Luna peeked into the little, shabby pub. Not many had arrived yet, but amongst the people there, she saw Neville Longbottom. She smiled happily and hurried inside.
The pub was dirty and smelled of goat, but Luna didn't mind. Actually, she kind of liked the smell. What bothered her, was the constant buzzing that kept ringing in her ears. Frantically, she waved her arms around her.
"Hey, everything all right?" a voice asked. A voice, his voice.
"Yeah, I was just getting the wrackspurts in here to bugger off," she answered in her always dreamy voice.
"A wrackspurt?" he asked, a little unsure. He didn't know if he wanted to know exactly what a wrackspurt was.
"Invisible creatures, that make your brain all goo-goo," she replied.
She sat awkwardly down at Neville's table. People didn't usually speak to her unless they had to. And when someone did, it was almost always to make a rude statement about her personality or clothes. Some called her "Looney" and had a good time laughing of her father's magazine: "The Quibbler". Well, some were at least polite. Although people rarely acted friendly towards her, Luna didn't think of them as cruel people. They just didn't understand her, and that wasn't something they could do anything about.
"Aha," Neville murmured, a little uncomfortable. "So the wrackspurts are here now?"
"Oh, yes. Loads of them. They're fly-" Luna began, before a large crowd of people made their way into the dark pub. The lot were lead by Fred and Gerorge Weasley, who counted them and ordered butterbeer from the grey-haired barman.
Luna drifted of into her thoughts, and Neville moved over to the table where Harry was seated. He had only talked to Luna to be polite, he knew that she was pretty short on friends. To be honest, she is a bit weird, he admitted to himself. Wrackspurts, huh?
Someone started talking, and Luna turned towards the sound. It was Hermione Granger, talking about how they didn't learn anything from Umbridge. The only thing Umbridge has taught us so far, is how to open a book, Luna stated to herself. And once again she flew away, into her thoughts.
A sudden mention of "Lord Voldemort" made the room jump. Luna got pulled down to Earth and flinched a little herself, being brought up with the custom of not mentioning his name. Hermione started to say something, but was interrupted by Zacharias Smith. He wanted her to prove that You-Know-Who was back.
Luna looked over at Harry, she saw the anger well up in his eyes. Again Hermione tried to say something, but Smith cut her of once more. The whole room was full of tension, and Harry made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to talk about Cedric Diggory. Which Luna understood. She had been quite sad when he died, although she didn't know him that well. Cho, another Ravenclaw student in the year over her, had been devastated. Not very surprising, seen that he had been her boyfriend. She cried her eyes out for weeks afterwards, and still did, occasionally.
Luna tilted her head a little to the right and glared at Cho. Cho's eyes were full of tears, but they did not run down her cheeks, she was improving. All wounds healed after some time, if not fully. Luna, of all people, knew that. Her mother had died when she was nine. It had been tragical, both for her and her father. But it was OK now. She knew that her mother had a good life up in heaven, and she had got used to life without her.
Cho seemed to be healing very well, according to the way she looked at Harry. She even complimented him on his effort in the Triwizard Tournament last year.
A smile, that looked more like a grimace to everyone else, played on Luna's lips. And while Fred (or George, she wasn't sure) pulled a long, dangerous-looking instrument out of a Zonko's bags he was holding, she fell into a coma-like state.
"So, now we need to decide where and when we are going to meet," Hermione said, and Luna got interested. Finally. Good to be finished with the cosy little chit-chatting, she thought. Hermione continued to talk about how Fudge and Umbridge thought they were building an army or something. Most of the listeners found this shocking. But Luna thought this entirely sensible and blurted out: "Well, Cornelius Fudge has already got his own army of heliopaths, so that wouldn't be too stupid, would it?"
Following her remark were a lot of confused faces, and she had to explain everybody what a heliopath was.
Neville payed attention to Luna as Zacharias Smith confessed his doubt about Harry and Dumbledore. Her eyes were as wide as gold galleons and her dirty blonde hair swayed as someone opened the door. He found it fascinating how she rarely blinked. She was interesting in an odd kind of way, he didn't know if it was good or bad yet. Probably good, so far at least.
Neville didn't have much experience with girls. He had no girl friends, except for Hermione, but she didn't count. Although he had gone to the Yule Ball last year with Ginny, he didn't really like her in that he got nervous around girls, sweating and stuttering. Like he wasn't pathetic enough as it was. In his year, there were no blokes he could talk to about girls without feeling like a gnome. He had no brothers or male cousins, and he snorted at the thought of bringing it up during dinner at home. His grandmother would choke on her food and check his temperature. Or maybe she would say something like: "Oh, dear boy. You know that no girl will ever fall in love with you unless she's half blind! It was different with your father..." and then it would be the same old story.
Neville was tired of being compared to his father. He knew that no matter what he did, he could not top what his father, and mother, had done. They had sacrificed their sanity in the battle against You-Know-Who and his followers. Sometimes he hated them for doing that. It was a stupid thought, but his life would have been so much easier without two heroes as parents. No-one to be compared to, nothing to live up to. He sighed.
Luna rushed out of the Hog's Head and inhaled the cold autumn air. Suddenly someone bumped into her, she turned around. Neville looked as if he had just been captured by the giant squid. He looked at her with astonishment and started to apologize: "Oh, Luna, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you. Are you all right?"
"Of course I am, it's autumn," she replied like it was an obvious fact. Neville felt stupid, more stupid than he used to. Then he blushed and stressed away, throwing a halfhearted "goodbye" over his shoulder.
Luna stood back, confused and taken by surprise at his reaction. Neville had never seemed to dislike her, so why did he rush of like that?
