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Tweak says, "You looked hot."

Luna D. Lovegood (luna_l) wrote in pandorarpg,
@ 2011-12-06 18:47:00

Entry tags:

^date: november 06 2003, character: luna lovegood, character: michael corner

Who: Michael and Luna
When: 11am
Where: Rook Cottage
What: Puzzles and Challenges
Warnings: Safe for work [i.e. low]

Setting up for lunch gave Luna another reason she loved being able to call her own hours. She'd gotten up when the nightmare had struck, deciding to head out and start work then return for a nap. A couple hours into her nap, she woke again screaming. It was nearly ten in the morning, perfect time to get up, so perhaps it wasn't that much of a loss. Though shaking was not the easiest way to prepare lunch. Still, she managed and the kettle was ready at eleven proper. She wasn't sure what Michael liked for lunch and having forgotten, she chose to make sandwiches. Pickles and cheese as well as a duck and chutney. That way he had a couple of choices.

Her father was off for the day, looking again for the Crumpled-Horned Snorkack. She was beginning to doubt its existence, but that was something she wasn't ready to discuss with him. However, that did mean that the likelihood of them being interrupted would be extremely low, a definite plus.

She frowned looking around the living room. She would have preferred to have a pensieve for this excursion, but still, it wouldn't do to get an expensive item simply to spill it intentionally.

Checking the kettle once more, she waited for Michael.

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mlcorner
2011-12-07 03:54 am UTC (link)

Michael had needed a distraction recently as he had been feeling rather useless and Luna asking to meet with the DA—and subsequently him as well—had been a rather perfect one. Without experiencing any of the nightmares himself and not really having much to contribute to the discussions so far, well, he really was a bit of dead weight but he was determined to help in any way that he could, even if this time 'round he wasn't exactly in danger as of yet. These people were his mates, practically his family his last year in Hogwarts and he would be damned if he let them go through something this awful without doing anything about it.

With a familiar and uncomfortable pop, he found himself at Luna's front door which he knocked on heartily, wondering just what puzzle she might have needed his help with.

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luna_l
2011-12-07 01:04 pm UTC (link)

Luna smiled at the knock. She hadn't been frowning continuously, but the nightmares had her frowning more than usual, even when she was simply thinking. It felt good to smile. With a brightness she hadn't felt all morning, she answered the door.

"Oh, hello!" Her voice lilted as if she were surprised, though her smile showed no such confusion. "I hope you like sandwiches?" She opened the door further, motioning him in.

Rook Cottage was a small place, the main floor entirely taken up by the living room, dining room and kitchen which almost melded into one another. Off to the right was a spiral staircase that led to the bedroom areas. A fire was lit, adding a psychological warmth to the room that a warming charm simply couldn't match. Almost hidden among stacks of books and oddities collected from her and her father's many trips was a couch and two armchairs.

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mlcorner
2011-12-07 02:19 pm UTC (link)

"Absolutely!" Michael replied, smiling brightly back at Luna. He had always liked her, ever since he first met her in the DA. He'd seen her around Ravenclaw but he'd usually been more wrapped up in his own group of friends to get to know her very well. So it was nice to actually spend some time with her one on one, even if they were working on a task. "Thank you, Luna, you didn't have to make anything."

"How have you been? Were the nightmares back again last night?" he asked her, concern written over his face for her. He always felt a bit stupid talking about them because he had no idea what they really were or how bad they were for them, but judging from the way they acted, he could tell they were fairly disgusting to behold.

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luna_l
2011-12-07 02:52 pm UTC (link)

Luna shook her head, the blond waves being held in place by the wand she'd used as a hair pin. "It would have been silly for me not to. I had offered lunch, a working lunch, but lunch.

"Do you like tea?"

She nodded slightly, the smile falling from her face replaced by a distant look that seemed troubled. Her brow furrowed slightly. She rubbed her left hand; her fingers ghosting over the dark spot. "Yes, they were. Twice last night, actually." Luna turned to him, setting the tea to steeping. "I'm glad you haven't been suffering from them. They're very inconvenient." An understatement, but the idea of falling into despair bothered Luna more than the lack of sleep. It was focusing on them, focusing on the fear, the desperation that bothered her. She couldn't imagine being there, in that place, and the effort of pushing it back caused her to shiver slightly.

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mlcorner
2011-12-07 05:17 pm UTC (link)

"Well thank you so much. Of course, I'll have some tea if you're offering, love," Michael smiled at her. He followed her into the cozy main room, enjoying the warmth of the place. It made him feel almost instantly at home even though he'd not been there before.

Michael chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully as she spoke, a rare frown on his face. He never did frown, but he hated the way his friends were suffering as of late and the fact that he didn't know what to do for them. "Well I can't really say that I am that glad of it, seeing as I don't know much of what to do with myself besides. Doesn't seem like I can really help much without knowing what you lot are going through." It wasn't as if he wanted to feel miserable, but at the same token, he didn't want to be the one who got the lucky break in the matter either. It was basically a lose-lose situation either way in his mind.

"Do you need my help with anything?" he offered, gesturing to the kettle.

