Chapter Seven – Eaten Alive
Harry wandered down the third floor corridor, heading to the charms classroom. Before he had time to dodge into an empty broom cupboard, Luna approached him, looking rather nervous.
"Hello Harry." She said, fixing her misty eyes upon him.
"What do you want?" Harry asked rather rudely as he averted his eyes to the floor, noticing Luna's long stripey socks, one pulled up and the other slipping down.
Luna looked slightly relieved.
"Oh good, you're talking to me, that Ron Weasley is ignoring me. I'm used to it but it was nice thinking I had some friends." She said, speaking the truth as normal.
"Look Luna, I'm not exactly happy about what you did, but I'm not going to ignore you and I'll tell Ron not to either."
"Tell me what?" a voice said from behind. Harry turned to see Ron standing behind him.
"Hello Ronald." Luna said. Ron ignored her.
"Harry, why are you talking to Loony?"
Harry looked at Luna quickly. She looked rather upset, but he found that he didn't really care. It would be good to see Luna suffer after what she had done to him.
"Err I'm not, I was just heading to charms, coming?"
Ron nodded and set off down the corridor, Harry followed. When they reached the turning Harry looked behind him.
Luna stood where they had left her, staring at them miserably. As Harry turned around again, he thought he saw a tear fall from her eye and had a sudden urge to run and comfort her.
"Come on mate!" Ron called and Harry quickly ran after him.
Draco sat leaning against an old oak tree in the Hogwarts grounds, waiting for Luna to join him. Soon enough, a small figure with long hair walked over to him and slowly knelt down on the grass beside him. Draco smiled at her, but she did not return the smile, just pulled up her left sock, which had been slipping down. Draco stared at the bright colours for a moment, and then looked up again to catch Luna hastily wiping away a tear.
"Luna, what's wrong?"
She sniffed, "I'm fine, it nothing…ermm how are you? Are you still taking that potion Madam Pomfrey gave you?"
"Yeah I am, but why have you been crying?"
"I haven't! Did you take it today?"
"Luna, tell me now!"
Neither of them spoke until Luna broke the silence with her troubles.
"Its just Harry and Ron…they are ignoring me. It's so stupid, the whole school laughs and talks about me behind my back, but I couldn't bare them doing it!"
Draco put his arm around her and said, "Don't worry, the Slytherins will be your friends when they find out about us."
"Draco, I don't want you bullying people to be nice to me! I just wish Harry would be more understanding about all this…"
"What about Weasel's little sister and Granger? And Longbottom?"
"Ginny and Hermione are fine and Neville said hello, but I think he's avoiding me. Actually I think he's always been a bit scared of me."
Secretly, Draco thought Neville was wise to be scared of Luna, although he didn't say so.
"Well I'm sure they will be fine soon, it was a bit hard with me and Cho at first, but she's gone back to staring at me every now and then and giggling in her gang."
"You and Cho? Compared to me and Harry? You and Cho barely knew each other; Harry was one of my only friends!" Luna said rather hysterically.
Draco thought she sounded a bit like Hermione, maybe the two were rubbing off on each other, although he hadn't seen Hermione wearing strange earrings or carrying The Quibbler.
"Sorry." He said in a 'I'm doing nothing wrong' tone and stood up.
"Look Luna I need to go and do something, see you later." He said and quickly headed towards the castle, leaving a miserable Luna by herself.
Luna Lovegood sat in the quidditch stands, watching the match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. She was wearing her large Gryffindor lion hat, which was roaring loudly and starting to give her an ear-ache. Even though she liked Draco and Harry was ignoring her, she was still supporting Gryffindor.
A loud rather high voice rang out over the stands, which Luna recognized as Colin Creevey. A strange Gryffindor boy in her year, who kept trying to hang around with her and Ginny, for some reason un-known to Luna.
"And the cute Gryffindor chaser, Ginny Weasley takes the quaffle!"
Luna peered through her omnioculars and saw Ginny, bright red in the face to match her quidditch robes and heading towards the goal posts. Moving her position she could see Harry hovering at the left side of the pitch, whilst Ron was furiously defending his own goal-posts.
Luna put the omnioculars down. She didn't really want to watch Harry or Ron at that point. Gloomily she continued to listen to Colin's commentary.
