Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There's also a slight panic attack from the narrator and referenced past child abuse. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: This turned out to be much longer than I anticipated. This does build on the premise laid out in Spotted Dragon, but neither of them require having read the other to understand.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Green Ribbon; Eating Cake (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Bucket Listing; Short Jog; Old Shoes (Y); Lunar Era; Colors Galore; Go Fluff Yourself; Gender Bender; Hold the Mayo; Ship Sails; Booger Breath; Lovely Triangle; The 3rd Rule; Ethnic & Present; Rian-Russo Inversion (x3); Rowl in Her Grave; Neurodivergent; Gryffindor MC (x2); Ravenclaw MC (x2); Magical MC (x4)
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 02
Subject (Task No.): Oceanography (Task#1: Write about someone protecting another person.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [75]("I am really clever, after all."); 365 Prompts [252](tan); Scavenger Hunt [51](First Line of pg394 [Bag of Bones]); Auction [D2A1] (Dialogue)
Other MC4A Challenges: SuB [1B](Birdwatching); AU [4B](Race Bent); Ship (Blazing Moonlight)[SuBig (Hair Stick/Comb; Anklet/Bracelet; Drawing/Painting); (Jewelry; Ribbon/Cord); Bingo 5D (Dinner & a Show)]; Chim [Dextrin](Sweater/Jumper); Garden [Bed Types (Castle); Tools (Photo Album); Blood & Water (Cousins)]; Fire [x3](Transitional; Hold the Mayo; Like Beckham); TWT (Agender Luna Lovegood; Trio Era)[Task#3](Green)
Representation(s): Agender Luna Lovegood/Desi & Fem Harry Potter QPR; Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley; Friends as Fam; Matchmaking; Background Ferret's Fireworks
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Lyre Liar; Muck & Slime; Head of Perseus; In the Trench; Surprise!; Second Verse (Trickster's Union; Lovely Coconuts; For the Vine; Deadliest Catch; Clio's Conclusion; Car in a Tutu; Brooms Only; Unwanted Advice; Spinning Plates; Zucchini Bread; Nontraditional; Found Family; Persistence Still; Not a Lamp; Ladylike; Bechdel Test); Chorus (Larger than Life; Unicorn; A Long Dog; Tomorrow's Shade; Mouth of Babes; Peddling Pots; Fizzy Lemonade; Wabi Sabi; Odd Feathers)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Terrarium); SN (Rail; Negate); LiCK (Poppy; Narcissus; Yarrow); FR (Satisfaction; Liberation); O3 (Ox); War (Obstruction; Sanctuary); TY (Kulonbozo; Enfant)
Word Count: 1206 words

(^^)
Birdwatching
(^^)

Silence came from the other end of the balcony as the pair of friends watched the third of their little trio doing yoga on the rocky beach of the Black Lake. Harini kept an eye on the twin she could tell was George even through the distance and the haze of what had to be an invisibility spell. Even though she did trust the Weasley twins and agreed with Luna that this was the best way to help Draco get their attention, she wasn't going to leave her friend unprotected.

If they scared Draco, Harini would hex them to oblivion and back without any hesitation.

Still, it was hilarious to watch George squirm as Draco went through more than his usual set of katas. Harini laughed softly to herself, covering her mouth with her hands which were covered with the sleeves of her over-sized jumper. Ginny (Luna's girlfriend) had made it herself as a thank you present for inadvertently saving Mr. Weasley right before the last winter break. The tan yarn she had chosen was wonderfully soft. Harini particularly loved the emerald green ribbons woven into the cuffs with textured glass beads like a bracelet.

Luna had the best girlfriend ever.

She looked over at the other Ravenclaw. They had worn their hair twisted up into a bun and secured with a wooden hair stick that had a butterfly carved on the pommel. They would look up to check on Draco every so often but most of their concentration was on the patterns they were drawing as a frame around the pictures they had collected of the Weasley family. The photo album was going to be a birthday gift to Mrs. Weasley from both Luna and Ginny, and Harini knew it was meant to soften the blow of Ginny finally telling her parents that she was dating Luna as certainly as Harini knew her skin was brown.

