(A/N: I decided to post some random ideas that might get flushed out into full stories later. Also it will hold my entries into The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. See end notes for prompts.)
Disclaimer: I only own my crazy ideas.
A Girl and Her Thestral
Rain pelted the windows of the Hogwarts library. Spring had arrived in a soggy slushy mess that had turned exposed ground into quagmires and driven all but the most diehard Quidditch fans back indoors. Once, Harry might have been among those who stayed out to fly and practice, but not this year. This year he had been banned from flying and had his broom confiscated by Umbridge, that unholy spawn of a toad and troll the Ministry had sent to Hogwarts to teach them defense.
With a sigh, Harry returned to his Potions essay, Snape had assigned every student a different potion to study and write about from the list provided for the O.W.L.s. His potion, the Ordag-coise fasgadh, was apparently meant to remove the big toe. It was needlessly complicated and useless. A perfect fit for his current views on the wizarding world.
He was just describing how to add the shaved boar hoof when his fingers cramped. He dropped the quill and clutched his hand tightly. The hours Umbridge had spent forcing him to write with a blood quill had certainly taken their toll on his hand. He looked down at the puckered white skin on the back of his hand. Even Hermione's care couldn't undo all of the scarring, and while it had helped his skin heal Harry suspected there was little to do for the muscles underneath except to pay a visit to Madam Pomfrey.
But he couldn't help to feel that going to see the matron would somehow be admitting defeat. Harry leaned back and sighed. Maybe it was like Hermione said; and he was just being stubborn.
"Does your hand hurt?"
Harry jumped at the soft, light voice by his ear. He spun, half out of his chair to find Luna watching him curiosity.
"Oh- hey, Luna. I, er, didn't see you there. Sorry, you just frightened me." Harry said. He had noticed during the DA meetings that oftentimes, Luna barely made a sound. Ron had even suggested that they have her wear a bell to keep better track of her.
"Really? I've never been called frightening before. Are you trying to make a potestas cicatrix? Daddy told me about them." Luna sat down next to Harry and glanced over the pile of reference books.
"A what?" Harry asked.
"Potestas cicatrix. Daddy said there used to be people who would carve runes onto their bodies to use magic." Luna explained as she picked up a thin book on traditional potion ingredients of Scotland. She turned the book upside down and began to read. Harry had seen her do the same with copies of the Quibbler but learned it was because parts of it were published that way.
"Er, no, nothing like that." Harry did his best to hide the back of his hand from her. He didn't want anyone else to find out about it. Not that Luna seemed very concerned but still.
"Oh good, because I don't think it would work in English." Luna said.
"Right…" Well she had definitely seen it then, and well enough to see the language too. When it was clear Luna's attention was focused on the book though Harry returned to his essay.
Unfortunately, he was finding it harder to focus. Why on earth would someone need a potion that took eighteen hours to brew and had over thirty steps just to remove a toe? His attention began to wander to the storm outside. If he squinted, he could almost make out a Quidditch team practicing through the sheet of rain. He wondered what plays they were working on.
"Do you miss it?" Luna's voice broke through his thoughts.
"Miss what?" Harry asked.
"Quidditch." Luna said.
"I do. Maybe not in this weather, but it was fun to play. I miss flying." Harry replied. After a moment, he nodded to the book she still held upside-down. "Er- are you reading that upside-down?"
"Of course, it would be odd if I couldn't, wouldn't it?" Luna said puzzled.
"I suppose so. I've just never meet anyone who reads like that." Harry said.
"Well I read normally if I'm in a hurry. I can read sideways almost as well but this still takes me longer. So I'm practicing." Luna explained.
"Okay. But why would you want to learn to read upside down?" Harry asked. While he was truly curious as to the answer, he also found chatting with Luna to be a great diversion from his Potions essay. Though at this point, he would have said the same about watching paint dry.
"Well, one never knows when they will need to read something while hanging upside-down does one? Besides, what is the point of learning new things if you never change how you look at them? Daddy says one of the worst things that can happen to a person is that they mentally stagnate. Then it's easy to become infested with cowoggelers or humdingers." Luna said.
"So you read like that as a mental exercise." Harry said a hint of pride in his voice at having understood her explanation. Take that Snape.
