[Fic]: On a Bright Summer Morning, part three: Luna Reflects (4400 words)
On a Bright Summer Morning, part three: Luna Reflects
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine
Rating: PG. 4500 words. AU warning. Luna Warning. Yours Truly warning.
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part one: Meeting Luna
On a Bright Summer Morning, part two: Meeting Hermione
***
Luna was unspeakably delighted to have found such a perfectly darling boy and girl to be friends with. Well, she'd heard that phrase "unspeakably delighted," and she supposed it was an appropriate description for how she was feeling at the moment. She assumed that the Unspeakables were frequently delighted. How could they not be, when they got to work with such interesting things, such as the Power of Love, the Frying Pan of Destiny, the truth about Biting Pears, and possibly even the role of Crumple-horned Snorkacks in combating the Rotfang Conspiracy?
That was assuming, of course, the the Unspeakable in question wasn't a member of the Rotfang Conspiracy him-or-herself. They couldn't all be non-Rotfangs, after all. Although perhaps those who were Rotfangs were actually involved in the whole conspiracy business as Unspeakable operatives, just in case the Rotfangs might come up with something useful or interesting to the Unspeakables' larger goals, which for some reason nobody ever talked too much about. Presumably they had something to do with spell-creation or intellectual curiosity or the colonisation of the asteroids before the Muggles beat them to it? Not that Wizards and Muggles couldn't share the Asteroid Belt, just as they'd shared the Earth for all these millennia, but it might be nice to get out there first.
Of course, it was also possible that Mummy and Daddy's friend Erich Fell Von Nyland, a man who did a lot of rather dodgy scholarship, wrote books full of that scholarship, and always wore a gilded kumquat dangling from his septum ring, was right and Wizards already had been out there, thousands of years in the past, travelling on the backs of a long-extinct breed of leaping cattle memorialised in the poem about the cow who jumped over the Moon and by the stone circles which the ancient magical folk had actually built, according to him, as launch and landing pads rather than the magical power accumulators that most Wizarding archaeologists thought they had been.
Luna didn't think that was at all likely. Not because she automatically agreed with mainstream scholarship, of course, but because Mister Von Nyland clearly didn't understand the complementary roles of Nargles and mistletoe in the ecosystem and had made no effort to factor them into his revised view of leylines and magical bovines. Of course she was far too polite to actually say so, even when he talked about nothing else for an entire afternoon tea. As Daddy always said, some people simply had to learn things for themselves.
It really did appear that Mister Von Nyland had more than a bit of trouble with the whole business of learning. Luna had seen his kumquats snatched by Nifflers, crows, starlings, and even, on one occasion, a capuchin monkey, dressed in a Chinese scholar's cap and robes and mounted on a child's toy broomstick, which had flown out of a hedgerow and just as quickly escaped. Every time it happened he expressed amazement, puzzlement, and frustration before summoning himself another grape-sized gilded citrus fruit, as if he'd never even imagined that such a thing might happen. Luna was never sure if he genuinely forgot the previous kumquat-thefts within hours of their occurrence, if he regularly Obliviated himself, or if every time he was completely convinced that whatever new precautions he took would succeed, even though they never did.
In any case, people sometimes had to learn things for themselves. And it was a very fortunate fact that some of them actually did. After all, wasn't Luna learning that Harry Potter, although he didn't live, as all the books depicted him doing, in a well-equipped manor where he spent all the time he didn't use for being polite and helpful to his neighbours and eating all his veg in training so that he'd be ready to go out and fight dragons at a moment's notice when little girls needed rescuing, was even more wonderful, and huggable, than she and Ginevra had imagined?
And wasn't Luna learning that adorable brunette Muggleborn girls who carried copies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and needed to do accidental Apparations to get away from their creepy cousins who went to a school called Eton were incredibly wonderful and huggable as well? Eton was apparently something like a Muggle version of Hogwarts, except that it was for boys only, which didn't make any sense and actually sounded quite miserable for them, because as much as she didn't object to some of Ginevra's non-Ronald brothers as individuals they were noisy and much too quick to start fighting with amongst themselves when confined together in the same place for very long. So perhaps Hermione's cousin had a slight excuse, but in any case Luna was very glad Hermione had got away from him, not to mention how delighted she was that Hermione's magic had decided to bring her here instead.
She really hoped Ginevra would get here soon, because she'd love to share these new friends with her dearest friend whom she'd known since they were two. Ginevra had always wanted to meet Harry Potter, and she'd look simply darling next to Harry and Hermione, with her bright red hair and all her freckles. Besides that, Luna loved to share things with her friends, and that included her friends. They were people, of course, rather than things, but the principle still applied, and she wanted to share them with each other, because she thought they'd all enjoy each other tremendously.
Well, perhaps whatever event would cause Ginevra to show up hadn't happened yet. They'd simply have to wait, even if it meant staying overnight. She'd been planning on that already, after all. Merlin knew how long it might be before Auntie Imogene sobered up, and Merlin wasn't telling. I'd much rather stay with Harry and Hermione. Even if I do have to wear clothes until they're more comfortable with me. After all, I have to wear them when Auntie Imogene's about, at least until she gets into such a state that she'd not notice if I turned into an Erumpent, let alone what I'm wearing or not wearing.
