Luna Lovegood, Fanfiction, and Autocracy

The Discovery

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters. They belong to J.K. Rowling.

Summary:

Luna wakes up one morning to find strange ropes coming out of her chest. She is overwhelmed with the knowledge that she is fictional and keeps seeing ropes connecting everyone- ships. Armed with fanfiction and her Ravenclaw intelligence, Luna turns Hogwarts upside down- because what happens when fanfiction becomes canon?

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It wasn't a particularly auspicious morning, all things considered. A light frost had settled on the ground overnight, hinting at the blustering Scottish winter to come, but as dawn approached the temperature rose and the thin layer of ice melted, leaving icy cold droplets coating the Hogwarts grounds. The sun rose and gave everything a rosy glow, and was accompanied by a wind that threatened to chap your cheeks if you dilly dallied too long. The melted frost sparkled in the grass and dripped off the boughs of trees, making the once crispy leaves sodden and turning the stones of Hogwarts a light brown, darker than usual.

Most students lay sleeping soundly in their dormitories, curtains drawn. There were the early risers just sitting up in bed, some more daring and adventurous students dozing off in whatever broom closet or classroom they had found themselves in the night before, and weary staff members just going to sleep from their night patrol shift.

In the Ravenclaw dorm, sequestered into one of the cramped and tiny individual rooms, was Luna Lovegood. Her tormentors had scornfully shoved her in there the beginning of first year, and their taunts and facial expressions still sometimes kept her up at night, but Luna had come to love the sanctuary the room provided. She didn't need to worry about being pranked in her sleep or having every pair of her underwear tied to the banister of the spiral staircase and spelled to be stuck permanently. And if the solitude got stifling, Luna reminded herself she didn't want a part of their company.

Her face was smooth and untroubled and her pale blonde was spread out behind her, mussed a little. She was breathing calmly and evenly.

A large alarm clock, the mechanical kind, went off, vibrating so loudly it nearly bounced off the table. Luna knew that she could just use her wand to set an alarm, but she had bought the alarm clock with her mother when she was younger and couldn't bear to set it aside. It also took an incredible amount of noise to rouse her, and the Muggle contraption definitely created that. Her roommates from first year, who she'd only roomed with for a few weeks before they shoved her off into this space, had used the clock as a main point of contention.

Bleary eyed, she let her hand fall onto the machine, silencing it. She blinked a bit, letting her eyes adjust to the morning light now streaming in through the skinny window that had once been an arrow slot in medieval times when Hogwarts still needed the protection of weapons. Years of magic used had saturated the building with enough magic to stop an army or three.

Having opened her eyes, Luna promptly shut them, because what she had seen was something a bit unbelievable even to her. Since Luna was always on the lookout for the flitting shadow of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack or other beasts she'd only dreamt of, this was saying a lot.

She peeked, but her view hadn't changed. Pushing her hair out of her face, Luna let out a sigh, shaky as a leaf falling to the forest floor.

Skinny golden ropes protruded from her chest, thrumming with a foreign energy, something that Luna didn't recognize. They went off in all directions, like the spray of a fountain, weaving through the walls of Hogwarts. A large golden orb sat in the middle of them all, a steady stream of words wrapping around in and then disappearing, too fast for it to read as anything more than a blur. She stared at the mess of rope and hesitantly extended a finger to touch it. Luna was cautious by nature. She'd learned how to keep herself from getting hurt, by others and by physical means, out of necessity. Her mind spun back to the hateful summer of Ginny Weasley and her cheeks stung like they had when she was 7.