Tales of a Spiritual Warrior

Chapter Five: The Beginning of Term

When the train pulled in, Hagrid gave Harry a wave before gathering up the first years for their trip across the lake. They looked quite tiny next to him, and once again Harry recalled how terrified he had been when he had first arrived at Hogwarts, wondering if he would ever fit in or not.

He took Luna's hand and they held back for awhile, watching the bustle of the station. There were owls hooting and cats hissing. Various students were calling to each other, exchanging greetings and summer news. Harry noticed several people looking pointedly at Luna standing beside him and took pains to smile down at her reassuringly.

When the carriages began to line up, she gave a glad cry, and went to pet the thestral she had ridden to London the previous year. Harry knew that the students who did not know about the thestrals would be even more confused, and it made him feel closer to Luna. It was something they shared that not everyone could understand. He gave the creature a fond pat as well, and it turned to look at him with white, staring eyes. "You can't help what you are, either, can you?" Harry whispered to it. "It's not easy being misunderstood. We know." The thestral rubbed his reptilian head against Harry's shoulder in a friendly way.

They got into a carriage, and were joined by two other Ravenclaw girls. Orla Quirke and Mandy Brocklehurst looked totally stunned to see Luna settle down against Harry's side. Harry thought hard, and decided to take advantage of the situation. Whether the girls in Ravenclaw thought he was totally mad, or thought he was a hero, they would certainly think twice about messing about with Luna's things if they were dead sure she and Harry were a couple. But how to make the point clear, when it still wasn't totally clear to Harry himself exactly how it had all come about?

He smiled at them in what he hoped was a casual way. "So how was your summer? How did you do on your O.W.L.s, Mandy?"

"Pretty well. I got an Outstanding O.W.L. in Ancient Runes. I was ever so pleased," she replied.

Perfect, Harry thought, and he drew out the long chain Luna had placed around his neck. "I didn't know you were good with runes. Look at this. Luna brought it back for me from her trip to Sweden. Isn't it great?"

Mandy eyed the necklace thoughtfully. "Viking, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Luna dreamily. "When I saw it, I thought of Harry at once. I saw so many wonderful things in Scandinavia." And she began to tell them about her trip as the carriage started to roll. Harry kept his arm protectively around her thin shoulders, and kept smiling down at her as she chattered away. The other girls seemed very impressed, and Harry hoped for once that his notoriety would do some good.

As they exited the carriage, though, a familiar voice made him wince.

"Potter and Lovegood!" Draco Malfoy cried out delightedly. "What a perfect pair! A muggle loving show-off and a long haired loony. This makes sense. They're both as daft as you can get. Good choice, Potter."

Luna looked unsure, and tried to step back, but Harry held her hand firmly. "For once I agree with you, Malfoy," Harry said calmly, and led Luna up the stone steps into the castle. Once they were in the entry hall, he looked at her sadly. "I won't be able to see you as often here as I did in Diagon Alley. There'll be a lot to do tonight, but we're still going walking by the lake after dinner tomorrow night, aren't we?"

"You remembered," Luna said softly, and nodded her head before letting go of Harry's hand reluctantly to head for the Ravenclaw table.

Harry went off to his own table, and was amused to see Ginny sitting next to Neville, totally engrossed in whatever he was saying to her. Ron was sitting beside Hermione, of course, and they were talking quietly together. He slid in between Ron and Seamus, as the sorting ceremony began. The hat once again gave them a warning about standing together and danger to come. The emphasis seemed to be even more than usual on joining the houses. The hat seemed convinced that joining what the founders had left behind would bring peace, but Harry was so anxious for the sorting to be over and the food to appear that he didn't pay much attention. To everyone's surprise, Dumbledore announced that Professor Flitwick would be taking the Dark Arts classes as well as his usual Charms classes, and the students who knew the tiny wizard were impressed that he would accept such a workload. The Ravenclaws clapped enthusiastically. Flitwick was, after all, their head of house.

At the head table, Professor Snape looked quite furious at this announcement, and Harry knew that he was probably angry that he had not been asked to help. Harry could understand it, though. Snape was too close to the dark side to be put into the position of being tempted by it.

