A/N: This story feels like it might have gotten away from me a bit, so if it reads a little rough, you'll know why. As always, I don't own the Potterverse.


Despite artistry not being taught as a class at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, many students still found time to practice their art skills during the school year. In Gryffindor, if you needed something hand-drawn, you went to Dean Thomas. Down in the dungeons of Slytherin, Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis spent much of their free time composing symphonies, though to learn of that information, you had to be very well-connected, very rich, or both. And of course, Ravenclaw, the house of the wise, was no stranger to a variety of artistic pursuits.

While she could have found a hidden away nook in the castle to practice her painting, Luna Lovegood much preferred to paint the natural world, and you couldn't very well paint nature inside of a stuffy stone castle, now could you? On warm days, of which Scotland had very few, Luna would take her painting supplies into a clearing near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There, she would set up and paint whatever she saw, be it a family of Thestrals, the swinging and swaying of the Whomping Willow, or the way the leaves blew around in the wind. The last were some of her favorite paintings, as they gave her the opportunity to blend the most colors together and produce vibrant paintings.

On days when she wasn't feeling the urge to go paint, Luna would often be found browsing the library, looking for other inspirations, or occasionally some help on creating certain blends with her paints. There weren't a lot of books on painting at Hogwarts, but the ones the school did own were invaluable to Luna.

One excursion in particular requires Luna to nearly fill a table with books, trying to make comparisons on how each of them proposed blending some of the leaves she was so fond of painting into the paints themselves. No two books seemed to suggest the same method, which left Luna both frustrated and intrigued.

Upon seeing the blonde girl taking over her usual table in the library, Hermione Granger was simply frustrated.

Hermione had seen Luna painting out by the Forest. Of all the things Hermione Granger considered herself to be above-average at, art was far from appearing on that list. When she was made to take art classes during primary school, it was the only subject she couldn't manage a top grade in. Creativity just seemed to be beyond her, and seeing others take to it so effortlessly burned something deep inside her. So seeing someone taking up an entire table with art books was rather annoying, and that it was Luna in particular, who could just create beautiful art seemingly out of thin air, pushed Hermione over the edge.

"WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, LUNA?" screamed Hermione, completely forgetting in her rage that she was in a library. Luna, who had been focusing very intently on her books, was quite startled by the shouting and fell over backwards with her chair. Their combined noise was enough to draw the attention of Madam Pince, and both were summarily thrown out of the library shortly thereafter.

As the two girls walked towards the Great Hall, Luna could hear Hermione mumbling angrily to herself, but chose not to comment until she heard "…can't believe she thinks her paintings are so good…"

"How can there be so much you don't know?" asked Luna. A rather red-faced Hermione spun sharply to face the younger girl, and prepared to launch into what would certainly have been a long tirade about everything she did know, but she was cut off by a sharp slap to the side of her face. Spying an empty classroom nearby, Luna dragged Hermione by the hair inside, shoved her in the direction of a chair, and proceeded to lock and silence the door so that no one would disturb them. Noting that Hermione had not taken her seat yet, Luna pointed her wand at the Gryffindor, then at the chair next to her, before returning the wand to point at Hermione's face. The bushy-haired bookworm finally got the message, and sat down, though she still looked rather furious.

Now satisfied with how things were, Luna returned her wand to its usual location behind her ear. "Since you desire to charge forward without thinking, I won't bother asking you to retract your patently false statements about my artwork, simply because I can prove you wrong quite easily. No, what I'm really curious about is why you believe that you have the right to be better than everyone at everything, and why failing to live up to your own impossible expectations gives you leave to disturb the hard work the rest of us try and put together?"

Hermione stubbornly refused to answer, and turned her head away from Luna. This proved to be a mistake, as the lithe blonde was in no mood to be ignored.

SLAP!

Only Luna grabbing her by the jaw kept Hermione from falling over from the force of yet another slap to her face. She was forcefully turned to look at Luna, and recoiled slightly in fear from the magic visibly radiating off the other girl.

"If you want to make it to dinner without having to pay Madame Pomfrey a visit first, you will not be so bold as to ignore me any further," whispered Luna menacingly. "Now, you can tell me why you are so opposed to art and my seeking to learn more about it, or I can tear the answer out of your small-minded brain. I promise you, the first one will hurt you less."

Hermione lowered her eyes in shame, her actions finally catching up to her, and having no good excuse for why she treated Luna so poorly. She just hoped whatever the girl did next wouldn't cause any permanent damage. Fortunately for her, Luna was feeling generous, and didn't follow through with her legilimency threat.

"You know, for such a smart girl, you can be really dumb sometimes. How do you think my father can afford to keep printing his magazines, going on his expeditions, and generally not having to cater to the whims of the rest of the world? My paintings, that's how," said Luna. "My art sells all over the world, and from what I've heard some of them even cross into the Muggle world, considering that the only magic present in the paintings is what I personally imbue the colors with, and is fairly undetectable. Remember that just because you cannot do something, does not in the slightest mean that no one can do it."

Luna took down her spells, gave one last look back at a throughly defeated Hermione, and left in a huff. To her credit, the Gryffindor made no move to follow, and instead took the time available to sit and think about how little she actually did know.