Luna Lovegood's Arc

Chapter 7 of 19

Luna woke before dawn to a new sound. The herd had moved in the night. She heard heavy steps at the tree line, closer than before, and low rumbles that made the canvas shiver. She grabbed her father's harp and played. The slow notes rolled out. The steps paused. But her fingers ached, and the rumbles did not fade for long. This time the music only slowed them. It would not turn them back. By nightfall the herd would reach the tent, and she could not play through another day. She needed help. She thought of one person who worked with wild creatures at close range, who spoke to beasts most people ran from. She sent word at first light. By midday he came crashing up the path, too big for the trees, ducking branches that would have stopped anyone else. Hagrid dropped a heavy sack by the tent and grinned through his black beard. "Heard yeh caught a Snorkack," he said. "Real one. Xeno's own girl." He crouched and peered at the young creature on the blanket. His face went soft. "Beauty, isn' she. But her mum's out there, an' she's scared. Scared mums are the dangerous ones." "The music won't hold them anymore," Luna said. "They're too close." Hagrid nodded slowly. "Then we don' hold 'em with music. We keep 'em out." He opened the sack and pulled out three worn stones, each taller than her knee, cut with faint runes that glowed from inside. "Ward stones. Old magic. Set 'em round the camp an' nothin' wild crosses the line. Won' hurt 'em. Just stops 'em." They worked fast. Hagrid carried the stones like bread loaves and drove them into the soil around the tent. Luna spoke the words he taught her over each one. The runes brightened. A faint hum rose between the stones, then a thin wall of light that she could see only from the corner of her eye. As the last stone settled, the herd broke from the trees. Great striped shapes, huge and horned, thundered toward the tent. Luna's chest locked. Hagrid pulled her back. The lead beast hit the ward line and stopped dead, as if it had walked into a wall. It bellowed and pawed the ground. The others gathered behind it. None crossed. "There," Hagrid breathed. "Told yeh." Luna set down the harp for the first time in a day. Her hands stopped shaking. The camp was safe. The herd could not reach the young one now. But she watched the mother press against the light, again and again, calling for her child. The stones would hold the herd out. They would also hold Luna in. She could not leave the ring to gather gurdyroot, and she could not carry the young Snorkack out to the world with its whole family camped at her door, refusing to leave.