Gone

Author's notes at the end of the story.

He didn't know what was going through his head when he saw it.

The green, smoky skull up in the sky with the tongue of a slithering serpent.

From his position on top of the hill he stood there and watched it for what seemed like an eternity but could might as well been just a moment. All he knew was the meaning of the mark and how his entire body went rigid once his eyes travelled down and how the mark floated ominously above the house.

"No..."

In an instance he was running down the steep hill like a madman, his feet moving on their own accord. He left trails of torn up grass as he tried to both run as fast as he could without losing balance and falling forwards. Suddenly he took a wrong step and with a slight pain in his ankle the world turned upside down and he fell tumbling down the rest of the hill. Everything became a blur of green and grey until he finally landed firmly on plain ground facing the sky.

He knew that it was a cloudy day and that the sky was supposed to be grey but when he looked up he found himself directly beneath the Dark Mark and saw how it coloured everything green. Just looking at the mark filled him with dread once again and he could hear how his own heart beat rapidly as he pushed himself up on his feet. The pain he had felt earlier in his ankle was still there as he stood up but all thoughts of himself disappeared once he looked towards the house.

Flowers had been trampled and the kitchen door was nothing but flimsy debris.

"No... please..." he murmured to himself and stumbled through the doorway.

Once he was inside he stepped on broken glass of what had once been a beautiful vase. He had to climb over a table that had been knocked over and push aside a broken grandfather clock. Just getting through the kitchen and the maze of debris took the energy out of him. During all this time he kept stepping on glass, porcelain and sound reinforced the sense of dread and that nothing in this house would ever be whole again.

It was in the hallway that he found her, staring blankly ahead with those large eyes with knees drawn up and her arms encircling them tightly.

"Luna..."

He made his way over to the staircase.

"Luna, are you alright?" he asked, brushing aside a lock of hair to get a better look at her face.

There was no blood, no scratches or any sign of her being there when it had all happened. By the looks of it she had been sitting on the staircase for quite a while but she must not have arrived until it was over. He could not help but to sigh in relief.

"I... I couldn't leave him alone," Luna whispered, her voice much shakier than what he was used to hearing. She had not looked at him the whole time, just continued staring into nothing. "I just... couldn't."

"Who?"

"Father."

It was then that he looked towards the same direction as she did and if she had not said anything he would not have seen it. But there, in the room that he assumed was the living room, lay a middle-aged man. He was lying right next to the wall as if something forceful had thrown him against it and though his eyes were open there was no life in them.

He felt heartless for thinking it, but her father was dead and at the moment it did not matter if she stayed with him or not.

"Luna, listen to me," he said firmly, placing both hands on her shoulder and standing right in front of her so that she would look at him. "This isn't safe, we have to get you out of here first..."

She shook her head violently.

"No, I'm not leaving him!" she cut off. "I'm not..."

"Listen to me!" he repeated. "Right now you have to get out of here, I don't know if the Death Eaters will be coming back! This isn't final, I'll come back for him later, I promise!"

She stopped shaking and instead sat entirely still and looked straight into his eyes.

"You promise?" she whispered weakly.

Just a small nod from him was enough to reassure her. He felt her shoulders relax a little beneath his hands and for the first time ever Harry Potter saw the slightest hint of tears forming in Luna's eyes.

Pulling her a little closer, he put his arms firmly around her and apparated both of them out of the house.

"Oh, it's been all right. A bit lonely without the DA. Ginny's been nice though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me 'Loony' the other day..."

"How would you like to come to Slughorn's party with me tonight?"

"Slughorn's party? With you?"

"Yeah. We're supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like... I mean... I mean, just as friends, you know. But if you don't want to..."

"How is she?"

Pulled out of the memory lane by the sudden question, Harry turned away from the window. Not that he had been able to stare out the window to begin with. The steam from a kettle filled with boiling water had fogged it up. By the looks of it Molly Weasley was too distraught to notice it and by the way she had asked the question it seemed like the kettle was the last thing on her mind. But the question was not directed at Harry, but towards the red headed girl who had just entered the kitchen.

"She fell asleep... finally," Ginny said, sticking her hands in her pockets as she approached her mother. "It took a while, but I honestly didn't know what else to do. She hardly said anything, didn't even cry."

"Poor girl," Mrs Weasley sighed and put her arm around Ginny's shoulder protectively. "She must be in such shock. Coming home to find her father..." She paused for a few seconds. "Poor girl."

"Yeah," Ginny added solemnly.

Harry caught her eyes as he looked up.

"Don't worry Harry, she'll stay here with us," Molly assured, letting go of Ginny and finally lifting the kettle off the stove. "We'll take care of her."

