CHAPTER TWO

THE RAVENCLAW ROOM

The next morning, things had returned to normal in the Dursley household, and there were no sounds of preparation to leave at early hours in the morning. Harry arose at a reasonable hour, and came downstairs for breakfast a while later to be completely ignored. Uncle Vernon had already eaten and gone off to his job at the drill company, leaving only Aunt Petunia and Dudley as Harry's silent companions as he made his way through a small portion of biscuits and water.

The Dursleys did not normally watch the news until some hours later, in the evening, so Harry began to climb up the flight of stairs which had been his ceiling for much of the first eleven years of his life, prepared for another dull day of sitting in his bedroom and maybe taking a look at his summer homework. Professor Snape, the potions master at Hogwarts, had assigned all students in Harry's year twenty-inch essays on the brewing of Aconite, which Harry had been postponing.

The young wizard had barely set foot on the first stair, however, when the doorbell rang, and Harry stopped, wondering who might be calling at this early hour. Aunt Petunia opened the door, and Harry heard the familiar somewhat-distant voice of Luna Lovegood as it made its way into the house.

"Hello," it said calmly, "is Harry Potter home?"

Harry watched as Aunt Petunia glared suspiciously at the doorway, then shot her gaze back towards Harry's frozen form, her stare implying that he most definitely should not be home and that he had no right to be so. "Yes, he is," she said, turning back to the doorway. "Why do you want to know? You're the new girl, aren't you?"

"May Harry come out to play?" asked Luna, ignoring Aunt Petunia's questions entirely. Harry could see his aunt considering the best way to answer this question.

"He may, I suppose," she said finally, "but I think I should warn you about him first." Aunt Petunia paused for a moment, presumably to check for surprise on Luna's countenance, then continued. "That boy is no good at all, I warn you. He's only here for the summers, the rest of the year he's at St. Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. I wouldn't trust him with a candle if we weren't forced to. I don't think he's at all the sort of boy your father would approve your being around."

"That's all right," said Luna almost instantly, "I don't mind. Although," she added a moment later, "it's really not very nice at all of you to say those things about him. I'm sure that Harry doesn't like being made fun of either."

Aunt Petunia attempted to begin some sort of retort, beginning by repeating Luna's words "made fun of", but she was cut off by Luna entering the house herself and coming to a stop when she could see Harry on the stair.

"Oh, there you are," said Luna, looking two inches above him. "Do you want to come outside? I don't think all of this indoor air can be good for you, there are too many Yibackles floating around."

Harry looked at Luna, smiling at her outfit, which seemed rather out of place in the meticulously ordinary living room of Number 4 Privet Drive. Luna still wore her necklace of butterbeer corks, but her earrings were now made out of miniature dried sandwiches instead of radishes, and the wand habitually located behind her ear had been replaced by a blunt pencil instead. She wore a bright blue t-shirt with several pockets and fringed edges, and black and white striped pants of some thick material. Her feet were bare, and a quick glance from Harry noticed faint grass stains on them.

"Sure, let's go," he said, and exited the house with her, ignoring looks of confusion from Dudley and extreme suspicion from Aunt Petunia, who shut the door hurriedly after them.

"Yibackles?" asked Harry, bemusedly.

"Small blue fuzzy relatives of hedgehogs," explained Luna, as they walked down Privet Drive in the direction of the play park Harry had encountered Dudley within a year previous. "They're agoraphobic, so they thrive on indoor spaces. They'll bite your feet if you give them the chance. Dad had a very nice article all about them in the Quibbler a couple months ago, but you don't read it."

"Er," said Harry. Luna's father was the editor of an odd newspaper called the Quibbler, which seemed to be the main source of every belief that Luna held. It had, in the past, included articles accusing Sirius Black of being a singing star or Cornelius Fudge of eating goblins. Harry had never quite seen the benefits to reading the newspaper on any sort of regular basis.

"It's all right," said Luna, interpreting Harry's noise correctly, "I'll get Dad to make you a subscription form. You do owe the Quibbler something after that interview last year, after all, and it won't cost you very much. Dad always says that the real payment for his work is making sure that the public knows the truth about what's going on in the world."

To this, as with many other things Luna said, Harry had no response, so they continued on for several more paces before Harry poised another question. "Um, you knew where I lived before you moved here, right?" he asked, just for confirmation's sake.

"Of course," said Luna tranquilly, not even looking at him. "Ms. Figg told Dad, and Dad told me, and I said that we should come here, so we did."

"Oh," said Harry, and tried to interpret that. "Why?"

Luna looked up at him. "You were very nice to me last year," she said, "even though you didn't know me before. I thought it made sense to live by someone who is nice to me, because there aren't very many people like that, you know. And I like you."

"Oh," said Harry again. "Um, thanks."

"Anytime," said Luna airily. "It doesn't make any sense to only say nice things about people when they're dead and can't even appreciate it."

