A/N: Okay, I don't like making author's notes at the beginning, but here goes. There was a discrepancy over what 'ship' this fic is. Well, it's both Harry/Ginny and Harry/Luna, obviously. Not to be mean to 'Jag glittrar,' but if you like the fic itself, then... what's the problem? Yeah, I can see where you're coming from, but I think the wrong question to ask is 'Which one?' It'd make more sense to ask 'How's it gonna end up?' which quite frankly I'm not going to flat out tell you here. Anyhow, with that little tangent out of the way (I am quite anal about the way people say things- get used to it and don't take it personally) I'm going to say only this much: I am what you would call a Harry/Ginny 'shipper,' but it became boring creating ideas of how Harry and Ginny will come to their senses, fall in love blah blah blah. Whatever happened to the old love triangle? It's much more interesting this way, and I always wondered what it would be like to read/write a Harry/Luna. But unfortunately the first (and last) one of those I read was completely appalling, and Luna was absolutely wrong, and it just set the standard to me that everyone who likes the idea of Harry/Luna is gonna turn Luna into some love-crazy girl (right, don't use her name to back that up) and have her be some bitch that steals Harry away from Ginny and she's all like 'Ha-ha, I got him first,' and then Harry's all stupid and forgets Ginny altogether!

Have I quite scared you enough? Good, on with the story then, if you don't mind.

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I am quite different from other people. They invent names to better describe my personality as they see it, and take my things because it must be quite amusing. But in the end, it is they who waste their time with such foolish things and at the same time become blind to the world around them; to the love, the beauty, the wonder. If you refuse to believe in anything, based on what others believe, where will it stop? When will anything ever seem possible to you, whether it's a career path goal or a relationship? I chose to believe in what I want, and I hope to believe in anything that may be fantastic, phenomenal, or just plain difficult for the human mind to understand.

My mother and father were very much in love; they shared beliefs, and also the capacity to want knowledge. Mum had her experimental spelling and Dad his magazine. Mum always got angry if she caught me looking in on her make-shift laboratory (our guest bedroom), but I couldn't help but wonder what it was that she did. I suppose I realized then that I had inherited this certain 'curiosity trait.'

I could watch for hours, which was usually what it took for Mum to come to some conclusion. Her wand waving held so much majesty in my eyes that I set out to study her moves, her facial features that held so much passion. And so I became more engrossed with the process that I overlooked the technique, and the purpose.

That fatal day, I was in amazing wonder as always, and my mother looked so beautiful, just so beautiful. But then I realized something was odd, something was very wrong. She lost the passion in her eyes – they were blank and hypnotized. I had no idea what was happening, and was so scared and confused that I forgot to yell for help.

She was walking in a robotic, surreal way, towards some old curtains hanging in front of a bureau-closet in the far corner of the room. Her arms were limp at her sides, and her wand fell from her hand as she raised it up towards the tattered black cloth. I was screaming inside, but nothing came out as I gasped and panted, pointing in awe. I should have wondered why I was not drawn to the cloth as she was, but I was simply not concerned with my well-being at the moment.

Her hand finally caressed the cloth, and I held my breath without real reason to. She went deathly still, and I do not use that term lightly right now. I knew then, deep in my heart, that my mother was dead. It was just a feeling, and I knew it wouldn't betray me. She was gone.

Mum didn't fall right away; she stayed erect, motionless and seemingly defying gravity. But then she collapsed into herself, away from the bureau, and gracefully reduced to a disheveled pile on the floor. I screamed, and ran to her, obviously too late. My tears stained my cheeks as equally as they did hers, and I held onto her for dear life.

I felt Dad's presence, and he didn't try to pluck me off of my dead mother's body, nor did he join me in this drastic and desperate form of mourning. He stood patiently and calmly behind me, and I felt his shadow protect me in some sort of way. I don't know if he cried; my own tears blinded me so that my vision wasn't too good, but I didn't hear him sob, or cry out. Just silence. This comforted me in a way that I couldn't point out then, but if he were to have behaved as I did, I feel I never would have recovered.

After that, I gave my free time and interest to always seeing what no one else would probably see; what no one else ever cared to look for. First, it would just be finding a solution to an every day problem: how should tie up my hair today? Some days Dad just laughed when I came down for breakfast, for I never let my inventions put me to shame. One memorable hairdo was the time I tried to balance a flower pot, complete with daisy, on my head and build my hair up around it to keep it in place. Needless to say, there was a bit of a cleanup after that escapade.