Besides, Luna thought the four of them should stay together overnight, just on general principle. Sleepovers with Ginevra were always wonderful and all sorts of fun, and a sleepover with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra couldn't help but be just as brilliant, if not even more so. After all, there was no Ronald here to be irritating until Mrs. Weasley told them all to stop it and to go to bed.
Ronald was irritating during the day as well, of course, but then Ginevra and Luna could declare they were going to the nearest bit of water for a bathe. When that happened Ronald always loudly proclaimed his distaste for the very concept of them being unclothed anywhere on the same landmass as himself before running off to annoy someone else or throw rocks at random bits of landscape.
Ronald didn't come and bother them when they were in Ginevra's bedroom, of course, but he sometimes snored loud enough that they could still hear him, and he attracted so many Wrackspurts that it was difficult to completely relax anywhere near him. It would be much nicer for Luna and Ginevra to be with Harry and Hermione instead.
Excuses for getting rid of Ronald aside, Luna liked bathing with Ginevra simply because it was a fine pleasant thing to do. She was certain that bathing with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra would be tremendous fun as well. That said, she supposed it might be a while before Harry got comfortable enough to take off his clothes, judging by what little bit she knew of boys who were neither Ronald nor Ginevra's other brothers, who were a bit better behaved but also less likely to spend time in the company, or even the vicinity, of their little sister and her best friend.
She knew instinctively that Harry wouldn't be like Ronald, who said he'd rather claw his eyes out than see a naked girl, or even one who was down to her knickers. Of course she couldn't help but notice that Ronald hadn't actually done the clawing out bit for real that one time when he'd pushed her into the pond and she'd had to wring her dress out, although at least he'd had gone away once he was done with his mock-retching and mock-clawing, and that was good enough, because Luna didn't want to see his eyeballs out of their sockets and she knew it would distress Ginevra tremendously. After all, unpleasant though he could be, Ronald was still Ginevra's brother, and that had to count for something.
In any event, Luna didn't know for sure what Harry would be like, beyond the little bit she'd seen so far, which obviously hadn't included bathing or any number of other things. She imagined that he would be shy, because the gallant boys in stories were always blushing bright scarlet, turning their gazes away, and offering cloaks or shirts or whatever garment they had to spare when they came across girls who'd had their clothes stolen when they were bathing. But she didn't know precisely how shy he would be, or how long it might take him to get comfortable.
For that matter, she didn't know how Harry felt about the Crumple-horned Snorkack, or the Rotfang Conspiracy, or even the terrible depletion of Nargles which had begun in the early Fifties when people began farming mistletoe on an industrial scale. There was really rather a lot to learn about him, wasn't there?
Well, she knew he'd be wonderful, because he obviously was wonderful. That was enough, and Luna was looking forward to finding out much more about Harry Potter. She was looking forward to finding out much more about Hermione Granger as well, and of course she was always interested in finding out more about Ginevra. There was always more to learn about a person, even if you'd known her nearly as long as either of you could remember.
It was a research project that would take years, of course. And it probably never would be exactly complete, not until they were all on the other side of the Veil together, and perhaps not even then. But that was fine. More than fine, it was perfect.
Harry and Hermione were sitting together on the blanket, looking slightly startled, like a pair of antelope in the headlights of Cousin Sannie's Muggle-built Landrover, which they'd ridden in when her parents took her to Africa looking for dinosaurs. Luna hoped they'd get over looking startled at some point, but she did have to admit that they made a very cute pair of startled antelope. Then again, they'd make a very cute pair of almost any sort of creature one cared to name, even the ones who weren't usually cute at all.
"Has either of you ever contemplated becoming an Animagus? That's what we call Wizards and Witches who can turn into animals. I've always thought it would be tremendously interesting."
Hermione smiled. "I used to have dreams about turning into animals--wolves, seals, bears, all sorts of creatures--when I was little. I was a little bit upset when my teacher told me that one couldn't do that in real life. So, if it turns out that I could... well, I might like that. At least as long as we can do it together."
"Not everyone can, but I think it's worth finding out if we could. One of my great great grandmothers could turn into a cat, and her husband was a dog Animagus. I suppose that makes them sound a bit of an odd couple, but it worked for them. I'm told they met because he was an Auror working a case in his dog form, she walked past and taunted him, he felt he had to pursue her in order to stay in character, and they ended up playing cat-and-mouse, or dog-and-cat, I suppose I should say, halfway across Bristol before they worked out that they were both only part-time four-legged furry people."
Hermione still looked a little bit shocked, but she giggled, which Luna reckoned was a very good sign. Harry, on the other hand, got a very pensive expression on his face. "I... it's the strangest thing, but I could swear I remember a man who turned into a big black dog, and another who turned into a deer. I think one of them was my uncle, or something like that, and the other might have been my dad. I know it's ridiculous, because I was too small to remember anything that happened before my parents ran their car into a ditch and died and my aunt and uncle had to take my ungrateful freeloading self in."
His voice was calm, but Hermione looked about ready to cry. Luna could relate, because she felt much the same. That was a good thing, of course. Luna's grandmother had told her that she and her wives had first begun to work out that they could share Luna's grandfather when they noticed that they nearly always felt exactly the same way about him. Hermione was cute, and Luna could definitely imagine sharing Harry with her. More than that, Luna could definitely imagine sharing her with Harry as well, and her grandmother said that was every bit as important.
