Chapter 3: Prima facie
A/N:
I'm back from vacation now so it was great coming back and reading all
the new reviews. Here's an extra long chapter to make up for all the
time it took to publish this. :)
-----
All was calm on Wednesday morning when Luna strolled into the office in a very good mood. It was going to be an easy day since Mrs Carter would be occupied with the Harry Potter interview all day and had only left simple tasks for Luna. All she had to do was to finish them and then she was free to go and do whatever she wanted to. Perhaps she would go to Diagon Alley and find herself a new owl.
But an owl was already waiting for her by the time she arrived and a letter had been placed on her desk. She opened one of Mrs Carter's drawers and grabbed a handful of treats for the owl. After feeding it and giving the owl an appreciative smile, Luna turned around and opened the letter.
Dear Luna,
I am sorry
to bring this upon you but I am afraid that you will have to conduct
the interview in my place. My dog went off chasing a rabbit yesterday
and I sprained my ankle looking for him. I am sorry it is all so sudden
but it is a great opportunity for you. Good luck!
Sincerely, Fanny Carter
No sooner than Luna had finished the letter, Mr Phillips entered the room. His face practically screamed in people's faces about how tired he was and he looked like he had not slept since the last meeting. Mr Phillips looked around the office and barely noticed Luna even though she was standing right in front of him.
"Good morning, Mr Phillips," she greeted happily.
Mr Phillips blinked, as if trying to blink the tiredness out of his red eyes. Then he finally turned to Luna and spoke in a hoarse yet desperate voice.
"Where is she? Where is Mrs Carter? She should have been here an hour ago to go over the questions with me! Where is she?! Minister Malfoy is going to kill me!"
Without saying a single word, Luna simply handed over the letter than she had just finished. Mr Phillips ripped it out of her hands and started to read it intensely. Luna could actually see his eyes moving back and forth while he was reading it. Was it just her or did his hair turn whiter the more he read?
"WHAT?!"
Mr Phillips was holding the letter with such tight grip that Luna thought that he would destroy it. His eyes full of rage did not escape her either.
"You're going to tear apart Mrs Carter's letter," she informed calmly.
Upon hearing what she said, Mr Phillips tore up the letter in half, fourths and then eights before tossing it all over his shoulder. His breathing turned ragged and at any moment Luna expected him to start walking around and pull his hair. It was either that or for steam to come out of his ears.
"WHAT am I going to do?!" Mr Phillips yelled so loud that the kneazle on Mrs Carter's photo gave him a weird look. "He's gonna kill me... I'm dead..."
"I hardly think that it will jump out of the picture and attack you," Luna spoke.
Mr Phillips appeared to not have heard her but in the next moment he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of Mrs Carter's office. Luna frowned but reluctantly walked along with him to wherever he was leading. Finally he stopped near the exit and looked directly into Luna's eyes.
"I hope you know what Mrs Carter prepared for the interview."
"Of course."
"Good." Mr Phillips looked a little more like his usual self. "Timmy is waiting for you in the lobby, you will floo to Hogsmeade Station. A carriage will be waiting for you there to take you to Hogwarts for the interview. Keep in mind that my life, this newspaper and most importantly your job depends on it. Good luck."
He said all of it so fast that Luna had hardly the time to acknowledge it all. But before she could ask any questions she had already been pushed through the doorway and into the lobby. From there she could see Mr Phillips slowly walk back towards his office and asking his assistant to help him write a long letter to his wife, three children and one grandchild.
Shrugging, Luna turned around and walked over to the fireplace. Just next to the fireplace stood Timmy, the photographer. Luna had not seen him since the last meeting but back then he had looked absolutely terrified when he had received the assignment. As she came closer to him, she could see how pale he looked and how much his eyes had widened. Timmy was constantly looking around as if he was afraid of being spotted by someone.
"Timmy?"
Startled, Timmy jumped when he saw Luna. There was a kind of relief when he spotted her, yet he still seemed afraid and very anxious to leave.
