A/N: This is chapter 4 people! I need some feedback, here. For cripes sake. I can't tell if y'all love it or hate it 'cause no one has reviewed. I know I kind of went out on a limb with the Harry/Luna thing, but honestly, I was tired of seeing him paired up with Ginny all the time...Read and Review, please....

Chapter Four

Luna sat in her aunt's living room. There was no denying her boredom. Everything was so plain and ordinary. She had been attending Saint Mary's Prep Academy for the past week. That was boring, too. As for her Hogwarts friends, that whole situation was confusing enough in itself. She had received several night owls already telling her 'not to worry, that everything would be okay.' and several actually asking her stupid questions, such as 'What's your new school like?'. She didn't understand at all. If everyone was so keen on rescuing her from her aunt's Muggle prison, why hadn't she been rescued yet? Then, the doorbell rang.

Luna was the one who answered the door. She couldn't believe who was standing in front of her. "What are you guys wearing?" she breathed.
"Sh!" Harry warned. "If she asks, we're from your school, all right?"

"Who is it, Luna?" Harry and the others could hear Luna's aunt's voice echoing down the hallway.
Luna nearly jumped. "It's...friends from school, Aunt Melissa."
"What are they doing here, Luna?" came her aunt's next question.
Luna was silent a moment. "It's a project for our Home Studies class. We're supposed to make dinner for a friend. They're here to make dinner for us!" Luna called down the hallway. "Come in," she whispered.
"...After we've caused enough havoc here, we even have Dumbledore and Lupin waiting to back us up!" Neville whispered. "I talked to them before we left this morning!"
Luna was puzzled. "Well, then how did you get here?" she asked.
"Brooms! How else?" smiled Harry.

Luna's Aunt Melissa was visible now. She was a tall woman with a very stern expression on her face. She didn't share many of Luna's features. Her face lacked any femininity, and her hair was blond and much too short to match her face. She stood with her hands on her hips as Luna let the Marauders into the house.
She tapped her abnormally large foot. "Well, Luna. Has school taught you nothing? Don't you want to introduce me?"
Luna cursed under her breath, and turned around. "This is Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Ginny." She said quickly. "I'll show them where the kitchen is..." she nearly growled as she retreated.

"I hope you guys have something really good planned! This ogre is getting on my nerves!" Luna hissed. "It's like she's spent the last week trying to beat the magic out of me...She thinks my father was a loon..." Luna's voice softened. Harry shivered. Luna's current predicament sounded a lot like his own situation with the Dursleys.
Ron shrugged. "Honestly, Luna! My brothers own a joke shop! We're more than prepared!"
Hermione grinned evilly. "Hey Luna, do you know your aunt's favorite food?" she asked.
Luna thought for a moment. "She likes alfredo...almost any kind of pasta," she decided.
"That's great!" Ginny clapped. "We'll be able to have lots of fun with that! You just sit back and enjoy the show, Luna."

The Marauders, excluding Luna, of course, spent over forty-five minutes in the kitchen. Ginny prepared noodles, using a 'special' seasoning from Fred and George's joke shop. Now, every time Luna's aunt would poke one with a fork, it would scream.

Next to her, Neville was busily preparing a Caesar salad. Hermione had taught him how to charm it so that the lettuce would throw croutons at whoever tried to eat it. He had to throw the croutons into the salad from a distance, so as not to be pelted with one himself.

Ron took care of the meat department. His mystery meat was made of liver-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (the jumping variety!) and would even occasionally wiggle itself off the plate if it got too bored...Ron laughed as he put it onto the plate, and gave a thumbs up to Harry from across the room.

Harry was working in the dessert department. He had made a marvelous two-layer cake, and filled it to the brim with Filibuster Fireworks. He laughed as he topped it off with whipped cream and cherries. It was going to be a messy night.

