While Vernon Dursley had become much more comfortable with his niece and her unnaturalness in the last year, he was not ready to accompany her all the way to her train. So while he and Dudley waited in the car outside of King's Cross, Petunia was helping Luna wheel her luggage along looking for the Platform 9 ¾ that was printed on the ticket Hagrid had left her. "I remember there was some trick to it, from when your mother went, but I don't know if I knew exactly what it was."
They were standing and observing the brick wall in between platforms 9 and 10, and Luna agreed that it was some kind of magical barrier, similar to the wall into the alley that needed a certain code to open. "Maybe they know," Luna suggested, looking at a family that was walking up with a girl about her age that had curly brown hair and a mystical aura that was busily bending toward everything she was looking at, as if the girl was trying to observe and catalog the whole world. When the girl's attention passed to Luna, she wasn't sure if she'd ever felt more seen.
"Full early, too, huh?" the girl's father asked. "We didn't want to risk whether we had to fill out anything else before Hermione could get on the train."
"We just didn't want to risk not being able to find it," her aunt explained, taken with the casual expensiveness of the small family's clothing. "Petunia Dursley, and this is my niece Luna."
"Jean and Helen Granger," the man nodded as the couple shook hands with Petunia, pronouncing his own name like that of a famous starship captain, "and our daughter Hermione. First witch in the family, too?"
"No, my sister, her mother was one as well," she admitted. "But it's been nearly twenty years since I was here last, and they didn't tell us how to get on."
Hermione looked to make sure there were no other muggles nearby then lectured, "Well, it's supposed to be quite simple, as we only have to move through the barrier with purpose and intent. However, the charms are meant to repel those without their own magic, so all of you may need to hold hands with one of us in order to get through."
Petunia nodded, suddenly remembering that factor of the process, and how embarrassed she felt to be at the end of a human chain of held hands with Lily at the front of the line. "Why don't we try it, Luna?"
Luna, who'd been intensely interested in how Hermione had managed to explain so much without taking a breath or slowing down, nodded and held her hand out to her aunt. They used their free hands to both take a side of the handle of the luggage trolley and pushed toward the barrier. Petunia seemed about to flinch at the last second, but Luna merely squeezed her hand and pushed faster, and in a moment they were through the barrier regarding the stately, ancient red train that filled up the platform that suddenly replaced the one they'd started on.
The Grangers spilled out behind them, and Helen exclaimed, "How exciting! That's going to take some getting used to."
The girls pulled their carts a little away from the entrance as their families began to swap stories about having a witch in the family. Hermione began to exposit, "Hogwarts: a History says that the Hogwarts Express was acquired in 1830, when previously witches and wizards had to get to school individually with many accidents due to overloading broomsticks or being unskilled at side-along apparition. It's been used ever since."
"And it's a very pretty red," Luna added, though most of her attention was on the excitable brunette. Thinking back to her plan of finally making some friends, she asked, "Do you want to get a compartment together?"
Hermione Granger, who had filled three pages of college-ruled paper with strategies for how she, herself, was going to make friends at her new school, felt her heart beat furiously in her chest that it would be so easy, that the first witch she met would offer to hang out with her. Maybe this whole thing would turn out as well as she'd hoped! "I'd love to," she told Luna.
"We're going to find a compartment," Luna told the adults.
"Let us help you get your luggage on," Hermione's father insisted.
As they were moving toward the train, a surly-looking wall of a man yelled, "Out of the way, muggle scum!" and they had to dodge to make room for him and a small boy behind him, who was at this point merely chubby but might be similarly large some day.
"What was that about?" breathed Hermione's mother.
Petunia frowned, and made her bid for a relationship with the two who she'd already discovered owned their own dental practice and were exactly the kind of social class she and Vernon should be mingling with. "If you're free for lunch after this, perhaps Vernon and I could fill you in on some of the things they leave out of the brochure."
"That sounds lovely," Helen nodded after glancing over to have a brief silent conference with her husband.
Early enough to have lots of compartments to choose from, they picked one toward the middle of the train and Jean helped them get their trunks into the luggage racks above their seats. Tearful hugs were exchanged, Petunia surprised at how much difference the last few months had made with the niece she thought she'd be glad to get rid of. The adults said their goodbyes and went back to muggle London.
And two girls that had never really had friends were now all alone to figure out how to make that happen.
