The Tell-tale Art

VIII.

Dean did manage to take "breaks" from revising the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that, as well. Seamus was curious, but interestingly enough, asked few questions. Dean often wondered what Seamus would say if he knew that he was in a secluded area of the library with Luna Lovegood, eating sweets and checking over his Transfiguration notes. And by the start of the second week of all this, Dean had started thinking of as "their place" in the Library. Though he wouldn't allow his mind to spin out what exactly that connoted. The whole situation had grown on him, not in small part because he and Luna were doing something rather sneaky, really, which imparted a rather glamorous edge to revising.

Though Dean thought that revising was just about the last thing the two of them did there. It always began the same; Luna was always there first, and after checking to make sure no one had wandered back there, he would build up the wall of books until it stretched to just over his head. By that time, Luna would have unearthed her cache of sweets and they'd silently thumb through their textbooks for awhile.

At some point, though never at the same time each day, they would put aside their books and talk in low voices about a number of different things. Dean discovered that Luna was quite adept at switching from topic to topic, usually with little to no notice, and she had an uncanny ability of relating one subject to another with a cheerfully confusing remark. Dean had found it all hard to follow at first, but he did his best, and often Luna would return anyway to a topic that had gone over his head the first time around.

Dean wasn't even sure what to think himself of it all. He was, to be honest, enjoying Luna's company a great deal. She had an inexhaustible supply of sweets from Honeydukes, though Dean felt a little bad to think of just why she had so much. On Hogsmeade weekends, she'd filled up on candy as much as anyone else, but she had precious few friends to share with - and hardly any at all within her own house - so she often had a great deal left over.

He felt a little at fault there; Ginny was probably Luna's closest friend at Hogwarts, and during their relationship, he'd not seen Luna come around much. Then again, now that Ginny was with Harry, the same thing was happening, so he reckoned the fault wasn't totally on his side. But when he had mentioned this to Luna, she had waved him away cheerily, saying that she'd known that Ginny was busy with Quidditch ... and other things.

They didn't talk much about Ginny, really, much to Dean's relief. He wasn't sure if Luna had decided to let the subject of Ginny's "choices" drop, but they skirted around the issue, discussing just about everything else. Dean had worried that Luna wasn't getting very much work done, and O.W.L.s were important, but Luna assured him that she expected to do fairly well.

"Charms will be difficult, I think," she said one day as they shared a bag of Every-Flavour Beans. "Professor Flitwick says that I hold my wand almost backwards."

"Yeah, wand movement is key for the practical part," Dean said, glancing up from his Potions text. "Just make sure your wrist is really relaxed and flexible. And I'd practice Accio until I dropped if I were you. I thought it was the easiest thing in the world, and I ballsed up most of the practical part of the exam. I was surprised I got an 'Acceptable' in Charms."

For all of the comfortable camaraderie that was growing between them, however, there were two things that rankled Dean a little. One was Luna's insistence on calling him by his first and last name. It was never, "Have another bit of toffee, Dean," but, "Dean Thomas, here's another bit of toffee." Or, "Dean Thomas, what is it like to live in London?" and so on.

"Dean Thomas, do you know what you'd like to do once you leave Hogwarts?"

Dean munched a Chocolate Frog - he'd felt a little guilty eating them, considering Lancelot's fate, but Luna herself didn't seem to mind - thinking over Luna's question. That day, Luna had mentioned looking forward to the period after O.W.L.s and had branched out into what might happen next year, and from there, life after Hogwarts.

"Me? I'm not sure. I mean, I've thought about it but I haven't really decided anything for certain yet," Dean said. "Just about everyone I know wants to be an Auror."

Luna pulled a face and Dean laughed. He'd come to learn that Luna was not at all fond of most Aurors, most Ministry officials, clothing shop proprietors, cauldron makers, or anyone whose job necessitated "whispering for a living" - a clear dig at Madam Pince who had been particularly snippy the entire week.

"What about you? Do you think you'll work at The Quibbler some day?"

"I don't think so. I don't have Dad's nose for a good story." Luna licked a candied antenna from the corner of her mouth. "You should be an artist, I think."