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luna_l
2011-12-07 10:12 pm UTC (link)

Luna smiled at his offer and nodded. "If you'd like, there are plates in the cupboard on your right and you can serve the sandwiches." She hadn't missed his frown, but tried not to let it get to her. In response, she brightened more.

"Well, having good friends does make it easier. After all, we've been through so much already, it's just another challenge." The word made her brighten. "Which reminds me," she motioned to the table as she brought the tea over. "I have a puzzle I thought you'd be perfect to set upon. Lavender and I are suspecting that these aren't really nightmares. Not in the classic sense at any rate, but more prophecies or memories. I'm suspecting memories as the woman in my dreams I know is Pandora Zurlo. Also, I can't imagine all of us suddenly becoming seers.

"So," her eyes shone brightly as if offering a prized toy up to be cherished, "The challenge is, can you force a memory to find a new home? Can you take a memory and literally place it in someone else as if that someone else were a pensieve?" As she finished, the light in her eyes eased and she reverted to a more dreamy expression as if already lost in her own world. She wasn't, but it was common for Luna to be both here and now and elsewhere and elsewhen.

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mlcorner
2011-12-08 04:25 am UTC (link)

Michael nodded and grabbed the plates that she mentioned, following her to the table with them. His face lit up as she mentioned that he was perfect for setting the puzzle upon—he was rather flattered to be honest. He had always been a fan of puzzles and puns but he didn't know if that was well known or not. It was nice for Luna to notice though.

Michael sat down and listened to her explanation, forgetting all about the sandwiches. When she finished he remained quiet for a moment, considering it all before he would say anything out loud to her. If these were memories and not nightmares, how would all of them have gotten them? However it did make more sense than everyone suffering the same sort of nightmares on the same nights with the same person in them, but it was still similarly far-fetched for them to all have received memories in their heads too. How had they gotten there and why did those specific people get them and why...

"Okay, this is a good idea. I like it. We need to test this and see if it gives us any answers first before we ask anymore questions." It probably sounded odd, seeing as he hadn't actually asked a single question, but his mind was reeling with them and the more he thought about it, the more questions he came up with and that just didn't help anything.

"Have you found any information on this, Luna? Has anyone ever tried it?" Michael was a Ravenclaw and they knew that it was always smart to check a book and see if there was any good information somewhere to start with. He felt a familiar giddiness he always associated with solving riddles and puzzles—his fingers and toes were tingling at the thought of getting somewhere with this mystery.

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luna_l
2011-12-09 01:50 pm UTC (link)

It was hard to get into Ravenclaw if one didn't see the world as a series of puzzles to be solved, but even so, she'd noticed Michael on more than a few occasions being tucked in a corner with a puzzle or query of some form. Additionally, since he wasn't suffering from the nightmares, that would give him a unique perspective in working on it.

She nodded happily at his acceptance. His help might hold the key to understanding what was going on. At his suggestion of testing, she smiled distantly. "Testing it was precisely why I had wanted somewhere private." The discussion itself as well but if they were going to attempt to retrieve memories, any memories, not even the specific nightmarish ones, she didn't want to do that in a public place.

"I've not found much, no, though I"m not sure I would expect to given the monopoly on memory sales that the pensieve makers guild has." She leaned her head slightly back, her eyes drifting off to the side as she remembered a conversation with her father over how information was bought and sold and how people would just accept what was printed, no matter the bias.

"But even so, there should be hints, there always are. If I could get a glimpse of the early notes that the designers of the original pensieve made, perhaps I'd know more. So it seems we are mostly on our own." She wasn't upset at the idea of not having a strong basis to go off of. She trusted Ravenclaw intuition far more than most books anyway, so while they would have been helpful, she wasn't ready to panic. Panic was reserved for that nightmare. And the thought that she might actually beg someone someday. The thought had her furrowing her brow.

Luna shook her head to clear it, pulling the wand from her hair and letting her hair fall down her back as she set her wand on the table, waiting expectantly for how he'd like to proceed.

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mlcorner
2011-12-09 06:39 pm UTC (link)

Michael nodded while she spoke, more thoughts flying into his head. This time he tried to speak aloud as he thought, instead of keeping quiet. "Alright so let's think through this. What do we know about memories so far?" Michael hadn't ever studied them at length, but he knew what they'd learned in lessons. "We can pull them from our minds and put them in a pensieve if we so desire, watch them as if we were watching a film. Others can see them as well, even if they weren't there at the time. That would be like the dreams you lot are having, if that's what they are...

"Okay so using that logic, we should be able to extract them. Also using that logic, we should be able to extract any other memory of someone's, say mine, and put it into someone else's head, like yours. If these are this Pandora Zurlo person's memories, or someone she knows, then somehow she's put her memories into everyone else's heads. But how? And why? Well I guess we'll worry about that later and just focus on trying the other bits first."

Michael was not really aware that he was rambling, but that's how he usually got when he was trying to figure things out. He was excitable and jittery and talkative. He really did love thinking. "Alright so let's try pulling a memory first and see what we can do with it, yeah?" He stood up and nodded. "Okay so, what do you want to try first?"

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