Harry was glad when the food appeared on the golden plates, and quickly took as many potatoes, chicken legs and custard tarts as his plate could hold. He ate his way through all of the food, and was glad when he finally reached his dormitory. He was home.

One thing that Harry was not pleased to see unchanged was Malfoy's malevolence. On his way to Transfiguration the next morning, Harry caught Malfoy in the corridor making some snide comment to Luna, who answered him quietly and walked away before Harry could hear what she had said. Harry noticed Malfoy run his hand down Luna's arm as she turned away, and while it didn't seem to bother her, it certainly bothered Harry.

"Leave her alone, Malfoy. I'm warning you, if you ever touch her again..."

"Oh, I'm really scared, Potter. Not that I would want to keep touching that silly piece of skirt anyway, but what you were thinking when you picked THAT up, I'll never know."

"There's a lot of things you don't know, Malfoy," Harry said sharply. Malfoy watched Harry walk away, a interested look on his face.

"That little Lovegood brat must know something," he muttered to himself. "There has to be a reason for this, and I'll find out what it is. I'll figure her out one way or another."

After dinner, Harry met Luna and they walked outside. It was a beautiful evening.

"Where do you want to go?" Luna asked.

"I want to show you a very special place. It's where I always go to think," Harry answered. He led her to the edge of the lake, and behind a tangle of shrubs, to the grassy spot where he had sat a few months earlier, trying to come to terms with his godfather's death. They spread their cloaks out on the ground and stretched out on the grass, looking up at the sky, not touching, in silence. The autumn breeze came up, and they heard it rustling the leaves in the shrubs behind them, joining with the lake sounds.

"When I'm outdoors," Luna said softly, "I feel at the heart of things."

Harry leaned over then and kissed her. He felt comfortable kissing her now. Then something changed. Her lips parted, and the kiss deepened. He concentrated on the slippery softness of her lips and tongue, the smell of the grass, and the sound of the wind, feeling as if the rest of the world had vanished. There was nothing left but the two of them. Harry felt happy. He had never felt so happy, but he also felt sad, because he knew that the feeling couldn't last. Everything else in the world was just waiting, out of sight, like the voices behind the veil.

"Luna," Harry breathed, "I have to explain to you about Malfoy."

"I think I understand him. Anyone who's been brought up by a Death Eater can't be very fond of you."

"It's not just that. It goes back to the beginning, before he even knew who I was, or before I knew who he was."

Harry began to tell Luna about how Dumbledore had left him with his aunt, and how she had never mentioned Dumbledore's letter to him, or explained about his parents being magical. He told Luna about Hagrid coming to get him, and about how overwhelming it had been to find himself in Diagon Alley, trying to understand the wizarding world. He told her about meeting Malfoy in the robe shop, and explained how foolish Malfoy had made him feel.

Luna listened carefully, curled up in the crook of Harry's arm, as he told her about finding himself at the train station for the first time, without a clue as to what he should do. She smiled when he described how Mrs. Weasley had introduced him to Ron, and explained how to get through the barrier.

"That sounds like Molly Weasley. She is very kind."

"I was grateful to her. She made me feel comfortable, and I felt comfortable with Ron. Certainly more than I did with Malfoy. He made me feel stupid, and I didn't like the way he talked about muggles, even if I had lived with some pretty dreadful ones. Then when we got to Hogwarts, and he found out who I was, he insulted Ron and tried to make friends with me, because he thought he could use me. There was bound to be bad blood between us, yes, but it came from us first. You have to understand that. Malfoy is treacherous. I didn't realize he would single you out as soon as we got here. Maybe he knows you went to the Ministry with us. Maybe he doesn't. But if you're with me, he will be relentless. Does it matter?"