"Oh, Luna," he said, trying to sound normal but his voice was shaking a little. "Listen... I can't come with you today. I have to go do something... um... very, very important. Family business even. So I can't come. But here's my camera, it's very easy to use. Just press the button and you'll be all done. Good luck!"
Timmy quickly dropped the camera in Luna's hands and then hurried out of the building, not even giving her a chance to object. The camera felt heavy in Luna's hands, yet she did not think too much of it and just put it in her bag. Timmy's behaviour was more strange to her. He was scared to death but of what?
But seeing as there was nothing else for her to do, Luna entered the fireplace with a fistful of floo powder.
"Hogsmeade Station..."
-----
"Sir?"
Harry looked up to see Bosworth, his butler as of six days, standing in the doorway. Bosworth made a low bow, then stood up straight again and spoke.
"The carriage from Hogsmeade Station has arrived," Bosworth informed in his dull voice. "With the reporter from The Daily Prophet."
Harry sighed and rose from his seat. He made a simple wave with his hand and it was enough for Bosworth to realise that he was to show the girl into the castle. Bosworth bowed again and then walked away.
So it was time for the interview. As Harry left his study and walked through the long corridors he vowed to get back on Lucius somehow for setting this interview up. What kind of pathetic reason had he had in mind anyway? Good publicity? Someone that could give the Death Eaters a younger and fresher face?
I'm not even a member yet and I already have to go and recruit people. It's like a bloody twisted pyramid game without the rewards.
Harry frowned deeply as he headed down the stairs. Whatever pretty boy image Lucius wanted him to have he did not want it. He decided on conducting the interview as quickly as possible and then send an owl to Lucius about it. There was no way that he would be the lead of this... marketing campaign.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked straight forwards. Standing at the end of the hallway was a girl who could not possible be old enough to be a Mrs Carter. From where Harry stood he could see that the girl had blonde hair, wore blue clothes and carried a bag that looked too big for her on her shoulder. The girl stood and watched a painting on the wall. She was watching it with fascination and there was a certain dreamy look on her face that Harry had not seen on anyone for a long time. It was almost as if she was losing herself in the painting, wishing that she walk through the tall grass swaying in the wind...
Harry forced himself to snap out of his thoughts and started to approach the girl. For each step he took he got a better look of her and he saw that she was no older than him. Perhaps even younger. Perhaps she had married really, really early?
"Mrs Carter?" Harry said, suddenly feeling very insecure.
The girl turned away from the painting upon hearing Harry, with only a mild look of surprise.
"Oh, hello."
Harry raised one eyebrow, puzzle. The girl suddenly spoke again.
"I can't do that. Raise just one eyebrow, I mean. I can't help but to raise both."
If Harry had been able to see himself, he would declare that he had never looked as puzzled as he looked right then. He had known this girl for less than a minute and she was already confusing him. After dating numerous girls and being chased by more than he could count he thought that he already had girls figured out.
"Mrs Carter?" he tried again.
"She couldn't make it," the girl told. "Her dog ran away and she sprained her ankle when she tried to find him. I'm Luna Lovegood."
"Nice to meet you, Miss Lovegood," Harry greeted, thankful for the explaination. "I'm Harry Potter."
"I know."
Silence.
"Of course you do," Harry replied, feeling insecurity surfacing again. "Well, shall we?"
He gestured for her to follow him and she nodded briefly. It was with insecurity that Harry led the way through staircases and corridors to get to the room that the servants had prepared for the interview. The staircases were unreliable, they kept changing around and Harry was never sure of exactly where he was going.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Luna following him but rather than focusing on where they were going she was looking around all the time at everything they passed. Paintings, all the staircases, armours and doors that Harry had never seen before. He wondered briefly if she had ever been to Hogwarts before. She was old enough to have been at Hogwarts for a few years while it was still a school and Dumbledore was still alive, but she was looking at everything as if it was for the first time.
When they finally reached the room fifteen minutes later, Harry could only be relieved that he had not lead them wrong and that they were not lost. The moment Harry opened the door he could feel the warmth of the room, not in an overpowering sense, but warm enough to make the room comfortable and cosy. The servants had prepared the room well. All the dust was done and new furniture, carpets and decorations now graced what had once been a classroom.