After a few minutes of silence, Luna decided to just say the first thing that had popped into her head that seemed related to Hermione. "I like your hair. It's neat the way your lights dance through it."
"You don't have to say so, it's so difficult to control, and I know that people think I'm bushy-haired–" the witch began, before actually cutting herself off mid-sentence as she parsed the rest of what she'd heard, "My lights?"
Luna nodded, "I don't know if you can see your own, since I can't usually see mine, but they kind of flow through your hair. It's very pretty."
In a few years, under different circumstances, Hermione might have been inclined to dismiss the idea that Luna could see something she couldn't, particularly if she'd learned that mage sight was so vanishingly rare as to be practically unheard of. But she hadn't gotten that far in her reading, yet, and was suddenly worried that she was missing something. "What do these lights look like?"
Luna shrugged, "I've been thinking of them as 'auras' from some new age things I read. But I don't think that's exactly right. Everyone has them, but magical people and things seem to have way more. It's how I knew you were going to the platform, too."
"Luna, I think you can see magic," Hermione suggested.
"Can't all witches?"
"I don't think so… it's not mentioned in any of the books I've read so far and," Hermione started to get up steam, thinking as she talked, "I certainly can't do it, but I definitely think it would be mentioned in our schoolbooks if it was normal, because it would probably make it very helpful to understand basic spell theory if everyone could see exactly what they were doing, and, well…" she trailed off, slightly intimidated, finally admitting, "that sounds very useful, actually."
"Oh," the redheaded witch bit her lip, incorporating information into her worldview that she hadn't previously had access to. "I expect so, then. I thought everyone magical would be able to see it. Mr. Ollivander seemed like he could."
Hermione nodded, "It may be an essential gift to being able to make wands. We should look it up when we get access to the Hogwarts library. Only Professor McGonagall said it was one of the largest magical libraries in the world!"
"I'd like that," Luna said. "Maybe it will also have books on magic art. I wondered how they made the pictures in the textbooks move."
"I know!" the brown-haired girl enthused, "Nothing in the texts talks about it, but they all have moving art here and there, and I don't know if they have to apply the charms individually to each book or whether it can somehow be spelled onto the printing press and it seems like maybe it's so common that everyone just knows, or maybe they only teach it if you decide to take your mastery in art."
Luna, who tended to the laconic, was impressed by her new friend's ability to muster so many words for just about any topic and the conversation continued as such for the next couple of hours, with Luna periodically prompting Hermione to set off on another thread. It was thrilling to watch her magic flicker through different colors of excitement.
They'd taken a brief break to sample the wares of the snack cart (which Hermione felt absolutely shameless about, her parents being dentists that normally denied her sweets), when a dark-haired boy with a round face poked his head into their compartment. "Sorry," he asked, "but I don't suppose you've seen a loose toad?"
"Is your familiar missing?" Hermione asked. "I read that toads are out of fashion as a companion, but I can't see why, because when you take one as a familiar it becomes tremendously resilient and you can safely test all kinds of spells on one, though I think I'd rather like a cat when I can talk my parents into the idea."
The boy nodded, "Trevor doesn't seem to like me much, though. He's always sneaking off."
"If we helped him look, we could meet other people on the train," Luna suggested, sensing that Hermione already had the idea and explicitly supporting it.
The boy perked up that anyone would want to help him, and got out, "That would be great. I'm Neville. Neville Longbottom."
"Your family's on the Wizengamot, aren't they?" Hermione asked. "I read about those families in Modern Magical History." The boy nodded, but didn't seem to think it was a big deal, so she went on, "I'm Hermione Granger and this is Luna Dursley."
"Potter, actually," Luna corrected.
"Are you really?" Hermione asked, then shook her head at not realizing it earlier, "Of course! I just assumed but your mother's sister wouldn't have the last name as you unless she adopted you, or I guess if everyone was very progressive about surnames. You know you're in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century?"
Luna shrugged.
"You don't look like they describe in the storybooks, though," Neville added. Seeing as how neither girl seemed to realize that there was also a popular series of wizarding novels, he elaborated, "They think you look like your dad, with dark hair and glasses. You're supposed to have a shock of white hair on your forehead where the killing curse hit you."
"That doesn't seem accurate," the girl-who-lived mused. "I don't think anyone even saw me since I was a baby."
"My hair was lighter when I was little," Hermione considered. "Maybe they thought your hair would get darker as you got older?" Then she thought about it a second more, and argued, "Are they allowed to make money writing stories about you without your permission?"