Luna was definitely looking forward to introducing Harry and Hermione to Ginevra and seeing if Ginevra also might feel exactly the same way about the real, personal, and very personable Harry Potter and the equally real and equally personable Hermione Granger. But further thinking on the subject could wait until Ginevra made her appearance, because there were more important things to deal with at the moment. "Harry, even very small babies can remember things, and all the books say that you were fifteen months old on that Halloween. Don't you think it's possible that your aunt and uncle were telling miserable falsehoods when they told you that you couldn't remember those things, just as they're telling miserable and vicious falsehoods when they say there's no such thing as the magic which all three of us and dear Dizzy have, the magic that brought Hermione and me here? Just as they're lying when they say your parents died running their car into a ditch, as a matter of fact."
Hermione reached out and laid her hand on Harry's arm. "I... I'm sorry, Harry. So sorry."
"But... you didn't do it, Hermione. Oh, please don't cry. I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings." That only made Hermione cry harder.
"N...not your f...fault, Harry." Hermione was very pretty when she cried. That was an interesting bit of aesthetic information, but Luna would far rather have seen Hermione being very pretty when she laughed or swam or ran through a field or read a book that made her happy or snuggled with Harry instead. Speaking of which, Harry reached out to pet Hermione on her shoulder. Or at least that was what Luna thought he intended to do, as he looked completely, not to mention adorably, gobsmacked when he instead found himself with his arms full of bawling bushy-haired brunette beauty. Which might well have been an excess application of alliteration, Luna knew, but she didn't care.
In place of further worrying about principles of poetry, prose, and rhetoric, Luna knee-walked her way across the blanket. Harry still looked gobsmacked, but he clearly had good instincts. He'd folded Hermione up in his arms and was stroking the back of her neck. Luna paused for a moment to admire the pair at arms' length before she hugged them.
"I'm sorry you're hurting, Hermione," Harry whispered. "Is there anything I can do?"
Hermione mumbled something that Harry clearly didn't understand. Luna decided to interpret for her. "I believe she's saying that she's crying because she's sad for you, Harry. And I'm sad for you as well. You don't deserve to be treated the way those vile people treat you."
"Oh."
Hermione, still sniffling, raised her head a bit so she could be heard. "It's not natural, Harry. You're a wonderful person. I barely know you, and I can tell that. And nobody deserves to be abused."
"Well, they've always let me have something to eat, and they've never hit me so hard that anything serious got broken, and my cupboard's dry and hasn't got too many bugs in."
Luna shook her head. "But they've told you you were ungrateful and freeloading, Harry, when at the same time they were sending you out to do all of this work for them that Dizzy's been helping with today. And on top of that your vile cousin's out walking about with his ferrety friend doing badly by other folk and eating ice cream instead of putting in his share of the work. That's appalling and nasty and stupid and all sorts of wrong."
"I suppose you're right, but it's the way it's always been."
"It shouldn't be. And now it won't be, because you've got Hermione and myself and Dizzy, and I've got this very strong intuition that you'll soon have Ginevra as well."
"But... I've always done the work. I can't make other people do everything, or I'd be no better than the Dursleys."
Hermione raised up her head to look in Harry's eyes. Her face was tear-streaked and beautiful, and Luna felt her heart give a little skip and a leap in her chest. "We'll all do our part, Harry. We're together. I don't know why we're together, but we are and I'd not have it any other way." She kissed him on the cheek. Seconds later, her face went bright scarlet, as if she'd not realised what she'd done until after she did it. Harry's face was just as bright. After a moment, he kissed Hermione's cheek.
"I'd not have it any other way, either," Luna said, and kissed each of them on the cheek. "And now perhaps you'd like my handkerchief to wipe your eyes with, my dear Hermione?"
The pretty brunette nodded. Luna didn't like the idea of Hermione having to let go of Harry, because they looked so cute together and it surely must have felt really nice for them as well, so she fished her handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped Hermione's eyes herself. Luna was always thinking about things, and wondering what they'd feel like, and making up new experiences that she looked forward to having some day, but she'd never imagined that blotting the tears from another person's eyes could feel so purely pleasant as it did.
"Err... thank you, Luna."
"Thank you, Hermione. That was a new experience, and I can never have too many of them, although I do regret your being unhappy enough to cry, and I'd very much like to do a great deal more hugging of the pair of you when you're not crying as well."
"I'd like that as well."
Harry nodded, so it was clear he agreed also. The three of them stayed together like that for some little while, not needing to talk.
At last Harry whispered, as quietly if he were afraid of waking the girls or disturbing some specimen of local wildlife, "Luna? How do you know about my parents and, well, about me? You've said there are books, but I don't understand why there would be. I'm nothing very special, even if I can do some kind of magic, a little bit, and I do have to admit that would explain some things that have happened to me."
"Well, Harry, your parents were the Potters. James Potter was the son of a very old family in our world, and Lily Potter was a Muggleborn and I think she must have been very much like our Hermione, one of the brightest and most powerful witches of her age. There was a war going on, back round when we were very small, you see. You-Know-Who was trying to take over, and his followers--they were called Deatheaters, I suppose because it sounds scary--were attacking all sorts of people, especially Muggles and Muggleborns, and your parents were some of the people who fought back hardest. So it was natural that You-Know-Who and his henchmen hated your family most of all."
