(no subject)

[sees_them_too]

Luna has completed her last exam and has an afternoon gloriously free before the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament tonight. The entire school seems to be ready to explode from excitement (except for the four Champions – they look more likely to fly to pieces from sheer nerves).

The year is almost over. Which means it’s time for the annual making of her Lost Things flyer. Luna has already penned the original draft, and now an enchanted quill busily makes copies, flipping them into a neat stack as they are completed.

Lost Things
If found, please return to Luna Lovegood, Ravenclaw House.

1 Pair Bedroom Slippers
1 Jumper – Green
7 Pair Socks
2 Paintbrushes
1 Wristwatch
3 Strands of Beads (beetles)
1 Comb…..

The list goes on for a considerably long way.

For her part, Luna is relaxing with tea and a toasted cheese sandwich, and is idly building a glittering tower out of the sugar cubes.

Comments

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Luna. What's up?" He's used to weirdness following Luna, so a magic pen and a stack of sugar cubes are both not that odd. Relatively speaking.

[sees_them_too]

"Hello, Cy."

Luna carefully tries to add one more cube to the pile, which has the effect of causing it to topple. She uses both hands too scoop them back toward her plate.

"Not much, really. Getting ready for the end of the school year. It's almost time to go home for the summer."

"How are you?"

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"Pretty good. Taking the GEDs next month. That's the test that lets you go to college if you dropped out of high school." It's sort of cute how she gathers in the sugar cubes. "What's with the automatic pen?"

[sees_them_too]

"It's funny," Luna says, "how alike Muggles and wizards are with some things. Like calling exams by letters. Like your GED. And A-levels. And NEWTS and OWLS."

She wonders briefly who had that idea first.

"I wish you luck. I just finished my end of year exams, myself."

Luna glances toward her quill. The charms seems to be holding nicely.

"It's easier than copying it all out by hand," she explains. "It's a long list."

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"Everyone calls everything by letters. It's easier that way." OWLs and NEWTs? Someone has a wacky sense of humor.

"And what are you making that many copies of?"

[sees_them_too]

"At the very least it makes it shorter," Luna agrees. "That's not always easier. But it usually is."

Luna reaches over with one finger, slides one of the finished flyers off the stack, and hands it to Cy.

"People tend to hide my things throughout the year," she explains, going back to constructing her sugar tower. "I just need to be sure to get them back before it's time to go home."

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"That stinks...that people would do that to you. I take it you know they've done this before and things aren't just getting lost?" He can easily see her misplacing things.

[sees_them_too]

"Oh, they take them. They do it every year," Luna confirms.

It's true, she gives the appearance of being the personification of absent-mindedness. Luna knows this. But people often lose sight of the salient point.

That it's only appearance.

She's starting her new tower off with a six-square base. Wider. More stability.

"It's all in good fun. They give them back when I ask."

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"No one sees that as bullying?" Cy knows about bullying. As a former student and as a hero who does anti-bullying PSAs in the city.

[sees_them_too]

Luna thinks.

"I can't say that I know what other people think about it," she says.

Really, she can only know what she thinks.

"I suppose if I studied Legilimency, I could know. But that's very advanced magic."

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"That's mindreading?" Clearly, her school has no anti-bullying program.

[sees_them_too]

And if it did, really, Luna's grievances would be minor. She's never had an organized campaign by the Slytherins launched against her.

"Yes," she says. "It's really not even of a level that's taught at Hogwarts. It's usually only studied by witches and wizards who are training to be Aurors."

She's not sure she'd want to peek into people's minds anyway.

"At any rate. I don't mind, really. About the things. They're just things. People don't hurt them. And the things that are important, they leave those be."

She's not sure who formulated the rules, but there are rules to the game.

[says-the-booyah.livejournal.com]

"I guess that's not the worst attitude. I've seen kids get hurt many times. This isn't that." He still wishes it were not happening to Luna.

"Good that they don't really teach mindreading. That can be a bit dangerous, I bet."

[evercleverest]

That girl looks awfully familiar.

Younger than the Luna she knows, but still very much Luna.

She is rather ... well, one of a kind.


"I didn't know you came here, too," Hermione says, approaching her. "Hello, Luna."

