Of Hospital Wings and Magazines

Of Hospital Wings and Magazines

It was easier to be asleep, Neville thought, than to be awake and faced constantly with the crowd around Bill Weasley's bed. So he slept, or pretended to be asleep.

About mid-morning someone pulled a chair towards his bed, scraping it loudly across the floor. The someone sat down, and Neville thought he heard pages turning.

He opened one eye a tiny bit: it was Luna.

She seemed entirely undisturbed by the events of the night before, or that Neville was trying to be asleep; in fact, she hardly seemed aware that she was in the hospital wing. She was reading the Quibbler with the same curious intensity that she had been the first time Neville saw her.

Neville shut his eye again. He and Luna had almost become friends since the D.A., but she still unnerved him a bit, not least because she was apparently oblivious to the effect she had on people.

Her being there was a small conundrum. Either he could continue to pretend to be asleep, or he could wake up and talk to her. It didn't seem like she was going anywhere, though, and sleeping was boring, so he decided on the latter choice.

He opened his eyes - both of them - and was rather startled when Luna said suddenly, "Good morning, Neville."

"Morning, Luna," he answered, sitting up.

"I came by to see how you were doing," she said, unnecessarily.

Neville wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but she saved him the trouble by continuing, "I thought you might like this article." She flipped a few pages in her magazine and turned it towards him. The title of the article, emblazoned across the page in a rather revolting shade of sage green, read: MAGICAL HERBARIUM HELPS WOMAN FIGHT OFF DEATH EATERS!" Underneath it was a picture of a - in Neville's opinion, at least - stunning greenhouse, packed with a variety of rare and interesting plants.

"Daddy almost didn't print it," Luna informed him serenely. "It's not the sort of thing he usually prints. But I told him that it would be a useful thing for readers to know." Her voice changed slightly, becoming a degree or so less dispassionate, as she asked, "You do like it, don't you?"
Neville nodded, once again speechless. That tended to happen around Luna, he noticed - what were you supposed to say in response to her? It wasn't that she was shocking in an appalling way, but- well, she was shocking, just in a quiet, peaceful way that meant you didn't realize how stunned you were until you had to talk. Not that he disliked Luna, though. She was nice, when he really thought about it. Out there, yes; disconcerting, yes; but she was also honest and self-confident. Neville couldn't help admiring that - he was nowhere near as composed as Luna, and he didn't think he ever could be... but it was reassuring to know other people were.

"I told Daddy you would like it," she muttered, apparently to herself, and Neville found himself pleasantly surprised that Luna had, it seemed, mentioned him to her father.

Her voice back to its usual unearthly calm, Luna inquired about how Madam Pomfrey was treating his injuries.

"Um, she's not really sure what curse he used," Neville began awkwardly, and tried to explain the various potions that Madam Pomfrey was giving him. He didn't really know that much about them, and it had not occurred to him to ask - he hadn't thought he would need to know.

Luna started detailing the life of a witch who had spent most of her time finding an antidote to the curse that Neville had been hit by; from what Neville could understand, she had had a great deal of success with essence of something-or-other that he'd never heard of, but unfortunately she stumbled across a bizarre Ministry conspiracy and they had tried very hard to defame her, so she was now believed to be very unreliable. Personally, Neville thought he'd stick with Madam Pomfrey.

He listened to the story anyway, asked questions where it was appropriate (or where he was terribly confused). By the end, though, he was tired. Reluctantly, because Luna was actually fairly good company, he said, "I'm kind of exhausted, could you tell me about that-" he stumbled over the name of the conspiracy, and Luna supplied it for him "- yeah, that, later?"

Luna nodded. Neville expected her to leave, but instead she settled into her chair and picked up the Quibbler again.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Neville asked sleepily, a hazy voice in the back of his mind telling him that there should be exams.

"No," Luna answered vaguely. "Where else would I go?"

Neville wanted to ask about exams, but he was simply too tired; instead, he thought that he was glad she would still be there when he woke up again.

"Besides," she added, "I like you, Neville."