"Err... Luna, I'm afraid I don't know who. And I'm not sure Hermione does, either."
"If I knew, I'd tell you. But I'm afraid I have to admit that nobody's ever told me his name. The last time I asked, Daddy told me I wasn't old enough to know it yet. I suppose that makes it sound a bit like sex, but at least when I was wondering about that I could borrow his and Mummy's books when they weren't looking, and to be honest I found out enough that I'm not in any hurry to know much more about it, although it does sound as if it will be a great deal of fun when we're a bit more grown up. I tried looking through all the books to find out about You-Know-Who as well, but every single one just said 'You-Know-Who' and 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' and 'The Dark Lord,' which doesn't make sense. All the other Dark Lords have always had names, even Dark Lord Ernestine who was really only angry at his parents for giving him the name his grandmother had meant for his sister Bob and who stopped being a Dark Lord as soon as he found out that he could change it to Harriet by deed poll, so I don't understand it at all."
Hermione stirred. "That's kind of silly. Doesn't being afraid of a name just make people more afraid of the person whose name it is?"
"I think you're right, my dear. Daddy did say that, even though I wasn't old enough to know his actual name, it sounded kind of like Mouldy Shorts, so maybe we should call him that instead?"
Harry looked pensive. "Maybe. So... this Dark Lord's followers, these Deatheaters, they killed my parents?"
"Actually, Harry, he came to do it himself, in person, which he didn't usually do so it must have been important to him for some reason. Nobody knows exactly what happened next, but all the reports agree that he killed them, but then he couldn't kill you. And somehow not being able to do that made him explode or vaporise or vanish or turn into a midge or something. In any case, all that anybody found was his empty black robes. And there you were, with no hurts but that scar you've got on your forehead. Well, that's what the books say, but I'm thinking you must have been hurt something horrible by losing them, Harry. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Luna." His eyes were soft, full of concern for her, and somehow Luna knew that she felt exactly the same way about him that her Mummy felt about her Daddy.
"Oh, Harry, I do know that. But it's what people are meant to say, or so I'm told. And... I do regret it, very much, that you've had to grow up without them. My Mummy almost died not long ago, and that was terrible, and I can't imagine how much worse it would be to actually have lost her. And oh my goodness, I'm crying, aren't I?" Luna didn't cry all that often, and she really hadn't expected it to start up so quickly. It was something of an interesting experience. "It's funny. All in all I feel fairly happy, because I've met such wonderful new friends as you two, but at the same time I'm crying. I don't think that's ever happened to me before, although I've read about it in books. I suppose I must be getting rather a lot of experience points for this, mustn't I?"
Hermione giggled. "I never would have imagined that actual wizards and witches would go for role-playing games, just like my cousin Astrid. The ones she plays mostly have magic in, except for Traveller which is science fiction, although there are some psionics which I suppose is sort of similar. Are your games sort of like the reverse of hers?"
"Gaming is more Mummy and Daddy's thing than mine, but I think they play some games that have magic and some that are about the Muggle world, or at least about what Wizards and Witches think the Muggle world is like. Does your cousin play 'Carriageways and Cars,' or is that only a Wizarding thing?"
"I've never heard of it, so I'd imagine it is. Astrid and some of my other cousins play 'Dungeons and Dragons,' which sounds sort of similar, I think, as if somebody had heard of the non-magical game and made up a version for magical people, or maybe it was the other way round? And I'm sorry, I'm not even wiping your eyes. Here." Having her eyes wiped with Hermione's handkerchief was nearly as enjoyable as wiping Hermione's eyes with her own one. That was another nice new thing to know.
"It's all right, Hermione. Thank you."
"Thank you, Luna. Thank you." Hermione's eyes were soft and loving, the colour of cinnamon, warm and deep and full of feeling. Somehow Luna knew in that instant that she felt exactly the same feelings for Hermione that she did for Harry. And since those seemed as if they might be the same feelings that her parents felt for each other... well, it was definitely a good thing that Harry and Hermione looked to feel something like the same for each other.
Luna couldn't really see much in the way of auras yet, except sometimes by pure luck as she was falling asleep or waking up or looking out the corner of her eye and thinking about something else, but she was told that as she got older it would become much easier. She was looking forward to that day, because she had a strong feeling both Harry and Hermione would have especially pretty ones. She'd caught a glimpse of Ginevra's aura, once or twice, and that was a very nice one, especially when she was reading one of her favourite Boy Who Lived books or thinking about happy things or falling asleep with a smile on her face because it was a night when Ronald's snoring wasn't loud enough to come up through the floorboards. Luna felt certain it would also look very fine if it were mingling with Harry's and Hermione's auras.
That was another thing she was very much looking forward to seeing.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part four: Ginny's Escape.
So, here's the next installment. There will be at least one more part to this story, introducing Ginny. There might be a fifth part to wrap things up; I'm not sure yet.
I'm not altogether satisfied with this part. Luna's viewpoint, at least at this age, seems very difficult to write, and I'm not sure the loopiness is not a bit excessive altogether. I don't really want to rewrite the chapter from the ground up, but it may be necessary. In any case, I thought I'd go ahead and post it.
