Hi everybody! Beatrix's inspiration wanted me to have a scene with her and Luna, and with her second year being Luna's first, I thought it would be good to have Beatrix act as a mentor to Luna. Enjoy!

(Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.)

Chapter 18:

Nargles

"Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down."

"What has one eye but cannot see?" the painting said.

"A needle," Beatrix answered, and entered the room. Sitting in the common room, reading an issue of The Quibbler, was another student.

"Hi," Beatrix said, and the girl looked up. "What's your name?"

"Luna," the girl said quietly, a hint of an Irish accent in her voice. "And yours?"

"Beatrix," she said, sitting down next to Luna. "How was your first day?"

She shrugged. "There've been a lot of Nargles hanging around me today."

"What's a Nargle?" Beatrix asked. "I've never heard about them in class."

"That's because they don't want you to know about them," Luna said. "They're tiny little creatures - about the size of a fly - and they steal your stuff. I've lost quills, shoes, even my radish earrings."

She brushed back her hair to show an empty hole in her ear.

"One minute, they were there, and the next - gone, just like that," Luna said, snapping her fingers together. "I can't figure out where they're coming from - they usually live near mistletoe, but there's none in sight."

Beatrix furrowed her brow, even though she knew exactly what had happened to Luna's belongings.

"Well, is there anything that Nargles don't like?" she asked.

"They don't like butterbeer," Luna said. "It sticks their wings together, and they can't get anywhere to steal anything."

"Well, then, maybe you could do something with butterbeer as a protection," Beatrix said. "A logical solution to a logical problem."

"I have some butterbeer caps in my dormitory," Luna said. "Where's yours?"

"I think I'm on the floor right above you," Beatrix said. "Maybe we could make something together?"

Luna smiled. "I'd like that," she said. "Maybe you could bring someone else in to help us."

Beatrix tried to think of who she'd have as a part of the butterbeer craft group. Suddenly, she remembered a conversation from the year before…

And Ravenclaw is for the smart people - Luna Lovegood's in that House. She's really cool - you're going to love her.

"I think I have an idea," Beatrix said.

The next afternoon, after her double Potions class (while she still wasn't the biggest fan of Snape, she did enjoy brewing Hair-Raising Potions), Molly was knocking on the door of the Slytherin common room.

A minute later, Zoë came to the door.

"Hey, Molly," she said. "What's going on?"

"We have some free time before dinner, and Beatrix invited me and you to be a part of a craft club," Molly said.

"With who?" Zoë asked.

"Luna Lovegood," Molly said. Zoë's mouth dropped open.

"Luna Lovegood?"

Molly nodded.

"The Luna Lovegood?"

Molly nodded again.

"Sign me up!" Zoë said, rushing out of the common room, slamming the stone door shut behind her, and grabbing Molly's hand as she ran as fast as she could go.

"I'll take that as a yes," Molly said, smiling. This was going to be fun.

"So where are you from, Luna?" Molly asked as she took a butterbeer cap and used a toothpick to make a hole in the rim.

"Devon," she said, taking a clump of cotton and putting it on a small, handmade loom. "My father's house is there. But we travel a lot - he's always out and about, trying to find a new creature or two."

"He's a Magizoologist?" Beatrix said.

"Not really," Luna said. "He's an editor - he edits the Quibbler."

"Like...the magazine?" Zoë said.

Luna nodded. "He's putting out a great piece tomorrow on the Blibbering Humdinger."

"What's a Blibbering Humdinger?" Molly asked.

Luna stared at her incredulously. "What's a Blibbering Humdinger?" she repeated. "Oh, do I have stories for you!"

Molly's eyes widened and she leaned in while poking holes in the caps.

"A Blibbering Humdinger is a small creature about the size of a fist," Luna said. "It almost looks like a bird crossed with a whale. Anything that it touches with its right wing will begin to grow - slowly, but surely - until it's ten times the size it was before!"

"Whoa!" Molly said. "Can it be reversed?"

"If it touches something with its left wing, it'll shrink back," Luna said. "Its blubber is very useful in Swelling Solutions."

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Wait...isn't that a bat spleen?"

"That's what they want you to think," Luna said. "They're really poaching the Blibbering Humdingers for their blubber and their feathers - the feathers are good for Deflating Draughts, you know. That's what my father's writing the article about - they're going extinct, and nobody seems to care."

