The Duel in the Green

[Harry Potter]

Luna Lovegood, the Jedi Knight, was meditating silently beneath the towering bamboo of the Tangled Green.

The witch floated gently a foot above the ground, her legs crossed, her hands on her knees, her platinum blonde hair levitating strangely. She breathed in through her nose, inhaling honeysuckle and lilac, and she exhaled through her mouth expertly.

Luna had thus sat for the last year, without eating or sleeping or moving at all, subsisting off the pure wave of omnidichlorians that was released into the omniverse since Harry Potter walked out of the Nexus fountain. She kept the same dreamy smile on her face.

Then Harry Potter had gotten his wand snapped by Bellatrix Lestrange, and Luna had winced.

Then Harry Potter got his head blown off in Dante’s Abyss, and Luna’s eyes snapped open.

She felt a great disturbance in the Force.

The Jedi witch uncrossed her legs, stood, and stretched. She idly brushed off some dust that had gathered on her otherwise immaculate white kimono fringed with bright blue. Held with blue silk on either hip was a wand; one willow, and the other pear. Her bare feet seemed to blow the leaves and twigs from her path with a gentle breeze as she started to walk into the thick bamboo.

“Hey Luna,” a sassy female voice called from behind her.

Luna stopped.

“Hullo, Hermione,” Luna replied in her high-pitched, dreamy voice.

The Jedi Witch turned to face the clearing.

Hermione Granger stood with her hand on her hip and a warm smile on her face. Her sandy blonde hair caught the breeze in strands, where Luna’s silky platinum hair drifted freely. She still wore her school uniform, though it seemed to Luna that it might be several years too small.

“Crazy seeing you here,” Hermione said in her prim English accent. “Where you headed?”

“To the Nexus fountain,” the Jedi responded through half-lidded eyes. “Harry is dead.”

Hermione shrugged.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Hermione said casually.

For a while, only the wind whistling through the trees could be heard.

The witches began to walk in slow, wide circles, their hands at their sides.

Luna would step left, and Hermione would step left, in an eerie unison.

“I think you’re not giving him enough credit,” Hermione said, a smirk creeping onto her face. “He is perfectly capable of finding his own way in Omniverse.”

The witches continued to circle each other, step by careful step.

“I’m just going to meet an old friend,” Luna replied, a little defensively perhaps.

Hermione laughed poshly. “Oh Luna,” she said, her hair falling in front of her face. In a heartbeat her wand was out and facing the ground, and a long red lightsaber blade emerged from the tip.

“You’ll be reunited soon enough.”

[Harry Potter]

Time seemed to slow. The bamboo leaves seemed suspended in mid air.

Hermione Granger dropped down into a crouch, her wandsaber humming gently as she raises it above her shoulder, casting a dark red glow across her mousy face and illuminating her cruel smile in the shadow of her hair. Her hardly-buttoned blouse and anime-length skirt fluttered in the wind, and she dug her back foot into the ground.

Across the clearing, Luna has dropped into a fighting as well. A single leg extended forward, with her back leg ending in a crouch. In either hand she wielded a wand, delicately and expertly. She twirled the ends of her wands, and the silk belt on her kimono tightened.

Hermione charged.

Bamboos leaves in midair turned to ash as Hermione’s saber blade ripped through them. She ran wildly, a manic grin on her face, her weapon held loosely at her side.

Luna fired.

“Stupefy!” Luna cried again and again, as bolt after bolt of red light exploded from the tips of her wands like fireworks.

Hermione just let out a twisted kind of giggle and brought her saber up, smacking away each bolt of light as she closed in closer and closer.

Then Hermione slashed her saber and sent a bolt rocketing back towards the sender.

Luna gasped and leaned backwards, avoiding the hex, but leaving herself open.

Hermione leapt into the air and brought her wandsaber downward in a two-hand slash.

Sparks flew.

Luna kneeled before Hermione. In the Jedi’s hands, her two wands sprouted sabers of pure cyan light. They crisscrossed in front of her, catching Hermione’s red wandsaber between them. Bits of plasma dripped and crackled where they touched.

The women glared at each other behind the weapons, their wandsabers creating flickering colors that danced across their faces.