"An artist?" Dean gingerly flexed his right hand, which was a little stiff from having spent most of the previous night finishing an overdue essay for Transfiguration. "I don't think that's for me. Some Muggles go to universities for years and never make a living at it."

"You're not a Muggle."

"Right, but it's not an easy job, and I don't know if I'd want to depend on it as a career." Dean reflected then that he'd never heard of anyone in Hogwarts who desired anything like that. Everyone wanted to be something practical - Auror, Ministry official, Healer. Maybe there wasn't any sort of thing as a creative career path for wizards and witches. "Besides, what could I do in the magic world with art?"

"Quite a few things. I think I mentioned that the Ministry is always looking for artists, but most of the people there are mad, evil or both." She stared dreamily into the distance. "I know that you prefer not to draw people, but you do it anyway and you're quite good. You could paint portraits. "

"Thanks." Dean thought of his sketch of her and wondered if she'd say the same if she saw it. And then he wondered why he cared about it, either way.

*

The other troubling thing about their time together was that Luna unfailingly asked if he'd found "that 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." She didn't seem to care what it was, but she was very much interested in his progress in finding "it." In truth, Dean had stopped looking. He supposed that he would find it some day or he would not. He was now of a different opinion than the one he'd given Seamus.

After that row with Ginny, he wasn't in much of a hurry to see the drawing again. He and Ginny didn't speak now and rather ostentatiously avoided each other in the common room and at the Gryffindor table at the Great Hall. Dean often saw Harry looking from him to Ginny with a somewhat befuddled expression, so Dean assumed Ginny hadn't disclosed the nature of their private "talk." It suited Dean just fine, really. He was finally starting to really not care about Ginny and Potter. But every time Luna brought up his missing "thing," Dean was forced to think about Ginny all over again.

"What does it matter?" he said crossly one afternoon, his lips sticky with toffee. "Maybe I didn't lose it. Maybe I threw it away and I just don't remember doing it."

"But you said it was important and that if found, it might hurt someone," Luna said. "I don't think that you would throw away something that you knew could hurt someone. That would be very foolish."

"Well, maybe I was wrong about that, too - about it being important. Maybe it's not really as important as I thought it was." Dean sighed in exasperation at her unwavering gaze. "All right, fine, I know I didn't throw it away. Does it really make any difference?"

"Of course it does, Dean Thomas." Luna gave him a sideways glance. "If you'd thrown it away, then that would be the end of it. But losing something is different. There's a very important question to be asked."

"Yeah?"

She swung around to face him. "Did you lose it by accident or on purpose?" This was said as if it was an embarrassingly logical question.

"How can someone lose something on purpose?" Dean scoffed. "If you lose something, it pretty much means it was an accident."

"Not always." She shook her head. "Sometimes, if you're very sad, or very angry, or very hurt, you could lose something important on purpose. It happened to my father once."

That drew Dean's attention. In between "revising," he and Luna talked often about family, and she of course mentioned her father, but usually in the context of his duties as the editor of The Quibbler. Some of her tales about her father's work "in the field" made him want to laugh until he choked, but he always managed to keep it down to a chuckle or two, which she took in good-natured stride. Now, however, her face had grown grave and she wasn't looking at him at all. Dean sat up a little straighter and waited for her to speak again.

"When Dad was younger, he loved to write poetry. Only, he was not very good at it at all, but he enjoyed it a great deal anyway, and before he'd gotten very much to do at The Quibbler, he spent hours and hours writing. One year, a bit before I was born, he wrote a very long poem for my mum. He had planned on it being the greatest poem he'd ever written."

Dean was all ears now. Luna had never until this moment mentioned her mother, not even obliquely. Dean had only a little knowledge of what had happened to Luna's mum, and even without knowing every detail, Dean could only imagine how horrible it must have been for Luna to have gone through something like that. He was certain that not a little of Luna's dottiness could likely be traced to what she'd gone through with her mother's death. He wondered why more people didn't understand that and give her a wider berth because of it.

"... and he spent weeks on it. He said that when he'd finished, he had a scroll three feet long ..."

"Three feet? Blimey ... that's some poem," Dean mumbled, settling into listen to the rest of her story.

