Luna Lovegood's Arc

Chapter 19 of 19

The Ministry official came back within a week, and this time she brought a builder's plan. She wanted paying spectators, hundreds of them, seated under a grand new stand at the tree line. Luna read the drawing and felt cold. So many wizards, so much noise, would drive the herd deep into the forest for good. The mother would never come again. "People will pay to count Snorkacks," the official said. "The wizarding world wants the whole herd, in the open. Your little pavilion is finished." Luna knew arguing would fail. She needed a place that could hold crowds without frightening the creatures. She sent word to Hermione and Hagrid that night. Hermione arrived at dawn with rolled parchments under her arm. She had helped Luna rebuild a killing trap into a gentle one, and she solved problems the same careful way now. She spread her sketches on the grass. "Not a stand," she said. "A sound-dampening auditorium, built around a living tree, far from the herd's ground. The tree's own branches muffle voices. We charm the seats to swallow noise." Hagrid studied the drawing and rubbed his beard. He had raised beasts most wizards feared, and he trusted his gut over any Ministry scholar. "Move the crowd off the forest edge an' the herd stays calm," he agreed. "But they won't come to strangers in a big buildin'." He looked at Luna. "Yeh'll still be the one who feeds 'em." They built it in three days. The great open-air hall rose beneath a giant tree, its branches spreading like a roof over rows of quiet seats. Hagrid set his glowing ward stones in a wide ring, their runes keeping the herd's ground safe and separate. Luna cleared a feeding lane between the auditorium and the trees. The spectators would watch from a distance. Only she would cross to the herd. The official brought her paying crowd on opening day. Hundreds filed into the seats. Luna feared the noise, but the dampening charms held. Voices sank to a hush beneath the branches. She walked out alone with sugared gurdyroot in her palm and stood in the lane. The mother stepped from the trees first. Then, one by one, five more came behind her, striped coats bright in the sun. The whole herd. The crowd counted them in silence, six creatures grazing in plain view. The mother crossed to Luna and ate from her hand while every wizard watched. Luna had shown the world the herd itself, in the open, without breaking their trust. The official climbed down, pale and quiet. "You did it," she said. "The herd is counted. Now everyone will want their own turn." She held out a stack of letters. Wizards from far countries had written, each demanding Luna bring a Snorkack to them, to prove it lived beyond this one forest. Luna took the letters. She had proven the herd here. Now the world wanted her to prove it everywhere.