"I know you will," Harry answered.

For some reason he felt both joy and sadness in what Mrs Weasley had said. He thought of how she must be in just as much danger, if not more, than Mr Lovegood had for having children and loved ones involved in the war. Yet she carried on, the brave woman she was, scared for her family but aware of what was right and what had to be done.

The sound of a loud crack coming from the living room startled all three and Mrs Weasley even jumped a little.

"That must be Arthur," she said and a warm smile graced her face.

She dropped everything on the kitchen counter and immediately left to greet her husband. Harry considered following her to talk to Mr Weasley. When Harry apparated to the Burrow covered in dust with a shaking Luna in his arms Mr Weasley had been one of the first to realize what had happened. While Mrs Weasley and Ginny took care of Luna, he had set off to the Ministry to inform them. When Harry had returned to Mr Lovegood's house he had found the place swarming with Aurors and hit wizards combing the place for clues. But not everyone there was investigating, in the midst of all the chaos Harry had spotted an old wizard levitating a stretcher covered with a white sheet.

Just as Harry moved to leave the kitchen, Ginny spoke up.

"Hey... I think we should give them a few minutes."

Harry stared at her, puzzled for a few moments until he realized what she meant. By then he just nodded and stayed in the exact same position. Ginny, however, crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter.

"So... how have you been?" she asked.

"Good."

Good wasn't exactly the right word to describe how things had been but considering who he was talking to Harry found it a little difficult to tell the complete truth. This was Ginny, his girlfriend up until a few weeks ago. With everything that was going on he had hardly had the time to think about her, much less how he was supposed to act around her now that they weren't together anymore.

"Ron and Hermione are doing good?" Ginny went on.

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Where are they now?"

"Who?"

"...Ron and Hermione, who else?"

"They're waiting for me in Diagon Alley," Harry replied. "After that we're heading off to... we're setting off."

Harry nearly bit his tongue and cursed himself for almost revealing their destination. He suspected that Ginny wasn't that pleased at being withheld of information but he had made his mind. It would be too dangerous for her to get involved and he had to stick by that.

"You can stay here tonight if you want," Ginny offered. "In Ron's room. Get a night's rest before you head off."

Harry opened his mouth to decline at first. But he saw the look on Ginny's face, one that almost begged him to stay as if convincing him to stay one night in what felt like a second home to him was the only thing she could do. Then again it probably was, he had clearly told her that they had to stay apart and although she had accepted it there was probably a part of her that still wanted to help out.

"Thank you."

Her brown eyes lightening up with a tiny glimmer of joy, Ginny smiled weakly at him.

"Great... I'll go and get some clean sheets for you."

With that she left the kitchen, obviously in a slightly happier mood.

Harry watched her go, then turned back to the fogged window.

"Oh no, I'd love to go with you as friends! Nobody's ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine, too?"

Despite years of being woken up way too early by his aunt or uncle, dragging himself up before the crack of dawn was still rather difficult for Harry. He barely resisted the thought of resting his head against the pillow just for two more seconds and it took every ounce of his strength to push the duvet aside and sit up. At first everything was a blur to him but once he had gotten dressed it was so much easier to remind himself of why he had to get up that early.

He retrieved his wand from underneath the pillow and left the room.

He tried to make as little noise as possible as he went downstairs. Each time a floorboard creaked he winced and stayed completely still until he was sure that no one had heard him and was getting up. Because of his slow pace it took him good five minutes just to get downstairs and he dared to sigh in relief as he entered the living room and approached the fireplace.

It was still dark outside and the sun would not rise until about another hour. Harry suspected that Mrs Weasley would get up early to prepare breakfast and see him off, which was why he had forced himself to get up even earlier. It was better this way, to leave when no one was around to say goodbye. If he was lucky the goodbyes would be awkward, if he was not then they might be strange or even painful. He would not be able to look into Mrs Weasley's or Ginny's eyes and promise that he would return, much less the safe return of Ron and Hermione.

But Ron and Hermione knew what was ahead and the risks they took just because they were his friends. Perhaps he was being selfish but at the moment he was grateful that the danger did not scare them off.

Standing by the fireplace, Harry reached for the flowerpot where the Floo powder was kept.

"Are you leaving?"

His heart nearly jumping up to his throat, Harry drew his wand and quickly spun around, only to discover that he was pointing it at none other than Luna.

"L-Luna?"

He swallowed and lowered his wand.

She had been there the whole time, so quiet and unnoticeable that Harry had thought that he was alone in the living room. She was sitting slouched in an armchair, her legs pulled up with her arms encircling them and covered by a thick blanket. Harry almost flashed back to yesterday when he had discovered her sitting all alone by the staircase just like that.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you asleep?" Harry asked.

