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So far... The reborn Hermione launched the secret Cathesis League to fight corruption. Now at Hogwarts, the young girl formed CREST from the trusted members of the old D.A. After an exciting first year, the youngsters are back at school – but Ron is convinced he has died and is becoming a ghost. Now read on...

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Chapter 53

The Unnoticeable Boy


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Absent and Forgotten

The largest-ever group of Crestors had gathered in Room 4J for their first meeting of the school year. Harry and Hermione waited until they were sure everyone had arrived. Harry checked off his list, frowning here and there as if in confusion, but after scanning the faces, he finally declared, "All present!"

A podium had been raised at the head of the classroom so everyone could see the trio standing there. Harry stood in the centre, making clicking noises with his wand to draw attention. Hermione, arms folded, was happy to be one step back on his left. Neville stood proudly on Harry's right. The boy was transformed and there were many in the room who were staring at him with curiosity.

"Crestors," began Harry, "you can see we're uuh... bigger this year."

Laughter rippled around the room, and not a few cheers.

"But everyone here is proven to be reliable, trustworthy, and really helpful to all of us. We've got three Weasleys now: Fred and George most of you already know, but Ginny is new to Hogwarts," he pointed at her, "and, despite her size, a formidable fighter" – Harry winced and rubbed his elbow at the memory of an old bruise – "so uumm..." he grinned with a broad wink, "no need to be noble in the training duels, right guys?"

Ginny glared at Harry amidst the laughter, but Harry continued, "Her best friend Luna is a thinker, so don't underestimate her either." He gestured towards the girl who was gazing up at the ceiling and counting on her fingers.

Michael Corner sniggered to Anthony Goldstein, "A thinker?"

It was only a murmur but everyone heard it in the silence that had fallen on the group. Everyone except perhaps Luna who was still counting fingers and mused half to herself, "Shouldn't there be four Weasleys?"

Harry tried not to grimace. Most of the crowd looked puzzled. Hermione alone looked thoughtful.

"I expect another will be along eventually," Luna added brightly.

As Harry shrugged and carried on introducing the newcomers, nobody, including Luna, realised that Ron was watching from the back of the room, and looking very miserable indeed.

After the introductions, Harry continued, "For those of you new to Crest, we know you're eager to learn how to protect yourselves, but for you old-timers, do not relax your guard for a second. Despite what it says in the Daily Prophet, dark forces are at work behind the scenes all the time. George, would you tell everyone about the owl that Percy received from your dad?"

One of the twins stepped forward; Harry wondered if it was really Fred but he sounded serious enough to be George when he said, "Yes, while we Weasleys were away on holiday all summer, somebody broke into our house. Now, for a long time we've had very strong wards protecting our home so it could not have been ordinary robbers. The shields were set up under the supervision of my brother Bill who is a professional curse-breaker and often has to devise ways through advanced protection. He said it would have taken hours or days of expert spell-cracking to find a way in. Now it's not a... erm... luxury mansion, so no common burglar would bother making all that effort just to steal a few old tables and chairs, would they?"

Justin spoke up, "Then what did they take?"

"Well that's the thing," said the other twin, "apart from the broken wards, some old messages on the letter rack had been disturbed, and bedroom doors were found open, but Dad said nothing was missing as far as he could tell. It was almost as if–"

"But the same happened to us!" cried Parvati. "Ginny, you were lucky if you were on holiday because my mother said they must have been slavers looking for beautiful young witches to sell in the far east." She shuddered.

Luna frowned. "Why would they?"

Lavender giggled. "Honestly, Luna, if you're a thinker, surely you've thought about you-know-what?"

"What?"

"s. e. x.?"

"Sex? Oh, yes, I've thought about it lots." – Neville blanched at this point and cringed a step back from the front of the podium hoping nobody would notice him – "But why take girls all the way to the far east?" continued Luna, resuming her interest in the ceiling. "Seems a waste of a good journey," she continued dreamily. "I'm sure there must be wicked Englishmen who would pay millions for beautiful young witches so they can–"

"ERM, YES, thank you, everyone," cried Harry. "More seriously, keep your wands handy at all times, even in bed, and practise the spells taught in Crest, and above all – keep safe."