"Do you think the nipple rings were too much?" Harini asked as the glint of them caught her eye. "Do guys even like that kind of stuff?"

"I do not know," Luna admitted. "I'm not any more a boy than I am a girl." They shook their head absently. "I don't even want to think too much about how you managed to convince my cousin to do it in the first place. I tried to convince him to pierce his ears when we were ten, and he ran away crying at the first sight of the needle."

"I distracted him with something shiny first," Harini quipped. She reached into the bowl of caramel popcorn resting on the stone pedestal table between their chairs. "I am really clever, after all."

"Definitely a credit to our House," Luna agreed. Their tone had the same flat and slightly distracted tone they got when they were tiring of talking to others. For all that Luna had a greater stamina for talking than Harini did, they still had their limits. So Harini had no problem with letting the silence grow between them again.

That silence was probably the only reason that they managed to hear the argument down the corridor that led to their balcony in the first place. They glanced at each other for a moment, communicating with just looks in the way that tended to annoy anyone who was already a part of their group of friends. Then Luna stood and moved to the double doors.

They opened the door just in time to hear Ginny telling an older Gryffindor boy (Harini thought his name was Cormac McLaggen and that he was in the year above her or the same one as the twins) that he could shove his broom handling advice up his ass. Harini felt like she couldn't breathe. No matter how safe she felt while she was at Hogwarts, there was still something about arguments like this that made her freeze. It wasn't like facing down trolls, Dark Lords, or honorary godfathers turned into werewolf selves unexpectedly, where the adrenaline gave her the willpower to push off the panic. The therapist that Padfoot made her visit whenever she was home said it was her body remembering the few years she had lived with her aunt and uncle before Padfoot had gotten custody of her.

"Got quite a mouth on you, don't you?" McLaggen snapped, his tone as suggestive as it was annoyed. "Someone should really teach you what to do with it."

"She already does," Luna stated before Harini could stop them. They gave McLaggen an exaggerated vapid smile. (Harini was shocked how often pulling that obviously fake expression actually worked to make people dismiss Luna instead of attacking them.) "She's very good with it, too. She's got a very quick and agile tongue."

"I, I don't think you meant to say that, Luna," Harini said when McLaggen just stared at them both like he hadn't expected Luna and Harini to even be there let alone interrupting an argument. "Or, or, or at least, I don't think you meant to say it like that."

"But Ginny is very clever with her mouth," Luna objected. Their nose twitched in the way that Harini recognized as meaning that they were deliberately playing up their difficulties with metaphors. Harini almost sighed as she realized that there was a script playing out here, even if Harini didn't know what her lines were supposed to be.

"I don't think you meant that either," she tried instead. Luna's vacant smile grew into a full grin. Harini preened a bit at the idea that she had managed to say the right things despite not recognizing the script in play.

"Ginny is a very eloquent speaker," Luna explained as if there was no other possible interpretation of her words. Harini squinted at them in confusion, because that could have been the truth but it also could still be Luna playing a trick. A glance at both Ginny and McLaggen didn't help clear up the matter either.

"Sure," she said uncertainly. She nodded hard enough that she could feel her curls bouncing. She hoped that would pass as decisive instead of frantic. "That's what you meant."

"Did you think I meant Ginny is good at oral sex?" Luna asked as if just then realizing that interpretation was even remotely possible. Luna's grin turned a little dreamy, like she was getting lost in pleasant memories. "Because she's good at that, too. So very, very good."

Harini felt her eyes go wide in shock. She could hear Ginny trying to stifle giggles as well as McLaggen choking on his own saliva. Harini decided that someone had better check on Draco right that very moment and retreated fully onto the balcony again.

Retreat was a much better option than continuing to engage in whatever her friend was doing.

Much, much better.

And Harini definitely wasn't going to say anything about how flushed but sated Luna looked when the couple joined her in watching over Draco teasing George (who had now been joined by Fred) to near heart failure. She wasn't going to say anything about how smug Ginny looked either. She didn't even mention how it had taken them nearly thirty minutes to join her.

Some things were better off unexplained.