The Tell-tale Art

VI.

The next afternoon, Dean searched for the drawing again. Ginny mentioning that she had some of his art had him worried that she might remember the drawing and wonder what had become of it. Dean fancied he could lie and say that he'd left it at home or that he'd destroyed it. But then, if it turned up somehow, he'd have quite a bit of explaining to do - provided that he'd be of sound mind and body to do it.

He'd even taken a break from his current projects. Professor Binns's lecture that day had dragged on as usual, but Dean didn't take advantage, doing nothing more except flip through his sketchbook. He'd stopped briefly at his unfinished sketch of Luna, studying it for awhile, but closing the book when he'd noticed Seamus looking at him oddly.

Dean was just lifting up the mattress of his bed when he heard a noise outside the door that sounded like a small explosion. Seconds later, the door flew open.

"Oi, you pillock!"

Seamus was in the doorway smiling broadly. In his hand was a box with the a yellow WWW stamped upon it. Dean groaned, recognizing the latest shipment in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes's "Joke of the Month" club.

"You didn't think I'd figure it out, did you?" Seamus ran on, taking a seat on Dean's bed. "Here, hold this a second." He held the box out, which appeared to be trembling madly. Dean backed away as a laughing Seamus closed the box with a tap of his wand.


"It took me a bit, but now I know what you're about. Why didn't you tell me before now?"

Dean kept the box in his sights, dividing his attention between it and Seamus. "What are you talking about?"

"Lovegood!" Seamus exclaimed. "You're trying to give Potter a taste of his own medicine, eh?"

"What?"

"Well, Potter's got your old bird now, and now you've got his," said Seamus. "You should've stayed in the common room last night. What you said really got on Potter's wick, it did. He looked at Ginny and said, 'Did you know something was going on with those two?' And she said -"

"Wait a minute. They - you think that I'm ... that Lovegood and me are ..." Dean paused and took a breath. "Are you completely cracked?"

The smile slid off Seamus's face. "You mean, you two aren't -"

"No! Why the hell would you think we were?"

"Well, you're the one drawing her, nancing about, talking about her frog, and -"

"She's not such a hard lot." Dean ran an agitated hand over his hair, and he rushed on. "But that's not the point. I draw whatever I think might be interesting. I've drawn the headmaster. I've drawn Professor McGonagall. Hell, I've even drawn you! Did you ever think I did it because I fancied you?"

Seamus went pale and then very red. "But Potter and Ginny said they saw the two of you were at the lake together the other day."

"We were, but it wasn't like that," said Dean through gritted teeth. "I was out there because I'm trying to draw the castle and I get the best view from there. She was there ... I don't know why." He decided to keep quiet about the Frog-Quidditch. "It wasn't as if we'd were out there to snog or anything."

"All right, all right." Seamus held up his hands. "I believe you. Potter seems to think there's something going on, but if you say there isn't -"

"There isn't!"

"Fine! Cor, you don't need to yell," muttered Seamus. "I just thought it was something you were doing to get Potter's pants in a twist, you taking up with her."

"I've got better things to do than to try to get Potter's pants in a twist," said Dean sourly. "Besides, I barely know Luna. She's not in Gryffindor, not in our year ... I don't see her outside the Great Hall, even." He flushed when he thought of the library, but he rationalized that as it being a special case. It was the beginning of exam season, after all.

"Right, and she's not exactly the fittest bird in the school."

Dean hesitated a moment. "She's not a troll," he said softly, thinking again about Luna's resemblance to the women in those Muggle paintings. "She's not anything like Ginny or the Patil twins, but at least she's not completely hopeless like Marietta Edgecombe or any of the Slytherin girls. D'you think Potter would've gone near her if she were?"

"I suppose not," agreed Seamus with a grimace. "Y'know, in a way, it'd almost make sense, you and Lovegood. You lot are like ... the leftovers!"

Dean just stared. There wasn't any real way at all to respond to that.

"I'm serious; Lovegood was with Potter, you were with Weasley. Now they're together and you two are just sort of left out, in a way."

