Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any associated characters.

A/N: Welcome to the third chapter of Loopy Lovegood

Personal disclaimer:

I do not have any beta readers for this story so spelling and grammatical errors are unavoidable. If you find any, you are very welcome to send me a PM pointing it out.

English isn't my first language, so any corrections on that front are very welcome as well

Chapter 3: Dumbledore's Folly

Harry, Sunday morning, The Leaky Cauldron

Harry could not remember the last time he had slept so well. He was currently sitting down in the pub eating a large breakfast together with the Lovegoods. Luna looked even happier today if that was even possible, possibly because it had turned out to be real and not some cruel dream. Harry was afraid that if her smile became any wider she might hurt her face.

For Harry's part things were a little muted this morning, he was starting to get nervous about the meeting with Dumbledore. Some of the things Luna had been talking about yesterday scared him quite a bit, especially things about Dumbledore, The Greater Good and the Department of Mysteries. It sounded like that was a rather unpleasant experience, and if he messed up the meeting with Dumbledore it could be not just his fate for years, but Luna's as well. Pitting his occlumency skills against legilimency from someone like Dumbledore would be a disaster, and Hermione would probably not escape either.

Luna looked at him seeing him fret in his seat; she smirked at him before finishing off her remaining egg. "Daddy, we are going up to the room until Headmaster Dumbledore gets here."

Xenophilius just waved the kids off as he shuffled through the stack of articles in front of him looking for one to put on page three.

Luna entered the room first walking into the middle, as Harry closed the door. Luna spoke with her back to him. "Harry..." Pausing for a moment before she turned towards him and in almost a whisper, "I'm sorry," as she looked him in the eyes.

Harry found himself in his mind; it was unlike anything he had experienced before. When Snape had used legilimency on him, he had still been outside and just felt the presence in his mind. This was something entirely different.

He was standing in the middle of a large area; memories of all sorts were drifting over the ground with a silvery mist like appearance. He stepped into one of the floating mists of silver. Harry saw himself sit on a chair in the middle of the tent they had used after they had been fleeing, sorrow painted in his features and he was watching Hermione crying in her sleep on the bed a few yards away.

Harry quickly left the memory again, wandering amongst all the floating memories. He noticed a mist drifting a few yards away; it was more translucent than the rest. Poking his head inside, he saw himself standing with a drop of blood running down his forehead as a blonde girl was trying to hug the life out of him. Recognizing it as the previous day, Harry mused that it probably was what Luna had told him about previous memories being clearer. The images he had just seen had contained many details but he had to concentrate to notice things, unlike the tent where he had noticed everything. From the pattern on the rug, to how a stray lock of hair draped over Hermione's face was wet from tears.

"Harry!" Luna's voice echoed through the area, Harry turned towards the source of the voice and began walking in that direction. A short while later he arrived at a large translucent purpled tinted barrier. Luna was standing on the over side, smiling at him. She clasped her hands together behind her and took a step back looking upwards at the edge of the barrier, letting out a small whistle.

"Impressive, for occlumency." She looked at Harry again. "Superfluous, but impressive none the less."

"Luna, what is going on?" Harry was at a loss at what was happening.

Luna just flashed him a smile. "Oh, we are getting ready to meet Mr. Greater Good shortly. I'm going to help you hide things until you learn to yourself." Letting out a small sigh before she continued. "Unfortunately when I do this I will probably experience a few of your memories and fantasies; I wanted to make sure that it was okay before I started."

Harry looked hesitant.

"I have seen most of them, or a version similar already; there is nothing to be embarrassed about. Even the one with Hermione wearing just that red bow with the gold trimmings." Luna was pointing at a silver mist that was now inching towards the barrier after she had mentioned it.

Harry turned to look at the mist moving forward slowly. How he managed to blush like that in his own mind, he did not know, but his ears and face felt like they were on fire.

Luna just gave him a cheeky grin. "You know, you always have that one." Shaking her head a little before she continued. "Well there was that one time where someone slipped you a love potion. The fantasy had Ginny wearing just a Chudley Cannons scarf she had stolen from her brother."

Harry sputtered; he felt a little ill at the mental image of the girl he considered a sister. "I did not need that mental image."

Luna just replied in her usual dreaming voice. "I didn't either, but here we are."

Harry nodded, still a little green from the mental image. "Have you been making a habit of reading my mind in the other loops Luna?"

Luna slumped in defeat, it was something she would rather not talk about, but it was a good idea to get it out of the way. Real trust could only be built on truth. "Well since I found out that it reset when you died I thought it might have something to do with you. After I learned to read minds I started reading everyone for a long while to figure out exactly what was going on."

