Fallen Angel; Gift for the Community!
Title: Fallen Angel
Author: thecatinthetree
Beta: None
Pairing/s: Luna/(male)OC
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Character Death, Drug Use, AU
Word Count: 1,677 words
Summary: Luna finds the Muggle world hard to deal with.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognizable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Author's Notes: I wrote this originally for a challenge called "an unheroic death" it was considered too "dark" so it was never posted. Here it is now. It's several years old in my defence.
Fallen Angel
I walked slowly, my feet dragging the floor, scuffing the toes out of my shoes. It was all so much energy, the thick muggy air seemed to part slowly at my touch, like a swimmer in a pool filled with treacle. My toe caught on a slab and I tripped, and wouldn’t I be damned if the air didn’t suddenly decide that it would become as light as champagne again. I fell heavily to my knees. Only just thinking to bring my hands up and break my fall. There on all fours, staring at the dirt that covered the paving slabs I stayed. I was aware of a shard of glass, cutting deeply and painfully into my left palm. But I did not move. Could not move.
Still silent i leant over and retched my insides up onto the slabs. The mess that was now all over my hands was speckled, as it had been for some time, with blood. I spat into it before lifting my hands up, bringing them closer to my face and considering them. Intriguing really, we can live for anything up to a century, maybe more and never bother about what’s inside us until we get ill. Rocking back onto my heels I stood slowly and painfully, not much longer now i promised my aching nerves. I continued on, pushing through the treacle, walking down the deserted alley way. A spattering, trickling sound up ahead informed me of the presence of water. I went to it like a sleep walker in a dream, holding my vomit coated hand sunder it to clean them. With all the blood traces gone i cupped my hands and drank the water, it was trickling from an over flow pipe above but what did it matter? I wouldn’t last much longer anyway. Just use the magic, use it Luna. Then it will be all okay again. But I ignored the voice. It was not my fault.
Subconsciously my hand went to my pocket, still containing the two halves of my wand, snapped in two by ministry officials. Well it wasn’t ever going to be his fault that Muggle saw us. Of course, it wouldn’t ever be perfect prissy Draco Malfoy’s fault. I touched the two broken halves gently. Stifling the urge to cry or perhaps vomit again. Fumbling hands moved to something else in the pocket, a lighter. Yes, that would do while I waited. I headed quickly for the park, nearing 1 am it should be suitably deserted.
Sinking onto a rusty swing I pulled my bag round to reach it easier, taking out the rolling papers and the little plastic bag, i dropped the potent smelling leaves onto it, rolling it tight and lighting the end. I put everything else into my bag and dropped that to the ground, taking a deep drag. I felt everything settle into perspective again. I relaxed and slumped against one swing chain. What did it matter anyway? But then the bitter smoke caught in my throat and I coughed. The coughing extended, as though it was dredging the bottom of my lungs up and before long I was once again spitting blood. Wiping my mouth with customary grimness i returned to the important matter of taking another deep drag. I blew out the stream of smoke into the air, trying to see through it as i remembered. Flashes of things, different things and different times, until I no longer knew if they were from my time as a Muggle or before the change.
A wand snapping, tears in my father’s eyes as he turned his back, walking away from his only daughter. My last sorrowful exit through the leaky cauldron, knowing that was the furthest into wizard London i could ever go again without an escort. His face pointed and ferret like, gleaming in triumph. Josh, Josh and his listening ear, his strange, mind altering smoke. The coloured drinks he bought. The feeling of him inside me. The way that he smelt and tasted, like the bitter smoke. He even dressed in the acid bright colours of the pills and liquids. The first sharp prick of a needle sliding into my vein and the wonderful euphoria it bought. The doctor’s sad looks at the pair of us. A strange mixture, sympathy, concern and a certain air of reminiscing. Being told those awful words. “You’re both HIV positive, and Miss Lovegood. You’re pregnant.
