'Watcha doing?' A lilting Irish voice drifted down from right above George. His heart gave a leap and he almost fell out of the tree, he was so surprised. Luckily he regained his balance and looked up. A pair of giant, silver eyes looked down. He was bizarrely reminded of the Great Hall's ceiling when the stars appeared and the clouds swirled but was quickly drawn out of his reverie as a face appeared behind those vast, unblinking eyes. A pretty face. A small, slightly upturned nose, generous bow lips and long blonde hair tucked behind elfin ears.

'Erm…' He felt strange, he was never lost for words. 'Reading.' He didn't have time to make a joke, again most unlike him. A hand reached down and took the book gently from him without him realising. The face came more into focus as he recovered from the shock of someone being on branches above him and he realised the pretty face was one he recognised. It was one of lanky git's friends. Or as he was better known, one of Ron's friends. His mind stumbled through names until his mouth settled on one.

'Loo… Luna,' he managed to correct himself in time. She gave a demure giggle and hung upside down from her branch so their faces were at an equal level. She waved the book in front of him.

'This isn't very good,' she told him, smiling. She looked at him again with those beautifully spooky eyes and it felt like she was looking through him. After a few seconds of silence, him dumbstruck, her staring, she swung back up and climbed delicately down to a branch opposite him. 'What are you actually doing?'

Too surprised to tell her anything but the truth, he spoke.

'Hiding,' he admitted ruefully. 'Fred found out it was me that replaced his shampoo with green hair dye.' She gave another delightful giggle and George felt himself smiling too.

'Good place to hide,' she said. 'You need a better book, though.'

George felt himself enjoying the ups and downs of her accent and wanted her to keep talking.

'Why are you up here?' He had heard stories about Luna, second hand, from his younger brother, sister and other various people. Judging by her behaviour today, they were wholly believable. She was a very strange girl. Intriguingly so. She was probably looking for snarples, or whatever it was that she believed lived in trees.

'Reading,' she said, with an ironic smile on her face. She reached into a large, bright orange bag hung over her shoulder and pulled out a book. George's eyes scanned the title.

'The Portrait of Dorian Gray? Never heard of it.'

'No….' she said, drifting off, as though this was an acceptable reply to what he had said. She opened it, starting on the page with the corner turned down and started reading again as though he just wasn't there. Instead of being outraged at her rudeness, he was amused by it and felt himself watching her.

'What's it about then?' he asked her, after several moments. She looked up, startled, as though she'd forgotten he was there.

'Oh. I'm not sure. But it's very good.' He felt himself laughing without meaning to; she made less sense than a Potions lesson. She looked up at him again and smiled back. 'It makes more sense if you read it upside down, I think.' She put it back in her bag and crossed her legs, sitting like a small elf waiting to be blown away. She looked frustrated at George.

'Well…?' she asked, tapping her fingers on her knee. 'Aren't you going to ask what I'm really doing here?' George rolled his eyes. Women!

'What are you really doing here, Luna?' he asked slowly. A triumphant smile stretched across her lips.

'I'm probably looking for snarples,' she answered, winking at him. 'Or whatever else lives in the tree.' He raised his eyebrows, this was the second time in the space of fifteen minutes she had quite, quite surprised him and taken him out of his comfort zone. How did she know he was thinking that? Then again, people said comments like that to her face, often followed with 'Loony Luna' or simply 'Luna'.

'How ….. interesting,' George commented, wondering the quickest way down out of the tree.

'I wouldn't leave just yet,' Luna advised. 'Your twin is coming.' And sure enough, mere seconds later, Fred was stood under the tree, bellowing George's name.

'I'M GOING TO BLOODY KILL YOU, GEORGE. JUST YOU WAIT.' Luna covered her mouth to prevent laughter from spilling out and George paled. After a few more death threats, Fred left, storming off to some other part of Hogwarts.

'Bugger,' George said. 'Fred can be really imaginative, sometimes.'

'He's probably going to put nargles in your bed,' Luna said knowingly. George gave her a weird look but she didn't seem to notice. 'Anyway, you can't stay up here all day. We've got the whole day off, there are far better ways to spend it.'

With that as her parting shot, she dropped her bag onto the floor, and followed it down, jumping lithely from the branch. George could do nothing but follow her, confused and yet fascinated by her, in the same way he was by mandrakes or the female gender in general. They weaved through the various groups of people, relaxing on the grass, who had taken full advantage of the day off and the unusually warm weather. Katie, Angelica and Alicia were one such group, idly tossing a ball to one another. Katie saw him and stood up and waved, beckoning him over. However, he could also see Fred talking to Angelica and Alicia. At Katie's movement, the mess of lime green seemed to turned and saw George, and started to run. George, in a fit of mad panic and desperation, grabbed Luna's hand, who was picking daises from the grass and decorating her hair with them, and dragged her along, dashing through the crowds and into Hogwarts. Luna glanced back, baffled by George's behaviour, until she saw Fred chasing after them. It was not hard to miss the bright green of his hair. She took the lead, twisting through the corridors of Hogwarts, up and down the many changing stairs, until she was sure that they had lost Fred. George wheezed, doubled over, with his hands on his thighs, trying to regain his breath. Luna merely floated over to beneath a pair of shoes that were hanging from a suit of armour's sword and daintily picked them off, as though they were an apple and the suit was a tree. She stored them in her bag and turned back to George who seemed to be passing in and out of consciousness. She sat him down on a step, very gently pushing his shoulder down, and sat next to him, handing him a bottle of apple juice from that huge bag of hers. After a while, he seemed to have recovered and faced her, taking her hands in his.