"Exactly." Luna smiled brightly. "You're the first person to even bother asking. Does your hand hurt?"
The abrupt change in topic threw Harry. "What?"
"Your hand, does it hurt? You've been rubbing it for a while." Luna said.
Harry hadn't noticed until then but he was rubbing his right hand, trying to work out the seemingly permanent kink he felt there. "It's nothing."
A frown crossed her face before it was replaced by her normal smile. "Meet me tonight after dinner by the painting of the owls playing chess."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"I think I know how to solve most of your problems." Luna replied cryptically before she stood and walked away, humming a tune Harry didn't recognize.
That night Harry covered himself with his Invisibly Cloak and watched the Marauder's Map. It had been easy enough to spot Luna's dot and make sure the corridors near her were empty. He made his way towards her without difficulty.
Luna stood watching the large painting of a chess game. On either side of the board was an owl. Occasional one would make a noise and a piece of the game would move. Harry preformed a last check to make sure they were alone and removed his cloak.
She didn't seem surprised when he appeared from seemingly empty air. "Good evening Harry. Are you ready?"
"For what?" Harry asked.
"Wait and see." Luna tapped the painting with her wand and the game pieces snapped back into place. She began to call out moves that the black pieces followed. It only took her a few minutes to win the game but those minutes dragged on as Harry continued to glance at the map.
When the white king surrendered the entire painting swung forward. A staircase behind it rose and twisted away. Luna grabbed his hand and pulled him towards it. "Come on."
As they climbed the stairs, Harry stole a peek at the map. They had vanished from it. "How did you find this passage?"
"Well in my second year, I asked the owls in the painting if I could play. When I won, the painting swung open." Luna explained. "I've found a few others like this one. All involve winning some game and they all lead to the same spot. At the far end of the east corridor, on the fifth floor, there's a troll statue that faces backwards. If you squeeze past him there's another chess set, but he's much harder to beat than the owls."
Harry decided to just nod and accept it. They continued up the stairs until he was sure they had reached at least the seventh floor. Finally they came to a door, Luna opened it and they stepped through. Onto the grounds near the green houses.
He spun around but the door has already vanished. "How?"
"Magic, I assume. But it only goes one way. Hold still a moment." She pointed her wand at his shoes before she muttered a spell, then repeated it on her own. Luna turned and walked towards Hagrid's hut. "It's really more useful from the higher entrances and has a shorter walk as well but the second floor is less crowded."
"What was that spell?" Harry asked as he followed Luna, he immediately noticed his feet weren't sinking into the sloppy ground.
"It's something Daddy taught me for when we have to walk through swamps or snow." As they walked Luna began to skip from side to side. "Zero, one. Let's have fun. Two, three. Chase a bee. Four, Five. Find the hive. Six, Seven. Name it Kevin. Eight, Nine. Make him mine."
To Harry's surprise Luna took him right passed Hagrid's hut into the forest. "Er, Luna? You know we're in the Forbidden Forest, right?"
"Well I would hope so; it would be odd if we were in a different forest already." Luna replied cheerfully as she jumped onto a fallen log and walked along it.
"Not to be rude, but, you know it's actually forbidden for a reason, don't you?" Harry asked.
Luna stopped, turned on her heel and brought her finger to her chin in an exaggerated expression of thought. "No offence taken."
When Harry still hesitated she walked back to him and grabbed his hand. It wasn't long before they reached a clearing, just as the moon finally broke through the lingering clouds. The clearing was filled with skeletal horses, their bat like wings tucked close to their skeletal bodies. Milky eyes turned to face the newcomers. Thestrals, Harry supposed this must be where they stayed when they weren't being used to pull the Hogwarts carriages.
Luna dropped Harry's hand and walked happily among them. Several came forward and nudged her, trying to gain her attention. "It's a shame that thestrals have such a dreadful reputation. They're the gentlest creatures I've ever met. They won't hurt you."
Harry took a hesitant step forward. One of the creatures, slightly smaller than the rest, turned towards him. It reached out with its head and sniffed at him before returning its attention to Luna. She stroked its nose affectionately. "This is Kent."
"Kent?" Harry couldn't keep the smirk off his face.