"If I had my camera with me then I would take at least thirty shots of our stunning Miss Weasley…"
"Creevey stop that now, we don't want to hear about Miss Weasley we want to hear about the match!" Professor McGonagall snapped, and her voice echoed over the pitch, as the microphone picked up the sound.
"Oh, ok sorry Professor! Umm you lot, look at the score-board for the score…and look Ginny's brother just made a good save!"
Suddenly, Luna's roaring lion hat began to bite her head, ripping out her dirty-blonde hair and continuing to roar loudly.
"My hat!"
"Look, Loony Lovegood's being attacked!"
"AHHH there's a lion on Loony's head!"
"HELP! Quick, Professor Loony's being eaten alive!"
As hundreds of shrieks and shouts erupted around the pitch, Harry and Malfoy noticed what was going on at the same time. Both completely forgetting the snitch, they sped towards Luna. Harry grabbed the hat off her head, whilst Malfoy thrust his wand in the air, pointed it at the hat and yelled,
"Glacéite" (freezing charm)
The hat fell from Harry's hand and the roaring stopped. Harry and Malfoy grabbed one of Luna's arms each and dragged her off to the hospital wing. Ron and Ginny raced after them, also forgetting the match.
"And suddenly four players have deserted the game! Loony Lovegood was attacked by her own hat, so my good friend Harry Potter has gone to her rescue, followed by Malfoy from Slytherin – I wonder what he's doing – and the lovely Ginny Weasley. Oh, and her brother just followed her. This leaves the game in a strange position and our Slytherin chasers are making good use of the Gryffindor keeper's absence. Actually I know Loony; she's a friend of Ginny's. Odd taste if you ask me…Loony's a bit crazy and I really despise her weird clothing – she was wearing broomstick earrings today, incase you're interested – but of course when she hangs around with Ginny I can't hate her!"
"Creevey would you be quiet! Time out!" McGonagall yelled, looking very frustrated.
Meanwhile, in the hospital wing, the missing quidditch players stood around Luna's bed. At this point Luna was rather bald and covered in scratches.
Madam Pomfrey towered over the bed with a gloomy expression on her face.
"Dear, dear however did this happen?"
They explained, each taking turns to tell the tale while Madam Pomfrey bustled around making a potion of some sort.
"Right Miss Weasley, make her drink this and Mr. Weasley please go and fetch the offending object. Let Madam Hooch know you won't be back to finish the game." She said and after handing Ginny a goblet, turned to Harry and Malfoy.
"Mr. Potter please inform Professor Sprout that we will need some more beerag flowers and Mr. Malfoy…Mr.Malfoy what are you doing here?"
"Err...I...umm...we're friends…me and Luna."
"Don't be ridiculous, I know you better than that! Now out! Shoo!"
Malfoy began to protest, but found himself lying on the cold corridor floor outside the hospital wing.
Harry and Ron disappeared to do their 'jobs' and Ginny was left to awake Luna and give her the potion.
"Luna?" she tapped her friend on the nose, and Luna's eyes flickered open.
"Oh hello Ginny. Why am I in here?" she asked, looking around the room weakly.
"Ermm your lion hat attacked you. Anyway I think Professor Flitwick will be able to find out how it happened but right now you need to drink this and get your hair back."
"My what? My hat! My hair!" Luna's hand reached up to touch her head. "Oh Ginny! Is it all gone? Is it all gone, or is there some left?"
"A bit left…Harry managed to get the hat off you and Malfoy froze it…"
Luna looked bewildered but pulled a loose hair from her head and placed it on the bedside table.
"Just incase…now you'd better tell me everything." Luna said, "I think the potion grows your hair back. Here." Ginny handed her the silver goblet and after Luna had drunken, she began to explain everything.
Ron and Harry came back a bit later, when Luna was asleep again, and according to Professor Flitwick, someone had meddled with Luna's hat during the match.
However the hat definitely hadn't left Luna's head until Harry pulled it off, so Flitwick assumed somebody within the crowd had shot a spell at it.
"Who would do such a thing?" Madam Pomfrey asked in horror, as she attended Luna's scratches.