"Have a seat," Harry invited and gestured towards two dark red and cushioned chairs in front of the fireplace.
Luna gave him another brief nod and sat down on the chair that was closest to her. Harry took the other and watched as she opened her bag. She placed a quill and a roll of parchment on the wooden table that separated the chairs from each other. The quill appeared to be a normal one, not an enchanted one that meant that she had to write by hand. It was unusual for Harry to see someone actually preferring to do things the old way rather than the easy one.
Harry leaned back, resting comfortably against the soft cushions of the chair. He pushed his glasses up slightly and while waiting for Luna to finish preparing her things he looked out the only window that was in the room. The window was almost as wide as the wall itself but only a foot in height and was just a few inches below the ceiling. With the window that high Harry could see not that much more than the clouds and by looking at them he could tell that rain would come down in just a few hours.
Here we go... Harry thought as he turned his attention back to Luna and saw that she was simply waiting for him.
"I hope Minister Malfoy was not too insistant about his plans for the article," Harry said, remembering what they were both doing there in the first place.
"Actually..." Luna crossed her legs and smiled at Harry. "I have a few plans of my own for the article."
-----
"I have something I'd like you to do."
Upon hearing those words, Parvati looked up and across the table. The one sitting there was Hestia Jones, the one in charge of the small rebel group that Parvati belonged to. The words Hestia had just spoken were related to the Resistance, yet it seemed out of place to have that kind of conversation in they sat in Hestia's kitchen eating Chinese takeout with Hestia's three year old daughter Emily.
"What is it?" Parvati asked impatiently.
However, Hestia did not seem to be in such hurry to tell. She simply smiled at Parvati first, then little Emily struggling with the chopsticks. Parvati sighed loudly and leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms.
"What is it?" she repeated with more impatience in her voice.
"I received an owl this morning," Hestia finally told. "As you probably know, Sirius Black has been missing for quite a while."
"Exiled is more like it," Parvati snorted. "A danger to both the Resistance and the Death Eaters."
"Yes, perhaps..." Hestia dropped a piece of deep fried chicken on Emily's plate. The little girl was still struggling with holding her chopsticks correctly. "But the Death Eaters are spending far more resources on him than we are and they have more information about his whereabouts than we. Our spies at the ministry have searched but found nothing and Professor McGonagall is certain that the information about Black is held somewhere else."
"So you want me to break into that place and get it," Parvati concluded and by the look of Hestia's face she knew that she was right. It did not matter to her though, breaking into places was a piece of cake for her nowadays. She had done it a dozen times before and managed to accomplish her mission successfully.
"But this isn't any ordinary place. We are certain that the information goes directly to Lucius Malfoy himself and therefore there is no other place to look than Malfoy Manor. Emily, please don't hold your chopsticks like that... you're giving Parvati the middle finger."
Hestia paused to adjust the chopsticks that her daughter was holding. Parvati took one look at the confused little girl and despite that she kept her face she could not help smiling at Emily on the inside. After Emily had resumed eating, Hestia turned back to Parvati.
"What you're saying is that you want me to break into Malfoy Manor and steal the information about Black," Parvati said. Hestia confirmed with a small nod. "Consider it done."
-----
Two pictures, two rolls of parchment, two well wishes and two hours later the interview was finally done. It was not half as bad as Harry had expected it to be. Luna's questions were a little unexpected but a relief to him. She would have left the castle already, if not for the fact that both of them were still standing by the large doors and Harry realizing that the dark clouds he had seen earlier were not there for nothing.
"It looks like it will rain," Luna noted calmly.
Rain was a severe understatement in Harry's mind. A storm was on it's way and in just a few minutes the rain would be pouring down like there was no tomorrow. There would probably be thunder and lightning as well. The horses would flatly refuse go out in the storm even if it was only to Hogsmeade.
"Looks more like a storm," he muttered but Luna did not hear it.
"The horses won't go out," she said and clearly she had been thinking the same thing as Harry had.
