Luna Lovegood was sitting cross legged on the floor eating a tin of pears with her fingers, dripping juice all down her overalls. A potions class was going on around her but she was oblivious in her usual way.
"Ms. Lovegood," said the dreaded voice of one Severus Snape as he gracefully haunted in her direction, pulling dust from the floor with his cape as he went, as he swooshed. "Is your potion going to make itself?"
"I hadn't thought so but perhaps it will. You should go and have a look into my cauldron."
A remark of this sort from any other student would have received some sort of clearly displayed disproval from the Potions Master, but Luna's words hadn't come off at all cheeky. Everything the girl said was undeniably sincere. Severus almost had to wonder if he should go and have a peek into her cauldron as he left the spot where she was sitting.
At the point when Luna had finished with her pears she preformed a timely vanishing spell on the can, and dried her clothing with a napkin she had found in one of her pockets. She followed these things with a quiet session of counting the cracks that surrounded her little space on the floor.
Class dismissed and Luna had successfully procrastinated away her least favorite hour of Tuesdays.
Lunch was to follow but Luna wasn't feeling particularly hungry and decided to take a walk along the Black Lake instead.
It wasn't a very sunny day; the trees looked dark and mopey as if in response to the yellow orbs absence. There was a light mist hovering over the ground and Luna could feel the slight damp of the grass between her toes. The dark water of the lake was so still that you could clearly see the ripples when something moved below.
The usual few fish came up to greet her at the bank and she made silent conversation with them.
From a small distance down the river a familiar set of boys were playing loudly and obnoxiously. One of them made a move as if to push another into the water and this resulted in a long overly dramatic session of play fighting and a lot of deeply toned laughing. A third boy from the group noticed Luna and shouldered a fourth, motioning over towards her. Eventually Luna had gotten the attention of all four of the boys and, realizing this, picked a large purple water flower and put it in her hair.
They hobbled over in the way men do, without much thought or purpose.
"Ello Lovegood," one of them said in an unreadable tone.
"Hello Draco." There was her ever present tone of innocence. "What ever bring you here?"
"I would ask you the same but I already know your answer would be something freaky." The other 3 boys chuckled at this with ignorant amusement.
"Hm." Was all Luna that said in response. She then turned and lost her gaze back across the smooth water.
"Let's go mates." Draco said to his 3 cronies.
"But don't you want to know what she's up to?" This was said in a slow, arrogant voice either belonging to Vincent Crabbe, or Gregory Goyle. It was difficult to tell which, for Luna had her back turned to them.
"She's up to nothing and I'm hungry. We've just about missed Lunch."
An audible stomach growl could be heard in response to this.
Luna bent down and retrieved a round stone, skipped it once, twice, thrice and waited for the four boys to disappear.
But they didn't.
One Blaise Zambini picked up a stone, and attempted to skip it as well. The stone flew and skimmed the side of Luna's leg before landing and sinking into the water. No skip. Luna's leg dripped a few small dots of blood.
She picked up another stone and threw it haphazardly behind her. There was the undeniable sound of rock hitting flesh; a deep groan.
"My apologize." Luna said without turning her back.
Luna could feel the red hot grow in the core of her unintended target. The stone had hit Crabbe rather then Blaise and his fat little fists clenched in what he hoped was a threatening manner.
"Cool it. Let's go." Draco said, noticing his friend's fists and giving him a little push in the general direction of the castle.
A simple minded boy doesn't fall easy out of a fit of rage and Draco's nudge was only more fuel to this boy's fire. He made a few slow steps towards the small fair haired girl and she could feel his presence behind her - his heat - moving closer, his intentions full of bad.
Luna closed eyes to concentrate. She pictured the boy as he would be, behind her, aggravation on his face. And then she changed it.
In her mind Crabbe became a soft, and under control. His intention changed, his mind set now on food. Luna imagined the round chub of a boy shoveling his face full of a meal waiting inside for him. She let these thoughts float out from herself and travel into the thoughts of Crabbe. His mind clouded over for a brief, unnoticeable moment and then he too felt the calm and steadily raising hunger. His mouth started to water and he turned to nod towards Draco.
The thin blonde boy threw a questioning look first to Crabbe and then briefly to Luna before turning and leading the boys away from the water. Luna watched their backs as they steadily grew small and then disappeared into the doors of the castle.
"Silly boys," she said, turning back one last time towards the water.
End of chapter one.
