What Devilry Is This? [Luna]

[harryjamespotter]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 400px; background-image: url(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u62/King_Giana/Harry%20Potter/harry_potter_bgbw.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 250px; border-radius: 30px 30px 30px 30px; border: 0px solid #414141] What Devilry Is This? It was getting to the point where Harry was beginning to feel as though he was limited to a very basic set of emotions. His default setting appeared to be stuck between tired and melancholy, while the emotions that would flit through sporadically seemed to never go beyond the limits of frustrated, utterly depressed, bored and almost happy. Almost happy was the rarest of his current emotional range of seven types of feeling, while tired, melancholy and bored tended to be the top three. Frustrated was, amazingly, about the angriest he could bring himself to be these days and Harry was beginning to think that was a bad sign all on its own. Yet despite this reflection, Harry just could not be buggered to do anything about it. So he couldn't get righteously furious any longer. Considering his temper's history for getting him into trouble, it was probably a good thing anyway. So he wasn't even half as content or happy as he often pretended to be for Hermione, Ron, Astoria and the others sakes. Whatever - the 'Boy Who Lied' didn't have to be happy. As long as he did his duty and faced up against the most terrifying bastard alive while everyone else stuck their heads in the dirt like a bunch of goddamn ostriches, his emotional state was inconsequential. He didn't have to be happy while he prepared to fight Voldemort - all that mattered was that he did, indeed, do it. These thoughts were often the reason between Harry's cycles of melancholy-frustrated, and today he was feeling a lovely mix of both the two with a heavy peppering of bored off his arse. He needed something to distract himself and talking to Ron and Hermione just wasn't cutting it. They were concerned to the point of being annoying, simply because there was nothing they could say or do to change the fact people just would not listen. Not to mention they were still on his 'I'm not impressed with you' list, as their reaction to Astoria had been less than favorable. Deciding some exploring might be the cure to this current batch of restlessness, Harry checked the Marauder's Map and noticed a tower area he hadn't paid any attention to before. Deciding that was a good enough place to start, he tucked the Map back into his trunk and made his way toward what had been labelled The Dark Tower. Harry had to confess a sense of morbid curiosity - what sort of tower at Hogwarts could earn a name like that? Rounding the corner that lead to the stairwell which would take him up to 'The Dark Tower', Harry was mildly surprised when he thought he heard someone call his name. He looked around, but the corridor appeared to be deserted. "Hello?" He called out, just in case he'd missed something. "Is someone there?"

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[lunalovegood]

It was after dinner and Luna was in a rather good mood. Even more so than normal and decided to take a walk. She first ran up to the Ravenclaw common room to grab her spectraspecs and butterbeer cork necklace.

Luna dreamily ambled down the steps on her toes, half dancing, half walking almost to the point of tripping. But alas, she didn't mind. She was extremely excited to check a new location for Blibbering Humdingers that she had read about in the Quibbler. It had said that places of imprisonment usually held their nests. They nested there because they enjoyed driving people mad by buzzing around in their brains. Prisoners were the easiest because if they were stupid enough to get caught, they were easier to drive mad.

The slight Ravenclaw shuddered slightly at the thought of being the prey of even one Blibbering Humdinger. Let alone the dozens that would sometimes infest the minds of prisoners.

Luna had reached the common room door and started out the hallway to the Dark Tower where prison cells were indeed present. She was positive she would find one of her elusive creatures here of all places on Hogwarts's Grounds. Picking up her pace a little, she passed a few groups of students coming from the opposite direction. No doubt simply wandering around before curfew. Luna, unlike her classmates, had her purpose set for the night.

The sun was setting unto the horizon for the day and soon, it would be dusk. This indeed was the perfect time to catch a Blibbering Humdinger. Luna continued to stride down the corridor rather dreamily, engulfed in her thoughts. It had been about ten minutes into her adventure and already she had not seen another student for about five. Luna concluded that this meant she was getting close.

Not really paying mind to what she was doing, she removed her wand from behind her left ear and inspected it. Nine and a half inches, Oak, Unicorn hair. It was nearly in mint condition, save for a small nick on the edge of the handle where she had once dropped it.