"Probably," Neville admitted. "Wizarding law lets people pretty much print whatever they want. You should see what gets written in the newspapers."
"Let's go find Trevor," Luna shrugged.
The trio headed down the train, asking about the toad. Most people didn't seem that interested in chatting to the new first years, but a few introductions were had. Few people seemed to believe that Luna was the Luna Potter, given the difference in what they'd been expecting. Finally, they reached the last compartment, which contained a small red-headed boy who was all alone. He'd stretched out across one of the bench seats and was reading a battered old book that mentioned something about chess on the spine.
"Have you seen a toad?" Hermione asked, without preamble after sliding open the door. "Neville's lost one." Her brusque manner was probably why they hadn't had many thorough introductions on the way down the train.
"I already told him I haven't seen it," the boy said, glancing over the book. His gaze met Luna's, and they both got a strange look in their eyes. Though she was sure that she'd never seen the boy before, somehow she got the impression he wasn't very nice. The name "Loony" echoed in her head, even though nobody had ever called her that.
"Do you like chess?" Hermione asked, always interested in someone who was reading something. "My father taught me, and I'm passably good, only I haven't had enough time to devote to seriously studying it and I heard that you need to memorize a lot of gambits to play professionally and develop a habit of thinking several moves ahead which I never quite got the hang of, honestly. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?" Luna and Neville shared a look at the girl's manners.
The boy perked up. "I'm Ron Weasley, and I love chess! And, yeah, you're right, you need to plan ahead. I can beat my family members, but I don't get to play much against other people."
"This is Luna Potter and Neville Longbottom," Hermione said, invading the compartment and sitting, so her companions did as well, with the boys on one side and the girls on the other. "Do you know what house you're going to be sorted into? I want Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw would be okay, and Luna thinks anything but Slytherin would be good but is thinking Ravenclaw. Oh, Neville, we never asked you?"
"Gryffindor," Neville admitted. "Both my parents were in it, and my Gran expects me to uphold the family tradition. Though Hufflepuff might be easier."
"Same for me," Ron added, "about Gryffindor. All my family's been in it, including five brothers before me. But I agree with Luna that as long as it's not Slytherin, I think I'd be okay."
Luna suddenly remembered the prejudiced boy she'd met at the robe shop. "Do all your family have red hair?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I met a boy who thought I was your sister, maybe because there aren't that many redheads?" She explained, briefly intrigued by the topic of hair genetics in the magical world.
"I guess so," Ron explained. "My mum's a redhead too, and so were most of her family, so we got it double. But I guess there aren't that many others that I know of, in wizarding families."
"It's pretty rare among non-magicals too," Hermione explained. "I don't exactly understand the genetics, but we did a lesson on Punnett Squares in my challenge class and it's really interesting because certain hair colors are more likely to override each other, like if you have one parent with black hair and one with blond, three of four kids will have dark hair, so you have to have two blond parents to be sure of getting a blond child, but we didn't talk about how red hair fits in so it's probably even more complicated than dark and light hair."
"Did you follow that, mate?" Ron asked Neville, who shrugged.
"She said red hair is rare enough among muggles that they don't even explain it in the basic science class," Luna translated, then mused, "which is also strange, because my mum had red hair but her sister is blond, and my father had dark hair."
"I think my dad has mentioned muggle 'sky-inch' before. What is it?" Ron asked.
Between Hermione and Luna, they were slowly walking the boys through a much better grounding in muggle studies than they'd ever received when the compartment door slid open again, revealing the pale boy Luna had met at the robe shop, flanked by two chubbier, dark-haired boys. The girls recognized one of them as the one whose father had insulted their guardians when they were getting on the train, and Hermione's eyes preemptively narrowed.
"Is it true?" the pale boy asked. "They're saying Luna Potter is on the train and came this way, and this is the last compartment." He regarded and discarded Hermione as a candidate somehow, before coming back to Luna and saying, "I guess we never did actually make introductions in the shop. I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." After a beat he nodded at his bodyguards and said, "And this is Crabbe and Goyle."
Ron coughed at Draco's last name.
"Think that's funny, do you?" Draco said, taking in the redhead. "Now this," he said to Luna, "is almost certainly a Weasley. Am I right?" Ron nodded, and the boy continued, "Potter, you'll soon find that some wizarding families are better than others. You shouldn't make friends of the wrong sort. I can help you there."
