Chapter 4: Not the same welcome

Luna had been escorted with the first years onto a boat. This was so she could get the view of the castle for her 'first time'. She wasn't sure who was more nervous, her, or the first years? Probably her, she didn't know how she would react meeting her Grandparents. Seeing Hagrid filled her with hope though. He was so familiar, and hadn't changed much. This was someone who was an outcast giant, yet found his home at Hogwarts. Perhaps even though Luna was coming into her seventh year, she would still find her place here in the past.

Lining up in the great hall, Luna pretended to look around in amazement like the other first years. Luna was preoccupied thinking about her Grandparents, that the thought never crossed her mind she could be in a different house to them. Luna Finnegan's name was called, which drew everyones attention as to where the new student, who was strangely 7th year, would be placed. As Luna sat down, relaxed, and put the hat on, she was completely blindsided by what came next. Hello Miss Potter, it seems I am familiar with you already, although this hasn't happened yet. How unusual, but, remember nothing in your brain is hidden from me. While you're an heir of Gryffindor, I think, even you have come to know that the house doesn't really become you. I think seeing as its just for a year, Slytherin would do you good this time. Luna began to argue with the hat, saying: 'I need to be with my Grandparents. Please don't take this from me.' The hat replied in her head, 'Oh you would get to know them from either house. This will in fact play to your advantage in ways you don't realise yet. Any way people will think I'm loosing my way if I don't call it now,'… "SLYTHERIN". Luna's stomach dropped. She tried to half smile as she made her way over to the Slytherin table. Who was she kidding, even they looked disappointed to have someone imposing on their house, and so late in the piece. Luna decided the safest option was for her was to sit next to Snape. Although even then, Luna didn't know what might have been going through his mind at this point in time. She had no idea when he was in with the death eater crowd.

Luna was given greetings from a few at the table, but people were mostly just staring at her making her feel uncomfortable. She looked over Jealously seeing Lily Evans give warm welcomes to the Gryffindor first years. The Marauder's were also introducing themselves giving friendly handshakes. They looked as Luna had expected them, except for Sirius, who looked slightly crestfallen for some reason. The welcome speeches were nothing out of the ordinary, except for Dumbledore trying to push unity between the houses. There was no way her family would accept her as a friend now with the underlying dark tones in what Dumbledore was saying about forgiveness and reconciliation. If it was bad still in her time, it was 10 times worse here. Luna felt vaguely bad for what she said to her brother Alb when he first came home after being sorted into Slytherin (hey Alb, what's the difference between a Porcupine and the Slytherin common room? With the common room, the pricks are on the inside!)

On her way to the dungeons, people striked up conversations about where she stood regarding the purest agenda. It surprised Luna how quickly they went past small talk to ask, 'the important questions.' Luna tried to put off the questions as much as possible, not wanting to wake up fearing the people that she was sharing a dorm with.

The terrible night she was having could only get better at this point, and that it did when she made the most unlikely of friends. She was taken out of her stupor when she heard a voice proclaiming, 'Mulciber is a worse owner than the giant squid,' and was 'the most boring owner he could have had the misfortune of meeting'. Luna turned to see a little pudgy, even cute looking, Snake. The Snake looked like it would be better suited to belong to Horace Slughorn than Mulciber. Luna spoke to the Snake without thinking, drawing the attention of everyone who hadn't made it to their rooms yet in the common room. "Bad luck mate. I'll let you out of the cage if you like later, so you can have some freedom." The snake looked at Luna and looked genuinely delighted. The snake replied, "I've never spoken to a human before. To be honest, I thought it was a myth that there were wizards out there who could even do this. I've been so lonely being away from other Snakes. Can you adopt me please? I'll do anything." Luna smiled back at the snake and said, "well I'll see what I can do."

Luna left the common room to find her room. Everyone else had already fallen asleep. It was a terrible start to Hogwarts and so different to her real first year.

It was so overwhelming for her. She was thankful for sometime to be by herself. She thought back to when she had first come to Hogwarts and how different the reception was that she got. Everyone had paused and whispered excitedly when she went to put the sorting hat on. She was the famous Harry Potters daughter. Everyone wanted to be friends with her and wanted to be her. She was one of the most popular people in the school on her first day. James had even reserved a seat for her, so she could sit next to the seventh years which seemed to her like the best thing ever at the time, to be part of the older groups 'in' crowd. She remembered distinctly trying the chocolate fudge for dessert that James had insisted she take for the first time, and how James had so much joy experiencing her first night at Hogwarts with his baby sister. All that, compared to tonight, where she was offered little conversation and her Grandparents had looked at her with contempt. Luna was upset thinking about how much she missed her big brothers. She had no one here who really knew her.

