I KNOW it took me SO long to post this. This is the chappie where Looney Luna Lovegood (triple L, eh?) pops up and happily turns my world upside down. Weeelll, not really, but I relate most to her, so I REALLY enjoy writing stuff about her. She is a very interesting, kooky character who I LURVE. Thanks, Jo, for creating Luna!!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own it, I never will, and sadly, I would never pass as Jo, so leave me alone and let me mope in peace. (You see me standing at a wall, beating my head against it. "Angst. Angst. Angst." I say.)
Ginny Weasley stared up at the ceiling, bored completely out of her mind.
Boring, boring, boring, boring and boring againShe thought to herself.
Usually Ancient Runes was one of her favorite classes, owed the fact that they had a very eccentric teacher who enjoyed digressing from the topic at hand to talk about something actually interesting. In the hands of a different teacher, the class would have been, at best, a lengthy hour listening to a professor drone on and on. But today he did not go on any of his useless rambles, or discuss the 'holy' books with the 'learned' women currently occupying the desks. (Only to him were large tomes of runes 'holy' and no one besides his students were learned enough to participate in in-depth discussions.) Unfortunately for him, the only guy in the class was Colin Creevey, who, to many people's discretion, was actually a woman. (Colin never dispelled the rumors that he was gay, but smilingly told Ginny that "It's just a game to play"). Today they were actually studying, and instead of studying runes, they were looking at the solar calendar. According to Professor Helen—a name often sniggered at by the students and staff because he was, in fact, a guy—the solar calendar was an important part of some sort of ancient rune system and symbols blah blah blah.
Quite unenthused, Ginny kept staring off into the distance until a girl tapped her on the shoulder.
Turning her head to face Luna 'Looney' Lovegood, Ginny blinked in mild surprise. The girl's slightly protruding eyes were not focused in rapt, misty attention on the teacher, as per usual, but instead at her. Her infamous radish earrings swung from her ear lobes and she happily displayed her butterbeer cap collection around her neck, which looked like it had grown over the summer Like usual, she looked as though she had gone to her closet and thrown on…whatever.
"Whuh?" Ginny asked, surprised by Luna's lack of attention. Or maybe it was just the fact that she never really paid attention, but always seemed to. Deciding that it was worth talking to the girl if it provided some other more-appealing enterprise, she deterred her attention from the ceiling to look the girl in the face.
"Quite a boring class today, isn't it?" Luna whispered, glancing up at the teacher to make sure he didn't notice their inattentiveness. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice. According to Professor Helen, solar calendars were 'cool'.
"Yeah, I guess," Ginny said, blithely aware that this was a girl she often would associate with someone like Lavender Brown. But now, it seemed that this was no longer the case. She was unpopular, but was she really the suck-up Lavender could be? (At least in Divination.)
"I heard from a Ravenclaw earlier in the class that Professor Helen is going to—"
"And so, class, now you must get into partners. I expect three feet of parchment due next Wednesday about the symbols, runes and sun calendar on the ancient civilization of your choice." He clapped his hands. "You may begin."
"—assign us a paper," Luna finished cheerfully. Ginny stared at her in disbelief. She was happy to be getting a paper. She shook her head. The girl was definitely 'Looney'.
"And I was wondering if you wanted to be my partner," Luna finished, staring at Ginny shaking her head. Casting a glance at Ruby, Ginny saw her already deep in conversation with Lavender Brown. Slightly surprised but also disappointed, she turned back to Luna.
"Uh, sure," Ginny replied. "But why me?"
"Well, we often sit together on the train and…" she didn't finish her sentence. Her face fell. A heavy silence fell between them, only broken by the murmurings of the rest of the class.
"What?" Ginny asked, concerned. But Luna had already continued, shaking her head and putting the smile back on her face.
"So, er, the paper?" Ginny asked, trying to get back to the essay. Luna nodded.
"I've heard a lot of people talking about doing the ancient Egyptians. I don't know about you, but I find the ancient Druids fascinating," she said.
"Druids?" Ginny speculated. She felt that Egyptians were very interesting, and easy, for a paper such as this one. Easy would be a nice change to the mounting pile of homework she had to do. If Luna wanted to do it, Ginny figured she'd go along. She seemed so happy. Misty-eyed Luna was, in her thoughts, a lesser of the 'Ravenclaw' classification. Sure, she was smart (why else would she be in Ravenclaw?) but she wasn't a genius. Realizing that Luna had gone on, Ginny shook away her thoughts and focused back on to the girl who spoke a mile a minute.
