Rowena's Quill

Dumbledore had a knack for working surprises into his speeches. For Neville, the thoroughly unexpected thrill of winning the final ten points for Gryffindor was forever etched in his memory, but now it had a counter-balance in bad news: Snape was the new Defense teacher. Suddenly, restarting the D.A. became an urgent matter for Neville. After the first month of settling into the routine of classes, he made arrangements to meet Luna at the Room of Requirement. What he hadn't counted on was Malfoy beating them to it.

"How'd you get in here? That door was locked!" he demanded.

"We need to be here, so the door opened for us," said Luna. "We can share the room."

Neville could tell that Malfoy found her calmness maddening. "Maybe I don't want to share," he said.

As it happened, Neville didn't particularly want to share either, but Luna pressed on.

"You needn't worry, you know. Whatever you're hiding from us will stay hidden if it needs to."

That Malfoy didn't immediately retort with some snide remark was a dead give-away that Luna was right. Looking around, Neville realized he had never seen the room so full. It was lined with shelves from the ceiling to the floor, covered in all sorts of miscellaneous objects - dusty old books, a cache of liquor bottles that would have supplied a decade-long all-student bash, assorted old Muggle items probably stashed as secret, illegal portkeys, a fair few Skiving Snackboxes, and even a potted phoscolia, withering away for lack of sunlight.

It was plain to see they'd never find Malfoy's hidden treasure amid all that stuff. Neville didn't even care to try. But he did walk over to the shelves to rescue the phoscolia, and got sort of a perverse delight in watching Malfoy sweat.

Once Malfoy saw that all Neville had been after was the plant, he reverted to his normal personality. "What are you two losers doing here anyway? Dumbledore's Army's defunct, you know."

"Oh no, it isn't," said Neville.

"Would you care to join us?" asked Luna.

"Hah!" said Malfoy.

"Fine," said Neville. "We're not illegal anymore. We can go somewhere else." He turned to leave, but Luna did not move an inch.

"You're not looking very well, you know. Perhaps you should - "

"Yeah, yeah, I've got some dread disease from your father's crackpot magazine. Spare me the medical advice, will you?"

"As I was saying, if only you would listen to the proper authorities, then . . ."

"Shut up!" shouted Malfoy, shooting angry sparks from his wand. "Leave me alone!"

"If you like. Let's go, Neville."

So he and Luna left. "What was that all about?" Neville asked when they turned the corner.

"I think it's his bizzyanitis. I'm afraid he's reached Stage II."

Neville knew he'd regret asking, but he couldn't help himself. "What's bizzyanitis?"

"Acute shame, characterized first by a compulsion to insult others, and in later stages, a curious self-deception that leads to foolish decisions."

Neville felt as though an egg-beater had entered his ears and was scrambling his brains. Luna was off on another one of her surreal tangents, but somehow this one made sense. "The compulsion to insult others sounds about right."

"But the second stage is when it gets dangerous, sometimes just to the sufferer, and sometimes to other people. I'm sure you know about Veritus the Voice of Truth?"

"The wireless announcer?"

"Yes. He was in the June and July issues of The Quibbler. At first he was just being rude to everybody. Rude on the air, rude to his fans, but then he reached second stage, got overconfident, and asked for a ten thousand galleon raise."

"That doesn't sound very dangerous."

"It gave his boss a fatal heart attack. The family is crying for revenge. And Veritus has been forced to live the life of a hermit."

"Luna, that's ridiculous. I listened to Veritus all summer."

"That was just a substitute with a magically modified voice."

Neville shook his head. It was time to steer the conversation back to familiar territory.

"Look, what do you want to do about practicing Defense?"

"Well, as you said, we're no longer an illegal organization, so we could just use any classroom. That must be why we didn't get to use the Room of Requirement as we intended. We don't really need it."

"Following that logic, we shouldn't have been able to get in at all. Malfoy locked the door."

"He needed to hear my advice, but he wouldn't listen. That's the second time that's happened to me in the Room of Requirement."

Neville knew better than to ask her about the first time.

Luna sighed. "It is a shame, though. I rather like the Room of Requirement."

"So do I."

"Perhaps liking something is almost as good as needing it. Perhaps we should try again tomorrow."

"Yeah. Malfoy was there today, but he won't be there every day. See you tomorrow, Luna."

But the next morning, when Neville heard Veritus' voice coming from the seventh-years' dorm room, he decided he didn't feel much like meeting Luna. She was a friend, but she was best taken in small doses. So at breakfast, he told her he needed to go to the greenhouse that day. It wasn't a lie. He had to take care of his newly-rescued phoscolia.

Professor Sprout affected a strict frown when she saw it. "You realize, this is a banned flower at Hogwarts."

"I know, ma'am. It doesn't really belong to me. I found it, and I saw it needed care, so I brought it here."

"Where did you find it exactly?"

"In the Room of Requirement, ma'am. I think it needed me."

Professor Sprout smiled at that explanation, and looked much more like herself. "I had to ask, Neville. I know you're not the type to brew your own love potions."

