Aw Hell no. Harry Potter looked around the rather cramped room a second time. He was honestly this close to turning around and walking back out the doors, regardless of whatever Hermionie might have thought.

The room was all gray stone, made of thick, jagged blocks that strongly discouraged any attempt to harm them. The thick doors he had just passed would be near-impossible to exit once they were closed and locked from the inside, as they were sure to be during the tedious 'procedure' that Hermione and Luna had planned. Harry had to fight the urge to shudder at the term 'procedure', and felt his mouth dry looking at the gleaming metal table placed prominently in the room's center. Tough leather straps were fixed to different edges around the table, with sharp-looking buckles that Harry knew would magically mold together the second they touched his skin. A small side table was placed next to the time. It reminded Harry strongly of the ones that he had seen at the Grangers' dental practice. Hermione had practically dragged him to her parents' offices when she found out that he had never had a legit dentist appointment before. Despite the men of the Dursley household's best efforts, Harry had pretty much perfect teeth. He grinned at the memory. It was a small victory, but a win nonetheless.

Other than the table, the room was actually pretty bare. A series of wooden cabinets and counters stuck out from the walls, with various syringes, scalpels, gloves, potions, and other things deemed necessary for the surgery all carefully stocked and labeled inside of them. Harry sent a particularly vengeful glare towards that particular cabinet. There was another door placed exactly opposite the entrance to the chamber. It had a weird, half-moon marking burned into its center plank. Harry eyed it warily. No one had ever gone into, or come out, of the door before. He had once gestured to the door, asking Hermione about it with his face and arm gestures. She had shrugged, frowned at him, and gone back to working. Harry wondered if there was some sort of concealing charm on it; nothing else could possibly explain Hermione's nonchalance about a mysterious door that no one seemed to know anything about

Harry's scar gave a small twitch. He rubbed it absent-mindedly. It had taken him some time to get used to the sensation and not react like a chicken with its head cut off whenever it had started to react to the potion. Voldemort's haunting visions were still fresh in his mind, and the itchiness that Luna's potion caused always brought those back to the forefront of his mind.

Luna's Patented-Purple-Pointer-Person-Potion was a new invention that she had concocted with a slightly-less-pratty Draco Malfoy's help. Harry had strongly disapproved at first. Hermione hadn't gone on her insane 'let's all research Harry until he literally can't anymore" spree yet, and the two had gotten into an insane shouting match when Luna had first brought the aristocratic blonde along to propose the collaboration in making the potion. Luna had patiently waited, flipping through an old copy of The Quibbler and reading it from right to left, as they had screamed themselves hoarse at each other. When the air had quieted, and neither of the two wizards had continued to yell insults at each other, Luna had just smiled at them for a moment. It was an off-kilter smile, slightly crooked and just about bursting with the dreaminess that she had always been famous for. Wide, almost-translucent blue eyes stared up at them, glittering with amusement and just a hint of the infamous Lovegood madness.

"Are you two done?"

And, just like that, they were. They had shaken hands, parted with a "See you around, ferret," and a "You better believe it, Scarhead," and that was that. About two weeks later, the potions, which could identify anyone no matter what concealment they might be using, were born. They were revolutionary in their design and purpose–with a single spell, any magi wearing a dab of the potion could be identified, regardless of Imperius, Metamorph abilities, or Polyjuice potion. Luna had, for whatever reason, insisted that Harry put his on his scar, claiming that most of his identity stemmed from that area.

Harry had not been pleased.

He rubbed his forehead again as the magic in his scar prickled once more in response to the wards of the room activating and shutting down. Harry suppressed the urge to whimper. This was a sign, he knew. In a few seconds, Luna would enter that door, and then today's research (torture, some treacherous part of his brain murmured) would begin. Echoing footsteps approached from the hall outside. Harry cringed before bringing up a blank mask. He knew what that sound meant.

The cavalry was approaching.

With a bang, the heavy doors flew open, letting swirling gusts of wind into the room and nearly knocking Harry off of his feet. He righted himself after a few seconds of frantically stumbling around, using his arms to steady himself on the table. Slowly, he looked up with wild eyes at the five people who had just flooded the room.

Cho Chang, still as utterly radiant as ever, stood proudly, head tilted upwards and feet spread in a stance of arrogant confidence. Her long, usually straight hair floated and twirled around her, a dark mass that sent strands slithering over her shoulders and cascading down her back. Her mouth was pursed as if she had smelled something unpleasant. Next to her, the diminutive Dennis Creevey was hunched protectively over a tray of sparkling potion vials colored in all hues of the rainbow. Ernie McMillan and Seamus Finnigan stood next to them. Ernie was looking around the room, lips curled into a sneer every bit as potent as the late Snape's had been. Seamus stood with his eyes lowered, arms folded over his chest, seemingly unwilling to look at Harry. He got the feeling that Seamus wanted to be here just as much as Harry did. That is to say, not at all.

And, standing proudly in the center position, the point of the V shape the group had unconsciously formed, stood Luna Lovegood.

