Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. - Eric Hoffer

Why did I do that? A faraway thought fluttered, and dragged itself down like a knife through the skin, before disposing of itself into the neverending numb like her conscious thought often did. Luna supposed that the reason was to ignite a memory that was embedded within the older witch. To remind her of a passion that still endured despite the spell that made her forget. To communicate with her blood lust, and to show her that she was there. That she was there, and could hurt. That she had hurt because of her, and now it was so again. That anybody could hurt. That I can feel.

She remembered that her father had once told her that a monster could never know just how much another feels. Was that because a monster could never naturally comprehend, that they themselves felt too much to consider other entities, or because they had purposefully shut themselves down?

All of a sudden, memories made monstrous flooded her. Each terrifying detail made clear. Each being cracked and plucked out one by one like ribs from the chest. She wouldn't give them up so easily. She could look but would not see. She could listen but would not hear. She could touch but would not feel.

Long plaits swinging like ropes... a chair made from cherry wood... a purple fog spitting pieces of flesh... the Sacred Twenty-Eight...

Have I shut down?

In the midst of the eternal world inside her spinning, Luna's eyelashes streaked through the contorts of Bellatrix Lestrange. Her face was wide with dark eyes, and ageing lines that resembled the feral figments of her imagination.

Foreign hands grabbed at the one which stung, and fingers delicately began to trace themselves along the newly slashed fjords. They didn't mind that they scraped across the jagged tears. They didn't mind that they flicked dirt in their tread.

Rabbits running through the fields... misteltoe infested with Nargles... garden gnome bites... Loony Lovegood... lovesick Ginny laying on the floor with the bones of serpents... throwing sour meat to Thestrals... broomstick scratches... ice blue spheres bringing bouts of blood through the nose... shrieking butterflies...

"I - I did this?" A voice crawled out of the dark, and the recognition rose up like burning bile.

But Luna wasn't there.

Light filtered through, and Luna Lovegood noticed just how soft her surroundings were. Her elbows and spine were cushioned, and she felt the warm rays of a fire close by. The smell of dust made her nose twitch.

I am not where I was.

She opened her eyes to find blonde webbing across them, and a large glittering chandelier sparkled at her from a chocolate brown ceiling surrounded with sea lavender. Shaking her face free from her hair, and rubbing her sleepy eyes, she sat up and saw that she was in Miriam Strout's office.

Strout was busied by the sink, and when she saw that the younger witch was now awake, she brought to her a plate full of sandwhiches.

"Here." She said softly. "Have a few, they're full of chocolate spread. They'll help you to regain your strength more quickly."

"How long was I..."

"Asleep? Only an hour or two." Strout smiled, and Luna was glad that her stern tone from earlier had disappeared.

The blonde witch took a slice, and began to devour it hungrily. The chocolate stuck dry to the roof of her mouth, but was quickly scraped away with the wetness of her tongue.

"What happened?" It wasn't an entirely unrecollective question. She recalled that she had planned lunch with Augustus, only for it to be halted to take blood-replenishing potions back up to her floor. To Morgaine Hall, as he had put it.

She remembered her conversation with Strout, every last word of it, before opening the door to Bellatrix Lestrange's room to find her there with another Healer held captive. She had found her with a nail to the Healer's eye, and with her head pulled so far back by the hair that the Healer's throat had gurgled.

She remembered the sticky muddy liquid which was all over the floor, amongst an abandoned wand, and smashed china everywhere.

And then...

"She remembered!" Luna spluttered, and realised she did not want Strout to think that she sounded delerious in her half-awake state. "She asked me whether or not it was her that had scarred my hand years ago when I was a captive at Malfoy Manor... look! Oh -"

The younger witch had held out her hand, and instead of silvery lines she saw angry red ones. Her fingers flickered.

"They look newer to me, sweetie." Strout said, and cradled the younger witch's point of injury with her own hands. "I healed them up as well as I could, but it could take years for the red to fade."

She then pointed to the silvery scars which decorated her temple, "These, I'm afraid, were a lot more superficial."

