1980
Pandora Lovegood was a researcher with her latest experiment she wanted to find out if demons were real because she researched the past and wanted to find out why the muggles of the past were afraid of witches and of them summoning the devil.
But during her experiment she made a mistake and something went wrong and it came to a huge explosion in the Lovegood mansion.
Xenophilius Lovegood heard the noise and came running.
"PANDORA! Is everything alright?"
When he heard no answer he burst through the door and saw her corpse. And he began to scream and cry until he heard his daughter at the door.
"Daddy, what was that sound and is mommy alright?"
He couldn't answer her out of sadness and just took her in his arms
------
Luna Lovegood was nine years old when her world became quieter.
After the explosion, the Lovegood home never truly felt like a home again. The walls stood, the furniture remained, but the air was different emptier. Her father, Xenophilius, once eccentric and warm, now moved through the house like a ghost, papers clenched in his hands, always muttering to himself. And Luna, with her moon-colored eyes and golden hair that never seemed to behave, watched him from corners, wondering if she should speak or simply float away like a wrackspurt.
It was a week after Pandora's death when he finally asked her.
"Luna... darling," he said, voice thin and cracked like parchment left in the sun. "Would you... go through your mother's experiment notes? The last ones. I... I can't."
He didn't look at her when he spoke. He hadn't looked at her properly in days.
Luna nodded dreamily, her voice barely louder than a whisper, "Alright, Daddy. Maybe the nargles have hidden something important."
She skipped lightly into her mother's old study, the room that still smelled like lavender and candle smoke, and sat cross-legged on the floor, sifting through a box labeled 'Magical-Realm Hypothesis: Cross-Planar Phenomena'.
The notes inside were beautiful in a chaotic sort of way written in flowing ink, margins full of sketches, runes, and little scribbles of magical creatures. Her mother had always drawn while she worked. There were Thestrals dancing along the corners of one page, and a Crumple-Horned Snorkack peeking out from the binding of another.
But one set of pages was different. The parchment had been scorched at the edges, as if exposed to intense heat. A heading in darker ink read:
"The Old Ones: The Demonic Realm and Wizarding-Muggle Folklore Convergence"
Luna's pale fingers brushed over the title like it might purr under her touch.
"Oh... demons. Muggles are always afraid of such silly things... But maybe they were right to be frightened."
She smiled softly to herself and tilted her head, strands of her hair floating with static.
The next few hours drifted by in a fog of half-whispered incantations and sketches of circles, glyphs, and interplanar gateways. There were diagrams of portal alignments, spells in old tongues, and a detailed list of ingredients many of which sounded like things one could find if they knew where to look.
"Root of belladonna," Luna recited softly, tapping her chin. "Ash of phoenix feather, dust of graveyard stone... oh, I think I saw that near the garden gnomes."
As she worked, the house remained quiet. Her father didn't call for her, didn't check in. He had locked himself in his study and only emerged for food and long, muttering walks around the property, eyes wild with grief and thoughts only he could hear.
She missed him. But she didn't say anything.
Instead, Luna gathered what she could from the house and the land around them. A moonstone pendant her mother had worn. A cracked mirror from the attic. Powdered crystal from an old wand core.
By the time she brought everything to her room, it was nearly midnight.
Her room was strange and lovely decorated with floating paper lanterns shaped like Dirigible Plums and tiny jars containing the wings of fairies collected, never harmed. A portrait of her mother hung by the bed, now slightly crooked. Luna whispered to it every night before sleep.
Tonight, she knelt on the floor and began drawing the summoning circle with chalk and dragonblood ink. The runes were delicate, almost musical. She hummed as she worked, a tune only she seemed to know.
"It's for you, Mummy," she said aloud. "You wanted to know what frightened them. I think I'd like to know too."
The ritual instructions, though incomplete, were understandable in Luna's odd way. They said the key was intent, not fear. Curiosity was enough. And Luna was very curious.
She lit candles made of grave wax, ground belladonna into fine powder, and tied her hair with a ribbon soaked in starlight tincture. The final line of the ritual said:
"Speak not to command. Speak to invite."
So she did.
The words were not English, not Latin, but something older, more instinctual. They rolled off her tongue like a lullaby, wrapping around her in soft tendrils of cold.
She didn't notice the room grow darker, or how the shadows on the wall began to twist.
Her eyes were on the chalk circle, which now pulsed with light, slow and rhythmic like a heartbeat.
And in her gentle, dreamy voice, she whispered, "Are you there? Mummy wanted to meet you... I think I do too."
The air folded in on itself, like the moment before a storm. Her hair lifted from her shoulders as if underwater. Somewhere, a low chime rang once twice and then broke into silence.
And the circle began to glow red.
---
Earlier That Day
Her father had knocked on her door and called her for dinner. She hadn't come.
Xenophilius stood outside her room now, listening to the stillness inside. They hadn't spoken much. Every time he looked at Luna, he saw Pandora. The way she smiled, her eyes too old and too knowing for a child. And he hated himself for the way his love had started to warp into guilt.
He turned away from the door.
"I just need more time," he muttered, and left her alone again.
---
Back in the Room
Luna sat inside the glowing circle, cross-legged, eyes wide with wonder. Her voice was calm as ever.
"I think you're here now," she said softly. "I can feel you. You're not like a wrackspurt. You're heavier."
A shadow rippled at the edge of the summoning glyphs. It had no eyes, no face, but it tilted, almost in acknowledgment.
Luna smiled serenely, as if she were meeting an old friend. "Would you like some tea? Or... maybe you prefer blood?"
The creature made no sound.
"I think you're lonely," Luna said after a moment, cocking her head. "Like Daddy. Like me."
The circle flared, blinding white, then red again.
And in the final sentence of the ritual, drawn in her mother's own ink, Luna recited:
"Let the veil be pierced, and may the First One cross."
The room went still.
From within the circle, something stepped forward.
And Luna Lovegood, nine years old and utterly unafraid, smiled.
Because the demon had come.