a/n: and so season seven begins :)

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chaser 1, qlfc forum, puddlemere united

season seven, round one

main prompt:

Write about a canonly virtuous/innocent character resisting temptation.

optional prompts:

2. (colour) cream

4. (word) insufferable

15. (word) coincidence

word count: 1689

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"You shouldn't go," Ginny protests. "Who knows what the old hag—"

"Shut up!" Neville interrupts. "Who knows who's listening?"

"All I said was 'old hag,'" Ginny replies irritably. "It's not like they're going to take me down there and crucio me for that."

"You never know."

"Oh, bollocks. But, Luna, who knows what she wants from you? What if they're going to take you?"

"They won't take me," Luna says serenely. "I'll be okay, Ginny."

Ginny is silent for a moment.

"Fine. But if you're gone longer than half an hour, I'm going down there."

"You won't have to."

Half an hour later, Luna heads down the Grand Staircase to Professor Carrow's office on the second floor. She'd been given a note by Professor Flitwick during lunch that day, telling her to be at the DADA professor's office at seven o'clock.

Knowing that Ginny and Neville would most definitely badger at her about it if she were to tell them, she'd attempted to sneak off after dinner. She had been halfway up a flight of stairs when she'd been intercepted by two very angry friends.

And now she is heading down to Professor Carrow's office, a slip of cream-coloured paper crinkled in her hand. She had assured Neville and Ginny many times over that she would be fine, that the Carrows wouldn't do anything, that it was just something small. And yes, she probably should be worried. She should definitely be worried. Daddy was fiercely supporting Harry in The Quibbler, and there's a high risk of them taking her away to shut him up.

But strangely, Luna isn't worried. She just doesn't feel as if she's going to be hurt tonight. Despite this, an air of foreboding darkness surrounds her as she steps off the last stair onto the second floor landing and walks down to Professor Carrow's office.

She stops in front of the wooden door and breathes. In, out.

She raises her hand to knock, but the door swings open right before she does.

"Come in," Alecto Carrow says, her voice cool and calm.

Luna walks into the room, and it is a trial to keep her expression serene when she sees the reason she's here.

"Who do you think you are?"

Luna looked up from her books to the angry face of Maisy Reynolds. Standing behind her were Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, and Mandy Brocklehurst. Cho looked a little uncomfortable, but stood by and a little bit behind her best friend Marietta.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Luna said, turning back to her homework. She hoped they wouldn't hurt her. If she didn't say anything, if she didn't taunt them, then she would be fine.

"Your idiot of a father just published this in the Quibbler," she snarled, holding up the newspaper. She was clenching the top of the paper so hard that Luna could barely read the headline: "Crumple-Horned Snorkacks Found on Reynolds Family Land!"

"Who the bloody hell does he think he is? What?! What even are those, huh? Another one of your stupid inventions?"

"I'm sure Xenophilius has his reasons for thinking that," Luna said calmly. "The Crumple-Horned Snorkack is native to Sweden. They really shouldn't be anywhere at all in these parts."

Behind her, Marietta Edgecombe laughed. "I don't think you realize what he's saying, Luna," she said. "Your father is making accusations against a well-respected Wizarding House. This is great disrespect. Do you even know what we could do?"

Luna could see red pinpricks of light buzzing in their heads. "You should get some rest," she said. "The Wrackspurts are at it again. I'm sure it would benefit you greatly to get some rest and think positively for a while."

Maisy's face contorted into a hateful snarl. "I'll show you Wrackspurts, you insufferable bitch."

A sickening feeling rose in her stomach as Maisy, Marietta, and Mandy stalked away. After a short moment, Cho hurried after them with an almost apologetic glance over her shoulder.

Tied up and uncomfortably wedged on a chair is a girl she knows all too well.

"I have a task for you today," Professor Carrow says. Her voice is soft, snakelike, almost a whisper. "You are to use the Cruciatus Curse on this girl until she gives us the information we need."

"No!" The girl thrashes in her bindings, almost falling off the seat as she does so. "P-p-please," she shudders, gasping for breath. "D-d-don't—"

She stops short when she looks up into the face of her torturer-to-be.

"Y-y-you… you're with them?"

It is all Luna can do to keep her jaw from dropping. Yes, she'd been right. She isn't going to be hurt tonight.

But Maisy Reynolds most likely will.

"Lovegood!"

Luna stopped short at the sound of Maisy Reynolds' voice, slowly turning around. She was on her way down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Hello," she said. She could barely breathe for fear of what the girl might do. Luna knew she was going to do something. The Wrackspurts were buzzing like crazy.

