Luna is at the top of the Astronomy tower looking down at the courtyard.
Her mother used to say that it was easier to think the higher up you were, and Luna has grown to hate being underground. The castle at night, with stone walls and heavy air and traumatised Housemates, is almost as bad sometimes, and there's no solution but fresh air.
"If you need fresh air you could always use one of the balconies," says Anthony Goldstein, maybe tired of her coming back into the Tower so late, but Luna needs to be as high up as she can, needs to look down at the earth and believe she is far far away from it. Luna needs to know that she is not trapped.
"I won't pretend to understand it," says Ginny, "but I believe you."
They are staring down at the school when Ginny says, "I think I get it."
"Do you?" says Luna.
"I know Auntie Muriel isn't Malfoy Manor," says Ginny, "but it's miserable to be trapped somewhere."
Luna nods and watches Professor McGonagall crossing the courtyard below.
She hates to admit it to herself but she resents that she'd been trapped for so long during the war. It had been so many months of idleness and there had been so much to do outside the Manor.
All they'd done was talk, in the basement. Mr. Ollivander had talked about wandmaking and the first war and his brother and his father and the forests he'd used to hike through and his favourite bands from the 1960s and the way he organised his shop. Luna'd talked about creatures and the Rotfang Conspiracy and politics and her father and mother and Ginny and Neville. About the DA, and he'd told her he admired what she'd done with her friends.
Certainly she'd done more with the DA than she had at Malfoy Manor.
"You've got it all wrong, Luna," says Ginny. Their arms are touching, their breaths clouding in the chill.
"Have I?" says Luna. She thinks back to the basement- damp and mildewy, bare stone walls and floor and their rusty nail and the empty bottle. Their collection, Mr. Ollivander had called it, a smile in his voice.
"Just 'cause you did more with the DA doesn't mean you wasted your time in Malfoy Manor," says Ginny.
"Please," says Luna. "Don't do that."
"Do what?" says Ginny, giving her an incredulous look. "I'm not kidding around."
"You stayed in an Order safe home," says Luna. "I was held hostage. There's a diff-"
"I never said it was the same," says Ginny. "I meant you weren't useless. What would Ollivander have done without you?"
Luna thinks about that.
Ginny leans over the wall, looks over the school. "It's so cold."
"Cold," agrees Luna.
"Why do you like it up here again?" says Ginny.
"Why do you?" says Luna absently. If she thinks about it, she helped Mr. Ollivander incredibly. And that's not nothing, right?
Ginny smiles, a rare, honest grin. "We're breaking curfew. And I like you, Luna."
Luna can't help but smile at that, too.