A pain in my fingers bought me sharply back to the present, for a little while, the paper had burned them. I dropped it to the ground, crushing it under foot. Of course the baby hadn’t survived. They told us both that to be allowed the medication to keep us alive we would have to quit ours. With unanimous agreement we had taken death. And now my days were ever more numbered. Josh, dear sweet Josh was gone. The day our baby daughter came into the world, 5 months early, staining us both with blood and making a mess of the disabled toilet at some generic station on the London underground. She died in his arms. What we must have looked like, walking through London together, stained with blood and carrying a tiny bundle. I had bought him the paracetamol and the bottle of water but it was his money. I still remember how he died. He gave me everything, his acid bright hoodie, a shade of pink that would have made any self respecting Barbie doll envious. All his money, all two pounds of it. The last of his thinks, the bitter tobacco and the beautiful coloured pills, even the pretty liquids we used to drink together, all together in his bag. Clinking gently. He held my hand, or maybe i held his. We kissed one last time, and then he died, with my daughter in his arms. I laid them back in the woods and left. That was a while ago now; at least i think it was. I don’t really know.
There have been other men since then. None like Josh though, one is his old dealer. When I have no money for my “life force” as he calls it he lets me pay him with my body. He is a nice man, always so clean and careful, but I do not believe he wants my disease. He does not want to be given our ultimatum. Give up our medication and live, or remain the way we are and die. He doesn’t even mind if I have to stop to go and cough blood or rest. I suppose it’s good for him that way. I told him that when I die he can have what he likes. He’s the closest thing I have left to a friend. But there were other men still, disgraced wizards and violent Muggles. Sometimes I made them pay me so that I could get more coloured liquids and acid coloured pills. Other times they made me do it. The ones that didn’t pay all seemed suitably horrified when I told them I was HIV positive, funny how those two words strike fear into the hearts of Muggles. I don’t know about the wizard’s. Maybe they just feel wrong because they have taken their lust to a sixteen year old girl? I am not one to judge.
Another click of the swings chains, another part revolution as i swing back and forwards. I know in my heart that tonight is the night. I stop the swing, reach my bag, and wash down the last of the pills with most of the bright blue liquid. Then I take out the last weapon in my arsenal, the tiny vial, needle in, needle out, tourniquet arm, needle in, needle out. Simple and clean. One more job to do before I let oblivion claim me. Out comes a mobile phone, stolen from a “customer” one of the ones who paid. The number is on speed dial, which is lucky because my hands are shaking so badly that I couldn’t key in all the digits. He’ll know it’s me, Muggles invented caller ID for a reason.
“If it isn’t my little Luna,” he says to me happily. “What can we do for you tonight my precious?”
And a smile pulls at the corners of my mouth. He doesn’t know he will be the last person to speak to me.
“It’s tonight. Take everything, then burn me. The park.” He would know its meaning; I did not need to explain.
“Okay my precious, good bye love, I’ll miss you.”
“And I will miss you.” And then the line goes dead. As the world starts to dissolve into a haze I lean against the icy cold metal of the swing sets anchoring poles. I consider for a moment what my last words should be, something romantic and loving perhaps, maybe Josh dearest I love you? But my attempt to speak is foiled when the cough returns and there is suddenly blood spattering everywhere again.
And then the end is near in my mind, rushing up to meet me, I stand, smoothing down my skirt and brushing the dirt from Josh’s acid pink hoodie. I spread out my arms and twirl in the moonlight. Then pick up my bag, swinging it over my shoulder and twirling again. Plastic sunglasses go on; non-one will know I’m dead, for it would be horrible to scare a small child if he doesn’t pick me up until later.
It’s coming now, my heart is cold and slow as I fall to the ground. From my prone position I can feel horrible wet blood seeping from the side my mouth. The wood presses into my back so that i cannot turn to hide it, I cough again, feeble now and there is more blood.
“Fuck,” my voice is feeble and weak now but I say it to myself in an almost conversational tone. “The little kids will know I’m dead now.” And then the end of everything. There is nothing afterwards. But dark...
