Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters to be mentioned. I have no affiliation with J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers or any other person or persons concerning the Harry Potter texts.

The very next day, Hermione called upon Ginny and Luna to meet her in the library. The two fifth years met her after all of their afternoon classes were over. Hermione was already there, with a table readily reserved. A massive pile of textbooks towered on top of the desk.

"Hello, you two," she greeting them warmly, gesturing for them to join her.

"'Lo Hermione," Ginny answered, taking a seat. Luna pulled up a chair as well.

"I suppose you've already figured out why you're here," Hermione began. Ginny and Luna nodded. "Good. Now, I've brought down all of my old textbooks from last year. We'll go through a bit of each today, okay?" Ginny chuckled at this, and Luna nodded once more. "Do you have a preference as to which to start from?"

"How about Charms?" Ginny offered, opting to go with something quite simple.

"Fine," Hermione agreed, pulling out a book from the stack. "What did you last learn in Charms?"

"The Shrinking Charm," Luna answered.

"Good. Now repeat after me, one at a time. Reducio," Hermione instructed, twirling her wand in the air in an arch.

"Reducio," Ginny repeated, mimicking the wand movement. The quill that was sitting on the desk in front of her shrank to about three-quarters of its size.

"Reducio," Luna echoed, and her own quill shrank to an equal size.

"Brilliant!" Hermione approved. "But quills are simple. Try shrinking..."

"Your huge brain?" an icy voice interrupted. The speaker had been waiting for an appropriate moment to step in.

"Sod off, Malfoy," Ginny rose from her seat, scowling at the older Slytherin. Draco scoffed.

"I don't believe I was addressing you, Weaselette," he dismissed her. "How interesting. The bushy-haired encyclopedia educating the baby weasel and St. Mungo's reject," he said, an expression of sarcastic amusement on his face.

"And isn't she doing a fine job?" Luna piped. Obviously, she couldn't detect the sarcasm in Draco's tone. He looked at her as if she had two heads.

"Wouldn't the St. Mungo's reject know," he retorted, thinking quick on his feet for a good comeback of sorts.

"St. Mungo's? Oh, I've been there!" she exclaimed in recognition.

"What?" he barked, caught off guard. She hesitated.

"... Oh. That's right, I oughtn't have expected you to know," she said slowly. "Well, you see, when I was," she counted on her fingers, "10, I thought I could fly, and climbed up on my roof. I jumped off. And thinks hadn't gone as well as planned, and I ended up in St. Mungo's," she recounted for him. He looked bewildered, and blinked at her twice.

"Y-you... Freak," he said in a low, cold voice.

"I said SOD OFF, MALFOY!" Ginny took a step forward.

"Or you'll what?" he challenged.

"She knows a pretty mean Bat-Bogey Hex," Luna warned seriously, her eyes widening. It was then that Draco noticed something he hadn't before. A piece of... it looked like paper... was sticking out from the pocket in Luna's robes. Without a second's thought, he reached for it, and grabbed it before anyone could protest. It was a picture. He stared- from the picture, to Luna, to the picture, to Luna, and back again, until a thought registered in his mind.

'Aah, this must be her equally freaky mother,' he thought, and pocketed the photograph.

"Oh, you can't have that, I'm afraid," Luna started. "It's mine, you see." Draco rolled his eyes at her. Obviously, the Sorting Hat was dead wrong in placing her in Ravenclaw. The freak was as thick as a brick.

"Oh, it's yours, is it? Well, now it's mine, I'm afraid," he said in an equally concerned (but nevertheless fake) tone.

"Give it back to her," Hermione ordered.

"Oh, I'm afraid, that's simply impossible now," he said with a smug grin, imitating Luna's voice.

"Please," Luna said calmly, reaching out her hand. Draco, who was a good few inches taller than she, only dangled the photo higher in the air.

"So tell me, Loony. Is she as crazy as you are? Does she wear two great orange lumps of vegetables as earrings, as well? Or a string of rubbish around her neck?" he gestured to her butterbeer cork necklace. Luna eye's widened.

"She- no. She was perfectly fine. And this necklace was my mother's," her hand reached up to cover the necklace protectively.

"'Was'?" he questioned, his smirk fading.

"She passed on," Luna clarified. Her voice was barely audible. Draco was nearly at a loss for words. Her eyes began to brim with heavy tears, tears eager to clear her eyes. Her bottom lip trembled.

Now, Draco was quite used to making the victims of his teasing cry. But perhaps it hits hardest when it hits home. He thought briefly on his own father, locked away in Azkaban. He studied the tiny girl in front of him carefully, wondering why on earth he hadn't torn the picture apart yet. Wordlessly, he lowered his hand and deposited the photograph in Luna's shaking hands. He took a step towards her and lowered his head.

"Then you'd better guard this more carefully next time," he hissed. Maybe she was really insane, but for a second, she thought she had heard... sympathy... in his voice.

Clutching the photograph, Luna slung her bag over her shoulder and made for another table. Any would suit her fine, as she could barely see through the tears clouding her eyes. She stopped at the closest table, put her bag down, and took out The Quibbler. She dried her eyes off quickly, and opened up to a random page, anxious to get away from everything and just concentrate on the reading material at hand. The person sitting on the opposite side of the table sneezed loudly.

"Bless you," she said.

"Thanks," the person replied. Luna went back to her article and read on in silence.

When it was finally time to leave for her next class, Luna lay her magazine down on the table. Though magically, the cover of it was still in the air, right before her face. In a pair of hands she recognized from before.

"You," she whispered. The magazine was lowered to reveal someone's face.

"Me?"

A/N: Hee hee hee! CLIFFHANGER! Okay okay, so I promise I will reveal who it is next chapter. And the next chapter will probably either be the last or second to last. I did warn you at the beginning that it was based on one of my dreams, and sadly, dreams don't last eternally. :D