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hp_goldenageTitle: a particular undiscovered realm
Author:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Walgesang
Characters: Luna Lovegood
Rating: G
Word Count: 2264
Content/Warning(s): trans character, pre-transition, trans positivity, mentions of parent death, worldbuilding
Summary/Prompt: After getting the chance to be transfigured into a rare and elusive dragon in order to study its flight, Luna has only one adventure remaining on her bucket list. But like all adventures, the second to last came with a lesson that not all endings are yet written.
A/N: Thank you to the mods for one of my all-time favorite HP fests. Many things improve with age! Much love and gratitude to my beta.
Read on AO3 or below:
From Encyclopedia of Rare and Extinct Dragons, Eighty-Fifth Edition by Profs. Suruss, Ponfus and Lowe. Inside cover inscription: Happy birthday, dearest Luna! I hope you don't already have three of these. Here's to another fifty years plus fifty more. Love, Hermione
Norwegian Mjau: The Norwegian Mjau is the size of a housecat with twice the ornery temperament. Some believe the Mjau to be a unique dragon form of the Kneazle and not a true dragon at all. Due to the rarity of sightings and their elusive nature, not much is known of the Mjau other than from a journal of one Edgar Von Fizzbold, who claimed to have a Mjau as a familiar.
Much of their habits can only be gleaned from Fizzbold's account, and many magizoologists argue that his familiar was simply a transfigured Kneazle. Unlike the cat, Mjau are not known to be solitary creatures. Most recent signs of their continued existence are limited to a shed iridescent scale or two in an abandoned nest or a flight seen overhead on the rare occasion. Several dragon preserves have attempted to create secluded nests that would attract a nearby flight but have been unsuccessful.
In a world such as ours where a creature can spring from one's imagination, one might even suppose that the Mjau would happily live in that particular undiscovered realm.
--
Letter from Professor Elnor Glass to Miss Luna Lovegood:
Dear Luna,
I hope everything's settled down now that you're back on two legs and not four! I wish I had more optimistic news, but I'm afraid your observations are correct. The tracking bracelet that had been attached to your foreleg before we released you was gone when you returned. In fact, it's quite a miracle we got you back at all. Scouring possible Mjau habitat for the bracelet proved unfruitful, and I was afraid once you returned to human form you'd be in the middle of nowhere!
You left in quite a hurry. I hope everything's all right? You and I both knew this was not an easy experiment to undertake, but I'm curious if you remember anything. No one will be disappointed if you don't. I don't think it's something we'll try again in case word gets around. (With dragons, word always gets around somehow. I just wish we could know how.) I'm sure I don't have to tell someone with your expertise in this field that some creatures just don't want to be found.
Sincerely yours,
Elnor
Luna stared down at her feet as if somehow recalling the time they were once nimble claws would cause memories to return. The more frustrated she became, the harder it was to remember. She sighed and clasped her hands loosely in her lap. She'd known this had been a possibility, and now with the bracelet gone, the entire month might as well have been for nothing.
But no, that wasn't right either. No effort ever amounted to nothing, and she'd been enthusiastic about the experiment despite the risks. To live for a month among a rare dragon like the Mjau? That was on her list of things to do before she died. Everything else on the list of her great ambitions and adventures had been completed long before this one. Well, not everything. It had been second to last on the list.
She tensed her shoulders and then let them relax. She was thinking too much like a human; human reasoning to recall a creature's mind. Luna slowed her breathing, feeling the sensation of the weight of her hands. She willed herself to be heavier and quieter, allowing a sense of peace to soothe her anxiety. Luna imagined herself as not hands or feet or body, just a soul seeking out another.
Something crept into the corners of her mind. A memory. The sensation of security like a knitted blanket.
The others were all around her. A head nestled on top of hers, a tail curled around her body. Safety. The soft sounds of breathing and the smells of their nest. Home. Something stirred the tranquility with a small squeak of uncertainty. The dragons grumbled and shifted away from the nervousness. Not conducive to sleep. Rest was necessary for survival.
The poor thing above her was trembling. It was their turn to be exposed to the elements during the evening slumber. Another Mjau slept nearby, but their wings bore the scars of a predator. They bore these marks not only without complaint but with a bit of pride. The smaller one? This was their first time.
