Loony Loopy Relations
Spoilers- HP: Up to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
BTVS: Up to Grave S6, and there may be some stuff from S2 and S3 Angel.
Disclaimer- Here just read the sign. /Holds up sign/ I am not J.K. Rowling nor am I Joss Wheden. I own none of these characters. I don't even own the plot; it's a challenge by Gidgetgirl and can be found at the Chocolate Covered Strawberries archive.
Note- Sorry about the wait, there were circumstances.
Note2- Thank to my reviewers:
Gidgetgirl
ADSpencer
Ducky27
Buffy13-buffyspike4eva
Lolly6
Iluvglorfindel
Harmoni9
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Chapter 2: Conspiracy Ahead
Luna sucked on the end of her quill as she thought. A half written letter lay in front of her.
Dear Daddy,
I have volunteered to be a part of a muggle appreciation project. Our findings are going to presented to the entire school. Ginny and I are researching wizarding family trees for muggles. I would be ever so grateful if you would owl with information on our tree.
Good luck on your yeti hunt.
Love,
Luna
P.S.- I believe that Professor Binns has been infected by the Yuerch parasite. His mannerisms have become forced and he occasionally has trouble maintaining his form. Has your friend found any cure? I would hate for him to infect the other ghosts as well.
Luna finished the p.s. with a flourish. She tapped the quill against her cheek, ignoring the feel of wet feather. She wondered if she should have added that paragraph she found about yeti customs in Yearning For Yeti's. She had found the book most informative, especially the part about traditions and customs with their young. The infant yetis were painted different colours depending on the rank of their parents in the tribe.
Luna shook her head, no her father would surely know that. He had been preparing for this trip all year. Ever since one of the freelance writers for The Quibbler come back from his vacation visiting his family, he was distantly related to a very prominent tribe of yetis, her father had had a gleam in his eye and possessed an enthusiasm that Luna hadn't seen him possess since her mother died. He had brought every book he could find on the yeti, even going to the length of having an actual diary of a yeti found in an abandoned cave shipped over to England.
He had come to her one night, her father had, while she was home for the summer holidays. He had asked her if she felt lonely, he was worried that his obsession with the yeti hunt was making her feel neglected. Luna had just smiled at him, a dreamy smile of those who are faced with an absolutely absurd comment. She assured him that she was quite fine with his work; Luna had been spending the summer teaching the Cornish Pixies and the fairies in the garden to get along. She felt they were coming along rather well; at least the pixies had stopped trying to pull the wings off the fairies' backs.
Once he had Luna's approval he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the project, intending to write a book on his findings. He had been squeezing his overseeing of The Quibbler whenever he could, having giving up editing the paper himself. Often Luna would walk into his study late at night only to find him slumped over his desk asleep, papers sticking to his face and robes with sticky slightly wet ink. Luna would rouse him and guide him up to his room, making sure he found the bed before she would go down to the kitchens. When she was a small child her mother and their house elf, Twinkles, would make Luna hot chocolate every night. After her mother had died Twinkles had continued the tradition and Luna had grown very close to Twinkles through the years. Luna always felt like there was something missing when she went to bed at Hogwarts, it just wasn't the same without her hot chocolate with Twinkles.
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Luna sighed irritably to herself as she riffled through her bag. Someone had stolen her eagle feather quill, she hated when they did that; the quill had been gift at the start of the school year. Hedwig herself had delivered it, Luna had always liked Harry's owl she was so beautiful and noble, rather like her owner Luna had thought on a number of times, a blush coming to stain her cheeks. Harry had assured her that the quill was charmed, whenever someone stole it from her it would return to her soon after. Luna giggled, what Harry hadn't mentioned was that it grew teeth when it was restrained; one Hufflepuff boy had complained when her quill gave him a relatively bad bite because he refused to let it go.
Luna threw her bag onto a table in the library with an uncharacteristic show of irritation, eyes widening slightly as a loud thud echoed through the quiet room causing Madam Pince to raise her head sharply. Luna quickly slipped into a chair, pulling out her edition of The Quibbler to cover her face. Luna frowned at the pages and flipped it up side down, her father had told her that there were spells hidden on the pages but they could only be seen if you read the page up side down. She had found several very useful defense spells as well as a few house keeping spells that she was intending on showing Twinkles when she returned home.
"Hi, Luna. You mind if I sit here?"
Luna peered over the edge of the paper; her pale eyes open wide in shock. She blinked. "Of course not, Harry."
Harry slid into the chair opposite, grinning with relief. "Thanks." He glanced over at the entrance of the library. "Is it just me or is it getting rather crowded in here these days?"
Luna turned her unwavering stared towards the front of the library. Several groups of girls huddled together, their giggles barely muffled as they stared at Harry. "It's not just you."