And it was an interesting one, and surprisingly not convoluted or punctuated with Luna-esque departures. Apparently, her father had planned a special evening in which he presented the poem to his wife. She read it all in one sitting.

"It look her an hour," said Luna. "Dad said his foot fell asleep while he was waiting for her to finish. He thought then that something interesting might happen, as it usually does when your foot falls asleep."

Dean recalled that whenever his foot fell asleep, the only thing "interesting" that tended to happen was that he tripped over himself if he tried to walk to soon, but he found himself nodding anyway as Luna recounted her mother praising the poem and covering her dad in kisses in thanks. But later, Mr. Lovegood apparently had second thoughts about his work. Without his wife knowing, he took the poem and read it over again and found fault in almost every line. Ashamed of his mediocrity and somewhat angry what he felt was his wife's attempts at humouring him, he put the poem somewhere, vowing to write another that would eclipse what he'd already done.

Luna smiled sadly. "He never did. He wanted to, but there was always something in the way. He moved up at The Quibbler very quickly after he got confirmation of a Blibbering Humdinger sighting in Nova Scotia. Then I was born, and Mum became quite busy with her experiments, and she then died, of course, so he never got a chance to write another one."

"I'm ... sorry."

"Yes, it was quite bad," Luna said in a thoughtful voice. "But what's worse is that Dad lost his poem on purpose."

"I don't understand."

"He was angry at himself and sad and a little angry at Mummy, too, and he didn't ever want to see it again, so he put it in some place that he knew he'd never look. And it worked, you know, because he never found it. He's tried to, because he realized that she had liked his poem after all. She would quote a little of it to me when I was a baby. I don't remember that, but Dad said she did."

"Mum says that sometimes an artist can be his own worst critic," said Dean. "Your dad was probably a lot better at poetry than he might have thought.

"No," Luna smiled indulgently. "I read a few lines that he's written, and they've been rather dreadful."

"Oh. Uh ... well, but your mum did like that poem after all."

"Yes, and that is why he regrets having lost it on purpose," she said. "If he hadn't, he might have found it by now and then he would have something to remind him of something that he'd done that made Mummy happy."

She smiled widely. "So that's why, Dean Thomas, I asked if you lost your important thing that may not be so important by accident. If you did, you shouldn't give up looking for it. And if you find it, I think you should keep it. One day, you might remember just why you thought it was important in the first place, and you'll be sorry that you don't have it anymore." Luna was quiet a moment. "Dad sometimes says he should stop looking for the poem, because if it was still in the house, he would've found it by now. I always manage to talk him out of giving up. I usually offer to help him look, and that does the trick. He wants to find it himself, just like you want to find your important thing yourself."

Dean said nothing for a long while as he thought over what he'd just heard. It didn't evoke memories of the drawing at all, however - it made him think of family, actually, and how lucky he was to have such a good one. He couldn't imagine life without his mum and dad and his brothers and sisters, prats though they might be at times. The sympathy he held for Harry Potter's life circumstances was one that was a matter-of-course; how could you not feel awful about a boy whose parents had died in such a horrifying way? But Luna had suffered much, and she bore so many slights with a shrug and a serene smile.

"Do you think about her a lot?" Dean asked hesitantly. "Your mum, I mean?"

"Yes of course. Every day," was her immediate response. "I know I'll see her again someday, but it might be a long time. It's easier when I'm at home, because then I see her all the time."

"What?"

"Pictures of her," she explained. "Dad has them on all the walls downstairs."

"Don't you have any of her? Here, I mean. While you're at Hogwarts."

"Oh, no. Dad gets quite lonely when I'm away. It's much better for him to have them around to keep him company."

Dean nodded, but didn't say anything. He was thinking about his drawing of Luna and Lancelot. He'd thought it nice enough to send along to the Muggle school, but now, he wasn't so sure if he wanted anyone to have it ... and he wasn't sure that he could find a good enough reason to keep it himself. And then there was another idea for a drawing that was taking root in his brain, one of such complexity that he kept quiet for the rest of his time there.


IX.