"Hermione! We're done! Work your magic!" Ron whispered to her.
Hermione waved her wand at each of the dishes. The meat stopped jumping, and Neville's retaliatory salad had ceased its crouton throwing. She smiled. "Done."
"Yeah, but what did you do?" Ginny whispered.
"Simple," Hermione laughed. "We'll get to have a pretty normal dinner...for the most part. When I tap the table with my wand, then the food will start acting up again. It should give us some extra time. If things started exploding and jumping the minute we got out there, we wouldn't even have enough time to call in Lupin and Dumbledore."
Ron wrapped her in a hug. "You're a genius!"
Hermione blushed. "Let's just start taking this stuff out there before they start thinking we've died in here or something."
"Wait!" Harry held up his hand. "Does Luna know exactly what's going on?"
"No," answered Neville, "that way her aunt can't blame her..."
"I wonder why we haven't gotten in trouble with the Ministry of Magic yet?" Ginny wondered aloud.
"Because Dumbledore has been preoccupying them for us." Neville smiled. "I told him about what we were planning, remember?"

"Dinner is served!" Harry grinned. Hermione carried in the salad. Ron, who was carrying Ginny's enchanted Alfredo noodles, followed her. Next was Neville, carrying the mystery meat. Harry left and returned with the cake once the rest of the meal had been carried out.

"This looks lovely!" Luna's aunt clapped her hands, and immediately went for the salad. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny took their seats. Hermione sat next to Luna, and grinned widely.

When Luna's aunt had eaten a good portion of her salad, Hermione coughed. From under the table, she took out her wand. She tapped the under side of the table and glanced at each of her friends. Luna's aunt wasn't suspicious in the least. She went for her noodles next.

Neville snorted into his cup of tea. The fork was getting closer and closer. Contact! A shrill scream filled the room. Luna covered her ears, and her aunt jumped back in her chair.
"What on earth?" she shrieked.
Hermione smiled. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked.
Aunt Melissa pointed. "The noodles! They screamed at me!"
"Are you sure you weren't hearing things, ma'am?" Neville coughed, playing along.
"No! They screamed! They're alive!" she yelled.
Ginny shrugged. "The noodles aren't alive, ma'am. I made them myself. They didn't scream then. Don't you think you would've heard it?" She nearly laughed.
"I...yes...well...maybe a bit of salad, then. I think I'm rather tired today," she sighed, taking her seat again.

She moved the salad plate towards her. The lettuce stood up, and began to throw croutons at her head. At first, she only blinked and shrugged. She tried again. A crouton hit her square between her eyes.
"Oh, my god!" she screamed, horrified.

Hermione tapped the bottom of the table again, and winked at Luna.
Luna smiled. "Sit down, Aunt Melissa. You're loosing it. Look..." Luna took a large bite of her salad, swallowed, and then took a large bite of her noodles. "You're hallucinating, Aunt. You act as if your food is out to get you. It's quite yummy, actually."
"Something's not right!" she growled. "Something is terribly wrong here!"
"Aunt Melissa, they're from Saint Mary's. How would they know magi...."

"Don't you say that word in this house!" she demanded.
Hermione sighed. "Ma'am, why don't you have a seat? We can all have a piece of that delicious looking cake in the center of the table..."
"It does look good," she admitted, "but what if...?"
"Then we'll all cut our own pieces, aunt. Then you should have nothing to worry about..." Luna was close to tears. She wanted to laugh very badly.

Hermione gave enough time for all of the Marauders to get their pieces. Neville and Ron had eaten most of theirs before Luna's aunt was brave enough to get near the cake. Hermione tapped the under side of the table again. Aunt Melissa had the knife. It was lowering, closer and closer to the cake. Finally, after taking another look around, she let the knife drop into the cake.

The cake exploded in her face. It was all over her, all over her walls, and even a bit onto the ceiling. She screamed, dropping the knife onto the plate holding her meat. She was aghast to see it wiggle off of the plate and onto the floor.