Author: thecatinthetree
Beta: None
Pairing/s: Luna/(male)OC
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Character Death, Drug Use, AU
Word Count: 1,677 words
Summary: Luna finds the Muggle world hard to deal with.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognizable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Author's Notes: I wrote this originally for a challenge called "an unheroic death" it was considered too "dark" so it was never posted. Here it is now. It's several years old in my defence.
Fallen Angel
I walked slowly, my feet dragging the floor, scuffing the toes out of my shoes. It was all so much energy, the thick muggy air seemed to part slowly at my touch, like a swimmer in a pool filled with treacle. My toe caught on a slab and I tripped, and wouldn’t I be damned if the air didn’t suddenly decide that it would become as light as champagne again. I fell heavily to my knees. Only just thinking to bring my hands up and break my fall. There on all fours, staring at the dirt that covered the paving slabs I stayed. I was aware of a shard of glass, cutting deeply and painfully into my left palm. But I did not move. Could not move.
Still silent i leant over and retched my insides up onto the slabs. The mess that was now all over my hands was speckled, as it had been for some time, with blood. I spat into it before lifting my hands up, bringing them closer to my face and considering them. Intriguing really, we can live for anything up to a century, maybe more and never bother about what’s inside us until we get ill. Rocking back onto my heels I stood slowly and painfully, not much longer now i promised my aching nerves. I continued on, pushing through the treacle, walking down the deserted alley way. A spattering, trickling sound up ahead informed me of the presence of water. I went to it like a sleep walker in a dream, holding my vomit coated hand sunder it to clean them. With all the blood traces gone i cupped my hands and drank the water, it was trickling from an over flow pipe above but what did it matter? I wouldn’t last much longer anyway. Just use the magic, use it Luna. Then it will be all okay again. But I ignored the voice. It was not my fault.
Subconsciously my hand went to my pocket, still containing the two halves of my wand, snapped in two by ministry officials. Well it wasn’t ever going to be his fault that Muggle saw us. Of course, it wouldn’t ever be perfect prissy Draco Malfoy’s fault. I touched the two broken halves gently. Stifling the urge to cry or perhaps vomit again. Fumbling hands moved to something else in the pocket, a lighter. Yes, that would do while I waited. I headed quickly for the park, nearing 1 am it should be suitably deserted.
Sinking onto a rusty swing I pulled my bag round to reach it easier, taking out the rolling papers and the little plastic bag, i dropped the potent smelling leaves onto it, rolling it tight and lighting the end. I put everything else into my bag and dropped that to the ground, taking a deep drag. I felt everything settle into perspective again. I relaxed and slumped against one swing chain. What did it matter anyway? But then the bitter smoke caught in my throat and I coughed. The coughing extended, as though it was dredging the bottom of my lungs up and before long I was once again spitting blood. Wiping my mouth with customary grimness i returned to the important matter of taking another deep drag. I blew out the stream of smoke into the air, trying to see through it as i remembered. Flashes of things, different things and different times, until I no longer knew if they were from my time as a Muggle or before the change.
A wand snapping, tears in my father’s eyes as he turned his back, walking away from his only daughter. My last sorrowful exit through the leaky cauldron, knowing that was the furthest into wizard London i could ever go again without an escort. His face pointed and ferret like, gleaming in triumph. Josh, Josh and his listening ear, his strange, mind altering smoke. The coloured drinks he bought. The feeling of him inside me. The way that he smelt and tasted, like the bitter smoke. He even dressed in the acid bright colours of the pills and liquids. The first sharp prick of a needle sliding into my vein and the wonderful euphoria it bought. The doctor’s sad looks at the pair of us. A strange mixture, sympathy, concern and a certain air of reminiscing. Being told those awful words. “You’re both HIV positive, and Miss Lovegood. You’re pregnant.