Harry thought of Sirius and how Harry had never thanked him for being nearly a father to him, however briefly that time had lasted. "No, it doesn't," he said, and paused. "I like you too, Luna."

Luna was looking ahead again now, but Harry was sure he saw the faint touches of a smile on her lips. "Do you mean like Ronald, or like Cho Chang?"

"I don't like Cho," said Harry, a little too quickly.

"Really? That doesn't make any sense either. Why would you go drink coffee with a girl you don't like?"

"I liked her then," said Harry, "I think." He thought back to meeting Cho under the mistletoe, to their disastrous excursion to Madam Puddifoot's, and finally to the lack of emotion he had felt to the news that she was now involved with Michael Corner. "But she started crying at everything I said. What are you supposed to do when someone spends all her time bawling?"

"Make lemonade," suggested Luna cheerily, and Harry quickly gave up trying to think of a response. They had reached the play park now, and Luna sat down squarely on the middle of the teeter-totter, apparently caring little for the structure's intended up-and-down movement. Harry sat on a swing and rocked slowly back and forth, wondering what to say to one of the last people in the world he had planned or expected to spend his summer with.

"Did you get back all of your stuff that people had hidden?" Harry asked, after a considerable pause. The last time he had seen Luna at school, she had been putting up a notice requesting that people return all of her belongings, which was apparently a yearly event. Luna nodded.

"All but my Fern Fetcher," said Luna, "and I think I lost that myself, so nothing's wrong with that. I expect one day I'll be going somewhere in Hogwarts and I'll find it lying on the floor quite happily."

"What if someone else finds it first?" asked Harry, who had no idea what a Fern Fetcher was and had instantly decided not to ask.

"Oh, no, I don't think that's very likely. Not many people tend to go where I go for whatever reason."

Had Ron been there, he would probably have burst out laughing, but Harry suppressed such reactions. Luna continued. "And nobody really wants my stuff anyway. Don't you usually get back what you lose?"

"But past an hour – the prospect's black; too late, it's gone, it won't come back," sang Harry under his breath. That had been his clue for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year, when Harry had eaten a magical herb called gillyweed and descended into the Hogwarts lake to retrieve Ron from the merpeople. He had gotten Ron, and a foreign girl named Gabrielle, but he had never gotten back his parents, or his godfather.

"Ron's the only thing I've ever gotten back," he answered heavily. "And Ginny, once," he added as an afterthought.

"Oh yes," said Luna, "you saved her from Voldemort or something in my first year, didn't you? She told me about it… it sounded very impressive, although of course she was in love with you then, so she may have exaggerated a little."

"You call him Voldemort?" asked Harry, a little startled. Very few people dared call the dark wizard by his chosen name, usually using either "You-Know-Who" or "The Dark Lord" depending on their personal alignment. He had slowly been getting Ron and Hermione to use the name Voldemort, but they were still struggling with it.

"Of course," said Luna, adjusting her blue t-shirt. "After all, it's not like it's his real name, is it? There's nothing scary about an alias."

"Oh, right, Tom Riddle," said Harry, but Luna shook her head.

"No, that's another alias. His real name is much more dreadful. I'm sure he would kill anyone who dared to call him by it."

"What is it?" asked Harry, completely confused by this new information. For the first time, Luna's face showed real fear, and she glanced nervously up at the peaceful sky. "Don't make me say it, Harry," said Luna nervously.

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," said Harry, slightly consolingly. "Dumbledore said that to me at the end of first year. Please tell me, Luna, I need to know all I can about him."

"You'll protect me if I say it?" asked Luna, her enormous blue eyes pleading with him. Harry nodded, and Luna gratefully crossed over to the swing, where she clutched onto Harry's sleeve to whisper in his ear. Harry felt a strange urge to put his arm protectively around her but ignored it.

"All right," said Luna, faintly. "Voldemort's real name is… is…"

"Yes?" asked Harry gently.

"Is… Voldielumpkins."

The anticlimax was powerful, and Harry could not help himself, collapsing into laughter and nearly falling off of the swing. Luna looked extremely hurt and turned her back on him, crossing her arms defiantly. "I thought you were the only one who believed me," she said, voice cracking slightly.

"I do, sometimes!" answered Harry, his words still punctuated by short laughs. "But… but really, Luna, Voldielumpkins?" Luna gave a short shriek and hunched down. "Honestly, how can you believe that?"

"It's in the Quibbler," said Luna tersely, "April 1992."

Harry coughed, his disbelief over the name Voldielumpkins winnng out over his natural ability to support or at least pass over Luna's mad beliefs. "The Quibbler isn't…"

"You," said Luna, turning around quickly and glaring at Harry, the stick behind her right ear falling to the ground, "are coming home with me. Right now. And my father is going to convince you that I'm telling the truth."

"Um," said Harry, and thought about it. Sight unseen, it was certainly a better prospect than going back to the Dursleys right away. "All right."

