Chapter Four

On the first day with classes, the Ravenclaws, including Luna, were wondering around the Common Room in a state of chaos and disarray.

"Hurry up, Luna," Nicholas Barker said, his blue eyes flashing back and forth between Luna and the door. "We need to get to Charms with the Hufflepuffs. We are never late, and you very well know that." Luna took her time, though. Nick—although her fellow Ravenclaw and best friend—was really bugging her.

"Just hold on, Nick," she said, putting her spectrespecs carefully into her bag. "It won't take too long to get everything ready."

"Well…. Hurry up. Are those new?" he asked, running a hand through his curly dirty blonde hair. She nodded. "Wow… I can't afford my own." Luna looked at him, and then dug through her bag. "What are you doing?"

"Here," she said, tossing him her old pair. "I don't really need them anymore." He looked down at them in awe, adjusting his own glasses. "Well, we better go. Like you said, we're almost late for Charms. Let's go, Nick." Nick and Luna left, Padema and the Ravenclaw gang giggling at them the whole way down.

"That was boring," Nick said, drumming his pen on his Charms book. He and Luna were sitting at the picnic table outside for their free period, doing their homework before lunch. "I knew every single one of those answers. Oh, hey, Ryan," he said to a passing boy, Ryan Chang, Cho Chang's younger brother. Ryan slapped his open hand and then kept walking.

"I'll never get you boys…" Luna said, watching as he walked away.

"Anyway… I don't understand Hogwarts. I knew what we're learning now when I was eleven. It's boring, and old… they need some spice. Like a new DAD teacher. I mean, seriously, a class without magic that's not Potions? What a weirdo…" Nick sighed and tapped his pen on his desk. "I'm a Muggle-born and I knew this stuff."

"Hm…" Luna said. "It might've helped that you're a Ravenclaw." Nick shrugged, and then ran his hand over the carvings in the table.

"Well…Hey, look at these…. 'Justin plus Hannah forever'… Wait, plus? That doesn't make any… Oh! Justin and Hannah forever, I see… Anyway… 'Ryan and Leah'… I knew he was up to something… 'Luna loves—'"

"What?" Luna said, her voice shrill. Nick grinned at her.

"Who do you love, Luna? Someone scratched it out here… Hm…. R… Who's the mysterious Mr. R? And why does this mysterious writer know before me?" he asked, grinning. Luna glared.

"There's only one person who knew about this," Luna said through gritted teeth. "And she is about to find that an unhappy Luna is on her case."

"What do you mean, 'Was I spreading gossip'?" Ginny asked Luna later that day in Herbology. "I was not." Luna glared into her planting pot. She was finished, but Ginny was still working on hers.

"Oh yeah? Have you been to the picnic tables lately? People carve a lot of stuff into those tables…" Luna said. Ginny went red.

"Oh…" she said. "That. Yes, well, I suppose I got lost in my thoughts. I was doodling, and—I did try to cross it out, but the bell rang. You saw that." Luna shrugged. "Sorry about that. Why? How'd you find it?"

"I didn't. Nick did. He was bored, and reading the inscriptions." Luna said.

"So he knows?"

"No. But he's been bugging me about it ever since. But, he did cross the rest of it out for me before bell rang." Ginny planted her chopped lily meddles, a newly discovered seed.

"Sorry, Luna. I did try." Ginny said. Luna just sighed and picked up both of their pots.

"That's okay. I probably should have told Nick anyway—sneaky boy'll get his hands around this in no time." And with that, she took the plants up to Professor Sprout, and got the rest of the period off.