Dean thought about his conversation with Luna all through dinner, tuning out Seamus and Neville's prattling and not even noticing Ginny and Potter at all. In something of a daze, he even sat around the common room, not sure if or how to ask for the help he needed. He knew who he would have to go to, but whether she would or could help him was another matter entirely. Still, he knew he had to try. The idea had taken hold now, and the only way to get it to stop nibbling him to death was to bring it to fruition, no matter what the obstacles.

Gathering his courage, Dean walked slowly in the common room, hoping to find her alone for once. No such luck, though, and his eyes narrowed at the thought of having to go through him, but it couldn't be helped. Besides, it looked like he was hard at work on Potions.

Stopping at the couch, Dean took a deep breath before addressing the pair sitting there.

"Uh, Hermione, d'you have a minute?"

Hermione looked up in surprise, and Ron, sitting next to her, looked up, as well, looking rather suspicious, Dean thought.

"I ... suppose." Hermione gave Ron a slight shrug and followed Dean to a relatively quiet corner of the common room. Dean could feel Ron's eyes on his back as they went, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

"I need to ask you something," Dean said softly. "The Library - how big a collection of old Prophets do they have?"

"Old Prophets?" Hermione looked perplexed for a second, but thought on it a moment. "Well ... not very large at all, actually -"

Bugger! Dean's heart sank. Well, there went that idea.

"- I would think that there isn't anything that goes beyond 20 or so years, not for students to see, anyway -"

Dean raised his head, hope renewing itself at those words. "Twenty years? Cool! That's perfect! Is it continuous? I mean, is there a newspaper for every day of the last 20 years?"

"In a sense. Some of the pages are in quite bad condition." Hermione lowered her voice a little. "What date, exactly, are you looking for?"

Ah. Now that was a question. Staring at his shoes, he mumbled, "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Uh ..."

"Well, what year?"

Dean just kept gazing at the ground. Hermione's sigh of exasperation nearly blew him into the Floo.

"Honestly, Dean Thomas, do you simply expect to go through thousands of newspages? I don't think I need to tell you that it's not an intelligent strategy."

"Well, no," he said, ignoring Ginny and Potter, who'd just come into the common room and had joined Ron in staring at the two of them. "I think I can narrow it down to at least the last 15 or 16 years."

"Dean, what are you looking for?"

He hesitated, weighing the options in his mind. He could search through the newspapers himself, he could try to get the information out of Luna somehow, or ... he could trust Hermione to help him and not make too much of a fuss. In about half a second, he'd decided which way he wanted to go. He murmured something and watched her go a little pale.

"Oh! But ..." she glanced over at Ginny and then turned back to him, lowering her voice. "I'm sure Ginny would know exactly when it was."

"She probably would," Dean said, not allowing his gaze to stray. "Thanks for your help, Hermione. Guess I better get started. I have a lot of sorting to do."

He began to walk away and had not gotten three steps before he felt Hermione's hand on his shoulder.

"I think I might have an idea," Hermione said close to his ear. "But I'll need a little time."

Dean turned around. "I'm being serious - I just needed to know if there was a chance I might find something. Now that I know that there is, I can do this myself. I don't want to get you ... in trouble." He subtly inclined his head to where the others were gathered.

"Dean, just go and let me worry about that, please? You can thank me later."

He didn't need to be told twice, but Dean did wonder, as he walked out of the room accompanied by the combined glares of Ginny, Potter and Ron, what Hermione had in mind.

*

An hour later, Ron came up to the room looking for another willing victim for Wizard's Chess. Dean was more than a little stunned when the lanky redhead stopped right in front of his bed.

"Oi, Thomas, I heard you were up for a game or two."

"Me?" Dean gazed at Ron as if his hair had suddenly burst into flames. "I never said anything about wanting to play Wizard's Chess. I'm rubbish at it; you know that."

"Hermione said you told her earlier that you fancied a game." Ron frowned. "Oh, by the way, she said I should give this to you. Said she grabbed it by mistake earlier."

Ron thrust a moldy book titled Centaur-Merfolk Conflicts Through the Ages under his nose. Fighting the urge to sneeze, Dean was ready to tell Ron that Hermione had the wrong bloke as he'd never go near such a boring book, when he noticed a yellowing piece of paper sticking out of the edge.