Harry could hear the slight tremble in Luna's voice, he could almost feel the apprehension radiating off her. He recognized the tone of voice it was the same as he had so often when at the Dursley's. Responding to the tripe that came out of Vernon's mouth afraid of being struck or punished. Luna was obviously afraid of his response, he couldn't let that stand. He would never let something like be held against either of his best friends. The only trouble was that Harry was terrible at how to handle feelings. That Hermione and Luna were the only reason he couldn't be called completely emotionally stunted was not lost on him in the situation. He tried to think of what Hermione would do in this situation, an idea struck him, it would have to do for now until he could get Hermione to help with easing the fears of their best friend.

He would take a page out of Hermione's playbook as it certainly worked on him, when he was starting to go into a bout of fear and insecurities. Of course, with a slight change, it wouldn't do if he tried to hug Luna while saying "Oh, Harry!" He ran towards the ranting girl, through the purple barrier, hoping to stop her ranting before she got herself too worked up on self-doubt and insecurities. He stretched his arms out to try to hug her, his hand brushed her shoulder and he stopped.

The black floor and the inky darkness that clung to everything disappeared, he looked behind him, the purple barrier and the silver mists were gone. His mind didn't register the new surroundings at all as he whipped his head back around to look at Luna. She looked terrified, looking back and forth between his hand and his face. Harry looked around to take in the strange sudden change of surroundings. They were standing on a hill covered in grass, the gentle sounds of a small creek were filling the air, and he could make out the tree in the distance and the roof of a house on the other side of the hill.

Looking back at Luna, he managed to stammer out a "Wha-"

Luna just stared at him for a moment then shrugged. As her shoulders came back down the hand Harry had on her shoulders broke contact and they found themselves sitting in the inn room again.

Harry watched as Luna sat with a vacant stare for a moment, before regaining her composure and started frowning. Harry almost burst out laughing at the frown, he had seen it often during their sixth year while they were working on plans to rid the world of Voldemort, it did however look for a lack of a better term, cute on the ten-year-old version of her. It usually meant she was in full on serious mode, something that did not happen often. The fact that she had been dumbstruck for a moment worried Harry a little, Luna was always unflappable.

After a few minutes, Harry decided to break the silence. "Luna, what just happened and what was that place?"

"I don't know how, but you entered my mindscape. Deep into it, even. It's definitely something we have to look into at a later time, for now we are in a hurry, the headmaster is arriving soon."

Harry felt that didn't really answer anything, but he was too nervous about the meeting with Dumbledore to argue, they were indeed in a hurry.

Luna let out a sigh "Once again, sorry, this will be even more unpleasant since we're in even more of a hurry now." As she looked up and caught Harry's eyes.

They were once more standing in the black on black place with the silver mists. Harry moved towards the barrier where Luna had been the last time.

Luna noticed him and gave him a small wave. "We need to do something about this barrier first, it won't do if Mr. Greater Good finds occlumency barriers on someone never taught." Luna walked up to it, and looked at it with her eyes narrowed for a moment. She then poked the barrier with a single finger, it shifted and shimmered, before becoming a purple tinted glass only to shatter into tiny pieces moments later.

Luna noticed the concerned look on Harry's face. "Don't worry, I will show you and Hermione how I do it later so you have the bare minimum ready for Hogwarts to fight off Snape."

Harry relaxed a little; Luna's methods had a certain elegance that the brute force from Snape and the subtle poking of Dumbledore lacked. "Going to remove the barriers of Hermione as well then?"

Luna grinned. "She knows occlumency as well? That is cool, it has always only been you that's been taught. Not to mention that barrier was a lot better than what I've seen."

Harry felt a little embarrassed at the praise. "Well Hermione felt it was a good idea for both of us to learn so we spent a lot of time working on it."

"Well that is great; it will speed up things once we get started later. Now, this will probably feel uncomfortable."

Luna's presence expanded, it was as if she was filling her mind and his head was starting to feel like an overfilled balloon.

All the mists started to float towards two different points. Once everything has stopped moving, the massive presence withdrew back into the body of Luna. She waved her hand to get him to move closer. "Okay, I've divided your memories up, that bunch over there is what you had experienced before this day in the original time around for you. The other stuff is future memories and stuff together with Hermione and me the last two days."

Harry was look in wonder for a moment before Luna continued. "Now we're going to do some things to explain how we meet. You cannot change memories, to do so would be to change the person. Which is why Obliviate is such a heinous spell, you're basically erasing parts of a personality."

