chapter the third.
space cadet.

By the conclusion of the Easter holiday, Ernie couldn't wait for life to get back to normal. It had indeed been a relatively relaxing sort of week, but he was definitely longing for... well, normal Prefect rounds, and classes, and homework, and all of the rest of his overly-busy schedule. He'd attempted to write to Hannah a couple of times, but hadn't ended up sending any of them. He still wasn't sure what had happened, or what to say, so he just... didn't.

His third failed attempt to write to her had occurred on Wednesday, halfway through break, when he remembered that he had completely forgotten to mail his note to Luna about finding her cat. He'd written it, he knew that much -- but he couldn't remember to save his life where he'd put it. After tearing through every stack of parchment he had, and several notebooks, and even his trunk, he finally asked Wayne if he'd seen the letter anywhere.

"I took it to the Owlery when I went up there the other day," Wayne said, explaining as if Ernie had, in fact, asked Wayne to mail it for him. Which he hadn't, but he was sort of glad that he had. He hadn't heard back from Luna, but she probably knew that her cat was safe and sound. Lucian hadn't been bothering Ernie much at all, though Ernie knew he was still about, since he'd been having to refill Tot's food dish twice as often as normal... and Tot tended to be quite a glutton on his own.

But hols ended, and the following weekend the train brought back those who had gone home, and things could finally return to normal. On Sunday evening, Ernie received a note from Luna (via Wayne, who she'd already seen, evidently) thanking him for looking after Lucian, and asking if he'd be willing to bring him to breakfast the following morning. Which wasn't any trouble at all. Ernie was rather glad to be getting rid of the fat black cat, after all.

He made his way down to breakfast, much less sleepy this time, considering it was a Monday, and getting up on a school day was never any trouble for him. And unlike his early-morning meeting with Hannah that had never happened, Ernie was pretty sure that Luna would show up today.

He reached the Great Hall, the note from Luna in his pocket and a struggling Lucian in his arms. Tot hadn't been happy to see his friend go, and had tried to follow them out of the portrait hole when Ernie left. He headed over to the Ravenclaw table, scanning it for any sign of Luna -- which there was none of quite yet. She had said he could return the cat at breakfast this morning, right? His hands were full, so he couldn't quite get to the note in his pocket, and continued to stand there a bit awkwardly, waiting for her to--

"Good morning, Ernie!" a voice said from... somewhere around his knees. Startled, he looked around quickly before spotting Luna Lovegood crouching on the floor, mostly underneath the Ravenclaw table.

"Er... why were you under the table?" Ernie asked.

She stood up, flipping a curtain of hair out of her eyes and straightening her necklace. "My quill got away from me, I'm afraid," she said, glancing thoughtfully at the pink quill before sticking it behind her ear and grinning. "So sorry to startle though. I seem to do that a lot, actually."

"I can't imagine why," Ernie said, a bit sarcastically, but he didn't mean it in a bad way, really. More just as an idle comment. "And at least you got it back, right? The quill, I mean."

Luna just smirked, nodding, her quill nodding with her. "Can't afford to lose another one, 'tis worth crawling about to get it back." She bent down a bit, until she was eye-level with Lucian, "And good morning to you, my stout friend."

"Stout's an understatement," Ernie said, passing the cat off to her. "He's heavy. I think he missed you, though."

"I do spoil him, I'm afraid," Luna nodded, taking Lucian in her arms carefully. He snuggled up against her affectionately, purring. "Oh my, I think you might be correct! Perhaps all he needed was a friend. It can't be a good feeling to know that your human wants you to share her with a biscuit tin."

"Biscuit tin?"

"Yes, I have a pet biscuit tin, you didn't hear? Compliments of a failed Transfiguration spell in one of McGonagall's classes. Lucian doesn't much like him." She looked back up at Ernie, smiling at him in a way that seemed... rather like a normal human being. Ernie was somewhat surprised -- Luna Lovegood had always seemed a bit more like a space cadet than a human being. "Thank you so much for keeping an eye on him," she said.

"It was no problem," Ernie said, looking down at the huge purring ball of fur. "He just hung out with Tot a lot. I was surprised, Tot's usually kind of mean to other cats. He doesn't get along with Hannah's cat at all..." He shrugged.

"Sometimes the oddest people become friends," Luna nodded sagely, and Ernie smirked as she referred to their cats as people. "Lucian generally doesn't like other boy cats. Or other boys, period." She smirked, nuzzling her cat.

Ernie cleared his throat. "I didn't hear about that. That's... interesting," he offered. "Although I guess I can see why Lucian would be jealous. He seems to like attention."

He surprised himself by reaching out and patting the cat on the head. He hadn't exactly grown fond of him over the past few days, but he at least appreciated Lucian for keeping Tot out of his way for a bit.

"You know, Tot seemed a bit upset with me this morning when I took Lucian away. He tried to chase us out of the common room, but he got to the portrait hole, and backed off. He's a bit scared of the outside world..." Ernie shook his head. His cat, though harmless, was still pretty dumb. "He's going to go back to being a nutter now, I'm sure. He's very annoying sometimes. I admit it's been kind of nice not having a crazy cat walking all over my face at five in the morning all week."

Luna giggled. "We should let them visit each other, then. Lucian seems to know his way about the castle all right," she replied. "Crazy pets can be fun, as long as they are getting along with you. Lucian is a glutton for attention... among other things." She tucked a persistant strand of hair out of her face. "Ah, the joys of cat parenting."

