The Alchemist and the Moon (Luna/Theo -Harry Potter)

As they moved through the labyrinth of towering bookshelves, their footsteps muffled by the thick, dust-laden carpets, their hands trailing over the spines of tomes untouched for decades, the dim candlelight flickering against the endless rows of parchment and ink, something shifted—not in the physical sense, not in the way of creaking floorboards or the settling of old wood, but in a way that was almost felt rather than heard. It was as though the very air around them had thickened, as though the weight of time itself had begun pressing in, urging them, guiding them, pulling them toward something unseen, something waiting.

And then, as if the universe had been holding its breath for this precise moment, they found it.

Not just any book.

It sat there, nestled between two crumbling volumes, its presence so unassuming that it would have been easy to overlook—too easy, as if it had been deliberately hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right hands to pull it from the shelf. The second Theodore's fingers brushed against the worn leather binding, a shiver ran through him, something ancient and electric, as if the very magic woven into the pages had stirred in recognition, as if the book itself had known it was finally being found.

He swallowed hard, fingers tightening around the edges as he carefully, almost reverently, pulled it free.

The Emerald Codex.

The name alone sent a jolt of something sharp and cold down his spine.

An alchemical manuscript that had been lost to time, a work spoken of in hushed whispers by scholars who dared to believe it had once existed, but for whom proof had never materialised. A book that, if legend was to be believed, did not merely record knowledge, but contained it—housed it, preserved it, held within its pages something so potent, so dangerous, that those who had sought it had either perished in pursuit of its secrets or had vanished from history altogether, leaving behind nothing but speculation, nothing but stories that blurred the line between myth and warning.

It was said to contain a spell—one so powerful, so incomprehensibly intricate, that it could do what even the greatest alchemists in history had only ever dreamed of achieving.

Transmutation.

Not just of metal, not just of matter, but of fate itself.

The idea alone was terrifying.

Magic had rules. It had boundaries. It had limitations that not even the most accomplished wizards in history had been able to break. But this—this was something else entirely.

"Merlin," he exhaled, barely above a whisper, the words barely forming as he turned the book in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the sheer gravity of knowing what he was holding.

Luna's voice was calm, measured, as unwavering as the steady gaze she fixed upon the ancient manuscript resting between them. Yet, despite her usual air of dreamlike detachment, there was something firm beneath her words, something decisive—a rare, unyielding certainty that, whatever this book was, whatever lay within its pages, it was not something to be handled lightly.

"I'm not going to touch it," she murmured, folding her hands neatly in front of her, as if making it perfectly clear that she would not be the one to test whatever forces had been slumbering within those worn, ink-stained pages.

Theodore let out a sharp breath, fingers twitching slightly at his sides, gaze flickering between her and the book that now sat, innocuous yet impossibly heavy, upon the library desk.

"Me either," he muttered, though the words felt more like an attempt at conviction rather than an actual declaration of restraint.

He had never been one for legends. He had never believed in the drama of myth and mystery, never entertained the kind of superstitious nonsense that made men fear things simply because they could not explain them. He was a man of logic, of history, of facts written in stone and ink, of things that could be proved, that could be measured, that had weight and order and meaning.

But the moment he placed his hands on the cover of the book, the moment his fingers pressed against the ancient leather binding, something changed.

The air shifted, thickened, hummed.

It was not an obvious thing, not a gust of wind nor a sudden flicker of candlelight, but something more internal, something that pressed against him rather than around him—something that curled around the edges of his consciousness like an unseen force pulling at the very fabric of his being.

The ink on the pages moved.

Not in the way of a normal enchantment, not like the shifting text of an ordinary magical book, but alive, fluid, sentient—as though the words themselves were stretching, twisting, writhing into new forms, rearranging themselves into something else, something that should not be possible.

His breath caught.

A sensation—cold and hot all at once—rushed through him, up his arms, into his chest, into the very marrow of his bones, until suddenly—suddenly—his mind was no longer entirely his own.

Images flashed across his vision, too quick, too vast, entire landscapes of golden deserts, towering cities swallowed by time, stars shifting above him in ways that did not belong to the sky he had known his entire life.

And then the whispers began.

Soft at first, like the rustling of parchment in a still room. Then louder, clearer, weaving through his thoughts with the kind of certainty that sent ice trickling down his spine.

They were calling him.

By name.

Not the name he had been given, not the one he answered to in this life, but something else—something older, something he had no memory of yet somehow knew had once belonged to him.

