Chapter Text
Luna’s mother died and Luna saw it. Everyone knew that. Wherever they went in Britain they would hear the quiet murmur of people’s sympathy , their gossip. Yes, it was very sad. They missed mummy very much. No, daddy had never been the same since. Luna knew the answers to the questions they would never ask her, to the whispers they meant her to hear.
Behind their backs people gossiped. They said it wasn’t right for Xenophilus to be raising a young girl alone. They called him mad. Said he’d always been eccentric but that he was really wrong now. They didn’t mean for them to hear but they heard. It made Luna sad, that people didn’t believe her father. She never knew the answers to those questions and was glad she wasn’t supposed to hear.
But the worst rumours, the ones that made her mad were the ones that said her mother’s death was her fault. Not some tragic illness like dragonpox or spattergroit but an avoidable accident. Eccentricity, experimentation. Those were the worse. Because they were true.
Mummy didn’t need to die. Her injuries were survivable. If Daddy had been a little better at healing spells. If Luna had run faster. Got Mrs Weasley quicker. If the Medi-witch had been willing to come out. If they could have afforded to go to St Mungo’s. If- If- If- So many ways that mummy could have survived.
Mummy was experimenting with a spell, she had invented. Mummy was always experimenting and inventing; the spells she created were wonderful. Precise, delicate things for cataract repair or safe ingredient preparation. Safer spells to common dangerous spells or simple spells to make complex tasks accessible - although those were never published while mummy was alive. They keep her alive by publishing them in the Quibbler. Something went wrong. Mummy screamed, there was blood on the kitchen table, on Luna's arithmetic.
“Go get daddy.” Mummy said in a very calm voice while blood dripped onto Luna’s finished work.
She ran up the spiral staircase faster than she ever had before or since. Daddy was busy at his typewriter and it took too long to get him to come downstairs, to believe that she wasn’t hurt. By the time they were back in the kitchen, Mummy was pale and she stuttered her instructions to Daddy. The only thing she was firm on was that they couldn’t afford to go to hospital.
Daddy sent her to get Mrs Weasley. It normally took her fifteen minutes to get from the Rookery to the Burrow. She ran so fast her lungs burnt and her legs felt like jelly but kept on running, pulling herself up without stopping as she tripped and not heading the tearing pain as she caught on barbed wire the muggle farmer had put up to stop them using the shortcut through his land. Mrs Weasley was easier to get to come than Daddy, she took one look at Luna and said, “Charlie, you’re in charge.” before side-long apparating them to the front door of the Rookery.
Luna followed her upstairs to Mummy and Daddy’s room where Mummy’s voice was reedy and thin as she told Daddy what to do. Luna tucked herself into the corner and watched as Mrs Weasley worked desperately, listen to Daddy’s voice as he explained to the Medi-witch that they needed her. Heard her refuse to come, heard Daddy call St Mungo’s and them require a fifty galleon call out fee in advance.
She’d been doing arthimacy, before. Ten knuts for a loaf of bread or five for a bag of flour that would make five loaves. One sickle for every copy of the Quibbler sold but twenty knuts to produce it, giving a profit of nine knuts. One hundred galleons for a specialist spell but months or years to create and test it. Fifty galleons for an emergency call out, twenty-five galleons an hour for the healer, one hundred galleons for a twenty-four hour stay.
No, mummy wouldn’t have died if Luna had run faster or daddy had been better at healing spells but most importantly mummy wouldn’t have died if they had been able to afford a healer and mummy should not have had to stop something she was good at and loved because it cost more than they earned in a month to go to hospital.