At exactly six o'clock on Friday evening, the Lovegoods' doorbell rang.
"Who is it, Luna?" her father called from his study. He was writing his thesis on Nargles, which he hoped would get him a place in a scientific publishing company. At the moment he was an editor for the government, which he was good at, but cryptozoology far outweighed grammar in his priorities.
"It's my friends from school," Luna replied, flying out from the kitchen where she had just taken her chicken, potato, and pepper casserole out of the oven. She did most of the cooking since Xenophilius had no talent for it whatsoever. "Hermione must have rung, it's exactly six," she added as she opened the door.
Her friends, minus Ginny, filed in, leaving their shoes on the porch- Luna's father preferred that no chemicals from the roads end up in the house- and found seats around the table in the kitchen. They had all agreed that Ginny should stay home from this meeting, as she was not yet sixteen and this way the evidence of their not-quite-allowed discussion would leave with them. Ginny had not been happy, but Fred and George had offered her a tour of somewhere "secret and surprising," which made the deal sweeter on her side. Once they were all settled with plates of casserole and mugs of Earl Grey tea, the Lovegoods' normal drink for dinners, Hermione got down to business as usual.
"All right. Luna, you're sure it's safe to tell secrets here?"
Luna nodded. "Of course. Daddy wouldn't tell anyone- only I'm afraid he might let it slip by mistake- but he'll be in his study. He says too much chatter lets the Wrackspurts in his brain and we can't have that, can we?"
Hermione looked not entirely satisfied, but didn't protest. "All right. Who volunteers to give their report first?"
"Hermione, you make this sound like a class," Ron scolded.
When no one volunteered, Hermione stood up again. "I can go first if nobody else wants to. Oh blast, there I go acting Abnegation again!"
"You don't think it's good to be selfless?" Parvati queried from behind her mug.
"I do, but I don't want to be conditioned by where I live," Hermione replied coolly. "I want to think for myself without having automatic responses. In any case, I'll start. Everyone was told to choose between the knife and the cheese, correct?" Everyone nodded. "I chose the knife because the whole thing felt suspicious and I thought I might have to defend myself. Then the cheese disappeared and a dog was growling at me. I knew that dogs feel challenged if you stare at them, so I crouched down and looked the other way-"
"I just killed it," Ron put in. "Because it charged me."
"Ahem," said Hermione without missing a beat. "Then the dog stopped growling and sat down. Then there was a little girl, and the dog looked like it was about to pounce, so I told her to stand still and stop looking at the dog. She did, and then the whole thing disappeared and I was on a bus. There was a man with a newspaper and he asked if I'd seen a murderer. I said no because I felt like I knew the person on the paper- I can't remember what he looked like- and also like something would happen to me too if I told him. Then the whole thing disappeared again and I was in a library. I found a textbook on the tests, because then I remembered I was in one and there might be useful information in the book. But before I could read it I woke up." She sat down and looked around the table. "Who's next?" Again no one volunteered, so she pointed at Luna.
Luna looked startled, but obediently started talking. "Mine was a lot the same as yours, only I fed the dog cheese. I did tell the girl not to look at it. And I told the man on the bus that I knew the murderer. I knew if he arrested me I'd be fine because I really had nothing to do with it. So he asked me a few questions about him, but I didn't know any of them, only that I'd seen him on the train several times. Then he asked me if I had a pet and I said yes, I had a Blibbering Humdinger, and described it to him. Then I was at school and we were playing truth or dare at lunch, and I chose truth and told it... and that was all."
Lily and Padma looked like they were on the verge of asking what the question had been, but Hermione pointed at Harry before they could. "Harry, go."
Harry cleared his throat. "All right. So like Ron said I killed the dog. It was obviously going to attack me!" he protested at the girls' horrified looks. "Anyway, I killed it. Then the thing with the bus happened, and I didn't tell him anything- but it was a little different this time. He told me the truth would save him. But I still didn't trust him so I said I didn't know. Then I was in a train about to crash, and the only way to get off was to jump off the tracks onto a roof. I jumped, and that was all."
"Mine was just about the same," said Ron, before Hermione could call on anyone else. "Only I sort of got into a fight with the guy on the bus- don't start!" he ordered Harry, who was snickering. "He just wouldn't stop pestering me so I punched his arm and then he jumped on me. Then it went to the roof thing."
"Mine was the same as Harry's too," Parvati put in. "Only Padma was on the train with me and she'd hurt her leg and couldn't jump. She was scared and asking me to stay with her- she said there was a better chance of us living if we stayed in the train. I was going to find the emergency brake, but there was no time, so I carried her."
"Off the train?" asked Ron in bewilderment. "How'd you jump that far while carrying Padma? I barely made it by myself!"
"What should I have done?" Parvati retorted. "We would have died anyway if I hadn't, and I wasn't about to leave her."
Padma stared at her twin in confusion. "Mine was completely different. I chose the cheese because I didn't want to fight anyone, and then I threw it across the room and the dog chased it. Then there was the girl, but the dog was still finishing the cheese, so I told her to come close to me. The dog finished and growled at her, so I picked her up so she was out of the dog's reach. I didn't think it would attack me since I had fed it. Then there was the man on the bus, and I didn't tell him anything because I didn't trust him. Then two people I didn't know, I think they were factionless, were in a fistfight, so I stepped in between them and told them to stop. One of them had a broken nose and so I set it. Then I stayed until the other one left."
Hermione, who had been taking notes through the whole conversation, nodded. "All right. Lily, go."
Lily jumped at being addressed so abruptly. "Okay. So mine went pretty much like Padma's, only I ran away while the dog was eating and took the little girl with me. She disappeared as soon as I went out the door. Then it went the same until the fistfight. I stopped them from fighting but I was going to take the hurt man to the hospital because I didn't know what I should do. The other one came after us, but I called for security and he ran off."
Neville, who had become increasingly bewildered and embarrassed throughout the stories, realized everyone was now looking at him. He was the only one who hadn't spoken yet.
"Well?" Hermione prompted.
"Well... er..."
"It's all right if you killed the dog, Neville," Luna assured him. "It was dangerous."
Neville cleared his throat. "I didn't."
"What happened then?" Harry asked curiously.
Neville took a deep breath. "Okay. So I didn't choose anything- I didn't know what I'd need either a knife or cheese for so there was no obvious decision. They both disappeared and the dog came at me. It jumped, I dodged, and then it just sat there. Then the little girl came and the dog was about to charge her, so I tackled it, and then the whole thing disappeared. The bus situation happened, I didn't tell him anything, and then there were the people in a fistfight. I ended up fighting the second man, and somehow knocked him out, and then took the hurt one to the hospital."
Hermione wrote something down. "Was that all?"
Neville shifted uncomfortably. "No."
"It's all right," said Luna again. "We won't tell."
"I was on the train with Luna," Neville said finally. "She was hurt like Padma was in Parvati's test, and I knew I'd never make it to the roof carrying her."
Ron gave him an impatient look. "What did you do?"
"I threw Luna."
Parvati looked stunned. "You threw Luna. Leaving yourself on the train. Did it crash?"
"I don't know. I jumped after Luna, but I don't know whether I made it or not, because I woke up first."
No one knew what to say to that, and so Luna broke the silence by announcing, "I made lemon pie for dessert, I'll go get it."
