The next morning, Luna forced herself out of bed and down to the Great Hall to at least try and force a swallow of food down her throat. She was fairly unsuccessful. She would have to go to classes on an empty stomach.
Luna didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help but keep glancing over at the Gryffindor table to spy Ron, Harry, and Hermione. They seemed to be engaged in a newspaper and were discussing something animatedly. A worried crease kept forming between Harry’s eye brows. At one point, he lifted his hand to scratch his head and Luna saw that his hand was covered in a bloody bandage. This made Luna not only at least slightly concerned, but simply curious. But she shooed the thoughts away, knowing that they would only lead to more trouble for herself. And Luna had enough trouble to last a lifetime. But still, she was curious and couldn’t shake the thought from her head. She knew it would probably result in a boring answer such as a spell backfiring or a simple accident. But if that was so, why hadn’t he just gone to Madam Pomfrey’s to get patched up in half a second? He must have a reason. He must be hiding something.
The more she asked herself these questions and the more she proved her theories wrong, the more Luna wanted to know. But there was no way she was going to find out. She would have just gone up and asked Harry if he was not always tailed by either Ron or Hermione. And even if he was alone, she wasn’t sure if she was even ready to talk to him yet. So her routine days were as dull as ever: go to classes, choke something down, go to sleep. Go to classes, choke something down, go to sleep. They were absolutely, without a doubt, the dullest days of her life. And by the time she had finally decided to work up the nerve to talk to Harry, the blood and bandages were gone.
And then Umbridge, the nasty brute, got a promotion, a simply awful promotion. She was to be the first Hogwarts High Inquisitor. It was all over the newspapers, even The Quibbler. There was an article praising her on the renovations she has made to the school and improved the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum and ways of teaching. Professor Umbridge’s new role also provided her a new and horrifying job the woman would most likely take pride in: evaluating and dismissing dismal teachers. That foul woman was going to kick out all the teachers in Hogwarts who were more loyal to Dumbledore than the army! The foul beast! Luna absolutely detested her classes; they were boring as watching an inch worm make its way from England to France. Not once had they practiced anything but reciting lines and all they did was read out of that stupid textbook. When would Dumbledore make it all stop? When would he end it?
But he didn’t. And soon there were more rules to come.
The only class Luna ended up having Umbridge in to inspect the teacher was History of Magic with Professor Binns, the most boring teacher in all the history of Hogwarts. And he would remain for the rest of history fore he was, indeed, a ghost. But Umbridge seemed to rather enjoy his tedious and monotonous lecture. As half the class fell asleep in the middle of his sermon about the wonders of Alexander Rivianders III’s travels through a forest supposedly inhabited by hostile goblins that ended up being inhabited by a clan of peaceful witches and he found his true love and later went off to write a book about it, she was constantly nodding her head and smiling as she wrote notes down on her parchment. After the class had been roused by the bell, Professor Umbridge went up to ask Binns a few questions and then attempt to shake his hand but thought better of it. The batty old witch! Luna left the room laughing.
Later that week, Luna noticed the bandage was back on Harry’s had, afresh with a new flow of crimson blood. This time, Luna decided it was time to do some research. And this time her searching came up with something: everyday of that week Harry had detention with Umbridge. This didn’t necessarily mean this was the cause of his loss of blood. But what could Umbridge possibly be doing to him if it was so? She wasn’t allowed to inflict physical punishment, but that didn’t mean the evil woman didn’t have other tricks up her pink fluffy sleeves.
But soon Luna was racked with some new and rather exciting news. Of course, no one bothered to tell it to her themselves, but she heard Hermione telling Hannah Abbott about it in the girl’s bathroom.
“Hannah, do you like Umbridge’s teaching?” Hermione said in barely more than a whisper but still unaware that Luna was in the room.
“Bloody hell, Hermione! Who in this school does?”
“Well good, because we may have come up with a solution to learn actual Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“How?” Hannah responded, now quite curious.
“Well, meet at the Hog’s Head at the next trip to Hogsmeade and I’ll explain it all, okay?” With that the two of them left the room.
Luna mulled this over. “Actual Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Hermione had said. Luna may not have been “invited” to this event but perhaps she would just “end up” in the Hog’s Head and see what was really going on.
YOU ARE READING
Luna Lovegood
Fanfiction[BOOK ONE] Loony Lovegood--the girl everyone made fun of. The girl with more to her than what meets the eye. She's different, you know (although I presume you already figured that out for yourself). She's special, and she has a story, too. Foll...
