Chapter 13: Not what it looks like
Luna woke up far more relaxed and warm than she had in the night. Her headache was gone, and after a few blurry blinks, she could see again. Sirius was sleeping next to her, outside the sheet, but under the duvet. Luna should have been alarmed there was a boy in her bed, but she couldn't help but feel safe. Sirius lay there, comfortably snoring away. Their relationship had changed drastically in the last 24 hours. There was a new bond between them. While he was still asleep, and they were alone, Luna took the opportunity to take out her wand and perform some 21st century magic. The type of magic Luna used wouldn't be around for another 40 years at least. Little was known about magical connections here, and no-one knew how to distinguish them. Luna pointed her wand at Sirius chest and said, 'reveal the connecting bonds from sacrifice." Two green lines appeared connecting Sirius and Luna's chests. The green lines represented the life saving bond. There were two, because each person had saved the others life. Luna had expected there to be at least one, since she would definitely be dead if Sirius hadn't killed the Basilisk. The second line only confirmed that her, having attacked the Basilisk, had hindered the Basilisk enough that it had saved Sirius' life. This bond mirrored what her parents had with each other, as they had both risked their lives, at different times, for the other. One time, at a larger family gathering, with all the Aunts and Uncles, the spell was cast, and the number of green lines that spread through the room was incredible. It showed how much each person deeply cared for one another. Harry had once had a green bond with Peter Pettigrew. There was only one line to begin with, so the magic inside Pettigrew was constantly pushing, until the second green line was produced. Pettigrew would have thought, at the time, it was just his conscience, but there is more to the magical bond than that. If the opportunity presents itself, to make a second bond, the other person will, even against their will, be forced into it. Not necessarily out of good conscience. Luna was relieved that the bond went both ways with Sirius, because it would have been dangerous for her, if anytime Sirius was in trouble, she was forced to reveal her futuristic magic.
Since the bond went both ways, there was a deeply rooted trust between the two now. Sirius thought he was just over tired when he opened up the previous night, however, it went far deeper than that.
Sirius started to stir, so Luna removed the green bonds quickly.
Sirius groggily said, as he yawned, "how long have you been staring at me? I mean, I don't blame you obviously."
Luna laughed and gave him a friendly whack on the arm, "your ego never sleeps does it? And I wasn't staring, I just noticed you starting to stir."
"What's the time?" Just as Sirius asked this, a clicking noise sounded from the doors down the far end of the room. Luna peaked around her curtain to see, Mulciber, Dolohov and Goyle, patiently waiting for Madame Pomfrey to open the doors.
Urgently, Luna whispered to Sirius, "you need to hide now! They can't know I'm with you, or we'll become targets."
"I don't care. I can handle that lot." Sirius said easily.
"I do! I have to share a common room with them. Quick they're coming." The footsteps were getting louder and Sirius hesitated, then used his wand wordlessly to thicken the Duvet cover, and created an undetectable extension charm under it, next to Luna's legs. In Luna's opinion, he could have made a far bigger one, but chose to nestle himself up under the cover against her side. The visiting boys didn't ask to see if she was decent or awake, they simply opened the curtains and pushed their way through to Luna's bedside.
"Luna, can you see us? What happened? We heard that Blood traitor, Sirius Black and you tripped into each other down a step, and your eyes got hit by something?" Goyle blurted out. It was still taking Luna a while to adjust to not simply getting a, 'how are you?' to begin with. She replied just as forthright, "I can see now, yes I lost my sight, and knocked my head. That's not exactly what happened though. What have else have you heard about it?"
"Well, we all assumed that he was following you. Probably too busy ogling you, he didn't see the step, and fell into you. Filthy blood traitor, we'll get him back for you, Luna, don't worry." Goyle said vehemently. Luna was relieved by this answer. There were no side ways whispers about Basilisks at least. "I'm afraid, the rumour mill's wrong today boys. And you don't need to go after him. Although, if he were ogling me, I wouldn't blame him." Luna said with a smile to herself, nudging her leg into Sirius. "What really happened was, well … we all know I had a bit much last night. My eyesight was off, so I tried to fix it by doing the conjunctivitis curse. I thought, it would make my dry eyes moist." Strangely, of all moments, Luna felt a little homesick, when no-one even cringed at her using the word, 'moist'. Luna felt Sirius stomach shaking from laughter when Goyle replied, "It makes sense that it should have worked. How did Black become intertwined in this then?"