She thinks that Bellatrix did this to me. Luna thought, and began to question whether it would be easier to simply let Strout believe in that assumption. It would be much more difficult to explain that she had wounded her in the same way, but not this time. This time, it had been her own doing. She had done this to herself, infront of the person who had attempted to seek out pain from her many years before. She couldn't even explain why she did it to herself, let alone bring an outsider into her messy trail of thought.

The messy trail of thought which had led her to collapse in the first place.

How did I get out of there?

"How is the other Healer?" She found herself saying.

"Bastet is fine. More than a little shaken, mind.. but fine." Strout affirmed.

Images of cats pawing at eachother and neat tresses of black hair sprang to Luna's mind, and she took another bite from a chocolate spread sandwhich.

"How did I manage to open the door?"

"The St. Mungo's Crystal Ball. Which is curious in itself." The older witch replied. "The curiouser question, however, is why I nor any of the other guards could get in. Until you had, at least."

"I haven't even taken my test yet."

"No, you haven't. But I suppose you've read through and signed most of your study books, already?"

Luna nodded. It had taken her one whole sleepless night, but she had worked her way through the majority of them. It had been fairly easy, but she had wanted to leave it at least a week before mentioning it. She remembered Ogden had told her that it had taken him much longer than the alloted time. Perhaps some of the others had experienced similar difficulty. She had not wanted to stick out as much as she probably already had done.

"Your signatures are magically binding, and you were probably matched with a few of our patients the minute your hands touched the Crystal Ball, which will open a few doors." Strout pursed her lips, and looked away for a few moments to gather her deeper thoughts. "I will be giving you a few days off to recuperate, so I can imagine it will be fairly easy for you to have them all completed and signed off in that time."

The blonde witch felt that she didn't truly deserve such time off, for she had only worked one full shift. She had wandered carelessly where she shouldn't have, and that was a trait that wouldn't ever cease. She liked that she might have been made a Hufflepuff once, being the good finder that she was. Or perhaps she was just simply a good wanderer, and walking for so long means that anyone is bound to come across any one thing from time to time.

"Are you sure that you are happy for me to continue? Even though it might happen again... collapsing, I mean?" Luna admitted sadly. "It's never happened before, I don't think. I never usually experience stress in such a magnitude. I think the whole situation at Black Manor must have rattled my cage more than I previously thought."

"Worry not, sweetie. We will talk about that in more detail after your rest. As you said, you managed to invoke a memory of sorts." Strout smiled. "Now, I guess that we should bring your initial test forward... If you are to become a mind Healer to Madame Black."

I was matched with her. The thought hit her hard. The woman who had tortured Neville's parents so bad that they had been forced to escape their minds; and never to return fully. They would never even look the same. The same woman who had killed Sirius, Harry's last hope for a family, and the last descendant of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to still carry the name. The woman who had been His Last Best Lieutenant, and the most trusted student of the Dark Lord. She had even taught her nephew, Draco Malfoy, some of these learnt tricks. The woman who had tortured Hermione with the same curse, over and over again, and Hermione might have run from her body too if Dobby hadn't of saved them. This woman had killed Dobby too. She had thrown a knife at her friends without a second thought of who it would hit, but it had hit a poor creature who had been enslaved throughout the majority of his life. A creature who had felt loved so little in his life, but loved eternally. Luna couldn't even fathom just how much other cruelty this woman had inflicted throughout her life.

And yet, it was difficult to put such a past to the face which had looked at her with those wide dark eyes, as blood had dripped like lava from her hand. Had she always been cruel? She had lost a lot of her memory, but Luna was certain that she was still cruel now.

I think I'll dig this one out first, root and stem. These pretty little things can't have seen all that much, but better taunt them out before they do. The world will vitiate them more than I ever could. I wonder, do you think that you can still see the memories inside your head without them! Luna heard the shrill laughter echo from deep inside her head.

It is not good practice to judge the people who are under our care, Augustus, you know that. Her thoughts then silenced.