But instead of staying where she was, Luna simply pulled the hood of her robe up and then strolled out of the castle. Harry almost dropped his jaw at her carefree ways and immediately ran after her. Where was she going? She had not gone far before he caught up with her and grabbed her arm loosely. Luna turned her head to face him.
At that particular moment the wind chose to blow with a little more force. It was just a little but enough to blow the hood down and make her hair lift up and carried by the wind. It should not have been that big of a deal. He had seen her hair and not found anything eye-catching about it. It was too long, straggly and dirty blonde. But at that moment it was so much more than that. It was soft, waving and seemed to be the only colourful thing that he had seen that grey day, although the logical and unheard part of him knew that it was not. Half of him wondered why he had not seen it before and wanted to just keep staring at it, at her. The other half was acknowledging the fact that if he had been forced to describe it all in one word he would have used two and said "most beautiful".
Harry knew for a fact that his jaw had dropped for real when Luna reached up and closed his mouth by pushing it back up.
"You are staring at me," she informed without any hint of embarrassment.
"I'm... sorry," Harry apologized and let go of Luna's arm.
Whatever confidence he had seemed to have abandoned him and a part of him was almost ashamed of being so mesmerized with such simple thing as a girl's hair. He could almost hear an inner voice laughing at his current state.
"I'll be going then," Luna said casually. "Goodbye."
"Wait!" Harry called out after only one step and Luna turned around to face him again. "You won't make it to Hogsmeade before the rain falls."
"I know," Luna replied. "But the horses won't go out in this weather and I don't mind rain."
"What about your camera?"
Luna looked a little more thoughtful although she did not give him an answer. Harry wondered briefly why he was so insistant and why he even cared about how she got home. It was not just that he suddenly thought of Luna as pretty. There was something about her character and the way she acted around him. She did not behave like others, speak like others and on some level Harry wanted more of that. She was... different.
"Perhaps you wouldn't mind staying for dinner?" he suggested about the same time as the thought crossed his mind. "I mean, it will rain any moment and..."
There was no finish that that "and" because he simply did not know what he could say to convince her. Luna just looked at him closely and at once Harry felt like he was being examined.
"I'd love to," Luna answered after a while. Harry smiled. "What are you having?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer when it occurred to him that he had no idea. Such trivial and simple thing as what he had for dinner was never on his mind and always handled by the servants. He took a few moments to try to come up with an answer, but in the end he just asked Luna instead.
"What would you like to have?"
He lead Luna back inside the castle as he asked the question. Afterwards, he watched her eyes turn slightly dreamy again, as if she was thinking about some place far away. But it did not take long before she looked at him again.
"Meatballs. With mashed potatoes. I think that would be nice, wouldn't it?"
Harry nodded in approval, he liked it even though it was not his favourite. Come to think of it, he did not think he had any favourites when it came to food. But he brushed that thought aside as Luna spoke again.
"Ketchup too perhaps... if you have it," she added.
So simple? Harry thought surprised but he nodded again.
"I'll inform my butler then."
An hour later dinner was served and they sat together on each end of an oval table of dark wood. It was a normal sized one and quite small for being the replacement of the four house tables. Although the staff's table had not been removed yet, the Great Hall felt extremely empty and each sound that was made echeod at least three times.
Not that there was any danger of that happening.
Harry swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and glanced at Luna. She appeared to be playing with her food, rolling the meatball around in both ketchup and mashed potatoes before eating it. He almost caught himself smiling as he watched her, he had not seen anyone do it ever since he was very little. Not even during his first year at Durmstrang did children of his age do it.
But there was little conversation between them. Frankly, Harry had no idea what to say. During the interview their conversation had flowed but only due to the fact that Luna had asked questions. But the interview was over and therefore there was no need for her to ask any questions. Although... it did not mean that he could not.
"May I ask..." Harry started and Luna looked up at him. "...how old you are, Miss Lovegood?"
It was a stupid question, yet the only one that he could think of at that time. There were other things he wanted to know about her, but there was no way he could word those questions in the way he wanted.
"I'm eighteen," Luna told.
"And how long have you been working for The Daily Prophet?"