A shiver of fear reverberated throughout the flight. No one would sleep if this continued. She pulled herself upward through the sleeping Mjau, her snout scenting the night air sharp and brisk. She settled herself over the little one as if they were her young and spread her wings out as far as she could. The older dragon adjusted to her movements so that they might both protect the flight more securely together.
The little one beneath her let out an exhausted sigh of relief. She no longer felt warmth against her back, but she willed her wings not to quiver. She breathed in the scent of her flight, the drowsy gentleness of home, and her mind steadied. Her sleep would be watchful but no less restful than the others.
Luna opened her eyes. She felt a little dizzy, as if she'd fallen asleep. With a shiver of excitement, she reached for a quill and began to sketch the shapes that were already escaping from the edge of her memory. Mjau entangled together in sleep. Her chest tightened a little as she looked down at the picture and the edge of her thumb smudged the drying ink. Could she trust this was a real memory from experience and not just a figment of her imagination?
–
Luna made herself eat something in between moments of remembering, but only when the gnawing in her stomach had become distracting. It was becoming harder to get those memories to surface. As if she wasn't supposed to remember. For the first time in many years, Luna thought of her mother. After a time, she'd stopped thinking of things she'd wished she could share with Mum because it made her too sad. But as she crossed off each amazing adventure on her list, Luna found herself wishing again that Mum could learn what she was learning.
For many years, Luna had imagined herself living the life her Mum had wanted. The places she'd always hoped to visit. Privately, whenever someone complimented Luna on her sense of reason or kindness, she'd always paid that respect to her mother and not herself.
The weight in her chest became a different kind of heaviness and one of unexpected grief. As the tears stung her eyes, Luna looked at the mirror over her dresser. She had always sort of avoided looking at herself. Just a little above her head. Blinking the tears away, she made herself focus on her face. Luna still looked like her mother and, she assumed, sounded like her as well (or so her father would say).
"I'm not you," she said. The first words she'd spoken since she'd transfigured back into herself. Her voice sounded strange. "I never had to be you, right?"
There was a noise at her window. In the faint firelight she saw a small silvery shape. It leapt down to the rug before the hearth, and she gasped.
It was a Mjau, but not just any Mjau. She remembered this one.
Luna slowly knelt down on the rug and held her hand out to it. The dragon tilted its head and made a small sound that she had to strain to hear. Its onyx eyes fixed upon hers. Its slender tail curled slowly in the manner of an indignant cat.
"You gnawed the bracelet off," Luna said. "Very clever. The right thing to do, I suppose."
The dragon settled back on its haunches, satisfied. She felt an incredible yearning to know its thoughts. The Mjau rested a small claw upon her hand, and she suddenly felt something being pulled from her. Like the tugging of a portkey.
"Please, I need to remember, I–"
The dragon withdrew its claw and she felt just the barest scratch against her skin. But the sting felt like something had been ripped away from her.
"Oh," she said faintly. "Well. It was lovely while it lasted."
The dragon's gaze turned to the table where her countless sketches and notes from the long evening were scattered. Luna didn't need to know the creature's mind to hear its intentions. Everything had to go. They weren't rare creatures by chance.
She gathered up the entire lot and before she could hesitate threw them all upon the hearth. A tear slid down her cheek as she knelt before the fire. With the quietest whisper of wings, the Mjau settled upon her shoulder and pressed its snout against her cheek. She leaned her head ever so slightly against it in gratitude. Tiny claws dug into her shoulder briefly as the dragon flew back toward the window and disappeared into the night.
They had shared a brief moment of understanding. An elder dragon too frightened to take its place to protect the flight. An older woman too scared to inhabit a body that didn't feel completely hers. Both of them scared of being frauds and outcasts in the eyes of others. The dragon had learned from Luna and now it was her turn to learn from them. To embrace change. Even if it came with scars.
–
Why continue to make memories in a body that didn't wish to house them? Luna didn't want to see another year pass by without knowing what it would be like to change. It was little wonder why she'd put an absolutely impossible task next to the last thing on her bucket list. At the very end, she'd only written a single question mark. As if putting words to her silent yearning would somehow make it unbearable to look at.
Luna had walked thousands of miles, quite literally, in her mother's shoes. She had the experience of looking at dozens of pairs of shoes and boots on other people and feeling an inexplicable longing, especially when they were on the feet of a man. That was one thought she'd kept to herself because she felt embarrassed by it. Surely anyone could wear a damn pair of boots and not have it represent the entirety of their gender identity.
