerked upright, desperate hope tucked away, unable to break free, in his eyes. She smiled brightly at the look.

He shook his head, slowly, trembling, want battling against a crushing responsibility. "I couldn't do that to you."

"Tell me, did we win the war?"

"Yes." Harry's eyes closed, remembering.

"You saved them." It wasn't a question.

"Not all of them, not enough. I didn't save you."

"Harry, you're not a god. I chose not to be saved."

He look at her, a frightened child gazing out of those old eyes.

"You may have been the hero, may have had a task, but the villains have been defeated. Heroes deserve happy endings."

Her eyes curved into a happy crescent. She slid the ring off his finger and placed it on hers.

"You have friends who are waiting for you."

She slipped the cloak off his shoulders.

"Let me carry your cosmos."

Luna took the wand. It lit up in her hand, a brighter, more comforting glow than the sterile light of the train station. In the warmth of the Elder Wand, Harry looked too vulnerable by himself, so diminished without the cloak. She gave him a light push toward the train.

"Go be happy."

Harry suddenly threw his arms around her.

"Thank you," he mumbled into her shoulder.

Luna hugged him back and then watched as the train pulled away with its sole passenger, a young-old dark haired boy with green, green eyes.

He was laughing.

*I*I*

That was brave of you.

The voice sounded without sounding: her mind registered the words, but her ears did not. It sounded stilted, as if it did not know how to use words, language. It said brave, but Luna quite thought that somehow, it didn't mean that at all.

"Bravery is for Gryffindors."

The Hallows were never meant to be a burden. Their owners were supposed to be travelers jumping from world to world.

"Harry was tired," Luna commented in a nonchalant voice.

She received the feeling of secondhand guilt and an old regret.

He could not hear us. But you, you we can take. Do you agree?

Luna nodded slowly.

She closed her eyes and let herself be swept away. There was a scent of lily flowers and a too light mist and then nothing.

*I*I*

Luna learned her new name was Uchiha Tsukiko. She rather liked it. (Tsukiko meant child of the moon, and Luna thought it only natural that it translated to her original name.) She now had black wispy hair, but had kept the grey eyes. She was rather relieved – if eyes were the windows into the soul, if she had had different eyes, then would her soul have been blind?

The Uchiha clan as a whole were rather stuffy; she gave a gummy, cheerful smile to one of her caretakers, but they only replied with a minute easing of the stiff rigidity of their face. She crawled to the edge of the doorway and looked out before she was caught and put back into the center of the room.

A sigh was heard as she began crawling again.

"Tsukiko."

She tilted her head, looking back at the person trying to balance a snowstorm of paperwork on the low table, while attempting to write a formal document and take care of a two year old.

Luna plopped down and promptly stuck her wispy hair into her mouth. It tasted… sort of sugary. Hmmm.

Spying a fallen piece of metal, she speed crawled over to it. After inspecting it, she bit it. It was hard. She shook it, perhaps it had an invisible nest of Karfnots infesting it?

Oh. It was rather sharp. And pointy.

She gave the poor, lovely hardwood floor a sincere apology.

The sudden sight of feet (they were extremely nice feet) made her look to the blurry mass standing over her. Two hands came and raised her above the floor, lifting her into a warm lap, and she snuggled into the comfort. She felt the exhale, heard the whoosh, but there was no complaint and the arms tightened minutely around her.

*I*I*

When the footsteps came down the hall and stopped in front of her door, Luna paused reading the book she'd been writing in (it was a history of shinobi, and she was writing theories — currently Madara had several notes by his section; perhaps he had Wrackspurts? They muddled one's head and ideas… ) then, as another thought struck her, she picked up the pen and started again.

The door opened.

A soft gasp. Luna glanced up at her mother who was looking at the walls, or rather the ceiling, with a rather stunned expression.

On the ceiling were three faces, painted in the beautiful brushstrokes that defined Tsukiko's calligraphy. Connecting them were fine golden chains, and if one looked closer, the word kazoku could be seen repeated over and over and over.

Tsukiko's mother stayed for an eternity at the door – simply staring up at the pictures. An unreadable expression flashed across her face, but she didn't ask Luna to repaint the ceiling white. She didn't say anything.

But later, when Tsukiko was asleep, Mikoto softly opened the door and sat down on the bed where her daughter lay. She ran her hand through the child's hair and raised here eyes to where her own face smiled down at the room.

"Oh, Tsukiko-chan…" she murmured, a tinge of despair coating her words – but despair pointed toward nothing tangible. An aimless emotion, and yet overwhelming all the same.

Kazoku – family, she thought and felt herself torn. Fugaku and Itachi, their features softened, were sketched with clear, precise strokes done with a traditional brush, and Tsukiko had somehow managed to capture the best parts of the two – parts that Mikoto often struggled to see.

She stayed there, next to her child, for a thousand moments, before she rose as silently as she had come and closed the door.

A/N: In the first scene where Luna is an Uchiha, she is two years old. In the second, she is older – it's actually after the third chapter… I promise that the rest of the chapters won't be as confusing—think of this one as a preview.

Please review—this is my first time writing a crossover and I'd like to understand how I'm doing. What are your thoughts? Did I characterize one of my favorite characters (Luna Lovegood, if you couldn't tell) well?

Thanks for reading!