Edge Of Gravity

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was more then just a ruin of its former self, a skeleton of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Floorboards and several large gaping holes loomed around every corner reminding you how vacant the line had become, how separated that the past was from the present. Time had disengaged several rooms of their doors, letting a sharp loud wind whistle through every room. It was enough to keep even a homeless Muggle at a distance, and the two shabby London homes surrounding it look respectable.

Only a smallest scraps of the Fidelius Charm lay within its walls, keeping the inside from being seen if anyone bothered enough to scratch through the barnacle-like grim covering the windows. A normally house of nightmares that children would run from and the lower class Muggles would sneer, saying it made their property value go down. Only the lackluster attitude that stood behind their sneers kept anyone from simply walking up and pushing the old shack down.

A fact that Luna Lovegood took great comfort in over the weeks she had been captured; she knew that the old hippogriff would still be snapping at the daring Doxies. The infestation had its benefits, and the ignorant biting fairies were too slow to realize the hippogriff would simple snatch them in his beak. A meager meal at best, but normal meals were harder to catch with him being stuck within the home’s inner walls most of the time.

Luna’s hands lost all feeling, making the small charm slip through her fingers and dropping to the floor with a hollow clank before rolling off into one of the black holes of floor cracks. An electrical spark burning all the way up from her toes before the room snapped into her vision. The Entrance Hall.

It was a large room with chunks of missing wall, and the remaining stained with gas that still reeked when the wind picked up enough. The rough bumps under her toes the only reminder of a carpet, it seeming to have merged with the floor beneath it. A line of blackened portraits stood bowed against the wall, its canvas losing its density to make them look almost see-through.

Only a single portrait laid face down, a layer of dust so thick that even the wind whipping over it could not disturb it. The troll leg umbrella stand resting on its back to keep it from being moved; preventing the horrible screeching the old bat had done when Luna had first found herself in the home. A fact that still made her spine tingle and her eyes water.

“Where….Where…” For the first time since she had been used the Portkey, Luna noticed the Harry’s cousin slumped to the floor beside her, his body shaking from fear or cold, she wasn’t sure of which. His eyes took in the Entrance Hall; his face pinched with a look of utter confusion before he simply slipped all the way to the ground with a soft thud.

Luna lips thinned, feeling the first prickles of wakefulness in her hands, letting her drop her grip from the young man’s hand. His half-opened eyes stared blankly, and breaths came in slow erratic spurts making her lean down to touch his skin. Freezing, but not enough to make her panic.

“So…” she sighed down at the thin body, trying to ignore the thought perhaps he would be better off dead. There was a lifelessness to his skin, the kind that made even death look lively. A weight of responsibly ironed into his cracks, and loss had been scolded into his eyes. So much like Harry that it made her sickened to think of the young man she had called friend all those years ago.

Testing her feet to see if her equilibrium would hold, she lifted her one foot to notice a slimy goop plastered under her heel. A Doxy body wiggled on the ground where her foot hand been, and upon further inspection, a flattened head smeared across the back of her foot. Grimacing she wiped it the best she could across the floor before moving away to make sure none had gotten to Harry’s cousin. She wasn’t sure where to find the antidote anymore; they rarely came near her when the hippogriff was around.

Scanning around his body, there was no sign of a Doxy bite; she breathed a deep sigh of the clean…cleaner air. The thought of him dying now made her sick to her stomach, especially dying from a Doxy bite. Her tingle in her hands began to subside, while she slid down the wall to stare at the man. He made the reality of the time hurt, the difference of her life ache in a slow tortuous burn.

“Why?” She wasn’t certain as what she was asking why for; or perhaps, there was too many reasons that they all blurred together to much for her to pull one free. “Why?”

Closing her eyes, she tried not to think too deeply, to not allow the tears she wanted to cry to be shed. It had been the past, and there was nothing to be done about it now. Time was a harsh mistress, and even the time tuner had proved worthless when it came to the War…to helping Harry. It was always the same, only she was forced to relive it over and over in a more gruesome picture. She had forced herself back so many times that the magic had tainted her, had forced away the haze that had become her life, to see the black truth that death couldn’t be changed for the Boy Who Lived and Died.

“Why did you have to die Harry?” she whispered, before opening her eyes again. “Why?”

A soft squeal echoed on the wind, making the first smile touch her lips in far too long. Pushing herself, she ignored the way her body felt off kilter to shuffle to the where the snapping hippogriff jumped about. His older body still moving with the quickness of a younger hippogriff as he ate another Doxy. “Buckbeak.” She whispered, bowing slowing to avoid her simply tipping forward.

The hippogriff snapped at another Doxy, before turning to notice her. It munched on the Doxy in his mouth before moving to make Luna pet its soft feathers.

“Miss me?”

Buckbeak seemed to purr softly under her touch, giving her the answer.

“Me too.” she whispered, leaning in to rest her head against the hippogriff. “Me too.”

Thanks to Larilee for being my beta.