He held out his hand to shake, but Luna just regarded it as if she didn't understand what a handshake was for. "Your nails are so clean," she mused, instead.
Hermione was looking back and forth between Luna and Ron and asked, "Is this the boy that thought you were a Weasley, Luna? Only you don't really look much alike, and your hair is a different shade, so I would assume to make the mistake he must not have seen many other wizards. I thought the older families all knew one another, so it must be difficult to have such a limited basis of comparison that you can't make an educated guess about wizarding families."
"Purebloods usually only mix with allied families," Neville mumbled. "Ron and I have actually met before, but the Malfoys never come to my gran's parties."
"That must make it hard to be properly socialized before you go to Hogwarts," Hermione said, clearly annoyed at what seemed like a trio of aspiring bullies and emboldened by being in a room with allies of her own. "Luna and I have met dozens of children our own age, I'm sure."
"Knowing only a few purebloods is much better than knowing hundreds of muggles," Draco insisted, though he rather thought he'd lost control of the whole introduction and belatedly pulled his hand back after realizing it was still hanging in the air uselessly.
"It's interesting the way you try to be your father when you say things like that," Luna observed. "Your friends are doing it too. Aren't you exhausted, trying to be your fathers all the time?"
"Are you insulting my father?"
She shrugged. "I don't know him. He might be very nice. I just don't know why you want to be him and not you. I'm not sure I've met Draco Malfoy yet." Again, he was astounded by what would be a cutting insult coming from most of the girls he knew sounding completely innocent coming from this strange girl. "Let me know when you see him."
"I… will," he half-heartedly sneered. "Let's go." he ordered his flunkies, then shut the compartment door and walked back up the train.
"That was brilliant!" Ron insisted, still not sure why he had a gut dislike of Luna, but certainly happy to see the scion of a dark family getting taken down a peg. "You tore that git apart!"
"Oh, did I?" Luna asked, trying to watch down the corridor to see if their auras went back to normal when they weren't talking to peers. "I didn't mean to. I hope it didn't hurt."
"Well, he probably deserved it," Ron argued. "His father was one of You-Know-Who's supporters, but claimed he was bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He said Malfoy didn't need an excuse to go over to the dark side."
"Now you're doing it," Luna said, caught by the mention of Mr. Weasley and watching the boy's aura flex. "I didn't realize that because your fathers hated each other you had to hate each other. Do I need to figure out who my father didn't get along with?"
Neville shrugged. "It might be a good idea. Pureblood families hold grudges. The dark families may all blame you for You-Know-Who being destroyed."
"I'm sure it's not as bad as all that," Hermione said, as Luna looked sad at the thought. "Oh! It's getting late. We better go change into our robes before we get to Hogsmeade!"
They got back to their compartment and changed just in time for the train to pull to a stop and release the confused exodus of students from the train. At least their luggage would be handled for them rather than having to deal with hundreds of kids trying to get off a train dragging trunks. Following Hagrid's shouts for first years, Luna and Hermione wound up re-collecting Neville and Ron to join together on a boat across the lake.
Luna was struck silent by the immense magic of the castle, a kaleidoscope against the dark of the evening, the edifice barely visible behind all the colors. And then they floated through the magic, outer wards rolling over them, accepting them as part of it, twining its threads through their own, and she sighed at the beauty of it all. Even Hermione was quiet, appreciating the moment. It must be quite a nice sight even without being able to see all the magic.
Engrossed from her journey through the magic, Hermione basically had to lead Luna by the hand to get her out of the boat, up the stairs, and lined up for the sorting ceremony. She was barely aware of Hagrid finding and returning Neville's toad, and briefly noted the assistant headmistress while ignoring her speech, but was fascinated by the ghosts and the ceiling of the great hall that Hermione said was bewitched to look like the sky outside.
Luna finally began to sort out all the sensory impressions as names were called, absently noting that Hermione and Neville both were sorted into Gryffindor by the talking hat. And then she heard her own name, as assistant headmistress McGonagall called out, "Potter, Luna!"
The hall was full of whispers as she drifted toward the stool, dreamily smiling at everyone craning to look at her as she took a seat on the stool and had the hat placed over her head, basically swallowing it up whole.