Dean snickered, but he had to admit that there was something to that. Sort of. Though Seamus was obviously quite mad in thinking that he and Luna were going to fall in love anytime, well, ever, Dean hadn't stopped to consider that Luna was - if the rumors were to be believed - the only person in the school who knew quite well what he was going through. If Potter had thrown her over in the same slipshod way that Ginny had done him, then Luna deserved not just his sympathy, but empathy, as well.

"Anyway, what're you about up here?" Seamus looked around the room. "Still looking for that picture? You told Weasley that you didn't care about it."

"I don't really," said Dean, looking at the floor. "But it might be nice to have anyway. Y'know, just in case."

"C'mon, mate, what is it you're really looking for?" Seamus asked in a wheedling tone. "You can tell me -"

The door blew open at that moment and Harry walked in looking very much like a person holding onto his temper with both hands. When he spotted Dean, the corners of his mouth pulled into a deeper frown.

"Ginny's down in the common room," he said tightly. "She wants to talk to you."

Dean's brow furrowed. Ginny wanted to talk him? That couldn't be ... very good. For a terrifying moment, he wondered if he'd been wrong all along and she really did have the picture. That could explain Harry's thunderous expression.

"What's it all about?"

"How should I know?" Harry muttered, stalking over to his bed. "She just told me that if I saw you up here, I should tell you that she wants a quick word."

Dean relaxed then. He was now reasonably sure that whatever Ginny wanted, it wasn't about the drawing - or if it was, Potter didn't know anything about it. Shrugging in acknowledgment of the message, Dean headed for the stairs.

*

The common room was empty save for Ginny, who was sitting on the couch sifting through a bunch of papers. Dean looked around, stunned that there was no one else there, and he wondered if that was part of the reason that Harry had been so shirty with him a few minutes before. He couldn't think that Potter fancied the thought of his being left alone with Ginny.

Dean recalled how he and Ginny had jumped at chances like these, making good use of that couch, in fact. Dean's mind began to wander back to those pleasant days, but his train of thought derailed when Ginny raised her head.

"Hi."

"Hey." Dean thrust his hands into his pockets. "You wanted to see me?"

She nodded, and Dean went to sit in a nearby armchir. As he got comfortable, he was able to get a better look at what Ginny held in her hands. They weren't scrolls after all - they were stiff, white pages. Dean recognized them as the type of papers he used for serious drawings and his heart began to pound.

"I was going through these today," said Ginny. "I thought maybe I should give them to you."

Dean stared at her in disbelief as the pounding in his heart traveled to his head. "What?"

"Well," she said, blushing slightly, "I thought that maybe you might them back."

He watched her hands flutter over the pages. Some of them were crinkled at the edges and others looked as if they'd been rolled up like parchment. Some he recognized as having been done near the end of his fifth year, when he and Ginny had first started going around together.

The sketch on the top of the stack was probably the most recent one. It was Ginny sitting in the Three Broomsticks during a Hogsmeade weekend. He'd drawn her sipping a Butterbeer and looking demurely up through her lashes. Seeing the drawings again brought back a flood of nice memories, but he felt cold inside at the thought that Ginny would want to return them.

"I drew them for you. If you don't want them anymore, toss them out." He started to stand. "Is that all? I've work to get to."

"No, that's not all," Ginny said, glaring at him until he sat again. "Dean, this is silly. I know that things ended a little badly between us, but I had hoped that we could be friends."

"Friends?" Dean echoed, incredulously. "You want me to take back things I made for you and you're going on about being friends?"

"I just thought that maybe you'd like them for your Muggle portfolio -"

"Really? That's corking of you," he said in a voice dripping sarcasm. "If I'd needed them, I'd have asked. You sure this just isn't Potter not wanting you to have any memories of me?"

Her eyes narrowed. "This has nothing to do with Harry, so leave him out of this."

"My arse, he's got nothing to with it," Dean muttered.

"What did you just say?"

"Nothing. Forget it." Dean stood up, oblivious to her glare. "Like I said, those were for you. If you don't want them, fine. I don't care anymore."

"Did you ever care, then?" She jumped to her feet, face reddening. "Maybe I was wrong about you being one of the nicest boys I could ever have dated -"

"You can't be serious!" Dean gaped at her in disbelief. "It's a right laugh, you being so self-righteous when not a week after you dumped me, you were snogging Harry Potter!"