Luna waved her hand and a mist zoomed to the spot in front of them. Harry poked his head in for a moment before withdrawing and looked at Luna in puzzlement. "Luna that memory hasn't happened yet, it didn't happen until after I had been accepted into Hogwarts."

"Oh that doesn't matter, there are nothing that indicates time in it, so as long as we place it correctly in the outward chronological order it would seem real, since you have been in here and are aware of it, it will not affect your personality. That wasn't really why I wanted to show you that specific memory however." She once more waved her hand and the mist flew into the group with the future memories again.

Luna withdrew a silver strand from her head, it rapidly expanded to a mist as soon as she let go. Harry went into the memory. It was the same as the one, she had just shown him; he briefly wondered how she had that memory as he watched it unfold.

Harry was hiding in a small bush near a playground, he could hear Dudley and his cronies in the distance, they were looking for him. Harry had gotten good at hiding so he wouldn't get beat up by his cousin. Minutes passed, then a light voice from behind startled him and he was about to bolt. "They are gone now."

Young Harry turned around and saw a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes looking at him with a smile. "You playing hide and seek?"

Harry looked around for his cousin to make sure he was truly gone. "Err, not really."

"Oh, it did not look like they wanted to play either. Do you want to play?" As the girl held out a hand to help him out of the bush.

Harry eyed the hand suspiciously, it was rather small and was attached to a small girl, he supposed that it wouldn't hurt to take it to get back on his feet. The two spent much of the afternoon playing on the otherwise empty playground, eventually ending up with him pushing her on the swing set.

The girl was squealing with delight, urging him to push harder. Then it happened, he kept pushing even after his hands had left her back. Howling with laughter the girl launched herself off the swing when it was at its highest, landing several yards away.

She turned and looked at him with wide eyes. Harry flinched; he was prepared to be called a freak, like he always did when something like that happen. Instead, something happened that Harry had never experienced, the girl ran to him and gave him a big hug. His ears hurt a little from the now ranting voice now in close proximity to his eat which were a tad louder than normal speech. "You're like me! Well not exactly, you're a wizard! I'm a Witch, I haven't met many kids who were also magic. Want to be my friend?"

Harry stood frozen. That was two firsts for him. He had never been hugged before. Just as important, he had never had a friend before.

The girl pulled back, holding his shoulders at arm's length, and then shot him a puppy dog look. Harry had never been hit with one of those before, there was no defense, and there was only one answer to the question. "Yes, I would like that."

The two sat talking for a bit before the girl had to leave, promising Harry that she would come and visit him the next day, and getting the address to the place he lived, which was how he described it, he lived there, but it was never a home.

Harry withdrew from the memory, finding himself next to a smiling representation of Luna. "I never experienced that. That was from my point of view, how could you have something like that, or more importantly why would you have a memory like that?"

Luna just looked at him. "Because that memory is precious to me, it was the first loop after the first time around where I managed to become friends with the three of you even though I was in another house."

Harry blinked. "Three?"

"Yes, Hermione, Ron and you of course." She trailed off. "Oh that is right, I forgot that Ron died in the second year, it was the only time. Usually when he died early, he drowned during the Tri-Wizard tournament. The three of you are amazingly hard to become friends with; I've managed to do so exactly four times if you don't count my original trip through it all."

Harry was about to apologize, but was cut off. "Don't you dare apologizing for that, it wasn't you."

Luna pulled out the memories from the last two days. As the mists had all gathered in front of them, they all split into two, with one of the new pairs going back to the area containing the time travel related ones.

Luna started modifying the memories; Harry snuck a peak at one of the modified ones. It was the one from the previous morning, she had removed the exchange about recognizing her, and it appeared that she had hugged him because he had been hurt instead.

"Why did you split them all in two?"

"Didn't split them, I duplicated them. Cannot modify memories without changing a person, I'd rather not change you, so instead I've made doubles to change, you will keep the original ones, and the new changed ones will be in the package that Mr. Greater Good will have access to." As she stopped waving her hands about at the various mists, she shooed them back to the area with the memories from the before the current date.

"This will hurt Harry, but then we're done." Luna's presence started to fill his mind again, when it felt like his head was about to burst, she started again. The silver mists related to the time travel started compressing, they seemed to cling together and became smaller and smaller. Luna held out her hand and the mists compressed and solidified into a small tin-soldier in her palm. She summoned a mist and went into it. Harry followed her.

It was one of the memories of being in the cupboard. Luna placed the Tin-soldier on the shelf between the two; he had stolen from Dudley many years ago. It was one of those old-timey toys, the bitch and her dog gave him. Dudley never took notice of them missing, as he had no use for what he called old crap.