"I couldn't see, so I walked into and hit my head on a suit of armour. He just happened to be on the other side of where it fell. If he were spying, he probably would have noticed it falling." Luna said succinctly.
Mulciber looked somewhat dismayed at not having an excuse to be annoyed at Sirius, but quickly bought his focus back to Luna.
"Hey Luna, why is your duvet so thick? Are you cold?"
Luna held on to the duvet slightly tighter as she replied, "Yeah, I've got poor circulation."
"Here, let me help with that." Without waiting for a reply Mulciber pointed his wand on Luna and cast a warming charm. Luna would have thought it a kind gesture if she weren't starting to sweat now. In fact Mulciber, she found the most unsettling out of the three in front of her. Dolohov gave her the creeps. He would smile at odd times and made weird mutterings to himself when they were walking around school. Goyle was brutish, overweight and thick. He would have given Dudley Dursley a run for his money on bullying. Mulciber, however, was normal. Well, he was still thick, where Goyle had one brain cell, he only had three or four. Luna found it sinister how if she hadn't known he became a death eater, she never would have guessed it. Sure, he liked to talk about blood status, but he didn't seem the type willing to murder and torture for these views he held. There was always a question in Lunas mind, was he responsible for killing an innocent life? Could it be someone significant to her father? It greatly annoyed her how she hadn't payed closer attention to details in recent history classes at school. She knew what happened to the bigger names, like the Malfoys, the Lestranges and the Averys, but couldn't place the three boys who had followed her round. She didn't know whether she should feel guilty or not for appreciating his thoughtfulness in this moment, even if it was completely unnecessary.
"Thanks for that. I really appreciate you guys coming to visit too. It's not been easy selling into a new school, but it makes it easier having you guys keeping an eye out. My head is really sore right now, so I need to get as much rest as possible. I'll see you all later."
"No worries. We didn't want you to feel lonely. Oh and I almost forgot. Lucius asked me to deliver this letter for you personally. We think it might be from your father… or the Dark Lord I mean." Mulciber fumbled at whether he was allowed to call Voldemort a father or not as opposed to the name he forced people to use.
Luna took the letter from Mulciber quickly and gave her thanks. Once the boys had left, Luna pulled the duvet up and told Sirius, "the coast is clear."
"Thank goodness, it was getting really hot under there, you're all sweaty, and then I started sweating from all your body heat."
"Yeah, I know, I'm sweating like a gypsy with a mortgage." The two laughed together which encouraged Luna to continue. "Or maybe it's more like I'm sweating like Slughorn at a young entrepreneurs meeting." Sirius barked with laughter again and looked admiringly at Luna. "You know what. You're actually really funny."
"Hey thanks, I might have even blushed if I wasn't about to pass out from loosing too much sweat. Do you know how to do cooling charms? Mulciber went a little over board with his heating charm."
Sirius pulled out his wand and effortlessly cast the spell on Luna. As the effect spread over Lunas Limbs, she shivered in response to the cool movement. Sirius gave Luna his best lopsided grin, and moved his head closer to her face. "Now you know what I had to suffer through the other night with Myrtle."
Luna in response moved even closer and said quietly, "You don't need to cast a spell to make me shiver." Luna's eyes widened a little at this. Did she really just say that out loud? It must have been the crazy green bonds making her be honest. She hadn't even admitted this to herself yet that she was drawn to him, and felt a wave of electricity move through her every time he looked at her with his dark, and handsome eyes. Sirius looked down at Lunas lips and started to bridge the small gap between them when they both jolted apart hearing a shriek from the other side of the room.
"SIRIUS BLACK. Get OUT now." Madame Pomfrey was furious. "Why were you hiding under Lunas Duvet? Why was she all sweaty?"
Sirius began to reply, "Uh well…" but he couldn't get out much of a response before Madame Pomfrey shouted, "I don't actually want to know. Get to class now. If you're well enough to … to … Just go to class."
Sirius obediently got out of the bed quickly and left the room. If he had been in his dog form, his tail would have been between his legs. Madame Pomfrey seemed to be avoiding eye contact with Luna as much as she could, and after lunch, once her head ache remedy had kicked in, she was sent back to class too.