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Prospects

A week or two passed in which Ron had partly accepted his strange condition of being unseen and with changed senses. Touch was weak, light, non-reactive and almost slippery. He was never unpleasantly hungry or thirsty or tired, though with patience he could absorb a little of both food and drink and sleep as he wished. Bathing was neither possible nor necessary because even dirt seemed to ignore him and never stuck to or sullied his skin and clothes.

The unnoticeable boy was free to wander anywhere in the castle whenever doors were even briefly open and observe activities he would never normally see – as well as listen to interesting conversations. There were no demands made on him, no arguments, and, after suffering very little impact when jumping down from tables and ledges, he discovered he could even leap out of high windows without harming himself. He fell at normal speed but the ground didn't seem to react normally to his impact. The experience made no sense at all to Ron, but what did he know about the transition to being a fully incorporeal ghost?

Getting back inside the castle was a little more tricky – though Hagrid almost always came into the castle at about the same times of day for meals, and there were plenty of other opportunities. Being dead was... interesting, and in some ways, satisfying, which helped counter the disappointments.

The magical wards around the perimeter walls and gate would likely be a barrier but he'd yet to test that theory. In any event, if he was obliged to haunt the school, possibly he would not be able to leave easily. Nevertheless, with his near-absolute freedom within Hogwarts there were so many areas to explore, and things to learn by eavesdropping.

One downside was that he'd had to learn to avoid his old friends; it was just too painful to have been forgotten by them all so quickly after his demise. Had they never really cared much for his company when he'd been alive? Hermione would never forget Harry so quickly, and, after observing Neville's interest in Luna for the last couple of weeks, it was obvious the boy would be mortified if anything happened to her. As for Ginny... should Bill or any of his older brothers pass away, then Ron knew she'd grieve for months. He'd been close to his sister so felt hurt deep inside; the emotional pain was almost more physical than this new, tenuous world.

He missed magic too. Unable to draw his wand, he was reliant entirely on his fingers and his wits. A page in an open book could often be turned after several minutes of scrabbling. It was fun to lose someone's place in a textbook when they weren't looking. "Curse this draughty old castle!" the victim would say when they occasionally spotted a page wafting over apparently by itself. Snape and the twins were two of his favourite targets whereas Crabbe and Goyle generally didn't even notice they'd missed a complete topic, or even were reading the same page twice.

But after a month, the novelty was beginning to wear off. He'd made no progress towards full ghostliness so was not yet able to tell his old friends what he thought of their quick dismissal of his company. How much longer? He imagined himself one day with a white beard and long, crooked fingernails that–

He stared at his fingers. The nails hadn't noticeably grown at all since the last day of the holidays when his mother had neatly sanded them down with her manicure spell. Of course! Ghosts didn't age at all through the months and... years, but remained just as they had died.

He stared forlornly at the great marble staircase that rose up in the Entrance Hall and somehow it no longer looked beautiful. Nearly-headless Nick had been trapped in the castle for centuries! It was hard to accept that he himself would be doomed to this everlasting penance long after his friends had all left. A grievous loneliness shrouded his thinking and he sank into a deeper level of wretchedness.

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Old Memories

Midway through October, fires were being lit, adding cosy warmth to common rooms and dormitories alike. The corridors could still be chilly though, especially if you walked through one of the resident ghosts. Hermione heard Nearly Headless Nick muttering about his up-and-coming five hundredth deathday party and steered Harry away from him. "Trust me, you don't want to risk getting invited," she said. "Stinking, rotten food, black candles, and awful sawing dirges to dance to..."

As they headed upstairs, she smiled despite the awfulness of the memory from her former life. "I remember Moaning Myrtle being upset by Peeves, and Ron's teeth were chattering so much with the cold that we..." She paused on the next step and looked around with a puzzled expression on her face. "Where is Ron, by the way?"

