The dawn seemed cold and grey somehow. It had never seemed this way before, at least not to her. Luna skipped down the corridor leading past the great hall, not paying notice to the strange glances that other students sent her way. It was a brisk day in early December; most of them would soon disappear for a month or so before returning to excitedly talk about their Christmas holidays and what they'd received from their families. She felt happy for them, they had very few problems to speak of and she supposed that neither had she, except, sometimes, well it felt a little…
"Watch it" she was suddenly elbowed out the way by a crowd of students. She stumbled, stood on an untied shoelace and fell to the floor with a crash. Her bag burst open and that month's copy of the quibbler as well as her books and potions homework spilled onto the floor. She quickly got on her knees and began stuffing her things back in her bag as the group walked off, giggling, or rather, snorting. 'Lonely' finished the voice in her head. She tried to ignore it. 'Helpless and lonely and weird. No wonder they call you looney' she didn't care, she told herself. They just didn't understand. 'Loopy, looney…'
"Luna!" Hermione Granger's voice rang out clear as a bell; Luna looked up quickly, and tried to tuck runaway stands of dirty blonde hair behind her ears. "There you are, I've been looking for you. Professor Flitwick told me to…wait, are you alright? What happened?" She pulled Luna to her feet and she was met with Hermione's cool troubled gaze for a moment. She'd been looking for her, Hermione, who had never been so close. Luna tried to catch her breath; it seemed to run away on the wind. Her heart was beating so fast… "Luna?"
"Y…yes, thank you" she mumbled "just…tripped over. I'm Ok now." She pulled out her wand but Hermione had already pulled out hers.
"Here, let me" she said kindly "Accio homework! Accio books!" with a well-practiced flick of her wand, the books and parchment flew into Hermione's hands. "Here" she smiled, putting the work into Luna's arms. "I was just saying, Professor Flitwick asked me to see if you were alright. You seemed to be spacing out a bit in Charms this morning"
"Nargles." Luna said bluntly
"…sorry?" Hermione asked, looking as though she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the coming explanation.
"Nargles, you know, thieves" Luna smiled "there attracted to mistletoe, and they steal things sometimes. It was them that stole my shoes before you know. There were defiantly a few floating about the charms classroom, I think there was a little mistletoe actually, over the blackboard."
"Right" Hermione didn't look totally convinced though at the same time, a little sad. "Your shoes, maybe they weren't…oh, never mind. Look, did you get the notes? If you like I can lend you some…"
Luna didn't really know what to say. Hermione never lent her notes to anybody. "Thank you" she said quietly.
"I seem to have misplaced them, they're in here somewhere, oh, and this isn't like me at all…" Hermione blushed slightly, looking though her bag. It was so adorable.
"I need to go the Gryffindor common room right now, but, if you're not staying for the holidays I could always borrow Hedwig and send you them" Hermione continued.
"I'm staying for Christmas" said Luna, stifling a laugh "you could send them back to Hogwarts"
"Oh, well I'm staying for Christmas too" smiled Hermione, looking less flustered "everybody's leaving tomorrow aren't they? Come to the charms classroom at lunch tomorrow and I'll go over them with you"
"Thank you!" Luna was really relieved; there was no way that she'd fail as long as Hermione helped her. She watched Hermione hurry up the stairs after Harry and Ron, who were waiting for her. Maybe Christmas wouldn't be so lonely if she got to spend at least a little while tomorrow with Hermione. Hermione was the only person she knew who could make the voices in her mind disappear. She really was a very talented witch.