"A little more than a week. I came here a little less than two weeks ago."
The words "came here" gave Harry the impression that she had come from another country. She was English, he was sure of that, but remembered that like him being English did not mean that one had to grow up and live in England.
"I only lived here until I was ten," Luna suddenly said, as if she had read Harry's mind. "My father and I moved to Sweden."
"So you went to Valhalla?" Harry asked, the first thing that came to mind. When Luna nodded, he continued. "I heard it's a good school."
"It is. I liked it there."
Suddenly it felt safer to talk to Luna, to not having to walk around the issue of whether she had gone to Hogwarts or not. The last thing Harry wanted to hear at the dinner table was how his lord had ruined someone's education and eliminated possible careers by doing away with the old crook Dumbledore. Harry almost felt a smile tug at his lips.
"But now you're back?"
"Yes. But I find things very different from what they were when I left."
"You speak of it as if it's something bad," Harry noted.
He put down his knife and fork on the plate. There was still one or two meatballs to finish but at the moment Harry was much more interested in learning more about Luna and her opinions.
"Perhaps I do," Luna responded calmly. "I can only speak my mind."
Luna put down her fork and took a sip of her water instead of the expensive wine that Bosworth had fetched for her and Harry. Harry did not know if she knew the wine's worth but if she did he doubted that she would drink it. She did not strike as the kind of person who enjoyed things because they were expensive, unlike all the other girls that Harry had come to know in the past.
Suddenly Luna looked up and their eyes happened to meet. It became a battle of wills, the one who did not look away would end up being the victor. One thing Harry had learned at an early age was how much one's eyes could reveal. Bellatrix's stormy blue eyes, Draco's threatening but most of the time competitive grey eyes, Lord Voldemort's dark ones. But Luna, also grey eyed, was far different from any of them. In the candlelight her eyes almost looked silvery and there was a certain calm in them, much like the way she sometimes spoke. At times he had thought her dreamy and out of the world but it was not until staring directly into her eyes that he realized that she was perfectly aware and as sane as he was.
"Then what do you think about the changes?" Harry finally asked.
"I don't understand it at all. Why are we making life more difficult for other wizards?"
Was she trying to be funny? Harry almost laughed at the answer but the tone of her voice made it clear to him that she was perfectly serious. He broke off the staring contest between them when he pushed his chair back and stood up. Luna watched him curiously but did not say a word. Harry smiled at himself and walked over to Luna's end of the table.
"Now that we're finished... let's take a walk."
He did not really know what he suggested it. But at the moment it seemed like a good idea and it would allow some conversation without all the echo in the Great Hall. He offered Luna his hand and she accepted after giving him a long look. They slipped away quietly from the Great Hall without any great knowledge or plans of where they were heading. Their walk was slow but with all the moving staircases, they did not have to walk fast to get anywhere.
"I quite like this," Luna said as the staircase they stood on suddenly made a turn to the left.
"You do?" Harry said, surprised. To him the moving staircases were just another annoyance and just made it ten times easier to get lost.
"You never really know where you'll end up with these," Luna explained and as the staircase stopped, she stepped off it and onto another staircase without any knowledge of where it leads.
Harry followed her although in the back of his mind he was not sure of what was so good about not knowing where one would end up. They continued to walk around, occasionally Luna stopped to look and even chat with the paintings. Harry did not join in, but found it extremely amusing to watch her as she discussed heliopaths with a portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress.
"There's so much to see here!"
She had left the portrait with a smile on her face and although Harry was pleased to see her happy, she still puzzled him. What what is with her that made her enjoy the small and unusual things that no one else did? Like Harry, many others would have cursed in annoyance when a staircase moved, ignored the chatter of paintings or frowned at a meal so simple such as meatballs and mashed potatoes with ketchup.
"Let's go this way," Luna suggested, forcing Harry back to reality for a while. She headed towards another staircase, although this one appeared to be one that did not move and was a lot higher than the others. With that, they ended up in another part of Hogwarts that Harry had not yet set foot in.