"Oh." Dean grabbed the book. "Yeah, um, I was using this for the seven inches we need to write for Binns on Magical Wars. I was wondering where it'd gone to."

Cracking open the book, Dean felt his mouth go dry at the sight of the bold DAILY PROPHET banner. His eyes scanned the page for the date: October 9, 1990. Most of the news on that day was somewhat mundane, mostly having to do with Ministry bureaucracy, but halfway down the left side of the page was a small headline that seemed blacker than any other lettering on the page.

Charms Expert Killed by Rebounding Spell

Catherine Gorse Lovegood, 32, of Otterton,
died early yesterday after a charm turned awry,
said Timothy Grosgain, Ministry spokesperson.
Mrs Lovegood, a consultant with the Ministry's
Division of Experimental Charms, was working
on an undisclosed project that Mr Grosgain
insists was not part of her official duties
with the Ministry.

"It's horrible, of course," Mr Grosgain said.
"Catherine was a tireless worker and a
brilliant asset to the Experimental Charms
Department. But her untimely death was a
tragic mishap no one could have foreseen."

The Ministry is investigating the exact
cause of death and will release a report
in the coming weeks, Mr Grosgain said.

Mrs Lovegood is survived by her husband,
Edward, and a daughter, Luna, 9.

Dean was so caught up in his thoughts that he very nearly missed what he'd been after in the first place. Accompanying the story was a picture - and Dean had noticed that in stories dealing with death, the photographs never moved - of a pretty woman with a long braid of blond hair and wide, blue eyes. Dean thought that the resemblance was quite strong, and he reckoned that in some ways, he was quite literally looking into the face of an older Luna.

"Are you coming down or what?"

Looking up, Dean saw Ron standing at the foot of his bed, his chess set tucked under his arm.

"Uh, yeah, I suppose. I guess I need to thank Hermione for finding this for me." Dean carefully tucked the book under his pillow and followed Ron. The common room was fairly quiet, though Hermione sat on the couch with her books spread all over the place. While Ron set up the board, Dean and Hermione had a low-voiced conversation.

"How did you -"

"I've become acquainted with how things are arranged there," Hermione said, eyes on her book. "It was quite easy to find once I had an approximate time frame."

"But how did you -"

"I asked, of course. Once I knew how old Luna was when it ... happened, I was able to narrow it down. I narrowed it down further once I discovered that Luna's birthday is in the spring. I knew then that it had to have happened later in the year."

"That makes sense." He glanced over at Weasley, who was still putting all the pieces in place. "Did she ... did she ask you a lot of questions? Wonder why it is you wanted to know?"

Hermione looked at him then. "She? Who are you talking about?"

"Ginny. She is who you asked, right?"

"No - I asked Harry. I really don't think," said Hermione with a meditative air, "that Ginny knows Luna quite as well as Harry does."

Dean considered that a moment, not sure what to think of that but realizing that it really didn't matter, in a way. He'd gotten what he wanted.

"Thanks. I really, really appreciate this."

"I'm sure." Hermione gave him a speculative look. "You know, I'm going to need to return it. I think Madam Pince saw what I was about, but a First-Year upset a stack of books near the Restricted Section, so I was able to get away without being questioned."

"You'll have it by tomorrow."

"That's fine." Her expression didn't waver. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what you wanted with it?"

Dean smiled a little. No, he didn't suppose he would tell Hermione that, but Ron saved him from having to say much more about it.

"I'd leave her alone if I were you." He thrust his chin in Hermione's direction. "She wants peace and quiet and that. Says I'm distracting her. What's so bloody distracting about just sitting down next to a person?"

Hermione blushed, and waved her quill at him in a shooing motion and went back to her book. Following Ron to the other side of the room, Dean suddenly understood what Hermione had meant by "thanking her later."

*

After getting his arse handed to him seven games in a row by Weasley, Dean was finally able to slip back to his room and begin his new drawing. He studied the clipping for a long time and then did a bit of work. Stopped, studied the sketch again, and then started again.

