Song: "Just What I Needed"
Artist: The Cars
Harry Potter was sitting alone on an icy stone bench in the snow-covered courtyard. He had finished his last class of the day, and as the other students hurried inside to escape the cold, his destination was uncertain. He had no desire to go to the library with the increasingly irritable Hermione, nor did he want to return to the common room to witness Lavender and Won-Won participating in their favorite pastime. Overhead, a single dark owl swooped across the white-gray sky into the Owlery. Until now, Harry would not have thought it possible to feel so lonely while everyone he knew was still talking to him.
Harry stood and scooped up his book bag, supposing that having Hermione help him with his Transfiguration essay would be marginally more enjoyable than remaining on the bench and dying of frostbite. But as soon as he had slung on his bag and shoved his hands in his pockets, someone spoke to him.
"Hello, Harry," said Luna strangely, who had seemingly appeared from thin air, though more likely from the Divination corridor. Today her hair was pulled back in two ponytails secured with long ribbons that flashed various bright and garish patterns. Harry couldn't contain a smile; he thought the ribbons would set off her Spectrespecs nicely, but she wasn't wearing them.
"Hi, Luna," he replied as Luna smiled back at him in her dazed way.
"I just wanted to thank you again for talking me to Slughorn's party," she said. "I had a wonderful time. Professor Trelawney and I talked about the Gnarly Turgus infestation for hours!"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Gnarly what?"
"The Gnarly Turgus," Luna said soberly, "is a small but terrible creature covered in poisonous spines that lives in bathroom pipes and stops up the water. Father has been having an ongoing battle with them for years."
It sounded to Harry like Luna was describing a hairy clog, but he kept this thought to himself. Some snow was beginning to soak its way through his sock. "Well, I'm glad you had a good time," he said with another smile, then he turned to enter the castle.
To his puzzlement, Luna followed him, apparently unaware that Harry thought their conversation was over. "How do you fancy Snape as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" she asked, stamping snow from her feet.
"Er..." Harry began. He had never really assessed Snape's teaching ability before; he was usually too busy watching him with a suspicious eye through every lesson, especially after overhearing him with Malfoy at Slughorn's party. But as he thought about it, he realized that he had learned quite a bit through Snape's tutelage. Snape had brought a fair number of Harry's class up to speed on nonverbal spells, though he was no great gentleman in doing it, and he was honest about the uses of the spells they learned and the ones they might face, despite the tender tone of his voice while he described the most gruesome.
To Luna, Harry said wryly, "Well, he's no Umbridge, that's for sure."
Luna laughed loudly at this. Harry realized they were walking in the opposite direction from the Gryffindor common room, but he was not overly bothered since he was avoiding it anyway.
"You're right," Luna said, "because Umbridge was mean and worthless, and Snape is just mean! Things are more funny when they're true."
"Er, I suppose they are."
They walked in silence for a while, so long that Harry wondered whether he should make an excuse to leave. Then he remembered that Luna was following him in the first place, and he wondered why it now felt like he was following her. But then Luna resumed conversation as though only a few seconds, not minutes, had passed.
"I'm learning quite a bit with him, I think," she said, apparently still referring to Snape. "But I miss DA meetings. Don't you?"
Harry remembered what Luna had said on the train ride at the beginning of the school year: It was like having friends. He felt a pang of guilt for not continuing the club, but with a satisfactory D.A.D.A. teacher it hardly seemed necessary; plus Harry did not want regular DA plans to interfere with his meetings with Dumbledore. However, he could not deny he missed teaching and watching each member make progress... he still remembered Neville's first successful Patronus.
"I do, yeah," Harry replied, thinking that every question Luna asked him seemed to plunge him deeper into thought than usual. "But--"
"I know, we don't need it, now that we've got a real teacher," Luna said, sounding sadder than Harry had hoped she would.
After a bit more silence in which Luna's hair ribbons flashed from plaid to polka dot to neon yellow, Harry, still feeling guilty, asked, "I've got some homework to do in the library, would you like to come with me?"
Luna brightened. "Sure! I've got some Care of Magical Creatures to work on myself."
Luna's mention of Hagrid's subject allowed Harry to ask how the class was going; he had been curious to know how Hagrid was faring and what deadly creature they were studying this term. By the time they reached the library, Harry was a bit jealous, as Luna had reported significantly fewer serious injuries than his class had endured, though their rimscrawlers (which resembled small, blue badgers) were beginning to sprout fangs.
Harry wondered whether they would meet Hermione in the library, but this question was answered almost as soon as they walked in the door, for Hermione stormed past them furiously, pursued by a disgruntled-looking McClaggen. Harry and Luna shrugged at each other and sought out a table. As they sat down, Luna yawned widely.
"Tired?" Harry asked.
Luna nodded. "I haven't got much sleep the past few nights. I've been on Gnarly Turgus patrol. None of the other girls in my dormitory seem to think it's very important."
"Imagine that," Harry said in what he hoped was not too sarcastic a tone. Despite Luna's intense weirdness, he was rather enjoying himself, perhaps because he had been surrounded by anger and resentment for weeks.
The two removed books and scrolls from their book bags and set to work, but it seemed to Harry that no sooner had he set his quill to his parchment than Luna set hers down and announced, "Finished!"
