Time of war broke many people; Luna had watched them shatter, become the worst versions of themselves as blood continued to be shed and their loyalties were tested. For her, those dark times had only brought light. She learned the meaning of friendship and felt the love of another.

She had prepared herself for loss, of course. After all, Luna Lovegood was no stranger to it. Her mother had passed away before Luna was old enough to go to Hogwarts, leaving her and her father to conquer life without her. When the war came, she waited for the grief, and she got it. Loss came from all angles; so many friends had died, so many innocent people, as did her loving father. She expected to break like those around her, knowing Death lingered over her shoulder, breathing down her neck, but Luna remained whole.

Despite the consecutive funerals and rubble their world had become, she was showered with love. She never once felt alone after surviving the reign and imprisonment of the Dark Lord. 

Then she fell into the system of the Ministry of Magic. She was bound by their Marriage Law that was predicted to rebuild the destruction toll. 

At barely seventeen, she married a boy who challenged her heart to beat along with his (after several trials and tribulations, that is). She fell in love. Deeply. Because of that, she forgot things like Death existed, so she went on with life, skipping along her path like she had grass to go on for the rest of eternity. The spirits from above, guided by her deceased mother, granted Luna three miracles, three little angels of her own: Lorcan, an intelligent, curious boy who found the same bliss in paint as his parents; his twin Lysander, who was witty, passionate, and naive as his mother had once been, and lastly, her little Dawn, who was all fire, all heart, all soul like her father was.

Luna Lovegood had lived in time of war; she could never let Luna Thomas forget that Death is a shadow that always follows the body. 

"Mrs. Thomas, we're ready for you."

Luna turned her attention from the small, peculiar plant over a coffee table to find a young man in bright yellow robes looking down at her, grief on his face. She smiled at him, nodding as she pushed away all the details of the plant her beloved friend Neville had shared with her years ago. 

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Thomas," the young Trainee (Alfie, if she remembered correctly) mumbled to her as he led her down a corridor of St. Mungo's. "Healer Thomas....I admire him so much. He's the best Healer here. All of us send your family our deepest support."

Reaching over to squeeze his wrist, she said, "Thank you." Yet, her chest was still being bruised by her pounding heart. Instead of its increased tempo being related to her skipping down a hill, singing one of the tunes she had learned from the Amazonian tribes she works with, it was due to overwhelming anxiety. Luna had not felt like this since Voldemort had proclaimed Harry dead. 

Fate worked to collide her past and present when green, bespectacled eyes met her blue when she entered a hospital room. 

"Angelina let us in," Harry explained as the trainee closed the door behind Luna, leaving them to their privacy. He walked over to her, carefully placing a hand on her shoulder. "We wanted to be here for you. For both of you."

Ron cleared his throat, making himself known. "We're here as friends, Luna. No Auror business."

Luna looked away from her old friends to the man lying in the hospital bed. She swallowed the knot in her throat to say, "The Healers assured he'd wake soon. He wasn't hurt too badly. Nothing a few days of bed-rest can't cure. I'm just not sure he will be up to discussing this with you, but you are welcomed to try."

"Really, Luna," Ron pressed. "No Auror business."

"You know, Pansy doesn't buy your act of dieting, Ron," she said. "Surely you can't think I believe you won't ask my husband what happened."

Ron frowned, forgetting all about the facade as Harry sighed in the background. "I am too on a diet. I'll be back to my teenage body in no time."

Harry glared at his best friend, urging him to shut up (not like they all couldn't see his belly had started to take shape of Slughorn's the past year). "Luna," he then added, "Kingsley sent us down here, but you know we would be here even without being told. Dean is our friend. You're our friend. Hell, you lot are our family. If it's not the right time for this, we won't touch the subject."

Luna nodded. She knew Gryffindors stuck together, and a Ravenclaw was no one to question that.

"Especially if the kids are coming in. We don't want to upset them with any of the details," Ron said. "We don't need another Ariana and Hermione situation, do we?"

"The children aren't coming," she told them. "They've got classes to attend. Dawn is a Second Year, but McGonagall thinks she can catch up to her brothers in no time. That doesn't happen by skipping classes. They know their father is well."

