AN: The usual. No one in that story is my property. Enjoy. Please review.
He knew those signs.
Harry truly saw her for the first time weeks after the start of the school year. Her invisibility hadn't unexpectedly worn off nor had she suddenly decided to come near him for the first time. They had met before but, up until that moment, she simply had been beneath his notice. It would have been the same that day too if not for a disapproving Hermione.
Harry and Ron were engrossed in Quidditch, Harry explaining one of Wood's newer and more complex strategies when a familiar tutting sound found his way into the discussion and stopped Harry at mid-sentence. It was Hermione's 'I don't approve' patented tut.
"What's your problem?" grunted Ron to the trio's girl. He was still in his post-awakening, pre-breakfast rude mentality, and she had just interrupted a fascinating discussion.
Hermione sent a withering glare at him. She would have gone sulking in a book, but Harry silently asked forgiveness by using puppy eyes. He wanted to know what had made her react.
"That Ravenclaw girl! She's mocking the rule." The gloomy way she declared it, it might have been a death verdict.
Harry looked toward the girl in question. There was no doubt in his mind that her uniform respected Hogwart's standards, but she had a distinctly strange, unkept and dishevelled appearance. Her long dirty-blond hair were straggly, unwashed and wild, her robes wrinkled, her hat bent. Instead of the usual charm necklace you expected on a girl her age, she was wearing a crude one made of cord and butterbeer corks. Two ugly earrings, cheap plastic radishes, completed her jewellery. She kept her wand behind her ear.
Harry first reaction was to smile at straight Hermione's reaction to the girl. He never did. He saw something familiar in the girl that made him shiver in cold dread. Her appearance reminded him of a sign.
His shiver didn't escape Hermione.
"Are you alright, Harry?"
"Yes..." he answered distractedly. Losing his line of thought, he discarded the sign as a figment of his imagination and turned toward his friend. "Yes." he said again, with firmness.
"Let's go to Defence, then." said Hermione, he eyes glazing over at the thought of the teacher.
"We don't want to be late for Lockhart's story hour." said Ron. "Feel like a bloody kindergartener." he added to Harry.
-.-.-
Harry had rejected the first sign, but it wasn't completely forgotten. Subconsciously, he became attentive to her, remarking her every time they met in the school. He didn't learned her name nor did he talked to her. He just kept her in his peripheral vision whenever she was around him. When he saw her enter a class behind Ginny, he discovered she was a first year.
This subconscious need to watch for her led him to the second sign: her lack of social life. Harry had a tendency to keep to himself, had a lot of difficulty trusting others near him. That girl was in another league completely. At least Harry had two best friends and was on good terms with some other students. The little Ravenclaw blonde had no-one that could qualify as a friend and never initiated a discussion by herself.
Thinking it might simply be shyness, this sign joined the first one in his discard pile.
-.-.-
School life for the youngest quidditch player in over a century was a frantic affair, especially with all that ugly Chamber of Secrets business, but it did happen sometimes that Harry Potter was out of things to do and bored. His homework was done, Hermione was engrossed in some research and Ron was deep in procrastinated schoolwork. He had failed to convince Hermione to give some of her time for her chess match and was exiting the library when he saw her. The Ravenclaw girl was alone, reading a magazine called "The Quibbler". Feeling bolder than usual, he seated in front of her. She hesitantly put down her reading material.
"Hi, I'm..."
"You're Harry Potter!" she interrupted in a dreamy, rather pleasant voice.
"I know I am." he jested.
She smiled at him. It would have been a pleasant smile if Harry had not detected the lack of warmth. The smile was a façade, a mask, a lie, an artifice to insure the world believed her life was perfect. He was too familiar with masks of that kind to be fooled. This was a third sign that things were amiss and this sign he couldn't eliminate. She had issues, horribly disturbing issues.
He talked to her. Only the smallest of hesitation marked the fact that he had glimpsed her dark secrets. That afternoon, he learned about Luna Lovegood, as the girl was named. He found out she was pleasurable company, in her eccentric and full of contradictions way. She had the keenest mind he had ever encountered in someone his age, Hermione excepted, yet she was filled with whimsical beliefs. She was also astonishingly perceptive.
When the afternoon ended, he escorted her to the Great Hall were they each went to their table. Harry felt he had made a friend and promised himself to look out for her.
-.-.-
Being considered the evil Heir of Slytherin and Dark Controller of the Beast in the Chamber had some advantages decided Harry. It made it easier to protect your friend.
His instincts went into alert the moment he saw the group the group of third years Ravens stalks Luna as she exited the Great Hall. Rapidly warning Ron to fetch some adult help, he ran after them. He found them in an empty classroom. They had formed a circle with Luna in their midst. They were shoving her to each other, singing bad taunts on her name and beliefs. When a girl dodged instead of pushing back Luna, the younger Ravenclaw fell, her left knee hitting the ground with a sick crack.
