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Luna Lovegood walks into the bar with her nose buried in Beyond Basilisks: The Hidden World of Experimental Breeding.

She seems only vaguely aware that she has stepped from Hogwarts into Milliways. Her attention is on her book. And on the faint rustling sound that has been following her since the end of her Transfiguration class. Clearly, she thinks, her ear for detecting nargles is improving.

In actuality, the rustling can be attributed to the sign stuck to the back of her robe – a piece of parchment with LOONY LOVEGOOD in purple and puce.

It's fairly lurid. And flashing.

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"Oh, they do it quite often. It's all in fun, really."

At least, Luna assumes they must find it fun. Otherwise they wouldn't do it.

She slips off her robe, drapes it over a chair, and pokes at the sign with her wand. It takes a second or two, but there is a squelch-POP and the parchment flutters to the floor.

"A lot of my schoolmates think that I'm rather dotty, you see. Loony."

"Well, there's fun and then there's fun, Luna," he says, picking up the parchment. "And fun's only really fun when everyone likes it."

His family surely thought it was great fun to poke fun at Lucas's coddled attitude.

"I don't think you're loony. What would make you loony?"

Luna shrugs a bit with a smile.

"I don't mind, really."

It's kind of the closest thing to social interaction she has with most of her schoolmates. And it's a little thing to get upset over.

Luna picks up the sign.

"I'm not quite sure, really," she admits. After all, Luna makes perfect sense to herself. "Dad says that a lot of people, even wizards, don't like to put much effort into understanding things that are different. It's easier to call people crazy."

The Lovegoods have a good bit of experience in this arena.

Lucas sighs a bit as Luna takes the sign from him.

"They probably wouldn't work out too well here, would they?"

"Oh, I don't know. It might be good for them."

Open the minds a bit.

"A lot of people from my school seem to come here, actually. But all from different times than mine."

"I remember meeting one of them, a guy named Scorpius."

You don't forget a name like Scorpius easily.

"He said his dad went to school with you."

Luna nods.

"Yes. I've met them both here."

"Scorpius seems rather nice. And his father seems to have improved as he's gotten older."

"He--Draco--is really rather horrible in my time."

Draco Malfoy has called her much worse things than Loony.

"I thought Scorpius was nice, too."

He frowns a bit at hearing that Draco is not so nice in Luna's time.

"Don't his mom and dad say anything to him about that?"

"Oh, I don't think so. From what I've heard, they're very unpleasant, too."

Draco's (the Draco of 1994, anyway) behavior probably shouldn't come as a surprise.

"Mr. Malfoy in particular always seems to be trying to stir up trouble at the school."

Not that students are really supposed to know about such things. But Luna sees a lot, and hears even more.

They sound a bit like Mister Fassad to Lucas. "Very unpleasant" seems like just the right term for him.

"But isn't the school just trying to do what's best? Why would anyone's dad try to stir up trouble there?"

Again, something that reminds Lucas of Mister Fassad. Most of what he's doing feels like stirring up trouble in Tazmily.

"I suppose because he has very different ideas about what is best. Different from Professor Dumbledore, at any rate."

Diametrically opposed, one might say.

"That's our Headmaster. Professor Dumbledore."

"That sounds to me like the Happy Boxes. Mister Fassad started to sell those, saying that he wants us to be happy. But I didn't think we had trouble being happy before."

And the people with Happy Boxes don't seem too happy to Lucas.

"Do you think Professor Dumbledore does a good job?"

"Like a boxed Cheering Charm?"

Interesting notion.

"I don't think Mr. Malfoy is all that concerned about being happy. The times I've seen him, he didn't seem to be all that happy himself."

His face seems to be permanently set on Scowl.

"Oh, yes. Professor Dumbledore is brilliant."

And widely regarded as a touch insane. Luna can relate.

"I never got a Happy Box so I don't really know. But I do know that people who have a Happy Box wants me to have a Happy Box. That seems a bit odd to me."

Either way, Lucas thinks he's as happy as can be for a boy of his circumstances.

He briefly wonders why Mr. Malfoy wouldn't be happy before eventually deciding that perhaps he's just one of those people happiest when he's in trouble.

Lucas does smile at how Luna talks about Professor Dumbledore.

"I bet you'd have to be if you were headmaster of a whole school of wizards and witches and had Mr. Malfoy to deal with. And that teacher you told me about before, Professor Moody, if he's teaching differently from the others."

Luna thinks a moment.

"Not so odd," she says. "I suppose if they are so happy, they want other people to be happy, too. I'm not sure how a box is supposed to accomplish that, though."

Maybe she can ask Professor Flitwick later.

"Oh, yes. Professor Dumbledore and Professor Moody are both very intelligent, though in different ways."

"Professor Moody is all about practicality. Which is useful, when you get right down to it. He was an auror, you see. Back during the war."

"As was Professor Dumbledore. Not officially, I think. His job, even then, was Headmaster of Hogwarts. But he is the only one that You Know Who was ever afraid of, they say. And that's just as good as being called an auror."

When Luna puts it that way, maybe she's right. Maybe it's not so odd.

Lucas can kind of guess what an auror is but he's not heard of the war in Luna's home before and definitely not of...

"No, I don't. I don't know Who."

So strange, Luna thinks, that there is a place, even at the End of the Universe where You Know Who is actually You Don't Know Who.

"He Who Must Not Be Named," she amends.

Not, Luna would admit, that that really clears anything up.

"We don't say his name aloud, you see. Not, I think, that it is really dangerous, though there are many folks who think so. But it does scare people, hearing his name."

Even in Luna's generation, and she had been just a baby when the war ended.

"But he's gone now, right?"

"He was. For a long time," Luna says.

"As to whether he still is, that depends on who you ask. The Ministry says he's gone for good. But a lot of other folks think he's come back. Or is trying to."

The Lovegoods fall into the second camp.

"That's gotta be scary."

"A bit," Luna agrees.

"It's caused some problems at school over the last few years. Some say that You Know Who wasn't really at the root of it, but I believe he might well have been."

The Chamber of Secrets in her first year. The business with Sirius Black last year.

Who knows what this year will bring?

"But it's okay because you've got your teachers there, right? And Professor Dumbledore. You said before that Professor Dumbledore is the only person You Know Who is afraid of."

"He is," Luna says with a nod.

"And yes. They say that even back during the war, Hogwarts was one of the only safe places left."

"Then it'll all be okay if Hogwarts is safe."

Luna nods.

"Yes. It's quite safe, Lucas. I promise."

The entire school knows, of course, that there have been some near misses at the school, especially where Harry Potter is concerned.

But it's all come right in the end so far.

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