Ron rolled his eyes; he always did think it absurd Luna and Dean required their children to study like their lives  depended on it. Hermione thought their friends were admirable in making academia a priority with their children, but, then again, anything regarding a fundamental education made Hermione a fan.

Teddy mentioned to Harry and Ron that Dawn was inconsolable when she heard the news about Dean. All Dean's children loved him with all their might, but the youngest was most attached to him. Imagining Dawn, Harry's goddaughter, with sobs racking her little body made him uneasy. It was his duty, not just as Head Auror, but as her godfather to protect her. He glanced at the hospital bed with Dean on it and concluded that he had not done the Thomas family right.

With that, he forced himself to whisper, "There's something you should know, Luna."

Ron coughed wildly at Harry's intention. "What are you doing?" he hissed at him. "What happened to Ministry matters? Are we not biding by that rubbish Malfoy warned us against? Or are we telling the world now? Because I'm damn sure that trainee is still nosing about!"

"Luna has a right to know, Ron," Harry started, thinking back to the updated list of the dead, a list that could have had Dean's name on it if it had not been for the sacrifice of another friend. "Besides, Malfoy said we weren't allow to tell Hermione. And Luna keeps things to herself."

Nodding to herself (she was never a gossiping witch), Luna cleared her throat to bring back the attention of her two friends. "This wasn't an accident, was it?"

Ron groaned in defeat, throwing his hands in the air just as Harry said, "We've been compiling a list of recent deaths that have taken place around the magical community. They have been calculated murders, never leaving a trace as to make every event seem like an accident. The explosion that happened in Diagon Alley was one of those. If it had not been for witnesses, it could have been written off as a spill of dangerous chemicals in that new potions shop. No one would have questioned it. Shop owners of Diagon Alley have been protesting the opening of it for that exact reason, but..."

"But Seamus saw," Luna murmured. "Seamus saw it for what it was."

Harry nor Ron found their voices in that second. Grief was heavy on them. It didn't matter; Luna was intelligent, she knew the answer herself. That also meant she knew what they were unwilling to say, what they had been keeping to themselves. But Luna was one of their most intimate friends without an Auror for a partner or someone who could afford security detail to tail them every step they took. She and her family would need the most protection.

"They missed one of their targets," she then added, looking up at Harry. "They'll be coming for Dean. For me."

Harry rushed to her side, taking her hands into his. "We're doing everything we can, Luna. Believe me," he begged, those emerald eyes looking at her like a brother trying to console his younger sister from nightmares of monsters and the icy grip of Death. "Once Dean is discharged, we'll have Aurors stationed around your home. Same as when he returns to work. As for you, I'm sorry to say your work as a Naturalist must come to a temporary end. We can't risk you exploring forests and other unknown locations without protection."

Luna squeezed his hands. "I have utter faith in you, Harry. I always have. But you can't stop Dean or I from having our lives. We have never been the sort to run—especially not now. Dean will want to avenge this, and who am I but not his partner? I will follow him anywhere."

Harry wanted to protest, but the figure on the bed stirred, whimpers echoing off the walls that soon became sputtering. Dean pushed himself up in a sitting position, dark eyes scanning the room with urgency. His best friend's name was on his lips, but when he did not see that man, Dean said with something like guilt, "I'm alive."

No one ever taught Luna how to explain Death to a person. As such, all she found herself able to do was walk to her husband's side, taking his hand to pass all of her strength to him with her touch alone, like his pores could suck up all the force living beneath her skin.

"You have twice as many Wrackspurts now," Luna whispered to Dean.

Thick, heartbroken tears fell down Dean's cheeks, splashing on his neck; still, with a chuckle to humor his wife, he said, "Don't you need special glasses to see that?"

Luna held to him tighter, seeing the shadow of Death around her husband slowly retreat from the corner of his hospital bed. It warned her, though, warned her it would be back one day. For both of them. 

"Not really," she gave him her best smile. "I do love you, after all. I can see everything that involves you."

X

While pouring steaming tea into fine porcelain cups, Hermione asked, "How's Percy doing, Ginny? Ron told me Molly received post from him yesterday."