She'd emptied her entire wardrobe onto the bed. Dresses, skirts, colourful stockings. Her mother's clothes. Luna remembered her father giving them to her: "I kept them because I knew you'd fit into them one day." She smiled sadly. How could he know if she never told him?
Luna loved these clothes for their comfort and fun. When she was younger, standing out made her feel like her mother. It made her unusual in a way she loved. Being seen as odd, quirky or brilliant didn't make her feel bad. When she was seen as merely a girl, however, that was what was difficult. Those were the feelings for which she didn't have words until now.
She was wearing an old dressing gown of her father's. There was something about it that shared the same qualities as the clothing she'd worn for decades. Comfortable. If she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror while wearing it and focused on its shapelessness and the colour of her hair, she felt better somehow. A disguise that she could put on to be someone else.
Luna looked in the mirror and for the first time knew how wrong she'd been. She didn't want to be anyone else. What she looked like or what clothes she wore to achieve what she wanted, she wasn't sure yet. Luna realised she wasn't sure she wanted to be she.
As she stashed the clothing into bags for the charity shop, the pile of clothes she'd kept for herself was worryingly small. To shed this skin, she would have to go out seeking another. It wasn't a thought that filled her with as much enthusiasm as she'd hoped. Still that fear of being called out for someone she wasn't.
The time for questioning was over. As she rolled up the last pair of stockings and put them in a bag, she felt her mother's gaze on her. Luna closed her eyes. In her mind's eyes, she saw Mum smiling with the little Mjau perched on her shoulder. Above her, the flight darted through the evening sky like falling stars.
There was a gentle touch upon her shoulder. A firm and reassuring grip. Then another and another. A kiss upon her forehead and a friendly punch in the arm. It was as if all her family and friends that had gone beyond the Veil before her were here to bear witness to her first steps into a new world.
The sensations faded away. But they would also remain with her, their voices ringing among the cheers and laughter of friends and loved ones old and newly discovered.
There was no longer a question mark on her bucket list. There were ideas, dreams, hopes and fears. But best of all, she had written even more adventures and wishes for what her future would bring. Transitioning should have never been the end, but a new beginning. Now, at long last, it was.
Author:
Characters: Luna Lovegood
Rating: G
Word Count: 2264
Content/Warning(s): trans character, pre-transition, trans positivity, mentions of parent death, worldbuilding
Summary/Prompt: After getting the chance to be transfigured into a rare and elusive dragon in order to study its flight, Luna has only one adventure remaining on her bucket list. But like all adventures, the second to last came with a lesson that not all endings are yet written.
A/N: Thank you to the mods for one of my all-time favorite HP fests. Many things improve with age! Much love and gratitude to my beta.
Read on AO3 or below:
From Encyclopedia of Rare and Extinct Dragons, Eighty-Fifth Edition by Profs. Suruss, Ponfus and Lowe. Inside cover inscription: Happy birthday, dearest Luna! I hope you don't already have three of these. Here's to another fifty years plus fifty more. Love, Hermione
Norwegian Mjau: The Norwegian Mjau is the size of a housecat with twice the ornery temperament. Some believe the Mjau to be a unique dragon form of the Kneazle and not a true dragon at all. Due to the rarity of sightings and their elusive nature, not much is known of the Mjau other than from a journal of one Edgar Von Fizzbold, who claimed to have a Mjau as a familiar.
Much of their habits can only be gleaned from Fizzbold's account, and many magizoologists argue that his familiar was simply a transfigured Kneazle. Unlike the cat, Mjau are not known to be solitary creatures. Most recent signs of their continued existence are limited to a shed iridescent scale or two in an abandoned nest or a flight seen overhead on the rare occasion. Several dragon preserves have attempted to create secluded nests that would attract a nearby flight but have been unsuccessful.
In a world such as ours where a creature can spring from one's imagination, one might even suppose that the Mjau would happily live in that particular undiscovered realm.
--
Letter from Professor Elnor Glass to Miss Luna Lovegood:
Dear Luna,
I hope everything's settled down now that you're back on two legs and not four! I wish I had more optimistic news, but I'm afraid your observations are correct. The tracking bracelet that had been attached to your foreleg before we released you was gone when you returned. In fact, it's quite a miracle we got you back at all. Scouring possible Mjau habitat for the bracelet proved unfruitful, and I was afraid once you returned to human form you'd be in the middle of nowhere!
