#mythmaking and power

There are many reasons why she is drawn to Rolf. The way he radiates peace, a still pool of calm in the middle of the wild storm the world makes as it goes by. The way he tilts his head just so and smiles, lopsided and with crows feet forming at the corners of his eyes. The way he simply smiles when she wears her homemade charms to ward off the nargles, does not sneer - does not even think to sneer. His pure, childlike naivete as he watches the world.

It is his love for the stories, however, which truly draw her to him. Stories the rest of the wizarding world harshly dismisses, shutting their ears and calling these storytellers animals, creatures, inhuman.

It is the stories no one else wants to tell, says her father as he bends over his printing presses, making sure the spells laying the typesets in place are working without any glitches, that we must tell.

And there are so many stories, she knows, that the wizarding world will never tell. Stories which she has spent her life listening to as she drifted through school, lonely and estranged from her fellow classmates. Stories a house elf named Dobby tells her. Stories a centaur named Firenze tells her - and later, other centaurs will learn to trust the fae-like young wand-waver who dares enter their forests, for she is unlike other wand-wavers for she listens. 

There are stories that have nearly killed her - the time she nearly drowned, staying underwater without breathing charms, absorbed in the tales a friendly mermaid had to tell, for example, or the time Grawp (yes, she knew about him) nearly attacked her. Stories that she has reluctantly charmed out of recalcitrant tellers - goblins at Gringotts grumbling at this curious witch yet always eager for a chance to tell their story, fae-folk hidden away in their woods long relegated to the pages of myth and legend wondering if this dreamy young child is secretly one of their own.

These are stories they have longed to tell, longed to be heard. Stories of injustices and miseries. Stories of persecution and war and genocide. Stories which tell of the past, present and future in their own words. 

She collects them all, precious gems, each with stories behind them. Stories upon stories upon stories. One day, when she and Rolf are ready, when the magical people behind these stories are ready, they will tell these stories to the wizarding world.

But it seems, Luna thinks, that the time for waiting is over; the time to tell these stories has come.

(Pics:1,2,3,4. For imgonnashoottothrill.)