"This is most peculiar," a small, gravelly voice said in her ear. "Clearly this is the nexus of everyone's issues with what they remember, but none more than you. I'm not even sure you know the extent of how much has been misplaced up here. You seem happy enough, though, so let's get looking. Smart, you'd be a fine Ravenclaw."
"Gryffindor, please," she asked the hat. "That's where my friends went."
"Interesting," it responded. "There is a potential there, but nowhere near as strong as the other two. I guess with all the expectations upon you, you will need to learn to be brave. But are you sure you wouldn't rather be somewhere geared for your strengths now?"
"You put Hermione there instead of Ravenclaw," she argued.
"Your friend is one of the most stubborn witches I've seen in my entire time at this school, and would never let a little thing like fear or hardship get between her and anything she believes in. You, however, seem inclined to let so much of the world just push you out of the way like a leaf on the wind, rather than confronting it. If it's friends you want, you'll make them in Hufflepuff."
"No, Gryffindor please."
"I have put less suited children there and hoped they would grow, but you're going to have to learn to stop observing and start acting if you're going to make it. If you're willing to try that…"
Luna nodded, "I'll try, Mr. Hat."
"Very well, if you're sure—better be GRYFFINDOR!"
She made it over to the table with the congratulations of her new housemates and then was overwhelmed for the rest of the evening. There were so many new faces and people trying to meet her. It was all just a cluster of delicious food, greetings, and a delightfully off-key school song. She fell into bed still trying to process it all.
The sensory overload was mostly manageable by the next day, when classes started.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was first, the strange, incomplete young professor Quirrell had taken to wearing a large turban, and his magic no longer had the hole she'd seen at the Leaky Cauldron. A dark green knot of power wove down his back, and Luna rather thought it was watching her, but given how much else was going on and how much it had discomfited him before, she didn't bring it up.
Charms was likely to be her favorite class, she assumed, though they were initially only discussing the theory of how it all worked. She rather thought she might find that more interesting than the practice, especially since Professor Flitwick was so clearly expert in his discipline.
The most interesting thing about Herbology was that Neville, otherwise hesitant to contribute in class, was in his element. Luna wondered what it was about plants that made the boy so much more comfortable than the rest of his life.
Being taught by a ghost was less exciting than Luna had expected, so History was kind of a drag. Luna suggested to Hermione that they try to find out more about Professor Binns' life, to see if maybe he could be directed to talk about the things he'd actually seen.
Luna's own head of house taught Transfiguration, and she was worried that she'd be at odds with the highly-practical woman for her whole career. Professor McGonagall hadn't appreciated theoretical questions that digressed from her lesson plan the way Professor Flitwick had in charms. Hermione was quite enthusiastic about the course, however.
Finally, at the end of the week, they had their first Potions class, a long period with the Slytherins. While they also shared History with the rival house, there was much more potential for grief in Potions. Malfoy had not yet directly interacted with them again since the last meeting on the train, but one of the Slytherin girls, Pansy Parkinson, had taken opportunities when they crossed paths to be snide to Hermione and Luna.
And perhaps more worrying was the rumor that the Potions teacher, Professor Snape, was the head of house for Slytherin and had it out for any Gryffindors in his class. He was certainly imposing as he swept into the room, a pale face and hands standing out against black hair and robes. Unlike most of the other wizards and witches she'd seen, so much of the professor's aura was contained and in control, nothing but small flickers of magic escaping into his environment. On first seeing him she'd thought he might be some kind of undead, but, up close, she was able to realize that he was just more in control of his magic and thoughts than anyone she'd ever met.
Perhaps it had been the staring that led him to note her in his roll with, "Luna Potter… our new celebrity."
He gave an impressive pitch for the importance of potioneering, then suddenly snapped off, "Potter! Powdered root of asphodel and an infusion of wormwood are crucial ingredients of which potion?"
Hermione's hand shot up. Luna had noticed her friend had been doing that all week, and the looks from her classmates weren't kind about it. She may have to bring it up at some point.
"Well the flowers would make a lovely bouquet to bring to a funeral," she thought out loud, not sure where the detailed encyclopedia of floriography had entered her memory. But as she'd been reading her potions textbook over the summer, it had seemed that the emotional meanings of flowers often had a lot of influence on the magic. "I think asphodel is a soporific, so maybe a sedative that causes you to… appear dead?"
"And if I asked you where you would find a bezoar?" the professor continued, still looking at her despite Hermione's increasing attempts to collect a handful of the ceiling.
