Chapter Four: Lovegood Legacy
Weekends at Hogwarts were always the perfect time to take a vacation from studying, unless there are exams to prepare for. It was still early in the year for a holiday, so everyone was waiting for the right moment to find the precise date for rest and relaxation.
Hermione awoke early on a Saturday, still reeling her mind around Professor Periwinkle. She seemed decent, and a proper improvement to that of some of the other professors. Still, Hermione wasn't sure of what to make of her. She knew who Hermione was and didn't even flinch. As a matter of fact, she seemed rather impressed and, at the same time, had taken a liking to her, behavior similar to Professor McGonagall. But why was she so curious to get to know all of them as if she were Rita Skeeter? Was she also a brand new editor of the Daily Prophet? Or maybe the Quibbler? Did Xenophilius hire her? Either way, Hermione was skeptic.
By the time she got downstairs, Ginny was waiting for her moment to shoot sparks out of her wand. "Happy birthday, Hermione!" She hugged her. "Aw, thanks, Ginny."
"Come on, let's go to the Owlery, I just saw Pigwidgeon outside our window."
Owls were flying all around outside the grounds. Pigwidgeon was standing on one of the posts and Hermione picked up the envelope that was in his mouth.
"Hey, Hermione, just writing to say happy birthday. Harry and I send our love. I hope Hogwarts is better now. By the way, who's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher? Is it another knockoff? Is it a man or a woman? If it's a man, I hope he's incredible like Remus. If it's a woman, I hope she's absolutely nothing like Umbridge. Tell Ginny we miss her. Hope to see you at Christmas. Ron."
Hermione smiled as she was reading the letter. It was nice to see that Ron was actually sending some love for a change. She couldn't wait to see what else they had planned to write in the near future, if ever. She spent most of her day walking around in the grounds. She was too focused on her schoolwork to worry about anything else. However, seeing as how it was her birthday, she couldn't be burdened to take the day off.
Hermione went back to the common room by the time it was dark outside. When she entered inside, the lights were turned off. They turned on and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" Hermione smiled; she was not at all expecting this. A surprise party seemed a little cliche, but at Hogwarts, you can never go wrong, even with being extra special. Ginny offered her some cake. "So, not too bad, right?" she asked her as she took the plate.
"I had absolutely no idea. How long have you been planning this?"
"A couple of days now. You should check out the present Luna was about to give you." "Speaking of Luna," Hermione was saying, "where is she? I mean, I haven't seen her all day." "Uh, something came up." Luna was, in fact, in the Ravenclaw common room. She must have been. Generally, it was against the rules for students from other houses to visit other common rooms. However, there might have been rare exceptions from time to time. When Dumbledore was headmaster, he had access to all four common rooms. Although it was unbeknownst to some Gryffindor students why he would visit the dungeons.
Luna's father, Xenophilius, is best known for writing the Quibbler, but now that the dark days are over, some of the topics are almost dull, so Luna gave herself the task of trying to punch it up so that it would be more excitable. She spent most of her time writing every possible detail she could think of by the time it was almost midnight. She couldn't think of what she could tell her father to write. The Lovegoods have always been a curious bunch. It wasn't impossible to come up with the truth, but it was impossible for Luna to muster up a kind of article to help her father out. Xeno was a little out of sorts when the Death Eaters took away Luna last year to get to Harry. Ever since then, he felt guilty and wanted to make up for it, so he sought Luna for help, which is why she had been fiddling with her feather quill, scribbling in her journal, trying to find something worthwhile to mention in a newsletter.
The next morning, Luna was walking in the school hallways and found Hermione walking in another direction. She ran up to her and said, "Hermione, did you like the present I gave you?"
"Oh, yeah. This bracelet is wonderful. What exactly is it made from?"
"Well, I know how uncomfortable you feel about the fur that I collect, so I decided to give you something that everybody else wears. It's genuine leather." Luna explained it to her. "Oh," Hermione said, "Genuine, that's very pricey. Thank you, Luna."
"You're welcome. Where's Ginny?"
"She's still duking it out in the dungeons. Apparently she wants to double her efforts in Potions before the end of term. Anyway, where were you last night?"
"I was in my common room going through a funk." "A funk? Should I ask?" "Well, my father gave me a job to tell him what to write for next month's Quibbler, but I
can't seem to fit anything in." Hermione told her, "Just talk about current events. People rave about the weather." "I was hoping for something a little more meaningful than that."
"Don't worry, you'll think of something."
In the Potions classroom, Ginny was pouring liquids into her cauldron and then a massive amount of smoke appeared. Hermione and Luna ran in and started reacting to the smoke. "Ginny," Hermione coughed, "what on earth are you doing?" "The recipe said to use wormwood," Ginny told her. Hermione picked up the book. "Oh, Ginny, this is for Girding Potion!"
"Well, it's no wonder. These people need to work on their choice of ingredients." Hermione slapped her hand to her face. "Ginny, you need to pay more attention to the list. You can't just keep putting in random ingredients."
"What are you talking about? Harry followed someone else's instructions."
"That was different. Those were Professor Snape's notes. Ginny, next time, look at the page carefully. And for God's sake, be careful of how much you put into the cauldron!"
In the Ravenclaw common room, Luna was still thinking about what to write to her dad. It was like she was suffering from writer's block, a condition people have when they want to write something but have absolutely no thoughts or ideas. Helena Ravenclaw, the Grey Lady, appeared. She was floating about in the common room, staring out the the window as though hoping outside it would rain. "Having some trouble, Luna?"
"Hello, Helena."
"Looks like you're drawing a blank here," Helena noticed Luna's lack of words. "I can't think of anything to say. I want my dad to write a wild story, but all of his headlines are a joke. And that's coming from me, a person these people don't take seriously." Helena related to Luna's problem. "You know, if you're more than determined to come up with a good topic, you could always talk about current events."
"Do you really think that will work?"
"Absolutely, you just have to write from the heart." Luna heeded these words. She pondered what it was like to be back at Hogwarts after Voldemort had been killed. She thought about the castle being repaired, the Quidditch stands being mostly rebuilt and Professor Periwinkle being the new Dark Arts teacher. "Hmm," Luna thought. She started writing with her quill, and before she knew it, she forgot how much she was writing before she finally reached the end of her paper. She smiled at this, she had written a full page. Before long, she wrote her dad's name on the envelope and sent an owl off in the Owlery. At the end of September, Xenophilius had written back and the same owl gave her another envelope. Inside the letter, it wrote, "I loved it."