"Right that takes of that, since the memories are still there, you are still you, but they are hidden so other cannot find them."

"Didn't know you could do that with occlumency."

Luna looked incredibly smug as she replied. "You can't."

Luna was a dear friend, but sometimes, just sometimes she was infuriating as hell. She knew exactly what buttons to push, with both Hermione and him. However, it was rather entertaining to watch when she managed to wind Hermione up for a research marathon.

They exited Harry's mind, sitting back in the inn room. Luna pulled out a pocket watch, the windup kind, since electric watches failed in magical households. Her Daddy was working on a shielding spell that would work on batteries, but it was proving hard, as it seemed to increase the resistance of the contact surface. He would eventually crack the problem but that would not be for another two years, Luna knew the spell, but she couldn't use it as it technically hadn't been invented yet.

"Just in time it seems, you should be able to feel when he uses legilimency, just blink if he is trying to dig too much in the last two days since there are a lot of gaps."

Harry flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling trying to calm his nerves. They were going to pull wool over the eyes of the most powerful wizard in existence. Before he had calmed completely down there was a knock on the door. He jolted upright.

Luna got up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Relax and you will do fine." Before she went over to open the door.

"Good morning Headmaster." Luna gave a small curtsey before she stepped away from the door letting the Headmaster and her father through.

Dumbledore gave her a grandfatherly smile. "Good morning Miss Lovegood, I look forward to see you attend Hogwarts this year."

Dubledore turned towards Harry and strode over to him, as he trust out his hand for a handshake. "Ah, young Harry Potter, it is a pleasure to meet you again, I was quite close with your parents you know." The blue eyes twinkling as they always seemed to do, along with the well-practiced smile he used when dealing with the younger generations.

Harry was silently congratulation himself, he had been hiding behind all the memories that Luna had left unhidden in his mind, and as such it had been easy to have the natural reaction to the handshake, namely flinching. The flinch had momentarily broken the grandfatherly mask the Headmaster was wearing and had shown a brief glimpse of outrage. Moments later he was glad that legilimency could not read thoughts as such, as he felt the gentle probing of the master legilimence.

Show me your upbringing.

A seven-year-old Harry sat on the little cot in the cupboard. Perhaps cot was a strong word; it was a piece of plywood with a few blankets on it in lieu of a mattress.

He hadn't meant to do it, it had just happened that a vase had jumped off that shelve on its own. Harry had been blamed of course, it was his fault he knew, and it was always his fault. Idly tracing the well known grain of the wood that made up the walls of most of his existence. He wondered how long he had been in the cupboard, it had happened before he had gotten any breakfast and it was probably past lunch as well. He was feeling very hungry.

The door to the cupboard was opened, a hand trusted his plate into his hands. His plate consisted of a cheap porcelain plate with a large chip on it, exposing a very sharp edge, which more than once had drawn his blood. A large crack was running through the middle, it had slowly been growing since Dudley had thrown the plate a few months ago, causing the chip and the crack. It probably wouldn't be long until the plate broke in two. Harry wondered if he would get a new plate or if he would get food on whichever half was the bigger once it finally broke.

On the middle of the plate was a single potato, it was time for supper it seemed, it was no wonder he was hungry. This particular one was larger than what he normally got; he could detect traces of sauce on it. It had probably been Dudley's. Vernon would wash the sauce off things like that, as he said a freak like him didn't deserve something like that.

He greedily ate the potato. It was good, still a little warm even. It was however not in any way enough to sate his hunger. He was hungry constantly these days, sometimes the hunger was bordering on painful. He knew that something bad would happen if he didn't start to eat more, he could feel it. He would have to do something about that.

An eight-year-old Harry was standing in the kitchen preparing breakfast. He had come to appreciate certain aspects of his too large clothes. It made him able to easily hide the freezer bag he had in his pocket. In the bag was a mixture of Rise Krispies, Coco Pops and Frosted Flakes, the three sugary cereals his rather large cousin ingested for breakfast.

He was eating enough when he was the one to prepare the food and he had quickly started to offer doing to as often as possible. Soon the family had him preparing most meals.

The cereal was to shore up the stockpile of none perishable food he had hidden in the cupboard, it was the only way he would be food whenever he would be blamed for something.

To only stockpile, things that didn't spoil had been a harsh lesson. The night where he had to endure the smell of spoiled mackerel had been bad.

Harry was on his hands and knees and panting hard. Dudley and his gang had been chasing him around the school proper. He had just rounded a corner when he stepped on a rock and twisted his ankle. He needed to get away, they had caught him last week and his ribs still hurt. He desperately wanted to get away, and then we was here.

