And she was never quite alone again.
-----1981
Luna Lovegood pov
The dragon scale still glowed faintly under my pillow. I liked to think it hummed sometimes when the moon was especially full or when I whispered to it in my sleep. I hadn't summoned him again for almost a whole year. Not because I didn't want to, but because Daddy had become even quieter, and I didn't want to make him afraid.
But tonight the house was silent again, and I was lonelier than I'd ever been.
Daddy barely spoke anymore, except when he snapped. He never looked me in the eye not properly. Sometimes he'd stare past me, like he was trying to see Mummy behind my face. And I suppose, in a way, she was there. But I wasn't her. I was just me.
And being me well, it was a bit like being invisible.
So I took out the old chalk and the spellbook again. My hands remembered the shapes better than my mind did, and I didn't need to read all the words this time. My mouth already knew them.
The room grew colder, then warmer, then colder again, as if it couldn't decide what it was supposed to be. The lanterns above my bed dimmed, then flickered. And the scale on my bedside table pulsed like a heartbeat.
I sat inside the summoning circle with my knees tucked up, singing softly under my breath. Not a real song just a Luna song. One that didn't have words but felt like memories of flowers and old books and rain hitting windows.
And when I said the final line, the air cracked.
Not like thunder. More like... the sound of something ancient remembering itself.
He appeared again exactly as he had before. Tall, still, and darker than dreams. His black hair fell perfectly to his shoulders, and his eyes shone like bleeding stars.
"Hello again," I said, smiling. "Did you miss me?"
Leviathan blinked, slowly. "I do not feel time the way you do, little witch. But yes. I missed you."
I hugged my knees. "I thought you might."
He stepped into the same spot he had last year, careful not to test the circle this time. He looked more alert now, more focused. I wondered if demons dreamed when they weren't being summoned, or if they just floated through time like ghosts.
"I turned ten," I told him. "And Harry Potter went to Hogwarts."
Leviathan raised a brow. "Harry... Potter?"
"Yes. Everyone talks about him now. He did something very special. A dark wizard named Voldemort tried to kill him when he was a baby, and he didn't die. But his parents did."
Leviathan tilted his head slightly. "Voldemort... I sense death clinging to that name. And Potter that is something... older... a descendant...how curious."
I beamed. "Yes! That's how I know he's important. Things cling to him. Like thestral dust. And wrackspurts. They're little invisible things that float into your ears and make your brain fuzzy."
"I know of them," he said quietly.
My heart jumped. "You do?"
"They exist between thought and breath," Leviathan said. "Like ash that hasn't decided whether it wants to become smoke."
I clapped once in delight. "I knew they were real! Everyone always said they were nonsense, and the children in the village say I'm odd, but I knew. I always knew."
"Truth does not need belief to exist," Leviathan said. "Only patience."
I reached into the drawer beside my bed and pulled out a crumpled sketch of a Blibbering Humdinger. "What about this one?"
"I have seen them," he said. "But I will not tell you where."
I pouted a little. "Why not?"
He smiled, but not cruelly. "Because mystery is part of their nature. If I tell you everything, you'll stop listening to the silence."
That made sense, in a Luna way.
"Will you tell me more about you, then?" I asked. "About where you go when you leave?"
Leviathan's eyes flickered darker, like a candle almost going out. "I return to Hell."
I folded my arms on top of my knees and rested my chin there. "Is it scary?"
"It is not scary to me. But it is not a place your kind would endure easily. It is power and suffering, built into stone."
"Is it hot? Or cold?"
"Both," he said. "Hell shifts. It has seven dominions, each ruled by a bearer of sin. I rule the Fifth Sloth. I am a Duke. The others rule Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Envy... and the First Throne, Pride."
"And that's Lucifer," I whispered.
Leviathan nodded slowly. "Lucifer was the brightest. The first. He bears the sin of Pride. He is the Lord of Hell."
I toyed with a loose thread in my pajama sleeve. "Why are you Sloth?"
Leviathan was quiet a long time.
"I was meant to protect," he said at last. "When the Heavens split and war broke the sky, I did... nothing. I watched. I let the world break because action was harder than stillness. That was my sin."
I felt cold, even though the room was warm. "So you were lazy?"
He didn't flinch. "Yes. When it mattered most, I turned inward and let silence be my answer."
I looked up at him. "But... you don't feel lazy now."
He looked at me, eyes soft. "Even Sloth can wake, if the right voice calls."
I liked that answer.
"What about angels?" I asked. "God? Were you with them once?"
"I do not know," he said, and his voice was strange emptier somehow. "I was never in Heaven. I was born long before the fall but always just drifting through the world. I remember only stone... and fire."
I looked down at the circle. At the careful lines, the chalk beginning to fade.
"Will you stay this time?" I asked.
He raised an eyebrow.
I swallowed. "I'm tired of being alone. Daddy's worse now. He forgets my birthday. He calls me 'Pandora' sometimes, and then cries. I keep pretending it's alright but... I don't want to pretend anymore."
Leviathan didn't answer at first. His glowing eyes softened.
"I am not a comfort, Luna."
"You are to me," I said.
He looked at me long and deep, as though seeing something inside my bones.
"If I step out," he said, "I will be more than memory. I will be real. That means others may sense me. The veil will be thinner here. And things you do not know may begin to wake."
"I'm not afraid," I whispered.
"Then do it," he said. "Wash away the circle."
I moved slowly. Not because I was scared, but because I wanted the moment to last. I picked up my little bottle of spring water from the well where Mummy used to sing and poured it over the chalk. It hissed softly, like tea being poured.
The lines blurred, then vanished.
The summoning circle was gone.
Leviathan took one step forward and nothing stopped him.
He was no longer contained.
He was here.
Truly.
I stood up and faced him. He towered above me, but I didn't feel small. I felt... chosen.
"Do you want to hide in the wardrobe?" I asked. "I think the gnomes will let you share if you're polite."
He gave a rare laugh, low and quiet. "I don't think I will fit."
I reached out and took his hand. It was warm.
"I'm glad you're here," I said.
And Leviathan, the Duke of Sloth, the Father of Dragons, nodded once.
"So am I."