Rowena's Quill

Dumbledore was pacing up and down in his office, deep in thought. His time was limited while Tom's was not, and somehow, he had to reverse the tide. His next move depended on Harry. He sat down at his desk and took up quill and parchment. If Harry had not gotten the memory by now, he would have to impress upon him once again just how much was at stake.

He winced as he finished the note. The gradual atrophy of his hand was making even the smallest tasks painful. He wondered if he should bewitch a quill to be like the one Sophie Rockrimmon used to have. He could simply think into it and . . .

The quill! Why hadn't he realized it before? With its powers and Sophie's lineage, it could easily have been Rowena Ravenclaw's. All those hours of searching for clues in Hogwarts: A History, all those letters to libraries and academies across the wizarding world, and it was right there in the hands of her own family members. Or at least it had been.

Disparate ideas were racing through Dumbledore's mind, and he needed to sort them out clearly. He slipped into the Pensieve and let it take him where it would. He landed in the familiar scene of Hokey's prison cell, a scene he revisited often since he'd been searching for the horcruxes. It was the day he first discovered that Tom was collecting magical objects that belonged to the Hogwarts founders.

"He come to the house many times, sir. My mistress like him. I don' mean to kill my mistress, sir. I loves my mistress."

"I believe you, Hokey."

The Pensieve shook him forward, but not far. He was sitting across from a young, mourning Sophie Rockrimmon.

"The same day, of course," he murmured to himself.

He watched as his young self cast the Tillhiasit charm over her and her possessions. If he had only known back then why Tom was after all those objects! Merely keeping and using them could never be enough for him. Of course he would manipulate them for his own nefarious ends. What a colossally regrettable mistake!

"That should do for future generations, as well," his younger self said.

The Pensieve shook harder and faster, bringing him decades forward. He was standing at the Lovegoods' little cottage. Leonard opened the door for him, and inside, nine-year-old Luna jumped to her feet and cried "Grandfather!"

He and Leonard looked at each other in some surprise.

"You pay me a great compliment, young lady," he said, entering. "Your grandfather was one of the most outstanding wizards I have ever had the privilege of knowing, but I am not he."

"This is Professor Dumbledore, Luna. He's here to talk to you about Mummy."

A shadow seemed to pass over Luna's face and her voice became unnaturally low. "Because I am the only one who saw."

"That's right, sweetie. Professor, won't you sit down?"

Dumbledore watched himself sit on the couch and pat the cushion so that Luna would join him. With some timidity, she did.

Leonard pulled up a chair. "We know it's hard for you, sweetie, but it's the only way of discovering what really happened."

Dumbledore remembered how desperately he wanted to put her at ease. "Perhaps you would like a drink? Butterbeer? Hot cocoa?"

"Butterbeer."

He conjured a bottle for her. Like any wizarding child, she hesitated before accepting a drink from a stranger.

"Go on, Luna," Leonard urged her.

Luna looked from her father to Dumbledore and then to the bottle of butterbeer. Dumbledore magically popped the cork for her. She took the bottle and sipped.

"Before we begin, I hope you will not mind my asking: what made you think I was your grandfather?"

Luna swallowed her drink. "Because you were at Granny's funeral and then Mummy's, so I thought you were him, coming from the better place to tell us they were all right."

How vividly Dumbledore remembered that moment! At nine years old with an immature yet clear understanding of eternity, Luna Lovegood was at once precociously aware and painfully tragic.

Leonard took her hand in his. "Once someone has gone to the better place, we can never see them in body again."

"Yes, I know," said Luna, "but I thought an Unspeakable would be different."

"No, sweetie, not even an Unspeakable is that powerful."

A few tears fell from Luna's eyes. "I suppose I should have known that. And I suppose nobody would come to tell me that Mummy is all right because she's been telling me herself this whole time."

"Have you heard anything else from her?" asked Dumbledore.

The tears fell faster. "Mostly, she says, 'I love you.'"

Had Luna run crying into her room at that moment, Dumbledore would have understood, but she did not. She dried her tears and looked up at him.

"You should know, Luna, that many people who have lost loved ones hear from them afterward, though from the sound of it, I think you can hear a good deal more."

