Shades of Grey

By: Orii15

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Harry Potter. Sorry.

A/N: I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I had writer's block. Again. I'm so sorry.

I'll do better next time, I promise.

--Orii

Dear Tim,

I am writing to you from Sweden where Daddy and I have been searching for the rather elusive Crumple-horned Snorkack. We have yet to see one in full, but yesterday we caught a glimpse of one. She was very beautiful, but unfortunately her existence will continue to go unproved as she ran away before we got a full picture of her. Daddy thinks our log of the trip will become a very popular article in the Quibbler, and I think so too. Imagine if we do end up really seeing in full a Crumple-horned Snorkack.

I wrote to Ginny and sent her a copy of the picture, but she says it looked like a deer or maybe a dog. She was very kind about it. I am afraid she has been spending too much time with Hermione Granger. I like Hermione very much, except that she says things like the Quibbler and Crumple-horned Snorkacks are rubbish. I am glad that you and Ginny listen to me at least though, even if I know sometimes you don't believe everything. It makes me very happy to know I have friends to write letter to while I'm on holiday.

Speaking of which, how has your summer been? I wish you had been able to come here, I know you would love seeing the forests. They are quite beautiful, and the unsolved mysteries of the Crumple-horned Snorkacks within them make them even more so. I think I might have read something to that effect in a poem once. We could have used another pair of eyes on our Snorkack Searching Expeditions, though. Right now it is just Daddy and me although we have asked a few of the local wizards and witches if they wanted to join. Most of them refused and gave us strange looks.

Have you been well, Tim? I know you've been with the Malfoys, which is unfortunate because Draco Malfoy can be horribly mean. I hope you've been doing all right regardless of the company you are keeping. Do be careful.

Love,

Luna

Dear Tim,

I am writing to you again, but you haven't answered my last letter yet. Perhaps it was delayed in the post? I had to rent the owl from the post service here and he was very old. I chose him because he had the loveliest golden eyes and I wanted you to see. I am thinking now that perhaps it was a mistake to choose him just for that. But perhaps he would have made it and he was intercepted. You know the ministry is interfering horribly with letters and the like now. Daddy says he heard they've set up a whole new department that checks letters for conspiratorial notions. Perhaps it was because of the pictures of the Crumple-horned Snorkack? People are determined to keep its existence secret.

I do not want to think that you have gotten my letter and have ignored it. I know you are not the kind of person who would do that. Perhaps you've been very busy and haven't had the time to answer? If so, I must apologize for writing yet another letter to you, because in that situation it wouldn't be the least bit helpful.

I am worried about you. Are you all right? Have you been hurt? Please write back to me as soon as you can. Daddy says that you are probably fine, but I want you to write back and tell me.

Love,

Luna

Dear Tim,

It has only been three days since I sent you my last letter, but I am still worried. I picked the owl that brought you that one because he looked very sleek and fast, as if not even the ministry could stop him if he wanted to bring you the letter.

It was raining that day. I hope he didn't get turned around in the storm. I imagine him flying around and around, unsure of whom this letter is for or where to take it. I am afraid the ministry might have overtaken him after all or perhaps that a stray griffin made a meal of him. I do hope you get this letter.

The golden-eyed owl has returned to the post service now, but he came without a reply. His name is Archimedes, after the famous Greek. It suits him, as he does look so very old and wise. I hope you got to see him even if you didn't write back to me yet. He is most majestic. The other owl I sent you isn't back yet. If he doesn't come within the week we will have to pay to replace him. I want to see him back with your letter.

The owl I am sending this letter with is grey. Her name is Athene. This is a Greek name too; most of the owls here are named for famous ancients. It is curious for Swedish owls to have Grecian names. This one is fitting, though. I enjoy thinking that perhaps this owl I am sending to you was once the familiar of the goddess she is named for.

This has made me think, are you familiar with Greek Mythology? I am. My mother used to tell me stories of the gods. I've been thinking about it here when it rains and the lightening flashes in jagged lines across dark clouds and the thunder sounds its divine cadence. It is beautiful. I wonder what it would feel like to throw the bolts, to be seated in the clouds and watch the show from above. It makes me want to take a broom and fly up to see for myself.

