Chapter Twenty-Two: Leaving With Luna Lovegood

It was the last day of school and was probably the first time Luna did not have to hunt down any of her possessions at all. True to his word Ronald had kept people from stealing and hiding her things, even enlisting their friends to that end.

"Everything packed?" a soft voice asked.

Luna smiled softly as she shut her trunk, "Yes Julie…"

"Good. Can we talk, just us?"

"Okay…" Luna turned around to find Julie sitting down; she joined her.

"We, me and Ben, just want to make sure you're comfortable with coming home with us…"

"I am," Luna nodded quickly.

"You don't have to act okay if you're not." Julie said softly, seeing that the girl was not okay.

"I am."

"Luna…"

"Fine, I'm scared okay?" Luna admitted, sounding not so dreamy any more. Her father's death had stolen her distant self.

"Why?"

"I've never been amongst muggles for so long, and my friends all live in Britain and—"

Julie was smiling, "Oh Luna, hasn't anyone told you? The muggles in our hometown aren't really muggles—"

"What do you mean?" Luna said sharply. Either someone was a muggle or they weren't, unless it was a town of Squibs…

"The people of Bellwood, of the Earth, all know about aliens and we've managed to convince them that everything odd about any one of our people is really alien. Not magic. So you could conjure Big Ben in front of them and they'll shrug it off as alien tech. Only the people who already know magic exists will realize the difference between magic and alien tech." Julie chuckled, "As for your friends, well Ron has gotten permission to live with us for a few weeks, at least until you get settled in, and the fireplaces are connected to the Floo Network, except your bedroom one of course, Ben had an Owlery built so you can get Post still, the Weasleys and the Diggorys know how to use telephones and of course Hermione knows how to use them so you're not really going to be cut off from anyone—Hmph!" Julie was hit by a flying Luna hug.

"Awww," a voice called from above as Julie slowly asphyxiated in Luna's grasp, "You finally got a Flying Luna Hug! Okay Luna, let her go, she's turning blue…"

Luna let go quckly, letting Julie gasp for air.

"Now c'mon you two," Ron said amicably, "carriages are leaving soon." He was grinning as he escorted them down to the common room where they met up with the others.

Happily chatting, they made their way down to the carriages, caught two of them out to the train, loaded onto the train and found a big enough compartment to fit them all. As they settled in the train began pulling from Hogsmeade Station.

"So," Hermione asked as they were passing the wild mountains and meadows of Scotland, "what're you guys going to do over the Holidays?"

"Study." Harry, Draco, Ginny, Gwen, and Julie chorused together before laughing.

"Set up our business…" Fred and George replied together, "Finally got some backers for our shop…"

"And there's this perfect space in Diagon Ally—"

"Helping Dad with some work stuff." Cedric responded.

"I've been hired by TeenWitch," Ginny announced proudly, "several articles, good pay too!"

"I'm going to write Harry's biography," Hermione said happily to answer her own question before someone pose it to her, "with authorization from the Boy-Who-Lived himself."

"Yep." Harry nodded his agreement.

Quickly the hours passed by and suddenly they were pulling into King's Cross. Shrinking trunks, and pocketing them, and grabbing pets, they stumbled out onto the platform to find both the entire Tennyson and Weasley clan, including an on-the-mend but very scarred Bill and the ever lovely Fleur, the Grangers and Mister Diggory.

"Ready to go home kids?" Grandpa Max asked in a booming voice as soon as everyone was finished saying goodbyes…Ron had joined the Tennyson clan after saying his goodbyes and promising to write his family often.

"Sure!" the children chorused back happily and the large company apparated to their designated desolate spot where they Ship had brought the Rustbucket III for them to board.

Several muggles along the Atlantic coastline would report a large sonic boom coming out of the clear empty sky…

End