Her first morning in the castle didn't get much better. Luna started to understand how Harry must have felt in his second year. People walking past her stared and whispered, looking scared. Upon reflection, Luna wished she hadn't revealed she was a parsel mouth so early on. She received looks of revulsion from the Gryffindors and admiration from the worst of the Slytherins. She tried to avoid the death eater group, who kept trying to talk about their opinions, and how she had options to take a stand with them. The others were too scared of her to be friendly and kept their distance. She didn't realise how fast news could travel in a night at Hogwarts. Even the teachers seemed weary of her and didn't draw attention to her in class, or make her feel particularly welcome. There was only one seat in the room next to her in Herbology, and the Hufflepuff next to her's hand was visibly shaking the whole class. Luna ended up being disheartened after a long day of being treated like some kind of poison.

The thing that set her off the edge was after a day of being avoided, she got back to her room to find her shoes missing. Were the other girls jealous of the attention she was getting from the male Slytherins? Why had she picked to go by Luna? Was there something attached to the name that made her an outcast she thought. Luna caught herself thinking of Luna as a social reject and snapped out of it. She was proud of being named after Luna, who even though people hid her things, she still knew who she was and loved herself. Luna wasn't going to give the satisfaction to the other girls to see her upset by what they had done. Luna buried her feelings and started humming her 21st century music (they wouldn't recognise) and left the dorm.

Luna felt incredibly home sick and needed to have someone familiar to be around. Out of her two options, she decided McGonagall, her old principal, was not the most likely to give her what she needed. She just hoped and prayed Hagrid wouldn't reject her too.

"Knock, knock," Luna said quietly in a gentle voice. Luna heard a bark and a shuffle to get the door and saw Hagrid again looking a little too giddy after the first day back.

"Er, hello? Yer the new girl right? I don't know if ye know but yer not meant to be out this late at night in the grounds?" Hagrid asked looking confused.

"Oh, um right. I'll go… Sorry," Luna said sounding defeated.

As she turned, looking at the ground, Hagrid said in a consoling voice, "But since you didn't know ye can get away with it this once. What were ye after?"

"Well, since you are the grounds keeper, I wondered if you hadn't seen any shoes lying around? Someone took mine. I think, because I didn't want to take part in their pure blood discussion," Luna said soberly and with a small shake in her voice.

Hagrid looked pityingly at her and replied, "no I haven't seen em. I'll keep an eye out though. Did ye want to come in and have some rock cake? Sounds like yeh've had a rough day of it."

Luna looked up hopefully at Hagrid and said, "yeah, that would be great thanks."

Luna entered and immediately went over and patted the dog that had barked at her from across the room.

"Wow," Hagrid grinned and raised his eyebrows. "Normally he doesn't take ter strangers that quick. He must like yeh."

"I have a way with dogs," Luna replied with a grin. "I love all creatures though. Do you look after many here around Hogwarts?"

Luna knew exactly how to get Hagrid on her side. Heck if Lord Voldemort had got him on side when he found out how to get past fluffy, surely she could convince him she wasn't dark just because she was in Slytherin. She was very grateful she had taken the time to chat to Uncle Charlie about where and what time of the year you could find Dragon eggs. Hagrid was a sucker for them. In the future her eldest brother would sneak Norberta in to raise with Hagrid saying if Dad was OK to walk around the school with one, why couldn't he? It wasn't until half the forbidden forest had been set on fire that it was found out, and the Headmistress had said she hoped she was long gone before the fourth generation of Potter's came along.

They chatted for a while about different creatures and specifically Unicorns. Luna realised that no where near as much knowledge around them was available in this time period. She clicked that she could help Remus out greatly with her knowledge of them, if she could time things right. By the end of the night, Luna had Hagrid wrapped around her little finger. He even bought up how he had grown up half orphaned too, when Luna shared about her family situation.

Luna grinned as she walked back to her room in the dungeons that night. She had made the most unlikely of friends, but the truest. Luna had no idea that while walking back to her dorm she past the Marauders, who were under the cloak. They were busy whispering about James' encounter with Lily earlier, and how Snape had been so angry. They stopped talking abruptly after they saw Luna. Seeing her out after dark by herself only grew their suspicion of her. They theorised between themselves about what she was up to. Some kind of task for Voldemort they concluded. He was the only person they knew who could speak to snakes. This meant it had to be a bad sign that she could too, and to top it off was in Slytherin.