"Tot's not too hard to get along with, he's just... kind of nutters most of the time. He whines, and likes to crawl under piles of clothes and blankets and get lost. And knock things over." He sighed, thinking of the countless essays Tot had knocked ink onto.

"Oh my, that bad? Lucian's mum Cleopatra was like that, always knocking things off of tables. An aura of discourse!"

Yeah... he's just sort of too stupid to know not to knock things over," Ernie replied. "How long have you had Lucian?"

"I've had him since he was born, he was only a kitten my first year."

Ernie smiled. "Tot's still kind of like a kitten, even though he's about four now. I got him second year, he was a stray that wandered into our backyard at home. My parents wouldn't let him live there when I was at school, though, so now he's mine." He looked around a bit, scratching the back of his head. "I'm sure he'd like it if Lucian wanted to come visit again. He's never been out of Hufflepuff, though. Anyway, uh..."

He realized he was rambling, which meant he was running out of things to talk about with the famous Miss Lovegood. He had completed his cat returning mission, after all.

"I better take off. I think I see Hannah over at the Hufflepuff table, so..." He was making a rather poor excuse, because he didn't see Hannah, and really, he wasn't kidding anyone with that. He hadn't spoken with Hannah in forever. Although Luna didn't have much reason to know that. "I'll see you around, all right?"

Luna glanced the way he did, smirking, "Oh, but of course, go along on thy galliant way!" She nodded, giving him a wave. "Thank you again, Ernie. I'm sure they'll run into each other again!" She smiled, and turned back to her table quickly, picking up her parchment and books.

Ernie turned to leave before she did, heading over to the Hufflepuff table, where he sat down, alone, going over the rather strange meeting in his head. He glanced up to see Luna's head bobbing out of the Great Hall as she hurried to take Lucian back to her own common room before getting off to class.

"...Yoohoo, Earth to MacMillan," someone was saying, waving their hand in front of Ernie's face as he stared at the wall of the common room, which for some reason had become absolutely fascinating in the past few minutes. Shaking his head and looking up, he expected the voice to belong to Hannah -- but it didn't, as Hannah was... wherever Ernie wasn't at all times outside of class.

"Hi, Megan," he said, blinking up at her. "What's up?"

"Your cat is going nutters, for one." Megan indicated the gray cat running zigzags back and forth across the common room,

"Nothing new," Ernie said, shaking his head. "And he's probably still just mad at me for taking Lucian away."

"Lucian?"

"Luna Lovegood's cat," Ernie said, as if Megan should've known that. "He ended up in our common room somehow," he explained, noting Megan's slightly confused expression. "I looked after him all week til Luna got back."

"I see," Megan said, perching herself on the arm of the couch Ernie was sitting on. "Well, Tot seems to be acting weirder than usual, so... I suppose that could be why."

"You suppose?"

"I suppose." Megan didn't say anything else for a minute, watching Ernie's cat disappear at breakneck speed up the steps to the boys' dormitories. "So what had you so spaced out?"

"What?"

Megan raised an eyebrow at him. "Just now when it took me half a minute to get your attention?" She laughed. "Been hanging out with Luna Lovegood too much, there, haven't you?"

"Have not," Ernie said. "I talked to her for a few minutes in the Great Hall, but that's all. And what does that have to do with anything?"

"Staring at walls, general space-cadet-like behaviour?" Megan suggested. "And an air of defensiveness!" She paused, smirking. "And you haven't asked me about Hannah in the two minutes we've been talking."

"What about Hannah?"

"The first sentence out of your mouth to me every time we've talked lately has had something to do with her, ever since she started avoiding you," Megan said, shrugging. "So what were you thinking about?" she asked again.

"Stop being so nosy!" Ernie said with a grin. "Not Hannah, though."

"Wow, tomorrow's biggest headline! Ernie MacMillan thinks about something other than his painful scorning by the girl he fancies! Maybe they'll run it in the Quibbler. ...That could be awkward."

"Very tactful, Megan," Ernie said dryly, ignoring the joke about Luna's father's paper, since he wasn't sure if Megan was actually connecting the situation to Luna this time. "Really, makes me feel a lot better."

"I'm sorry," Megan said. "If it makes you feel any better, Hannah hasn't said anything bad about you, either."

"I doesn't make me feel better." It didn't make him feel worse, though, as he was now aware that he really hadn't been thinking of Hannah at all this evening...

"You've got the look again," Megan said, and he snapped out of it and looked back up at her again, still on the arm of the couch. She jumped down. "I'll leave you alone to think, then," she said with a smile. "I'm supposed to be meeting up with Zacharias in the library to help him with transfig..." She looked at her watch. "Ack, two minutes ago! Gotta go."

"See you later, Meg," Ernie said, going back to staring at the wall for a moment and thinking about a girl with blonde hair, before realizing he was doing it. He stood up and headed for the stairs to his dorm instead... a half-smile on his face that he couldn't quite explain.

author's note the third.

First bits of Dena/Amy RPing in this section! Being their conversation in the Great Hall, so... credit where credit is due there. (As in to Amy for all of the Luna-speak. Hehe. So... rearranged a bit... apologies to Ashley for any ooc-ness that Megan may have experienced, too.

Um. Leave me reviews, I like them.

That is all. Will write more soon I swear :D Having much fun. They are so cute and fluffy. Eeeee.