Thereafter, he divided his focus between the clipping and his sketchbook, hand moving as fast as his eyes did until he was hardly conscious of his surroundings. Every thought was on that page and on his right hand, and as the portrait began to emerge, he felt a prickly, not unpleasant sensation spread through him from toe-to-chest. It was that way when he worked on something that he considered "special." As he worked, he was dimly aware that he'd experienced that same sensation after he'd started on his sketch of Luna, but had chalked it up then to his feet falling asleep.

He didn't remember falling dozing off, but it was daylight when he was shaken awake by Seamus. Blinking awake, it took Dean a second or two to remember how and why he'd fallen asleep with a pencil in his hand and his sketchpad tucked under him.

X.

Sighing, Dean put aside his book and stared into the endless blue of Luna's eyes. He was, of course, the first one to blink - as usual - which meant that he had to be the one to break the silence. There had been quite a bit of silence that day between them, which Dean found odd and not entirely welcome. He supposed, however, that Luna was beginning to realize the importance of O.W.L.s and was getting a good bit nervous, just like any Fifth-Year. But finally she'd provided a thread that Dean was determined to spin out into an actual conversation.

"You have to stop doing that."

"What?"

"Calling me Dean Thomas." He tried to mimic the disembodied, fluttering quality of her voice and failed miserably, but was cheered when she smiled anyway. "It makes me think you're hacked off at me."

"But I'm not."

"But that's what it makes me think." Dean held out a bar of nougat, which Luna declined, at first, but when he broke it in half and offered her the larger piece, she accepted it with a very becoming smile.

"It, uh ..." He stumbled a bit, momentarily distracted. "It reminds me of my mum. Whenever she screams, 'Dean Alexander Thomas,' I know that I'm in trouble."

"Dean Alexander Thomas," Luna repeated absently. "That's rather nice."

"Don't you even think about calling me that!"

She simply nibbled the nougat, looking at him through a few strands of hair that fell into her face. Dean was caught short for a moment at how much the pose reminded him of the drawing he'd done of Ginny in the Broomsticks. But whereas Ginny was playing the part of the coquette, Luna was just being ... Luna, and it was just as nice an image.

"How would you like it," he went on, "if I called you by your first and last name all the time?"

"It would be ... different," she replied, finishing off her candy. "Most people call me Loony Lovegood, after all."

Dean could hear the sadness underlying the casualness of her words, and he resolved to never call her that again and to have "a word" with anyone who did so in his hearing.

"But that's people being arses. It's not your actual name."

"But Dean Thomas is your actual name."

Dean had learned that when confronted with Luna-logic, much of which was irrefutable, the best course of action was to try the argument from a different angle and hope for better luck.

"I've never heard you call anyone else by their first and last name. I thought maybe you were doing it because you didn't know me well, but we've been coming here almost two weeks now. Don't you reckon you know me well enough to just call me Dean?"

He waited expectantly for her answer, and was surprised when she simply blinked at him and went back to her book. Dean stared at the top of her head for a moment, unsettled by the abrupt end of the conversation.

"Are you okay?" he asked after another prolonged period of silence. "You seem a little ... off-color today."

"I do feel a little strange," she said, turning a page. "Dad owled. He's gotten a rather nasty Howler from someone threatening to do terrible things to him if he reprints Harry's story about the return of You-Know-Who."

She pushed her hair out her eyes. "He's usually threatened a few times a month, but he's a little worried about this one. So many things have happened this year."

"Yeah ..." Dean knew that from the start of the school year, the war and Voldemort's return had cast a shadow on everything and almost everyone. Hannah Abbott had still not returned after the death of her mother, Susan Bones had been somber most of the year, and Katie Bell was completely cured, yet seemed skittish and withdrawn. And there were other students who'd been touched by the war and there were stories in the Prophet every week about wizards and witches who had been hurt or had disappeared.

Dean hadn't thought very much about the war apart from what he'd heard and read. He felt horrible for Hannah, but he didn't really know the girl that well. The same could be said for Susan Bones, and even though Katie was in his house, she was a year older. It dawned on Dean that Luna was probably the only person he actually interacted with who'd been directly affected by all of the scariness that was swirling around their world.

Sometimes it was hard for him to comprehend that they were all in a war - there were no guns, no pictures of battle scenes on the telly, no anthems being sung. But a look at Luna's pinched and pale face, and the enormity of it all hit home.