This one she knew for sure, and she rambled, "If there's not one in the potions cabinets, which there should be because it's a general antidote to poisons, you would look in the stomach of a goat. I'm not sure why the book just suggested a goat though. Most mammals can generate bezoars. Humans can make them if they chew on their hair."
As several of the children in the class said "gross" with various levels of enthusiasm, Professor Snape asked another. "What's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"Is there one?" Luna mused. "Maybe they were harvested in different areas? Monkshood, wolfsbane, and aconite are different names for the same plant, but maybe they're names from different countries? Or minor variations within the species?"
Severus Snape, who suddenly wasn't sure why he'd spent years dreading having to teach the child of his old nemesis, actually showed a hint of a smile. Her mother had never been quite that spacey, but he was pleased that her intelligence didn't seem to have skipped a generation. "Ms. Potter is correct on all answers. Five points to Gryffindor."
The Slytherins winced at the unexpected points to their rival house.
He lectured about the answers, explaining, "Asphodel and wormwood are two of the main ingredients in a powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of the Living Death. Bezoars are, indeed, a stone that, when ingested quickly enough, will save you from most poisons. While, as noted, other species can generate them, goats and other ungulates do so much more commonly. And she is exactly correct on the three names for the same plant, which has a large enough growth area and slight variations in the appearance of subspecies that it gained different names when discovered by different groups over the centuries. Why aren't you all copying that down? Clearly Ms. Potter isn't content to rely on her fame to get through this class, and I expect as much from all of you."
He had them split into pairs to attempt a simple potion to cure boils, and Luna partnered with Neville while Hermione partnered with Ron (who'd also been sorted Gryffindor). The girls had worked out the deal two days before after observing the boys in class: Neville was an asset in Herbology but likely to require more help than Ron in their other classes, so it should even out for one of them to stick with him. They'd flipped for the arrangement.
It seemed like Potions would be the real test, as Luna barely noticed that Neville was just going to throw their porcupine quills into the potion while it was still on the fire, and put a hand out to stop him. "Don't go too fast, Neville," she whispered to him. "We need to follow the directions exactly until we have a better idea of how everything works."
Point in fact, behind them, Neville and Ron's roommates, Seamus and Dean, were asking, "Is it supposed to be smoking like that?" The professor stormed over to correct their work before it exploded.
"Sorry," Neville sighed. "I just thought maybe I could be good at Potions because it's related to Herbology, and doesn't need a wand. I got excited."
"You know," Luna mused, "you might have more luck in the other classes if your wand matched you."
"What do you mean?" he frowned. "It was my dad's."
She shook her head. "All you boys, trying to be your fathers."
Neville shrugged, "My gran insisted."
She reached out her left hand and touched his shoulder comfortingly while her right busily stirred the potion clockwise. "Gryffindor courage, Neville."
He smiled and nodded at the pink smoke coming from the cauldron, "Looks like it's finished."
"We'll probably do one that uses plants soon, then you take the lead, okay?" she asked.
"Absolutely."
The professor was pleased that their potion turned out very well for a first attempt, and Luna thought she saw some of his colors trying to escape from his control as he nodded to her when they turned in their work.
And with Potions out of the way, the free periods in the afternoon were perfect for a visit with Hagrid. Ron begged off, but Hermione and Neville tagged along with Luna to the large hut down by the forest. Hagrid greeted them all not so enthusiastically as his giant boarhound Fang. Hagrid had apparently known Neville's family as well, and Luna wondered if it was just that the man was friendly with all the Gryffindors that had passed through during his tenure at the school, or whether something else was going on.
But Luna was distracted by the snacks that Hagrid delivered with the tea. "This is amazing, Hagrid!" she said, carefully using a butterknife to chisel eyes and a mouth into the rock-hard scone he'd given her. "I'm going to call him Bread Friend!" She was honestly quite taken with food that you could sculpt and expect to endure indefinitely.
Neville had noticed that Hagrid was keeping a clipping from the Daily Prophet about a break-in at Gringotts. "Oh, hmm, er, it were just interesting, weren't it?" the big man covered.
"Do you think someone was trying to steal something to give me for my birthday?" Luna asked, noting the date of the attempted robbery. "Or maybe they wanted whatever it was you took out of the special vault while we were there? Lucky we were ahead of them, if so."
Hagrid tried to look nonchalant, but the wheels in Hermione and Neville's heads were turning.