“You’re on the wrong side of history, Luna,” Hermione hissed. She forced her red saber down, slowly, struggling against the Jedi Knight.

Luna squeaked on one knee, pushing futilely. “That’s what they’ve always said,” the Jedi replied.

Luna spread her sabers and rolled left just as Hermione’s weapon came down in a sweeping arc. The Jedi screamed as the saber burnt a long, cauterized gash into her arm, but is back on her feet again in the blink of an eye, her wands pointed at Hermione.

The Dark Witch wears a smirk. A ridiculous schoolgirl outfit, and a smirk.

Luna backflips from her crouch, flying backwards twenty feet above the ground, heading for the bamboo trees. As she completed her flip, she saw Hermione rocketing towards her, red wandsaber blade prepared to slash.

Luna barely has time to raise her wands in front of her and yell “Protego!” before Hermione’s saber slammed into her invisible shield.

The shield shattered, and Luna was thrown backwards into the Tangled Green.

Hermione hopped, bouncing from bamboo tree to bamboo tree, until she reached the top.

Luna Lovegood stood atop a single leaf on the tip top of a swaying bamboo tree, twenty feet away, her twin cyan wandsaber blades glowing.

Hermione laughed Darkly and whipped her red wandsaber through the air expertly.

“This won’t end well for you, Luna,” Hermione teased. “I think all that bleach has gone to your head. I’ll enjoy removing it from your neck.”

The witches leaped into the air.

[Harry Potter]

The warriors sailed past each other, weapons crackling, each landing on the other’s tree.

They stood, each with their back to their opponent, for a very long time.

They both crumbled at the same time, falling through the bamboo to the soft dirt of the Tangled Green below.

Luna scrambled to her feet, trying desperately to control her breathing, her wands at her side. Her whispy blond hair stuck to her face, her bright blue eyes wide and alert

A long slash and a bright scorch mark had split her kimono through her abdomen, but she knew she got the Dark witch at least as badly.

The bamboo trees swayed, and there was silence for a moment.

Luna jumped up into the trees as a green bolt of light rocketed through the forest, missing her by inches. She floated gently onto a bamboo leaf ten feet above the ground.

“Stupefy!” Luna cried as she landed, shooting a bolt of red light where she thought Hermione had fired from.

The bolt exploded harmlessly into Tangled Green, and then a line of white light slashed through the bamboo chute Luna was standing on, and she felt backwards towards the ground.

Luna landed in a crouch, her wands ready, when the bambo chute wrapped itself around her, pinning her arms to her body crushing the life from her.

“Repulso!” Luna gasped, and an invisible wave of force blew the bamboo to tatters.

Luna rose to her feet without seeming seeming to move, just drawn up eerily from a prone position until she is standing.

For a long time, there is no sound but the whisper of the wind.

Then something came charging for Luna from the trees.

“Stupefy!” she cried, and fired a red burst of light into the chest of a baboon with demonic wings, causing it to crumple and smash to the ground. Another flying monkey made a dive from her other side, but the Jedi witch raised her other wand and conjured the cyan saber, bisecting the creaturing and turning it to ash and brimstone.

A Dark, high-pitched cackle echoed around the Tangled Green.

“Luuuunaaaa,” Hermione taunted from somewhere in the crowded bamboo forest. “Come out and plaaaaay!”

A glowing sphere of orange light hurtled through the woods, exploding at Luna’s feet, but she was too fast. In a flash she was up in the air again, cartwheeling over Hermione’s head. She aims both her wands downwards.

“Incendio!” Luna roared and gouts of flame rocketed downards. The Dark Witch pointed her wand above her head and conjured a shield charm, the flames licking harmlessly against the top of the shield like an invisible umbrella.

By the time one of Luna’s bare feet hit the floor, she was firing multicolored jinxes wildly at her target.

Hermione leisurely deflected them with her wand, then with a flick she transfigured a broken bamboo chute into a writhing python.

The python leaped for Luna's throat, and she bisected it with one of her wandsaber blades. She fired a bright orange jinx form her other wand, but Hermione cartwheeled over the jinx and then launched herself at Luna.

Sparks and plasma explode around the clearing as the witches wandsabers clashed.

