Since Won-won was busy with the love of his life, I told him I would do our patrol alone. Each pair of prefects had to do one tour of their quadrant of the castle. It took about an hour. 5th year at 11, sixth at midnight and seventh at 1 am.

I was glad to get away from the sloppy, pathetic tongue work of my ex-friend, and I figured this might give me a chance to hide some new hats and socks in classrooms. Harry mentioned Dobby collected all the ones in the tower and Ron always took the mickey if I tried to do it when he was with me. His rudeness didn't stop me, I was far too used to it. But I did enjoy the peace.

I'd concealed four hats and two pair of socks when I tripped over Luna. She was sleeping in the Cryptid Studies classroom which is the twelfth classroom on the second floor of my section.

I must admit I more that half expected that she was camping out in hopes that a Seven-Bladdered Hose Whanger would come to sniff the classrooms essence of open mindedness. But then she stood and I saw that she only wore light blue silk shortie pyjamas that were so thin I could clearly see her nipples and pubic hair , and I mean the aureola not just where it poked against the fabric with cold. Since both parts were barely a shade pinker in one case and blonder in the other than her natural pale white skin the fact I could see them really said something of how little protection she had.

I noticed she was shivering as she stood up and it was no surprise. I immediately took off my cloak and draped it around her shoulders.

She tried to push me away saying. "Thank you, Hermione, but you don't need to. Im fine. Used to it."

"What do you mean? Why are you dressed like this? Why aren't you in Ravenclaw Tower?"

"Well the easiest one to answer is, these are my pyjamas. I'm wearing them because its night time."

"But why are you only wearing them?" I asked.

"They took my dressing gown when they locked me out of the tower." Luna said. "I usually keep an extra robe here for when they do this, but clearly they found it." She indicated a pile of black flannel scraps behind the heavy cupboard.

"Why did they lock you out of the tower?" I asked, beginning to wonder if I was going to have to specifically ask for every detail I required.

"Oh, it's all in good fun. Sometimes they like to lock me out of the tower and bewitch the eagle door knocker to not hear my voice so I can't get back in." Luna replied.

"That's horrible. Tell Professor Flitwick. I know he wouldn't stand for it." I said.

"No, no, they don't mean it to be cruel. They'll open it around dawn so no one will find me here. They are always quite cross, having to get up early and find me to tell me to come up. But they don't mean anything bad by it. Id hate to see them get in trouble." Luna said.

I took her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes and said, "You can't really believe these are just playful shenanigans."

She broke down then. Her dreamy far away smile broke. First there was a clarity in her eyes as if she was with me with a complete presence that is rare for her. Then I wouldn't say it was a look of dawning horror. But dawning sadness doesnt capture it either. Anguish perhaps. I find that word is almost always used in the context of mocking someone. But it is a real emotion. An emotion Luna seemed to be experiencing.

She fell against me with a sob. In a few moments she said, "It is innocent. I know it is. But that doesn't mean that I can always accept these things in the spirit of camaraderie they are meant."

It had been pointed out that I sometimes put being right over being compassionate and I acknowledged that and tried to do better. Not as successfully as I'd like, though. It seemed even when i made it a competition I couldn't get myself to focus on that. But I did try to be mindful. Just like right now, I swallowed my desire to keep banging on about how the theory that this ongoing torment was not malicious was specious at best.

I just patted her back and held her just a little bit tighter. I even tried to put Harry or Ginny in her place. People who meant so much to me I wouldn't possibly put making them acknowledge I'm right over comforting them.

But even with that picture in my mind it made no difference. I would still be thinking their crying proved that on some level they knew it wasn't all in good fun, and wanting them to say so too. Of course Harry's temper or Ginny's single sister defenses never let any slight go past unremarked so perhaps on some level even my subconcious knew such a thing would never happen.

Honestly, standing there comforting my friend and really thinking before I said anything, had the unexpected side effect of making me feel protective of her. I have always been protective of my friends, including Luna. But before it was in a 'we're with ya, Harry' way.

But now for the first time I found myself feeling protective in a Mrs. Weasley 'get behind me, dear' way.

I suppose Luna was too sweet and innocent to see malice when it faced her. Whether that ignorance was a willful decision not to see it, or if her natural gullibility brought with it a trust in her fellow witch and wizard, I didn't know. Regardless, I was not going to judge her, not this time.

I didnt know whether she was nicer or more innocent than a normal girl. But what I did know was she is a good caring person who was picked on far worse than I had ever been just because she was different. And I was not going to let it happen anymore.

When she had dried her eyes and thanked me with a small smile, I took her hand and said. "Come with me Luna. Harry found the most amusing spell in that silly graffitied book of his. Its called Levicorpus and I've learned to cast it non-verbally. Let's go to Ravenclaw Tower and we can see if your little friends can guess the spell and its counter jinx."