milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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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Beat.

"That's not your name."

Now Elle sounds a bit disappointed.

"No."

Not formally, at any rate.

"It's Luna, actually. But a lot of people call me Loony."

Being called crazy is not a notion Elle's unused to – but the sign seems like a really roundabout way to do it.

Curious, if a little brash, "Why?"

"My guess is that it's because they're not very imaginative when it comes to calling names."

Really, it's not much of a stretch from Luna to Loony.

She shrugs.

"They find me rather strange, I suppose. At least that's what I've been told."

Elle doesn't see it - but then, even she knows that's not too surprising.

Looking back to the sign, "How is it doing that?"

"It's a charm. A fairly simple one."

Petra has only managed two colors.

"We learned it in our first year."

After a not too short pause -

"That's like magic?"

She sounds only slightly less clueless.

Luna gives her a rather odd look.

"It is magic."

She doesn't seem too perturbed by this. But she does answer, "There's a lot of stuff like that here."

Luna smiles and nods in agreement.

"Yes. It's nice. It makes it feel very homey, don't you think?"

Elle doesn't know about the word 'homey,' but she's not sure she can disagree with the tone.

Rather than dwell on that, she asks, "A lot of people in your world do that?"

"Magic? Oh, yes. A fair few."

The wizarding population is pretty well established.

"There aren't nearly as many of us as there are Muggles, of course, but there are still lots of witches and wizards, all over the world."

She's met a couple wizards, but -

"A Muggle is...?"

"Someone who doesn't have magic. Not a witch or wizard."

They find all sorts of interesting ways to compensate for the lack, though.

After a moment of thought, "Can they do things besides magic?"

"Muggles? Oh, they do all sorts of things."

Invent all sorts of marvelous things to let them get by without magic.

"My friend Archie is a Squib. That's....he's not a proper Muggle. His parents are a witch and wizard. But he was born without magic. He lives a great deal like a Muggle. He's shown me a lot of the things that they use every day."

"Like computers. And airplanes. And movie theaters. They can make almost anything, I think."

All things she can recognize.

But like she's making a suggestion, Elle holds out a hand, and a few bright blue sparks snap up from her palm.

Luna looks impressed.

"No. I've never seen a Muggle to that."

"Are you quite certain you're not a witch?"

"That's not what we're called."

With a gesture toward the sign, "And I can't do that."

"What are you called?"

Luna is quite curious by now.

It's a reasonable question, but unfortunately, Elle can only answer, "I don't think anyone decided that."

Beat. "Yet."

That's fair enough. It's not like a name for a group is strictly necessary.

"What are you called?" she asks.

Names for people are better to know, anyway.

It still takes her a moment to follow this question.

"Elle," she answers simply, once she's seemed to catch up.

"Elle. That's pretty."

Quite clean and simple.

"It means 'she' in French."

Having Beauxbatons students on campus is already rubbing off.

"Yeah," she agrees.

It does, in fact, mean that.

Then, she clarifies, "But I'm not French."