Chapter 3

Luna was disappointed that Harry had decided to leave, but she was still a bit flustered by his recent proximity. She took several quiet moments to ponder it, and only realized that she had been staring into space, unblinking when a group of fourth-year Slytherins walked by and giggled at her. She smiled at them good-naturedly, but felt that her privacy had been invaded, and decided to head back to the Ravenclaw common room to do some more work. She'd had a lovely break.

On her way toward the entrance hall, something caught her eye. Harry was standing off to the side, resting his head against a wall and looking like he was rather deep in thought. She thought it best not to disturb him, and so continued on her merry way.

Harry, however, was having a bit of a mental breakdown. He had no clue why he had almost just tried to kiss Luna. Sure, it was alright if he possibly had feelings for her, but he hadn't actually considered acting on them. His emotions had actually taken over his mind. He was used to things like that happening while fighting Voldemort or facing Draco Malfoy, but it had never happened with a girl before. He wasn't really sure what to do. If he and Luna were to be friends, he would just have to make sure it didn't happen again. 'Which might prove to be quite a difficult task...' he thought, pulling his head away from the wall and glancing back into the distance at the tree where Luna had been minutes before. But she was gone.

He was unhappy that she was no longer there, but figured he'd make the best of his time alone to do that Defense Against the Dark Arts essay that was just calling his name. He sighed, and walked unhappily toward the library, which he knew would be completely void of any sign of Hermione Granger.


Luna met Ginny Weasley in the hallway on the way to the Great Hall the next morning. They had quite a lovely discussion about Quidditch, but when they reached the entrance, they had to part ways to go to their separate tables. Luna was quite content sitting on her own, enjoying a lovely breakfast, with the occasional word to a neighbor. But today her eyes kept drifting over to the Gryffindor table to look at Harry. He appeared to be in a light-hearted conversation with his friends.

What she didn't know was that whenever she wasn't looking at him, Harry was looking at her. She was actually rather pretty with her silky blonde hair and her glittering blue eyes and... Harry had to check himself. He looked around his table to make sure nobody had noticed his momentary lapse into thoughts about Luna, but everyone appeared to be quite into their own conversations. All except for Ginny, who looked at him knowingly for a brief second before returning her attention to Hermione, with whom she was talking.

Harry's stomach jolted. Why had Ginny been looking at him like that? He hadn't been OBVIOUS, had he? But at that moment, he once again turned to look at Luna and was surprised to find that she was looking at him too.

This was twice in two days that they had caught each other. But that didn't mean anything, did it? Luna wasn't convinced. There were plenty of people for Harry Potter to choose from, why her? She shrugged and returned to her breakfast, deciding to ignore the urge to look at Harry any more that morning.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione got up to leave, Luna was still seated, now heavily into a book. Harry looked at her, and had a sudden desire to go talk to her; a desire he was pretty sure he couldn't fight.

"You guys go on ahead," he said to his friends, heading over to the Ravenclaw table. They only looked slightly curious, but didn't complain- it gave them a moment alone before classes.

"Hi, Luna," he said, reaching her at last. She looked up, surprised. "Hello, Harry. Pleasant morning?" "Yeah, er, just thought I'd say hi. Care to... erm... want me to walk you to class?" he asked, awkwardly, not quite sure what he was doing. She smiled charmingly, put her book in her bag, and stood up to join him saying, "That would be lovely."

They headed toward the Potions dungeon, Luna's first class, silently at first, but soon they were talking animatedly.

"I don't really know much about fershaks, but I do know that they can be horrid pests when you get an infestation," she was saying, once again not making much sense, "but enough about that, anyway, did you hear that the Chudley Cannons drafted Robert Fernson?" Harry had been slightly surprised when he first found out that Luna knew about Quidditch, but now he was used to hearing her talk about it. Sometimes she spoke a few normal words amongst her nonsense.

Before long, they had reached the dungeon, and Harry left Luna with a short goodbye, having then to rush off to his next class. But he had a smile on his face that just wouldn't go away for the next few hours, causing both Ron and Hermione to look at him questioningly.


A/N: Yep yep, good times. I'm afraid that it's very difficult to keep Luna completely in character, however, and so I must say that it is likely that she has been or will be out of character a bit. But I'm trying to keep her in character as much as possible, lol. Erm, anyway, review! Cookies will be handed out if you do! Well.. virtual cookies. -hands out virual cookies ahead of time to those who review-. So now that's settled...