"It was more than a week!" she yelled. "And I told you to leave Harry out of it. He has nothing to do with what happened between us!"

"That's a bunch of shite, and you know it!" he shot back. "With you, everything's about Potter and it has been from the start. Only I was too stupid to realize it. Or maybe I did always know it and just hoped that you weren't using me to pass the time while you waited for him to get his head out of his arse."

"Using you?" she said, her voice approaching a shout. "I never -"

"I was there Ginny. Remember?" He pointed to the spot where he'd stood during the Quidditch Cup party, shards of broken glass digging into his hand. "I saw everything. It didn't look like some big surprise from where I was sitting. Looked like a kiss you'd been waiting on for years -"

"I never went around on you with Harry!"

"Maybe you'd never snogged him before that day," retorted Dean, "but you thought about it, didn't you? Maybe you even thought about it back when you were with Corner. Is that why you threw him over?"

"I told you why Michael and I broke up. He -"

"Right. He was hacked off that his own bloody House lost the Quidditch Cup. What an arse, yeah? How dare he show a bit of house loyalty." Dean's lip curled in a sneer. "And me. I had the bloody nerve to try to be a gentleman and let you go first in doors and all that -"

"I asked you to stop it -"

"And I did! But you didn't listen to me about that, either. I'd worn out my welcome by that time, I suppose."

"That's not true! Dean - I liked you. We had fun together and we made each other laugh. It was nice, but sometimes ... things just stop working."

She took a deep, watery breath. She didn't look very angry now, and that rankled Dean more than her fury had.

"We weren't having as much fun together anymore and I didn't see it getting any better."

You never gave me a bloody chance to make it better! It was on the tip of Dean's tongue to say it, but he kept it in. There was no use in putting that out there; he knew that he might have done everything he could think of to try to make Ginny happy, but it wouldn't have been enough, not while Harry Potter was walking around unattached.

"Michael was a git for more reasons than just the way he took on over the Quidditch Cup." Ginny said in a trembling voice. "I thought that you were different, that you would understand that Harry had nothing to do with it -"

Ginny's face was beginning to go red again, and Dean was sure that he'd be staring down the wrong end of her wand in a moment. But he didn't care. It was good to get it all out, finally. Good to just let what he'd been feeling from the time Ginny had cast him aside all the way until now. Friends? She wanted to be friends? Bugger that.

"Bollocks," Dean said coldly. "Potter let you know that he was ready and you couldn't bloody wait to throw me over and go to him. I reckon you figured you were ready, too. Seems you got nice enough practice with me in snogging," he added with a nasty smile. "Potter doesn't seem to have any complaints."

He saw her hand draw back and he braced himself for the first blow. In another moment her arm shot forward with the surety of a seasoned Quidditch player and he was hit squarely in the face with the entire stack of drawings. Dean stood in surprise as the pages wafted around his head and down to his shoes.

"There! Take your stupid drawings; I don't want them!" Ginny shrieked, but her eyes were misty. "Use them to wipe your arse for all I care! Believe what you want, Dean Thomas. I'm shot of you now, so it doesn't matter a toss to me anymore. But you are right about one thing - Harry doesn't have any complaints about anything!"

She spun on her heel, hair whipping around her shoulders as she stormed off to the staircases. Dean glared after her until she disappeared, and then he looked down at the year's worth of work and affection that lay at his feet.

He had half a mind to leave the things there and let Potter or Ron Weasley or whomever dispose of them as they wished. Dean thought better of it, however. All things considered, it would be foolish to deprive himself of the pleasure of ripping each drawing into shreds himself. He was only sorry that the drawing wasn't among the stack. But when and if he found it, he thought with a grim determination, it would definitely get its due.

VII.

Dean was sure that given enough time, he'd be able to come up with a decent explanation as to why he was following Luna Lovegood up the stairs to the fourth floor and into the library. As it was, he chalked it up to it being too warm outside, and he didn't fancy trudging all the way out to the lake. Besides, he thought as he stealthily avoided Madam Pince and slunk among the shelves, Ginny and Potter were probably out there anyway, all but shagging.