"Are you leaving?"

Luna just repeated her question as if she had not heard his, or just decided that hers was much more important than his. The tone of her voice was different from what he was used to. She was calm but there was something different about it, something more determined. But then again she was not talking about snorkacks or nargles now.

"Yes," he answered simply.

With a rustle of blankets she stood up and left the comfort zone of the armchair to approach him. In the darkness Harry could see that she was dressed in pyjamas and slippers, no doubt borrowed by Ginny. She didn't stop until she was standing less than a foot away from him and close enough to look into his eyes with her large ones.

"You were going to leave me here?" Luna asked, but it sounded more like a statement needing to be confirmed.

Truth to be told, as much as Harry disliked having to put it that way, it was.

"You'll be safe with the Weasleys, they'll take care of you," Harry explained.

"Who said that I needed to be taken care of?"

Feeling like what he had just said was being bounced back at him, Harry found himself at a loss for words. He looked at Luna and the expression on her face was neither sad nor angry as one would expect. But this was Luna and he never knew what to expect from her, even now when the situation dealt with far more serious matters.

"I have to go," Harry said finally, aware of the time that was being wasted. "Ron and Hermione are waiting for me and I need to leave before everyone else wakes up. Please Luna, just..."

"So why are you not allowing yourself to be taken care of and to be safe?" Luna questioned, still in the same calm voice as ever.

"Because I..."

"I have to find out who did this to my father and why," Luna went on. "I have to."

Harry felt like banging his head against something hard. Preferably a brick wall but at the moment anything would do.

"Luna, don't you get it!" he snapped in a hushed voice. "I'm going to stop Voldemort! Find horcruxes! It means danger and I don't want to get you involved in this! It's better if you just stay here! Just... go back to sleep and pretend that you never saw me!"

"Did anyone tell you to just go back to sleep when Dumbledore died? Or your godfather?"

Ice.

White.

If there was a word to describe those two things at the same time, that would be the word to describe exactly how Harry felt upon hearing her words. He felt cold as if someone had emptied a bucket of ice cubes over him and knew how all the colour had disappeared from his face. The only thing that remained static was Luna's calm demeanour and how strange he thought it was that she did not seem remotely upset despite of all the things that had been said.

Her last words were still repeating themselves in his mind.

Turning around, he reached for the flowerpot and grabbed a fistful of Floo powder.

"Diagon Alley," he stated, throwing the powder into the fireplace.

Green flames burst up before him but the flames had no effect on how cold he felt inside.

"What's going on...?"

Both Harry and Luna turned around to see Ginny standing in the doorway of the living room, eyes a little squinted and longing to close again as if she had just woken up. But it did not last long, the moment she fully realized what she was seeing Ginny looked as alert as ever. She slowly stepped further into the living room.

"Ginny, what are you doing here?" Harry asked automatically.

"I woke up and saw that Luna's bed was empty," she explained, frowning at the fact that he was questioning her. "I heard something and came downstairs. What's going on? What are you two up to?"

Harry did not even attempt to think of an answer, he knew that there was no easy one. Luna stood there silent, still looking at Harry. In the mean time Ginny was looking back and forth between them as if trying to figure out what was going on. In the end she took Harry's silence as another sign of his dislike of awkward goodbyes.

"Come on Luna, let's go back to sleep," Ginny said, holding out her hand for Luna to take.

Luna turned her eyes from Harry to Ginny. Ginny's hand remained untaken. At first there was a look of surprise on her face but then they all saw her tremble slightly as it finally dawned on her what happening. She pulled her hand back quickly as if she had been burnt.

Then she looked at Harry. With a trembling bottom lip and such a hurt look in her eyes that Harry almost felt the pain himself.

"You're taking her with you?" Ginny whispered. She was shaking her head lightly as she spoke like she wanted it to not be true. "You told me to stay behind and you're leaving me... but you're taking her?"

No words came out of Harry's mouth, no good explanation that would make her understand. All he could do was to face her and see her disappointment and hurt. His mouth felt dry, he bit his lip while trying to figure out what was the right thing to do. His eyes were still locked with Ginny's but he could feel Luna looking at him from where she stood. In the end, he only had one thing to say.

"I'm sorry."

He took Luna's hand and pulled her with him as he disappeared into the fire.

Notes: I editted mostly to fix some formatting problems but also to clarify that this is a stand alone story. It was written just after I had read HBP and in the mood for a potential Ginny/Harry/Luna love triangle. Originally it was supposed to be the start of something longer but when I couldn't decide in which direction to take the story I decided to end it here and leave it as a one shot.