Hermione had decided to introduce Luna to her other friends in one of the nicer nooks in the courtyard, since the weather was being agreeable. She didn't want Madam Pince to get mad at them for talking, especially not this early in the year.

So it was Saturday afternoon when Hermione retrieved Luna from the Ravenclaw tower and walked her down to the prearranged meeting point outside.

"Harry, Neville, this is Luna Lovegood," Hermione introduced. "Luna, these are my friends Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom."

Harry nodded, and Neville offered a shy smile and a small bow.

"A pleasure," he told her.

Luna smiled.

"Pleased to meet you," she said. She gave them both a short, bobbing curtsy before looking around. "Where's the tall red one?"

Harry laughed.

"Ron got in trouble this morning for causing trouble with the Slytherins," he said. "The Quidditch pitch ended up double-booked, and there was a bit of a fight. Ron withdrew his wand and tried to curse Malfoy, but the curse ended up hitting him instead." Harry seemed to be fighting his amusement. "Hagrid is keeping watch over him until he stops belching slugs."

Hermione made a face. "Ewww."

"I told him not to curse them." Harry shrugged. "Or to try and cast magic with a broken wand."

"Speaking of wands-"

Neville pulled out his new wand, looking up at Hermione with a wide grin.

"I can do Transfiguration with this now, Hermione!" he exclaimed. "I've never been able to master a Transfiguration on the first day of class before!"

Hermione grinned. "That's great, Neville!"

Neville sat back happily, admiring his wand.

"Charms class was almost easy," he said. "For the first time… I feel like a real wizard, Hermione." He looked up at her. "Thanks."

His voice was so earnest, so heartfelt, that Hermione flushed.

"It was nothing," she said. "I just wanted to help you out."

Neville nodded, grinning. "Well, you definitely did."

Luna was looking at Harry, tilting her head as she looked at him.

"Your magic is growing rapidly," she observed. "It wasn't doing that before."

Harry blinked.

"It's… what?"

"Your aura reflects your magic," Luna told him. "Yours is fluctuating very fast."

"Luna is a Seer," Hermione explained. Harry blinked, but Neville looked impressed.

"That's very rare!" he exclaimed. "Harry, that means she can see glimpses of the future!"

"Oh," Harry said, his eyes widening. "And that means… you can see my- my what?"

"Your aura," Hermione said patiently. "It's kind of like the bubble of your own magic and personal energy that surrounds you at all times."

"Yours is shifting around quite rapidly," Luna told him. "It's as if you've recently come into your magic and it hasn't quite settled down yet. Your magical power is growing very fast now, it seems, and your aura is trying to catch up with it."

Harry looked puzzled, but Hermione's eyes widened as she caught on.

"Um," she said. "Would you say his power is growing exponentially, now?"

Luna turned her dreamy blue eyes on Hermione.

"That'd be one word for it, I suppose," she agreed. "Though who can really say what the exponent would be?"

"Why's it doing that?" Harry wanted to know. "When did it start?"

"Recently," Luna told him. "I would have noticed it before."

Hermione blushed a bright red.

"At age eleven, a mage's magic begins to grow. At some point between ages eleven and seventeen the mage's magic will begin to grow more quickly, exponentially," Hermione said rapidly, as if reciting. "A mage's magic reaches its pinnacle when the mage turns seventeen."

"At some point, it goes faster?" Harry frowned. "When is that point?"

"It's different for everyone!" Hermione said, her voice high-pitched. "It's just – it's just a thing that happens. Part of growing up!"

Harry still looked puzzled, Neville even more confused, but Luna turned to Hermione.

"I think it's age-related," she said. "Nearly all the fourth-years have the fluctuation in their aura indicating their magic expanding quickly, and some of the third and second, too. Not many, though."

Hermione waved it off, face flaming. "I'm sure everyone will reach that point sooner or later."

Luna nodded amicably.

"I won't for another few months or so," she said. "I foresaw it."

"You- you foresaw it?" Hermione said, haltingly.

"Oh, yes," Luna said. "It's going to be terribly embarrassing. I'll be in pale blue robes when it happens, and when I stand up, everyone will—"

"Oh look!" Hermione said loudly, interrupting. "It's Ronald!"

They all turned to see Ron trudging up the hill, his face vaguely green.

"'m never casting that curse again," Ron vowed, collapsing onto one of the benches. "Urgh. I haven't been able to get the taste of slugs out of my mouth for hours."

"Not even with Hagrid's rock cakes?" Neville asked.

Ron snorted. "I'm not that desperate," he said. "I like having all my teeth."

"Ron, this is Hermione's friend Luna," Harry said. He looked at Luna. "Luna Lovegood, was it?"

Luna nodded, and offered Ron a short curtsy. "A pleasure to meet you."

Ron nodded, giving Luna a skeptical look.

"Are you the one who lives near The Burrow? The girl who sees imaginary things?" he asked. "Ginny was going on about you seeing things that aren't there-"

"Ronald!" Hermione's voice snapped. "Luna is a Seer. If she sees things that the rest of us can't, that doesn't mean they aren't there. It means that we are blind to them."

Ron raised his eyebrows.

"A Seer?" he sounded impressed. "That's- that's kind of cool. Can you see my future?"

Luna tilted her head at him, and Ron got more excited.

"You can, can't you?" he said, eagerly. "Can you see if I become Quidditch captain? Or Head Boy?"

Luna gave an ambivalent shrug.

"That far off is hard to see without a prophecy coming to me," she said. "I can't see much farther than a few months away."

"What can you see?" Ron pressed.

"That the three of you boys are going to have a miserable Halloween," Luna said. She was staring off as if into nothing, and then she smiled. "Ooh, and it's going to get even worse afterward."

"That's not very nice!" Ron objected. Luna shrugged.

"I see what I see," she said. "Life isn't always nice, you know."

Neville looked frightened, but Harry looked thoughtful.

"Are we going to be injured?" he asked Luna.

Luna fixed her eyes on him. "None of you three will be physically injured," she told him.

Only Hermione caught the emphasis in her tone.

Someone is going to get hurt, she realized, cold seeping into her bones. And after the disaster that was my last Halloween…

"Is there anything I can do to make sure I don't get hurt either, Luna?" Hermione asked politely.

Luna fixed her watery blue eyes on her, but there was a sharp intelligence to them that was usually masked.

"Don't go anywhere alone."