As he kept his eye out for Luna, Dean thought of what Seamus had said earlier about his and Luna's similar circumstances. If Luna had been with Harry, and Harry had dropped her to pursue Ginny, well, that might explain why Luna had seemed less than thrilled to see the two of them by the lake the other day. At least, it had seemed to Dean that her greetings to Harry and Ginny had been a bit dry.

It would make sense, he thought, winding his way around a few tables toward the back. Potter and Ginny might've been planning this for months. Maybe Potter told Ginny he was getting tired of Luna. Then he dumps her and had to wait for Ginny to do the same with me. Cor, I bet that's what it was. Maybe Slughorn's party was the last straw. 'It was never about Harry' my arse ...

Dean wasn't sure just how to broach the subject with Luna. As he'd pointed out to Seamus, it wasn't as if he knew Luna at all, and if Potter had ripped her heart out, she might not be so keen to discuss the matter with him. Also, there was that little matter of his having acted like a git the last few times he'd seen her - running in the first instance, yelling at her in the second and laughing in her face in the third. Not exactly a sterling track record.

Dean noticed that he was getting quite near the Restricted Section and he backtracked, turned a corner sharply and nearly knocked Luna to the floor.

"Fu-, uh, sorry!" He put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. "I, um, didn't see you there."

She looked over at where his hand rested on her shoulder and he hastily snatched it away, then berated himself for being a such a prat again.

"I was just leaving," he mumbled, looking around for a way out. That was right pointless, then ...

Going back to the place where he'd bumped into Luna, he walked to the end of the row and blinked severally. He wasn't certain what had gone wrong, but he was surrounded on all sides by walls of solid books. It didn't look like there were any pathways to anywhere.

What the hell ...

"This way," Luna said tossing her head forward.

Quietly, he followed her, turned toward another set of dead ends, noticing a large stack of books choking one end of a row. Luna pointed to the other end and indicated her hand to the left. Dean walked to the end, turned left and saw a corridor that led straight to the library's entrance.

"Oh. Right. Thanks -"

But when he looked around again, Luna had vanished. Curious, he went back to where he'd last seen her and he was astonished to see her taking down the stack of books two at a time. When the stack decreased to about thigh-height, she nimbly jumped over the stack and disappeared. A minute or so passed and Dean saw the column of books growing higher and higher, much like a wall being erected brick by brick.

Hurrying over, he peered over the the growing stack and saw an area as big as a small bedroom bordered on each side by shelves of books. The only entrance was the narrow corridor that Luna was busily barricading with books.

She stopped stacking when her eyes were the only things visible. "It's very quiet back here," she said. "My dad said that when he was at Hogwarts, some of the students put up shield charms when they wanted to revise. I think books work just as well."

"Uh ... wouldn't going to your room be a little easier?" He asked, a little unnerved to be addressing only her eyes. "Or your common room?"

"Not especially. People have said that I'm rather distracting. My housemates think I say rather odd things, and they take out valuable time from their revising to make funny remarks."

Dean grimaced. Rather unfair that she'd be run out of her own common room and dorm, especially this time of year. So much for House unity.

"Yeah, but Pince might come back here, see this mess and send you down to Filch for dentention or something."

But Dean had to admit that there was a definite Ravenclaw cleverness to Luna's idea. Most of the tables were well to the front of the library, and all the books in the section they were in were quite dull tomes on magical history and magical law.

"Well, I'll leave you alone, then. I know what it's like the week before O.W.L.s -"

"You don't have to go if you don't want to," Luna said, already removing a few books. "I have Cockroach Clusters, if you're interested."

Dean really was not, because he found the things disgusting, but as soon as Luna had cleared enough room, he found himself climbing over, knocking a book or two down on the way. Mumbling an apology, he helped her restack the barricade and as he was quite a bit taller than she, added a few that only he could reach so as to make her hiding space even more secure.

"Thank you. Won't you have a seat?"

Dean looked round, shrugged and followed Luna's lead in using his robes as a cushion. Though she had plenty of space, her schoolbooks and a grease-stained bag containing, Dean figured, the Cockroach Clusters, all in one spot. She lowered herself down, sitting cross-legged, and held the bag out to him.