From the outside, Number 9 Privet Drive appeared more or less identical to the other houses on the street, complying to the restrictions of the neighborhood society. It was true that the flamingo occasionally turned its head around to watch passing pedestrians, and the garden gnome looked nothing like Santa Claus and was in fact a fair representation of the gnomes found in the Weasleys' yard a few years earlier, but for the most part, the house had a common enough exterior. Most of the oddities began once one entered through the front door, as Harry and Luna did a few minutes later, the latter still sulking but looking somewhat pleased with herself.

Evidently the Lovegoods did not expect to receive any muggle visitors, for they had made no attempt to make their house look "normal" or non-magical. The rug in the entryway levitated a few inches off of the ground, decending reluctantly upon footstep as if it were the surface of a waterbed. The walls were painted in the same strange shade of orange as the paper edges of the Quibbler, and various excerpts from that magazine were hanging from the walls in frames, calling out to Harry to contest the truth of their messages. Harry was somewhat reminded of the Burrow, one of the two other wizarding houses he had been inside, but while the Burrow's clutter was due to poverty, Number 9 seemed to be crowded simply for its own sake, with stacks of strange tools and devices practically growing out of the floor. Harry looked about for Luna's father in the mess, half expecting him to be buried under two feet of broken sneakoscopes.

"He's gone out," said Luna, whose voice had regained its regular dreaming quality now that she was no longer arguing over Voldemort's name. "We'll have to wait for him."

"Er… right," said Harry, and looked around again. The nearest chair played host to a glowing blue cactus. "Um, is there anything safe to sit down on?"

"Not in here," answered Luna placidly. "Dad's researching an article for the Quibbler in here about the effects of unforgivable curses on common houseplants. He got my begonias yesterday, so I told him to do everything in here. There's plenty of room to sit down in my room, though, come on."

"Right," said Harry again, and followed Luna carefully through a sea of what appeared to be half-eaten notepaper, until they reached a closed door in one wall of the living room. Luna calmly pressed her finger against several points on the door, and it slid up into the ceiling, making a sound like an angry leopard.

Luna's room was similar to the rest of the house, with paper-mache curtains on the window and a collection of enormous hats – portraying lions, eagles, and other creatures Harry did not recognize – on top of one of the bookshelves. Luna laid luxuriously down upon the enormous white billowy bed that monopolized about a third of the room space and lightly plucked her wand off a peg on the wall, while Harry located the nearest chair. He had barely made to sit down, however, when Luna instructed him not to.

"Why not?" asked Harry, "there's nothing in it."

"Yes there is," said Luna. "I had the Invisible Book of Invisibility out for some reading that wouldn't strain my eyes, and I left it in that chair, and it's very valuable. I don't think dad would like it if you sat on it. Please put it in a bookshelf before you sit down. Or," she added, wrinkling her forehead, "you could sit on the bookshelf instead, but I imagine that wouldn't be very comfortable."

Harry groped around in the area of the chair until his hand closed over an invisible object the size and shape of a large book. He carefully moved it over to sit on a well-worn copy of the Monster Book of Monsters, which snapped angrily at Harry's hand before being squashed down by the invisible weight. Harry returned to the chair and, after a quick glance at Luna to make sure she would not object again, sat down.

"Thank you," said Luna calmly.

"No problem," said Harry, and looked uncertainly at the space where the book had to be. "How'd you get that book, anyhow? I went to Flourish and Blotts a couple years ago and they said they couldn't find any of their copies."

"Mr. Professor Moody gave it to me… he can see invisible things, you know. He was having a contest in one of his classes to see who could best resist the results of the Imperius curse, and I won that book."

"You can fight that curse?"

"Oh, yes. I don't really care very much what other people think, you know, and they aren't very good at influencing me. I just didn't want to dance on my desk, it seemed very silly, and I was much more interested in my magazine."

"In class?"

"Mr. Moody didn't like me reading magazines, actually, he kept shouting at me about being constantly vigilant, because if I was reading a magazine and Voldemort ran into the room, I wouldn't have much of a chance to defend myself. But I turned his robes inside-out and he left me alone."

Harry snorted, picturing the outrage that Alastor Moody – really Barty Crouch in disguise – must have felt at having his robes turned inside-out. Then he turned more serious. "He's right, you know," said Harry, feeling himself going into a lecture, "Moody. You never know when you might be in danger, especially not with the Death Eaters as rampant as they are right now. They burned down your old house, how do you know they're not going to try again?"

Luna waved her wand dreamily in the air above her, causing small glittering sparks to fall down in various patterns. "I expect I'll cast some spell on them and they'll leave me alone. Don't worry, Harry, I'm in the DA, I know what I'm doing."

Harry was about to mention that Luna had been incapacitated by a Death Eater in the battle at the Ministry of Magic a few months ago, and could easily have been killed if she had been seen as a dangerous target, but he was cut off by a large banging noise from the living room. There was the sound of footsteps, and then a male voice shouted out "Crucio!".