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine
Rating: PG. 4500 words. AU warning. Luna Warning. Yours Truly warning.
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part one: Meeting Luna
On a Bright Summer Morning, part two: Meeting Hermione
***
Luna was unspeakably delighted to have found such a perfectly darling boy and girl to be friends with. Well, she'd heard that phrase "unspeakably delighted," and she supposed it was an appropriate description for how she was feeling at the moment. She assumed that the Unspeakables were frequently delighted. How could they not be, when they got to work with such interesting things, such as the Power of Love, the Frying Pan of Destiny, the truth about Biting Pears, and possibly even the role of Crumple-horned Snorkacks in combating the Rotfang Conspiracy?
That was assuming, of course, the the Unspeakable in question wasn't a member of the Rotfang Conspiracy him-or-herself. They couldn't all be non-Rotfangs, after all. Although perhaps those who were Rotfangs were actually involved in the whole conspiracy business as Unspeakable operatives, just in case the Rotfangs might come up with something useful or interesting to the Unspeakables' larger goals, which for some reason nobody ever talked too much about. Presumably they had something to do with spell-creation or intellectual curiosity or the colonisation of the asteroids before the Muggles beat them to it? Not that Wizards and Muggles couldn't share the Asteroid Belt, just as they'd shared the Earth for all these millennia, but it might be nice to get out there first.
Of course, it was also possible that Mummy and Daddy's friend Erich Fell Von Nyland, a man who did a lot of rather dodgy scholarship, wrote books full of that scholarship, and always wore a gilded kumquat dangling from his septum ring, was right and Wizards already had been out there, thousands of years in the past, travelling on the backs of a long-extinct breed of leaping cattle memorialised in the poem about the cow who jumped over the Moon and by the stone circles which the ancient magical folk had actually built, according to him, as launch and landing pads rather than the magical power accumulators that most Wizarding archaeologists thought they had been.
Luna didn't think that was at all likely. Not because she automatically agreed with mainstream scholarship, of course, but because Mister Von Nyland clearly didn't understand the complementary roles of Nargles and mistletoe in the ecosystem and had made no effort to factor them into his revised view of leylines and magical bovines. Of course she was far too polite to actually say so, even when he talked about nothing else for an entire afternoon tea. As Daddy always said, some people simply had to learn things for themselves.
It really did appear that Mister Von Nyland had more than a bit of trouble with the whole business of learning. Luna had seen his kumquats snatched by Nifflers, crows, starlings, and even, on one occasion, a capuchin monkey, dressed in a Chinese scholar's cap and robes and mounted on a child's toy broomstick, which had flown out of a hedgerow and just as quickly escaped. Every time it happened he expressed amazement, puzzlement, and frustration before summoning himself another grape-sized gilded citrus fruit, as if he'd never even imagined that such a thing might happen. Luna was never sure if he genuinely forgot the previous kumquat-thefts within hours of their occurrence, if he regularly Obliviated himself, or if every time he was completely convinced that whatever new precautions he took would succeed, even though they never did.
In any case, people sometimes had to learn things for themselves. And it was a very fortunate fact that some of them actually did. After all, wasn't Luna learning that Harry Potter, although he didn't live, as all the books depicted him doing, in a well-equipped manor where he spent all the time he didn't use for being polite and helpful to his neighbours and eating all his veg in training so that he'd be ready to go out and fight dragons at a moment's notice when little girls needed rescuing, was even more wonderful, and huggable, than she and Ginevra had imagined?
And wasn't Luna learning that adorable brunette Muggleborn girls who carried copies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and needed to do accidental Apparations to get away from their creepy cousins who went to a school called Eton were incredibly wonderful and huggable as well? Eton was apparently something like a Muggle version of Hogwarts, except that it was for boys only, which didn't make any sense and actually sounded quite miserable for them, because as much as she didn't object to some of Ginevra's non-Ronald brothers as individuals they were noisy and much too quick to start fighting with amongst themselves when confined together in the same place for very long. So perhaps Hermione's cousin had a slight excuse, but in any case Luna was very glad Hermione had got away from him, not to mention how delighted she was that Hermione's magic had decided to bring her here instead.
She really hoped Ginevra would get here soon, because she'd love to share these new friends with her dearest friend whom she'd known since they were two. Ginevra had always wanted to meet Harry Potter, and she'd look simply darling next to Harry and Hermione, with her bright red hair and all her freckles. Besides that, Luna loved to share things with her friends, and that included her friends. They were people, of course, rather than things, but the principle still applied, and she wanted to share them with each other, because she thought they'd all enjoy each other tremendously.
Well, perhaps whatever event would cause Ginevra to show up hadn't happened yet. They'd simply have to wait, even if it meant staying overnight. She'd been planning on that already, after all. Merlin knew how long it might be before Auntie Imogene sobered up, and Merlin wasn't telling. I'd much rather stay with Harry and Hermione. Even if I do have to wear clothes until they're more comfortable with me. After all, I have to wear them when Auntie Imogene's about, at least until she gets into such a state that she'd not notice if I turned into an Erumpent, let alone what I'm wearing or not wearing.
