A/N So here it is: the real chapter one! I can't believe I actually wrote another chapter. I can't believe I actually continued a story. I can't believe I worked on this for way too long.

But hopefully you will enjoy it. And hopefully you will review it.. yes?

Thank you for reading and favoriting and reviewing etc etc… it boggles my mind that people actually see my stories and read them! Me? I'm so touched.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Jo is a goddess.

So when it seemed like the world had stopped turning and everyone else they knew slept, the seventh year boy and sixth year girl kept living, feeling like the only two people moving within the stillness. Maybe that's what night is for: as a pause from life. But Harry and Luna were two people who understood too strongly that life didn't pause for anyone. Who knew that insomnia could create such a strong bond? The connection forming was as inevitable as night itself.

With each passing night, their friendship deepened. Unnoticeable to Harry, his nighttime interaction with Luna soon began to affect his daytime relationship with her. Since he'd known her, if Harry ever saw Luna in between classes or eating in the Great Hall she'd smile at him and he'd greet her in return. Furthermore, it was typically Luna that noticed him first. Now after spending so much time together, he suddenly felt more.. aware of Luna. Harry found himself unconsciously seeking her out in the hallways, hoping for a glimpse of yellow-blonde hair. He'd never intentionally sought her out before now. Also unlike before, whenever he found himself running into her, he would stop and chat for a bit, much to the surprise of Ron and Hermione.

The change in Harry and Luna's relationship did not go unnoticed by his friends or the rest of the general Hogwarts population. Of course, Harry and Luna didn't broadcast that they spent most their nights together (not together together). Such declarations would only lead to nasty gossip and possible punishment from any faculty that found out (Professors could pretend that they didn't participate in the rumour mill all they wanted.. they weren't fooling anyone.). After all, people were already asking, "Why is Potter hanging around Loony?" Perhaps ignorant and offensive reactions such as this were also a reason that Harry never denied his closeness to Luna. She had gone with him to the Department of Mysteries and battled death eaters with him- of course Harry considered her a friend! He had never tried to hide his friendship with Luna since that (stupid) first meeting aboard the train when he was trying to impress Cho Chang. Things had changed drastically since then; not only was Luna a friend, but now she was one of the people Harry felt closest to in the whole castle.

He had never meant to reveal so much to her, but with Luna, his thoughts (many of which he never knew he had) seemed to flow from him easily. Something about her quiet presence encouraged him to think about what he truly felt. And for that, Harry was grateful.

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Harry, Ron and Hermione were spending Saturday at their unofficial table in the library, working on their potions essays. They'd been at Hogwarts for over a month now, and as the readjustment period back into school life ended, their amount of seventh year class work had piled up significantly... at least for Ron and Harry. Hermione, of course, never fell behind if she could help it.

"Just a heads up, Luna might join us later," Harry mentioned as he continued to unpack some parchment and quills out of his rucksack. He was completely oblivious to the meaningful glance Ron and Hermione shared at his casual forewarning.

"Luna.. you don't say.." Hermione uttered to no one in particular. She then whispered so that only Ron could hear, "If they start snogging, we are leaving."

Ron coughed loudly; Harry could've sworn that he was covering up a laugh.

Harry halted in his organization of study materials and looked up at his best friends. With the couple sitting on one side of the table and Harry on the other, one might've compared the arrangement to an interrogation scene.

"What?" asked Harry confused, having missed the private joke between the two.

"Nothing, Harry," Hermione responded busily. She scribbled more lines onto her parchment. Although her eyes remained glued to her work, she kept smiling to herself in a way only piqued Harry's curiosity. It didn't help that Ron was also grinning like an idiot. Harry could've ignored them, he decided, but he didn't like the idea of being the butt of one of their inside jokes.

"Alright, what are you two on about?" Harry demanded, his eyes narrowing slightly. He took turns to stare at them both, but Hermione held her tongue. Ron, however, just shrugged at him.

"Nothing really, mate. You and Luna have been spending a lot of time with each other," Ron said matter-of-factly, leaning back on the hind legs of his chair, "it's natural that you want to spend some.. errr.. quality time with her in the daylight, as well."

Harry did not have the chance to respond because Hermione cried out indignantly, "That is not what I meant, Ron!", finally putting her essay down to glare at the redhead. "That's not what I meant, Harry," she said more calmly.

Harry could only blink at her, completely bewildered, while Ron raised a haughty eyebrow.

"W-well what I meant," Hermione sputtered not-too-gracefully, "or what I was thinking, Harry, was that it only made sense that you invited Luna to join us since you've become such good friends."

"Well, that's what I just told him, isn't it?" responded Ron. "Did I not just say that, Harry?"