"Uumm...?" murmured Harry from above, but he didn't stop.

"Don't tell me he skipped Charms!" She smoothed one hand over her bushy hair trying to recall where Ron had sat in Charms then she shrugged and resumed their upward path. "It's funny, you know, this was the year you and he went to rescue Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets; how different things are now.

"The what?" Harry didn't look back.

She stopped again. The more she thought about how courageously her two friends had descended to that deadly place with no idea what awaited them, the more she appreciated how noble and courageous both of them had been. I should tell him. Ron has always underestimated himself.

Resolved to bolster up Ron's ego the next time she saw him, she swiftly added his name as a reminder to her personal organiser then hurried after Harry towards the Gryffindor Tower. Her eyes scanned the common room. Ginny, Luna, and Neville were dropping their schoolbags against a side table and flopping down into chairs but Ron wasn't with them. Frowning, she sent Harry up to his dorm to see if he was already there. Ten minutes later he returned.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Was he there?"

"Dean or Seamus? They're both up there."

"Uumm..." Hermione tried to recall why she might want to speak to either of them.

Neville had pulled a scrapbook out of his bag and opened it upon the tabletop. A dried leaf lay there. "I found this yesterday, Luna. It must have blown quite a way because I couldn't see the tree. I think it's Alihotsy. They don't cause hysteria this time of year. I'm going to look for it on Saturday if you want to come."

She nodded vigorously. "We should find a Glumbumble first then, just in case."

Hermione sighed. "You're not supposed to enter the Forest, Neville – remember?"

"We'll talk to Hagrid. I always stay on the fringes and don't go out of sight."

A frown creased Hermione's brow. Distracted by what Neville had said, she'd lost her train of thought. There'd been a name on the tip of her tongue, but try as she might, she could not recall it.

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Ron's Speech

By December, Ron was in a bad way. He'd found Professor Trelawney's stash of cooking sherry and regularly slurped on the leftovers in her wineglasses. An hour or two's sucking did not ease his misery but at least distracted him from it. While still woozy, he'd often visit the Great Hall at mealtimes to address the students from the Headmaster's chair – whether the Headmaster was in it or not. There is a natural sense of distance between an orator and his audience which helped obscure his lack of intimacy with anyone. Humour also helped him to keep up his spirits.

"My dear students, I must express disappointment in your recent test results. By not scoring any points at all, you've established a new all-time low record for the school. I ask you to set your standards higher. Be inspired by the example of our wonderful Head Boy and Quidditch champion, Ronald Bilius Weasley – me – who was recently offered the post of Minister for Magic but declined in favour of remaining here for your admiration and appreciation as youngest Headmaster since forever."

The students continued with their meals and conversations but there was sufficient attention towards his central position at the staff table to create the illusion of their interest, some even staring right through him at Dumbledore.

"I have decided that all of Slytherin house will remain in permanent, all-year-round detention each night scrubbing my personal toilet with their own toothbrushes until daybreak."

He waved his arms airily. "Thank you, thank you. Now will all those girls who wish to spend the night with me in my royal suite in the new centre tower, please queue up at the usual place for inspection and scoring."

At that moment, a second-year girl who had been one of the Dumbledore-starers, happened to stand up, startling Ron for a moment. She seemed undecided, as if wondering if she dare approach the Headmaster.

Distracted, Ron tried to continue his speech. "Offerings of money, food, uumm... will be graciously..."

His eyes widened. The girl really was walking forward to talk to Dumbledore! He decided she was quite pretty, somewhat intimidated – who wouldn't be? – and, wearing the blue insignia of Ravenclaw, she'd be smart.

"Young miss, you show great intelligence jumping the queue to offer yourself. For this, I bestow upon you my mighty intellect and magnificent body to serve you through the cold nights. I shall not shirk one inch in–"

"You can see me?" she said in a very faint, shaky voice.