Eventually I took it farther, especially after I started school. Dad had his magazine, and when we'd have a visitor come for an interview (Dad used to interview all his clients personally, but it got so popular he had to hire others to help; it blossomed from there) I would hang on to every word, oftentimes taking notes. I started keeping a journal of all the things I'd heard: all the rumors, and the new magical discoveries. I didn't consider any of these things a rumor, however, for my young mind was open to anything and everything so much that all of it was the truth in some way. Eventually I learned to accept everything for what it could be, for it is a dangerous thing to believe everything anyone tells you.

When school began to take up most of my time, my amazing open-mindedness extended to people. And these were the most fascinating subjects of all.

Soon it wasn't just open-mindedness. I could judge people quickly, and not by their appearance but really I got a sense of who they really are. I wasn't a Seer or anything, it was just a sense. But in sharing these thoughts, I began to lose the few friends I had. Nothing too harsh, just they would drift away, and I can't blame them. How many times was it that I seemed to have my head in the clouds? Too often to want to admit it. And once they were 'free of me,' I suppose, that's when the rumors spread. How weird I was. My name evolved from 'Luna,' the name my mother always said she loved so much, to 'Loony.' It broke my heart, and second year was really rough on me.

I had to summon the strength to be like my mother to get through this time in my life. Mum wouldn't care what anyone else thought – this I knew. But somehow I couldn't put forth that strength; how could she have made that look so easy? My father loved her, and she was beautiful. She had no problems with the way she looked. Me: I had straggly blond hair that was much longer than anyone else's, my eyes were too big, my nose looked funny on my face, something. And I was smart. They made fun of me for that too. (What's wrong with being smart?)

It was so hard, and she wasn't there to encourage me; to tell me that indeed she was just like me when she was my age: sort of awkward and skinny. She never had the chance to tell me how she blossomed into a beautiful young woman by her seventh year. All I could think, later on, was how much this would have helped me.

Then the most amazing thing happened, that would turn out to bring me out of my hole. It was so sudden, so seemingly insignificant, that any other day I'm sure I never would have noticed it. It was a Saturday morning; all the girls in my year had gone on down to breakfast already. The sun had woken me up, and was shining in the window next to my four-poster, right in my eyes. Momentarily blinded, I blinked several times. One of the times the glare on my eyes caused an odd picture to appear on the window. It was not discernible at the moment, but it had some distinct shape. Recovered, I kneeled by the window and rested my arms on the sill. Just outside the glass, I noticed, was a tiny caterpillar. It made me smile; it was just so small and carefree, inching along the side of the castle on some unknown mission. I touched its underside through the glass and, without meaning to, caused it to lose its grip and it fell. Just like that.

It made me unnaturally sad. For heaven's sake, it was only a caterpillar; barely a centimeter long; too small to matter.

Unexpectedly this transformed rapidly into a metaphor to my own life. It sounds cheesy, but suddenly I was the caterpillar, and the finger tapping on the window was the whole wide world poking me, taunting me, seeing if I would react. And if I didn't stop it, I would fall, hard. There would be no going back.

I thought about the picture in my eyes just minutes earlier. I laughed out loud at my stupid analogies, but nevertheless it occurred to me that it had indeed been a butterfly. That's all it was going to take. If I could be immune to the world, the curious and destructive finger, then I could make my own transformation and fly. I laughed hard all morning about how insane it all sounded, but deep inside I was so happy to be done being sad and without hope.

Needless to say, people still take my things, still call me 'Loony,' and that's just fine because really they're the ones who aren't sure of themselves, and can only resort to making me feel bad instead of them.

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Today I spent the whole day with Harry. We had a lot of fun at Hogsmeade; it was snowing so much, and I absolutely love snow. It's where the real magic is, I think; especially when someone's there to share the heating cheeks, the secretive glances, and the stuttered speech.

He's so... something. Again, I'll say that I'm not a Seer, but I can feel it around him. Pain. Yearning. Need. And so much love it hurts. So much love, and so much confusion of where to place it. The confusion was very obvious.