"Yeah, Druids. You know, the Celts practiced Druidism, so they are often called Druids. Druidism is a pagan religion associated with tree-worship and a book muggles call 'The Mists of Avalon'. I've read it, and it's actually very good, for a muggle author. But I bet that the Druids were all wizards. They sound so smart…" she trailed off after noticing Ginny's grin.
"What?" she asked, cocking her head. Her radishes jangled and her hair swung into her face.
"Nothing," Ginny replied. "You just make it sound so different. Tree worship. I've never heard of it."
"Oh yeah, there's loads of trees that they considered sacred. It's all very fascinating. So does it sound good?" Luna's protruding eyes gazed at her, questioning.
"Yeah, it's fine by me," Ginny replied. "Whatever you say." Luna smiled.
"Good," she teased. "Let's keep it that way." Laughing, Ginny decided to do just that.
In Arithmancy, Draco sat, cracking his neck. It didn't help that he had already finished the assigned work and had no one to patronize, considering the class was dead silent and Blaise was still busily scratching away at her parchment. A Hufflepuff scratched his head stupidly and started scribbling at his piece of paper next to him. Sighing, Draco gazed around at the Slytherin-Hufflepuff class. No one else was done. And, unfortunately, there was no one to curse, bother, or be otherwise malevolent to. Well, you couldn't have everything in life.
But you could come quite close.
Grinning wickedly, he eyed the scribbling boy. He had nothing to do, and the class too silent. It needed a little noise. No one would mind…at least, Draco wouldn't. Twisting his fingers in an exotic movement with his wand, he watched as the skinny teenager sprouted a long, curling, hot pink moustache that clashed considerably with his hazel eyes. Draco laughed to himself and watched the clock to see how long it took for anyone to notice. Strumming his fingers against the wooden desk, he noticed other student's heads were slowly rising, drawn by the hot pink magnet. Blaise rolled her eyes at him and smirked before returning to her essay.
The boy didn't notice his silver-eyed gaze was on him until it was too late. Most of the class was now giggling and pointing, and several Hufflepuffs were staring in disbelief.
"What?" he asked, drawn out of his scribbling fervor. Then he saw the eyes. 'What did you do?" the little boy squeaked. He looks and sounds more like a mouse than a human, Draco thought bemusedly to himself. Shrugging his shoulders he eyed the poor kid with a look of Malfoy disdain, his lip curling. The boy gulped.
That was when all hell broke loose.
"Peter, what in the name—" another girl exclaimed as she noticed the pink newly-sprouted facial hair. Blaise glanced to her right, smiling wickedly as she admired the Hufflepuff's moustache and sniggered as his distress.
"I don't think hot pink suits him," she whispered in an undertone to Draco.
"Peter! What happened?" the blond, curly haired Hufflepuff cried over the ensuing commotion. The boy was biting his lip to keep back tears. Bloody Hufflepuffs. To overly emotional to be taken seriously. That was why they were so much fun to terrorize.
"I-I don't know," he stammered. Then he pointed to Draco. "H-he did it!" The girl turned to Draco. "What was the point of that?" she demanded. Draco donned a look of angelic innocence. The exaggerated puppy-dog look, ruined by a broad smirk, was anything but. It was, in fact, quite sexy.
"He's just a sour-faced git, Annie," the boy piped up. The moustache grew longer and curlier, putting a smile to Draco's face. His innocent look faded. Bloody Hufflepuffs.
"Little boys shouldn't taunt their superiors. Doing so may have…consequences," he said in a ridiculously high imitation of Peter. The boy's face reddened. Draco continued. "I don't know how you even got into this class." He stopped a moment. "And why I have to put up with you."
"You're a g-git, M-Malfoy," he blubbered, causing the moustache to grow even longer. "And I got in because I'm smart. Not because my dad paid for it."
Draco laughed. "You, smart? I'd have never believed it if you hadn't just told me."
"Binns! Professor Binns!" the girl, Annie, cried. The snoring ghost woke up, blinking his eyes blearily at the chaos that had ensued while he slept.
"My, my, what is all the fuss? Oh, Mr. Higgly, what happened?"