Harry pulled a face. "Didn't think so. I don't think they're coming for the magazine selection though."
Luna giggled, carefully not let it get too loud. Ginny had given her some 'helpful tips' over the holidays; apparently her ill-fated crush on Ron had been obvious to everyone but him. "Do you think someone could be putting a spell on them, to make them want to come to the library?"
Harry's mouth tugged in a wry grin. "Could be. Hermione might be spiking their pumpkin juice to make them study for their classes."
Luna leaned forward eagerly. "Do you really suppose so? It wouldn't surprise me; Daddy does say you have to watch out for the serious ones, that's how he got the story on Fudge. Daddy said Fudge was too concerned about the goblins so he had someone follow him, that how they found out Fudge was secretly killing them."
Harry couldn't help but laugh, his eyes sparkling in real amusement, something that had been absent from his life for too long. "Really?"
Luna nodded her head earnestly. "Oh, yes. Daddy was quite excited with that find; almost as much as he was with the interview you gave Rita Skeeter."
Harry gave a brisk nod; it still hurt when he thought about that year. "Right." He cocked his head to the side, frowning, as a strange whirling grew louder. "Do you hear that?"
Luna smiled serenely at him. "Of course." She held her hand up in the air, her eagle feather quill landing gently on her palm. Luna ran a tender finger down the center of the quill, chuckling as the quill purred and twitched under her caress.
Harry stared at the twitching quill in astonishment. "Hey, isn't that the quill that I sent you as a belated birthday gift? I never knew it would do that. I just thought it would, well I guess I didn't really think about how it return to the owner. Probably should have, considering Fred and George manufacture them."
"Hey." Ginny flopped into an empty chair beside Luna. She looked over, seeing that Luna was still calming her quill. "Oh no, they didn't steal it again, did they? Well I hope it bit harder this time. Just because they're prefects doesn't give them the right to nick other people's stuff."
Harry looked between Luna and Ginny. "Who keeps taking Luna's things?"
Luna shrugged. "Just some Hufflepuff boys."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "You should report them to Hermione. She could revoke their prefect status or something. Ban them from Hogsmeade, take points of Hufflepuff, or something like that."
Luna frowned. "Oh no. I couldn't ask Hermione to abuse her position as Head Girl."
Ginny snorted. "Like Ron hasn't tried already. Besides this is the kind of thing Head Girl's are meant to do."
Luna bit her lip. "Alright."
A loud shriek of laughter pierced the relatively quiet library; it was a school after all so it would never be completely silent. Madam Pince glowered at the groups of girls who had hurriedly covered their mouths and attempted to look otherwise occupied.
Ginny rolled her eyes at the girls. "I don't know why Madam Pince doesn't just throw them out of the library. I mean, come on, does anyone actually believe they're here to study?"
Harry glanced over at the girls, not noticing how the giggles increased. "Why else would they be here?"
Ginny stared at him in amazement. "My god, you have been spending too much time with Ron. His thick-headedness is starting to rub off. They're here because they know that you, Ron, Draco and Neville are going to here tonight working on the muggle project."
"Why would they care about that?"
Ginny let out a cry of disbelief and clamped a hand top her forehead. "Because you guys are like the heartthrobs of Hogwarts."
"I'm not sure that I like being put in the same category as Longbottom, Weaselgirl." Draco mocking tone broke into their conversation.
Ginny smiled sweetly up at him. "Oh, don't worry, Malfoy. You aren't. Neville's way better then you any day."
Harry laughed, seeing how Draco flushed with anger. Luna watched as Draco and Ginny glared at each other, a small seed of knowing uncurling inside her. Her mother had told her stories like this when she was a small child and they all turned out the same way.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry asked; his mouth still curled with amusement.
Draco sneered at him before turning his attention to Luna and Ginny. "You two are doing the family trees, right?"
"Yes." Luna answered, cutting off any reply Ginny could throw at him. "Why?"
Draco sighed. "Because I'm stuck with the both of you."
"What?" Ginny exploded.
Draco smiled mockingly at her. "The assignment's too big for little girls like you. I'm here to help." His smile grew wider. "Or hinder. Whatever mood I'm in at the time." Draco buffed his nails on his robes.
Even Luna couldn't help but roll her eyes at his behaviour. He was such a show pony.
Draco glared at Harry. "Potter, don't you have work you should be doing? Away from me."
"I'd like to be away from you." Ginny muttered.
Harry eyed the three of them warily. "Yeah. You going to be right with him?"
Ginny looked Draco up and down condescendingly. "I think we'll be fine."
Draco scowled as he took a seat across the table from them. He pulled out a small stack of parchment and a quill. "Right, so where have you started?"