Sighing, Luna tucked the wand safely back behind her ear and looked up just in time to see Harry walking around the corner. He looked frustrated and, quite frankly, full of angst. She picked up her pace even further and called out to him, "Harry!" He didn't seem to have heard her. She didn't really blame him either. If somebody had called out to her during one of her seemingly unending periods of thought, she wouldn't have even noticed.

He quickly once again disappeared behind a corner and she decidedly followed. At this point, he could be going nowhere but The Dark Tower she noticed. This corridor led to nowhere else. Luna heard him ask who was there. So he had heard her after all. She did her best to hurry up, without running of course, she wasn't the most coordinated Ravenclaw out there obviously. "Harry! Hello, it's just me," she replied when she turned around the corner.

Luna skipped up to Harry as he noticed her coming, Blibbering Humdingers forgotten for the moment. "What are you doing all the way out here?" She questioned the Gryffindor.


Wearing: BAM.

[harryjamespotter]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 400px; background-image: url(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u62/King_Giana/Harry%20Potter/harry_potter_bgbw.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 250px; border-radius: 30px 30px 30px 30px; border: 0px solid #414141] What Devilry Is This? Harry was just about to dismiss the voice and begin his way up the stairs when a very familiar elfen voice piped up right behind him. His entire back gave a startled spasm, much like a horse's withers as it shakes off a fly, but there was no other outward display of surprise as Harry turned around and found himself face to face with Luna Lovegood. She looked much the same as ever, with a somewhat dreamy expression on her pale and finely featured face, her blond hair so fine it was practically a tangle as it tumbled over her shoulders. Despite her frail and seemingly absent-minded appearance, Harry knew Luna to be an exceptionally clever young witch with a fine hand at defensive spells. She was a bit loopy, sure, but she had a way of viewing the events around her that Harry honestly found rather refreshing. Luna was not one to avoid a difficult subject and was, at times, painfully blunt. She would say some of the most awkward things from time to time, but they were also painfully true. It was their blunt delivery and the way Luna made it impossible to weasel away from the statement that made it all so awkward, generally. It was this honesty about her that Harry considered well worth the occasional tangent about nargles and other such oddities. "Hey Luna," He greeted, a hint of a genuine smile teasing across his lips briefly, "I'm headed up this tower here," he explained, nodding toward the entryway to the Dark Tower. "Care to join me?" He asked, surprisingly not at all opposed to her company. For all he wished to avoid Hermione and Ron at the moment, Luna was a completely different sort of friend. He felt it would be rather nice to have her along as he nosed around the Dark Tower, if only to hear what she might come up with to say. When it came to weird and distracting conversation, Luna was a godsend.

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[lunalovegood]

When Luna finally reached Harry, she took a few more steps forward, 'Perhaps a little too close into his personal space,' she thought, but he didn't really seem to notice. Most people that were used to her knew of her lack of sense of personal space. Truthfully, she didn't really see a difference in twenty inches and two inches. Either way, you were face to face.

At Harry's smile; or really, more of a twitch that happened to fall in the area of his mouth it looked like, Luna grinned gleefully back. As Harry gestured up the stairs, Luna took a couple steps up and peered into the dark hall. She heard his voice behind her, asking if she would like to join him up to the tower. Luna nodded once, "Mm," her noise was more of a conformation that she heard him than an acceptance of his invitation. She was, after all, going up anyways.

Luna took a few more paces up the stairs and looked back to make sure Harry was following. The metal parts on her earrings clinked together, creating the only noise for awhile aside from the echo of their footsteps. Finally, "I'm looking for Blibbering Humdingers, Harry. I recently read an article in The Quibbler about how they live in prisons and comparable places of mass confinement. They, the Humdingers, find it easiest to buzz around in the minds of convicts because they're usually quite simple minded for being caught, and it is therefore much easier to prod about in their brains until they go mad." She said this in a manner that was simply matter of fact. As if she would've said something as simple as, "The sky is blue."