A wave of pure anger overtook Harry. He advanced on the bullies, shielding Luna, his wand drawn. Channelling his inner-Snape, he forced his face in the evilest sneer he could muster.
"Serpensortia! Serpensortia!" he said in an hatred-filled whisper, waving his wand both times in the same gesture he had seen Malfoy use at the duelling club. Two beautiful rattlesnakes appeared in front of him.
"Threaten. Do not bite." he ordered in Parseltongue.
The four Ravenclaw bullies, two of each sex, had paled in presence of the snakes. When Harry started hissing, they simply panicked and ran away.
"If I ever see you tormenting her again, I'll unleash my fanged servant." he yelled to their fleeing back, turning a joke of the twins into a full-blown threat.
After vanishing the snakes, he went to take care of his friend. Luna was still on the floor, crying, her hands around her wounded knee without touching it. Harry kneeled at her side and wrapped his arms around her. She tensed, even tried to free herself. Mentally admonishing himself for forgetting that she might have that particular sign, he released her.
"You don't have to fear THAT from me. I'm your friend." he whispered to her. He hugged her again, this time careful to gain her acceptance.
When Ron arrived with reinforcements, in the form of Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, they found the two youngsters still in their hug, with Luna subdued back to a state near her normal self.
"What happened?" asked the professor, her lips almost as thin as after the car debacle.
"Bullies." answered Harry. "I think they broke her knee."
Hagrid moved to take the girl. Harry felt her renewed nervousness.
"Not you, Hagrid. She needs a more... feminine touch. Please, Professor?"
McGonagall frowned at Harry's request, but there was something in her young Lion's voice that compelled her to comply. She took Luna and left for the hospital.
"Thank you, Harry." whispered Luna as she was taken out.
-.-.-
The fourth sign gave Harry a need to act. The fifth one filled him with urgency.
He had not expected to see his younger friend, a week layer, with her skin red and raw as if scrubbed under scalding hot water. The sight not only filled him with a strong urge to puke, he felt guilty not to have act immediately after the incident with the bullies. If this newest sign concurred with his knowledge, she was either plagued with nightmares or it was a current occurrence.
That last possibility seemed too possible. If Voldemort himself could enter the school under the guise of a teacher, Harry had no doubts a lesser, more common evil could too. Between his first year, Dobby and the petrifactions, Harry had been proven that Hogwart wasn't as safe an haven as it should be.
Knowing from experience that Luna wouldn't talk of her problem herself, Harry went to Dumbledore and told him his suspicions.
-.-.-
It was only after Ginny's rescue that Dumbledore finally found the time to act properly on Harry's suspicions and, sadly, they were twice confirmed. One had already been taken care of with the events in the Chamber. As for the second, Dumbledore searched for alternate accommodations for Luna's summer vacations.
Harry was the lone students to know the whole truth, but the questioning of most of Hogwart's female population by their head of houses did lead to rumours. Only a few students got close to gather all the facts and, of those, only Hermione guessed of Harry's involvement. When she came to him, he was happy to confide.
-.-.-
Harry was packing his trunk, careful of his arms still raw from the shower and scrubbing that had followed last night's nightmares. The next morning, he would leave Hogwart to return to his own personal hell, the Dursley. The imminent departure, combined with the events of the year, had brought back some of Harry's least savoury dreams.
Hermione, seated in Ron's bed, was looking at him.
"Are you alright?" she asked, suspicious.
He turned toward her, putting his 'all is right' friendly grin on his face, a mask he had worn often in the last few days.
"Yes."
"I've always wanted to ask, why do you keep those atrocious clothes you get from your cousin? They make you look ridiculous. Why don't you buy better ones when you go to Diagon Alley for your robes?"
He shook his shoulder, before giving her his pre-made excuse.
"I don't want Uncle Vernon to know I've got money."
"Oh."
There was an awkward silence, then she asked.
"The rumours... You were in the middle of what happened, didn't-you?"
"Of course, we told you about the chamber!"
She rolled her eyes.
"Not those rumours... the other ones."
He told her everything, from the signs he had seen on Luna to Dumbledore discovery of the culprit. He knew Hermione could be trusted to keep this knowledge to herself. When he finished, she was fuming.
"He was a teacher here!"
Harry nodded.
"And he was erasing their memories?"
"He told Ron and me that memory charms were his speciality."
"But why did she show any signs when no other girls did?"
Harry sighted. He felt weary, even wearier than after his ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets.
"Don't repeat this. I already had my doubts before he..." He was nauseous. "He wasn't the first... And each time, it refreshed some of her.. other... similar... memories." He didn't say anything more... He couldn't.
Hermione's eyes filled with tears. She threw herself around him in an hug. He flinched at the sudden physical contact.
"I'm glad you knew those signs." She whispered between sobs. "Now that I know them, I'll be able to help others. I'm sure she's not the only one who needs help."
"No she's not." sadly answered Harry. He knew one other who needed help.
AN: I'm no expert on the subject, so the sign I used were inspired by other angst stories. I just wanted to show how easy it is to miss a cry for help.