"No thanks. I'm not very keen on them, actually."

"No?" Luna looked surprised as she popped a candy into her mouth, pinched the bridge of her nose tightly and crunched loudly. "My dad said that in some Muggle cultures, insects are considered brain food."

"Yeah, I suppose." Dean made a face. "My mum tells me sometimes that fish is supposed to be 'brain food,' and I don't fancy that very much, either."

He watched her pop in another candy, doing the same strangeness of pinching her nose. "Uh ... why're you doing that?"

"Hmmm? Oh." She chewed for another moment. Swallowed. "I find that if I hold my nose and wait to bite down until the count of four, it doesn't taste so bitter. Here." She shook one out and held it toward him. "Try it."

He gave her a skeptical look but decided to give it a go. Throwing the thing into his mouth, he pinched his nose and tried not to move his tongue around much while Luna counted down:

"Four ... three ... two ... one - bite!"

He did so, with a loud crunch, and the gunk that burst onto his tongue nearly made him gag. Sputtering and coughing, he gratefully grabbed at a flask of pumpkin juice that Luna unearthed from beneath her robes.

"Maybe it doesn't work for everyone," she said in a sort of solemn fascination.

"Bloody ... well ... not ..." he gasped, taking another pull of the juice. That taste was still in his mouth, but it was fading somewhat. "I hate those smegging things! -"

"I've been wondering something. Have you found it yet?" She asked, causing him to almost choke again. While he tried to not cough himself out of existance, she went on. "The thing that you want to find, but you don't want anyone else to find, but if you do find it, you'll throw it into the lake. Have you found it?"

"Oh, that. No, haven't found it yet," he said, shaking his head. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's better I don't find it at all, since I'll just chuck it when I do."

"I said that before I knew that it was important to you," said Luna with an uncharacteristic frown. "I don't think you should throw it away, if you find it."

"You might not say that, if you knew what it was." He paused and waited for her to ask the inevitable question - Well, what is it? - and was surprised when it wasn't forthcoming. Hurrying on, he said, "Besides, I'll be busy enough sending a bunch of other rubbish I was better off not seeing again to the bottom of the lake."

He felt around in his robes for the sketches of Ginny and laid them on his lap. "Ginny threw these bloody things in my face. Told me to wipe my arse with them! I put lots of work and time into these, and that's what I get in return."

"Why would Ginny say that?" Luna asked, looking at him intently after glancing at a few of the drawings. "First of all, these seem as if they would be quite uncomfortable to use in the loo -"

"Her giving them back at all was the worst part," he said, feeling his stomach knotting. He decided to blame it on the way he'd chugged the pumpkin juice. "You don't give a bloody gift back. Not something like this, anyway. I told her that if she didn't want them, she could do what she liked. And then she went off into some rubbish about wanting to be friends . . ."

"Don't you want to be friends? Ginny is very nice."

"Are you bark-" Dean checked himself hastily. Right. Bad move, maybe, asking her that.

"No! After the way she served me? Why should I? And, y'know, I can't understand," he went on, spotting an opening, "how you could be nice to Potter after the way he served you."

"The way Harry served me?"

"Right. Y'know, Slughorn's party and all ..."

"I wouldn't call what he did there serving me, actually," Luna said, crunching on another sweet. "He did get me a cup of mead, which was very nice of him. But I think that's rather normal when you go to a party as friends."

Dean's forehead wrinkled, and he was about to ask her something else when he realized what she'd said.

"... Friends? You and Potter went to Slughorn's party as friends?"

"Oh, yes." She smiled as if remembering something pleasant. "It was quite a nice experience."

Blimey. So all that talk was rubbish! Dean blew out a breath, feeling quite deflated. "Oh. So you and he weren't ever ... you never fancied him?"

"Oh, I fancied him a great deal," said Luna very seriously. "But I don't think Harry's ever thought of me that way. And besides that, he was waiting for Ginny. They go quite well together."

Dean felt a flash of heat that he feared might make his head explode. In moments, however, he calmed down and even managed a bitter chuckle. Luna was absolutely right - Potter had been waiting for Ginny, and Ginny had welcomed him, too, with open bloody arms.