"What?" asked Harry, flabbergasted. He had only just begun to recall the more complicated points of Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration lesson. "You can't be serious!"
"I suppose your workload has increased rather a lot this year," Luna said, "with being a N.E.W.T. student and all. You just keep working, don't mind me."
But it was quite difficult for Harry to not mind Luna, for as he again bent his head over his essay and scribbled earnestly, Luna produced from her book bag some device that kept squeaking, squealing, and buzzing just loud enough to disturb his train of thought. Harry looked up, annoyed, and found that it was a many-sided puzzle of sorts. He decided it was much like a Muggle Rubik's cube (which Dudley had received once for his birthday from a generally disliked great-aunt, and which was responsible for many of the dents on Harry's bedroom wall), except that Harry counted 12 sides and Luna was attempting to solve it by twisting, pushing, and poking several of the sides at once.
She noticed him looking and said, "I got it from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes—Ron's brothers. You're friends with them, aren't you? There's a prize inside. You have to solve it to get it out."
"Oh." Luna went back to attacking the puzzle, and Harry stared at his essay. Where had he been? Switching Spells? No, Swapping Spells, they had done Switching last year... But if they had been Swapping, where had the extremely angry raccoon come in? Harry checked his notes, but all that was there was a cartoon of the raccoon Professor McGonagall had been Transfiguring attacking Crabbe and Goyle, followed by scrawled praise for the drawing from Ron.
Harry supposed that if he was going to pass a single N.E.W.T., he would have to begin taking more thorough notes. He dipped his quill into fresh ink and valiantly began a paragraph he hoped pertained vaguely to the assignment. A few words in, Luna's puzzle squawked suddenly; Harry started and made a large ink blot on his parchment.
"Darn it," said Luna. "I nearly had it that time."
Harry glanced from his homework to Luna's puzzle and back again, then concluded that it was not in the stars for his Transfiguration to be completed tonight. He would ask Hermione about it later, who surely must have been paying more attention than he.
"How does it work?" Harry asked, stowing his defeated essay in his bag.
"I don't know," replied Luna, concentrating intently.
"Then how do you know you almost had it?"
"It says so right here on the top." Luna held to puzzle out to him for a second, and sure enough, messages like Almost there! and Keep it up! flashed across the top side of the dodecagon.
Luna yawned again.
"Can I try it?" asked Harry.
"Of course."
As Harry took the puzzle, it occurred to him that it was very unlikely that Fred and George would create a harmless, if difficult, game. Wondering what sort of unpleasant trap it was set with, but too curious about what heights the twins' genius had reached, Harry aped Luna's attempt. Getting close! encouraged the top side. Brow furrowing, he twisted a flashing purple side with his little finger and pressed down on a glittering red one...
"I think you've almost got it!" said Luna excitedly.
Harry thought so too, dreading and anticipating it at the same time, and then the message face flashed Whoops!
The puzzle made a loud noise of flatulence and exuded a foul stench. Madam Pince eyed them threateningly; Harry concealed the offending puzzle behind him while Luna held her nose. Madam Pince shook her head at Harry's lack of manners and went back to her business.
Harry made an apologetic face at Luna, who released her nose and said, "You can keep trying. You're much better at it than me." She pulled out the latest Quibbler and opened it to a page she had marked.
Harry stared at her for a moment, then at the puzzle. Was a fart joke really the best Fred and George could come up with? There must be a way to actually win... He gave the face that displayed messages (which now featured a red-headed stick figure making obscene gestures at him) a good hard poke.
Stop that, you twit! said the message face.
That sounded like the twins Harry knew. Why would they make a puzzle that spouted encouragement all the way to the solution?
Harry felt like an imbecile. They wouldn't, of course... He picked up the puzzle and began to contort it, avoiding any move that gave him a pleasant message. Soon the messages became vicious insults, many of which would have earned Fred and George a long lecture from Mrs. Weasley; Harry smiled envisioning it. The game was quite addicting, and he lost track of time...
The message on the puzzle read You're doing it wrong, you fat idiot!, leading Harry to believe he was making an error (not because it said so but because it was the least profane statement he had gotten recently), when he heard Luna mutter something from across the table.
Being jolted back to the library, he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hog the--"
He trailed off when he saw that Luna was asleep, passed out on an article titled, "Warlock Rugby: What You Didn't Know Happens In Your Own Backyard."
"Gerbil fritters no good pie," she slurred. "Hokey pokey rocking chair." Harry noted that Luna's incoherent sleep-talking was not much stranger than what she said when conscious.
Here's your chance to escape, he thought automatically before realizing he did not want to escape at all.
With his inattention, the puzzle had begun to say things like Fabulous job! and Doin' fine! When Harry noticed this, he thrust the puzzle away, lest it fart again.
It knocked Luna on the elbow and she jolted awake.
"Oh!" she said, "I've been asleep! And you've been just sitting there, and..." (she looked out the window) "now it's dark and I've wasted your whole evening! I'm sorry!"
Luna looked truly upset. As she stared at him uncertainly, Harry let a silence of Luna-like proportions pass. Then he honestly replied, "I don't mind."