Basic Wand Safety?

She looked just like a Muggle girl when she had her wand behind her ear like that. For some it was a sign of studiousness. Some of the girls in the Muggle school Harry attended as a child would put their pencils behind their ears when they were working hard on a problem. It was also the sign of absentmindedness, but supposedly Luna had some clever quality somewhere because she was in Ravenclaw.

Harry smiled to himself because to Luna keeping her wand there was the most natural thing in the world. Of course, Luna had a father who edited The Quibbler and she believed in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. A lot of unusual things were more natural to her than to others, whether Magical or Muggle.

“You had better not let Moody see you with your wand like that,” joked Harry as he walked closer to Luna.

Luna turned to Harry. “Hello, Harry! How was your holiday?” She smiled at him encouragingly.

“Uh... well...” He faltered, looking out at Platform 9 3/4. It was quickly filling up with students on their way back to Hogwarts for another year. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give them all an earful about the details of his summer.

She leveled a glance at him again. “Okay, then. What’s this about Moody?”

Harry relaxed and allowed himself to laugh at the memory. “Last year when Moody got me from the Dursley’s, he told me not to put my wand in my back pocket because ‘what if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!’” Harry laughed again more easily.

“So you’d better be careful or you could lose your ear, Luna!” Harry wagged his finger for stern emphasis, but the mirth in his eyes betrayed him.

She replied matter-of-factly, “Well, my father did publish a story one time about a wand misfiring and doing the exact same thing. The poor wizard had to be rushed to St. Mungo’s, but it was an extremely difficult case with not being able to sit and all.”

Luna was walking away from him to board the train, so Harry couldn’t tell if she was joking or serious. When she turned to look over her shoulder to see if Harry was coming, the look on her face was pure guileless innocence. Harry thought then that she had to be teasing him, but he just couldn’t prove it.

When they found an empty compartment, Harry entered first to put away their student trunks. Luna looked at him with a smirk and said, “From here your buttocks look just fine.”

“LUNA!” Harry gasped and turned quickly. He would have never expected dreamy Luna Lovegood to say something so flirtatious as that.

“What? You were ogling over Cho Chang all last term. You would think you never heard a girl say something nice about you before.”

“Well, sure, but nothing so...so...” Harry closed his mouth. He couldn’t think of a good enough word to explain how surprised he was.

“You can blame it on Ginny. I learned it all from her, especially with all those boys she’s been dating lately. Maybe I’ll have to tell her all this nonsense doesn‘t work after all. I’ll just stick to the advice of the Love Witch.” Luna held up a copy of The Quibbler and tapped her temple with it.

“Er... yeah. You do that, Luna.” Harry sat down across from her uncomfortably. He could still feel the warm blush on his face.

Within a few minutes the rest of their friends filled the compartment. Harry looked around to see all the people who had gone to the Ministry of Magic with him to save Sirius. Hermione and Ron had been his best friends since his first year, but the close-knit group had doubled in size with the additions of Ginny, Neville and Luna. Both Neville and Luna could see the thestrals, but it was Luna who heard the voices behind the veil with Harry.

“Ginny, I just tried your flirting advice on Harry here, and it didn’t seem to work.” Luna turned to her classmate.

“You did?” Both Ginny and Hermione questioned at the same time.

Ron turned his teasing expression to his friend. “What did she say, Harry?”

“I just complimented his buttocks, but he started it first.”

“HARRY!” Hermione pretended to be scandalized.

Harry, not used to being teased, was really blushing now and wiggled most uncomfortably in his seat.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Honest.” He choked out.

“Well, Harry, after kissing older girls like Cho, we should have known you would come to this!” Neville teased Harry enjoying it as much as everyone else in the compartment.

“It was nothing!” Harry begged them to stop teasing him and turned silently to stare out the window. “It was nothing,” he repeated softly.