'Thank you so much,' he said with as much sincerity as possible. 'I think you just saved my life.'

Luna removed her hands from his, took the bottle back off him, screwed the lid back on and put it back in her bag.

'No,' she said, shaking her head, her long blonde hair waving from side to side. 'Thank you. I found my shoes.'

George laughed heartily and she watched, pleased she had made him happy.

'Yeah, yeah, you did. Everyone's a winner, right?'

'Well, not Fred,' she pointed out. 'Although, I think green quite suited him.' This coming from a girl that thought cabbages suited her as earrings.

'Ah, don't worry about him. He was being a moany git anyway.'

'Maybe he had something to moan about,' Luna said, sagely. George was not expecting that. Then again, she was in Ravenclaw, the wisest of all the houses. And he, Gryffindor, the bravest of all the houses. Except, he was not being particularly brave today. He looked down at the ground, scuffing his feet together, slightly embarrassed with his behaviour.

'Maybe I had better get this over and done with,' George said. 'Rather sooner than later.'

'Unless you're being attacked by a dementor. Then I think later would be infinitely better than sooner.'

George stood up, marvelling at the way Luna's mind must work, and offered her a hand up. She took it and he pulled, slightly too hard, and she ended up falling into him. It was a nice feeling, her pressed up against her chest and her hair just tickling his nose. She was shorter than him, shorter than Katie, but he found himself preferring it. He looked down, expecting to see her blushing or something. Instead, she had her ear to his heart, counting his heartbeat.

'Your heart is beating very fast,' she declared. 'You should drink beetroot with ginger tea. It's a good remedy for that.' George grimaced at the very thought but changed his expression to a smile as she removed her ear and looked up at him. 'I've got some if you want.'

'No, Luna, you're alright,' he said, trying to avoid the concoction. She was still very, very close to him and did not seem to be pulling away. He moved his hand and titled her chin up, faced with those incredible silver eyes again, they were the colour of a dream. She stared, unblinking up at him, quite a reverse from how they had first met. He lent down and felt her breath closer and closer to his lips. Just as he though he'd reached those generous bow lips of hers, she turned her cheek and he got a mouthful of hair instead. Spluttering, he took a step back, bewildered by what she wanted.

'You don't owe me anything, you know,' Luna said. 'Just your life.' She gave him a quick smiled and pointed down the end of the corridor.

'Gryffindor common room is second door on the left if you go that way. Fred should be waiting. Good luck.' She gave him a helpful shove, and George took the first step towards his demise. Or, at least, a very painful beating up.

Luna wandered into the Great Hall for dinner, unsure if she should be there or not. She had been so busy reading her book that she had lost track of time. The sun had started to go down, if she looked out the window of the dorms, and that was often a good sign it was the evening. She sat down, on her own, at the end of the Ravenclaw table. Conversation seemed to flow over her and bypass her completely. She did not mind, however, as she cut up a piece of fish and chewed on it thoughtfully. Conversation did not tend to interest her. She preferred instead to consider the moral implications of Goblin ownership and debate the reality of Astrology. On her own.

'Luna…?' A familiar voice asked. 'Want to have pudding on our table?' Luna rose from the table, no one around her noticing and faced one of her dearest friends.

'That would be delightful, Neville.' She walked, side by side, with the young wizard and sat next to him once he had made people move up to make space for her. She felt happier here than on the Ravenclaw table, she had friends here. Ron was in the middle of some story about Quidditch that seemed to get him, and a few of the boys very excited. Silence fell over the table, though, as footsteps approached. Several wolf whistles echoed around the hall.

'Bloody 'ell!' she heard Ron say and tried to see what all the fuss was about. Oh. To match Fred's delightful green hair, George now sported a purple Mohican. She could not help but giggle. He looked a bit like a flower. She moved to go tell him this but a shadow fell over her. A female figure blocked her view.

'Katie,' she heard George say. 'What do you think?' Judging by Katie's body language, she did not like it one little bit. She reached her arm up and ran a hand through it.

'That had better be gone by morning,' she said, warningly. Luna thought she sounded a bit mean and did not appreciate the true beauty of it. Did she not like flowers?

'Only if he fixes mine,' Fred called over, somewhere behind them.

'Fine, fine!' George said, defeated. 'You guys just don't have a sense of humour.'

After the initial shock had worn off, everyone continued eating in peace, the twins wedged in between Harry and Katie; George directly opposite Luna. He had tried to catch her eye, but she seemed engrossed in the trifle and was poking it and whispering to it softly. He could not catch what she was saying and leaned in to listen closer, but that was met with a sharp poke to the ribs.

'Oi,' he turned to face Katie, who did not look happy. 'Why didn't you come and say hi, earlier? Why did you run off with that girl?'

'Oh,' George said, trying to come up with an excuse. He still thought Katie was gorgeous. 'Trying to escape Fred.'

'Sorry,' he said. 'Hi.' Katie looked placated, and even a little happy. By the end of the meal, she was practically beaming. They all stood to leave and Katie tapped her foot impatiently.

'Well?' she asked. George's attention was somewhat diverted as Luna was explaining some strange concept about time travel to Neville that seemed entertaining.

'Well, what?' Girls really did confuse him sometimes. Why didn't they just say what they meant?

'Are you going to ask me out or not?' George thought he had misheard Katie at first but judging by the way she flung her arms around his neck and snogged him, evidently not. He was too engrossed in the kiss to realise Luna had noticed and was watching sadly. After Katie had detached herself from his lips, George found himself asking.

'Well, what do you think?' Katie replied pointedly. 'Yes, you moron.'