"I wouldn't even know how."

"That was a statement about your honesty, not your ability. All right, then. If you want to nurse the poor thing back to health, I permit you to do it here. But I don't want it going back to the castle and especially not into the dorms."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. And um . . . ma'am?"

"Yes?"

"I've got another phoscolia at home - it was a present - may I ask my Gran to send it here, so I can take care of both of them together?"

"Yes, Neville. Go right ahead."

Neville was happy. The greenhouse was a better environment for the two phosolia and for him. Now that Dean was dating Ginny, his own room had become an uncomfortable place. The weeks of the school term flew by and Neville spent several hours every day tending his plants. With great devotion and a few odd charms, he restored the petals on the rescued phoscolia to their natural bloom. The weird thing was, the new phoscolia turned precisely the same dull yellow as the other one. Try as he might, Neville couldn't do anything to change them, and the onset of winter wasn't helping.

One cold Saturday morning, Neville woke up early to go study the clouds. He'd been reading Muggle books on weather patterns, and he wanted to go out and see what he could learn for himself.

Other than the house-elves tiptoeing around, the entire school was asleep. Neville tiptoed, too. But once outside, he could walk normally. He walked away from the castle, toward the forest. Smoke was billowing from the chimney of Hagrid's hut. There was not another soul in sight. Neville enjoyed the quiet beauty of the empty grounds. He climbed the tallest hill for the best possible view, and there, sitting on the ground with a notebook in her lap, was Luna. She turned at the sound of his footsteps.

"Hello. Are you here to study the clouds?"

"Yeah," he said, wondering how she knew.

"So am I. I didn't know you were a student of hygromancy."

"Hygromancy?" he repeated, sitting down.

"Divination by moisture. It's an old centaurian art, but being human, I find it rather difficult."

"Sorry I can't help you. I failed Divination. The only thing I can tell you is that those clouds are full of precipitation, which means we'll probably have snow in a few hours."

"I thought so!" said Luna, happily. "But now I'm trying to determine exactly what the snow means. Usually, thick clouds are a bad sign, but these feel very good to me."

In any conversation about Divination, Neville was out of his depths. A conversation about Divination with Luna was off the scale. Normally, he'd just make an excuse and go elsewhere, but there was something about her smile and the pinkness in her cheeks that made him want to stay.

"Umm . . . the reason for snow is to blanket the earth and insulate it from really low temperatures. That way, it doesn't freeze in winter and it yields better produce in spring."

"That's exactly what I was thinking. There would be a temporary obscuring of what's really important, but it would lead to bigger and better later on. How do you know so much about snow clouds if you've never studied hygromancy?"

"That's Muggle wisdom, actually. So . . . um . . . how was your term?"

"Lonely," said Luna. "I kept waiting for you near the Room of Requirement, but you never came."

Neville squirmed inside. He didn't know which was harder to cope with - her loony ideas or her brutal honesty. But this time, she made his excuses for him.

"I don't suppose we would have gotten in anyway. Now that Professor Snape is teaching Defense, we have less of a need for the D.A. He's a very good teacher, and he certainly knows the subject."

As Luna's loony statements went, it wasn't the looniest, but he still didn't agree with it. He was doing much better in Snape's Defense class than he'd ever done in Potions, but he didn't think Snape himself was the reason. He'd mastered more advanced spells in the D.A., and besides, defensive magic sort of came to him naturally.

"Also, Draco Malfoy uses the room practically every day. He posts guards sometimes. Once he used my roommates, Kali and Braunoza. I didn't even think they knew Draco. But they were just as rude to me as ever, and they wouldn't let me near the door."

Neville had another pang of guilt. He was just about her only friend, and he'd been neglecting her. "Listen, Luna, what are you doing today after breakfast?"

"I don't have any plans," she said.

"Then let's practice today."

"All right!" she said brightly.

They ended up spending the entire day together. They tried getting into the Room of Requirement, but it was sealed shut, so they practiced Defense in a classroom instead. After they got tired of it, he took her to the greenhouse, where he spent several hours showing her plants and giving her gardening tips. Most people wouldn't have listened for so long, but Luna actually seemed interested, and Neville had a sense it wasn't just because she was hoping to do well on her O.W.L. in June.

In the middle of his explanation about vervain, she cried, "Snow!" and went running out of the greenhouse.

Neville followed her and the two of them just stood there, watching the snow cover the castle and grounds. It was breathtaking.

"I don't think there's anything as magical as nature," said Luna.

Neville felt the same way.

The snow was up to their ankles when they decided to go inside. It was getting dark, too.

"Let's try the Room of Requirement again!" said Luna eagerly.

Neville was thinking more of calling it a day and separating for supper, but he couldn't say no to her. He didn't expect to be let in anyway.

But he was wrong. The room opened for them, but it was neither set up for a D.A. meeting nor cluttered with all the shelves they'd seen with Malfoy. It was a homey, carpeted lounge with a table for two in the center.

"Look, it's given us supper!"