After a few minutes of walking, both of them stood in the doorway on top of one of the towers. He could tell by the sound of the rain, which was louder and he could hear the raindrops falling against the roof. The lit torches behind them cast enough light for Harry to realize that they had ended up in a classroom but that was about as much as they could tell.
"Lumos..."
The light from the tip of Harry's wand lit up the classroom enough for them to see things better. The shape of the room was round and instead of the regular stonewalls and ceiling, the classroom was covered by a tall glass dome. Fitting for an astronomy classroom, which Harry assumed it was because of all the telescopes that stood in a circle against the glass walls. Next every telescope were wooden chairs with red cushions. In the middle of the classroom was a desk shaped like a thick ring with a chair inside it and a small door so that one could step in and out of the desk. Spotting a candlestick on the desk, Harry walked over there and lit the old candles with a simple fire spell. At once the room lit up and became warm despite the dusty shape it was in and the cold rain dropping down above them.
"I think... I like this room most," Luna said immediately while looking up at the ceiling and watching the raindrops fall down towards them but never ever really reaching them. For a moment, Harry wanted to tell her that he agreed.
She sat down on the floor and leaned her back against the round desk, not even caring about how dirty her clothes were going to get. The servants had not cleaned in the tower yet and Harry doubted that they even knew of this classroom's existence. He sat down next to Luna, who was still looking at the rain through the ceiling.
"This was probably the astronomy classroom," Harry told, fully aware of how stupid it sounded but he had no idea of what else to say.
"It's beautiful," Luna smiled. "I quite like it."
Harry looked up towards the ceiling just as she did and tried desperately to find the same kind of satisfaction in watching the rain as she did. There was no immediate epiphany for him but the more he watched the rain the more he found the sound of it somewhat soothing. He searched his mind for the last time he had simply sat down and listened to the rain but either it was so long ago that he could not remember or it was because he had simply not done it before.
"Do you do this often?" he found himself asking. He did not even have to clarify to make Luna understand what he was asking.
"It's been a while, but yes," she answered. "I like listening to it. During bad summers, it rains a lot in Sweden. So now, it reminds me a little of home."
Home. The word raised an interesting thought in Harry's mind. Where was his home? While he was at Durmstrang he meant the Lestrange residence when he spoke of home. On the other hand, when he was there during the summers it did not quite feel like it. Now neither Durmstrang nor the Lestrange residence felt like home to him.
"What defines home?" he quietly asked himself, although he said it out loud and Luna heard him. She only took a few moments to answer him.
"Home is where heart is."
Somewhere between answering Harry and the silence that came afterwards, Luna slowly leaned her head against his shoulder. Harry looked at her, a little surprised but somehow it felt good to have her rest her head on his shoulder. He could not quite explain it but it made him feel warm despite the weather outside. Somewhere between thinking that and thinking about absolutely nothing, Harry instinctively leaned his head slightly against hers.
And sometime before the rain stopped falling, Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood both fell asleep next to each other.
-----
When Harry woke up the next day, he was alone.
He sat up properly, feeling a slight ache in his neck after sleeping against a hard, wooden desk the entire night. Looking up, he saw the all the grey clouds were gone and the sun shone down so strongly on him that he had to squint his eyes to see. Luna was gone, nowhere to be seen. Not even a note had been left behind, although Harry did not know what he could expect her to write on it.
Looking back, the whole night before felt somewhat bizarre. He had been interviewed, somehow found the reporter's hair very pretty and invited her to stay for dinner. Dinner had turned into a walk around the castle, a walk around the castle had turned into falling asleep in the astronomy classroom. Harry had had a girlfriend a few years ago who was a closet reader when it came to bad romance novels. Frankly, this sounded like one of them.
He resisted the urge to laugh at himself as he walked down the stairs. A few of the servants walked pass him and greeted him while he was on his way back to his study but he was too occupied with his own thoughts to notice them. But once he was back in his study, alone with silence and his thoughts, the whole thing was suddenly not so funny anymore.
She had come, spoken, amazed him and now she was gone.
