Fourth Year
"Hello Ginny," a rather dreamy voice said quietly. Ginny looked at Luna's wide eyes as they peered at her through the darkness. Immediately Ginny's deepest fears about Luna were confirmed; her eyes did glow in the dark.
"Hi Luna, how's it going," She said brightly. She wished she could have said seeing Luna sitting behind the outdoor broom shed at midnight was a surprise, but lying was a nasty habit to get into.
As Luna very quietly began a dazed recollection of her last week's classes, Ginny pondered the situation. Fred had told her that Luna wandered around at night occasionally, and George had told her that Luna went off chasing nightmares around the grounds when everyone else was asleep. Concerned that Luna would get into trouble running around in the dark if what the twins said was true, she'd decided that she'd make sure Fred and George were lying.
"So Luna," Ginny said, interrupting what would have been an interesting conversation on the cauldron leaches that had grown to an epidemic in the dungeons without Professor Snape even noticing. "What'cha doing out so late?"
Luna's gaze pierced her own as she whispered "I could ask you the same question, you know."
Suddenly another dark shape moved into Ginny's eyesight, and a wand tip shone on her face. "Hi George", she pushed his wand away from her face, not even startled.
"Why are we whispering," George hissed, staring at Luna's glowing pupils.
'Because we're chasing dreamwigs," Luna whispered back, in a way that was considerably dramatic. Dramatic for Luna anyway. Ginny was glad that the darkness hid the way she had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. It seemed the twins had been right.
"So where's Fred?" Ginny said, trying to keep her voice down. Luna had beckoned them away from the broom shed they'd been haunting, and was now tiptoeing towards the middle of the Quidditch pitch.
"He had to make a stop at the little boy's room, but he'll be out in a few minutes," George said in the most obnoxious stage whisper Ginny had ever heard. The little boy's room was the same room most people referred to as the Slytherins' common room.
Luna looked at George with a small sigh. "Aren't you going to ask me how bad the dream earwigs are? Because for all you know, there could be some in your head right now."
"Oh really," George said, still whispering dramatically. "Do they crawl into your head while you're sleeping then?"
"No, they don't really need to go in your head, except in your case I'd imagine they like flying about in your head anyway. They love open spaces."
Before George could respond, she let out a laugh. A hysterical scream actually, it was quite high-pitched and long. But before George and Ginny could share a typical bemused glance, something amazing happened. Aroused by Luna's mirth, hundreds of glowing bugs were taking to the air. In the middle of the pitch, the wizard and witches stood, engulfed in the swarm of twinkling yellow insects. They made a soft rustling noise with their wings as they flew higher and higher in the sky, and then left behind them a soft, unearthly silence as they drifted above the goal posts and out of sight.
Oblivious to the two Weasley's astonished faces, Luna sighed happily. "That's what I was going to do anyway. We'll all have good dreams for months; there were a lot of them tonight."
Ginny's surprise vanished as she looked over at Luna. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen Luna," she breathed.
George was grinning like an idiot. "Wait till I tell Fred, he's not going to believe we've been here more than six years and never found this out," he said, waving a distracted goodbye and walking away with his wand beam stretching across the now-empty field like a single headlight.
"You do this a lot?" Ginny asked, looking at Luna with interest. "I'm serious, that was amazing."
Luna gave a smile, something few people ever had the pleasure of seeing on her. "Most every night it's warm like this. They always come out to the Quidditch field because there's the memory of so many adolescent boys here. I like them."
Ginny shook her head as Luna tuned to head up to the castle. She'd come down concerned for her friend, afraid that Luna was wasting her time running around by herself in the dark, chasing imaginary monsters. When Ginny blinked her eyes, she could still see the glowing of all the tiny lights.