Ron almost fell off Dumbledore's knee. It was uncanny and very unnerving how she appeared to be gazing directly into his own eyes. He waited for the real Headmaster's response to her strange question.

"You can, can't you?" and her whisper was lost amidst the general chatter all around them.

Dumbledore's soup spoon clattered down and he reached around Ron's waist to push away his empty dish. Ron was very curious now to see what would follow.

"Pass the buttered turnips would you please, Minerva?" said Dumbledore.

The girl remained silent now. Tears began to stream down her cheeks and she rubbed them away with the flat of her palms. Her hands and face were quite pale as though she hadn't seen much sun in a long time. Her mouth moved as one wishing to speak but only sobs came from between her lips.

At a loss for words himself, Ron could only stare back at her. If Dumbledore was ignoring her then...

"Merlin's fat arse!" Ron wriggled out of Dumbledore's lap and tumbled onto the floor at the side of the great golden chair. After a failed struggle to think straight, he raised his head tentatively to peep over the tabletop. The girl was still there. And she definitely was not looking at Dumbledore.

"Can you help me?" she whimpered.

"Uumm..." Ron scratched his head and stood up. Pretty-girl-begging-for-help mode instinctively kicked in. "Erm... yes?"

She screamed. Not just any ordinary scream, but a deep primal shriek beginning in her abdomen and amplified by a larynx that trumpeted like an elephant rescued from a mighty thorn.

"Whoa! Don't..." began Ron, but the girl lunged forward and grabbed at his outstretched wrist with slender white fingers. In a further swift movement she had hauled herself onto the table with one knee in Dumbledore's steaming turnips and the other perilously close to the gravy boat.

"Hit me!" she cried.

"What?" Ron hesitated, frowning. "No – you hit me!"

She did so. Without releasing his wrist, her other hand had swung around and slapped his cheek hard. It stung. So did her fingers for she was shaking them limply from the wrist. A cautious realisation began to show on both their faces.

He helped her down and they walked without considering anything else but each other. She had both hands gripping his arm now. "Who are you?" she said.

"Erm... Ron Weasley. You?"

"Olive. Olive Hornby."

"What happened to us, do you know?"

"I was poisoned. A nasty boy called Tom Riddle..." She winced. "The potion was cursed."

Ron gaped at her, confused. "You mean Voldemort? The demon bit you?"

The young girl was closely watching Ron's lips move, observing that they formed words exclusively for herself, and not quite believing the boy was actually speaking to her. So absorbed was she that some seconds passed before she shook her head in reply. "They held me down... made me drink it."

Ron stopped. They'd reached the Entrance Hall but neither of them knew it. "Let me get this straight – who made you drink what?"

"Avery and Lestrange. I don't know what the potion was but I know Riddle wanted us to suffer – Myrtle and Irma and me. I've tried to find out in the library. I've searched the Headmaster's study. I've been all over the school so many times..."

They resumed walking, she holding onto Ron and repeatedly looking sideways at him for fear he might disappear or turn out to be one of the many wishful hallucinations she'd suffered. When she finally spoke again, Olive appeared to choose her words very carefully, testing each one as they were made audible by vocal cords long-unused.

"I did find out that ... Professor Dumbledore knew Tom was searching for ... ways to live longer – forever if he could, even if he was only a spirit. ... He learned how some people remained imprinted in this world when they died so he ... murdered one of us ... to test the method he'd discovered. Poor Myrtle will probably remain a ghost forever.

"Moaning Myrtle!" spluttered Ron.

"Don't call her that! She was a lovely girl till Riddle broke her spirit!"

"Sorry," Ron said meekly. "Go on about what he did."

"He ruined Irma too, consigning her to drudgery and servitude in the library she was driven to hate. I think he extended her life as long as he could, but I'm not sure. In any case, every day is a very long one for her, and every year feels like ten. He stretched her out somehow, you see."

"Madam Pince? That old bag!"

"Stop! Stop! Please don't say those things. Irma was my best friend. We were all friends back then."