She had left him without an explanation. It was not about why she had gone up and left without letting him now, it was... any kind of explanation, Harry realized. An explanation of how she could be so happy and unusual, of why she enjoyed those little things that no one else did. Perhaps even an explanation of why he had not pushed her away and how they could have been so comfortable to fall asleep next to each other.
How ironic it all was. Luna Lovegood had come to Hogwarts to write and ask questions about him and in the end she had left him with a desire to learn more about her. Picking up the nearest quill, Harry started to write a letter.
-----
For some reason, Mr Phillips did not look that happy when he read the article.
Luna crossed her arms, waiting patiently for Mr Phillips to finish reading the article and give his final judgement on it. It was 11 o'clock on Thursday morning, but Luna had found the article somewhat easy to write and therefore managed to finish it several hours before the deadline. Mrs Carter was still at home because of her bad leg and seeing as the Harry Potter interview was bigger than anything else they normally published, Mrs Carter did not have to worry about her absence affecting the newspaper.
Still, Mr Phillips did not look that happy. He was frowning deeply and reading each line of the article slowly and carefully, as if he was suspecting that Luna had left something out. Early in their meeting Mr Phillips had approved of the photograph that Luna had taken on Harry. It was not as professional and good as it would have been if Timmy had actually showed up to work, but it was decent and as long as it was Harry Potter on the picture no one would care if a world-class photographer or a muggle tourist had taken it. It was the article that Mr Phillips was most concerned about and when he finally finished reading it, he looked as if Luna had condemned him to death.
"This is terrible," he finally said.
"Oh," Luna said, slightly taken back by his words. "I'm sorry... but please don't start crying, I don't think it will help."
The last few words made Mr Phillips look more puzzled than condemned but after a while he took off his glasses and sat down behind his desk, looking thoroughly exhausted. It seemed strange to Luna, who had seen Mr Phillips floo into his office dancing out of pure joy because of he expected the Harry Potter interview would make the sales of The Daily Prophet skyrocket.
"There's nothing in here," Mr Phillips sighed, handing the article back to Luna. "It's all about... oh Merlin... how could you do this to me?"
"Those were the questions Mrs Carter had prepared," Luna replied calmly, although that was not entirely true. "I could change it a little if you want... there were some amazing paintings and the chef makes really good Swedish meatballs..."
"No!" Mr Phillips cried out, a sudden look of terror flashing across his eyes. "No meatballs! Just... just... oh Merlin."
Mr Phillips's head fell and his forehead made contact with his desk in a loud THUMP. Luna just watched him curiously as he slowly banged his own head against the desk. Mr Phillips must not like meatballs much. Luna opened her mouth to say something but instead of her voice it was a knock on the window that was heard. Mr Phillips immediately sat up and looked towards the window that was to his left. An owl was patiently waiting outside and Mr Phillips waved his hand lazily towards Luna. She walked over to the window and opened it and the owl immediately flew in and landed on Mr Phillips' desk. Not even bothering to give the owl a treat, Mr Phillips tiredly took the letter and unfolded it.
"To Mr Philander Phillips..." Mr Phillips read in a bored tone. "I would like to express my feeling of gratitude concerning the article written about me... blah blah blah... Please do not mind any curses, hexes or threats from Minister Malfoy. I will personally see to it that he will not stand in the way of the article being published as Miss Lovegood has chosen to write it since I have full confidence in her. Signed... HARRY POTTER?!"
Mr Phillips eyes widened as he reread the letter over and over again. Even Luna looked moderately surprised by the letter. Although there was more to the letter, the words that Mr Phillips had read to her were no doubt the most important ones. While Luna was still amazed by the fact that he had vouched for her, Mr Phillips suddenly lost all signs of tiredness and jumped up on his feet.
"PRESTON!"
A skinny young man, also known as Mr Phillips assistant, stumbled into the office.
"Yes, sir?"
"Get this article to printing, right NOW!" Mr Phillips barked and sent the article flying into Preston's arms, although it hit his face first. Once Preston had taken off, Mr Phillips turned to Luna with a broad smile on his face.
"Young lady... I believe you must have made quite an impression on Mr Potter."