Dorothy "Dottie" Darling (dottiness) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-07-22 14:43:00 |
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The notice had been written only once, and then duplicated through magic. She had enough for every notice board in the school. She had long since counted them all, as this was something of a yearly occurrence. By the time she had gotten close to Gryffindor Tower, she had only a few notices left in her arms. Using Spello-Tape, she hung yet another notice and noted the footsteps close behind her. She recognized them from the cadence and stride if nothing else, and distractedly glanced at Harry as she muttered a, “Hello.” “How come you’re not at the feast?” Harry asked her after a moment as she stepped away from the notice to make sure that it was properly visible. “Well, I’ve lost most of my possessions,” Luna informed him easily, “People take them and hide them, you know. But as it’s the last night, I really do need them back, so I’ve been putting up signs.” She gestured to the notice board where there was a list of her missing books and clothes amongst other various items. Sometimes they disappeared from her dorm room, and sometimes out of her bag during the middle of class. Sometimes it seemed that they just vanished as she was walking down a corridor. “How come people hide your stuff?” Harry pressed, a frown on his face. “Oh...well…” Luna did not like admitting this truth, though she was not adverse to most of them. She rather wanted Harry to like her as she thought of him fondly. She shrugged her thin shoulders and admitted, “I think they think I’m a bit odd, you know. Some people call me ‘Loony’ Lovegood, actually.” “That’s no reason for them to take your things,” he insisted, and she was certain that she had chosen well in wanting him as a friend, “D’you want help finding them?” “Oh no,” Luna smiled rather brilliantly and assured Harry, “They’ll come back, they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight. Anyway...why aren’t you at the feast?” Harry shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like it.” “No,” Luna observed, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him, “I don’t suppose you do. That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn’t he? Ginny told me.” It had been a sad conversation. Ginny had looked sad as she had said it some time earlier when Luna had asked what had happened after she had been knocked around at the Ministry. She remembered most of what happened up until that point, but things had gotten rather fuzzy after she had taken that tumble. “Have you…” Harry paused and then pushed forward, “I mean, who...has anyone you’ve known ever died?” It was a reasonable question to Luna. After all, they could both see Thestrals, and they’d gone to the Ministry together on such a grand adventure, even if it had gone rather awry, “Yes.” She wasn’t one to share this information with most, but with Harry it seemed that perhaps they had something in common, which wasn’t usually the case with most people Luna met, “my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.” She could still remember Pandora Lovegood and her whimsical ways. She remembered how gracefully she danced and how strong her arms felt in a hug and the small little “oh” that passed her lips as that spell had backfired right in front of Luna’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled. “Yes, it was rather horrible,” Luna knew this to be a fact, but didn’t think it was something to be ashamed of, “I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I’ve still got Dad. And anyway, it’s not as though I’ll never see Mum again, is it?” “Er -- isn’t it?” Harry didn’t seem to understand her meaning. She shook her head, blonde hair swaying, “Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you?” She smiled encouragingly. “You mean…” “In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.” Luna let that small smile linger on her lips, but she was certain. Her mother was somewhere close by, even if she was just out of reach, and one day she would reunite with her again and tell her of all of her adventures and new friendships. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you look for your stuff?” Harry asked instead of further commentary on the veil and their not-so-lost loved ones. “Oh no,” Luna assured him again, “No, I think I’ll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up...It always does in the end...Well, have a nice holiday, Harry.” As she walked towards the Great Hall, she heard him wish her well, too. It was nice to have people in her life that did not constantly comment on her eccentricities. It was nice to have conversations with those that could be her friend, perhaps...one day. With a pen in hand, Dottie looked down to her shopping list and discovered that she had doodled in the corners. A pair of tattered sneakers and the cover of a book and a necklace strung of bottlecaps. She bit the edge of her lip and thought about the shaggy haired boy that had been so nice to the strange, unwieldy girl despite the fact that his heart must have been breaking in his chest over and over again. The more that she dreamed about the boy, he reminded her a little more of someone that she knew, but she hadn’t quite put her finger on it. She knew about the Harry Potter books, but these dreams were different. These were all Luna. She handled bullies better than Dottie herself had. It had always hurt her soul a little to hear anyone say that she was odd when she was younger, though now that she was older, she viewed it as a point of pride. She was not like everyone else. Perhaps she was a little loony, but she was brilliant. She was effervescent. She was loved. |