The fourth year glanced back at Harry to make sure he'd caught it all and smiled at his response. Dark was settling on the stairway due to the lack of windows and Luna took her wand from behind her ear. "Lumos," she breathed.

"How is your year going Harry?" she asked, breaking the momentary silence.


Wearing: BAM.

[harryjamespotter]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 400px; background-image: url(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u62/King_Giana/Harry%20Potter/harry_potter_bgbw.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 250px; border-radius: 30px 30px 30px 30px; border: 0px solid #414141] What Devilry Is This? Harry was probably one of the few folk at Hogwarts who took little issue with Luna's personal space perception issues, and wasn't too concerned with the fact she'd gotten a bit close. With Luna, that's just how things were sometimes. When the lither Ravenclaw took the lead, Harry shook his head a bit and followed after her, not finding himself at a loss for long. Luna was happy to explain her presence up in this part of the castle, with a heavy hand of her usual talk of odd creatures Harry had never heard of. Rather than take all of Luna's words as nonsense, Harry listened with interest before frowning in slight confusion. "But Luna," Harry began cautiously, "What would Blibbering Humdingers be doing at Hogwarts? I mean, its not as though the school's ever held convicts - has it?" He added, suddenly uncertain. Hermione would know - Harry was starting to think a peak through Hogwarts: A History might not be an entirely bad idea. Lighting his wand as well, Harry gave a bit of a sigh at Luna's question. "Honestly Luna? Its getting to the point where I'd rather get chased by the Horntail again. It was easier than dealing with all of this," he stated glumly, reflecting all too easily on his many reasons for melancholy. "The Ministry and Prophet I can handle - well, mostly anyway. Umbridge though, is really starting to get to me." Continuing his way up the stairs, Harry sighed, realizing he didn't want to lie about it anymore. For some reason, Luna seemed like someone he could talk to about it. She wouldn't be pitying, nor would she swarm him with concern to the point he felt smothered. If anything, Luna was probably the only person who wouldn't make this worse in her good intentions. "I can't stop dreaming about it," He admitted quietly. "The night Cedric died. Nothing I do will make it stop. I just keep reliving it."

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[lunalovegood]

Luna walk-danced up the stairs as the conversation between her and Harry progressed. Upon asking how his year was going, she could almost feel him going to a darker place in his mind. 'Apparently not well,' She thought, not wanting to interrupt. And then, upon hearing his answer, she almost giggled. The thought of Harry wanting something so terrible was nearly comedic. "Neither of those sound all that pleasant Harry," She settled for. Luna then noticed his mood lightened a bit, and then once again dropped, as if he was suddenly making a decision to tell her something even more dark and serious.

"Harry, is something wrong? Or I should say, more wrong than everything else," She questioned with casual interest. When she heard his answer, she pondered it for a second. Luna wasn't particularly alarmed by Harry's confession, just perplexed by it.

She remembered the same happening to her many years ago, dreaming of someone who died. Her mother. It hit her suddenly, for sometimes, she forgot about her mother's untimely death entirely. Luna forgot that it hadn't always been just her and her father.

Gathering her thoughts into what she liked to think of as a straight line, she abruptly stopped her slow ascent up the stairs and turned. Looking directly into Harry eyes with sincerity, she spoke in a quiet, careful voice, "The same happened to me when my mother died. It was quite traumatic and for awhile, I was angry. Angry that the other children would tell me that she died because she was crazy and what she was doing that caused her death was of the same suit." Luna went on to explain that what her mother was doing wasn't mad, it was genius. She had merely mislabeled the vials and the simple mistake was... deadly.

As she finished her story, Luna came out of her own dark place, smiled, took Harry's hand, and patted it comfortingly. "It gets better Harry," she whispered.


Wearing: BAM.

