Hello folks. This one's coming out pretty fast, isn't it? It'll probably be a while before the next chapter, but we'll just have to see. I'd appreciate it if you'd review. Thanks.


Moonchild

Chapter 4

Seleneo

Jesus Christ, thought Seleneo as he headed to Professor Flitwick's office. Why did I ever think this heavy of a schedule would be doable? He came back to reality as he knocked on Flitwick's office door, and he heard the squeaky voice say, "Come on in!"

"I've got your essay, Professor," said Seleneo as he extracted an immensely long roll of parchment from his bag. "Here it is, all seven feet. I tell you, this semester is killing me."

"Well," said Flitwick, "live and learn, right? So tell me, how do you like it here so far?"

"Well to be honest, I haven't had a chance really to take it all in," Seleneo confessed. "I've been so busy with work here and back home, it's like all I've done is schoolwork, and it's only been a week!"

"Yes, well, higher education does that to you," agreed Professor Flitwick. "Right, so Charms. If you want to have a seat, we can get started."

After an hour of breaking down wand movements with Professor Flitwick, Seleneo was free to go. Tomorrow can't get here soon enough, Seleneo thought. No class, and I'll finally be able to talk to that Luna girl. That was another problem with Seleneo's schedule; schoolwork upon schoolwork, and then there was the distraction of that blonde-haired girl with those big, grey eyes that seemed to shine like the moon on a clear night. He always found himself stealing glances, and up until the other day he thought he had been able to avoid detection. He had tried to avoid talking to anyone except the staff, and he had especially gone out of his way to avoid Luna; if he was going to embarrass himself, he certainly didn't want it to be in front of her. But now, she had offered to help him get acquainted with Hogwarts tomorrow, and he had reluctantly agreed to speak in front of her. Still, he was excited all the same to be spending the day with her.

You'll never get all your work done if you keep mooning over that girl, said a voice somewhere in the back of his head. Unfortunately, he knew that voice was probably right, but still, it was only for one day, right?


The next morning, Seleneo found Luna waiting for him in the Great Hall at breakfast. She didn't say anything when he sat down, but she gave him that pleasant smile that suggested she was thinking of something amusing. When they had both finished breakfast, they got up from the table, and Seleneo waited to see what Luna would do. She beckoned him to the great oak front doors to the castle.

"I thought we'd start with the grounds, if that's alright?" she said. "I imagine you already know where most of the classrooms are." He nodded in agreement. "Great!" she chirped, and so they began their descent down the sloping lawns of Hogwarts grounds. After an hour or so, they returned to the Great Hall for lunch, and Luna suggested they go up in the clock tower.

"It really is quite fun to go up there, and it has an excellent view of the courtyard" she said. Seleneo nodded in agreement. They made their way up to the clock tower, and once inside, they sat on either side of the clock face, looking out over the grounds.

"So here we are," said Luna brightly. "Fantastic, isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Seleneo, speaking for the first time to any of the Hogwarts student body. He was glad it was Luna and not someone else. "It is."

"You spoke!" Luna said in a surprised fashion.

"I told you I would," said Seleneo. "You promised you wouldn't laugh."

"And I won't," Luna affirmed. "Why would I?"

"My accent," Seleneo said. "I bet I sound like an idiot when I talk."

"No you don't," she said. Seleneo look up, and found that he appreciated all the more this girl called Luna Lovegood. She sounded sincere. Dang, he thought. How can someone like that be that accepting?

"You sure?" Seleneo asked. This could all be some cruel joke she was playing on him.

"Honest," she said. "Where are you from, anyhow? Ron and Hermione said you were in the prefect compartment on the train, but they'd never seen you before."

"I'm American," said Seleneo. "They let me ride in the prefect cabin because I'm a GA."

"A what?" Luna asked.

"Graduate assistant," said Seleneo. "I graduated two years ago from the Allegheny Academy of Magic, and now I'm doing grad work at the Salem Witches' Institute. Right now I'm doing a study abroad, obviously, and they worked it out that I'll be working as Professor Flitwick's graduate assistant."

"So that's why you were in Ravenclaw Tower the other night!"

"Right," Seleneo said. "Since I'm working under Filius, they decided I'd be a de facto Ravenclaw. But now you see why I haven't wanted to speak in front of anyone here."

"Not really," said Luna.

"Back in the U.S., the region called Appalachia, which covers parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, not that any of that means anything to you, has a reputation of being full of backwoods idiots, especially the farther south you get. A lot of the time, people judge our intelligence based on how we sound. In fact, they did a study where they had some speakers read a pre-written segment, and then they were judged on how intelligent they were. When the results came in, it was decided that the man from California was smarter than the man from Georgia, even though they read the exact same speech verbatim."*

"That's unfortunate," said Luna sadly, "but if you're worried about people thinking you're unintelligent just because of how you sound, you shouldn't. If they just listen to you they'll see you're smart."

"That's the thing, though," Seleneo sighed, "people have a tendency not to listen."

"Tell me about it," said Luna. "People think I'm a nutter because of some of the things I say."

"Like what?" Seleneo probed. If she was going to try to make him feel better about his accent, he ought to at least try to get to know her a bit.

"Well, mainly it's the Crumple-Horned Snorkack," she said.

"The what?"

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack," Luna repeated. "It's a magical creature that's native to Sweden. Dad and I went a few summers ago to try to find one but we didn't. They're very elusive."

"Well," said Seleneo, unsure of what to make of that. "Just because you didn't find one doesn't mean it's not there. For instance, coelacanths were thought to have been extinct for 66 million years, but a live specimen was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938."*

"See?" Luna said, clearly excited that Seleneo had seen it from her point of view. "That's what I keep saying! Just because there's no proof that it exists doesn't mean it doesn't. There's no proof it doesn't exist either!"

"Well, there's all kindsa weird shit out there," said Seleneo, now letting his Appalachian accent show now that he knew he could. "Take for instance something that happened with my dad. When he was a kid they lived down in sort of the central eastern area of Kentucky, and it's a weird-ass place if ever there was one. Anyhow, when he was a kid he and his brother were out at their aunt's farm, I think is where he said it happened, but anyhow, he said they were out there and they heard this god-awful noise, sounded like a woman screaming, and they saw this big black shape move through the grass. Turns out it was a black panther, and it chased 'em for a while. I forget now how they got away, but still, keep in mind that people still insist that there aren't any black panthers in Kentucky."**

"That's…terrifying," said Luna. They sat in silence for a moment, and then both burst out laughing.

"Jeez…" Seleneo sighed. "How long have we been up here?"

"Dunno," said Luna. She looked at the clock face and exclaimed, "How is it already six-thirty! We've been sitting in the bell tower and neither of us heard it chime or anything!"

"Good company does that," said Seleneo. They were both silent for a moment, until Luna said, "Well, we should probably get back inside or we'll miss dinner."

"Yes, I think you're right," said Seleneo. They headed back to the Great Hall in silence, but for the first time in the two weeks he'd been in the United Kingdom, Seleneo Moonchild felt like he had a friend.


*This is true.

**This actually did happen to my dad and his brother when they were kids.