[sees_them_too]

Luna looks up from her tower, her eyebrows pulled together with something like puzzlement.

She knows who this is. It's Hermione Granger. Everyone knows who she is because she's very clever and is best friends with Harry Potter.

But....

"Hello," Luna replies. "I don't believe we've met yet. Except for right now, of course. Milliways does like to make a muddle of time that way, doesn't it?"

[evercleverest]

Hermione nods.

She thought so.

"When are you coming in from?" she asks.

Better to start with that, and go on from there.

[sees_them_too]

"It's 1995," Luna says. "The end of my third year. I just had my last exam today, in fact."

Luna regards Hermione with a look that is appraising, but not unfriendly.

"You look older," she observes. "Than you would where I am."

[evercleverest]

"I suppose that's because I am," she says.

Hermione smiles a little.

"It's 1998 for me," she says, which is better than saying it's 'technically her last year, only she's not at school anymore' because that may be delving into a few too many details about the future.

"1995. That was the year of the Triwizard Tournament."

Merlin, it feels so long ago now.

[sees_them_too]

Luna beams.

"Yes, it is. It's been very exciting. The Third Task is tonight."

Later she will think on what a difference a few hours will make. To all of them.

"I've never been able to decide who I hope will win. Well, either Cedric Diggory or Harry Potter, since they're our champions. But I haven't been able to pick one over the other. So I've been cheering for both."

That seems only fair, really.

"I suppose you already know who will win. If your world and mine are the same except for time. I sometimes wonder what the people who take Divination would make of that."

[evercleverest]

"Well, I'm not sure I'd put too much stock into Divination anyway," Hermione says, finding it rather difficult to keep the skepticism from her tone of voice.

Divination has always been - and always will be - her least favourite subject.

But that does answer her unasked question on what point of the tournament Luna is at. And it's a good thing she's had a bit of practice with time acting in strange ways; it allows her to keep her expression perfectly calm.

"If our worlds are the same, then, yes, I do know how the tournament ends."

[sees_them_too]

"Neither do I, really," Luna says. "I'm not in the class, so I don't know precisely what is taught. I don't know that I think that the future can't be read, but it would seem like that what you'd see would be....one single picture from one certain vantage point. And any time you make a choice or a change, the picture will change."

It's just a working theory, though.

"I'd rather not know how it ends, if it's all the same," she adds. "I don't think life would be nearly as interesting without surprises."

Milliways does make it so that all things are not complete surprises, though. This very conversation is proof of that.

"I take it we know each other? Or will? I don't think you've ever spoken to me before. Out there." She nods to the door that takes her back to Hogwarts.

[evercleverest]

Hermione nods again.

She's glad she won't have to tell Luna she simply can't tell her important (and dangerous) things like that before they happen.

Honestly, it sometimes feels like the only ones who don't understand that are her very best friends.

And speaking of friends ...

"Oh - yes," she says. "I think it's safe enough to say that we become friends. Quite soon, too."

[sees_them_too]

Really, keeping the future dim is the only sensible thing to do.

Luna smiles, a little wistfully.

"That will be nice," she says. "I've always thought it must be nice to have friends at Hogwarts."

"I've seen you and Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. You three are very lucky."

To be such good friends.

Luna's smile becomes much less wistful.

"I won't ask how we get to be friends. But I'm glad that we will."

"Have you been coming to Milliways long?" she adds.

[evercleverest]

Hermione remembers the mural in the Lovegoods home, of all of them painted in stunning accuracy, a chain reading 'friends' coiled around them.

She swallows the small lump in her throat.

"Yes," she agrees.

She hadn't yet found out what happened to Luna. Everything at the Malfoy Manor had been such a horrific, nightmarish blur.

She had almost forgotten about that, surprised as she was to see Luna here.

"Oh, right. I've been here a little longer than Harry or Ron have, that's for sure. I think it'll be ... about three years, now? Millitime, that is.

"Wow. That is a while ..." she says, more to herself.

[sees_them_too]

"I found my door last summer. Not long before the Quidditch World Cup. So, not quite a year for me."

Luna looks around.

"Sometimes it feels like a lot longer. It's almost hard to imagine not having a door now."