After a few more bits of smirking, laughing and deliberate teasing, the group settled down and stopped making Harry the object of their jokes. Ron and Hermione chatted with each other, as did Neville and Ginny. Meanwhile Luna read her copy of the latest issue of The Quibbler--upside down, of course.

That gave Harry time to think about Sirius. He had never known his parents, so he never knew what it was like to feel the fresh pain of loss. He missed them for what could have been, and he really loved to hear the stories about them. Yet he could have had a happy family with his godfather. It was all snatched away by Voldemort and his minion Bellatrix LeStrange, the same woman who had tortured Neville’s parents.

Harry was tired of being Voldemort’s puppet. He was tired about everything related to Voldemort. Normal sixteen-year-olds didn’t have their own personal arch enemy. That Harry would ever be considered normal in the Wizarding world or Muggle world was long ago dismissed. Oddly enough, that, too, was something he had in common with Luna.

Harry leaned over and pulled the copy of the magazine away from Luna’s face. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say really. He just knew that somehow it gave him comfort that she had actually understood what it was like to lose someone you love. She had heard the voices with him.

She smiled openly at him as he reached to touch the top of her hand with his fingertips. “Luna, I wanted to tell you that...”

“Ooh, Potter and Lovegood!” A familiar Slytherin voice interrupted him. “What? Did your girlfriends Granger and Weasley finally have enough of you, Potter?” Draco Malfoy looked positively gleeful at another opportunity to torment Harry and his friends.

“Impeccable timing as always!” Harry cursed. While Draco enjoyed this little game, it was something he could do without.

“I’m not his girlfriend, you toad!” Hermione couldn’t help but jump into the conversation.

“Hermione, that’s an insult to toads everywhere,” Neville said from his seat beside Ginny.

“You must have been a bad girlfriend, Granger, if Potter had to go to get some ‘good love’ from Loony Lovegood.” Malfoy laughed maliciously at his little joke.

“How dare you!” Ron was standing to defend Hermione, but stopped suddenly.

Before the fight could escalate as it usually did, the car was filled with the sounds of Luna’s hysterical laughter. “Good love! Lovegood!” Luna was gripping her sides and rocking back and forth in her seat. “Oh, that’s... FUNNY!” She tried to wipe the tears from her eyes as she continued to laugh.

Malfoy looked at Luna in disgust. “Only you, Potter, would have a laughing hyena for a girlfriend!”

Luna got up from her seat and walked as steadily as she could while still shaking with laughter. “Jealous you can’t have me, Draco? Come here and give us a kiss. I’ll show you good love!” She walked toward him with an exaggerated pucker and her arms outstretched.

Draco Malfoy blanched. Acting like any sixteen-year-old boy would do around the group’s ‘weird girl’, he did the only thing he could do. He ran to get as far away from her as fast possible.

Luna had a smirk on her face as she turned and walked normally back to her seat. “I tell you that’s better than a banishing charm.”

The rest of the group laughed at Luna’s joke as she sat down. Ron reached out to give her a high-five. With Draco and his minions gone, they all talked comfortably for the rest of the trip back to Hogwarts.

When the train did finally arrive at Hogsmeade station, they got their school trunks and filed off the train. As they walked to the thestral-drawn carriages, Harry stayed back from the crowd so he could get a chance to talk to Luna alone.

“Luna, I didn’t get a chance to tell you back there, but thanks for everything. For going with us to the Department of Mysteries, for hearing the voices behind the veil. For telling off Draco,” he added appreciatively.

She beamed brightly in response. “Of course, Harry!” She reached to take his hand.

“Besides,” she added after a comfortable silence had passed, “someone has to make sure you practice basic wand safety!”

With the look of mischief in her eyes, she reached over and pinched Harry on the same buttocks she had complimented earlier. Then Luna laughed and sprinted teasingly ahead of him to join the rest of their friends waiting in the carriage.

Harry smiled wide and ran after her. Whatever good or ill, the year would bring, it was safe to assume that any year at Hogwarts was bound to be an interesting one. He was curious to see what exactly it would be this time.