"I know your dad doesn't get on with the Ministry, but maybe he should let someone know," he said. "With everything that's been going on, they can't afford to not take threatening owls seriously."

"Dad's going to do some poking around," Luna said, rubbing her throat like someone who'd just spent hours speaking at the top of her voice. "Someone in the Department of Mysteries owes him a favour. He thinks it's just a poor joke, but ..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "I wish I were at home. I might be just as useless there as I am here, but ... I would be with him, at least."

"Yeah, I understand. I think I'd feel the same way." Dean edged toward her and after a moment's hesitation, briefly squeezed her hand. "But I don't think he'd want you around anything dangerous. At least with you here, he knows that you're probably in the safest place anybody could be in right now."

"Hmm." Luna rubbed her throat again, but became absorbed again in her work. Dean watched her in his periphery. By what he could tell of her expression, she didn't appear very convinced.

***

Dean was in high spirits when he reached the library the next afternoon. Classes hadn't seemed less like their usual bag of wank, as it seemed that the professors, too, were looking forward to exam season and the end of the year. As such, he'd gotten a chance to work a bit more on his newest project and he'd managed to wheedle a few chocoballs from Seamus to bring along to the library.

Luna had once said that she fancied chocoballs even more than she did Cockroach Clusters - which had come as something as a relief to Dean - and he grinned at the thought of surprising her with a few. Maybe they'll cheer her up a bit. He reckoned that considering all that was going on with her dad and all, she could use it.

The library was more full than he'd ever seen it during his time at Hogwarts, and he felt momentarily sorry for the poor buggers who were crammed around the tables. He wasn't too heartsore over them, however - most of them hadn't set foot in the place since classes had begun. Dean supposed this lot thought that if they spent a few days surrounded by books that somehow the knowledge that was in them would seep into their brain somehow.

Making the complicated twists and turns that would take him to "their" place, Dean's thoughts turned back to his new project. He had just a few days to get it in good nick. That meant he couldn't get as much into detail as he might like, but he supposed just this once, he could forgo the little touches like background and borders and such. It might even look nicer, he thought, the plainer it was -

He made the sharp turn at the corner and hadn't taken one step before he heard a voice - one that made him freeze. The caustic grumbling tone was quite familiar to him, but what made Dean's heart begin to hammer was the proximity of that voice to "their place."

Carefully peeking round a shelf, Dean saw his fears in the flesh. Madam Pince was right in front of the narrow entrance to the little cubby, muttering to herself as she used her wand to direct a number of books back to their places. From where he was standing, Dean could see that the wall of books didn't exist anymore, and he didn't doubt that he was watching what was left of the barricade being put back upon the shelves. He drew his head back and looked at his watch; Luna had to have been there, but she wasn't anymore, clearly. Dean wondered if Pince had found her and sent her away or if Luna had stumbled across Pince in the act of dismantling "their place." Either way, Dean wondered where Luna might be.

Peering out from behind the shelf again, Dean nearly yelled when he nearly collided with Madam Pince as she hurried up the corridor. She looked nonplussed at the sight of him, drawing herself up like a snake about to strike.

"What do you want back here?"

"Uh, I ... I ... was looking for ... a - a book," Dean stammered, sneaking a look over Pince's shoulder. "On, uh, the Goblin work stoppages of 1293."

"Books on labor studies are across the room!" she spat. "Next to the section on Goblin rebellions."

"Er ... right." He risked another look, but the books floating around obstructed his vision. "Uh ... thanks."

He walked off, feeling Pince's gaze on him like a wand between his shoulderblades. As soon as he knew he was out of her sight, Dean rounded a shelf and doubled back to the opposite end of where Pince had been. She was gone and the books were in their places. Dean walked up to the little path and saw that two shelves had been moved closer together to render squeezing into the little cubby impossible. He wanted to get a closer look, but he thought better of it when he heard footsteps and Madam Pince's sour grumbling coming his way again.

Dean poked here and there around the library for a good half-hour, but Luna was nowhere to be found. Dejected, he finally left, not noticing until much later that the chocoballs had melted in his robes pocket.