Lonely Luna
Harry was wandering aimlessly through the corridors of Hogwarts, something that he'd taken to doing after he'd been abandoned by his friends. Ron had been revealed as having been paid from the time he first met him to pretend to be Harry's friend, and Hermione – he'd tried to remain friends, but her near fanatical defence of Dumbledore after everything had been revealed was just too much.
He heard sobbing coming from one of the classrooms and went to investigate. He was somewhat surprised to see that it was Hermione muttering to herself "I've been so awful, she'll never forgive me".
She? Harry hadn't realised that Hermione had any close female friends. Despite her fanatical devotion to certain authority figures, he still wanted to be her friend, so he embraced her in a hug and tried to comfort her.
"Hermione, what are you upset about?"
"Oh Harry, I'm sorry, so sorry"
"Shh, it's okay. Tell me why you're so upset."
/sniff/ "The aurors were doing some more questioning of McGonagall to find out what else she'd done. Amelia Bones showed up with a groups of healers and unspeakables to look at me. The healers found compulsion charms, loyalty potions, love potions and evidence of other means of control. The unspeakables found that none of my possessions had remained unmolested – even my wand had charms cast on it. Then they found that I'd been obliviated on many occasions."
"They found a few on me as well, mostly about me finding ways to escape from the Dursleys, what were yours?"
"It started in first year, I found out about the philosopher's stone multiple times, and even managed to contact Nicolas Flamel who told me the stone in Hogwarts must be a fake. Then in second year, I worked out that it was a Basilisk attacking the students, and even guessed the location of the entrance to the chamber, and got so far as telling Professor Flitwick, but he was obliviated too. It was in third year that the real trouble started. I'd been looking for information on Sirius Black, and I found out that he'd never had a trial. Then I found a law that could have been used to prevent Buckbeak's execution.
It was after the argument with you and the walking stomach about your firebolt that McGonagall was first actively involved.. See, I was in the library and I met a second year ravenclaw who was as lonely as I was at the time and I ended up making friends with her. , and McGonagall wasn't happy with my relationship with her."
"Why not?"
"Possibly because she provided a link to wizarding society for me other than Ron – they'd been feeding me love potions since early in our first year, that's why I was so upset before the troll incident, and the fact that her family aren't blind Dumbledore devotees. I'm sure that's why Dumbledore backed her up, anyway. But I'm sure that one of her personal reasons was the nature of my relationship with her."
"I'm not sure that I follow, what do you mean by the nature of your relationship?"
"I kissed a girl,... and I liked it" whispered Hermione, worried about possible reactions from Harry.
"It's alright Hermione, I enjoyed kissing a girl too"
"And then every month or so since then, I'd get back together with her for a few days, then I'd be caught and obliviated, but her mind is resistant to mental manipulation, so she's remembered every time, but still she'd get back together with me and enjoy those few days before being caught. The last time it happened I promised that I'd go to the Yule ball with her."
"Uh, Hermione, is her name Luna by any chance?"
"Yes it is, how did you know?"
"I'm sorry Hermione, I didn't know, and I asked her to the Yule ball myself, and she said yes"
"oh,...I'd hoped that,... nevermind"
Hermione and Harry were both surprised by another pair of arms wrapping around them
"oh, Hermione, I know that you wanted to go to the Yule ball with me, but as a third year, I need a date in fourth year or above,and though I'd have been happy for you to take me, you started suffering from another severe case of wrackspurts again, and I'm afraid that the rules simply don't allow for it, so I hope you don't mind sharing me with Harry."
"No, I'm just happy that you're not angry with me after everything I've done"
"You know that I know that wasn't you, but was instead a you suffering from a severe wrackspurt infestation."
"It's not just that. I want to make them suffer. Azkaban is too good for them, so I've designed a runic amulet that will inflict a continuous low-level version of the cruciatus curse – a level just low enough that there will be no escaping into madness for them."
Harry shivered and Luna said "Oh, Hermione, did you really believe that I wasn't aware of your inclinations towards the dark, just as Harry is inclined towards the light"
"But that makes me a bad person"
"Dumbledore was a light wizard, yet he was evil to the core, you are a dark witch, and yet on the side of good. Me and Harry will provide an anchor to prevent you falling to the dark, and you and me will anchor Harry to prevent him falling to the light."
"What do you mean by that? I know dark magic is said to be corruptive, but I haven't even really heard of light magic"
"You wouldn't have done, after Dumbledore's efforts to suppress knowledge about it. People can become 'light lords' and end up doing harm on a small scale, since they're so rarely in a position of any significant power, and even then, the harm they do tends to be long lasting and subtle, usually done because they're convinced it's necessary for some sort of 'greater good', whereas the damage dark lords do is more obvious, and the harm they cause is immediately obvious. When you start to use too much dark magic, or Harry too much light magic, I'll be there with other one to pull you back. Not that it's likely to happen to you – truly falling to the light or dark side of magic is very rare – Dumbledore and Voldemort being the only two examples in the last century of European history - even Grindelwald did not fall to the dark, the healing magic he used on his troops being sufficient to stop him.
On a completely different subject, now that McGonagall is gone, I hope it will be possible to stop the girls in my dorm bullying me."
"What does McGonagall being gone have to do with that? Should that have been Professor Flitwick's job?"
"Professor Flitwick is male, so it wouldn't have been considered appropriate for him to supervise the girls dormitories, so the job fell to McGonagall, but she delighted in watching me suffer and after the first time she caught me with you, it got much worse, she started active encouraging the other girls in my dorm to bully me. No, Professor Flitwick did the best he could, but with the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress both wanting me to suffer, there wasn't a huge amount he could do, and we do have him and Professor Vector to thank for getting the investigations rolling."
Author's Note:
There's plenty of Weasely, Dumbledore and Snape bashing around, but virtually no bashing of McGonagall, who in my view, deserves it just as much. As head of Gryffindor, she was the one was person who had the greatest duty to care for Harry, and yet she failed miserably.