Christmas 1996
"Excuse me, Headmaster, but have you ever heard of a grinch?" Luna asked.
"A grinch, you say?" Dumbeldore peered over the top of his glasses at the book Luna held.
"Yes, a grinch." Luna bobbed her head. "You see, Cho and Padma gave me this book, and the creature is completely fascinating. But it only discusses one particular grinch, and doesn't tell what their native range is. Only that this particular grinch lives in a place called Whoville."
"May I?" Dumbledore asked, and Luna handed him the book. "My dear, this is a muggle storybook."
"The book is muggle, Professor, but the creature must be magical." Luna explained. "After all, it is sentinent and its heart grew three sizes in one day. Surely no muggle creature meets those qualifications."
"I do believe you're right of course." Dumbledore agreed. "I presume you've tried the library?"
"I went there first. Madam Pince had never heard of a grinch or the town of Whoville. We weren't able to locate any books with references, not even in the restricted section. I also checked with Hagrid, but he hadn't heard of a grinch either." Luna frowned.
Dumbeldore opened his top drawer. "Lemon drop?" he offered. Luna accepted politely. "I've found, Miss Lovegood, that sometimes the things you seek may be found in the most unusual places and in the most uncommon of ways. Good luck with your search."
By the beginning of Christmas break, Luna had asked the same questions of all the professors. Professor Snape suggested that she ask the insufferable know it all Granger. Luna had sought out Hermione, who told her that grinches were fictious. Luna understood. It was easier for muggles to pretend things they didn't understand weren't real.
Sometimes wizards were that way too.
By the fourth day of the Christmas break, Luna had interviewed all the students who were remaining at the school over the holiday, except Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be hiding out from everyone and everything. No one else had heard of a grinch or a town called Whoville. Some people giggled when she asked, apparently because those were both funny names.
By December 23rd, Luna had exhausted every possibility she could think of at the school for locating a grinch. She had written her father, who promised to look into the matter when he returned from his Blibbering Humdinger expedition. She had the thought of writing to Rolf Scamander, who had taken over his grandfather's role as the world's leading magizoologist, although if the Scamanders had knowledge of such a creature, she could not imagine why they had never published any research.
When she went to compose her message, her quill was missing. She searched all around her room, but it was nowhere to be spotted.
"Nargles must be hiding my things again."she said to herself. "Hidden things...of course!"
She ran barefoot from the Ravenclaw Tower to the seventh floor.
"I need to find a grinch, or at least know where to find one." she repeated to herself as she paced in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
The doors appeared, and Luna rushed inside, but she did not find a tall, furry, green creature with yellow eyes. Instead, she found a tall, blonde, rather annoyed boy with gray eyes.
He was snarling like a grinch, however.
"What are you doing in here Lovegood?" he snapped, throwing a sheet over a piece of furniture. "Can't you leave someone alone when they obviously don't want to be bothered?"
"Oh, hello Draco," she answered. "I was hoping to find a grinch, or at least some information on one."
"Jabbering about your imaginary creatures again, Loony?" he sneered. "What on earth is a grinch?"
"They're a humanoid creature, with green fur. Well, actually," she frowned. "I don't know if they all have green fur, or just the one in the book I read had green fur. He was rather unpleasant. He wanted to stop Christmas from coming."
"Now that sounds like a creature I'd like to meet." Draco snorted. "I wouldn't mind stopping Christmas this year myself."
"Perhaps you can join my quest to find a grinch." Luna suggested excitedly. "Have you ever heard of a town called Whoville?"
Draco rolled his eyes and didn't answer.
"Why?" Luna asked, puzzled.
"Why what?" Draco huffed.
"Why do you want to stop Christmas from coming?" she tilted her head as if to study him.
"Never mind, Lovegood. Just go on then, and leave me alone." He turned away from her.
Luna refused to give up that easily. "Once Christmas comes and goes, then spring can come. If you stop time, you'll miss out on all the wonderful things in the future."
Draco whirled back to face her. "Well that's just wonderful in your little world where nargles ride unicorns spreading moonbeams and rainbows. But the rest of the world just isn't that great, all right? Maybe some people don't want Christmas to come and go and spring to come after because they can't accomplish the one thing they have got to do this year which is a matter of life and death and it's causing them to miss Christmas with their family for the first time ever and they're not getting any chocolate covered almonds at the Manor Christmas party and nosy people won't leave them alone and Pansy is being a totally pain in the arse and it hasn't even snowed this week and it doesn't feel like Christmas!"
Luna's dreamy smile didn't falter. "I would probably hide in the Room of Requirement too if all of that was weighing on me. While you've been in here, have you seen any books on grinches or Whoville?"
Draco picked up an empty sherry bottle from a nearby table and threw it across the room, knocking over a huge stack of odd and end items. "Just leave me alone!" he shouted.
"Have a good evening, Draco." Luna waved as she turned to leave. "I hope you accomplish whatever it is that is a matter of life and death and please let me know if you find anything about a grinch."
On Christmas Eve, Draco returned to the Slytherin Dungeon just before curfew to find Luna sitting in the corridor.
"Loony," he groaned. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you of course." she stood up and handed him a box that looked as if it had been wrapped with pages from one of Crabbe's muggle comic books. "Happy Christmas Draco. I wasn't able to do anything about you missing your family, but if will make you feel better, it is supposed to snow overnight." She skipped off down the hall, leaving him standing there gaping.
He unwrapped the package to find a box of Honeydukes Chocolate Covered Almonds.
On Christmas morning, Cho came into the room looking more puzzled than she had the one time last year that everyone had been locked out of Ravenclaw Tower overnight because the portrait had created a riddle no one could solve. "There's ... someone... to see you in the common room." she stammered.
Luna came downstairs to find Draco standing there with a huge box.
"Hello, Draco," Luna smiled.
He flushed slightly. "Well, I was on my rounds last night. You know, um, prefect patrol. And I found some of your things the nargles had hidden and I thought you might need them back."
He handed her the box and was out the portrait hole before she could thank him. Inside were all of her shoes, books, her quill, a scarf, and well, probably everything of hers that had vanished since she had been at Hogwarts.
Cho came in as Luna held up a cardigan that had been missing for almost two years.
"Are you going searching for the grinch today, Luna?" she asked with a smirk.
"No, actually I found one." Luna said as she stuck her head back in the box. "I found that the reason their hearts are undersized is because they have so many worries pressing on them. And they aren't always green."