A/N: This story was written for season two, round four of the International Wizarding Schools Championship Forum.

Words: 1194

School: Mahoutokoro

Theme: The Whomping Willow

Main Prompt: [Action] Skipping Rocks

Additional Prompt(s): [Genre] Hurt/Comfort

Year: 6

The day was cloudy; shades of white, grey and pale blue were painted on the clouds that were blocking out the sun.

Normally on a day like today, the weather would be slightly chilly with the wind helping to raise goosebumps on any exposed skin it could get its metaphorical hands on. But it was surprisingly warm and the wind just blew warm air around.

On a day like today, some students were outside in the courtyard hanging out with their friends or doing their homework. Some students had grabbed brooms and were playing Quidditch out on the Hogwarts' Quidditch Pitch. And some were hanging out by the lake, simply enjoying the warmth the outside provided.

One such student was sitting apart from the others by the lake. Well, actually, she was on her feet with her bag abandoned on the ground at her feet. The blue tie and emblem on her school's robes indicated that she was a Ravenclaw student.

Her dirty blonde hair fluttered almost lazily in the wind as she stared out at the lake with her pale, silvery eyes. Her hand flicked out and a rock flew from it towards the lake, skipping across the top a few times before it disappeared underneath the surface.

The girl bent to pick up more rocks to skip when she heard her name being called.

"Luna?"

The girl, Luna, turned to see her best friend standing behind her, her brown eyes glinting worriedly as she bit down on her lip.

"Oh, hello, Ginny," Luna said as she tried to smile. It didn't seem to be a good one since the redhead was still looking at her worriedly.

Ginny approached her friend. "I saw what happened in the Entrance Hall," she said, depositing her bag next to Luna's before moving to stand next to her.

Luna's face crumpled slightly before it smoothed out into a blank mask. "It was nothing," Luna dismissed. She threw one of the rocks in her hand across the lake again, watched as it only skipped once before sinking.

Ginny took one of the rocks from Luna's grip. "That was not 'nothing'," she said before throwing the rock. It skipped across the lake five times before it sunk. "That was mean and cruel."

Luna shrugged slightly. "They don't understand me," she said, bending down to scoop up more rocks into her hand. She passed a few of them to Ginny. "They don't agree with how I see things."

"That doesn't give them the right to say things like that to you!" Ginny protested heavily, her rock merely plunging into the water instead of skipping. She took a deep breath. "Just because they don't agree with you or understand you doesn't mean they get to be petty and nasty to you. You need to tell Professor Flitwick."

Luna turned to look at her friend, her face sorrowful. "And what would that do?" she asked, her normally dazed eyes sharp and focused.

"What do you mean, 'And what would that do?'" Ginny demanded, her hand tightening into a fist around the rocks in her hand. "They'll get in trouble and stop bothering you!"

"Will they?" Luna countered, stopping Ginny from spiraling further into her rage.

The redhead blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

Luna sighed and glanced down at the remaining rocks in her hand. "Will they stop bothering me?" she repeated, her eyes never leaving the stones in her hand as she did. "Retaliating against them will just make them mad. They'll get mad and steal my things again. I tell Professor Flitwick and they get in trouble again. They'll do something worse to me for telling on them. I go to Professor Flitwick once more."

She sighed. "It's just a never-ending cycle of resentment and retaliation. How will that help things? It'll just cause more problems for us to try and solve."

Ginny was speechless as she listened to her friend list out her reasons for not retaliating. "I...I hadn't thought of it that way," she admitted.

Luna lifted her head to gaze out over the water. "Before she died, my mum taught me that there will always be people out there who don't like you," she murmured softly. "But as long as you don't let their words or actions get to you, then they don't hold power over you."

Ginny stayed quiet, her full attention on her melancholy best friend; Luna was normally cheerful and smiling with an interesting thing to say every time she opened up her mouth. To see her like this, eyes serious and her mouth in a frown, was startling.

"And I normally don't," Luna confessed. "I don't care what they have to say. I like who I am. I like helping my father write things for The Quibbler. I like thinking that creatures we don't know about are out there waiting to be discovered. I like thinking about things differently than anybody else does. I like who I am. But what they said…"

Ginny wrapped the blonde in a tight hug, the stones falling from her hand as she did so. "They made a rude comment about your mother, Luna," she said softly to her friend. "You are allowed to be upset about someone attacking someone you care about, whether it's physically or verbally. It just means that you're protective of the ones you love."

Luna didn't say anything, but some of the tension left her shoulders and her head rested against Ginny as her own arms came up to return the hug.

The redhead smiled and squeezed tightly before letting go. "So, how come you came to skip stones on the lake?" she asked, intending to take her mind off of things.

Luna smiled her first true smile since she fled the Entrance Hall. "I was just remembering the year before we came to Hogwarts," she told her. "Remember? None of your brothers were home anymore, and Daddy was busy printing pages for The Quibbler, and we were so bored." Luna's smile grew. "So I took you to that pond near my house that Mum used to take me to where she taught me how to skip the stones across the water. And then I showed you how."

Ginny beamed and grabbed Luna's hand. "I remember that," she recalled fondly. "We were having so much fun that we didn't even realize how late it had gotten. My mum and your dad nearly had heart attacks when we didn't come home for dinner. They almost sent out a search party."

Luna laughed before grabbing her friend's other hand. "I just remembered how much fun we had, so I came here to try to remember how it felt." Luna squeezed the hands in her grasp. "Thanks for coming after me."

"Always," Ginny promised, squeezing back. "Now, how about we try to see who can skip rocks the farthest?"

Luna grinned. "You're on."

As the two friends began their game, neither glimpsed a single ray of sunshine pierce through the overcast sky to shine on the lake, causing it to subtly sparkle. But the smiles Ginny and Luna were wearing that day were bright enough for them.