A/N: For those who are coming back and skipping to this chapter, I've edited the first one slightly and given a bit of information about update speed.

Chapter 2: Meeting Luna Lovegood

Sitting in her office, Minerva founder herself looking over the student essays that were turned in yesterday by her seventh years, but she couldn't seem to concentrate on them. She couldn't stop herself from internally stressing over what had happened the night before, at the Choosing of the Champions. Groaning in frustration at everything that has happened over the years to that boy, she reached up and tangled her hands into her loose hair; she hadn't bothered with getting ready for the day as of yet.

It was in that moment that the fire flared up, a bright green glow filling the room. Minerva looked up in time to see Poppy Pomfrey's head appear in the fire. "Poppy, what can I do for you at this hour?"

"I have one, Harry Potter, back in my custody Minerva. I would like a word with you on the reasons why, and to discuss a small piece of information that Miss. Granger let slip by accident when she brought him in." Poppy's words seemed to be filled with what, appeared to be, quite a bit of urgency.

"I am on my way." Minerva stood, turning to grab her robe off the back of her chair, throwing it over her shoulders and picking up her wand from beside her on the desk. Making her way over to the fireplace, she reached up and withdrew some floo powder hidden away in a small box on the mantle, quickly throwing the powder into the now, once more, reddish orange fire. The moment it returned to the green flames they had been not a minute before she stepped in and called out her destination, flooing directly to the Hospital Wing.

"Now, what has happened, Poppy?"

Hermione didn't know if she'd ever understand how Harry gets himself into these situations, but one of these days, she swore, he's going to give her a heart attack. She had been in the Great Hall for only half an hour, but she was already driving herself crazy with worry. Harry was her first friend; if she wanted to be honest with herself, her only friend. There wasn't ever a time, that Hermione could remember, that she had ever referred to Ron as more than an annoyance. Sure, at times, she had said they were a Trio to Harry, but it seemed to make him happier. So, she had put up with Ronald, no matter how miserable he made her.

"The Wrackspurts have gotten to you; a breakfast of sausage and radishes should clear them up though."

Hermione felt like she had jumped out of her skin, before she realized she was being spoken to. "Huh? What?" Her mind was focused on Harry to the point that she didn't even realize that someone had walked up to her; she glanced up to find a girl standing across from her. It was then that Hermione noticed she was standing on the other side of the table, wand tucked behind her ear, and three large books in her arms. "Where is your backpack?"

"It seems to have disappeared." Her voice had what appeared to be a dreamy quality to it, almost like she was talking to Hermione, but off in her own little world at the same time. Surprisingly enough, to those who knew nothing about her, it was this fact that truly caught and held Hermione's attention. For she had seen, and interacted with, someone that had used a similar guard.

"Disappeared? This might be a school for magic, but things like backpacks, don't simply just disappear without someone helping them along." It was then that Hermione realized she didn't even know who this girl was; she couldn't remember having seen her around at any point. "What's your name?"

"The Umgubular Slashkilter like hiding things, so perhaps you were right and they didn't disappear, but were hidden from me." The small blond girl nodded her head in a fashion that clearly spoke that, that must be what happened. "Oh? How rude of me, I'm Luna Lovegood." Even though the girl clear had answered Hermione's question about who she was, there seemed to have been a bit of hesitation to it, almost like she was afraid of what would happen the moment she volunteered the information.

"Huh?" The general idea that she might have heard wrong crossed Hermione's mind at the description of the... creature? Harry may have even driven her bonkers, having ended up in the Hospital Wing so much. It took Hermione a moment to remember that the young girl had introduced herself as well. "Right, pleasure meeting you, Luna. I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger."

"The Umgubular Slashkilter likes to hide things." She stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Did such a creature really even exist or was she making this entire thing up? "It's a creature that is famous for hiding things from people, whether it's information or an object." At first Hermione thought she was reciting it from a book, but that wasn't possible, was it? She'd never heard of such a creature.

"And this creature actually exists?" Now if she was standing there with a book, opened up to the correct page and was pointing it out to her, Hermione might have had an easier time believing it, but she could have sworn she had read every book in the library on magical creatures.

"Well, of course it does!" Maybe it would have been better if she had just not asked; it didn't even occurred to Hermione that Luna had a second agenda to completely befuddling her.

"And they stole your backpack?"

