Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling.

Notes: Also, this fic has been living in my head ever since around the time when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix first came out. Boy am I glad to finally get it out of my system. Possible AU elements because of the interpretation of the fading of the elves.

The song Luna sings is traditional, though I first came across it as a child in Eric Linklater's The Wind on the Moon. Points if you know where the title is from.

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

When the girl first approaches and stops just beside him, only a few steps away, Maglor almost thinks she does so on purpose. She seems to be looking at him so directly and once she's come to a halt, she seems to give a nod in his direction. But the look in her eyes seems not to quite focus on him, it is so strangely distant and vague that she could just as well be looking right through him. Then, after another few seconds of looking in his direction, she turns to look at the sea instead.

Maglor follows her example and turns to look at the sea as well, follows a gull with his gaze as it swoops by, watches the heavy grey clouds above. When he turns to look at the girl again, she is once again looking in his direction. "Hello," she says, and so he has to believe that she does know he is there.

"Hello," he replies. It has been a very long time, even for him, since he has last used his voice for anything but song, Maglor realises. The thought startles him, though he is not sure why – it is not as if he did not already know this.

"Are you quite alright?" the girl asks, studying him with her the strangely vague eyes.

"I am," he answers. "I was only a little startled."

"Oh," the girl says, tilting her head to the side and frowning. "I'm sorry. Though I can't imagine how I could possibly have startled you."

"It has been a long time since I talked to anyone," he offers as an explanation.

"I see," she says, still studying him quite intently. "I'm sorry if this sounds very rude," she continues after a while, "but what exactly are you?"

Not exactly sure which one of the many meanings it could have the question has this time, Maglor does not answer and waits instead.

"I mean, I can see you're not exactly human," she adds, seeing the enquiring look on his face. She reaches up a hand to brush away a strand of dirty blonde hair that the wind is blowing into her face, and that is when his mind finally registers the wand stuck behind her ear. He has seen it all along, he has simply not grasped the meaning before. This girl must be one of the people who have what they call magic and have taken over the old words witch and wizard and made them theirs now.

"My people were called Quendi," he tells her. "Elves."

"Elves?" she asks, and Maglor can almost feel a twinge of amusement at the incredulous look on her face, the first look that has managed to properly chase away the vagueness of her look. "But you don't look like an elf at all!"

"We have no relation to those creatures that are called elves today," Maglor says. He's certain now that she is one of today's witches. There have been few things to draw his attention in all the ages of the sun, but he has watched the creatures that are now called elves with a something approaching interest. They are closely bound to those humans who have magic, and not even known to those who do not, he has discovered.

"In that case, why are you both called elves, then?" She seems curious now.

"We had that name a very long time before they ever appeared," he explains. "And when they were given the name, most of us were long gone, and the very few who were not had already so faded they might as well have been gone as well."

"That doesn't make sense," the girl says. "You're still here."

"I am also fading," he tells her. "I am not much more than a memory, or a shadow of a memory anymore. It is very rare that anyone will notice me, recognise me as anything else. It is not just talking to anyone that I have not done for a very long time."

The girl seems to ponder this for a few moments, and then she asks, "Are you a soldier?"

This is the second time she startles him. He does not know how to answer.

"Like that song. Old soldiers never die," she sings,

"Never die, never die,

Old soldiers never die,

They only fade away"

"Something of the kind, perhaps," he says once the chill that gripped him has faded a little. He studies her intently now, but cannot read anything else off her than what she says, what can be seen on her face. "But I chose to remain and fade, rather than to simply die," he continues softly, more to himself than to her this time, perhaps. "Because sometimes a soldier has to… no, chooses to do things the memories of which he should not be allowed to just die with if he himself survives. Some old soldiers can be such pitiful creatures."

Beside him, the girl crouches down on the ground, folding her arms and legs close to her body. With her body in this position and her odd protuberant eyes looking out over the sea again she reminds him almost of an owl. "Oh!" she says after a while. "Where are those manners of mine? My name is Luna Lovegood." She looks away from the sea, and at him instead, expectant, he thinks. "What's your name," she adds after a few moments of waiting in vain.

"I had names…" he says, and does not add, such as kinslayer. "Some of them have faded away into nothing. But some called me Maglor. You can call me that, if you like."

Luna nods. Maglor looks at her and considers whether he should speak to her, thinking of all the long years of not speaking to any other living creatures, and even before that long years of never speaking unless spoken to. He has listened a lot, enough so that he has picked up many languages by the way. Many of them only exist within Arda with him now.

"You do not speak the language of this land," he finally says, continuing on this line of thought.

"Well, no, I don't speak Norwegian, you see. I live near Ottery St. Catchpole, really," Luna explains, sounding as if she's taking it for granted that Maglor knows where that is. "Daddy and I went to Sweden to search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack – there had been these sightings – and we followed the tracks all the way up here to Norway, but we still haven't seen one. Have you happened to see one?"

"Unfortunately I have never come across one," Maglor says carefully, ransacking his memory for any mentions at all of a creature of this kind, He cannot remember ever hearing of one before.

"Oh." Luna seems disappointed for a while. Then, her eyes light up again, and she continues, her voice breathless. "But we did see Heliopaths yesterday!"

"Heliopaths?"

"Spirits of Fire! Three of them!" She stands up, smiling in excitement, and everything that was owl-like about her disappears. She's a regular human girl with strange eyes and some kind of magic whom Maglor suddenly realises he cannot read any deeper because if there was anything more to anything she said, she would simply just say it.

"They were terrible! But they were beautiful too. It was wonderful! 'Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of them'," she adds, now obviously quoting something.

"That does not sound too unlike a Spirits of Fire," Maglor says, not sure if he is actually making something that is almost a joke, or if he is being very serious.

"You've seen them too, then?"

"Something of the kind, perhaps."

Just then, the clouds that have been promising rain for a while now fulfil the promise. A few raindrops fall, and only a few moments later it's pouring down. Luna takes out her wand from behind her ear and transforms a stick she finds on the ground into an umbrella with it. "Let's hope those Heliopaths have taken cover," she says, looking a little worried. "Do you need one as well?" she then asks politely, referring to the umbrella.

Maglor declines. "Rain does not bother me."

Luna nods, and says she needs to be going. "Daddy is probably waiting. And it is raining. Where were you going? Do you want to come?"

"I never stray far from the shore."

"Well, it was really interesting talking to you. If you're ever near Ottery St. Catchpole, even if it's not near the shore, you should come visit. We do have a river, at least."

Maglor watches the girl as she's leaving. Her umbrella is a very clear blue in the grey rain.