Lana had stayed in her room for hours, long after Harry, Hermione and the other two kids in the room had left, even longer after they had moved onto another subject. She just lay on the bed, staring at nothing. A woman with a sugary sweet voice had come to the door more than once, offering supper, but Lana was completely disinterested.

When Lana saw the first shimmer of light come over the horizon, she knew it was somewhere around maybe five am. She decided maybe she should get out of the room. She might not run into anybody, but it was of course entirely possible. She walked out of the room into the long hallway. She glanced at the door next to hers, recalling the words spoken hours before. The room was empty now, the door hanging wide open. She glanced in. It was cluttered, orange posters with teams of some sort, moving posters, hung on the walls. Clothes strewn about, and Lana figured it was Harry and the other guy's room. Ron, was it? The beds were unmade, and large trunks were open, their contents spilling out. It was a mess and yet Lana almost found it appealing. Her room was always kept immaculate, and this was refreshing. But she left the room and wandered aimlessly down the hall.

"Hello?"

Lana spun around, and saw Harry. She didn't say anything, just stared at him.

"Hi." He said with a friendly, almost hopeful smile.

Lana still didn't respond.

He looked like he was about to just shrug his shoulders and go off, but then, the sugary-sweet voice that had come to the door before hand came up the stairs. She was a pear-shaped woman, and was slightly out of breath by the time she reached the top of the stairs

"Oh hello Lana, I'm glad to see you out of your room." She stared at Lana expectantly, but Lana didn't respond. The red-haired woman saw Harry.

"Harry, Dumbledore wanted to speak to you when you got the chance. He's in the library."

"What about?"

"Well," She glanced pointedly at Lana, "It's about recent events." Lana wondered if she was really expected not to understand that they were talking about her, but she left it alone.

Harry nodded, with a glance to the woman to show that he understood her "subtle" message.

"I'll get right to it Mrs. Weasley." He walked down the stairs, and Mrs. Weasley turned to Lana again to speak to her, but she was already gone, her door closing behind her.


Harry wondered what about the girl Dumbledore wanted to talk about. He hoped he would find out more about her, but he didn't think Dumbledore just wanted to fill him in. Lupin, Mrs. Weasley, anybody could do that. He had a feeling that Dumbledore called him in personally so he could ask him to do something, or it was to inform him of something that he didn't want others to hear.

Harry hadn't had the best summer in the world. He never did, but the death of his godfather wasn't better. The reading of Sirius's will had been the most depressing thing. Harry felt as if people were saying, "Well, he's dead, but hey, you can have his stuff!" Harry learned that he had inherited almost all of his money, and although he probably didn't really have to ever work again, he would give it all away if he could just have Sirius back. He still had it in his head that it was his fault, and he had mostly kept to himself all summer. The only real talk he had had with Ron and Hermione and Ginny was just then to discuss the arrival of Lana. He had barely said a word to them before, only when necessary.

He pushed open the large doors of the library and saw Dumbledore sitting in the large armchair. Dumbledore had been twiddling his thumbs and looked up from his hands.

"Oh hello Harry." The old man said simply, as if Harry just came on an unexpected visit.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Oh yes. Please come sit down." He gestured to a chair across from him.

"Harry, I wanted to talk to you about Lana." Harry, having already known it, just nodded.

"Harry, Lana is…well, she hasn't had a nice life. I know in all honesty, you haven't really either. But believe it or not, your guardians…or, at least, Petunia, cared for you in some way. The fact that you shared the same blood had something to do with it, and blood is very important, as we have seen in the past. But Lana didn't live with anyone even remotely related to her. We chose a random family as her guardians, believing she might be safer. But she wasn't. We picked a bad family. There was really no way to tell this. We checked their records and everything. But unfortunately, records really only show problems that have come out to the open. We didn't know Henry Benivan had anger issues, because he never went for anger management. There were never any reports done about him losing his temper. We also never heard of him being an alcoholic, because he also never went to sessions at Alcoholics Anonymous, or something like that. But, the problem was still there. And this lead to some problems. We're positive she was beaten. Probably starved. And not only does this make an obvious health issue, but the mental and emotional problems. There is a chance, a not-so-unlikely chance, that she might she might never recover from this."

"But sir. What does this all have to do with me?"

"I would like you to be her…Babysitter of sorts. I want you to teach her the ways of the wizard."

"You want me to teach her magic?"

"No no. I will be doing that. I want you to fill her in on our world. Our history, the way our society works. And I want you to make her comfortable. I want you to try and break that shell around her. I want you to try and get her to talk." Then his face got serious.

"There is another concern that I feel I must mention. Although we are positive that she was abused, we don't know if she was abused in other ways than just beatings."

"You mean raped, Professor?" Dumbledore nodded.

"I feel she may not be to keen on you touching her…in any way. I'm not implying you would do such a thing, not you, but victims of rape can be scarred for life, making them afraid of anything. One woman I heard of was in a mental institution for it, and had to be put in a closed off ward, because when she walked down the hall when she first arrived, another mental patient, male, was walking down and she went into hysterics. She refused to let any male nurses come anywhere near her. I don't think Lana is in that boat, because she lived with the man who did it, and I'm almost positive that if id did in fact happen, than it was more than once. I feel she may have just given up on her life, but I want you to show her life is worth living."

"Sir, if you think she would be afraid of me, than why didn't you choose Hermione or Ginny to do it? Maybe they would…"

"I think you would be the best choice from all the others because…well, I think you'd do a better job of getting to her. I think you are more likely to be able to understand what she's been through. Although Hermione and Ginny are great people, they just wouldn't be able to...understand. They haven't been through as much as you have."

Harry nodded. "Would you like me to start tonight?" he asked.

"Please do." Harry breathed in deeply, knowing that he was just given a close to impossible task.


Lana had returned to her room and had returned to her bottom bunk. She had been lying there close to an hour when she heard the door open. She had been facing the wall and turned around quickly. Harry shut the door behind him, and Lana became almost frightened. Mr. Benivan did that…

Harry must have seen her fright on her face. "Would you like me to keep the door open?"

Lana thought about it for a moment, and wondered if an open door would really make her anymore comfortable. He didn't have an angry, lustful expression on his face…

Lana decided against it anyway. Maybe he didn't look the part, but maybe…

He nodded and opened the door back up. He went and sat on the window sill, running a hand through his hair, contemplating the task ahead.