"Well, maybe it's different because Ginny's your friend," Dean muttered. "I bet you'd think differently if she weren't."

"Isn't Harry your friend?"

Dean began to speak, but stopped. Harry had been his friend, sure enough, but just what sort of friend? Dean had been aware of a coolness toward him on Harry's part over the school year, and he hadn't really understood why. For instance, when Katie Bell had been poisoned and another Chaser was needed, Dean had noticed that Harry hadn't seemed very happy about bringing him on as a reserve. Now he knew all too well what he had been about, and it made Dean almost as angry as the thing with Ginny had.

"It's different," he said tightly. "Anyway, so it didn't bother you even a little that Harry took you to that party and then turned around and went after Ginny?"

Luna thought that over for a moment. "I suppose I was disappointed ..."

Aha! Dean could barely keep a smug smile off his face.

"When you do battle and nearly die alongside a person, it's easy to become attached, I think."

Huh? But he didn't have a chance to ask for clarification because Luna was back to crunching loudly again, and only after a tremendous swallow that seemed to last for days, did she speak again.

"There were a lot of girls who were quite cross that Harry didn't ask them to Professor Slughorn's party," she said, pulling at her cork-necklace. "Harry asked me, and I had a lovely time. So keeping that in mind it was very hard for me to disappointed for long."

Dean was suddenly aware of her soft gaze on him, and he wasn't sure if he found Luna's attitude bizarre or noble. On the one hand, it was rather sad that she was holding up one night - and a night without even a snog at the end, apparently - as such a wonderful thing when it was clear that she'd wanted so much more. But on the other hand, her pragmatism was sort of refreshing.

"Count yourself lucky that Potter didn't string you along for months, giving you false hope and making you believe that the two of you might make a go of it. Ginny did the exact opposite with me - kept me hanging, made me think that she really fancied me ..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "And now she gives me this grot about wanting to be friends -"

He broke off when he noticed Luna kneeling next to him, studying his face intently. Her large eyes darted all around, and at one point she bent her head until she was almost at a level to peer under his chin.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Looking for freckles," she said, squinting. "Do you have any that you know of?"

Dean's jaw dropped. Was the girl serious? He'd just finished pouring his heart out and she was going on about -

"Freckles? No, I don't have any! Are you mad?" He didn't trouble to lower his voice nor did he care this time about offending her.

Luna didn't appear to take offense, however, and after raking his face with her inquisitive gaze a few seconds more, she sat down again.

"I thought you might. You reminded me so much of Ronald just then. I wondered if it's something that's connected to having freckles."

"Ronald? You mean Weasley? What the hell does he have to do with anything?"

"Ronald," Luna said, apparently oblivious to his tone, "seems to be a very nice person. People like him a great deal. But he doesn't seem to like himself very much, and because of it he can often be quite unkind."

Dean began to answer, but he remembered just how upset Weasley had been when he'd stumbled across him with Ginny that one time. Dean recalled Ginny later saying that her own brother had nearly hexed her. He had a temper, that one, but ...

"What the hell does that have to do with me? I know Ginny's your friend, but she threw my bloody drawings in my bloody face!"

"I wasn't talking about you being unkind to Ginny," Luna said. "You're being quite unkind, I think, to yourself."

His brain came to a full stop. "I ... what?"

"Ginny has always been quite nice to me," Luna said, blinking rapidly. "I think that it might be easier on her if she weren't, but she doesn't seem to care what others think. So I've always supposed that she is my friend because she wants to be. I think that's how she is, in general. I think that she was your girlfriend because she fancied you a great deal. If she wanted t go about kissing someone she didn't like very much, there were some boys in my house and a few Slytherins who would have done nicely."

"A Slytherin? And Ginny?" Dean had to laugh at that. "Not bloody likely!"

"Of course it isn't. But there were options," Luna replied. "For someone like Ginny, there always are. If she chose you, then I'm sure it was for a very good reason." She tilted her head to the side. "I think she also wanted you to have your drawings of her again for a good reason."

"Yeah, well, she said she thought I might need them for my portfolio."

"Oh, that would be a very logical reason," Luna said musingly. "But not a very good reason."

"Uh ... what do you mean?"

