Summer Ghosts

You enter through the back door and know that something's wrong immediately. So you leave your trunk lying on the kitchen floor and step out into the hall, and call out names nervously. You start with "Charlie" because at least you know he's supposed to be here, but there's no answer. The rest of your brothers would've responded anyway, but you carry on calling names just in case.

"Fred!", "George!" come next because you've climbed the stairs and are outside their room, but the door's open and they're not there. So you keep climbing the stairs, "Mum! Dad!" "Percy!" (just in case), "Bill!" "Ron?" (even though it's his whereabouts that you're least sure about), and eventually have to accept the fact that you are alone in the house.

---

Luna's front door is open and when you step gingerly into the hall, you see that she is sitting there on a trunk, with her head in her hands, gazing at the floor. She looks up, and says, "My father's not here."

"I can't find my family either." She moves up to make room, and you sit beside her. "You don't think...?"

"That all the rumours are true and that everyone's just been killed?" Luna says, far too casually. "No, I don't."

"But how would we know?"

"We wouldn't," Luna says, and doesn't sound the slightest bit worried.

---

In the Lovegood's kitchen, you and Luna discover a loaf of bread that would have gone mouldy days ago if it wasn't for the charmed bread bin, and a jar of jam hiding in the back of a cupboard behind past issues of The Quibbler. She cuts the bread, you spread the jam, and eat without plates because Luna doesn't know where they're kept.

Of all people, you suppose Luna would be the nicest to take refuge with. She's oddly comforting, if altogether too unruffled, but you suppose that her father's her only remaining relative and he probably disappears all the time, and Luna can't spend much time here if she doesn't know where the plates are.

At that point, Errol arrives, hurtling through the cat flap in the back door and skidding across the kitchen tiles. You unfold the note in his claws with trembling fingers, and, of course, it is the permission slip that instructs you to stay at Hogwarts for the summer.

---

It doesn't feel like bedtime but the grandfather clock in Luna's hall says it's ten o'clock. That's bedtime at Hogwarts, and even you though you're not there, you feel obliged to obey.

Luna lends you a nightdress that is a little too tight, and - because you don't want to go back to the Burrow alone, and you don't know how to ask her to come back with you - you walk into her room. She is curled up in the bed so tightly that the quilt is tangled up in her legs and you have to curl your own legs so they don't get cold. It's uncomfortable, and you wonder if it's more so than the cold, ghostly Burrow.

"Don't be gone when I wake up," Luna says, suddenly, and in the darkness you can't see her face to see if she's looking anything but vaguely surprised and cheerful.

"I won't," you tell her, and shut your eyes.

---

You wake up in an empty bed with the sunlight streaming through Luna's heavy curtains. So you get out of bed and tiptoe (because you don't want to disturb the silence) along the long corridor of the first floor, peering through doorways, searching for Luna.

You find her in what you assume to be her father's study, sitting at the desk and writing furiously on reams of parchment, still in her pyjamas.

"The charmed quills are all gone," she says, not looking up. "And his diary, and the files, and everything. He must have taken them with him, the Ministry must be trying to close us down. I'm going to handwrite The Quibbler myself."

She says this all very quickly without taking a breath, and it may possibly be the longest thing she's ever said to you.

"But.... Surely - he wouldn't have gone without telling you?" you ask, choosing your words carefully.

Luna looks up at you then. "He might have forgotten about me," she says, seriously.

You find a tub of hot chocolate sitting on the desk, so you reach over Luna to pick it up. Downstairs in the kitchen, the cutlery drawer appears full of knives and forks and all manner of other things, but no spoons, so you resort to using your wand. Luna doesn't seem to notice when you place the hot mug in front of her, so you settle down in an armchair to drink yours and keep an eye on her.

After a little while, you lean over Luna's shoulder to see what she's writing. Her fingers fall over themselves, scribbling down gossip columns, trivial conspiracies and support for Harry Potter without actually mentioning there's a war or that anything might be scary at all.

You can't help but worry that Luna is going mad. No, maybe not going mad, because she always was, but she always seemed rather harmless. Imagine, worrying about Loony Luna Lovegood, who never seems to get upset about anything.

And when you look up at the clock and see that a whole hour has gone by, you start to worry that maybe you're mad too.

"Luna, I'm just going home for a bit, okay? I'll be back later."

Luna doesn't answer, and so, after a moment's hesitation, you head downstairs.

---

You feel like you should go home, just to have a look. It's something to do while Luna writes, and besides you might find a clue as to the whereabouts of your missing family. You didn't even check for a note last time, or take a moment to glance at the clock.

The Burrow is still empty, of course, although you didn't expect anything else. You stare up at the clock in the living room and check the hands one at a time. Your hand points to home, of course, while Charlie's and Percy's both point to work. Bill's and both your parents' are firmly set at 'far away', the twins' hands spins around and around in circles as they have ever since Fred bewitched them, and lastly, Ron's hand has settled in 'lost', but appears to be edging ever so slightly towards 'mortal peril'.

A thought hits you and so you pick up a scrap bit of parchment. Once you've written I love you on the piece of paper, you fold it up and label it carefully with a name, and then quickly add two others. Errol wakes up after some prodding, and takes the note from you in his claws. You can't imagine where Harry, Ron and Hermione are, but maybe Errol will do something right for once.

You've been wearing the same clothes for too long now, but you can't bring yourself to open your trunk in the kitchen, for some reason, so you head upstairs and ransack your brothers' wardrobes. Besides, their clothes will be looser and cooler in the heat.

Ron's bedroom is the same as ever, covered in Chudley Cannons posters and you can't help but feel that if you turn around, he'll be there scowling on his bed and asking what you want. It's hard to believe that he, and Harry and Hermione are off fighting somewhere. It's hard to think of You-Know-Who as anything but Tom, even though he stopped being Tom a long time ago.