"That happens a lot in the Muggle world, too," Molly said. "Like a lot of fur coats, and ivory, and things like that. They're really just materials obtained through poaching."

"Maybe our worlds aren't so different," Luna said. "Although, I doubt you have someone as horrible as Fudge is as protecting creatures like that."

Molly smiled. "No, we don't, thankfully. There are actually a bunch of places that take care of endangered species and spread the word in order to keep them around."

"That's a relief," Luna said. "We have people like that, too - like Newt Scamander - the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

"Oh, I've heard about that book!" Molly said. "We got that one last year for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but we never used it."

"It's mainly for Care of Magical Creatures - an elective next year," Luna explained. "Usually they use it a bit in that class, but Quirrell was…"

"Weird," Molly finished, and Luna nodded.

"They say that his turban had Voldemort underneath it, but I think they're trying to hide something," Luna said. "What kind of idiot would come into the school with Voldemort on the back of his head?"

"I know someone who saw him, though," Molly said. "My friend Madison -"

"Who is a ghost, and can ghosts drink Veritaserum?" Luna said. "Nope."

Molly stifled a giggle - she knew she'd never win against Luna in a debate of this sort, but she couldn't help having fun with it.

"Well, there was that picture that they found of Quirrell with his turban off," Zoë interjected.

"Photos can be tampered with," Luna said, not looking up from the string-weaving loom. "There are plenty of ways that that could've been a hoax."

Molly smiled. "What does your father think?"

"He doesn't really pay attention to those kinds of occurrences," Luna said. "He's more into magical creatures, like the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

"Is that another animal that nobody thinks is real?" Molly said.

"Yeah, except for me and my father," Luna said. "The Crumple-Horned Snorkack is a really cool animal - it lives in Sweden, and it roams around. It has a big horn coming out of its head - it almost looks like an Erumpent horn, but bigger and wider at the spot where it meets the head. It's pretty peaceful - it doesn't usually bother humans, but Colin Creevey - the new Gryffindor - was telling me that he wanted to go to Sweden over the Christmas holiday and take a picture of one."

"That would be neat," Molly said. "Have you ever seen one?"

Luna sighed. "No," she admitted. "But I hope to one day."

"I hope you can," Molly said. "It sounds really interesting."

Luna nodded. Suddenly, she jumped. "Ow!"

"What is it?" Molly said, trying to move over as quickly as she could without standing up.

"I pricked myself on the loom," Luna said, holding up her finger to show a drop of blood.

Molly's eyes widened. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Luna said, drawing her wand. She pointed its tip at the cut. "Episkey."

Slowly, the blood rolled back into the cut, which sealed up as though it was never there.

"See?" Luna said. "Good as new."

"Whoa," Molly said. "Where did you learn that spell?"

"My dad taught me," Luna said. "He's a very smart man - although no one else seems to think so."

Molly took Luna's hand. "Well, I do," she said. "We all do."

She gestured to Beatrix and Zoë, who both nodded. "Whatever you need, we'll be there for you," Beatrix said.

Luna's face brightened. "Thanks."

As soon as she left, Molly darted towards the girls' bathroom. Not any old girls' bathroom - the one that no one used, the one that Moaning Myrtle was in. There was someone she needed to see.

She opened the door. "Madison?" she said. "Ya here?"

A blue light swept down from the ceiling. "Madison Clark, at your service," the light said. "What may I do for you -"

Madison stopped when she saw Molly.

"Molly?" she asked, shocked.

"We're back," Molly said. "It's another year, after all."

Madison looked down at Molly's wand, stuck in her back pocket. "Spell," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

Molly raised an eyebrow.

"Spell," Madison said again, louder.

Molly shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know...the spell," Madison said. "The one you came up with last year."

"Oh, that spell," Molly said. "I didn't know what you wanted me to spell - I'm still way too used to my old school."

She drew her wand from her back pocket and pointed it at Madison.

"Deposio Spiritus!" she cried. In a misty vapor, Madison turned solid, touching the ground.

"Alright, let me give you a hug," Madison said, running over to Molly and doing exactly that. Molly smiled, breaking it after a few seconds.

"I'm still sorry you couldn't go see your family over the summer," Molly said. "I can't imagine what they would feel like -"

"They're dead," Madison said nonchalantly. "They died in a car wreck when I was, like, two."