"In my first year I came out here right after he was born. For some reason he began to follow me after that, whenever I was outside the castle. No one else could see him so they thought I was loony when I talked to him. I named him after his beautiful white eyes." Luna walked further into the herd with Harry trailing behind her. She introduced him to several more thestrals, though how she could tell him apart he wasn't exactly sure.
The small thestral trotted along with them, flexing his wings and sniffing at Harry's robes. Harry hesitated as he stared at the thestrals, shifting and moving around in the darkness.
Luna noticed. "You're thinking about Cedric aren't you?"
"Yes." Harry admitted.
"People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn't." Luna said. "People tend to hold onto that which has hurt them."
"What?" Harry asked, caught by surprise.
"People focus on their failures, even if they tend to have more successes. You can hardly be blamed for his death, but you seem to think it's a failure of yours, even though you survived You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters and everything else." Luna paused for a minute before she turned back towards the thestrals. "We can't change our mistakes, all we can do is learn from them. And sometimes we learn something that can help someone else."
Harry watched as Luna led Kent back over to him, then took his hand and held it out towards the thestral. Kent sniffed him again before a long black tongue poked out and licked him. Harry watched in amazement as each time the thestral's tongue ran over them the puckered white letters faded further. He could even feel something similar happening to the muscles on the back of his hand as they relaxed. He looked questioningly at Luna.
"I don't understand it but it seems they have some healing properties, or they eat scars, I'm not sure which. I wonder if some many people would be afraid of them if they knew how useful they are." Luna stroked Kent's nose as he finished.
Amazed, Harry examined is now unmarked hand. He could flex his fingers again without pain. "Luna, do you think…" Unsure how to ask Harry gestured towards the famous scar on his forehead. He hated it and the attention it brought him but if the thestrals could free him of it.
"We can find out." As Harry crouched down Luna directed Kent toward the lightning bolt shaped scar.
He could feel the thestrals warm moist breath on his head. And unfortunately smell the rotten meat it had just eaten. Harry did his best not to gag. Kent snorted before he jerked his head back and managed to look highly offended at the two humans. Then he trotted away.
"Well that was new." Luna said in surprise. She looked back at Harry. "You aren't going to get toska again because you 'failed' to get rid of your scar are you?"
A deep sigh escaped Harry, he didn't think it was the same but understood her point. "No."
"Oh good, I was afraid I'd have no other recourse than Daddy's method of sheering people up." Luna said cheerfully.
"Eh, what is his method?" Harry asked hesitantly.
"Dancing. Daddy says the best way to get rid of negative feelings is to scare them away and nothing is more frightening than him dancing. He does something he calls the jitterbug." Luna said.
"I suppose my own dancing is a bit scary." Harry admitted. "So, what's toska?"
"It's what my mother used to call it when I was sad. I liked it, so I've kept on saying it. So… do you feel any better?" Luna asked
"I'm definitely better off…" Harry said. "Thank you."
"You know there is one other thing I thought you might enjoy tonight, thestral wings aren't just for show." Luna said with a mischievous look.
"You mean we can…" Harry's face split into the biggest grin of the night.
Harry couldn't help smiling as he and Luna walked back towards the castle. They had spent hours flying on the thestrals, and had almost certainly broken their curfew, but he was too exhausted to care. The experience was different than ridding a broom of hippogriff, the thestrals seemed to just glide along the air as they pleased.
Luna's smile was even wider than Harry's. As they walked Luna drew a large, radish like vegetable from her pocket and took a bite. "Would you like some?"
"Eh, no that's fine." Harry said.
Luna laughed and handed him the radish. He was surprised to find that it was bright orange and luscious. Harry raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Dirigible plums. My uncle made them. We don't know how. Everyone just assumed I was insane after Kent and never bothered to ask. They look just like radishes when ripe. Daddy and I grow them in our garden." Luna said. "Would you like to come with me to see the thestrals again tomorrow?"
"Of course." Harry happily agreed.
"Wonderful, I want to bring them some sour milk; I think they got into some meat that was to rotten for even them to eat." Luna began to hum as they snuck back into the castle.
(A/N: The prompts were to write about another team members favorite characters, as well as use the words luscious, jitterbug, and the quote "People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn't." - Christopher Paolini, Eragon.)