"So you think it's real then?" said Leonard anxiously. "I mean, I heard Rowena's cry loud and clear that first time, and more subtle whisperings since then, but Luna speaks of it constantly. And considering what she's seen, I couldn't help but worry that -"

"Considering what she's seen, I think she is coping exceptionally well," said Dumbledore. "Never underestimate the power of the mother-to-child bond. And of course, there are her own inherited faculties, perfectly obvious to me, even in these very few minutes of meeting her."

"Thank you, Professor. You've taken a great weight off my mind."

Dumbledore nodded to him, but continued with Luna. "But even though you can hear your mother now, I think you will hear less and less from her over time. That is the natural way of things."

Wide-eyed, Luna stared at him. Dumbledore could see on his own face just how much he was at a loss for what to do next. Called in for his experience with children as much as for his magical expertise, the responsibility on him was heavy. Leonard was relying on him, and Luna had begun to trust him, but how to proceed?

Luna spoke up. "Mummy was caught by a bad wrackspurt that morning."

"A wrackspurt?" repeated Dumbledore, trying to work out the code.

"Particularly distracting ideas," explained Leonard. "Just a household code."

"I see. And do you know what her wrackspurt was about?"

Luna shook her head. "She didn't tell me."

Dumbledore looked to Leonard. "It could have been several things. If you recall, you were here the night before, giving us your latest reports, and she was upset to hear that her mother was once friendly with Voldemort."

"I recall."

But his current self had not recalled it until now. He could clearly picture Rowena's shock over her mother's friendship with Tom Riddle, but when and why did that shock translate into her impulse to explode her quill?

"Then, there was the Crouch trial. She denied it, but I don't see how she couldn't have been thinking of Alice." Leonard's voice began to crack. "And then there was the sound experiment. The immediate cause." He struggled to compose himself.

"But Mummy wasn't so very unhappy when you left," said Luna. "You told us the centaur story."

"Oh, my," said Leonard. "I don't know if I can bear this. The centaur story is how Rowena and I began dating. The path to her destiny was clear but short, the centaur told her." His voice cracked more. "Rowena and I thought he was talking about us, but now I see, the centaur foresaw how short her life would be!"

Leonard could not fight it any longer. He buried his face in his hands and gave in to full, loud sobs.

Perturbed at her father's grief, Luna got off the couch, put her arms around him, and began to sing. At the time, Dumbledore thought it was a touching gesture, but he would soon learn that her song was much, much more.

"Look at my little girl, Professor. She's braver than I am." He dried his eyes and adjusted his glasses. Luna returned to her place on the couch.

"You are very brave, Luna," said Dumbledore, "and these details are exactly what we need to hear. Can you tell me everything you remember about what happened after your father left? Every detail, no matter how unimportant it may seem."

Luna paused to think and then said, "We talked a little more about the centaur. Mummy said that Daddy said that one day a centaur would come to our house so she could interview him for The Quibbler."

Even in his pain, Leonard half-laughed.

"Intriguing idea," said Dumbledore. His current self still thought so.

"But then she said she thought Daddy was wrong because centaurs always do things their own way. And then," she said, lowering her eyes and looking at her hands in her lap, "I asked her about the door in the Department of Mysteries."

Neither man expected that.

"My gosh," said Leonard. "A premonition."

Luna looked up, her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. "What's a premonition?"

"It is a kind of wrackspurt that tells you what is going to happen before it actually does," said Dumbledore.

"It wasn't one of those," said Luna, shaking her head. "Then I would have felt sad and scared, but I didn't think . . . I didn't know she would -"

Another shadow crossed Luna's face. She was slipping ahead into the traumatic part of the memory. Dumbledore had to pull her back quickly. Leaning close to her, he asked, "What was your question to your Mummy?"

"Umm . . ." she said vaguely, as she struggled to get back on track. "I wanted to know if the Ministry could block the door."

"I see. And what did she tell you?"

"She said the door was so powerful, no wizard could control it."

"That is very true," said Dumbledore. "And then what happened?"

"She said I could go out and play while she was working, but I didn't want to. So she let me stay with her. I played Rack 'n Rune."

"And what was she doing while you were playing?"

"Reading."

"Reading what, Luna?" Leonard asked. "Please, sweetie. Go to the bookshelves. It'll help you remember."

Luna got up off the couch. She spent a long time looking over each book on the shelves, and there were very many. Clearly, she was trying her hardest. But after a long while, she turned back to them tearfully and cried, "I don't know! I just don't know!"

"It's all right, Luna. Come back now."