Besides, Luna thought the four of them should stay together overnight, just on general principle. Sleepovers with Ginevra were always wonderful and all sorts of fun, and a sleepover with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra couldn't help but be just as brilliant, if not even more so. After all, there was no Ronald here to be irritating until Mrs. Weasley told them all to stop it and to go to bed.
Ronald was irritating during the day as well, of course, but then Ginevra and Luna could declare they were going to the nearest bit of water for a bathe. When that happened Ronald always loudly proclaimed his distaste for the very concept of them being unclothed anywhere on the same landmass as himself before running off to annoy someone else or throw rocks at random bits of landscape.
Ronald didn't come and bother them when they were in Ginevra's bedroom, of course, but he sometimes snored loud enough that they could still hear him, and he attracted so many Wrackspurts that it was difficult to completely relax anywhere near him. It would be much nicer for Luna and Ginevra to be with Harry and Hermione instead.
Excuses for getting rid of Ronald aside, Luna liked bathing with Ginevra simply because it was a fine pleasant thing to do. She was certain that bathing with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra would be tremendous fun as well. That said, she supposed it might be a while before Harry got comfortable enough to take off his clothes, judging by what little bit she knew of boys who were neither Ronald nor Ginevra's other brothers, who were a bit better behaved but also less likely to spend time in the company, or even the vicinity, of their little sister and her best friend.
She knew instinctively that Harry wouldn't be like Ronald, who said he'd rather claw his eyes out than see a naked girl, or even one who was down to her knickers. Of course she couldn't help but notice that Ronald hadn't actually done the clawing out bit for real that one time when he'd pushed her into the pond and she'd had to wring her dress out, although at least he'd had gone away once he was done with his mock-retching and mock-clawing, and that was good enough, because Luna didn't want to see his eyeballs out of their sockets and she knew it would distress Ginevra tremendously. After all, unpleasant though he could be, Ronald was still Ginevra's brother, and that had to count for something.
In any event, Luna didn't know for sure what Harry would be like, beyond the little bit she'd seen so far, which obviously hadn't included bathing or any number of other things. She imagined that he would be shy, because the gallant boys in stories were always blushing bright scarlet, turning their gazes away, and offering cloaks or shirts or whatever garment they had to spare when they came across girls who'd had their clothes stolen when they were bathing. But she didn't know precisely how shy he would be, or how long it might take him to get comfortable.
For that matter, she didn't know how Harry felt about the Crumple-horned Snorkack, or the Rotfang Conspiracy, or even the terrible depletion of Nargles which had begun in the early Fifties when people began farming mistletoe on an industrial scale. There was really rather a lot to learn about him, wasn't there?
Well, she knew he'd be wonderful, because he obviously was wonderful. That was enough, and Luna was looking forward to finding out much more about Harry Potter. She was looking forward to finding out much more about Hermione Granger as well, and of course she was always interested in finding out more about Ginevra. There was always more to learn about a person, even if you'd known her nearly as long as either of you could remember.
It was a research project that would take years, of course. And it probably never would be exactly complete, not until they were all on the other side of the Veil together, and perhaps not even then. But that was fine. More than fine, it was perfect.
Harry and Hermione were sitting together on the blanket, looking slightly startled, like a pair of antelope in the headlights of Cousin Sannie's Muggle-built Landrover, which they'd ridden in when her parents took her to Africa looking for dinosaurs. Luna hoped they'd get over looking startled at some point, but she did have to admit that they made a very cute pair of startled antelope. Then again, they'd make a very cute pair of almost any sort of creature one cared to name, even the ones who weren't usually cute at all.
"Has either of you ever contemplated becoming an Animagus? That's what we call Wizards and Witches who can turn into animals. I've always thought it would be tremendously interesting."
Hermione smiled. "I used to have dreams about turning into animals--wolves, seals, bears, all sorts of creatures--when I was little. I was a little bit upset when my teacher told me that one couldn't do that in real life. So, if it turns out that I could... well, I might like that. At least as long as we can do it together."
"Not everyone can, but I think it's worth finding out if we could. One of my great great grandmothers could turn into a cat, and her husband was a dog Animagus. I suppose that makes them sound a bit of an odd couple, but it worked for them. I'm told they met because he was an Auror working a case in his dog form, she walked past and taunted him, he felt he had to pursue her in order to stay in character, and they ended up playing cat-and-mouse, or dog-and-cat, I suppose I should say, halfway across Bristol before they worked out that they were both only part-time four-legged furry people."
Hermione still looked a little bit shocked, but she giggled, which Luna reckoned was a very good sign. Harry, on the other hand, got a very pensive expression on his face. "I... it's the strangest thing, but I could swear I remember a man who turned into a big black dog, and another who turned into a deer. I think one of them was my uncle, or something like that, and the other might have been my dad. I know it's ridiculous, because I was too small to remember anything that happened before my parents ran their car into a ditch and died and my aunt and uncle had to take my ungrateful freeloading self in."
His voice was calm, but Hermione looked about ready to cry. Luna could relate, because she felt much the same. That was a good thing, of course. Luna's grandmother had told her that she and her wives had first begun to work out that they could share Luna's grandfather when they noticed that they nearly always felt exactly the same way about him. Hermione was cute, and Luna could definitely imagine sharing Harry with her. More than that, Luna could definitely imagine sharing her with Harry as well, and her grandmother said that was every bit as important.
