Oranges and Other Leo Related Facts

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The fruit bowl was starting to look more and more appealing as he refused turning around to face the others. Hermione had probably looked up from the Daily Prophet and Ron's voice had stopped being heard talking to Fred and George about Quidditch teams. Ginny and Luna's orders to the chessboard had stopped, and judging by the screams coming from one of the chessmen, the pieces weren't happy about it. They were all looking at him, the weight of their stares being ponderous upon his back. Thinking of this scene, Harry wondered if this is what his friends normally did: Just stare at him casually, forgetting about whatever they were doing.

Still, he ignored them, keeping his back to them stiffly. Instead, he focused on the fruit arrangement. Mrs. Weasley had done a nice job with arranging the fruit, he had to admit. He smiled to himself. He was beginning to think that fruit was interesting. Then again, he had also thought quite a few times after his arrival at The Burrow that he would much rather be at Privet Drive. It wasn't that his friends from the magical world weren't cordial, it was more or less the problem of knowing what was cordial and what was babying. At Privet Drive he was left alone, and frankly, he preferred it that way nowadays. Here, in the midst of the world to which he truly belonged, he hated how Hermione would try to relax him by treating using a voice one would use to tame a reckless infant. Ginny was constantly pressuring him about Quidditch, and one night when Harry was pouring all this out to Ron, Ron actually tried to settle Harry down with words that had the connotations of coos.

Ginny wasn't all that bad, though, for Luna came from across the village every other day, and the two girls would keep company to each other. Today they were quietly playing chess, or at least were playing chess before they decided his back was something better to focus on.

Harry heard shuffling behind him, and he knew that someone was coming towards him.

"You know," Ron started to say as he sat down next to Harry at the table, "you didn't eat breakfast, and you didn't show up for lunch." He picked up an orange from the fruit bowl and held it out for Harry, "Eat something."

Harry thought about what Ron said. He hadn't had much of an appetite; he had completely let his health go, for all he had to worry about was one thing (and that one thing alone) that could kill him. Matters of eating didn't apply themselves to him anymore. Even the other night, when Mrs. Weasley made treacle tart, he had eaten only a few bites before excusing himself from the table.

"'Not hungry," Harry answered.

"C'mon," Ron pressured, forcing the orange under Harry's hand.

"I'm not hungry," Harry answered yet again, his voice getting much cooler. He rolled the orange back to Ron, but Ron refused to stop it as it rolled past him and landed with a thunk on the floor.

Ron got up and mumbled something that Harry wasn't sure he was supposed to here, and he turned around and climbed up the stairs quietly. Harry turned around and sure enough, Hermione's book was closed and sat in her lap as she looked at him disappointingly, Fred and George both stared with one eyebrow raised, and Ginny had her head tilted slightly as she watched him with her lips twitching slightly. Luna, as Harry noticed, was the only one not looking up at him. She had instead decided on having an animated conversation with a knight on her side of the board that was ordering Ginny to finish the game.

Fred and George stood up simultaneously. Harry looked at them, already expecting what they were going to offer.

"Harry m'boy," Fred said as a rather large smile formed on his face, "we're going to Hogsmeade tonight to inspect the territory we bought for the joke shop. Would you like to assist us? Who knows, maybe with you along with us we might get even get a rebate¾ that lot wasn't cheap, you know."

"After that, we're going to Honeydukes for dessert," George supplied before Harry could answer.

"No thanks," Harry said a bit loudly just as Fred opened his mouth to say something. George then opened his mouth, closed, opened it again and then closed, and then finally turned to Fred and said "Maybe Ronniekins would like to come?" And the two twins, not wanting to him to raise his voice anymore, dropped the subject and quickly ran up the stairs to find Ron.

"Harry," Hermione said as she watched Fred and George go, "you really haven't eaten anything lately..."

"Yeah," Ginny chimed in, standing up. "We're worried about you. Maybe you should go with Fred and George, they have a way with making me feel better." And Ginny showed him a small smile as she said this.

"And Honeydukes does have simply lovely sherbet balls," Hermione reminded as she stood up and placed the book on the seat behind her. "I know that you really enjoy the chocolate covered ones..." A smile had appeared on her face as well.

Harry looked and saw that Luna was paying no attention to this conversation. "I'm just not really into being in big crowds...I'd rather just...I want to stay where it's quiet..."

Ginny and Hermione came closer to him. "Then you should get some fresh air," Ginny said. "The boysenberries by the field are really ripe around early August, or maybe you could play a round of Quidditch." She had said the last as more of a question than a suggestion, but she quickly looked down to her feet, trying to avoid the stare that she knew Harry would give her.

"Actually, I think I might turn in early tonight-"

He stopped quickly. Remembrances of Hogsmeade and Sirius collided. Crouched under a table with Ron and Hermione...watching a black dog holding a newspaper run up to him...Sirius and Hogsmeade blended into the same well of memories, and Harry just did not want to deal with this right now. He cut himself short for he was debating whether he should just be frank with Hermione.

"I don't want to go to Hogsmeade," he told her, his voice softening a little. By the way her eyes grew wide and watery, he knew that she understood, at least somewhat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the only girl still sitting was now watching him with that silvery, protuberant stare.

"But why?" Ginny asked, looking up and annoyed. Hermione mumbled something that Harry couldn't here and took Ginny by the wrist up the stairs, Ginny acting a bit more stubborn as she climbed each step.

Harry turned back around in his seat and sighed. He slouched in his seat and closed his eyes.