She ran to her father's arms and he took her in his lap. Tears coursed down her cheeks, but she did not stop talking.

"I can't remember what she was reading, but she did it for a very long time. I finished three full games of solitaire."

"That's about an hour and a half," murmured Leonard.

"And then she said, 'Luna, go outside' - hard like that, and that wasn't the way she talked. I still didn't want to go, but she said I had to because she was going to try an experiment and I might get hurt and . . ."

Clinging to her father, her face froze in fright as she relived the scene in her mind. But she did not break eye contact, and Dumbledore saw every bit of it with her. He touched his wand to her temple - she did not resist - and extracted the memory so horrifying she could not express it in words.

The Pensieve shook ever so slightly, shifting perspective so that Dumbledore was brought to Luna's memory.

"Incendio quill!" cried Rowena. The quill exploded, pulling Rowena, in open-mouthed shock, into the fireball. Consumed in flames, she collapsed to the floor. For a few moments, Luna was too petrified to move, but then she realized her mother's life was depending on her. She poured a pot of water over her and sent an owl for help, but Rowena was doomed from the start. As she lay dying, the quill released its voices - the bizarre, inexplicable result of her experiment. A choir of languages, an eerie, cackling laugh, and last, the song Luna had sung to comfort her father.

The Pensieve shifted back to Dumbledore's own point of view. Luna was sobbing while Leonard rocked and soothed her in his lap, his own tears soaking her hair.

Dumbledore picked up her unfinished bottle of butterbeer. "I treated this with phoenix tears," he confessed. "Drink it. You'll feel better."

She choked back more sobs, shuddered, and forced herself to drink. Slowly, she began to calm down. But the phoenix tears were merely a stop-gap measure. She would have a long, hard road to recovery.

"You have been very strong and brave, Luna. What you have done would be difficult even for adults. Perhaps you might like to nap now. Heaven knows, this has taken a lot out of you."

"I don't want a nap."

She slid off her father's lap and resumed her place on the couch, fixing Dumbledore with an expectant look he could never forget, as if to say, "I've done my part. Now you do yours." She wanted a solution to the mystery as badly as Leonard did, and she was going to sit there waiting for it. Dumbledore did not protest.

"What can you tell me about the quill, Leonard?"

"It was Rowena's prize possession, a graduation gift from her mother. She used it all the time. She wouldn't have wanted to destroy it."

"Do you know anything about its origins?"

"Well, no. You see, Rowena was always vague about the treasures from her mother's home. We sold most of them to cover the debts we accrued running The Quibbler, but she cherished the quill too much to sell it. In any case, I was left out of her negotiations with Borgin & Burke. I never found out the history or value of any of her mother's things. She deliberately hid from me how much she was sacrificing, and for the sake of marital harmony, I thought it was the best thing to let her."

"Perfectly understandable. What were its powers?"

"It had a mind of its own. It knew many, many languages, and it was able to pick up Rowena's thoughts so her writing always flowed easily. I used it myself on occasion. With translations, it always helped, but it never melded with me the way it did with Rowena."

Dumbledore wished Luna had chosen to sleep through this part. "That might explain why the fireball pulled her in. The quill was a sort of extension of her."

"It sang in a lady's voice," said Luna.

"The strongest clue of all," thought the present-day Dumbledore.

Leonard took Luna's hand in his again and gave Dumbledore the same expectant look that she had. "So what do you think, Professor?"

"I think you have an extraordinary daughter," said Dumbledore, twinkling at Luna with a cheering charm. "Other than that, I am sorry to say that I am even more perplexed than when we started."

Leonard heaved a great sigh.

"I have her memory," he said, putting the vial into his cloak, "and I will continue to examine it for clues, but I think there is some tiny detail, now obscured in Luna's mind, which may be the key to it all. Perhaps, as she heals, it will come out naturally, but I am sure you agree - I must not press her any further now."

"Truth wills out," Luna piped up. "The lady said so." And then, in her high, childish voice, she sang the song which had come out of the quill.

Ephemeral justice, elusive truth

take time to be uncovered,

but truth wills out in many years,

and all has been discovered.

Dumbledore, who had not expected her to fully comprehend him, was speechless for several moments. Finally, very softly, he said, "I look forward to meeting you again at happier occasions, Miss Lovegood. Hogwarts would be a very pleasant place to start."