Draco sat back and enjoyed the show. The tearful Higgly, with much hiccupping and stuttering, spilled the story to Professor Binns while Annie, with many punctuated 'yes's and 'that's right, you tell him Peter's, clung to his arm. Sighing in a very ghostly way, Binns turned to Draco, who tried without success to put his grin in the trunk.
"Mr. Malfoy, you will have thirty points from Slytherin for your bad taste in jokes. Mr. Higgly, you may go to the infirmary. Class dismissed." The Professor fell back in his chair, a snore parting his transparent lips. Peter ran out of the room, silently sobbing.
Shrugging his shoulders, Draco stood up, stretched and left the room. It had been a very good class.
Emerging from the door, the first thing Ginny noticed as she chatted with Luna (about trees, no less) was the platinum hair of Draco Malfoy as he descended the stairs from Advanced Arithmancy. A cold sneer contorted his face. Not that that was any different than usual.
The first thing Luna noticed was Harry Potter. The second thing she noticed was the bright pink moustache of a bawling Hufflepuff. Tears streamed down the boys cheeks.
"Oh, my," Luna said absently. Ginny rolled her eyes as the blond girl continued gazed at Harry's emerald ones.
Ginny stopped in her tracks, causing the students behind her to run into her back.
"Watch it—" the person said. A scream entered through the hallway.
"Peter!" The blond from Arithmancy ran after her sobbing boyfriend. Her scream drew everyone's attention to her woe-begotten, pink mustached boyfriend. As if the hot pink hadn't.
Ginny, without realizing it, had put her wand away and rolled up her sleeves. Anger turned her cheeks red, and her brown eyes narrowed. Just hitting 5'5", she barely reached Malfoy's collarbone. She strode over to where he smugly stood at the bottom of the granite stairs. His eyes glinted as she stood in front of him, staring up at his silvery orbs.
"Hello, Red," he said silkily, determined to get the better of her. Her next reaction stung, though. Forgetting words, Ginny pulled back her arm and slapped his cheek as hard as she could. The blow landed with a cracking sound, whip lashing his head around.
"I didn't deserve that," he said sorely, rubbing the red handprint. She grinned. It had hurt.
"That's for what you did," she said tartly, sparks nearly flying from her eyes. She didn't know if it was for what he did to the Hufflepuff (who, though smart, lacked guts) or if it was his agonizing actions in potions. She just knew that he deserved it.
Leaning down, he stared her in the eyes.
"What did I do?" he asked innocently. Ginny exploded. The glint in his eye egged her on, his vanilla breath, smelling fresh but putrid, coming from his lips. She raised her hand to slap him again, but instead started yelling, spittle flying from her lips in her vehement frustration. The surrounding students went quiet. Her shouts and curses echoed throughout the airy hallway, ringing up stairs and resounding through rooms. Ginny didn't care. She didn't even notice, even though she realized the noise she was making would surely bring someone.
"What did you do? What did you do? I'll tell you what you did, you low down, arse-faced, son of a death eater murderer, bastard of a ferret—"
"Ms. Weasley!" a cry sounded from behind her. Ginny spun, dreading who she was going to see, but knowing she was there.
Immediately, students started yelling in her direction.
"It wasn't Ginny's fault, Proffessor—" Ruby cried.
"She was provoked—" Lavender yelled, along with the other attending students. Some Slytherins sat back and watched, but many continued walking.
Professor McGonagall strode up to her, speechless with amazement and fury. "Ms. Weasley, I expect more from you, no matter the circumstances. You should be ashamed. Twenty points from Gryffindor and detention Friday." Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but McGonagall cut in. "Hold your tongue." She turned around, expecting her to comply. Instead, Ginny, with a sinking stomach, called out to her retreating back.
"Professor—"
"What, Ms. Weasley?" McGonagall asked sharply, turning around.
"I already have detention Friday."
"Then next Friday. Come to my office then," and she left. With a sigh, Ginny left the scene; waving a mute goodbye to Luna, she left Ruby with her Lavender and walked quickly to the kitchen. She didn't feel like eating in the great hall, but that didn't mean she was going to starve. Belly grumbling, she made her way to the ticklish pear, disappearing into the kitchens without looking back.
YES! I used a Fiddler on the Roof quote from the Song "If I were a rich man". I couldn't help myself. The song has been playing in my head over and over and over and over again….
Review with your comments, por favor!!
Gilgaer