Molly's face fell. "God, I'm sorry," she said. "I had no idea -"

"Oh, it's fine," Madison said. "I got put in an orphanage, and every weekend they'd turn on one of those Harry Potter weekends on ABC Family, and I fell in love."

Molly sighed. "So have you ever read the books?"

Madison shook her head. "They didn't have them in the orphanage - they just had the classics, like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time. I never really got to read them, though - a lot of them were too old for me."

Molly nodded. "I've wanted to read To Kill a Mockingbird for a while - maybe I could bring it over Christmas break, and we could read it together."

Madison smiled. "That would be great."

"And I have the Harry Potter books with me this year," Molly said. "Here, I'll be right back -"

She rushed out of the bathroom. A few minutes later, she came back with the first book.

"I've been wanting to read this anyway," she said, opening up the book. "Just a warning - I sometimes start reading ahead and stop reading for a bit."

"Fine by me," Madison said. Molly opened up the book.

"Chapter 1," she read. "The Boy Who Lived."

"Oh, so that's Harry, right?" Madison said.

"Yeah, I think," Molly said. "This must be about Harry when he was born and stopped Voldemort."

She continued reading. At one point, she started laughing, louder than she had ever laughed in Madison's presence.

"What is it?" Madison asked.

"I just got to the best joke ever," Molly said. "McGonagall just said that people would write books about Harry, and that every child in the world would know his name. Isn't that hilarious?"

"Why?" Madison said.

Molly gestured to the book in her hands. "I literally knew about the Harry Potter books since I was, like, seven. That's what I call pop-cultural osmosis at the finest level, and the very first book predicted it!"

"Oh, yeah," Madison said. "Didn't think of it that way."

Molly giggled, going back to the reading.

They were in there for at least an hour before Ava walked in on them.

"What are you two reading?" she asked. Molly held up the book so that Ava could see, then putting it back in front of her face.

"'Trevor!' cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle," Molly read. "Remember that - when Stella and Neville ran into each other and fell in the water?"

"That was funny," Ava said. "Molly, you should get to the dining hall - dinner's about to start."

"Sure," Molly said. "Madison, if you want, you can go ahead without me."

"No, thanks," Madison said. "I'll wait for you."

Molly smiled. "Thanks."

"No problem," Madison said. "Just don't go on without me."

"Sure thing," Molly said as she walked out of the bathroom.

"It's so much fun to read these when you know what's going to happen," she told Ava.

"Yeah, well, don't spoil yourself too much," Ava said. "There are some pretty big twists later on, and some characters that you will absolutely abhor."

"Are we supposed to hate them?" Molly asked.

Ava smiled, thinking of a magic quill, pink wool, and plates with intricate pictures of cats. "Definitely."

Thanks for reading! Here are this chapter's behind-the-magic fun facts:

1) I wrote the beginning of this chapter by finding a website with riddles. I then proceeded to tell all my friends the riddles, getting no work done on the chapter.

2) I wanted to add in a character that Molly loved that contradicted a lot of her beliefs - kind of like if Hermione and Luna's relationship was a little more friendly. I demonstrated that through their conversation about Madison's death.

3) Madison's inspiration helped me with the details of her backstory, including the justification for her having never read the Harry Potter books. In reality, she just watched the movies and never got around to reading the books. Also, and this is pointing out something that most people probably know - ABC Family, or "Freeform" as it's now known, loves its Harry Potter weekends.

4) I already have some plans for Molly's interactions with the character referenced by Ava, and I'm very excited to show it to you once we get to Order of the Phoenix.

5) Just like the Percy Jackson example at the end of Philosopher's Stone, the To Kill a Mockingbird timing is based on when I actually read the book.

6) I thought that joke in Chapter 1 of Philosopher's Stone was the funniest thing ever.

7) Spoiler alert for The Burning Maze, the new Percy Jackson book:

OH MY GOD IT WAS JASON IT WAS JASON WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE JASON AND THEN THERE WAS PIPER'S REACTION AND OH MY GOD LEO LEARNING THAT JASON WAS DEAD

Hey, at least Leo and/or Estelle didn't die.

Feel free to review, but please no negative reviews or cursing. (And please, NOTHING POLITICAL!) Thanks!