But that will make you worry about me. Don't please, I don't even own a broom. I just hope you aren't angry or annoyed with me. I know it's silly to keep writing to you. But you are one of the first people I ever thought would write back. I do not want to give up on you, Tim Black. Please be okay. Please write back soon.

Love,

Luna

Dear Luna,

I'm so sorry I didn't write. We went abroad unexpectedly for a few weeks. I suppose the owls came to Malfoy Manor and waited for me to show up. I'm sorry. I wish I could have seen them.

I'm sending this with an owl from the postal service here in England. His name is Hugo. I don't know why. I asked because I thought you'd want to know, but there were no birds here named for ancient deities. They all had common names like Eric and Angela. Apparently the Swedish are more creative with naming their post owls.

I'm as well as can be expected. I'm sorry I made you worry. I feel horrible about that. I never would have ignored you willfully. I think I'm the one who ought to be worried about you, don't fly into any storms please. Especially not on borrowed broomsticks.

--Tim

Dear Tim,

You wrote back! I am so glad you're safe.

Hugo is a beautiful owl. He is unusually large, I admit I was rather frightened when I first caught sight of him, but then I saw he had your letter and I overcame the fear and approached him. He is of a good temperament for such an intimidating bird, and very sweet. I am going to send this letter with Athene so you can see her.

It is strange that the Malfoys would have taken you abroad without telling you that they had planned to leave. Where did you go? I imagine such a rich family must have connections all over Europe. Did you enjoy yourself despite he unpleasantness of the company? I hope you did. I wish there could have been some strange coincidence that would have led you to Sweden. I would have been very discreet about seeking you out since the Malfoys would not approve, and then perhaps you could have joined us on our last Crumple-horned Snorkack search.

It pains me to admit that tomorrow is our last day on holiday here in Sweden and then we will return to England. Do you think it would be possible for you to come and see me? We live near Ginny's house, outside of Ottery St. Catchpole. I will understand if you are unable to come, though.

Since it appears my previous letters were safe after all from ministry apprehension I am sending you more photographs of our time here in Sweden. The first one is of Daddy and me in our Snorkack Search gear. We dressed to blend in with our surroundings; the leaves and twigs in our hair are purposeful, though the ones we acquired afterwards in the next photo were by accident. The third photo is of the thunderstorm I wrote to you about. I never did manage to gather the courage to fly into it, so this picture is taken from my window in the hotel. Do you see the silhouettes of the trees lit on the horizon by the lightening? And the light glancing off the torrents of rain? I love this picture.

I am also sending you a copy of one of Daddy's sketches of a Crumple-horned Snorkack, because you asked me once what one looked like. This is an approximation of course, but you can see the shape of the snout and the horns. The females have different, shorter horns, and the young have none at all for the first ten years or so.

This is a very long letter. I apologize for my enthusiasm. I am just excited to know you will write back to me.

Love,

Luna

Dear Luna,

I don't mind long letters. I really liked reading it, actually. I feel useless shut up here in Malfoy Manor. It's very white and clean, as are the Malfoy's themselves. I have actually been doing homework and reading school books in some useless effort to retain my sanity here. I don't talk to Draco, and he only talks to me when he thinks up a new insult he wants to try out. Because of this, and I feel utterly pathetic to admit it, mind you, you are what you might call my sole form of human contact. I don't count the Malfoys because I don't think they count me. I have seen Professor Snape a few times, but our conversations were far from pleasant.

The trip abroad was planned; I just didn't think I would be attending it. I hope you don't mind if I omit the details of that particular piece of my holiday, as I'm still having nightmares about it. We weren't in Paris or anywhere like that, and certainly we weren't in Sweden. I would have thrown discreetness to the winds and run off to hunt Crumple-Horned Snorkacks with you for the rest of my life.

