Going Out

None of her friends had boyfriends or girlfriends, or were "going out" with anyone else. That's what they told everyone, anyway. But Luna knew better. She may have been "dotty", or even a little bit "loony" sometimes, but the Sorting Hat didn't place her in Ravenclaw because he felt like it, nor because the blue matched her eyes better than yellow or green or scarlet, nor because he read it in a fortune cookie (which he could have, had he a set of hands hiding between the brown folds).

No. Luna Lovegood became a Ravenclaw those years ago because she was intelligent, clever, and observant (which was rather easy, with eyes like those). She didn't always think so herself, but when she wrote to her father that September about her sorting, a slightly tear-stained letter returned. Mr Lovegood was brimming with pride, but not surprised in the least. He told her he suspected it was all the books and the stories and even the Daily Prophet every morning at breakfast. Day-long trips to the library and a novel permanently bound to a small hand. Birthday presents of the same familiar, rectangular shape and twice as many at Christmas.

So yes, Luna was definitely a bright girl. She knew how to see what was right in front of her (and sometimes what wasn't) and she could recognise a lie when she heard one. Four of her new friends did, in fact, have their own "significant others".

---

Her favourite stories were of the Brownies. "The 'Brownies' were good-natured little spirits or goblins of the fairy order. They were all little men, and appeared only at night to perform good and helpful deeds or enjoy harmless pranks while weary households slept, never allowing themselves to be seen by mortals. No person, except those gifted with second sight, could see the 'Brownies'."

Sometimes people told her she was silly for still believing in such things. But she did anyway, because she found that lately she had a lot more extra time than a few months ago, when her friends were just her friends and there was nothing inbetween.

---

Even after all this time, the four of them tried to hide it from the rest of the world that was Hogwarts School. And she would say they did a rather good job, because the more they each denied it, the less talk went around her surrounded-in-sapphire Table of Gossip. There was always a Michael and a Cho who each had their full share of glances at the Gryffindor table (even while hand-in-hand), and of course a Padma who was deep in thought about her decisions in the past two years, and definitely a group of girls who hated "that bushy-haired one" for what she did to Viktor Krum, "the most gorgeous Quidditch player on the planet".

But other than that, things were normal as people fought over the marmalade and the bacon at breakfast, and the crisps bowl at lunch, and the pork chops at dinner.

For Luna, there was no time for any of this. She was too busy watching the hugs that lasted a moment too long, and the glances between two that made the both of them blush, and how one person would never leave alone, but with another.

She was too busy seeing her fifth friend, sitting alone on the end, watching the very same things she was. Luna turned her head and grinned at him until she caught his eye, then pulled out her book from under the table and fell into her world of fairytales.