Professor Flitwick shrugged his tiny shoulders. "It's hard to say, but possibly someone who isn't very fond of Miss Lovegood."
"Well it could have been anyone then, not many people are exactly friends with her." Ron muttered and when he received a kick from Harry, decided to keep quiet.
Ginny yawned lazily. "Well some of her house-mates hide her stuff and tease her, maybe it was one of them?"
Flitwick shook his head. "No this is more than that...I'm sure it wasn't one of that lot, its just too cruel."
Ron stood up. "Right, well I'm going to err…go…got some…homework to finish. Coming Harry?"
"No I'll stay here, I want to talk to Luna when she wakes up."
Ginny nodded, "I'll go, so you can be on your own with her."
They left together, leaving Harry, Flitwick and Madam Pomfrey – who was now talking to Hermione, in the hospital wing,
Flitwick said something about the hat, and hurried away, although Harry couldn't really hear his squeaky voice. As the hospital wing door shut behind the Professor, Luna awoke.
"Harry! You saved me…you're here…" she looked up at him, and her misty eyes clouded over.
"Don't Luna. I do care about you, and I want to stay friends. I'm sorry about the other day, I was really angry." Harry replied.
"Oh good…thank-you…what about Ronald and Neville?"
"They will be fine, they were just ignoring you because they thought it would help me or something."
She smiled and looked around. "Harry, where is Draco?"
"Ermm Madam Pomfrey threw him out. I think she thought he was just here to make fun of you."
"Oh dear..." she said and stared at a clock on the wall worriedly.
"Well Flitwick thinks someone put a spell on your hat during the match, but they don't know who did it yet."
"I hope it was a mistake, I mean the person who did it wasn't being very nice, but I'd feel awful…whoever did it would get in trouble because of me, you see."
"Luna, it's their fault, not yours, so don't feel bad. Do you want me to get Malfoy for you?"
"Yes please…if you wouldn't mind."
Harry smiled at her and left. Hermione walked over and sat at the end of Luna's bed/
"Hello Luna, how are you?"
"Oh, I think I'll be ok once my hair's back…how's the bite?"
Hermione rubbed her hand, "Healed now, more or less. Madam Pomfrey just dis-charged me."
"Great…"
"So you've sorted everything out with Harry and Malfoy?"
"Yes just about…well Harry just went to fetch Draco actually."
"Well I hope it goes ok, I'd better go, I've got LOADS of homework to catch up on…I couldn't write with my hand before, or I would have done it in bed."
"Ok bye…thanks for…well…" Luna shrugged.
"Oh Luna…be careful. Malfoy is going to be a bit embarrassed about you and him at first and it might take him a while to be honest." With that, Hermione got up and left just as Malfoy came in. Luna looked puzzled for a moment, trying to work out what he meant but then Malfoy came and sat on her bed.
"Luna! How are you?"
"I'm fine now thanks. Well my face hurts a bit…" she said, rubbing a scratch on her cheek.
Madam Pomfrey bustled over again. "Mr. Malfoy what do you think you're doing? I told you to get out, now shoo!"
She turned and went to make Hermione's bed.
"Draco, just tell her that I'm your girlfriend!" Luna said, staring at him in confusement. He muttered something which she couldn't hear.
"People are going to find out soon enough, with the ball coming up, so why hide it?"
"Yeah, yeah I know…" he mumbled into his robes then looked up.
"But you won't be able to go to the ball anymore, with your…injuries." He said, with what seemed to Luna, like a cross between an eager and a pleased tone.
"Actually I can go. Madam Pomfrey said she's making a final potion for my hair and the scratches can be transfigured away, so I should be able to leave tonight and the ball isn't till Sunday."
"Oh, ok fine."
"What? You sound like you don't want me to come!"
"Yeah I do, or I wouldn't have asked you."
"Ok, then you're going to have to stop hiding it from people. Go and tell Madam Pomfrey!"
"I will later, got to go…ermm quidditch practice!" Malfoy lied and he quickly left the room before Luna could protest.
Luna sighed and flomped her head down on the pillow as Madam Pomfrey came over with a goblet.
"Drink this and your hair will be fine dear!" she said, smiling and walked away muttering something about 'traditional Weasley hair'. Puzzled, Luna drank the potion.