Author's Note: I'm a dirty, filthy, no good liar. But for the extreme lateness of this chapter, I have a few good reasons, so hear me out, please. First, my old computer turned into a dirty skank and every single time I tried to turn it on, it would go to a blue screen. So this partially completed chapter, along with many word documents and my iTunes weren't backed up and lost forever to the evil machine now sitting beside my dresser. Shoots evil glare at the thing. Then, after I'd done my best to retype the part I'd gotten done, I got writer's block. And I'm in my school's summer play and I have one of the leads, and this week is what the directors call 'Hell Week', which is completely appropriate. I'm trying my friends, I really am.
Luna's POV
Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant. Here I was, in detention tomorrow, with a crush on Harry Potter. Lovely job Luna. Really. I sighed and laid down on my bed. The other Ravenclaw girls who shared my dormitory with me glared and whispered to each other. I ignored them and rolled over on my side. My eyes rested on my butterbeer cap necklace. I hadn't worn it in a while.
I remember when I started it. I'd been seven years old and I was sitting in the garden with my mum watching the sun set. We were sitting on a soft blue blanket and drinking butterbeers. I'd stated to my mother that sun sets were very pretty, but they only happened once a day, and they were gone all too soon. She'd smiled at me and asked what I thought wouldn't go too soon, but was very pretty. I wasn't sure at first. Then I plucked up my bottle cap from the blanket and showed her.
"These," The seven year old me had declared, "Are lovely. And they won't go away under a horizon." And after that the bottlecap necklace had begun. I lifted the necklace from my bedside table and put it on around my neck. I finally managed to curl up and fall asleep.
I awoke the next morning in a completely different position at the opposite end of the bed, but my fingers were wrapped around the necklace. I didn't wake up entirely by my own choice. I awoke to a loud "Loooooooony Lovegood!" Being screeched into my ear. I heard the chatter of other girls as they awoke as well.
I narrowed my eyes and saw Peeves floating beside me. He blew a raspberry at me. I exhaled noisily. "Peeves," I began tiredly. "Please tell me you did not barge in here and wake up everyone in the dorm room for the sake of throwing half-baked insults at me."
He looked at me like I was crazy. Like that was anything new, really. The other girls tittered about the oddness of me before falling back asleep. I stared at the clock I had charmed onto the ceiling above me.
6:03 am. What a terrible time to be awoken at. Breakfast at the Great Hall wouldn't start until at least 7:00. I flopped over. At this point in time I realized it was utterly pointless to keep up with the pretense of sleeping. I wasn't tired anymore. I sat up, closed the curtains around the bed and dressed into my school clothes quietly. I slipped my wand behind my ear and pulled my hair back so it wouldn't be in my face all day long. I took my school bag with me in case I decided to go straight to breakfast after exploring around a bit, and walked out of the Ravenclaw common room. The knights in armor in front of the door greeted me with a sleepy 'Ello, Luna.' I said hello back and continued my journey quietly.
I shuffled my way along the corridor, unsure of where to go, exactly. After turning a few corners and spying what I was sure was a flying knaper, I ended up at a dead end. At least, what appeared to be one. I walked slowly toward the wall, thinking of the wall in front of platform 9 ¾. I gingerly pressed on the wall. I turned to go after it did nothing, but my robe (which was a little too long for me) brushed the bottom bricks of the wall, and noiselessly, half of the door slid up. I began to duck under it, but something stopped me. What if the wall slid down behind me and I was trapped? What if there was something… someone there? I couldn't just simply go alone, that was idiocy. Not insanity, something everyone seemed to be sure I was so familiar with, but sheer idiocy.
As aware of this idiocy as I was, a huge part of me wanted to go through the door and see what the other side of the room held. I straightened up and the door slid back down. I made a mental note of where I was and turned around, prepared to go to the Great Hall and wait until breakfast was served. While walking along a path my feet knew so well, I fancied myself an observer outside of my own body. I seemed to be different than others, my mind relying mostly on my Id, but I still had my morals very much in tact, thank you. But I found myself observing my mind rather than making my decisions for it. For example, liking Harry Potter. That was most definitely something my psyche had decided for itself. I couldn't help it.
I didn't realize that I was at the Great Hall until I ran into the door and fell backwards on my buttocks.
Lovely, Luna. I thought to myself. Really, just bloody lovely I sat there for another moment, gathering my thoughts before beginning to pick myself up off the floor. I stopped in the process however because of hearing an unpleasantly familiar voice.
"You know," said the drawling tone, "No one is going to help you up. There's no use waiting around for help." I could hear the sneer in the words. The simple cold sounds of the voice made me see pictures of icicles and cold, swirling fog in my head. Sometimes when a voice has enough character and I'm in the right state of mind, I picture the tone of voice a person has in my head.