He looked around, it appeared to be the school roof, he had no idea how he got up here. There had been a strange feeling on the world trying to compact him into a little ball, it just stopped and then he was there.

He got up, the ankle hurt like crazy, probably sprained. It wasn't the first time he had to move in pain and he was certain he could soldier through it.

He had once tattled to a teacher after a beating by Dudley, the Dursley's had been furious, it was the only time Vernon had hit him, he had broken his arm in two places and was taken to the emergency room with the pretense that he had been running around and fallen down the stairs. Not wanting to be beaten again he had gone along with it.

The incident had gotten Dudley kicked out of their school, after which he had started in some prestigious private school. There was one day a week where he got out of class much earlier than Harry did, and so it had become a weekly Harry-hunting day.

A five-year-old Harry was sitting crying in the cupboard, there were no more tears left. Vernon had spent the entire evening telling him the truth about his parents. How his father was a drunk, no good lay about. How his parents had died in a drunken car crash. It couldn't be true, could it?

Surely none of those things he said about his mother could be true how she-

STOP

Out in the real world only moments had passed, Harry could see a tear running down Dumbledore's cheek.

How did you meet Luna?

As the scene played out, Dumbledore felt rage at the fear Harry had displayed when he was hiding, the sheer amount of abuse he would have experienced to be that mistrustful of a small girl. He had to cut off the other memories it was too much, especially the last one, how they had put down Lily and James.

Dumbledore had always been a friend of the Potters, when James' father died he had become like an uncle to James. The two of them had spent several evenings over the years talking about everything. James had an incredible mind for spellcrafting particularly in Tranfiguration.

It was through the young man he had been made aware of Lily Evans, an extraordinary young lady, with a gift for both Charms and Tranfiguration. He had been pleased to see the two of them get together.

Dumbledore never had children of his own, he considered the two Potters the closest thing he would ever get to having it. He had planned to apprentice them both, to carry on his legacy. They would get assistant positions on his staff, while he taught them everything he knew.

The war broke out in full, and ruined everything. Neither could sit and watch as the Magical Britain tumbled into chaos. Both signed up for the Auror corps.

After hearing the prophecy and finding out that Lily was pregnant, he had used the most powerful protection he knew, hiding the two away from the world. The other couple that fit the prophecy had been so certain of the protections on the house of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Longbottom, that they had refused his offer for protection.

The end of the war had seen all his plans for the future fall to shambles. Sirius had betrayed them.

Dumbledore had been so angry that he had forced the hand of the Wizengamot and had him thrown in Azkaban forever. He had initially wanted him given the kiss, but that would require a trial. The Fidelius charm was so incredibly powerful that Veritaserum would not reveal it. He couldn't handle the possibility that the traitor would walk on the Imperious Defense since they couldn't prove the magic, so it was life in Azkaban that remained the only option.

Now that he had seen how the son of James and Lily had been treated, he could not help but feel that he had let them down. He would need to set things right, starting right now.

Dumbledore straightened. "You are not ever going to return to the Privet Drive Harry. Xenoplilius has offered to take you in. How would you like to live with the Lovegoods?"

Harry put on his best face of surprise, with a bright smile before responding. "I would like that very much, thank you Sir."

Dumbledore gave him a kind smile before turning around. "Xenophilius, come we have some arrangements to discus."

As soon as the two had exited the room, Harry found himself in a bear hug from Luna. "We did it, you're living with us!"

Harry couldn't help himself and chuckled at the enthusiasm. "Yes, Brilliant."

The two sat down and started chatting about how things would be living in the giant rook the Lovegoods called home.

A/N:

DAMN! Another bottle episode, how does this keep happening?

Time covered in chapters will probably increase over the next few chapters. This one was even slower than the others covering only an hour and a half. I have a dream, a dream that someday I will be able to write a chapter that cannot be counted in hours with your hands.

Dumbledore is a good guy in the story, but he does put the greater good ahead of everything else. it should be noted that at this point in time he does not know that Harry is carrying a Horcrux around in his forehead.

It should be noted that the one with Ginny in the scarf was indeed the cannon, it save for the epilogue did indeed happen.

As some might or might not have noticed I've put up a picture for the story, it was supposed to be introduced in this chapter, but it ran away from me again.

Anyways, the picture contains some clues to the story; translate the runes at your own peril. There will be a proper higher resolution picture linked once we actually get to it in the story.

Reviews always welcome, as are private messages with questions. (I do not answer things if the answer would contain spoilers.)