B.Q. Book Two: Black Princess Ascendant

Chapter 4: Comforting an Agonized Soul

Disclaimer: When Harry turned 17, did he just send the Dursleys off with essentially a friendly "Take care of yourselves!", despite the fact that they had verbally, emotionally, and (arguably) physically abused him for apparently his entire life? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.
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Jen's connection to the Blacks' London townhouse was, as far as she could determine, unique. The instant she had entered the building for the first time – even before she adopted Bellatrix as her mother, when her closest ties to the family were as Sirius's goddaughter and Dorea Potter née Black's great-granddaughter – the magic saturating the walls had washed over and through her, almost as if Grimmauld Place was welcoming her home. Her sonar had threaded through the wards overhead, expanding to a degree she had never before considered possible. As long as she was within the wardline, she could feel everyone and everything; she knew exactly what was going on in any room of the house without leaving her chair. Total awareness.

So, when an unexpected guest entered via the Floo, she was informed the very instant it happened.

She could not keep the grin off her face as she walked down the stairs from the library to the ground floor. Of the literally hundreds of magical cores she had encountered in her life, she had only found one that leapt and danced as this one did, spinning around like a lovesick maiden swirling her favorite dress about herself to music only she could hear.

She turned the corner into the drawing room and truly looked at Luna Lovegood for the first time.

The younger girl was widely considered at Hogwarts to be exceedingly strange, if not a bit mad. Jen, however, along with the friends she had gathered over the previous year, knew that was not the case. Luna could be absentminded at times, yes, and she was more than a little socially inept, her isolation the result of her 'flights of fancy' pertaining to creatures that no one else could see. A stroke of luck on Jen's part had actually revealed the truth about that the previous September: the Lovegood line was blessed – or possibly cursed – with an incredible empathic sense that bypassed even her unnaturally strong mental shields. Rather than actually feel the emotions of everyone around them, however, the members of that family instead translated what their sixth sense detected into visions of fantastical beasts. Even after an entire year, Jen did not know everything about her friend's talent, but what she did know was that it was the most intriguing familial ability she had ever heard of.

Quietly taking in the dirty blonde hair that fell down past the girl's shoulders and the vibrantly orange and pink sundress for a moment, Jen cleared her throat. "Find something interesting there?"

"Perhaps," came a dreamy voice. Luna reached up to tap one of the portraits on the family tree that she was staring at. "I can't tell if this is a spot on the tapestry or if he just had a giant wart on his nose."

Her head tilted in curiosity of its own accord, and Jen walked up to stand behind her friend. The blonde was pointing to her great-great-great-uncle Arcturus, not to be confused with the wizard of the same name who was Sirius's grandfather. As for the question... "Honestly? I don't really know."

A sigh. "Too bad. Now I want to know. Oh, well." Luna spun around and, compensating for the slight difference in their heights, pushed herself onto the balls of her feet so she could stare at Jen's face. "Your eyes are very pretty."

"Thank you," the darker of the pair replied with a smile while her gaze flicked over her companion. The blonde would never be a classic beauty; her silver eyes were too large for her face, and while she had a delicate little button nose, it was higher compared to her upper lip than was common. Still, her 'witch next door' looks, as Jen had heard their mutual friend Kenneth Towler refer to them, were undeniably cute. "You're not looking too bad, yourself."