Luna was definitely looking forward to introducing Harry and Hermione to Ginevra and seeing if Ginevra also might feel exactly the same way about the real, personal, and very personable Harry Potter and the equally real and equally personable Hermione Granger. But further thinking on the subject could wait until Ginevra made her appearance, because there were more important things to deal with at the moment. "Harry, even very small babies can remember things, and all the books say that you were fifteen months old on that Halloween. Don't you think it's possible that your aunt and uncle were telling miserable falsehoods when they told you that you couldn't remember those things, just as they're telling miserable and vicious falsehoods when they say there's no such thing as the magic which all three of us and dear Dizzy have, the magic that brought Hermione and me here? Just as they're lying when they say your parents died running their car into a ditch, as a matter of fact."
Hermione reached out and laid her hand on Harry's arm. "I... I'm sorry, Harry. So sorry."
"But... you didn't do it, Hermione. Oh, please don't cry. I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings." That only made Hermione cry harder.
"N...not your f...fault, Harry." Hermione was very pretty when she cried. That was an interesting bit of aesthetic information, but Luna would far rather have seen Hermione being very pretty when she laughed or swam or ran through a field or read a book that made her happy or snuggled with Harry instead. Speaking of which, Harry reached out to pet Hermione on her shoulder. Or at least that was what Luna thought he intended to do, as he looked completely, not to mention adorably, gobsmacked when he instead found himself with his arms full of bawling bushy-haired brunette beauty. Which might well have been an excess application of alliteration, Luna knew, but she didn't care.
In place of further worrying about principles of poetry, prose, and rhetoric, Luna knee-walked her way across the blanket. Harry still looked gobsmacked, but he clearly had good instincts. He'd folded Hermione up in his arms and was stroking the back of her neck. Luna paused for a moment to admire the pair at arms' length before she hugged them.
"I'm sorry you're hurting, Hermione," Harry whispered. "Is there anything I can do?"
Hermione mumbled something that Harry clearly didn't understand. Luna decided to interpret for her. "I believe she's saying that she's crying because she's sad for you, Harry. And I'm sad for you as well. You don't deserve to be treated the way those vile people treat you."
"Oh."
Hermione, still sniffling, raised her head a bit so she could be heard. "It's not natural, Harry. You're a wonderful person. I barely know you, and I can tell that. And nobody deserves to be abused."
"Well, they've always let me have something to eat, and they've never hit me so hard that anything serious got broken, and my cupboard's dry and hasn't got too many bugs in."
Luna shook her head. "But they've told you you were ungrateful and freeloading, Harry, when at the same time they were sending you out to do all of this work for them that Dizzy's been helping with today. And on top of that your vile cousin's out walking about with his ferrety friend doing badly by other folk and eating ice cream instead of putting in his share of the work. That's appalling and nasty and stupid and all sorts of wrong."
"I suppose you're right, but it's the way it's always been."
"It shouldn't be. And now it won't be, because you've got Hermione and myself and Dizzy, and I've got this very strong intuition that you'll soon have Ginevra as well."
"But... I've always done the work. I can't make other people do everything, or I'd be no better than the Dursleys."
Hermione raised up her head to look in Harry's eyes. Her face was tear-streaked and beautiful, and Luna felt her heart give a little skip and a leap in her chest. "We'll all do our part, Harry. We're together. I don't know why we're together, but we are and I'd not have it any other way." She kissed him on the cheek. Seconds later, her face went bright scarlet, as if she'd not realised what she'd done until after she did it. Harry's face was just as bright. After a moment, he kissed Hermione's cheek.
"I'd not have it any other way, either," Luna said, and kissed each of them on the cheek. "And now perhaps you'd like my handkerchief to wipe your eyes with, my dear Hermione?"
The pretty brunette nodded. Luna didn't like the idea of Hermione having to let go of Harry, because they looked so cute together and it surely must have felt really nice for them as well, so she fished her handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped Hermione's eyes herself. Luna was always thinking about things, and wondering what they'd feel like, and making up new experiences that she looked forward to having some day, but she'd never imagined that blotting the tears from another person's eyes could feel so purely pleasant as it did.
"Err... thank you, Luna."
"Thank you, Hermione. That was a new experience, and I can never have too many of them, although I do regret your being unhappy enough to cry, and I'd very much like to do a great deal more hugging of the pair of you when you're not crying as well."
"I'd like that as well."
Harry nodded, so it was clear he agreed also. The three of them stayed together like that for some little while, not needing to talk.
At last Harry whispered, as quietly if he were afraid of waking the girls or disturbing some specimen of local wildlife, "Luna? How do you know about my parents and, well, about me? You've said there are books, but I don't understand why there would be. I'm nothing very special, even if I can do some kind of magic, a little bit, and I do have to admit that would explain some things that have happened to me."
"Well, Harry, your parents were the Potters. James Potter was the son of a very old family in our world, and Lily Potter was a Muggleborn and I think she must have been very much like our Hermione, one of the brightest and most powerful witches of her age. There was a war going on, back round when we were very small, you see. You-Know-Who was trying to take over, and his followers--they were called Deatheaters, I suppose because it sounds scary--were attacking all sorts of people, especially Muggles and Muggleborns, and your parents were some of the people who fought back hardest. So it was natural that You-Know-Who and his henchmen hated your family most of all."