Ginny smiled before biting into the freshly baked biscuit her friend had prepared. She thought of the photograph her mother had shown her of two redhead girls, Molls (Molly II, which was not fun for the poor girl to be named after) and Lucy, her nieces. "They're all doing well, thank Merlin. They're still loving France. Well, he and Audrey are. Molls still says Beauxbaton is every bit pretentious as we all thought it to be, and she and Luce are dying to come back home."

Pansy clucked her tongue, narrowing dark eyes as she took a sip of her tea. "Percy broke my beloved mother-in-law's heart when he relocated his family to France. I do not forgive them for that."

Cho, who was also present for afternoon tea, rolled her eyes. "You're just upset Audrey refused to hire you to decorate their new home when she thought Fleur was the better choice. Which she is, Pansy. Fleur is French."

Pansy snorted loudly, very unladylike for her. "That veela knows nothing about decorating luxurious homes. She lives in a cottage, for Salazar's sake!"

"Keep it down," Hermione scolded. "Narcissa's asleep."

Cho laughed quietly as Pansy crossed her arms over her chest in defiance. 

Ginny scoffed at her sister-in-law before turning to Hermione. "I hope Narcissa is settling in far better than Mum's new guest. Merlin knows Andromeda has been more than aggravated since Harry and Draco insisted she leave Grimmauld Place for the Burrow."

"Why exactly is that, anyway?" Pansy asked, replacing her tantrum for curiosity. "She was perfectly happy at Grimmauld Place. You want to talk about decorating talent? Andromeda Tonks has transformed that dusty, old home into something spectacular." 

Hermione shrugged, a frown furrowing her brow. "I don't know, actually. Draco says he and Harry were worried she was lonely there, but, really, since when are the Black women not content with being on their own?"

"Teddy was upset with Harry," Ginny then said, making the three women raise their eyebrows at the piece of news that had not been known. "Yeah," she assured, "he told him he had no right to meddle with his grandmother's choices. They had a big row over it—Teddy stormed out and everything. Later that night Harry went over to his flat. Next time I saw my son, he was the one convincing Dromeda to move in with Mum and Dad."

"They're acting a bit odd, aren't they?" Cho weighed in, taking another sip of tea before continuing. "I know what happened with....I know as Aurors they worry about the safety of their family, but it seems like lately they are moving everyone around like chess pieces. Except none of us know why they are playing this game."

Ginny nodded in agreement while Hermione bit her lip, reprimanding herself for thinking she was the only one who was seeing this. While Cho was perceptive like the rest of them, she was more inclined to wait for an explanation than to speculate. For her to do so now only served as evidence for Hermione that she was not imagining the whispers and long exchanges Harry, Ron, and Draco were sharing with one another. 

"Has Blaise mentioned anything to you?" she asked Cho. "Anything Draco might have said to him?"

Cho shook her head. "All I know from Blaise is that Draco has been keeping his distance from him lately."

"Has he?" Hermione frowned again. "Draco said he was with Blaise last night."

Cho opened her mouth, hesitance in her dark eyes just as the front door of the Malfoy home opened. Thankfully, she was spared from meddling in Hermione's marriage when both their husbands entered. As it were, Cho's came hurling himself at her.  Her teacup crashed against Hermione's plush carpet.

"Blaise," she began with an exasperated sigh, "how many times have I told you—?"

"What is the world coming to, Cho?" Blaise cried into her shoulder, arms tight around her. 

This made Cho turn her glare to the blonde man at the entrance of the sitting room. "What did you do to him?" she demanded. 

"I'm too young!" Blaise cried loudly, not giving Draco the chance to come up with a devious, crude remark to give to his wife. "My little men—what am I without them? Just some lonely, handsome billionaire, that's what!"

Cho rubbed his back with a soothing palm.

"Oh, does he have testicular cancer?" Pansy asked, smirking despite her comment. "Yeah, I told him that Belgian witch in Knockturn Alley predicted it. Well, not exactly testicular cancer, but something about limbs being cut off. I figured it'd be this."