Luna sat up, and pushed aside her long hair, tossing it to flow down the length of her back. She thought carefully, and answered Harry honestly. "I've had to take the abuse of people like Malfoy since my mother died. They thought she was stupid to try to do things differently than they had always been done, and they thought she died a fool. They dislike my father, because he sees possibilities others do not see, and plays with people's imaginations as a way of getting their attention. Malfoy has a grand manor, and an important name, but they mean nothing to me. I don't care what he's done, or what his father did before him. I care about what's in his heart, and what's in yours. If loving you makes a fool of me, then I'll spend my life letting him laugh at me, and consider it a life well spent. I admit, if I look at it objectively, it doesn't make much sense to love you, but I wouldn't trade being in love with you for anything on earth. Part of the happiness you bring me is seeing all the new ways you are making my life unfold. That means too much to me to ever put you aside because of what anyone else thinks. I've never cared what anyone thinks of me, because I know who I am. And Harry, I know who you are."

"Who am I then?"

She smiled impishly. "My spiritual warrior, of course. Now let's get back to the castle. I want to know everything about you, but we have to save something for tomorrow, don't we?"

"As long as I have another tomorrow," Harry said gently, "it's yours."

Harry's special spot on the bank became their spot. There they could talk about anything and everything in the intense, wound-up way teenagers have. They held each other and talked in turns, about their childhoods, about their lessons, and about their future.

Harry raged one night over the miserable way Snape was still treating him, and Luna tried to calm him, but like Dumbledore, she could see that Snape was walking a fine line. To favor Harry would have put him in a dreadful position, and Luna felt sure that as much as Snape had disliked James Potter and Sirius Black, he'd had no wish to see either of them dead. Indeed, Luna's instincts were correct. It had been the attack on the Potter family that had strengthened Snape's resolve never to go back to the life of a Death Eater, and after Voldemort's fall, he'd had a difficult time convincing them that going to work for Dumbledore was the proper way to infiltrate Hogwarts. Luna could appreciate the risk Snape had taken, and admire him as an expert potions master in a more detached way than Harry could.

Luna let Harry vent, and then gently steered his thoughts until they were clearer. Afterwards, he wondered how she had ever managed it. If anyone else had even tried to make his opinion of Snape a more balanced one, he would never have totally trusted that person again.

She had an easier time when he quarreled with McGonagall, because he felt genuinely guilty about that. Harry was no longer interested in working for the Ministry, but since McGonagall had personally involved herself in Harry earlier ambitions, she had not taken it well when he had told her so. Draco Malfoy, eavesdropping outside, though, had been delighted, and hurried off to inform his mother that Harry was no longer applying for auror training, a fact that would have pleased Harry if he'd known, because it confused the Death Eaters terribly. A debate ranged for several months on whether or not the Order had some new secret plan that meant aurors would no longer be necessary, which delayed further many of the Dark Lord's decisions.

It was lucky, though, that Draco had slipped off before the conversation had gone any further, or Harry's indecision might have proved quite detrimental.

"But what DO you want to do?" McGonagall had asked him point blank, looking down her thin nose at him. "You have to think about your future!'

"Can you guarantee that I have one?" Harry had shot back, and of course, she had not been able to do so.

"Of course, you do, Harry. That was not nice," said Luna, later. He was lying on his back, and she was lying on top of him, her thin arms crossed on his chest, her chin resting comfortably on the back of her hands. He had his eyes closed, and was stroking her back, which made it impossible for her to get too tense, even as she scolded him. "I believe in you. You're going to get through this, and you're going to win."

"Luna, I never wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be reasonably happy with someone I really cared about. I wanted someone to care about me for being me. My dream was to stop being alone. Something can't be a dream when it really exists. Let me enjoy it for awhile. The future will take care of itself."

Sliding his hand into her hair he drew her up so that her mouth was on his, but the warmth of her mouth and body couldn't stave off the bitter wind that was beginning to come off the lake. Their days there were definitely numbered. He delighted in her company when they sat in the library, doing homework together. She was as intelligent as anyone else in her house, and more than most. He enjoyed the occasional meal they were able to share, when one of their house tables was not too full. Luna was funny and friendly. A stolen kiss here or there was thrilling, but he longed for the weeks to pass until the Christmas holidays, when he could go back to Diagon Alley with her.

It was a new experience for Harry to just be marking time at Hogwarts.