"-yes, he does move rather quickly. Ginny told me he was half kneazle, though, but yes his eyes do resemble those of Pixies-"

Harry turned around and saw that Luna had her face rather close to the chessboard, and he noticed that she was still going on happily with the chessman. He also noted that Crookshanks was now lounging on the chair opposite Luna, eyeing the game board sinisterly. Luna suddenly shifted her gaze from the chessman to Harry, and she smiled slightly as she looked back down. Harry gave a halfhearted smile in return before turning back in his chair and closing his eyes and...

He almost fell asleep. He wondered why, though. He wasn't the least bit tired and he didn't really have plans of going to bed early that day. He strained his ears and listened tentatively. A gentle humming was coming from somewhere behind him. Figuring it was Luna, he slid back down in his chair and enjoyed the moment.

"You're a Leo, you know." Her voice came from his right. He looked up, a bit upset because his eyes had just settled in, too...

"Wha-?" Harry barely spoke the question for he was lazily rubbing his eyes while sitting up straight in his chair.

"You're a Leo. They range from the 23^rd of July to the 22^nd of August. I suppose Godric Gryffindor was one, too, because Leos prefer Lions and like really all sorts of cats." Harry looked at her with his recently-awoken eyes. She was holding an orange, and Harry knew that orange was the same one he had rolled onto the floor earlier. He followed her gaze and found that she was looking at a disheveled chessboard, Crookshanks proudly beaming on top of said board.

Harry now looked at the window, which showed a sunset-ing sky. The sky was blue when he fell asleep...

"Either that," Luna said quietly, "or he was just fond of lions, which most people are."

Harry wanted to ask what his being a Leo or Godric Gryffindor being a Leo had to do with anything, but Luna quickly started speaking again. As if reading his mind, she said

"Leos are also keen to fiery colors: red, orange, yellow, gold. That I suppose makes sense since fire is their element, and gold is their metal with ruby as the gemstone. Therefore," she looked at the orange in her hand and then at Harry, "I can't imagine why you don't like this little citrus-filled plant. It is after all orange, and you are a Leo, like I stated earlier."

Harry's mouth hung open a little as he watched her sit down in a chair adjacent to his. "It's not that...I don't like the fruit, Luna," he said a little slowly in his opinion. "It's just that I'm not hungry."

"No? Well, neither am I during the summer. Coming here for dinner is nice, but I wouldn't want to be a burden for Mrs. Weasley all summer. And unfortunately, daddy isn't too marvelous at cooking, so that leaves me to fend for myself, and I can't say that I'm terribly good at it either. Yes, I much rather prefer the pudding at Hogwarts, especially the chocolate flavored one."

Harry took in all she said quietly. "Ok...err...well-"

"I once had a sphere that looked like this," she told Harry as she looked curiously at the orange, rubbing it with her thumb. "It was part of a solar system model daddy had hanging in his study. He knew I was rather fond of the planet Neptune, so he gave me the sphere in the model that represented Neptune and that's how we have an eight planet solar system at our house. Hmm...although, my Neptune was a bit bigger and wasn't nearly as orange. No, it was a very opaque cadet blue, you know? But the weight comes close and so does the circularity." She looked back up at him as she tried to tuck a few of her straggly dirty-blonde strands behind her ear, though her wand tucked behind her ear seemed to be an obstacle. As Harry listened to her, a question came into mind.

"Luna, did you...get your stuff back?" He asked, but as soon as he said it, he wished the words could go back inside his mouth. She was in the middle of taking her wand out of her ear when he asked her, and now she was twiddling her wand between her index and middle fingers, staring dreamily at something past the fruit bowl.

"Well, I never really get all of it back, you know. It was only until last year that my Norklesvanian(1) book of fairytales was returned to me, and that was stolen in my second year. But yes, the turnout of things went well...almost all of them this time..." She looked back to him, "Maybe you really don't like oranges. You never eat the fruit cocktails at dinner, and it's the oranges that makes it worth trying."

"Yeah, well..." He was feeling so insecure all of a sudden. Then again, not many people could truly respond to most of the things that Luna had said.

"You're like writers, poets," she told Harry.

"Poets?"

"Yes. They don't like oranges either, simply because they can't ever find a word to rhyme with them. But there is a word, you know."

"And what's that?" Harry asked, actually curious about what she was going to say.

"The Springing Glibgeorange."

"Oh," was all that Harry could say. Hadn't Luna gone to Sweden to look for the Snorckle something? He made a mental note to ask her about her trip.

"Yes, quite tetchy little creatures they are! They're related distantly to the humdingers¾ though not the blibbering ones¾ " she looked at him seriously as she said this last part. "There was a spotting of them in Oslo, and I begged daddy to let us go, but he was rather keen on finding the Crumpled-Horned Snorkack...and that was our top priority..."

She then stood up, and Harry looked up, his mouth now slightly open because she was leaving.

"Well, you don't want to be like poets, do you? They are quite nice fruits. Dinner will be served soon, I assume, and since you haven't eaten all day I don't think that little orange will spoil your appetite. Well, goodbye, Harry. I'll see you soon."

She waved and walked away into the kitchen, where she probably went out through the side door, through the fields and off to the Lovegood Property.

She had left so quickly Harry hadn't received a chance to say goodbye. He felt something warm in his hand and saw the orange there. Looking a little confused, he stared at it for a moment before saying, "Well, I don't want to be like a poet." And he started peeling off the zest.

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