You left in quite a hurry. I hope everything's all right? You and I both knew this was not an easy experiment to undertake, but I'm curious if you remember anything. No one will be disappointed if you don't. I don't think it's something we'll try again in case word gets around. (With dragons, word always gets around somehow. I just wish we could know how.) I'm sure I don't have to tell someone with your expertise in this field that some creatures just don't want to be found.
Sincerely yours,
Elnor
--
Luna stared down at her feet as if somehow recalling the time they were once nimble claws would cause memories to return. The more frustrated she became, the harder it was to remember. She sighed and clasped her hands loosely in her lap. She'd known this had been a possibility, and now with the bracelet gone, the entire month might as well have been for nothing.
But no, that wasn't right either. No effort ever amounted to nothing, and she'd been enthusiastic about the experiment despite the risks. To live for a month among a rare dragon like the Mjau? That was on her list of things to do before she died. Everything else on the list of her great ambitions and adventures had been completed long before this one. Well, not everything. It had been second to last on the list.
She tensed her shoulders and then let them relax. She was thinking too much like a human; human reasoning to recall a creature's mind. Luna slowed her breathing, feeling the sensation of the weight of her hands. She willed herself to be heavier and quieter, allowing a sense of peace to soothe her anxiety. Luna imagined herself as not hands or feet or body, just a soul seeking out another.
Something crept into the corners of her mind. A memory. The sensation of security like a knitted blanket.
The others were all around her. A head nestled on top of hers, a tail curled around her body. Safety. The soft sounds of breathing and the smells of their nest. Home. Something stirred the tranquility with a small squeak of uncertainty. The dragons grumbled and shifted away from the nervousness. Not conducive to sleep. Rest was necessary for survival.
The poor thing above her was trembling. It was their turn to be exposed to the elements during the evening slumber. Another Mjau slept nearby, but their wings bore the scars of a predator. They bore these marks not only without complaint but with a bit of pride. The smaller one? This was their first time.
A shiver of fear reverberated throughout the flight. No one would sleep if this continued. She pulled herself upward through the sleeping Mjau, her snout scenting the night air sharp and brisk. She settled herself over the little one as if they were her young and spread her wings out as far as she could. The older dragon adjusted to her movements so that they might both protect the flight more securely together.
The little one beneath her let out an exhausted sigh of relief. She no longer felt warmth against her back, but she willed her wings not to quiver. She breathed in the scent of her flight, the drowsy gentleness of home, and her mind steadied. Her sleep would be watchful but no less restful than the others.
Luna opened her eyes. She felt a little dizzy, as if she'd fallen asleep. With a shiver of excitement, she reached for a quill and began to sketch the shapes that were already escaping from the edge of her memory. Mjau entangled together in sleep. Her chest tightened a little as she looked down at the picture and the edge of her thumb smudged the drying ink. Could she trust this was a real memory from experience and not just a figment of her imagination?
–
Luna made herself eat something in between moments of remembering, but only when the gnawing in her stomach had become distracting. It was becoming harder to get those memories to surface. As if she wasn't supposed to remember. For the first time in many years, Luna thought of her mother. After a time, she'd stopped thinking of things she'd wished she could share with Mum because it made her too sad. But as she crossed off each amazing adventure on her list, Luna found herself wishing again that Mum could learn what she was learning.
For many years, Luna had imagined herself living the life her Mum had wanted. The places she'd always hoped to visit. Privately, whenever someone complimented Luna on her sense of reason or kindness, she'd always paid that respect to her mother and not herself.
The weight in her chest became a different kind of heaviness and one of unexpected grief. As the tears stung her eyes, Luna looked at the mirror over her dresser. She had always sort of avoided looking at herself. Just a little above her head. Blinking the tears away, she made herself focus on her face. Luna still looked like her mother and, she assumed, sounded like her as well (or so her father would say).
"I'm not you," she said. The first words she'd spoken since she'd transfigured back into herself. Her voice sounded strange. "I never had to be you, right?"
There was a noise at her window. In the faint firelight she saw a small silvery shape. It leapt down to the rug before the hearth, and she gasped.
It was a Mjau, but not just any Mjau. She remembered this one.