"A good reason to return something as lovely as these," Luna said, looking through a few of the drawings, "is to remind someone of something nice. You liked Ginny a great deal when you drew these, didn't you?"

"'Course I did. She was my girlfriend at the time."

"Well, maybe she wanted you to have these back so that you could remember that you once liked her very much." Luna closely studied an inked sketch of Ginny playing Quidditch. "She wouldn't need them, I don't think, because she obviously remembers being happy with you. If she didn't, I doubt she would want to be your friend."

She brought out more Cockroach Clusters, and in between crunches, Dean considered her words. He did remember nice times with Ginny, and most of those drawings came from the period that they were the happiest. But it was hard to think about that at present, so soon after it had all fallen apart. He had to wonder, though, if Luna might not be on to something. Ginny didn't seem too eager to be "friends" with Michael Corner after things had fallen apart between them.

Dean glanced over at Luna and saw her beginning to thumb through a heavy textbook. It reminded him that no matter what else, Luna had exams to study for - and for that matter, so did he.

"Right, well, I'll let you get back to your work," he said, stiffly getting to his feet. "Thanks for the, uh, snack." He squirmed a little as he put his robes back on and gathered his papers. "And for, y'know, listening and that."

"Hmmm." Luna's eyes stayed on her book. "Tomorrow ... I'll bring Canary Creams."

"Now those are good," he said, shuffling the drawings into a neat pile. "Honeydukes was out of them when I was in Hogsmeade last. How'd you get any?"

"Oh, I don't like them much," she said. "I've had them for quite a while. I was going to throw them away, but Cho Chang showed me a very nice Preservation Charm that works well with candy." She tapped her quill against her chin. "I'll bring them tomorrow, I think. Canary Creams." She repeated it again, as if willing herself to remember.

"If you don't like Canary Creams, why bring a snack you don't like?"

"They won't be for me," she said, looking surprised. "They'll be for you - if you come again tomorrow. I'm quite happy with Cockroach Clusters." She punctuated the sentence with a crunch.

"For me?" She expected him to come again? He wasn't sure what to think of it. He didn't really want to keep bothering the girl while she was thinking about her O.W.L.s, and he had exams of his own to revise for. But he couldn't help but feeling a little - just a little - chuffed that she'd want to bring a sweet along that he would enjoy.

"Yeah, well, I have revising to do, too," he said as nonchalantly as he could. "I'll probably be in my dorm all day, but maybe I'll see you around."

Turning his back on her, he quietly dismantled the wall of books until it was high enough for him to step over. This time, he was able to do so without upsetting any of the books. And just as stealthily, he stacked them once again to a height Luna could manage.

"Right," he said, looking at her over the last book. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Dean carefully picked his way through the maze, quite happy when he found the same way out that Luna had showed him in the beginning. He stood there, however, facing the exit to the library, his feet seemingly reluctant to go any further. Revising in the common room was out for several reasons, and though he could always retreat to his bed and draw the curtains, Seamus would be about egging him to face Harry "wizard to wizard" and that rubbish ...

He went back to the wall of books and peeked over. Luna was now on her stomach reading, chewing the end of her quill. Dean stared at her for a moment, struck by the pose. At that moment, she looked ... not loony at all, actually. Rather normal, really ...

He cleared his throat. Luna looked up, but she didn't seem overly surprised to see him back again.

"Hello."

"So ... if I wanted to take a break from revising," he said slowly, "would you be here around this same time?"

She looked at him, blinked, and then grinned.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Dean Thomas," was all she said, and went back to her book.

With a rueful smile, Dean turned to leave, but not before casting a last glance at her over his shoulder.

*

No one was in the dorm room when Dean returned. Contemplating the drawings Ginny had "returned" to him, he decided to store them in his trunk until he decided what he wanted to do with them. Maybe he'd wait until he got home to London to destroy them. Fewer questions that way.

Unearthing his sketchbook from a pile of dirty clothes, he flipped open to his sketch of Luna, and spent the three hours before Seamus came to drag him down to dinner working on it. By the time he put his pencil down, it was done. The figure on the page was depicted with frog on her head, laying on her stomach on a stretch of grass, the tip of a quill between her lips.