The previously meek girl was now, by anyone's standards, a woman. She was resplendent in her pearly gray robes as they swirled around her, lifting and tossing to cover her form as the wind tugged and pulled at it. Her hair, the color of pale flax in sunlight, cascaded down her back in loose, messy curls. Crystal eyes glimmered with determination and something edging on madness, and the pink lilt of her lips suggested amusement and anticipation. Luna suddenly raised one pale hand, and the furious winds stopped as soon as they had come. She ran an appraising glance over Harry.

"Are you ready to begin?" she said, and her voice was as dreamy as ever.

Oh, why yes, yes, hello to you, too, Luna dear. How are you? Good? Good! Oh yeah, me, well, I'm doing just great, about to get sliced open in the name of magical science, which is apparently a thing nowadays, so you know what, yeah, I'm doing just Bloody Fantastic, thanks for asking, Luna. Nice chat.

Harry nodded and smiled.

Luna had become much more brisk and focused than ever once the war had ended. Harry had really only seen this determined, slightly sadistic side of her once she had begun to "work" on him. She seemed like her good old self almost any other time, though. Harry stopped at that thought. Wait a second...

"Excellent, Harry, excellent!" she clapped her hands together, and Seamus immediately rushed forward to "help" (i.e. force) Harry onto the metal table. Firmly ignoring the cold that was threatening to overtake any part of him touching the freezing operating table, Harry allowed himself to be tied down. His wrists and ankles were both spread out in order to give unimpeded access to his general chest area. The shackles encircling his hands and feet were stretched to the point where Harry felt like he was about to be quartered. There was a small chink as Seamus murmured the spell that turned the leather cuffs into hard, unyielding metal bands. Harry hissed as the ring of metal tightened around his wrists. They were bound so tightly that Harry feared the shackles might cut off his circulation.

Once Seamus was done, he stepped back, eyes still lowered sadly to the floor. Was that...was Seamus feeling guilty? Why would he feel guilty about his doing his job? Something didn't seem right to Harry with this whole situation. Luna was acting entirely out of character, Seamus evidently wasn't comfortable with Harry's 'procedures', Dennis was as terrified as a mouse (the poor kid), and Cho...well, Cho and Ernie were normal, actually. Cho had not been his biggest fan since their mutually disastrous relationship, and Ernie had disliked him ever since second year. So, those two were acting fairly reassuring, at least.

Ernie stepped forward next. He and Luna exchanged a look that Harry couldn't make out from his spot on the table. Ernie turned to give him a positively wicked grin that made Harry gulp in fear. He brought his wand out of his cloak and waved it around, muttering spells under his breath as he paced around Harry's table. He erected wards that Harry easily recognized. Bill had taught Ron, Hermione, and himself extensively about wards during the time that they had stayed with him in Shell Cottage. One to prevent sounds from leaving the room, one to clean and disinfect the area inside of the ward (Harry's skin prickled as every bit of dirt was stripped from his person), and, finally, a Petrificus Toatalus to keep Harry still during the "procedure". Dennis stood in the back, shaking, as he documented the whole thing. The small click of the camera echoed around the stone chamber.

Finally, Cho glided over to the cabinets and pulled out a huge tray laden with stringy specimens of herbs, a few murky potions vials, and a small fortune's worth of silver in the form of sharp medical instruments, wickedly sharp knives, and miniscule pins and pliers. She carried the tray over to the small table next to Harry's head and passed around a box of dragonhide gloves, bar Dennis, to the assembled people in the room. Harry would have winced if he could have. He watched as Luna pulled on her gloves. A flash of dark purple on her wrist startled him out of his fear.

Dark purple. The potion...Harry's eyes widened. If Luna's specialty potion was a dark color, most similar to eggplant, then that meant that the user had been using something more serious than scar-hiding glamours (because really, everyone that had been in in the war had been using those) to conceal themselves. Harry watched carefully for the spot, which was barely visible beneath the edge of her medical gloves. Luna reached down to straighten her robes. Harry caught another fleeting glance. The spot was edged with a murky sheen of dark green, forming a ring around the center of the potion residue. Harry's breath hitched for a second.

Oh. My. Merlin.

Polyjuice.

That green, that green, that meant Polyjuice Potion.

The person in front of him, about to cut open his chest and operate on him, was most definitely not Luna Lovegood.

Damnit.

Hello, everyone! I must apologize for this update...it's not all that good, in my opinion, but what it lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity. This sucker is over 1900 words long, almost twice as long as some of my other chapters. Also, there was a mistake with the super-long name...in an earlier chapter, I have Harry put the potion on his wrist, but until I figure out how to change that in the already-posted chapter, I'll just write a note about it here, but I liked the idea of a perceptive, legit Luna being able to tell that a lot of Harry's identity issues stem from the scar. Also, an evil Luna? Evil scientist Luna, I love that, but not evil.

So I hope you liked it! Please, feel free to tell me what you thought! Did it suck? Was it tolerable? Any preferred pairings (I am seriously lost on this point, so all suggestions are entirely welcome)?

Have a great day/night, and I'd love to get PMs from you guys as well! You guys are all so amazing, and I am constantly overwhelmed by the positive reception this fic is getting...over a hundred followers, oh my god!

Seriously, thank you...y'all are the best!

Enjoy your cocoa.