"Yes, it seems they have." Now Hermione had no idea as to what to say to that, but she was not going to believe that they were the reason that Luna's backpack had up and disappeared. Could a Slytherin have decided that this would be a fun way to spend their morning, making a young girl miserable? Hermione couldn't even imagine going around the school without a backpack, there was no way she would be able to get from Point A to Point B without something going horribly wrong; if she even made it out of the Portrait Hole.

"Forgive me, but I don't believe you. Now, will you tell me what really happened?" Hermione was curious whether or not Luna would tell her; as she considered Hermione's question she slouched her shoulders and placed her books down on the bench in front of her, revealing, for the first time since she spoke, the blue badge on the chest of her robes. 'A Ravenclaw? Why does she pretend that she's not all there if she's a Ravenclaw? This doesn't make any sense.'

"It was at the foot of my bed last night, but when I went to retrieve it before leaving for breakfast, only my books were there." The small Ravenclaw glanced up at Hermione once more, a bit of the dreamy look in her eyes seemed to have faded for a moment, showing her true intelligence, before she realized she had slipped. Her silver blue eyes once more regained their hazy quality, her smile once more settling in place.

"Looney! What are you doing over there? Don't bother Granger with your insane ramblings and imaginary creatures and get back over here." Another Ravenclaw, Cho Chang, made her way over to us as she entered the Great Hall. It was so quick that Hermione would have missed it if she hadn't still been looking at Luna, or had even blinked. Luna was scared."We Ravenclaws have the strength of mind to resist you, unlike the rest of the school, now come on." Reaching out, Cho wrapped her hand around the smaller girl's arm and began to pull her away, before Luna even had a chance to make a grab at her books. 'What the hell is going on!'

"Hey!" Cho seemed to stumble to a stop as Hermione cried out to her, unknowingly to all of them, catching the attention of the teacher that had been presently making their way into the Great Hall. "Let her go!" Hermione watched as the young Ravenclaws head snapped up to face her, all pretenses of her dreamy, off in the distance attitude, gone. Her eyes wide open in surprise and, dare Hermione think it, hope. 'Please, someone tell me this isn't the first time someone has stood up for her, that the ones that pick on her are Slytherins, not her own fellow Ravenclaws.'

"Whatever Granger, I was trying to do you a favor. Just a heads up and a warning, from one house to another; she's Looney." Hermione could help the thought of how the sneer on Cho's face looked like it belonged there; it seemed more in place than her smile ever had. "Soon, you'll wish you had let me drag her away." They were interrupted before Hermione could even think of something to say, or let her mouth run away from herself like it tended to do at times. Though she had had no intention of censoring herself in this instance, she hadn't seen the point.

"What is going on here?" All of them found themselves turning sharply to come face to face with the Deputy Headmistress, and she looked anything but happy.

"Nothing, Professor McGonagall." Cho got rid of the scowl on her face so fast, Hermione was forced to admit that it wasn't as permanent a fixture as she had thought, but the smile definitely looked out of place. Sadly it falsified Hermione's theory that anything except the scowl was a simple, well cast, spell. "We were all having a nice little conversation, nothing more."

"Miss. Granger?" The moment McGonagall turned to Hermione, she knew it was because she expected the truth. Hermione opened her mouth to do just that, but then thought better of it. She realized that this wasn't her Head of House's problem, it was Professor Flitwick's, but she had every intention to make sure it ended up on his desk.

"It's nothing Professor, I was just having a conversation with a friend and Cho came to remind her that she had something to do this morning before class." Hermione knew that she wasn't going to buy it, she wasn't foolish enough to even imagine the possibility, but knew that McGonagall would wait to push it until they were away from this scenario.

"Miss. Lovegood? You concur?" It wasn't hard to understand the consequences that would await Luna if she didn't agree, the girl herself seemed to be well aware of this as she only spared a small, pleading, glance in Hermione's direction.

"I was only commenting on Hermione's Wrackspurts and she asked me about Umgubular Slashkilter, so yes, I do believe that can be classified as a friendly conversation." The small blonde's words were filled with her trademark dreamy haze when she spoke, showing Hermione that it was exactly what she had thought it was; an illusion, a mask, whatever one wanted to use to describe it, either way, it was fake. This was especially proven true when she saw the slight flinch, caused by Cho tightening her grip on Luna's arm the moment she had mentioned her creatures.