Luna attacked with a whirlwind of strikes too fast to see, forcing Hermione back step by step. Bit by bit, Luna gained ground, the tips of her wandsabers slipping through Hermione’s defenses, leaving little scorches in her schoolgirl outfit. The Jedi is faster, better trained, but Hermione is stronger.

With a howl of frustration Hermione pushed towards Luna with an open palm, and Luna sailed backwards as she was struck with a telekinetic Force.

The Jedi Knight landed in a combat stance, her wandsabers crossed in front of her, and blew a strand of platinum blonde hair out of her face.

“You don’t have to die here,” Luna offered in a cracking voice. “I don’t want to kill a Hermione.”

The Dark witch just cackled. “It’s great fun though!” she said with an earnest look. “I’ve killed two Hermione’s already. Two Hermiones, a Ginny, and a sparkly vampire just because he looked like Cedric Diggory.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Harry never would have summoned you.”

Hermione shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe you did, subconsciously. Maybe you always thought I was little too quiet, a little too squeaky clean,” Hermione said as she grinned. “Maybe you were paranoid of the innocent little Hermione Granger. Maybe you were…” Hermione pointed her wand towards her own head, making small circles in the air. “Loony.”

Luna whirled both her wands in front of her like a double barreled shotgun. The tips glowed bright red.

“STUPEFY!” she screamed, her voice cracking as she sent a softball sized sphere of red light rocketing towards Hermione.

[Harry Potter]

An invisible Force pushed the leaves surrounding Luna away in a wide circle as her twin spell came for Hermione.

The Dark witch grinned and raised her wand.

“Avada Kedavra!” Hermione cried in a strangled hiss.

A blast of green light erupted from her wand.

The red and green projectiles clashed in the air with the hiss of plasma and then the resounding boom of discharged magic as they exploded in a bright white sphere.

A smoking crater, twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep lay between the witches.

Across the clearing Luna was breathing raggedly, but her wands were raised and her face was defiant. She had several long cauterized gashes running down her arms through her kimono, and a long slash in the middle of her stomach.

Hermione was woozy from the clashing spells, but like Luna did her best to hide it. Her Hogwarts schoolgirl outfit was tattered from the dozens of small slashes and stabs from the Jedi’s wandsabers. Beneath her blouse she knew was a large bruise in her abdomen where she had taken one of Luna’s stunners, and another on her left ankle.

The witches began to circle again. Slowly, carefully, with no signs of injuries, they mirrored each perfectly as they circled left around the crater.

“You don’t have it in you, Loony Lovegood,” Hermione said in a kindly mocking voice. “Are you even sure I’m really here?”

“No,” said the Jedi Knight in her dreamy voice. Her dual wands hung loosely at her side with an easy grace, but Hermione knew she was ready to strike. “But you are real enough to kill me, I think, and I can’t let you do that Hermione. Harry needs me.”

The Dark Witch’s eyes narrowed. “The only thing that walking apocalypse needs is a banishment circle and a lightsaber up his arse.”

Luna gave the kind of grin she gave when she used to speak of nargles, and Hermione’s blood boiled. “You may have strayed from his path Hermione, but how many more signs do you need to see that he is our savior?”

“He is not,” Hermione growled through bared teeth. “My messiah!”

The witches raised their wands.

“Serpensorcio!” Hermione hissed coldly.

“Protego!” Luna said.

A writhing python erupted from Hermione’s wand in a long spiral pattern, it’s mouth open and it’s fangs sharp.

An invisible shield of magic appeared in front of Luna’s left wand, but the snake wound around the shield and bit into her forearm.

Luna grunted as the fangs sunk deep. She slashed down with the cyan wandsaber in her right hand, cleaving the snake but leaving herself vulnerable.

“Perforo!” Hermione said coldly, jabbing her wand forward.

A jagged piece of metal flew through air from Hermione’s wand and sunk deep into Luna’s right thigh.

The blonde Jedi let out an ear splitting scream sank to one knee. She sent a crackling bolt of energy back to Hermione.

“Incendio!” the witches cried in unison.

Jets of magical flames flew from the witches wands’, meeting above the crater and pushing at each other.