Just as she was about to lunge at Luna, the doorbell rang again.
Luna jumped up. "I'll get it, Aunt Melissa!" she yelled, running towards the front door. She opened it. "Professor Lupin? Professor Dumbledore? You should see it!" Luna broke into laughter.

Dumbledore and Lupin laughed at the scene before them. Dumbledore winked at Lupin, who straightened up, cleared his throat, and said, "Excuse me? We're from the Ministry of Magic's Accidental Magic Reversal Unit. May we ask what happened here?"

"The food!" was all Luna's aunt could manage.
"We can see that, ma'am. We want to know how this could have happened," smiled Dumbledore in his calmest tone. He winked at Luna.
"I don't know!" she growled.
"Ma'am...this is an all Muggle household?" Lupin grinned. "Muggle...err...meaning non-magic people, ma'am?"
"No," Luna jumped, catching on. "I'm a half-and-half. I used to go to Hogwarts until about a week ago...my father died..." Luna explained.
"Oh, I see..." Dumbledore winked again. "Ma'am, let me explain something to you. Magical children don't have complete control over their...err...abilities. That is why they go to schools such as Hogwarts, you see?"
Lupin continued. "Yes. And doing something such as taking them out of school basically causes what we would call a magic build up, so to speak. Sometimes, it can be dangerous," Lupin lied, "but this time it just so happened that it wasn't..."
"I will not have her going to such a place!" Luna's aunt growled.
Dumbledore smiled. "Luna, what would you like to do?" he asked her.
"She doesn't have a choice!" Her aunt screamed.
Lupin shook his head. "Yes, she does, ma'am. You see, her father and mother were very prominent figures in the wizarding world. She's nearly graduated, and there is a program that will allow her to stay at Hogwarts if she needs to."
"I want to!" Luna shook her head. "And I'm going to," she added, directing her speech this time to her aunt. "My father wasn't a loon, neither was my mother...you were just too close-minded to accept them..."

With Luna back at Hogwarts, everything seemed right again. The Marauders were back together, and it was nearly the end of the school year. An unalterable feeling of relief and excitement could be felt throughout the castle. Everyone was glad that the year had been so peaceful. Memories of Voldemort did not cast a shadow over the castle, as they had managed to do so many years before. For Harry, Lupin, and the ever-dwindling Order of the Phoenix, this was a big sigh of relief.

In June, almost a month after Luna returned to Hogwarts, school was finally over for the summer. Luna was permitted to stay at the castle, but for Harry, the summer holidays meant only one thing: that he would have to return to the Dursley's house. He was going to have to face his aunt and uncle after running away on his birthday. Or was he?

The students filed off the Hogwarts Express in lines of three at King's Cross Station. Ron went with his family. Hermione found her parents waiting paitently in front of the barrier that led to Platform 9 ¾. Harry looked around for the Dursley's. He didn't see his purple-faced uncle, his timid looking aunt or his ever-widening cousin Dudley anywhere.

"Great, I've been abandoned..." he groaned.

The Weasley family had just slipped back through the barrier. Harry had already begun to drag his things out towards the street, in hopes that he could walk home before sundown.

"Harry!" He could hear Mrs. Weasley's shrill voice behind him. He turned around. "Oh, Harry! Don't go that way, dear!"
"What is it, Mrs. Weasley?" he asked her.
"Oh, call me Molly, dear." She shrugged. "Arthur, tell him." She commanded of her husband.
"Oh, yes dear." He nodded quickly. "Harry, I used the, err, felly- tone, is it called? I've talked to your uncle. He has given you permission to come and stay with us for the summer." Mr. Weasley paused, if only for effect. "That is, only if you want to?" he added.
"Do I ever!" Harry grinned excitedly and wrapped Arthur Weasley in a bear hug. "Thank you so much, Mr. Weasley! Wow! No Dursleys for over a year! Have I died?" He ranted.
"No..." Ron laughed. "Come on, Harry. Let's go." He smiled. "I've even invited Hermione and Luna to come visit if they want to."

"This summer is going to be the best one yet," Harry grinned.