[harryjamespotter]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; height: 400px; background-image: url(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u62/King_Giana/Harry%20Potter/harry_potter_bgbw.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 250px; border-radius: 30px 30px 30px 30px; border: 0px solid #414141] What Devilry Is This? Harry gave a soft snort at Luna's pleasant reply, which of course took him a bit more literally than he'd intended, which in a way made her answer rather entertaining. She was astute though, Luna. Regardless of what people thought about her, Harry knew there was a reason the hat chose to place her in Ravenclaw rather than Hufflepuff. There was a quick wit hidden behind those airy smiles and odd statements, and it was not as willingly decieved as Hermione's. Looking up at her, Harry wondered what was going on behind those silver-grey eyes. When she spoke, Harry could genuinely state he was taken entirely off guard by her words. It was easy to forget that Luna had lost her mother - a truth Harry had learned only recently, in fact. She had such an innocent and naive quality about her, a carefree sense, that it was hard to attribute so grave a loss to the girl. Harry knew it was, in a way, easy to forget that Harry himself had lost his parents. True, he was famous for it, but the loss itself was, in a way, easy to overlook because he had never known them, and therefore had little to regret. At least, it often felt that this was the mindset people had in regards to Harry being an orphan. Harry regretted not knowing his parents more than anything else, and he could only imagine how terrible it must have been to grow up with someone and watch them pass away right before your eyes. That Luna could maintain such a pleasant persona with that sort of memory made him feel almost guilty for his own resentments and anger about Cedric, whom he had barely known. If Harry were the sort of person who was good at initiating contact, he would have reached out and hugged the Ravenclaw in thanks for her words and out of a sudden desire to comfort her over her loss, even if she did seem strong about it. Instead, he smiled softly - the most genuine he had managed in some time - and stated honestly, "You have a way about you Luna, and I don't think people appreciate it as much as they should." Stepping up beside her, Harry reached out hesitantly, before laying a hand on her shoulder, feeling somewhat off balance for initiating something even this simple, but he pushed past it in favor of stating, "Thank you, for telling me that. It gives me some perspective." Wanting to bring things to a lighter topic of discussion, Harry looked up at the stairs remaining before them and asked, "So, what do Blibbering Humdingers look like anyway?"

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[lunalovegood]

Luna let go of Harry's hand and watched him move it up again to her shoulder, nearly hesitating half way up. She knew he wasn't a very touchy, feely, snuggle person but, this was nearly comedic. Since patting Harry's hand, she had left behind the sorrow of the memory of her mother. That was one thing she didn't like to dwell on. Mostly because it honestly wasn't worth it. Luna's philosophy included many parts of happiness and how important it was to her. Many of the sad, heart-ripping things were ones that had been long ago. Her mother wasn't going to come back just because she was remembering that fateful day. That was just absurd.

The thoughtful girl accepted the gesture, if only to move on from said situation and go back to her previous mission, the Blibbering Humdingers.

Luna was absolutely thrilled when Harry asked her about them. "Well, they look somewhat like a cross between a bee, a fly, and a mosquito," She explained. "It has the head of the fly, the torso of the mosquito, and a stinger, like a little bumblebee. They're normally either black or green and shiny like they have a film and-" Luna went on excitedly. She loved talking about her creatures and could never seem to stop if someone asked.

She away from facing Harry, still standing next to him on the step though, and continued, in a rush, up the stairs. Luna's wand was still lit and she held it in front of her, tripping as she went, for she wasn't the most coordinated of her house. One of the many reasons she didn't even attempt to join the quidditch team, nor would she ever.

The Ravenclaw had a glass jar in her other hand which was perfect for keeping these little insect-like things. She then checked back to make sure Harry was keeping up and wasn't all that surprised that he was. Luna was probably going half as fast as she could walking, simply because she incessantly caught her toe on the edge of what seemed like every other cold, stone step.

Finally , the duo had reached the top. Jesus, it took us long enough. Luna took a quick look around and saw a series of doors. along one wall, and small spaces, what she assumed were very small windows, at about 5'6" off the ground. She was much too short to see out, but knew the sun had gone down due to the lack of light streaming in.

Luna started trying to open each individual door, finding they were all locked. Pointing her wand at one handle, she murmured, "Alohamora." But, to no avail. They were clearly enchanted to not give in to such simple spells. The girl shrugged. "Oh well. What now?"


Wearing: BAM.