Ron stopped at the top of a flight of stairs and stared at her. "Wait. Wait a minute. Back then? Tom Riddle? Madam Pince must be seventy if she's a day. How old are you? How long have you been like this?"

"I'm still twelve. I'm doomed to remain the same forever. I've been here over fifty years and I'm still twelve. I've never had an injury or illness – not even caught a cold. My hair hasn't grown at all and even my clothes don't show any wear – I suppose because of their long contact with me."

Ron looked at his fingernails again; they still remained exactly as at the end of the previous summer. "Blummin' 'eck!"

"Riddle developed the potion to slow down body rhythms almost to a stop while the mind remained free, but the brew drastically reduced interaction with the world and the world never notices anything so far out of normal time. I tried smearing a short message on a wall in the Great Hall. The most I could do was always very faint and it took me months to finish a few words. The first part had faded long before then or the house-elves had cleaned it off, I'm not sure which. The cursed potion is like an overwhelming Notice-me-not charm. The disadvantages far outweigh the benefits so Tom never used it on himself."

"That means Dumbledore never noticed me sitting in his lap even when his arm skidded around me to reach something? I wonder how that works?"

She nodded. "Yes, it's the same as when you step over or around something so unimportant you don't even remember doing it. That timeless effect means nobody can detect or interact with you. They just brush off or slide around you without realising or caring."

They walked on to an open window but neither of them looked out, both being totally absorbed in the responses of the other.

"What about you?" she said. "If you know exactly what potion you drank then we might be able to reverse its effect. I've been studying Potions from books for decades but brewing is near-impossible in our state."

"Me?" Ron thought back to the day he'd arrived back at Hogwarts. "I never drank anything. I never even got to have dinner." He frowned angrily. "I never even got a pasty!"

"You must have drank something! Think, Ron!" She clutched his arm more strongly.

His face screwed up in concentration for a while but he shook his head.

Olive fidgeted worriedly. "The effect should have been almost immediate; it was with me. You must remember!"

"No, my family came over from a holiday in France and I definitely never had anything since leaving Beauxbatons. Even McGonagall never gave us a cup of tea. Anyway, my sister is fine and she was with me all the time. We went down to the kitchens together then took refreshments back to our common room, but I never got to enjoy any of it."

Olive's shoulders sagged. "Without the counter-potion, we're lost – stuck like this forever."

Ron tried to reassure her. "At least we can talk to each other now. I thought I'd go mad on my own."

She adjusted her grip even more firmly on his arm and he perfectly understood why. That one connection with normal solid reality was their only anchor in troubled waters. The look in her eyes conveyed the imploring desperation he felt within himself too.

Olive led him that night to a tiny unused chamber in which were jammed three spare beds, one of which she'd been sleeping on in recent years. Uncomfortable at having broken true physical contact, they lay looking across at each other for a while before both fell into a troubled slumber. When Ron awoke in the night he found her fast asleep beside him, two hands clasping his arm. He understood completely. It was their only way of hanging onto reality, a sense of security, and... sanity.

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Resolutions

A particularly heavy fall of snow was dumped on Hogwarts just before the Christmas holidays. Both Luna and Neville had firmly decided to stay together at the school. It was hard to keep them apart since they were so often seen with their fingers gently touching or even entwined in a childlike way. Furthermore, Neville, who daily reminded himself he'd be thirteen 'in a few months', considered himself old enough to have his first proper kiss and was girding himself up to take advantage of the mistletoe season to peck her on the cheek. He smiled to himself. If he was quick he could say sorry after, and the memory would be worth a hundred apologies or a thousand face-slaps. He'd never have dared with a princess but Luna was much more than his beloved Etherea – she was the princess but warmer, closer, and not pretend-haughty at all. She'd understand that his desire to express affection was overwhelming and irresistible, wouldn't she? Pity might make her tolerant of his moment of weakness.