And we both needed each other right then. My studies weren't off to the start I had planned to have, what with OWLs coming up this year. That made me nervous all the time when I stayed up late doing essays and practicing charms that I couldn't concentrate on. Harry was so much worse off than I could claim, though. I didn't know all the details, and it wasn't any of my business, but I often sensed something between him and Ginny. Then Cho Chang was trying to get back in touch with him; I noticed her drifting towards the Gryffindor table during meals sometimes. And he didn't seem to be handling his studies much better this year. He'd told me he was stuck in Snape's NEWT level class, and hated every minute of it. He claimed to have no idea why Snape accepted him, but I somehow knew it had to do with McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore, and the fact that Harry wanted to be an Auror.

He was being pulled in so many directions. School, Ron and Hermione, Ginny and all the other girls. Me. I know I'm not trying to, but I am. And I do feel drawn to him. He needs to know. He needs to believe and then he can see things so much more clearly. I know it's not so easy for other people to do what I did; change my attitude literally overnight. But he had to try. And I felt I was the only one who could give him that faith.

He kissed me, and I hadn't been expecting it. But it felt so good. He hesitated, but I took it back and it was heaven. We both needed it. I kept telling myself that.

We skipped dinner, and I was grateful for that. I was feeling particularly antisocial, and didn't need to give the student body another reason to stare at the most famous student and weirdest student walking in together. We sat in a corner, and tranquility was ours.

The next day was the cold to our warmth, however. Tension surrounded me, and Harry and Ginny always seemed to pass me simultaneously in the halls. I was the intruder in something I had few ideas about; 'two's company, three's a crowd.' Harry tried to act normally in the library (Hermione was strangely absent) but I could tell something was on his mind. I tried giving him looks, but he ignored them. I didn't want to push, after the deep conversation from yesterday. But if he didn't give in, I would have to pry. I knew something had happened between them after he got back to Gryffindor tower last night, what with the way he stared after her, and she totally blew him off. I was left with nothing else but to think I was in the middle of something, and that wouldn't do anyone any good.

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"Harry, is something bothering you?" Blunt, yes, but I couldn't come right out and say I thought I knew something. It wouldn't start things off right. Ease it out, Luna.

Harry twirled his quill in his hand, and stared at a page in Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six, his back tense. He was trying to avoid it, take any option but the one with which he was faced. His features relaxed and I knew he'd given in.

"It's Ginny."

And he explained about this big lecture she'd given him the night before. I found myself frozen in time by the end of it, and didn't know what would be right to say. I had known something was there between them, but wasn't sure I should admit; it was all about my wording, and I hoped for the best.

"I think we should end this before it has the chance to start, Harry."

He blinked and started babbling. "No, Luna, that isn't what I meant, I'm just worried, she won't-"

"She will," I assured him. "Listen, Harry," I said, and I took his hands in mine. "I do love you, and that's okay. But I can't give you what you need. I think last night was a sort of... fling, really. Not saying I would ever take it back, I couldn't ever say that, but you and Ginny... you have something. It's rare, and very fortunate nowadays. You became real friends before either of you had time to really sort out your feelings. Both of you... need each other. I don't know how I know this, but somehow I just do. I can feel it."

Harry looked so torn that I had to look away. "There would never be anything more between us, I know you know that," I mumbled feebly.

"I know," Harry whispered. "I just... I don't know what to think right now. The Order's got some information, but there's still so much we don't know..." He gulped, and knew he was nervous about Voldemort. I couldn't really understand, however, why he would bring this up now.

"I'm sorry Luna," said Harry finally.

"For what?"

"I feel like I cheated you; used you."

"You did nothing of the sort, Harry. Really, I needed it as much as you did." I smiled despite myself. "But now, I realize you don't belong with me. Your place is beside Ginny."

Harry laughed unexpectedly, and I looked up.

"You make it sound so final."

I laughed along with him. "Sorry," I said. "This conversation is getting pretty deep, you have to admit."

"Yeah." A few seconds passed. "I don't really like it."

"Okay," I said, glad that we agreed. "Why don't we talk about ways you can mend your relationship with Ginny?"

He looked at me with a sort of hesitant face, but sighed and nodded resignedly. "Yeah. I've no idea what to do."

"Well, it's good we're friends then," I said, and we smiled at each other, happier than I could have hoped for several minutes ago.

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Short and sweet. One more chapter will do to sort things out, eh?

I was going to post this tomorrow, since it would've made all the entries even (Oct. 1st, Oct. 15th, Oct. 30th... yeah I'm a dork) but sadly I'm obsessed with reviews, and hopefully posting this on Friday will allow this to stay on the opening page longer. Most people seem to post on Saturday. So we'll try this.

Love, Alex