Luna Lovegood's Arc

Chapter 11 of 19

Luna carried the six casts to Hogwarts in a cloth sling. Hermione walked beside her with the sealed record and the wax seals. But when they reached the great doors, Luna stopped. She had proof now. She had no place to show it. A record locked in a drawer changed no one's mind. The wizarding world had laughed at her father for thirty years. They would not walk to a corner to look. "Where do we even put these?" Hermione asked. She held the parchment to her chest. "A shelf? A classroom nobody visits? They'll dismiss it before they read the first line." Luna knew she was right. She needed a place where doubters would gather and be forced to look. She needed someone with the power to make that happen. She turned toward the tower where the headmaster kept his office. They climbed to Dumbledore's study. He sat behind a wide desk in a purple robe stitched with stars. His half-moon glasses slid down his nose. He did not look surprised to see them. He looked as if he had been waiting. "Miss Lovegood," he said. "You have been busy in the forest." Luna set the casts on his desk in a row. Big feet. Small feet. One with a chipped edge. She laid the sealed record beside them. "Six animals," she said. "Different sizes. A family. Hagrid signed each cast. This is real." Dumbledore lifted the chipped cast and turned it in the light. He said nothing for a long moment. Hermione shifted her weight beside Luna. Luna held her breath the way she had held it in the forest, waiting for the herd. "My father found tracks once," Luna said. "He kept them thirty years. Nobody came to see. If you put these on a shelf, nobody will come to see mine either." Dumbledore set the cast down. He studied her face, then the row of gray molds. "You are asking me for a room," he said. "Not a drawer." "I am asking for the Great Hall," Luna said. "Everyone passes through it. They eat there. They cannot look away." Dumbledore stood. He walked to the window and looked toward the trees. "The Ministry sends inspectors this term," he said. "Scholars. Skeptics. They will all sit under that ceiling." He turned back. His eyes were bright. "I will display your casts in the Great Hall. On the head table's dais, where none can miss them. I will invite the doubters myself." Luna's chest loosened. Hermione let out a breath. "But understand," Dumbledore said. "When they gather, they will not gather to believe. They will gather to tear it apart. You must be there to answer them." Luna gathered the casts back into her sling. She had her place now. In two weeks the wizarding world would sit before her proof. And every skeptic in it would be looking for the flaw she had not yet found.