His fingers clenched around the edges of the book as his vision lurched, his reflection in the library's grand mirror flickering—shifting.

His face—his own, yet not—warped before his eyes, features stretching, melting into something unfamiliar, something from a time he did not remember living, something from a past he did not own.

A stranger stared back at him.

Not a stranger.

Himself.

Yet not himself.

The face in the mirror was his, but it wasn't—a distorted, fractured reflection of the man he had always known himself to be, twisted and stretched by time, by magic, by something far older than the blood running through his veins. It was him, and yet it was not—a version that did not belong to this world, to this moment, to the fragile thread of reality he was meant to occupy.

And just as panic began to coil in his chest, just as the weight of the unknown threatened to pull him under, Luna stepped forward.

Without a word, without hesitation, she reached out and took his hand.

The touch was soft, light as a whisper, yet it burned through him in a way that nothing ever had before. Her fingers, impossibly delicate, impossibly steady, curled gently around his own, grounding him, anchoring him to this version of himself, the one he knew—or thought he knew. His breath shuddered out of him, and without thinking, without questioning, he smoothed his thumb over the soft expanse of her skin, tracing the fine lines of her knuckles, the warmth of her pulse beneath his fingertips.

And then—

The image shifted.

It was subtle at first, a ripple across the surface of reality, like the way heat distorted the air above fire. Then it was everything, consuming the mirror, stretching outward, swallowing them whole.

The library vanished.

The towering bookshelves, the heavy scent of parchment and dust, the dim candlelight flickering against ancient wood—all of it melted away, dissolving into a world that was not this one, a world that had not existed for thousands of years.

And there they stood.

Not Theodore Nott and Luna Lovegood.

Not a war-touched boy with a fractured past and a girl who had always seemed to exist outside of time.

They were more.

Clad in gold and ivory, adorned in silks embroidered with constellations, their bodies wrapped in layers of fabric that shimmered in the dying light of a sun that did not belong to them, they stood side by side—rulers, not of Britain, not of the world they knew, but of something older, something lost, something so drenched in forgotten history that merely looking at it made Theodore's chest ache with a longing he did not understand.

They belonged here.

Or rather—they had belonged here.

Once.

The palace behind them stretched into the sky, its pillars carved from stone that gleamed like polished marble, its walls adorned with intricate scripts that pulsed with an energy that had long since faded from modern magic. Below them, a city sprawled across the landscape, golden sand and vast rivers carving paths through an empire that no longer existed, an empire that had been theirs.

Theodore barely recognised himself—his reflection no longer that of a reluctant heir to a broken bloodline, but of a king, his shoulders broader, his posture regal, his robes heavy with wealth and divinity.

And Luna—Luna.

She stood behind him, not as a quiet observer, not as the dreamlike girl he had known at Hogwarts, but as a queen, adorned with jewels that glowed like captured stardust, a crown resting lightly upon waves of silver-gold hair.

They looked perfect together.

Not just in the way of aesthetics, not just in the way of two people standing side by side in a portrait of forgotten history, but in the way that suggested they had been carved from the same myth, in the way that suggested they had been made for this, that their souls had been crafted with the intention of belonging to one another across centuries, across lifetimes, across fate itself.

It was terrifying.

It was impossible.

And yet—somewhere deep inside, in the parts of him that had always whispered that he was meant for something else, something more, in the aching hollows of his soul that had never quite settled into the life he was given, never quite fit the shape of the world around him, never truly belonged to the legacy his father had tried to carve out for him—

It felt like the truth.

Not a fabricated fantasy. Not a conjured illusion meant to deceive him. Not some fevered hallucination brought on by old magic and forgotten spells.

The past—the weight of it, the reality of it—pressed down on him as though it had always been there, waiting for him to remember.

And Luna—

Luna, still gripping his hand as if it were the only thing keeping her tethered to the present, felt it too.

Her fingers, normally so light, so effortless in their touch, tightened around his like a vice, her knuckles turning pale as her entire body seemed to waver, unsteady, as if the sheer force of what they had just witnessed—what they had just lived—was too much, too real, too big for her to withstand.

Her breath hitched. Her knees buckled.

And before she could collapse, before she could even so much as attempt to steady herself, Theodore was already moving.

His instincts—rarely trusted, rarely used—kicked in with a sharp, unrelenting certainty.