"What a lovely morning, isn't it?" Maisy said, smiling at her.

"Yes, it is," she said, smiling back.

Maisy made pleasant small talk for a few minutes, and Luna could feel the lump in her throat settling. Maybe she wasn't going to do something after all.

Then Maisy drew her wand and said, "Tarantallegra! Cantis!"

Luna felt herself start to sing. Her legs started to move uncontrollably. She's been jinxed, she realized.

The next thing she realized was the fact that they were at the entrance to the Great Hall, and she was dancing and singing uncontrollably in front of the majority of Hogwarts.

Laughter rose amongst the crowd of students. They all stopped eating to watch the sight of a girl in a cream-colored dress dancing and singing like the madwoman they all think she is.

Maisy Reynolds was laughing hardest of all.

Luna had been bullied when she was younger. But it had always been a roundabout sort of bullying, with snorts and smirks and disgusted glances. It had always been some missing clothes or such. No one had ever said anything, or done anything, to her face.

But Maisy had. Maisy and Mandy and Marietta had jinxed her, hexed her, paraded her around their dormitory, laughing all the while.

Luna swallows. She has never given in to the Carrows. She has never used the Cruciatus Curse. She has never wanted to use it, ever.

But here she is anyway, standing over the only girl she's ever really hated, resisting the temptation to draw her wand and Crucio the living daylights out of her. Luna fists the folds of her dress under her coat, and she realizes that she's wearing the same cream dress as she was so many years ago, when she'd danced and sung in the middle of the Great Hall at Maisy's delighted command.

What a coincidence, she thinks. What a horrible, horrible coincidence.

"So, Miss Lovegood, are you going to use that skill of yours and start torturing her?" Professor Carrow snaps. "Or are you really going to make me do the work today, on both her and you?"

Luna has resisted plenty of commands before, but she has a feeling that Carrow is in a bad mood. She will be punished. Hard.

So what will she choose? To Crucio, or to be Crucioed herself?

She swallows again. Hard.

"No," she says. Beside her, Maisy gives a sigh of relief.

Hatred for Maisy flares inside her.

Professor Carrow's lips curl in disgust. "Alright. More for me, then."

She points her wand in Luna's face.

"Cruci—"

"Wait!" Luna cries. "I'll…"

She raises her wand, and readies herself for what she's about to do. She wonders if she'll actually be able to cast the spell. Two years ago, in the Department of Mysteries, Bellatrix had said that you had to mean it.

Oh, she meant it, all right. But did she mean it enough?

Time to find out, Luna thinks.

"Cru—"

The door opens, and Snape stands there in the doorway.

"Please come back later, Severus," Carrow snaps.

"I see," Snape says in a drawling voice. "Goodnight then, Alecto. I will see you tomorrow."

Colour floods Luna's cheeks as the door closes behind him, black robes billowing out of sight.

A moment passes before Alecto snaps again. "Well, girl? Get on with it. I don't have all night."

Luna shakes her head. "No."

She can't do this. She is Luna Lovegood. She isn't a Death Eater. She is proud and angry, and the only person she hates is Maisy Reynolds, the girl she's being forced to torture, but she will not.

She is Luna Lovegood of Ravenclaw and Dumbledore's Army, and she is not going to give in.

Ever.

She stands straight and proud as Professor Carrow raises her wand.

"Cru—"

The door opens again, and this time it's Ginny standing in their doorway, Neville behind her. They both seem to have been running.

"What are you—"

"Sorry, Professor, but we need Luna real quick," Ginny says. "Professor Flitwick requested her. Something about a problem with the Lake."

Professor Carrow narrows her eyes. "I see. Is it urgent?"

"Quite."

Carrow looks back and forth between the three of them: Ginny, Luna, and Maisy.

"Fine," she says. "Luna, I request your presence here tomorrow at the same time."

"Thank you, Professor," Ginny smiles, almost dragging Luna out of the room as she does so. She herds them up the Grand Staircase up to the seventh floor corridor.

"You came up with that story surprisingly quickly," Neville comments.

"Thank you," Ginny says breathlessly as they step through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor Common Room. No one even spares a glance at Luna, even though she's a Ravenclaw. They're quite used to her presence with Ginny and Neville at this point.

"So, what did I tell you?" Ginny says as they collapse onto their usual seats. "She was going to hurt you, and I knew it."

"She didn't hurt me," Luna replies. "She didn't get the chance to."

"Because of me."

"I suppose."

"You're insufferable, you know that?"