So Neville and Luna sat down to eat. It wasn't anything elaborate, probably the very same meal being served in the Great Hall, but Neville supposed she had a need to eat with him instead of alone at the Ravenclaw table. And it made him feel good to know he was doing that for her.

Once their plates had vanished, a Rack 'n Rune game appeared at their table. Luna attempted to teach him, and he felt trying was the least he could do, after she'd listened to him so long in the greenhouse. But even in English, Rack 'n Rune wasn't his thing, so he suggested he walk her back to Ravenclaw House. To his relief, she did not sigh or pout or say anything about how lonely she'd be without him. So they headed back through the castle, but stopped in a corridor where they heard someone crying from inside a girls' bathroom.

"Who's that?" wondered Neville.

"It's not Myrtle," said Luna. She listened closely. "It's not Cho Chang, either."

"You know, I think it's Hermione. Maybe you'd better go in there and see if she's all right."

"Yes, I suppose I should. It could be any number of things. Merdvoxes, crickichuckies. I hope it's not leezetuggers. Then she'll need the hospital wing."

After all that about leezetuggers, Neville was suddenly glad he was taking leave of her. "Maybe she just needs a good listener," he said. He turned and walked a few steps.

"Thank you for being so nice to me, Neville," she called.

A little pang of guilt seized him again. Just when he thought he'd put a little distance between himself and Luna.

"Sure. We'll do it again soon."

She smiled and went into the bathroom.

"She's kind of pretty when she smiles," thought Neville. But talking to her was sometimes like floating aimlessly through the air. He felt like he needed to land, to have some plain, old, everyday conversation. He was sure to get it back at the dorm.

"Ah! So close!" he heard Seamus say on the other side of the door.

Neville let himself in and something whizzed past his face. "What the -?"

"You should've knocked," said Seamus.

"It's my room, too." He sat down on his bed. Seamus was standing opposite a makeshift picture of Firenze. He lifted his wand at it, and a dart came flying out. It pierced Firenze's right hoof.

"So where is everybody?" Neville asked.

"Out having a good snog, same as you were," said Seamus, sending out two more darts in rapid succession.

Of course, Neville hadn't been doing anything of the kind, but no self-respecting male ever admitted to inexperience.

"Me mam says it's normal for girls to get crushes on their teachers, but this is a bleedin' horse!" The next dart hit Firenze's upper arm. "You've got the right idea, mate. Take it where you can get it. She's no troll, even if she is loony."

Neville reacted without thinking. "I wasn't out snogging Loony!" There, he'd admitted it. But he'd rather they'd believe the truth than . . .

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, mate. Didn't I just say she's no troll?"

"Looks aren't everything! There's a lot more to . . . to . . . girls than that!" Angrily, he turned away from Seamus. Why did everyone think he and Luna were something more than friends? Just because he was only a few rungs above her on the social ladder? Or because, as Malfoy had said last year, his parents were insane, so she ought to make him feel right at home? Well, he didn't feel at home with her any more than he felt at home on the closed ward.

Neville took a few deep breaths, the way he'd learned to do when he was angry with Gran. Seamus, and almost everyone else for that matter, didn't know about his parents, and wouldn't make that connection. But if not for his parents and their problems, Luna's flights of fancy wouldn't make him want to run so far and fast away from her. Otherwise, he liked her. She was serious about the D.A. She'd fought in the Ministry. Her heart was certainly in the right place, even if her mind was always slipping in and out of unfathomable worlds. And as Seamus had said, she wasn't a troll. No, definitely not a troll.

But now that he'd lost his temper in front of Seamus, he'd never be believed. He turned back toward him and in a calm voice said, "Luna and I are friends, and that's all. I don't feel anything more than that for her, and I don't tell lies."

Seamus shrugged and said nothing. For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the whirring of darts from Seamus' wand. The cold silence finally broke when Peeves' voice came ringing through the halls. Neville was thankful. If nothing else, Peeves was always good for laughs.

"What's he on about now?" asked Neville in a falsely light tone, sticking his head out the door.

"POTTY LURVES LOONY! POTTY LUUUUURVES LOONY!"

A gaggle of gossiping girls followed in Peeves' wake. "Harry Potter asked Loony Lovegood to Slughorn's party!"

Neville shut the door. Seamus held up a copy of The Prophet with a picture of 'the Chosen One' on the cover.

"Care for a game of darts?" he asked, smirking.

Neville was not going to shout again. "No, thank you," he said politely, though his insides were jumping in all directions. He went back to his side of the room, and picked up the farmer's almanac, the very same book he'd begun the day with, but he couldn't keep his mind on it.

"What does he take me for?" thought Neville. It was bad enough Seamus didn't believe him about Luna, but why would he want to throw darts at Harry? He considered Harry one of his best friends. He didn't even bear Dean any ill will. But for some strange reason, it bothered him that Luna was going on a date with Harry, and what bothered him more was that it bothered him.

"Accio Herbology text!" he said. Working out the problem of the phoscolia had to be easier than this.