Luna Lovegood
Summary: nargles, Wrackspurts, and hinkiepinks
Luna Lovegood knew she saw things that others did not. She knew that people called her barmy. She was not unaware that her nickname was Looney Lovegood. She was not as oblivious as she knew she appeared. She was a Ravenclaw for a reason. Luna also knew that everything she saw was real. She had known it from the first Wrackspurt she saws crawling over her cousin's shoulder. It was everyone else who was blind to some of the more discrete aspects of life. Which was okay because for the most part, people did fine without acknowledging them. Or so they thought.
In her four years at Hogwarts, Luna had observed Hermione Granger studying the red string that encircled her wrist with a fixed determination on multiple occasions.
Luna sighed. She knew Hermione well enough to know that her older classmate did not believe in many of the more inexplicable magical aspects of life. She was strict in her belief of what was and was not real. She had seen her roll her eyes as Luna pointed out certain infestations. She did not hold it against her though, Hermione was unflappably logical. This knowledge made Luna's silent observation all the more interesting.
Making a decision, Luna crossed the library and sat across from her quarry, startling her out of her reverie.
"Hello Hermione." She said to her stunned friend. After today, she would most certainly consider the other girl a friend if she had not already. Which she was rather sure she did as they often collected a fair amount of Dapperblimps when they talked. Disagreements on reality aside, Luna enjoyed her company immensely.
Hermione shook her head and glanced around, chiding herself for forgetting her concealment charms. Her research was meant to be private. "Hi Luna."
Luna's smile grew. "Don't worry. Your charms are still in place. I just decided to ignore them."
Hermione opened her mouth to ask the obvious question of how exactly that was possible when something caught her eye that had her snapping her mouth shut.
Her string had been draped lazily across the table, woven between her books and parchment. It had lingered longer than she was used to but she attributed that to the fact that she had not tried to hunt down the other end of it. The last time she had been alone, she had taken the opportunity to try to follow it's path which had caused it to vanish suddenly, disappearing right out of her hands. It was a skittish thing.
What had triggered Hermione's alarm however was not the fact that her string was still present, but the sight of Luna Lovegood's fingers absent-mindedly tying and untying bows in said string.
In five years, she had not once had anyone acknowledge the thread or interact with it in any way. It seemed to avoid all laws of science, as only a magical entity could. It slipped through the world without disrupting the environment around it or attracting anyone's notice. Until now.
"Luna." She started but found she had no words. All her questions died on her tongue in her complete state of bewilderment. She could not take her eyes off of Luna's hands, playfully creating shapes and patterns with her string.
Luna just smiled her serene smile and tilted her head knowingly. "It's okay Hermione, I won't tell anyone. I know it makes you nervous."
Still baffled by the new development, Hermione shook her head again to clear it. "Do you know what it is? I've been searching for years and the lack of information is astonishing. I feel like I've read every book in the Hogwarts' library and the only solid lead I found was in a book on destinies of all things and all it did was reference another book which of course was not in the library. I even checked the restricted section. I've resorted to thinking I may have to go to Trelawney of all people to find more resources." Now that she had started speaking, her words tumbled out in a rush. She had never had anyone to talk to about this.
Luna made a humming noise and nodded. "Yes. It appears when there are an extreme amount of Hinkiepinks around."
Hermione stared, blinked, and said slowly, "Hinkiepinks."
Luna nodded again. She smiled and began weaving a length of thread as she hummed to herself and added a flower she conjured into her pattern.
It seemed Hermione was not getting answers today.
Luna watched as a frustrated Draco Malfoy tried to discretely untangle his foot from the red string encircling it. She laughed quietly to herself as he tried to regain some of his usual grace.
The Nargles swarming his head told her he was still in adamant in his denial. He brushed off the group surrounding him and stalked away to sit by the Black Lake. She knew he often isolated himself when his string made an appearance. She had also seen the way his string rebelled in it's dislike of his stubborn indifference. It made her sad to see it so ignored.
She had first seen the thread trailing his ankle during a quidditch game in her first year. For quite some time she had watched, mesmerized, as the string fluttered behind him. That was until Harry Potter caught the snitch, ending the game and inciting chaos. His thread lingered through the argument on the pitch between the Gryffindors and Slytherins which had devolved from words to hexes to fists. She was too far to hear the topic but from the amount of Wrackspurts flooding the field she could only assume it was unpleasant. She had shaken her head sadly as she caught him glancing at his ankle and then jerking his head away as he and his teammates were ushered off the field by Professor Snape.
"Hello Draco Malfoy." Luna perched on a rock across from her sulking classmate.
"Looney." His sneer was missing some of it's usual venom and she felt a pang of sadness knowing his thread caused him so much pain. Pain which he never acknowledged.
The apple that he had been tossing dropped with a thud on the ground as he gaped at her with open mouthed shock. His gaze was fixed on her hands as she had been running the thread through her fingers, paying it the attention it had been so deeply lacking.
Her small smile started him from his stupor. "You can—" He started and stopped, blinking hard as if checking that what he was seeing was real. "You can see it?" He asked in a quieter voice than she had heard him use before. She nodded. "How?"
Luna tilted her head, considering. "I'm not sure. I've never asked it before."
His brow furrowed in further confusion and he stared at her for a few long moments. His mind warred between two realities. In one, the girl in front of him confirmed the magical affliction that had followed him around for years. The one that had plagued his thoughts no matter how hard he pushed it to the back of his mind, into the boxes he created for it. She made real what he had so tried to ignore and convince himself was nothing. In the other, she was Looney Lovegood and if she saw it, there was a high probability that it was imaginary.
Draco took the second option.
Luna watched sadly as Draco got to his feet and walked briskly back to the castle, his face set in a cold mask that she knew would grow colder and harder as his life wore on. She let the string run through her fingers as it dragged along behind him. It snagged quite purposefully on a rock, causing his pace to falter. He would continue trying to ignore the piece of his fate that was unwilling to be brushed aside. She wondered how long it would remain visible to him today and was even more curious how long he would remain willfully ignorant.
She looked out to the lake as the last of the string slipped through her fingers and hoped that the Nargle calming charm she had slipped into his bag during his escape would help calm his distress.