"Err... Luna, I'm afraid I don't know who. And I'm not sure Hermione does, either."
"If I knew, I'd tell you. But I'm afraid I have to admit that nobody's ever told me his name. The last time I asked, Daddy told me I wasn't old enough to know it yet. I suppose that makes it sound a bit like sex, but at least when I was wondering about that I could borrow his and Mummy's books when they weren't looking, and to be honest I found out enough that I'm not in any hurry to know much more about it, although it does sound as if it will be a great deal of fun when we're a bit more grown up. I tried looking through all the books to find out about You-Know-Who as well, but every single one just said 'You-Know-Who' and 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' and 'The Dark Lord,' which doesn't make sense. All the other Dark Lords have always had names, even Dark Lord Ernestine who was really only angry at his parents for giving him the name his grandmother had meant for his sister Bob and who stopped being a Dark Lord as soon as he found out that he could change it to Harriet by deed poll, so I don't understand it at all."
Hermione stirred. "That's kind of silly. Doesn't being afraid of a name just make people more afraid of the person whose name it is?"
"I think you're right, my dear. Daddy did say that, even though I wasn't old enough to know his actual name, it sounded kind of like Mouldy Shorts, so maybe we should call him that instead?"
Harry looked pensive. "Maybe. So... this Dark Lord's followers, these Deatheaters, they killed my parents?"
"Actually, Harry, he came to do it himself, in person, which he didn't usually do so it must have been important to him for some reason. Nobody knows exactly what happened next, but all the reports agree that he killed them, but then he couldn't kill you. And somehow not being able to do that made him explode or vaporise or vanish or turn into a midge or something. In any case, all that anybody found was his empty black robes. And there you were, with no hurts but that scar you've got on your forehead. Well, that's what the books say, but I'm thinking you must have been hurt something horrible by losing them, Harry. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Luna." His eyes were soft, full of concern for her, and somehow Luna knew that she felt exactly the same way about him that her Mummy felt about her Daddy.
"Oh, Harry, I do know that. But it's what people are meant to say, or so I'm told. And... I do regret it, very much, that you've had to grow up without them. My Mummy almost died not long ago, and that was terrible, and I can't imagine how much worse it would be to actually have lost her. And oh my goodness, I'm crying, aren't I?" Luna didn't cry all that often, and she really hadn't expected it to start up so quickly. It was something of an interesting experience. "It's funny. All in all I feel fairly happy, because I've met such wonderful new friends as you two, but at the same time I'm crying. I don't think that's ever happened to me before, although I've read about it in books. I suppose I must be getting rather a lot of experience points for this, mustn't I?"
Hermione giggled. "I never would have imagined that actual wizards and witches would go for role-playing games, just like my cousin Astrid. The ones she plays mostly have magic in, except for Traveller which is science fiction, although there are some psionics which I suppose is sort of similar. Are your games sort of like the reverse of hers?"
"Gaming is more Mummy and Daddy's thing than mine, but I think they play some games that have magic and some that are about the Muggle world, or at least about what Wizards and Witches think the Muggle world is like. Does your cousin play 'Carriageways and Cars,' or is that only a Wizarding thing?"
"I've never heard of it, so I'd imagine it is. Astrid and some of my other cousins play 'Dungeons and Dragons,' which sounds sort of similar, I think, as if somebody had heard of the non-magical game and made up a version for magical people, or maybe it was the other way round? And I'm sorry, I'm not even wiping your eyes. Here." Having her eyes wiped with Hermione's handkerchief was nearly as enjoyable as wiping Hermione's eyes with her own one. That was another nice new thing to know.
"It's all right, Hermione. Thank you."
"Thank you, Luna. Thank you." Hermione's eyes were soft and loving, the colour of cinnamon, warm and deep and full of feeling. Somehow Luna knew in that instant that she felt exactly the same feelings for Hermione that she did for Harry. And since those seemed as if they might be the same feelings that her parents felt for each other... well, it was definitely a good thing that Harry and Hermione looked to feel something like the same for each other.
Luna couldn't really see much in the way of auras yet, except sometimes by pure luck as she was falling asleep or waking up or looking out the corner of her eye and thinking about something else, but she was told that as she got older it would become much easier. She was looking forward to that day, because she had a strong feeling both Harry and Hermione would have especially pretty ones. She'd caught a glimpse of Ginevra's aura, once or twice, and that was a very nice one, especially when she was reading one of her favourite Boy Who Lived books or thinking about happy things or falling asleep with a smile on her face because it was a night when Ronald's snoring wasn't loud enough to come up through the floorboards. Luna felt certain it would also look very fine if it were mingling with Harry's and Hermione's auras.
That was another thing she was very much looking forward to seeing.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part four: Ginny's Escape.
So, here's the next installment. There will be at least one more part to this story, introducing Ginny. There might be a fifth part to wrap things up; I'm not sure yet.
I'm not altogether satisfied with this part. Luna's viewpoint, at least at this age, seems very difficult to write, and I'm not sure the loopiness is not a bit excessive altogether. I don't really want to rewrite the chapter from the ground up, but it may be necessary. In any case, I thought I'd go ahead and post it.