Luna slowly knelt down on the rug and held her hand out to it. The dragon tilted its head and made a small sound that she had to strain to hear. Its onyx eyes fixed upon hers. Its slender tail curled slowly in the manner of an indignant cat.
"You gnawed the bracelet off," Luna said. "Very clever. The right thing to do, I suppose."
The dragon settled back on its haunches, satisfied. She felt an incredible yearning to know its thoughts. The Mjau rested a small claw upon her hand, and she suddenly felt something being pulled from her. Like the tugging of a portkey.
"Please, I need to remember, I–"
The dragon withdrew its claw and she felt just the barest scratch against her skin. But the sting felt like something had been ripped away from her.
"Oh," she said faintly. "Well. It was lovely while it lasted."
The dragon's gaze turned to the table where her countless sketches and notes from the long evening were scattered. Luna didn't need to know the creature's mind to hear its intentions. Everything had to go. They weren't rare creatures by chance.
She gathered up the entire lot and before she could hesitate threw them all upon the hearth. A tear slid down her cheek as she knelt before the fire. With the quietest whisper of wings, the Mjau settled upon her shoulder and pressed its snout against her cheek. She leaned her head ever so slightly against it in gratitude. Tiny claws dug into her shoulder briefly as the dragon flew back toward the window and disappeared into the night.
They had shared a brief moment of understanding. An elder dragon too frightened to take its place to protect the flight. An older woman too scared to inhabit a body that didn't feel completely hers. Both of them scared of being frauds and outcasts in the eyes of others. The dragon had learned from Luna and now it was her turn to learn from them. To embrace change. Even if it came with scars.
–
Why continue to make memories in a body that didn't wish to house them? Luna didn't want to see another year pass by without knowing what it would be like to change. It was little wonder why she'd put an absolutely impossible task next to the last thing on her bucket list. At the very end, she'd only written a single question mark. As if putting words to her silent yearning would somehow make it unbearable to look at.
Luna had walked thousands of miles, quite literally, in her mother's shoes. She had the experience of looking at dozens of pairs of shoes and boots on other people and feeling an inexplicable longing, especially when they were on the feet of a man. That was one thought she'd kept to herself because she felt embarrassed by it. Surely anyone could wear a damn pair of boots and not have it represent the entirety of their gender identity.
She'd emptied her entire wardrobe onto the bed. Dresses, skirts, colourful stockings. Her mother's clothes. Luna remembered her father giving them to her: "I kept them because I knew you'd fit into them one day." She smiled sadly. How could he know if she never told him?
Luna loved these clothes for their comfort and fun. When she was younger, standing out made her feel like her mother. It made her unusual in a way she loved. Being seen as odd, quirky or brilliant didn't make her feel bad. When she was seen as merely a girl, however, that was what was difficult. Those were the feelings for which she didn't have words until now.
She was wearing an old dressing gown of her father's. There was something about it that shared the same qualities as the clothing she'd worn for decades. Comfortable. If she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror while wearing it and focused on its shapelessness and the colour of her hair, she felt better somehow. A disguise that she could put on to be someone else.
Luna looked in the mirror and for the first time knew how wrong she'd been. She didn't want to be anyone else. What she looked like or what clothes she wore to achieve what she wanted, she wasn't sure yet. Luna realised she wasn't sure she wanted to be she.
As she stashed the clothing into bags for the charity shop, the pile of clothes she'd kept for herself was worryingly small. To shed this skin, she would have to go out seeking another. It wasn't a thought that filled her with as much enthusiasm as she'd hoped. Still that fear of being called out for someone she wasn't.
The time for questioning was over. As she rolled up the last pair of stockings and put them in a bag, she felt her mother's gaze on her. Luna closed her eyes. In her mind's eyes, she saw Mum smiling with the little Mjau perched on her shoulder. Above her, the flight darted through the evening sky like falling stars.
There was a gentle touch upon her shoulder. A firm and reassuring grip. Then another and another. A kiss upon her forehead and a friendly punch in the arm. It was as if all her family and friends that had gone beyond the Veil before her were here to bear witness to her first steps into a new world.
The sensations faded away. But they would also remain with her, their voices ringing among the cheers and laughter of friends and loved ones old and newly discovered.
There was no longer a question mark on her bucket list. There were ideas, dreams, hopes and fears. But best of all, she had written even more adventures and wishes for what her future would bring. Transitioning should have never been the end, but a new beginning. Now, at long last, it was.