Luna wished she had played up her headache now. She was struggling to keep her eyes open, listening to the much younger Professor Flitwick rattle on about going over basics. It was exhausting having to constantly think about pretences and which lies she had tangled herself up in now. Things were slipping through the cracks too, mentioning an Uber in front of Sirius. A Muggleborn might have sent her straight to St Mungo's if they heard her lying about something that blatantly wasn't muggle. For some reason, the more tired she became, the more she became honest about things she really shouldn't. She had spent too much of the previous night chatting to Sirius and was exhausted, but she couldn't find it within herself to regret it at all. Sirius was doing a poor job of ignoring Luna too. He kept staring over in Lunas direction every so often and Luna couldn't help but be flattered by this. Luna berated herself for feeling this way. She tried to tell herself he should be doing a better job at disguising their friendship, but when she caught his eye, there was something other than friendship behind those dark eyes and it made her involuntarily shiver.
These passing looks from Sirius didn't go unnoticed by Mulciber, who was sitting next to her like a body guard.
"Would that filthy blood traitor stop staring. The pervert needs to get a grip. I bet he was spying on you in the hospital wing all night. Are you sure you don't want me to mess him up? He's not even trying to hide the fact he's staring," Mulciber said bitterly.
This wasn't true either, it was only because Mulciber was looking for it, that he noticed Sirius. Luna replied dazedly, giving off the impression of not giving him her full attention, "No don't worry about it. Vengeance is the Dark Lords. He might get annoyed if you take that opportunity away from him." This seemed to do the job of keeping Mulciber quiet for the rest of the lesson, so Luna focused on pretending to try and vanish a mouse. Luna could do this spell in her sleep, she had to trick her brain into looking at it like a piece of paper, so the spell wouldn't work based on intent. Flitwick couldn't fault her on wand movement, or pronunciation, all he could say was, "keep trying, focus on what you want to happen," and then moved on. Charms was the best class for skiving off work because of how much was going on, and the constant noise. Luna decided to rest her head on her arms and overtaken from tiredness, told herself she would just rest her eyes for a minute.
Jasmine came bustling into class five minutes late. It wasn't the first time and it definitely wouldn't be the last. She power walked her dirty boots and windswept hair over to Luna. A much older looking Flitwick graciously bought the lie, that Peeves had made her late, and politely asked Miss Finnegan to please take a seat. Luna knew better about what her best friend was up to. Her cheeks were definitely red from practicing quidditch over the lunch break and five minutes into an afternoon of double charms.
"So, What'd I miss Dyls Lils? Jasmine asked cheerfully. Luna frowned back at Jasmine. She detested that nickname. A boy called Dylan Condon had tried, and 'tried' was the key word, to write a song for her, to 'woe' her. Everyone knew Lily loved music and singing, so Dylan tried to pull on her heartstrings by publicly writing a number, that very unfortunately, rhymed Dyls with Lils. She had been trying to shake the nickname for a year now, but it stuck, like house elves to servitude.
"Its almost like you don't want me to tell you," Luna replied scathingly.
"Oh come off it, don't be sils, Lils." Jasmine replied fighting a grin. Luna couldn't help but smile at this. She replied in her best Penny Parkinson impersonation, "Don't even talk near me." Jasmine replied in an even more exuberant high pitched voice, "Don't even breathe near me." Luna flicked her hair back dramatically and replied, "don't even think near me." Both girls laughed at this, trying hard not to draw attention from Flitwick. Once they had settled, Lily finally came out with, "revising vanishing charms today."
"Revising? I never learnt how to do it in the first place. If only I could vanish my exam result from Dad."
"There's the problem there. Stop imagining it's a piece of paper you're hiding from shaming Seamus. Actually think about the mouse." Luna said.
Jasmine chuckled, "We are on fire today, shaming Seamus is brilliant. This mouse is cute though. Why can't we just use frogs?" Jasmine replied.
A deeper and much less welcome voice joined in the conversation saying "Luna, wake up Luna."
Luna blearily opened her eyes and had to stop herself from frowning when she saw it wasn't her best friend wasn't sitting next to her.
"Class is just finishing." Mulciber said.
"Just finishing! Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" Demanded Luna.
"You looked like you needed the rest. You were smiling in your sleep." Mulciber replied innocently.
Luna felt a little bad now for being so cutting. At least he had woken her up gently, even if his arm had lingered on her back for longer than it should have.
"Sorry I just get snappy when I'm tired." Luna apologised.
"It's ok, happens to the best of us. Let's go get some fresh air."
Luna was too tired to come up with an excuse of why she couldn't go and was getting sick of lying, so decided to go, and left with her usual escorts. As Luna walked out, she did her best not to let on she knew Sirius had been watching her.