On that note, I don't know if I'll be able to visit or not. I've been operating under the general assumption that I am on a kind of unofficial house arrest. Or at least they got very upset when I left the manor the other day, and that was just to post a letter to you. I'm sending this one with Draco's owl. His name is Cygnus. That's the name of Draco's grandfather. That would have been my great-uncle, I think. Anyways, I'm sorry I couldn't send Hugo again. I hope Cygnus doesn't try to bite you like he did me. He has taken the Malfoy Legacy to heart apparently. Be careful.

Your photographs were beautiful. I keep looking at the one you took of the thunderstorm and thinking that I'm glad you didn't fly into it. I can understand why you wanted to, but with that much lightening a broom is the last place you want to be, especially flying through the clouds. If you weren't struck down by Zeus's divine providence, you'd probably catch pneumonia.

The Crumple-horned Snorkack sketches are interesting, by which I mean I wouldn't want to meet one of them in a dark alley. Are they carnivorous? They look it. It's probably a good thing I wasn't with you in Sweden after all because I'd have spent the whole Search hiding behind you.

School starts in a few weeks. Never have I been more grateful for that. I used to hate school because it was so crowded there, now I find myself looking forwards to it for the exact same reason. It's strange how Occlumency and one horrible summer can cause a person to undergo a complete paradigm shift.

Before you ask, I read that phrase in a textbook. I didn't realize I'd written it until my hand had formed the words. I think my brain is melting. Paradigm shift…

Slowly Going Insane,

Tim

Dear Tim,

We are back in England now. I read your letter in my own room and not in the hotel in Sweden. It is good to be back, but I do miss the view. I wish it would rain here so that I could see the way the lightening would illuminate the horizon here. I had never seen that before I went abroad and started noticing everything. I want to see it here now. It makes me a little sad to think that there were countless rainstorms before right outside my window and I didn't ever stop to look at the lightening on the horizon. The skies have been clear since I got back, I feel so silly hoping for dark clouds to form.

You said you enjoyed my long letter, I am glad. I enjoyed yours, except that you sound absolutely miserable. I can't think how I should go about trying to cheer you up when I can't even see you. I wish I could talk to you in person because then I would see your face and know more about what I should say. But perhaps it is for the better to be there with you only in paper and ink, so that if I say the wrong thing you can rip up my words and throw them away.

That isn't very helpful though. I am not very practiced at comforting words, I am not even very practiced at friendships, I have very few of them. I think I will just tell you about my house and my family. I don't think you've ever met my father or seen my house, I will tell you about them. I hope this is the right kind of long letter that you will enjoy reading.

My mother died when I was nine. I miss her very much. Sometimes in the night I cry because it feels like a very heavy weight in my heart to have lost my mother. She was the one who taught me about the Greek myths, about fairy tales and the stories of Beedle the Bard. She loved me very much, and she and my father would often stay up very late into the night talking. I could hear them through the walls of my room and through the ceiling. I used to fall asleep to that murmur of conversation. One could say it was my first lullaby. It is what I think of when I stare at the ceiling of my room late at night now, when I hear the silence and the wind blowing around our house, the soft sounds of my father's footsteps and I miss her most then.

You must be wondering why I would bring up my dead mother when I am trying to cheer you up. It seems foolish, I admit. But also, it seems right. It seems right to tell you about her in this letter and to share with you the things she told me. That the dead are not lost to us forever. That life is in the little things you notice that make everything more beautiful. She taught me these things, and also to believe with all my heart in things that may or may not be true. That I can still do these things even when I feel like giving up is a tribute to the great influence my mother's wisdom has had on me. I'm telling you these facts because I would want to be told things like this were I in your place, alone and lonely. I hope you don't mind my saying them to you.

Now, I feel I should tell you about the rest of my family. We are small, only the three of us, and now just two because mother is gone. You know some things about my father, I think. He is the editor of the Quibbler, because of this he is always keeping his eyes open for peculiar stories he thinks people need to hear. He tells them the things they would not normally hear, whatever the public needs to know. He is also an inventor of sorts and is always working on new things to help Wizarding kind. He has taught me to keep an open mind about all things.