Without hesitation, without thought, he reached for her, catching her against his chest with a speed that startled even himself, one arm securing her waist, the other coming up to cradle the back of her head as if she were something precious, something breakable, something he would never allow to slip from his grasp.

"Luna," he murmured, his voice low, urgent, as he adjusted his hold on her, effortlessly lifting her into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all. "Darling, are you okay?"

She didn't answer, only let her head rest against his shoulder, her breathing shallow, her skin pale—too pale, worryingly pale, as though all the blood had been drained from her face in an instant.

Panic surged up his spine, but he forced it down, tightening his grip on her as he turned, voice ringing with command.

"BOBSY!"

The elf appeared immediately, her large, round eyes filled with alarm at the sight before her.

"Bring water to the missus—now."

Bobsy, for all her earlier wedding-planning fantasies, didn't so much as blink at the title, simply nodding in frantic understanding before disappearing with a loud pop, only to reappear seconds later with a tray in her tiny hands, carrying a glass of water and a square of dark chocolate.

"Missus, take this," Bobsy insisted, her voice high-pitched with concern as she offered the tray toward Luna.

But Luna—

Luna, still too pale, still too quiet, still clinging to him with that same tight grip, made no move to take it.

Fuck.

Theodore exhaled sharply, adjusting her once more in his arms before stepping forward, lowering himself onto the nearest sofa and bringing her with him, carefully shifting her so that she was pressed against him, his arms still wrapped securely around her, unwilling—unable—to let go.

"Okay, darling," he murmured, his voice softer now, lower, smoothing a hand down her back, "let's get you laid down, yeah? Come here."

And before she could protest, before she could argue, he was already moving again, effortlessly scooping her back up into his arms and disapparating—taking them both straight to his bedroom in a swift, practiced instant.

The world righted itself as they landed, and he wasted no time in settling her onto his bed, his own body immediately following, sitting beside her, staying close, fingers reaching without thinking to push back the loose strands of hair that had fallen across her face.

"Luna," he murmured again, softer this time, watching as she slowly blinked up at him, still looking so pale, so shaken, like she had seen something that had unmade her.

"What happened?"

She swallowed, her lips parting slightly, as if she were still processing, still piecing herself back together from whatever vision had just ripped through her.

And then—

"I saw us," she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath.

He stilled.

"Us?"

"In the past," she murmured, blinking up at him. "In the future. In every universe."

His stomach twisted, his grip tightening ever so slightly where his hand still rested against the side of her face, his fingers curling into the soft strands of her hair, grounding himself in the feel of her, in the reality of this moment, in the knowledge that—

No.

No, this was just a vision.

A trick of the book.

A spell designed to entrap them.

"It was just a vision, love," he said quietly, though his own voice sounded far less convinced than he wanted it to. "It's okay."

She didn't argue. Didn't tell him he was wrong.

She only looked at him with that same impossibly knowing gaze, something unreadable flickering in the depths of her pale blue eyes, something far too big for this moment, something that made his chest ache in a way he did not know how to name.

And then, after a long, slow breath, she closed her eyes.

"Close your eyes," he whispered, his voice softer now, quieter, something between a plea and a promise, as his fingers continued their slow, absentminded movement through her hair, smoothing it away from her face, tucking loose strands behind her ear with a touch so gentle it barely existed. "I'll be here."

And he would.

He wasn't sure when that certainty had settled into his bones, wasn't sure how he had gone from merely tolerating Luna Lovegood's presence to feeling something achingly real curling around the edges of his very existence, but it was there now, undeniable, inescapable. He would be here, by her side, in this moment, in whatever moments came after, in every moment—just as he had been before.

Because he knew what he had seen.

And no matter how much he tried to push it away, to rationalise it, to write it off as some elaborate trick of magic, as some cruel, fabricated illusion designed to ensnare them, he knew.

It was not just a vision.

It was truth.

A truth so vast, so incomprehensibly woven into the very fabric of reality that he could feel the weight of it pressing down on him, coiling around his ribcage, tightening with every breath he took.

He had seen it. Lived it.

Every lifetime.

Every version of them that had ever existed.

He had seen them meet, seen them fall, seen them drawn to one another with the kind of inevitability that should not have been possible.

It didn't matter where they were, didn't matter when or how they found one another.

They always did.

They always fell in love.

Not just once, not just here, not just now—but always.

A thousand worlds, a thousand versions of himself, of her, their souls colliding like stars breaking against the dark, burning through time, through history, through every single thread of fate.