Meanwhile, Luna was equally resolved to avoid Mistletoe at all costs and take advantage of Neville instead. She had a compelling ambition to lead him into the narrowest alcove in the castle, there to whisper some tender words so closely to his face that surely he could not resist moving his lips that last inch? That was her earnest hope anyway because she'd noticed he'd been studying her face quite closely for a long time now – since they'd met actually. Failing that, her intention was to simply ask him. Princess Etherea would never stoop so low as to beg a commoner, but the many other sides of Luna Lovegood had no such inhibitions.

Oblivious to the other girls preparing for bed, she studied her mouth in the dormitory mirror, pouting, twisting, contorting it in different directions to evaluate the effect. Finally she settled on a shy little smile. Luna had noticed Neville react favourably to that expression before. If she upturned her face in submission then might his eyes widen? Perhaps even shine a little in adoring gratitude? Their lips would touch in everlasting bliss...

Parvati and Lavender, each curled up in their respective beds, exchanged what they thought were knowing smirks – but neither of them had yet experienced that first passion themselves except in daydreams. Luna would be queen of the dorm if she could achieve her ambition.

Hermione looked on with a wise smile then turned back to her bedtime novel: The Pirate's Plaything. The swashbuckling hero had dark, tousled hair, and somehow she always visualised him wearing spectacles...

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Missing

As the Hogwarts Express trundled and rattled its way back to London, Harry Potter was gazing out of the steamy window wondering how far south the snow extended and whether he might build a snowman in the garden of Grimmauld Place for his baby sister.

Ginny, sitting opposite, also glanced out now and again but in a more cranky way. At Beauxbatons she'd known where she stood, pairing neatly with her best friend Luna Lovegood, and enjoying the novelty of a French style of living. There had been a stable, reliable balance in which both had delighted. Now Luna was bonding with Neville and had stayed behind at Hogwarts – separated utterly from Ginny for the first time in over a year. Hermione and Harry were also far closer these days even when, as now, they were occupied with other things. And when Ginny had decided to return to England, she'd somehow expected more best company, not less. There had been a definite promise of other kinship that had not been fulfilled. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but it niggled her nevertheless. What was missing? Or who?

Hermione was comfortably beside Harry as usual, reviewing her personal planner and optimising it for the coming new year. One entry made no sense and she wondered if it had been jotted down in a rush. The brief note had been entered on October the eighteenth and said simply, 'Ron?' Why on Earth had she put his name down there?

The more she tried to think about anything that Ron might have done last term, the more she realised how uneventful and unmemorable their second year had been so far. Not like her former life, she mused to herself with a smile. By now he'd rescued Harry from the Dursleys, driven a flying car all the way to Scotland, crashed into the Whomping Willow, broken his wand, nearly got expelled, gone to a deathday party, discovered a message written in blood and... she looked across the compartment to where he often sat. "Where is Ron, anyway?"

For a moment, something connected within Ginny, as if she'd discovered an answer but couldn't remember the question. She shrugged. "Dunno. Probably with uumm..." Ginny looked out of the window again wondering what she'd been about to say. The snow was patchy as they travelled through Yorkshire and the areas where it was absent seemed less pleasing than if there'd been no snow at all.

"Harry?" said Hermione.

"Mmm...?" He turned to her. "What's up?"

She looked at him feeling rather bewildered. What had she been meaning to ask him? "Uuh... nothing."

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Being in One Place

As they stepped outside Hogwarts castle on Christmas morning, Luna shared with Neville her white fluffy Diricawl muff which possessed the amazing property of being in two places at the same time.

"I can feel your fingers inside!" cried the astonished Neville, as he pushed his hands within the warm furry barrel.

Luna looked back with a puzzled expression on her face as she skipped down the drift-covered front steps. "Well of course you can," she cried, raising her hands to show the very same muff that he was wearing. "You need two people to catch Diricawls so these are quite rare,"

"Yes, I heard that if there's danger, Diricawls vanish and reappear somewhere else," said Neville, as they began crunching away from the entrance.

