Author's Note: Combined request for Chalcedony Rivers, skyflyte12, Princess Schatje Dreamer, and personofnoconcern3000. Yume-chan, it's actually two of your numerous requests combined. Kindly note that the portrayal of Luna is only for parody purposes, and that her background story is not canon.

Take Ten

Luna clutched her wand in her hand tightly, staring at the letter on her table. It bore the unmistakeable stamp of the Ministry of Magic.

They had arrested Daddy.

The Ministry had taken her mother first. Selena Lovegood had been a happily married witch, working as an apprentice spell crafter under a notable master. Fearing the creation of new dangerous spells, the Ministry in Britain had issued a warrant for her arrest.

When the Aurors came for her, Selena was working on the final touches of the spell she had been planning to present as part of her thesis for her mastery. Panicking, she had accidentally deactivated the safety measures installed around the incomplete spell. The entire spell blew up in their faces.

Luna was in her room at the time, and was thrown out of the window by the force of the explosion. She was lucky to only require hospitalisation for six months. Everyone else died.

Now they wanted her father too.

Luna would never stand for that, and the Nargles would help her.

Together, they would teach that infestation what it meant to touch a Lovegood.

The bell rang to signal the start of the Fourth Year Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff Defence against the Dark Arts class. The students were already seated at their desks, chattering away noisily as they waited for their teacher to arrive.

A moment later, Luna breezed into the room. A few of them glanced up, and upon seeing that she was not a teacher, resumed their chatting. She smirked. Just the way she liked it.

Strolling past the teacher's desk, she slipped into her seat in the front row, and not a moment too soon, for Umbridge appeared almost instataneously, robes billowing behind her. She had obviously tried to learn Snape's intimidation techniques, except that she failed. Horribly. The billow looked more like a pathetic flap by a dying housefly.

"Hem hem," Umbridge opened her lecture with her favourite phrase.

The cacophony did not cease in the least.

Frowning, she tried again. "Hem hem."

"Where is Umbitch?" One of the students asked loudly. So loudly that, in fact, Professor McGonagall who just happened to be walking past the classroom had to smother a smile.

Umbridge fumed. How dare they mutilate her name!

"I don't think she's coming. Let's go!" With a cheer, the students rushed out of the classroom, eager to enjoy their newfound freedom.

"Excuse me!" Umbridge trilled shrilly. "I am right here! A hundred points from every student who dares to step out of those doors!"

Nobody stopped.

Angry now, Umbridge picked up her wand to cast a spell. Or tried to, anyway. Her hand went through the wand.

For a moment she stared stupidly at her fingers, fingertips actually disappearing through the table.

Experimentally, she wiggled her fingers. They slipped through the wood as though they had never been there.

Umbridge did what she did best: she screamed.

Except this time, no one else heard her.

After calming down, Umbridge came to her very obvious conclusion. She had passed on, like Professor Binns. Being a ghost, she could naturally no longer touch her belongings. It was completely, utterly natural. She even nodded her head, so immersed was she in her belief.

Then she remembered Nearly Headless Nick, whose head fell off every time he nodded too vigorously, and immediately stopped.

There remained one important question. When, exactly, had she had passed on?

She thought long and hard, but drew a blank. Certainly, she could touch things when she woke up that morning, and she had had breakfast, during which one of those horrible ghosts came through the table and terrified her into squeaking.

It must have been the shock, she decided. The sudden shock caused her heart to give way and her soul to leave her body and become a ghost, with her being none the wiser. Umbridge resolved to check the Great Hall for her deceased body at the earliest opportunity and to reassure those poor, frightened little children that their dearest Defence against the Dark Arts professor was still there.

Then a stray thought struck her.

"Wait, if I'm a ghost, why couldn't anyone else see me just now?"

She glanced down at herself again just to check. And did a double-take.

There was nothing there.

Frantic, Umbridge spun around twice, tripped over nothing and fell down – through the floor – and into the bathroom located below her classroom.

She stared into the bathroom mirror. Nothing stared back.

Umbridge stumbled through the entirety of Hogwarts castle in a daze, trying to find someone, anyone who could see her. There! There were a few ghosts up in front!

"Hello!" she yelled, waving her arms maniacally and generally acting like an insane asylum escapee.

The trio of ghosts ignored her.

Umbridge gaped. All the books said ghosts could see each other, even the newly-dead. Were the books wrong? No, no way, those books were published by the Ministry of Magic! There was no way they could be wrong!

Then – then that meant…

"You are a figment of my imagination," intoned the nearest ghost suddenly, before drifting off through a wall.

"Begone!" cried the other ghosts in unison. "Begone!"

Umbridge stood rooted to the ground.

A figment of someone's imagination… did that really exist?

Did she exist?

She was real, Umbridge reassured herself. She was real, because yesterday she had steak and kidney pie for dinner, and a glass of… of… as though blown away by the wind, her memories were vague and hazy.

The last thing she remembered was a pair of malevolent eyes staring down at her.

The next morning, Hogwarts awoke to find all the house points in the negatives.

Umbridge hummed dazedly, missed the dirty looks every teacher sent her. The scorebook kept by the school stated clearly that she had deducted every single one of those points.

Luna Lovegood smirked, sending off a letter bearing the signature – forged, of course – and stamp – stolen, of course – of the Undersecretary to the Minister denying the arrest of Xenophilius Lovegood. Daddy would have been so proud.