Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine and it never will be.
"Hey, look, it's the girl who talked to the Sorting Hat last night!"
"Look at that necklace!"
"Look at that hair! Has she never heard of a comb?"
"Is she mental or what?"
These whispers reached Luna's ears as she made her way to the Great Hall for breakfast, but she tried not to let them bother her. After all, it was only the beginning of the school year; she was sure she'd make at least one friend by the end of this term alone. If not, there was still Cedric.
"Hello," said Luna dreamily as she sat at the Ravenclaw table across from the pretty Asian third year she'd met the previous evening.
"Er, hi," replied the older girl. "It's Luna Lovegood, right?" Luna nodded. "I'm Cho Chang."
"It's nice to meet you, Cho Chang." Just as the morning post was arriving, Luna pulled out her copy of The Quibbler. "Do you ever read The Quibbler? There's an interesting article in here about -" She was suddenly interrupted by a magically magnified voice that seemed to come from the Gryffindor table.
"STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE -"
Most of the students had stuffed their fingers in their ears; Luna, however, clambered up onto the table, the better to see who had received the Howler.
"Oi, what're you doing?!" shouted a fourth year. "Get down from there!" But Luna was not listening; as she continued to stare toward the Gryffindor table she thought she saw a redheaded boy sinking lower and lower in his seat.
"-WE DIDN'T BRING YOU UP TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS, YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED-"
I knew it! Luna thought. Harry Potter really did drive that car to Hogwarts. And Ronald Weasley was with him too!
When the Howler had finally stopped shouting, Luna scrambled off the table and sat back in her seat, eating her cornflakes and humming softly to herself. A few minutes later Professor Flitwick came around and handed the Ravenclaws their course schedules and Luna saw that her first lesson of the day was Double Charms with the Hufflepuffs.
As the bell rang for the start of lessons and the students left the Great Hall, Luna hung back a bit, hoping this time she'd get a chance to talk to Hagrid about her father's theory about him being an alien, but the groundskeeper had already left.
Luna was staring out of the window of the Charms classroom, lost in thought, when she felt someone poke her in the side. Turning around, she saw Ulysses Stokes giving her an irritated look and gesturing toward Professor Flitwick, who was standing on a pile of books at the front of the room. The rest of the class was giggling and staring at Luna.
"Yes, Professor?" she asked.
"I was calling the register, Miss Lovegood," the tiny Charms teacher told her.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I tend to get distracted sometimes. But yes, I'm here." The class laughed even harder.
When the laughter died down, Flitwick began the lesson with an explanation of how spellcasting was one of the most essential skills a wizard could have and how some charms were more difficult than others. "We shall begin with one of the most basic of spells: the Levitation Charm," he said. "Who can tell me the correct wrist movement for this charm? Miss Youngblood?"
"It's a swish and flick, sir," answered Khloe.
"That's right, five points to Hufflepuff. Let's practice it now, shall we?" The Charms teacher got out his wand and demonstrated said movement with the class copying him. After they had practiced for several moments, Flitwick asked, "Now who can tell me the incantation and the correct pronunciation? Lewellen?"
"Win-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa," said Elvin.
"Excellent, take five points for Ravenclaw. Pronouncing the incantation for any spell is very important, remember that. Any mispronunciation could land you in a very sticky situation." At this, Luna put up her hand.
"I know exactly what you mean, sir. My father wrote an article in The Quibbler once about a witch with a terrible stutter, you know. She tried to say an incantation for a charm once and had trouble getting the words out; because of that she accidentally turned herself into a human-Heliopath hybrid." This sent her classmates into hysterics. "And she couldn't even go to St. Mungo's to get sorted out because she would've burned down the entire building." The laughter increased.
"Well, it's not the example I would have used, but okay," replied Flitwick. He then asked Holly to pass out feathers before he began splitting the class up into pairs.
"...Miss Youngblood, you will be partnering Miss Pike," finished Flitwick. "Lewellen, I have you working with Hawthorne. Miss Reese, you can partner Stokes. And Miss Kirkland, you're with Miss Lovegood."
A minute later found Imelda and Luna sitting side by side and looking down at the feather on which they were to practice. Imelda looked thoroughly unhappy at the idea of being paired with Luna.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" the dark-haired girl said, swishing and flicking as Flitwick had instructed. The feather lay there unmoving. "Come on, you stupid feather, float already! Wingardium Leviosa!"
"You're not going to make it fly by yelling at it, you know," said Luna serenely. "You'll hurt its feelings."
"It's a feather, you loon! It doesn't have feelings!"
Luna gently patted the feather and whispered, "It's okay, Mr. Feather, she didn't mean to upset you." She then swished and flicked her wand while saying, "Wingardium Leviosa!" Slowly the feather began to rise off the desk.
"Well done, Miss Lovegood, well done!" exclaimed Flitwick. "Ten points to Ravenclaw!" About a minute later Elvin managed to levitate his feather as well, earning Ravenclaw another ten points.
"You see, Imelda?" said Luna. "You just need to be nice to the feather." Imelda just scowled and muttered under her breath.
History of Magic was Luna's next class. She strongly suspected the classroom was infested with Wrackspurts, for she noticed her classmates falling into a trancelike state or drifting off to sleep as the teacher, Professor Binns, droned on about the introduction of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Even Luna felt herself becoming drowsy as the lesson continued. On top of that, she couldn't help but wonder if Wrackspurts could affect ghosts as well-because when Binns called the register at the start of class, he mispronounced most of the students' names.