Draco rolled his eyes at Pansy as he made way into the sitting room to be beside his wife. "No," he grunted. "Blaise is upset because Thomas was attacked. He's currently serving as a patient in St. Mungo's, and not as a Healer. Finnegan's dead."

Gasps echoed around the room.

While Hermione and Ginny were having a harder time processing the news, eyes locked on with one another, Pansy could clock in on Draco. His voice had been void of emotion as he delivered the tragic news, but she could see the exhaustion on his face that paralleled with his own share of grief. He had looked worse for wear since his baby daughter was classified comatose. She could not blame him from removing himself from every hit their group took.

"There was an explosion in Diagon Alley," he told them, answering the question that was surely to come. "One of the workers from that new potions shop dropped a crate of dangerous chemicals that caved in a block worth of shops. Thomas and Finnegan were in proximity and received the hit."

Ginny stood immediately from her seat, prompting Pansy to do the same. 

"How?" Hermione whispered to her husband, eyes wide and swimming with tears. "How can...Seamus is...was an Unspeakable. He is trained for anything. This doesn't make sense."

Pulling himself away from the crook of Cho's neck, Blaise faced the distraught women to answer Hermione's question. "He was trained for anything," his voice quivered with the knot in his throat. "He had enough time to react. It's what allowed Seamus to save Dean's life."

"I'll take Lavender," Pansy said to everyone in the room. 

Draco nodded. "Teddy went to collect Dash. They'll need someone right now."

"I'll go find Luna to make sure she and Dean are okay," Ginny said to her sister-in-law. "I'll meet you at Lavender's after."

The two said nothing else as they swiftly made way to the Floo. With a handful of powder, Pansy went in first before Ginny disappeared, too.

"Come, Blaise," Cho murmured to her husband, taking his hand with hers as she, too, cried. "You are in no state to be around people right now. Tomorrow we will see both Lavender and Luna."

Blaise sniffled, flashing eyes at his best friend. "I'm glad Dean is alive, you know. I don't think I'd have it in me to reject Luna if she decided to seek comfort in me. We all know she still wants me."

"Why is this happening?" Hermione asked as Cho pinched Blaise's side as Draco huffed at him. She yanked him all the way out the front door. "Why us?"

Draco held on to silence when he turned to face his wife. Looking into her heartbroken, warm brown eyes made his soul run cold. He could not identify why that was until a new batch of tears rolled down her rosy cheeks—it was his faith. It was shattering right in that moment. His wife, his beloved Hermione, was suffering alike all those around him. His mother, his children, Lavender and Dash Finnegan, the Thomas family—all secondhand victims of an enemy Draco had not been able to catch. 

He no longer believed those he loved were untouchable. 

Everyone was human, magic or none. This was something so difficult for him to understand because he thought after surviving a war, after surviving a Dark Lord, after making it on the other side of Marriage Law, that they were now invincible. Yet his father, a man whose entire strength depended on his repertoire of magic, was easily killed by a bubble of green light, or how Seamus, who was vigorously trained to be skilled in battle and have keen attention to detail, had only enough time to save someone who was not himself. 

How was he supposed to tell Hermione they were not titans? How was he supposed to tell her they were all going to fall?

Draco pressed gentle fingertips to the side of her jaw, struck further into silence when he saw the ghost of a warrior looking back at him. He could see the battle in her irises, the girl who would never stopped fighting for those she loved. It was what Draco feared the most, her willingness to use herself as a shield to save mankind. He did not doubt her strength, her fire, but he loved her. Salazar, Draco loved Hermione more than words would ever be able to express. Losing her was not an option he would give her.

"It was an accident, Hermione," he said to her as he pulled her to him after he sat himself on their empty couch. She wrapped herself around him, laying her head on his chest, tears still falling past her lashes. "Just a terrible accident."

"What if it's not?" she asked.

Draco did not answer.

From the hall outside of the sitting room, Narcissa listened intently at the exchange between her son and his wife. Her heart broke for them. They were still so young to be seeing another war in their lifetime, to be losing more people they loved. 

It broke her even more to know that once again Hermione's life was in danger, and if it meant saving her, Draco would gladly give up his.