It was midnight, and Hogwarts was saturated with dark, velvety shadows. Harry walked along the vacant corridors silently, rippling through the stagnant air, his motion creating a slight breath of wind. The startlingly white moonlight poured through the angular windows in shafts of light; feathery light eyelashes of the night sky. As Harry stepped from the bars of light into the patches of darkness, his thoughts slowly fell like sand, settling into his consciousness. He needed the solitude and the darkness to think: now, the bright, busy Hogwarts days clashed with his emotions and made him feel as though he were drowning in a turbulent sea of noise and joy.

Luna startled him when he came upon her. It was as though the sanctity of his night had been destroyed by a pale, radiant extension of the full moon, for that was what she looked like against the stark white light. Her eyes were large and circular, slightly upturned at the end and rimmed with long blonde lashes. Her face was thin and delicate; it looked so strange against her wide eyes that they fit together perfectly: her delicate cheekbones and narrow chin and thin, slightly upturned nose and full, pillowy lips seemed to exist solely for the purpose of supporting those pale blue eyes. She was slender and flowing, like a powdery white streak of water, and her long, blonde hair fell in half-hearted waves, flowing past her defined collarbone and coming to a rest just below her breasts.

Her long fingertips were pressed gently to her temples, and she was doubled over, staring out the window at the illuminated grounds and sobbing. Tears formed rapidly in the bottom of her eyes and traveled over her flushed cheeks, falling rapidly on the hard marble windowsill.

"Luna?" he asked concernedly.

She leapt back from the window and her hands quickly flew to underneath her eyes to roughly brush away the tears. Seeing no one, her breath caught in her throat. "Who's there?" she whispered hoarsely.

Both of Harry's hands fluttered to the top of his cloak near his crown and hastened to reveal his face. "It's me."

She sighed. "Oh, Harry. Nice to see you," she said distantly.

"Why were you crying?" he demanded.

Her eyes flicked up to his, and she looked at him directly. Harry found the honesty in her expression uncomfortable.

"Cormac MacLaggen asked me out on a date," she said simply, and her gaze shifted back to the moon.

"Oh?"

"It wasn't real; it was a joke to amuse him and his friends." Beneath her usual mystic tones, Harry could detect pain.

"I'm sorry, Luna." She nodded vaguely. "He's a real asshole, you could do so much better than that."

Her eyes found his again and she smiled with effort. "Loony Lovegood." She laughed, tears strangling her voice.

He shook his head passionately. "No, you're the most real person I've ever met. They can't judge you just because you're not as fake as them and because you don't conform to what they all do. I think you're an amazing person… and Cormac MacLaggen can go fuck himself."

Luna looked taken aback. "Really?" she asked, touched.

"Yeah, and you don't need their approval. You're fine the way you are."

She nodded slowly; Harry couldn't tell if this signified her agreement or just her desire to cease the conversation.

She looked so fragile and broken. Though she acted indifferent, he knew that she was floundering, struggling desperately in an environment that would never accept her. There was only so much that she could conceal beneath her detached, dreamlike behavior. He wanted to reach out to her, to rest his hand gently on hers and heal the wounds that his peers' cruelty had inflicted on her. It was just what Ron called his hero complex acting up again, but for some reason he felt just as hurt as her. The sadness hiding in the shadows of her face was so tangible that he could feel it wrap around his body in a weak imitation of her despair.

"Hey – d'you want to… erm, maybe come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?" he asked without realizing it.

She examined his face slowly. "You don't have to take me because you feel bad."

"I want to." He paused and considered this statement, then quickly added, "Not because I feel bad. Because I want to."

A grin slowly stretched across her face. "Sure. I'll see you in the entrance hall Saturday morning. We can look for Fire-Clawed Kirnogs on the way over!"

"Er, okay. I'll see you then."

Harry slipped the cloak back over his head and stood, watching her for a brief moment.

She glanced around the corridor for him then leaned back against the cold stone wall and tilted her head back, an giddy smile on her face. Her hair cascaded around her, shining bright silver against the dark gray walls and she was emanating moonlight: a silvered nymph languishing among the mysterious and spiteful mortals.

Harry smiled slowly and started back to his dormitory.