"Thank you for the tip, Draco." I responded politely. I refrained from telling him that I was attempting to get up before he rudely made his comments to me. I really was beginning to dislike him, but I didn't want to snap at him in case he was simply trying to offer me some advice. I got up off the floor, not really paying any heed to him. To my surprise, he gathered up my books that had slipped out of my bag and held the mentioned books and bag in his arms. He started walking as if he expected me to follow him. "You have my books." I told him, surprised that he'd forgotten so quickly.
"I know," He informed me coolly, "I'd like you to walk into the Great Hall with me while I talk to you about a proposition, and I figured that you wouldn't talk to me without something in it for you."
"But… They're my books," I was mildly shocked that he'd take my books, "I need my school things."
"Exactly. I knew you wouldn't talk to me without a bribe." Draco said this with a smirk on his face.
"I'm not a Slytherin, you know," I was confused at my own sharp retort, but I continued, "I don't always need an enticement to simply be spoken to." Draco actually laughed at my response.
"So, there's a new Hogsmeade date posted, if you noticed."
"I didn't." I turned my head to look at him as we walked into the Great Hall. He seemed a little puzzled by my quick response.
"Ah, well… there is one. And I reasoned that someone with the least bit of common sense, which, surprisingly enough includes you, would want to come with me." I waited a moment before deciding how to respond.
"May I have my books back?" I had to ask first. He handed them to me, slightly leering. "Honestly, I don't want to."
He looked surprised. And angry. Coldly he asked, "And, why, may I ask, would that be?" For such an arrogant jerk, he could be very polite when he wanted to be.
"I don't like you. At all. As a person, as a friend, as a romantic figure. You're rather bigheaded and rude to some of my good friends. I don't like it, and once again, I don't like you." Draco looked furious at me and he opened his mouth, presumably to say something cruel to me.
However, his sentence was interrupted by the doors banging open and floods of students beginning to pour into the Hall. I let myself blend into the crowd and wound up sitting at the Gryffindor table, next to a few fifth years I didn't know. They looked at me rather oddly. I sort of felt like an idiot, but, well, I didn't honestly care if I looked like an idiot. I mean, what I'd done was quite clever. Draco was not one to simply walk up the Gryffindor table just for the hell of it. Even if he did notice me there, I doubted whatever else he wanted to say to me wasn't nearly important enough to approach a table full of people who loathed him.
"Luna?" I heard a voice call me coming from further down the table I was at.
"Hello, Ginny." I said to my red haired friend like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. As if I sat there everyday and didn't figure she'd think anything about it.
"What're you doing over here?" She waved me over to a seat next to her, which I gladly took. Much the relief of the fifth years around me.
I looked at her a little uncertain before answering her question, "Well, I was sitting here." I thought that was the answer she was looking for. I didn't really think too much deeper into it. She just laughed and took that for my answer. A few seconds of comfortable silence after that, Neville Longbottom passed behind both of us, headed for a seat a little farther down the table. I presumed he was going to sit alone, but that didn't seem right for him. Neville was the type who needed to be included. I could be okay being a loner, but Neville needed friends. I got my resolve and called to the boy who used to be slightly afraid of me. "Neville?" I called, hoping my voice was appealing enough to get him to stop. "Would you like to sit by Ginny and I?"
He turned a funny shade of red after looking at Ginny. Who, coincidentally was looking at me like she wanted to drown me in the glass of pumpkin juice in front of her. "Uh, well, um, sure!" He turned and walked, only a little clumsily to us and sat across from Ginny and I. I smiled at him and he returned it, a little less tentatively than he normally would have. "Thanks."
"No problem," Ginny said in a slightly higher voice than usual. Not that most people would notice. They had a few short moments of awkward conversation until really getting into a good talk about their new teachers and classes. I took that as my cue to leave and slip back to the Ravenclaw table. As I got up and began walking to my House's table, my eyes locked with the gaze of a certain emerald haired young man with shaggy black hair. I smiled at him and then looked up toward the ceiling/sky in hopes to distract myself. Which didn't work.
Stupid ceiling must be broken or something.
Later that night I walked slowly down to the dungeons, dreading my upcoming attention. Not to say that my walk down wasn't interesting. I counted cracks in the stones on the way down and started imagining how each crack got there. I was so into a story I was imagining about a girl with an abnormally large left pinky toe that I rammed into the door leading to Snape's office. After taking a moment to gather myself and my thoughts, I pushed open the door. Snape sat in an aged old chair behind his old, rotting desk looking rather amused. I assumed he'd realized that I'd collided with the door.
"Lovely to see you on time Ms. Lovegood," He said sarcastically. I bit back a rude retort and busied myself by looking at other's in the room with my same unfortunate fate of detention with Snape.
There were two Ravenclaws, one with a very square jaw and… Harry. Damn. He actually looked happy to see me and smiled at me. Feeling uncharacteristically shy I blushed slightly and returned the smile.
Snape spoke to the occupants of his room and broke the moment between us. "Tonight, you will all be cleaning out the jars of the animals and potion ingredients in my classroom and office, refilling them with the appropriate liquids and putting the animals and ingredients back in your jars. With no magic."