Luna's laughter tinkled and echoed off the castle walls. "That's what they want you to think," she explained solemnly after she had mastered her convulsions. "But it's silly to suppose a big fat bird could fast travel invisibly, don't you see? No, they simply run ahead of themselves and if it's safe then they catch themselves up."

Neville thought about that for a while but eventually gave up with a low chuckle.

Off they veered in the direction of Hagrid's hut. From afar, they saw Fang come bounding out to meet them. They waved and pointed to the Forest and saw Hagrid's steamy breath a moment before hearing his usual caution distantly booming, "Don' yeh go wanderin' beyon' the fringes, remember!"

"We won't!" they cried in response.

"I wish we could though, just for today," said Luna, after the boarhound had dropped into step beside them. "Abominables are probably having a merry time on the far side. They carve lanterns from blue ice and dance and sing through the night."

At the forest edge they slowed their pace and began scavenging, using their wands occasionally to clear around the boles of trees and reveal the old leaf litter.

They helped a Bowtruckle back into the icy tree from which it had slipped, and Luna chatted with a couple of crows – though whether they understood her, Neville could not tell. A decent ice mushroom was found but it was yellowing from an attack by vampire slugs so even Fang left it alone. There was interest for the youngsters wherever they looked and, of course, they had each other.

"Neville, it being a special day, I was thinking about being kissed later," said Luna as they approached the northern side of Hogwarts' perimeter walls. She squeezed his hands inside the warm muff and they stopped walking while Neville tried to catch his breath.

"I've given it a lot of thought actually," she continued. "There's a tiny recess on the fifth floor where Mr Filch sometimes stands waiting to pounce but he's not here today and I believe we can squash in if we try. What do you think?"

"Uuh... uuh... I... uuh..." panted Neville.

"Only, I'll be twelve in a few weeks but I'm a leap baby so times four."

"A w-what?" gasped Neville. "I thought ... you ... born in ...1981?"

"I was, but it was after midnight on the twenty-eighth and the healer was very tired because I was a real nuisance so she put down the twenty-ninth without thinking."

"That's ... incredible."

"It is. Nobody believes me."

They'd reached a stout buttress in the north wall and took shelter from the cold breeze that occasionally dusted mists of snowflakes into the air to dance and swirl around them. Fang, undeterred by the cold, was darting after what he believed might have been a rabbit but was only a flurry of falling leaves.

As planned, Neville was very close to Luna. She felt a new sensation, a delicate warmth that began deeply within, then spread throughout her entire body.

"I believe in you, Princess."

Touched, the corners of Luna's mouth curved naturally into a shy little smile and she tilted up her face in submission. Neville kissed her. For the longest moment their muff was in one place.

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—oOo—

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Author's Notes

In the author's notes at the end of chapter 51, I incorrectly referred to the next Book as 'Book 3'. While it is the third book in the series, it is, of course, named 'Book 2' (so they match Harry's years at Hogwarts. Sorry about that. I'll change it.

A reader advised me that 'pasty' has a different meaning in the States so it seems wise to inform you all that in the UK, 'pasty' is a wonderful and famous folder-over pastry containing meat and veg that can be served hot or cold. Also, in my innocence, I didn't know that 'muff' has another meaning until long after I wrote the above. Here in the UK it's an old-fashioned hand warmer, being a cylinder of fur or fabric into which you slip your hands instead of wearing gloves. Two magical lovers can wear the same Diricawl muff at the same time no matter how far apart they are because they will always catch each other up eventually. :)

Yes, I did know that JK Rowling said on Twitter in 2015 that Luna's birthday is February 13th not March 1st but I thought (quite a while before 2015) that it's much more fun for her to be associated with the mad march hare (her Patronus is a hare, and well, she is a little bit mad) as well as causing confusion from the moment she was born! :)

Many thanks for all comments and reviews. These are most welcome and very encouraging. Let me know of any weaknesses or faults – I'm always trying to improve my writing so feedback is really useful. :)

– Hippothestrowl

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