Hermione found she couldn't with hold her quiet giggle though, when she saw Professor McGonagall do a double take, one would have to imagine that she had never heard the young girl speak of such things around her before. If this was why she had chosen this type of mask, Hermione would have to agree that it was a good one. It was sure to keep those that would think less of her away, but Hermione once more couldn't stop herself as she flinched slightly at the thought of what had caused Luna's fellow house mates to act this way to her. The real question is: what had caused her to act like this in the first place? Why would she decide to put up mask around those that could be her friends, unless... unless it was a test to see just who was willing to look beyond all of it to the real person underneath it all. How tormenting would it be for someone to find that your house, as a whole, has failed that simple test, especially when they are considered to be among the house of the wise?

"Miss. Granger?" Hermione had to catch herself on the table so that she didn't fall backwards onto her butt; she really needed to start paying more attention today or someone was going to really catch her off guard, perhaps a Slytherin. Grimacing at the thought of what Draco Malfoy would do with this information, Hermione drew herself once more out of her thoughts.

"Yes, Professor?" It was then that Hermione realized that McGonagall had dismissed the other girls to be on their way and had turned to place all her attention on her, most likely to get the facts about what really happened.

"Would you please take a walk with me?" She motioned for Hermione to follow her back out the Great Hall doors; Hermione nodded in response before gathering her things and making her way out. "Now, as I know you are aware, would you please do me the favor of informing me of what was really going on back there and fill me in on the occurrences that transpired this morning with one Harry Potter?" Hermione glanced up at her Head of House with surprise, then felt like hitting herself upside the head, realizing that McGonagall would already know, she was Harry's Head of House too.

"Yes, of course. Where would you like me to start?"

It wasn't long before Hermione found herself standing in front of the Hospital Wing, wondering if everything was as she left it. She honestly hadn't thought she would end up here so quickly after being kicked out, but Professor McGonagall wanted a full account of what had happened. It took her the entire 15 minutes to get there to fill her in of what had transpired that morning, in detail. The information about Harry had only seemed to confuse her, yet add to her frustration. What Hermione told her about Luna, on the other hand, seemed to royally pissed her off. She assured Hermione that she would do everything she could to put a stop to it; Professor Flitwick would be receiving a visit from her sometime in the near future.

The doors swung open only enough to allow them both thru, before once more securing themselves shut. Ignoring the conversation, that almost instantly began up between Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall, Hermione quickly made her way over to where Harry still lay on his bed. 'I can't imagine why they still haven't put his name on it yet, he spends enough time in it every year.' She found that the only things that had truly changed, between now and then, was that he was now clothed in a simple white long sleeve T-shirt and a pair of cotton sweats. Settling into the chair next to him, she reached up and slipped her fingers thru his. His body showed no reaction to her presence; to her, it would almost seem as if that he was in a deep coma.

"Miss. Granger?" Turning towards the voice, Hermione realized that Professor McGonagall was standing at the end of his bed. "Oh, you poor girl." McGonagall reached into one of the pockets of her robes and withdrew a small piece of cloth, stepping forward, she moved so that she was down on the same level as Hermione. Raising her hand she began to slowly dab it on Hermione's cheeks, it wasn't until that moment that she realized she had been crying.

"Professor, what is going on?" Her silent tears quickly began to turn into heart felt sobs; without knowing what else to do, McGonagall found herself pulling one of her favorite students into her arms. She had thought that there would never be a day where she saw Hermione Granger crumble, but this incident seemed to have taken far more out of her than any of them could have imagined.

"Hermione." The young girl turned her head, from where it was buried in McGonagall's robes and glanced up at Madam Pomfrey. "You were right, when you brought him in, you expressed your beliefs that perhaps he had been cursed or jinxed, but it would seem that your first believe was the correct one." Sighing, the older woman made her way to the top of Harry's bed, stopping next to his head, she once more placed her wand over his head. A small ball of light rose up from Harry, it was a deep green color, but the moment it came to stand still the green faded and a swarm of so many different colors took its place that it became unrecognizable. Changing it to the point that it looked like a disgusting blend of murky brown and charcoal black, swirling around each other, a single, brighter, color forcing it's way to the surface every now and then.

"What…What is that?" Hermione looked on in bewilderment.