I grimaced. This was to be a disgusting job. I tried my best to look on the Brightside, maybe this would be a great learning experience for an investigative reporter. Still, I couldn't help but shudder as I looked at the things in jars, most of which I had no idea of what they were.
"I want you all to make sure every last jar is appropriately cleaned. The right liquids for specific animals are in that cupboard, and a list of what liquid goes with what animal or potion ingredient is on my desk." He then swept out of his room, leaving us with this gruesome task. The two Ravenclaws moaned as soon as he left and tittered to each other. Suddenly the door opened with a bang, and Professor Snape walked into the room. In a silky and cold voice he informed us that there was to be no talking. And that he'd know if we did.
Harry was the first one to get a jar. He slowly walked up to it and picked a purple jar with something jelly like suspended into it. I followed suit and soon after the Ravenclaws did too. We all got our cleaning supplies and looked at each other, unsure of what to do. Finally, I gathered up my courage and opened my jar. A putrid scent filled the room. We all moaned in disgust and recoiled. After a few moments, the square jawed Ravenclaw opened her jar. Instead of the scent of my jar overbearing hers, it only added to the disgusting stench. Harry and the other Ravenclaw opened there jars and the smell got worse. We all dumped our jars contents in the bucket we'd each been provided and started cleaning them out. It was a truly revolting duty. I glanced up at Harry, and to my embarrassment, he was looking at me. We both shot our gazes down quickly.
An hour and a half later I kept stealing looks at Harry, and sometimes, he'd catch me. The smell was much worse, even if it didn't seem impossible to get any more repulsive. We were about three fourths of the way done with the jars, but I'd learned to breathe in through my mouth, but it still got to me. The square jawed Ravenclaw finally turned and vomited from the stink. We stood there, unsure of what to do. Harry began walking to her with his wand, probably to clean it by magic, but Snape walked in to check our progress. He saw the girl, and disgusted, he cleaned the vomit with a muttered 'Scourgify' and sent her on her way.
"I'd hurry with that cleaning if I were you," Snape said to us all coldly, but it seemed he was enjoying himself. I saw Harry glare at him. But he kept cleaning, as did we. Exactly 31 minutes later, we finished and hurried to put everything back in order. We then left, knowing our work was done without checking in with Professor Snape. When I walked out into the corridor, it was like being reborn. The clean smell was amazing. The other Ravenclaw sped off, not wanting to be around me any longer, I presume, but Harry stayed by me and smiled.
"Hey, Luna," He said. He sounded a little nervous to me, but I was probably imagining that.
"Hello," I started, "That was… disgusting."
"Oh my God," He rolled his eyes, "Only Snape would think up such a disgusting punishment." I smiled at him. Then, slowly I looked at him in horror. "What?" He was alarmed, "What's wrong?"
"No, don't be upset. I just need you to… smell me. I'm afraid I smell like that dreadful place."
Harry blushed and looked down. "If-If you need me to I will, I guess." He stepped a little closer to me and took the material around my neck and brought it to his nose. This brought us into rather close proximity. "Y-you don't smell like the room."
"Are you sure?" I was worried that I'd keep up my housemates with the smell, and I really didn't want to deal with them at the moment.
"Yeah," He smiled at me and looked into my eyes. "You smell good." Harry was still holding onto my robe, although I wasn't bothered very much. I found myself staring into his eyes, which were almost hypnotic. I was a little frightened of the fluttery feeling I was getting in my stomach and my lightheadedness. But in a good way, I suppose. I felt myself start to blush (really, this was very odd.)
"Thanks," I said, my voice coming out weaker than I'd meant. He moved his hand up my neck and under my jaw and took another step closer to me. My breathing was becoming slightly shallow from his closeness and I felt my knees getting weak, much like in the romance novels Ginny had always told me about. Harry smiled at me a little and leaned his head in a little. I thought he was going to kiss me. I knew I wouldn't mind. At all. But, as fate would have it I heard the stumbling walk of Filch and we sprang apart. We wouldn't be in trouble because we'd just had detention, but if we were caught in that position, we'd be in a ton of trouble. "I've got to get to my House, I told him."
"Me too," Harry said, looking sheepish. "Night!" He walked the other way, anxious to get away from the slightly awkward situation. I went to my dormitory in a slight trance. Which, of course was a bad idea because I'd walked into a few walls and statues on my way. I got to the Ravenclaw housing quarters, banged up, confused and lightheaded. But… I couldn't help but feel slightly giddy as I went to bed and thought about seeing Harry the next morning at breakfast.
I was in way over my head, and I didn't seem to mind.
I'm done, I'm sorry this is late and short but I'm so tired and I've got to go to rehearsal soon and I just want to sleep. Please review if you're still interested. And I will try to write longer chapters, and update sooner. I love you reviewers, you all rock my world so hard. Thank you all so much for your support, and if I've forgotten to reply to you, I'm so sorry, I will on your next review. Hint, please review?