"But you made it sound so.. indecent," Hermione replied before Harry could chime in, her cheeks turning slightly pink.

"I did not," Ron protested smugly, "Just because you've got an absolutely filthy mind..." Ron looked at Harry and motioned his thumb towards the blushing girl. "Obsessed with sex," he mouthed and the shook his head in mock sadness.

"I have not got a filthy mi—oh nevermind! Just shut up and do your homework."

"Wait, wait. Hold on," Harry interjected, still slightly confused, but undeterred, by the sidetrack in conversation, "You're right: Luna is my good friend now and that's why I've invited her, but I don't understand why this is so funny to the two of you?"

"It's not funny, Harry," Hermione tried to explain further.

"Of course it's not 'funny'," Ron assured him. "We'd never consider your love life 'funny', mate."

Hermione elbowed Ron sharply in the shoulder at the same time Harry exclaimed, "LOVE LIFE?"

"Shhhhh!" admonished Madam Pince from the front desk. The three of them sent an apologetic glance her way.

Ron was rubbing his arm and frowning at Hermione. Her tactic, however, was to pretend that the previous conversation never happened and was ignoring the two of them while unnaturally engrossed in her textbook. Or, at least, as unnatural as Hermione could look while reading a textbook.

"I'm not in love with Luna," Harry whispered loudly.

"Well, not yet," teased Ron.

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione berated in a voice that clearly meant 'drop-the-subject'. "Harry, whether or not you're in love with Luna isn't our business anyways." She returned to her paper.

"No it's not," agreed Harry, still slightly miffed about the whole conversation. In love with Luna? Definitely not. He just didn't see her in that light.. never thought of her in that way. Sure, he could understand how Luna could be considered pretty. He supposed the only reason more of his classmates didn't pay attention to her was due to her ..erm, loony reputation- spectrespecs and crumpled-horned snorcacks were enough to scare any teenage boy, muggle or magical, away.

Luna was his friend, nothing more.

The three of them continued to work in silence for a while before Ron asked, "So, are you sure you don't fancy her a little bit?" Harry looked up from the paragraph he had been rereading for the past five minutes. He thought this conversation had ended. Harry expected some sort of reprimanding from Hermione telling Ron not to pry, but she, surprisingly, remained silent. With that bloody amused look on her face.

"I think I'd know if I fancied her 'a little bit'," Harry replied in a bored voice, trying to refocus on the healing properties of the peppermint roots. His friend snorted at that statement, but not the friend he expected. Both Harry and Ron looked at the Head Girl in surprise.

"Well, well. Someone's feeling rather cheeky today," Ron commented, a hint of admiration detectable in his voice.

She blushed once again, but pretended to not to hear Ron. "But would you really know if you fancied her or not? Let's be serious, Harry. Women can't understand what men are thinking half of the time because men themselves don't even know what they're feeling."

Ron listened to her words and nodded. "She's got a point, mate."

"And maybe you're not in love with Luna" Hermione continued slowly, paying no attention to Ron's interjection, "but you have to admit you have a certain fondness for her. Maybe it's not fancying her, but there's something there-"

"That's right: something there. Growing and flourishing. Like a mimbulus mimbly-whatsit.." Ron dramatically pantomimed a blooming flower with his hands.

"-and maybe the only time the idea will really hit you," Hermione suggested, still ignoring Ron, "is when it's unexpected. Like a bludger."

"Merlin's beard... sauciness and quidditch references. All in one day. It's like she's a different witch," Ron remarked. He stared at her in awe and tugged one of her curls, as if he were testing whether or not she was real. She just batted his hand away and rolled her eyes.

"But the part that you're forgetting," Harry added, determined to throw his two knuts in, "is that we're talking about Luna Lovegood. With the radishes and the x-ray glasses and the blibbering humdingers—"

"The what?" Ron interrupted.

"You know.. blibbering humdingers?" Harry looked expectantly at the two of them. "They're morning sprites that communicate at really high frequencies so that humans can't hear," he explained without thinking. "So it actually sounds like a fuzzy ringing in your ears and that why so many people are in a foul mood when they…"

Ron and Hermione were just staring at him.

"—when they wake up," Harry finished lamely. Maybe he did know a little too much about Luna's strange creatures. "Anyways, the point is that I don't see her that way and never will," he emphasized. "Luna is just a friend. Friend."

All talk of Luna and Harry's relationship was dropped and the three students continued to work diligently on their homework assignments. However, Hermione couldn't help but notice that Harry seemed to have crossed out and rewritten the same sentence three times, and Ron observed that every two minutes or so, Harry would unconsciously look up at the library doors.

They shared another smirk.

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