Hermione narrowed her eyes in concentration, pushing with all her magical might, and then Luna’s spell broke and Hermiones flames surged forward, but too late.

Luna had already jumped, somersaulting through the air with her cyan wandsaber blades humming, and came down in a whirlwind of death upon Hermione.

The Dark witch hurried to raise her own red wand saber above her head, stopping Luna’s first downward slash, but even as she moved she knew she has left herself open.

Hermione roared in outrage as the Jedi’s second wandsaber pierced her through the gut. She pushed towards Luna with an open palm, an invisible Force sending the Jedi flying backwards into the trees.

Hermione fell forward into the crater, gasping. She didn’t think the saber had nicked a lung, and she may be tougher than Luna was strong, and an omniverse lightsaber might not mean instant death, but that had HURT. Slowly, agonizingly, Hermione rose to her feet.

She heard ragged footsteps approaching.

“Surrender your wandsaber, Hermione,” Luna said harshly, standing on the lip of the crater, one of her wands pointed at Hermione. “It’s no use. I have the high ground.”

Hermione cackled Darkly, bits of blood dripping from her mouth.

“That’s the problem with heroes,” Hermione said. Her wand fell limply from her hand.

Luna seemed to untense slightly.

“You ALWAYS think you have the high ground,” Hermione said softly.

Hermione’s hands glowed with crackling blue energy for a moment, and then bolts of Force Lightning streaked towards Luna.

[Harry Potter]

Luna’s scream was choked off as the strands of Force Lightning penetrated her body. She hovered a few inches off the the grounds, her skeleton momentarily visible as Hermione’s lightning coursed through her veins. Luna’s body shook for what seemed like an eternity, and then the lightning was off, and she crumpled to her knees, smoldering. Her wands fell in the dirt beside her.

Hermione floated eerily up from the pit, the tips of her buckled shoes scraping against the dirt, causing little clouds of dust to rise around her pristine knee-high socks, the red blade on her wandsaber glowing brightly in her hand.

Luna scrambled backwards, but Hermione beckoned with a finger and an invisible hand seemed to drag Luna back by the ankle.

Hermione raised her wandsaber over her head in a stabbing motion, and Luna held out an open palm and pushed Hermione with an invisible Force, launching the Dark Witch backwards through the air.

The Jedi Knight grabbed her wandsabers and fled into the bamboo forest.

Luna ran, hopping from tree to tree until the tangled green became a blur.

Hermione’s mocking laughter echoed around Luna.

“Fly, my pretties!” Hermiones voice said in an overdramatic cackle.

Luna heard the sounds of shrieking baboons, and pushed herself to run harder, every step sending a throbbing pain through her leg.

The flying monkeys began to catch up to her.

“Stupefy!” she gasped, throwing the jinx wildly over her shoulder at where the thought one of the monkeys was.

She missed, and it came swooping down on her, it’s hideous jaws poised to strike. Luna decapitated the beast with one clean blow from her wandsaber, and its body turned to ash.

Luna kept running.

The monkeys grew closer as Luna broke through the woods and onto the edge of a pristine spring. She started running across the surface of the spring, not even breaking stride as her bare feet went from a solid surface to a liquid surface. She had barely gotten a dozen paces out when she was tackled by a pair of flying monkeys.

They clawed and bit as they dragged Luna down into the shallow spring, trying to drown her.

Luna’s wandsabers whirred as she burst from the lake, spinning her blades around her and turning the monkeys to ash. She waded through the spring, but the monkeys had done their job, and slowed her down enough for Hermione to catch up.

The Dark Witch charged screaming across the surface of the water, and Luna charged to meet her.

The witches danced on the surface of the water, each one having to keep moving quickly or else sink into the lake. They circled each other too quickly to see, each stepping to the left. Their wandsabers clashed again and again, spitting sparks of plasma that sizzled into the water. They connected with kicks and fists and headbutts and saber slashes, neither speaking nor trying to cast spells in the lightning fast battle.

Hermione slashed, and Luna caught Hermione’s blade between her own two blades, and the witches began to spin faster and faster, until a jolt of Force sent them both careening backwards to opposite sides of the spring.

