"You cursed!" Harry uttered pointing at her.
"Well what kind of person draws up a marriage contract for a baby and a toddler?" Hermione crossed her arms and scowled. "Not to mention leaving you with those people and threatening to fire Shiva when she had the audacity to argue with him. Dumbledore is an arsehole through and through. And while I have no intention of proclaiming that from the ramparts I am allowed to curse a bit here and there thank you very much!"
The boys held up their hands. "We're sorry, Hermione," both stated in unison. The girl glowered for a moment before accepting their apologies with a nod.
"You know," Harry said, "it's funny. I was actually going to ask you to help me look into Sirius Black anyway."
"What? Why?" Hermione asked.
"I'm not really sure. Something's been nagging at me for the past few weeks since Shiva told me about it and I honestly can't figure out what the problem is. Something just doesn't sound right…"
Hermione sighed. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing we agreed to check the facts then. We can get started tomorrow. It's been a long day, gentlemen. Let's head off to bed."
"Yes, Mistress Hermione," Neville said with a cheeky grin. He ran up the stairs laughing at the glare his friend sent his way.
"Goodnight, Hermione." Harry gave her a quick hug and then followed Neville to the dorm trying to ignore the last hour or so at least until the next morning.
"Good morning, Luna," Harry said as he passed the younger blonde in the Entrance Hall.
"Good morning, Harry Potter," she replied airily.
"You know, you can just call me Harry," Harry said with a chuckle.
"You don't mind?" she asked cocking her head at him.
"I really don't. The only ones who call me Harry Potter these days are people just interested in staring at my scar and a slightly manic house elf." Harry smiled thinking about Dobby. Hopefully the little guy was living large and enjoying his life with its new freedom.
"Well then, I shall refer to you as Harry, Harry." Luna paused to consider for a moment before sighing and shutting her eyes. "If you wish…you may call me Loony."
Harry frowned at that and stopped before they could make it to the tables. "Why would I want to call you that, Luna?"
"It is what nearly everyone else calls me. I am convinced the wrackspurts encourage it though I have not ruled out the nargles either." Luna's eyes had opened and she turned to look at him. Her face was very carefully set and betrayed next to no emotion. "The term first started when I defeated Ronald in chess while visiting Ginny two years ago."
Harry's gaze swept to Ron and he glared at the back of the boy's head hard enough it was amazing the redhead's head didn't spontaneously explode, before turning back to Luna and smiling softly. "Luna, I have no intention of ever calling you Loony, okay?" He saw her eyes widen but that was the only thing that registered on her face. "And I'll see if I can find some of the…wrackspurts and have a bit of a talk with them about that name also."
"Why would you do that, Harry?" Luna's gaze abruptly shifted from distant and unseeing to piercing and scarily focused.
"Because you seem nice, Luna. I was called names myself for a long time. It wasn't very fun." Harry shook his head. "Would you like to sit down with Hermione, Neville and I for breakfast?"
"Change tables?" Luna asked.
"Yeah. We could always move to sit with you over at the Ravenclaw table if you'd prefer…"
"I…Yes," Luna said nodding. "I would like to sit with you, Harry. May we sit near Ginny as well?"
"Sure." Harry led Luna towards his usual spot sitting down across from Hermione and Neville with Luna plopping down to him. Both his friends shot him a questioning glance but Harry just shrugged smiled prompting the other two to shake their heads and return to their breakfasts.
When Ginny walked into the Hall a few minutes later Harry waved her over next to Luna. "Morning, Luna," Ginny said with a yawn. "How come you're over here today?"
"Harry invited me," Luna said simply.
"Oh. Cool. Can you pass the bacon please?" Ginny yawned again while taking a few slices from the proffered plate.
"Luna," Hermione said after they were all looking a bit more awake. "Harry, Neville and I were going to start looking into a rather old case shortly. You said your father was the editor for the Quibbler, yes?" Luna nodded. "Have you helped him write any articles by chance?"
"I have written a few," Luna said, fingering her radish earrings. "I used to have a column on things the blibbering humdingers said."
Hermione shut her eyes and visibly took a breath before shaking her head and continuing with her query. "Would you be interested in helping us with our investigation? Perhaps assisting in the write up of any potential findings?" Harry smiled over at his friend for the suggestion.
Neville was nodding along as well. "Yeah, that'd be good to have an actual reporter help out."
"I'm not really a reporter…" Luna said glancing down. "I prefer to think of myself as an explorer. A reporter would have far less success finding the crumple-horned snorkack than an explorer."
"Well," Harry said, "you still have more experience tracking down this kind of stuff than we do. We tend to solve mysteries right in front of our noses. This one might take a bit more work."
"You truly want me to help?" Luna looked at Harry with that same piercing gaze from a few minutes ago. He felt like his soul itself was being weighed by this young blonde.
"We do, Luna," he responded not breaking her gaze. Luna blinked slowly and smiled nodding yes to them all.
Ron finally looked up from his third helping of food at that point and noticed Luna sitting nearby. "Why is Loony sitting here?" Fred and George sitting a bit further down the table smacked their heads against the wood.
Harry watched Luna's shoulders slump slightly before her distant smile returned. Harry bumped her shoulder and when she turned to him, raised his eyebrows at her and mouthed 'watch this'. Luna's gaze widened in reply and her eyes focused again.
Harry turned to Ron before Hermione could start in on the redhead. "Hey, Ron, do you remember last year when you tried to steal my Cloak?" The table immediately fell completely quiet. The only people who didn't remember that little incident were the new first years. And even some of them had heard the story already.
"Y-y-yeah?" Ron mumbled starting to pale.
"If you don't want similar wards to mysteriously appear around your bed you should probably call her 'Luna' or 'Miss Lovegood' or really anything but 'Loony'." The silence in the Hall had stretched to include the other three House tables.
Ron's eyes widened but color returned to his cheeks as he got redder and his complexion grew splotchy. "I can call her – "
"Ron," Neville cut in, "remember who your brothers are too. And which side they tend to support in these arguments."
All the red again drained out of Ron's features and he turned to look at the twins who still had their heads on the table but flashed identical thumbs up at Neville. "Right. Yeah. Sure. No problem."
He abruptly shut up and conversations seemed to restart. Harry turned to see Luna staring at him wide eyed. "Fun, eh?" She slowly nodded and giggled a bit.
Harry noticed Snape standing up from his place at the faculty table with a sneer firmly plastered onto his features. Harry sighed and murmured, "Comm on, contact Daphne."
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