At lunch in the Great Hall, Luna quietly nibbled on her salad while listening to Cho Chang and her friends chat excitedly about the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson they'd had that morning.
"I don't believe it!" Cho's curly blonde-haired friend was saying. "The Gilderoy Lockhart, teaching here, at Hogwarts!"
"He's so handsome," a girl with short brown hair gushed. "And brave."
"You know, I overheard him talking to McGonagall about some kind of surprise he's prepared for the Gryffindor second years this afternoon," said Cho. "I wonder what it is?"
"Maybe he's brought a troll into the school and wants to give them a practical lesson on fighting trolls," the curly-haired girl suggested.
"Marietta, you prat!" Cho exclaimed. "Have you forgotten what happened the last time a teacher let a troll in here?"
"What did happen?" asked Luna interestedly.
"Our last Defense teacher let a troll in last Halloween to distract everybody so he could try and get the Philosopher's Stone," answered Cho. "Harry Potter and Ron Weasley managed to knock him out but it was still horrifying to have a troll loose in the castle."
According to Luna's course schedule, the first-year Ravenclaws didn't have their first lesson with Lockhart until Friday. As she poured her entire goblet of pumpkin juice over her salad, drawing a considerable number of stares and snickers from her housemates, she found herself wondering what Lockhart could possibly have planned for the Gryffindor second years and if he would do the same for her and her classmates.
I hope he knows about Nargles, Wrackspurts, and Umgubular Slashkilters and can teach us how to defend ourselves against them, she thought. That would actually make his lessons worthwhile.
"Miss Lovegood! Are you listening to me, girl?!"
Luna was sitting in her last class of the day: double Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, in a desk in the last row of the classroom. She'd been gazing out of the window and daydreaming about Thestrals and had decided it wouldn't hurt to do some exploring in the Forbidden Forest, no matter what Dumbledore had said. She was sure there were plenty of fascinating creatures to be found there in addition to the Thestrals. When Professor McGonagall's stern voice broke through her thoughts, Luna slowly turned toward the front of the classroom.
"Now that Miss Lovegood has been kind enough to give me her undivided attention," said Professor McGonagall, with a thoroughly irritated look at Luna, "we can begin this lesson afresh.
"Transfiguration-the art of altering the properties of an object and transforming one object into another. This is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn throughout your magical education. There will be no room for games or tomfoolery of any kind in this classroom. Anyone caught messing around will face dire consequences."
She then got out her wand and transformed her desk into a pig and back again.
"Now please bear in mind that it will take a considerable amount of study and several years of practice before you can - Miss Lovegood, what are you doing out of your seat?"
"I just wanted to pet the pig," Luna said dreamily. "He was so cute." The class burst out laughing; Luna glanced over at the Gryffindor side of the room and noticed that one student wasn't laughing: Ginny Weasley. Instead, the redhead was staring silently up at Luna and McGonagall.
"Please take your seat, Miss Lovegood," the Transfiguration teacher told Luna. "We have a serious lesson to get back to. Today we shall begin with the simplest of spells: turning matches into needles. Now, if you will all copy this down - " she waved her wand and a very complex set of notes appeared on the blackboard.
"Now, Miss Robins, if you will pass out these matches," McGonagall said once the class had copied everything down; she handed the box to a Gryffindor girl with short brown hair.
Even this basic spell proved to be very difficult; only Elvin Lewellen and Demelza Robins managed to turn their matches into needles, earning them each ten points for their respective Houses.
Luna realized that there wouldn't be much time to explore the Forbidden Forest that evening owing to the large amount of homework she had to do, so she headed up to the common room after dinner to start on the essay Professor McGonagall had assigned to the class.
She'd written a couple of sentences when a voice said, "So you're the weird little first year I've heard so much about." She looked up to see a boy of about seventeen with curly black hair and brown eyes.
"I don't believe I've introduced myself. Tony Kirkland, Head Boy." He held out a hand for Luna to shake, but she only stared unblinkingly up at him. "You're Imelda's brother," she said after a moment of silence.
"Yeah."
"She told me you read The Quibbler."
"That's right," Tony answered with a grin. "You know, Imelda's always bothering me about it. Says I'm a fool to read that so-called 'rubbish.'" He headed for the exit. "Anyway, I'm off to make my rounds before bed. If my sister or any of the other kids give you a hard time, you let me know, all right?"
Luna nodded and turned back to her essay. Afterward, she practiced levitating her Dirigible Plum earrings before going up to bed.
2 September 1992
Dear Mummy,
Today went quite well. I learned the Levitation Charm.
Do you remember the girl I told you about, the one I met in Diagon Alley? Well, I met her older brother this evening, and I found out he's a regular reader of The Quibbler. He was quite nice, but I wouldn't really call him a friend; he's a seventh year and Head Boy and I imagine his duties will keep him very busy, but I'm glad to know he cares about my safety and wellbeing.
I'm a bit curious as to what Lockhart taught the Gryffindor second years. This morning I overheard Cho Chang mentioning some sort of surprise he had for them, and when I was walking to dinner I heard a couple of them saying something about "brainless git" and "those bloody pixies." Something tells me Lockhart isn't the hero he says he is, but I'm sure I'll find out come Friday.
I'll write again soon. Take care!
Love,
Luna