Bleeding, burnt, exhausted, the witches started to circle around the water.

“Loony loony Lovegood,” Hermione sung, a cruel grin on her face. “I’ve been waiting for this for years, ever since I first heard you prattling on about nargles. Your infantile idealism makes me sick. There is no good without order. There is no order without war. There is no war without power. There is no power without the Dark Side. You have power Luna; I’ve no doubt my master’s would want me to bring you in, to be broken and molded into a warrior of good. But here I’ve got my heart set on your pretty little neck.”

“Nargles are real!” the Jedi roared from across the lake. She whirled her wand, watching the Dark Witch across the water do the same.

“Incendio!” Luna cried as she conjured a plume of flame from her wand.

“Oppungo!” Hermione said cleverly, swishing and flicking her wand at the spring.

A wall of water rose up an engulfed the flame, sending a cloud of mist around the gentle glade.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and then Luna came charging through the mist, her cyan wandsabers whirling wildly.

Hermione backpedalled furiously, barely able to summon her wandsaber blade in time to block Luna’s first slash.

Hermione grimaces as she is pushed backwards step by step back into the bamboo. With a grunt of frustration Hermione tried to Force Push Luna, but Luna pushed as well, and the witches flew backwards several yards, each landing on their feet.

Hermione’s eyes turned pitch black and she raised her wand.

Luna sighed, summoned her cyan wandsaber blades, and charged.

Hermione whipped her wand in complex patterns, and still Luna charged.

Sparks of Fiendfyre began to crackle in the air, and still Luna charged.

The Fiendfyre began to coalesce into the head of a snake, and still Luna charged.

The snake reared back to strike, and Luna flew past Hermione to land in a crouch behind her, her saber blades still humming.

Hermione’s spell faltered. She looked confused.

Hermione’s head fell from her shoulders, and the Dark Witch's corpse slumped over.

[Harry Potter]

Luna trudged through the Tangled Green, her broken arm hanging limply at her side, her blood dripping onto the leaves below. Her right eye was swollen shut, and her hair was stuck to the right half of her face with blood.

She entered the clearing and collapsed against a thick bamboo tree, spending a few seconds just breathing painfully and staring up at the sun.

Slowly, with tender movements, Luna reached for a backpack stashed behind the tree. The Jedi Witch rifled through it until she found a long stemmed pipe and packed it with the pungent marijuana that grew wild throughout the Tangled Green. She lit the pipe with the tip of her wand and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke that hung around the clearing.

Luna felt better.

The Jedi witch gently washed the blood from her face with a canteen filled with elven water. She then dug through her pack again until she found a shard of a broken mirror.

Luna winced as she saw her own reflection; her eye had been nicked by the wandsaber and cauterized shut. It would take a lot of OM to heal.

She breathed on the surface of the mirror, and a foggy film appeared. When it cleared, she could see the face of Sir Neville of Longbottom.

“Hello Sir Neville,” Luna said pleasantly.

“Hullo, Luna,” Sir Neville of Longbottom replied through the mirror. His face was rugged but handsome, his physique was astounding. Neville noticed Luna’s fresh wound where her eye used to be. “Been having a rough go of it?”

“I had to kill a Hermione,” she said sadly.

“Er, sorry,” said Neville, scratching the back of his head and trying not to think about the weirdness of the Omniverse.“You know, I was wondering when you were going to call me.”

“There has been a great disturbance in the Force,” Luci replied. Neville nodded gravely.

“Uh huh, yeah, I did notice something like that I think,” Neville said helpfully. “For the past year my sword has been acting rather funny. Do you know what sword I use, Luna?”

“You wield the Sword of Godric Gryffindor,” Luna replied solemnly.

“That’s right,” Neville said. “And for the past year, it’s been glowing like mad, all red and gold. Hacked up some trolls the other day, and I swear I heard it roaring.”

Luna nodded, as if this made very good sense to her.

“Then about five minutes ago, it stops,” the knight continued. “And now here you are.”

“Harry is dead,” Luna said sadly.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, eh?” Neville joked. Luna stared back at him somberly. Sir Neville sighed. “Let’s go get him, then.”

The knights shared a sad kind of smile.