Our house is like a tower. My parents had it built specially because Mum wanted circular rooms. Circles do feel much friendlier and more open than rooms with corners. I am writing to you now from my room. It smells in parts of paint from the mural I am working on, of the ink I am writing with and downstairs at Daddy's printing press, and of the parchment here on my desk. It is another bright day, with skies too blue to hide a promise of even a faint rain.

It is strange how time has passed so quickly. I've already gone to Diagon Alley to pick up my school supplies. I saw Colin Creevey there. We passed each other outside of Flourish and Blots. He didn't see me. I was looking for you or Ginny or Neville there. I didn't see you, though. Soon enough we will see each other on the Hogwarts Express.

I am sending this with one of the owls from the post service here. His name is Septimus, which means the seventh. I asked what he was the seventh of, but the man at the post service didn't know. I must admit, the owls in Sweden had much more fitting names than the ones here.

Draco Malfoy's owl, Cygnus, did not bite me. He didn't come close. He swooped in and dropped your letter into the sink, which was full of soapy water, and then he immediately left. Fortunately, a simple drying spell saved the letter from being lost. I have never seen such a spiteful act from an owl. Be careful not to let him bite you again, some owls carry dreadful infections.

Please, don't go insane. I would miss you very much, for now I will take the relative coherency of your writing to signify that you were joking. Write back soon.

Love,

Luna

Dear Luna,

By the time you get this you won't have time to write back to me—the next time you speak to me will be in person on the Hogwarts Express. I'm counting down the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds go by too slowly here.

I can't thank you enough for your last letter. There was a thunderstorm here yesterday. Did you see it in Ottery St. Catchpole? If not, I feel like I ought to tell you that the horizon was beautiful here. I sat at one of the windows and watched the rainfall. Malfoy walked by and asked me if I was considering jumping. I told him I wasn't, but if he kept talking to me I probably would end up doing just that.

I loved hearing about your family and your house. Especially your mum, she sounded like a wonderful person. I'm very sorry she died. I think you know that I know what that's like only too well.

Luna, I need to ask you a something. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I need to talk to someone about it. I'm not sure exactly how to phrase it. When it comes to a choice between something that seems right now and something that seems wrong, but could be right in the future, which is the correct choice? I'm sorry for not being able to give you the specifics of the situation, but that would take more time and parchment than I am able to invest at the moment.

I'm sending this with Cygnus again as I'm unable to find another owl to use. I hope he doesn't do anything horrible with this letter or to you. He really is a mean owl. But my hand is healed up very nicely. I'll have to come up with some very exciting sounding story about the scar that's forming.

See you soon,

Tim

Dear Tim,

I wanted to answer your question, and even though I didn't need to write a letter to do it, I thought it would be best to write while the answer was still fresh in my mind.

I've been taught that the way to judge what is right is to consider it in this way. Don't ask "Is it easy?" and don't ask, "Do I like this choice the best?" because that's not what determines what is right. I think it comes down to what you personally believe, and so in that way I cannot really answer your question. I will tell you what I believe. What you do is your choice.

I believe that the right thing is the one that will bring about the best end in the long run. I believe in helping people as often as I can, and fighting always for the good fight. You have two choices, think about them carefully. Find the one that has to most potential for good. That is what I would do.

See you at school,

Love,

Luna

A/N: Okay, done. The next chapter will be out soon, I promise. And by soon I mean within the end of the year. I want to finish this story.

I also started working on a short about Leah. I don't know if I'll post that. I really enjoyed writing Luna's letters for this chapter. She's one of my favorite characters. I dressed up as her for Halloween. To my surprise and shock no one noticed I was in costume.

Please review. I'd love to know your opinion of this chapter. I know it was a long time coming, and I'm sorry for that. Tell me what you thought of it. Did you like the letters? Hate them? Was Luna out of character? I don't mind flames, but I prefer constructive criticism to anything. That's every author's dream is that one long review telling them what was right and wrong in a chapter.

--Orii