He saw their hands tangling together across centuries, fingers brushing in candlelit libraries, in grand palace halls, in the shadowed corners of forbidden places where magic still hummed beneath the surface. He saw whispered words exchanged in stolen moments, desperate, breathless, spoken in languages he didn't know, yet somehow understood.

He saw them have a child.

A daughter.

Every time.

The same girl.

The same wide, curious eyes. The same laugh that rang like a bell in the quiet spaces between battles, between wars, between the endless cycle of finding each other and losing each other.

Because that was the other part. The part that settled like ice in his chest, that sent something sharp and terrible curling deep inside him.

They always died together.

Every time.

Every single time, they were torn apart at the end.

It didn't matter how. It didn't matter where. The details changed, the circumstances differed, but the result was always the same.

One was never left behind.

One was never left to grieve the other.

They left this world the way they had entered it—together.

And for the first time in his life, he was beginning to wonder if there was any version of himself that could escape it.

She woke to warmth.

A slow, steady heat pressed against her back, unfamiliar yet not unwelcome, the slow rise and fall of a chest against her own shoulder blades, the heavy but comforting weight of an arm slung over her waist as though, even in sleep, he had refused to let go.

For a moment, she was caught between the fading remnants of a dream and the quiet stillness of the real world, floating somewhere in that hazy, drowsy limbo where everything felt softer, where thoughts had no urgency, where time stretched languid and unhurried.

And then—

The scent. It was new.

Earthy, but clean, touched with something sharper—ink, aged parchment, the faintest trace of something warm and woody, something inherently him.

Her fingers twitched against the fabric beneath her, and only then did she register the way her body fit against his, the way their limbs had tangled together in the night, the way her head had settled so easily against the curve of his shoulder, like they had done this before, like they had spent lifetimes finding their way back to this exact position, this exact moment.

She knew Theodore.

But she had never known him like this.

Slowly, carefully, she opened her eyes, blinking against the dim morning light that filtered through the heavy curtains.

And there he was.

Theodore.

His face, usually sharp with carefully controlled expressions, was softened in sleep, lips slightly parted as he breathed slow, even breaths. Dark lashes fanned against pale skin, and there—just barely—was the hint of a furrow between his brows, as though some part of him, even in unconsciousness, was still holding on, still waiting for something to go wrong.

But more than that—

More than the closeness, more than the unfamiliar intimacy of waking up in his bed—

He was holding her.

Not loosely, not lazily, but with a quiet, almost desperate grip, as though some part of him had feared she would slip away in the night, as though his body had refused to believe she was real until it had wrapped itself around her and kept her there.

Her throat tightened.

This wasn't—this couldn't be—

She shifted, slowly, carefully, attempting to untangle herself, but the movement was enough to stir him.

His breathing changed.

The arm around her waist tightened, fingers twitching against the fabric of her robes before his grip slackened and his body tensed in the unmistakable heaviness of waking.

His brow creased.

And then—his eyes opened.

Bleary, unfocused for a moment, and then—

The realisation hit him like a hex to the chest.

Luna sat up immediately, slipping from beneath the weight of his arm, already reaching for her wand, already preparing to leave.

"I have to go."

Her voice was quiet, but firm, carrying none of the softness that had lingered in the way she had looked at him only seconds before.

Theodore pushed himself up on one elbow, his hair a dishevelled mess, his sleep-clouded eyes still catching up with reality, and in that fraction of a second, she saw it—the rawness, the something-close-to-pleading flickering beneath his usually guarded expression.

"Please…"

It was barely a word.

Barely spoken.

But it was enough.

Enough to make something crack inside her, something she did not have time to examine, something she refused to examine.

She swallowed hard, shaking her head.

"I'm okay," she reassured, though whether it was for his sake or hers, she wasn't entirely sure. "Nothing happened."

The words tasted wrong on her tongue.

Something had happened.

Even if it wasn't physical.

Even if it was only this—only the weight of him beside her, only the way their bodies had fit together in sleep, only the way he had held her, only the way he was looking at her now, like he was still trying to understand why she was leaving.

"You won't mention this to anyone."

It wasn't a request.

It was a statement, final and unyielding, one she did not wait for him to argue against.

And before he could stop her, before he could say anything else, she turned, wand flicking in a sharp, precise movement—

And disapparated.

Gone in a breath. Gone in a heartbeat.

Gone before she had the chance to regret it.