A pain in my fingers bought me sharply back to the present, for a little while, the paper had burned them. I dropped it to the ground, crushing it under foot. Of course the baby hadn’t survived. They told us both that to be allowed the medication to keep us alive we would have to quit ours. With unanimous agreement we had taken death. And now my days were ever more numbered. Josh, dear sweet Josh was gone. The day our baby daughter came into the world, 5 months early, staining us both with blood and making a mess of the disabled toilet at some generic station on the London underground. She died in his arms. What we must have looked like, walking through London together, stained with blood and carrying a tiny bundle. I had bought him the paracetamol and the bottle of water but it was his money. I still remember how he died. He gave me everything, his acid bright hoodie, a shade of pink that would have made any self respecting Barbie doll envious. All his money, all two pounds of it. The last of his thinks, the bitter tobacco and the beautiful coloured pills, even the pretty liquids we used to drink together, all together in his bag. Clinking gently. He held my hand, or maybe i held his. We kissed one last time, and then he died, with my daughter in his arms. I laid them back in the woods and left. That was a while ago now; at least i think it was. I don’t really know.
There have been other men since then. None like Josh though, one is his old dealer. When I have no money for my “life force” as he calls it he lets me pay him with my body. He is a nice man, always so clean and careful, but I do not believe he wants my disease. He does not want to be given our ultimatum. Give up our medication and live, or remain the way we are and die. He doesn’t even mind if I have to stop to go and cough blood or rest. I suppose it’s good for him that way. I told him that when I die he can have what he likes. He’s the closest thing I have left to a friend. But there were other men still, disgraced wizards and violent Muggles. Sometimes I made them pay me so that I could get more coloured liquids and acid coloured pills. Other times they made me do it. The ones that didn’t pay all seemed suitably horrified when I told them I was HIV positive, funny how those two words strike fear into the hearts of Muggles. I don’t know about the wizard’s. Maybe they just feel wrong because they have taken their lust to a sixteen year old girl? I am not one to judge.
Another click of the swings chains, another part revolution as i swing back and forwards. I know in my heart that tonight is the night. I stop the swing, reach my bag, and wash down the last of the pills with most of the bright blue liquid. Then I take out the last weapon in my arsenal, the tiny vial, needle in, needle out, tourniquet arm, needle in, needle out. Simple and clean. One more job to do before I let oblivion claim me. Out comes a mobile phone, stolen from a “customer” one of the ones who paid. The number is on speed dial, which is lucky because my hands are shaking so badly that I couldn’t key in all the digits. He’ll know it’s me, Muggles invented caller ID for a reason.
“If it isn’t my little Luna,” he says to me happily. “What can we do for you tonight my precious?”
And a smile pulls at the corners of my mouth. He doesn’t know he will be the last person to speak to me.
“It’s tonight. Take everything, then burn me. The park.” He would know its meaning; I did not need to explain.
“Okay my precious, good bye love, I’ll miss you.”
“And I will miss you.” And then the line goes dead. As the world starts to dissolve into a haze I lean against the icy cold metal of the swing sets anchoring poles. I consider for a moment what my last words should be, something romantic and loving perhaps, maybe Josh dearest I love you? But my attempt to speak is foiled when the cough returns and there is suddenly blood spattering everywhere again.
And then the end is near in my mind, rushing up to meet me, I stand, smoothing down my skirt and brushing the dirt from Josh’s acid pink hoodie. I spread out my arms and twirl in the moonlight. Then pick up my bag, swinging it over my shoulder and twirling again. Plastic sunglasses go on; non-one will know I’m dead, for it would be horrible to scare a small child if he doesn’t pick me up until later.
It’s coming now, my heart is cold and slow as I fall to the ground. From my prone position I can feel horrible wet blood seeping from the side my mouth. The wood presses into my back so that i cannot turn to hide it, I cough again, feeble now and there is more blood.
“Fuck,” my voice is feeble and weak now but I say it to myself in an almost conversational tone. “The little kids will know I’m dead now.” And then the end of everything. There is nothing afterwards. But dark...