Luna Lovegood

A Tilted Household

Oh I do love making up words! And sorry this took so long guys!

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   Luna had never been good at fitting in, in the Muggle world or the Magic one.  Whatever she seemed to do ended up being the opposite of the norm.  She would wear yellow robes to the supermarket, but it seemed that everyone else thought that jeans and a sweatshirt were adequate.  Or, she be walking her father’s pet lizard, and apparently that was strange as well.  But the odd looks from strangers, and sneers from schoolchildren, at Hogwarts or out, were not enough to stop Luna.

            Getting off the Hogwarts Express, she wore her favorite skirt, with her own designs of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks embroidered along the hem, and her favorite Spectro Specs, perched on her head, ready to be whipped into action to search for Wrackspurts.  Greeting her was her father’s form, waving his ink-stained palms in a wild, excited motion.  His elated expression made her heart thump, and she ran to him, arms out-stretched.

            “Daddy!” she squealed with delight.

            “Luna!” her father exclaimed pleasantly, and with equal adoration.  Jumping into her father’s arms for the first time in months, his inky smell perforated her boundaries and she melted into him.  His lush green robe, his long blond hair, his loving form.  All of him.  He loved her.  And that’s what made her tear up.  Looking up into his face, tear tracks staining her face, her eyes glassy, watery, threatening to spill over yet again, she saw the compassion in his eyes.  The love.  She hadn’t ever felt so loved before.  She was tired of all the hate, the glares, the sniggers, the pain.  She just wanted to be loved.  She was just a child, after all.  Isn’t that all children want?  To be loved?  And her plea had just most recently been fulfilled.

            Mr. Lovegood gently led Luna by the arm towards a dark alley around the corner from King’s Cross where he Apperated them both home, appearing instantaneously in front of their homely abode surrounded by magnificent bushes full of Dirigible Plums, a garden full of gnomes with lucky saliva, and a pleasant sign by their front door stating that “Mr. Xenophilios Lovegood, Quibbler Editor” lived there.  Along with his daughter, of course.

            Luna stood in front of her house and stood gazing at it admirably for a few moments, smiling.  Its tall, dark form was leaning slightly to the left, as if the weight of its homeliness was forcing it off to the side just a bit.  Walking up the rickety wooden steps and through the door after her father, Luna shrugged off her coat and placed it on the coat rack made of Wuzzlefump antlers.  Breathing in the deep aroma of press ink and newly cut parchment, Luna gazed at what was her true home.

            Wiping away her tears that had sprung up without her knowing during her dreamy time of remembrance and happiness, Luna walked over to where her father had put down her trunk and stood at the stove heating up their drinks.  She loved the rich, thick taste of the drink, dark and ominous.  It was one of the things she missed the most about home.  Pumpkin juice got tiring after a while.

            “So how have you been, Papa?” Luna inquired softly.

            “Oh, fine, fine,” he said distractedly.  He looked away towards the pot on the stove.  Luna sat at the table and stared imploringly at his back.  Finally, he turned.  “Perhaps the better question,” he began.  “would be how have you been?”

            Now it was Luna’s turn to avert her gaze.

            “Oh,” she said, copying her father.  “School’s had its ups and downs.”

            “Well, I presume your classes are going wonderfully as usual?” There was the question in his voice as if he doubted her, despite his own words.

            “Of course, Papa,” she answered robotically.  Though she was so glad to be home, things seemed-off.  Their conversations didn’t seem to flow as easily as they had in previous contexts.

            “I met Harry Potter,” Luna said suddenly.  Her father looked up instantly.

            “Oh, have you now?” A smile rose to his lips.  “Well, did you tell him what we had discussed this summer?”

            “Mostly,” Luna replied.  “I basically told him that we believe ever word he said.”

            “Good, good,” her father said, still smiling.  Noticing that their drinks had begun to do more than just simmer, he quickly removed the kettle from the stove and reduced the burner.  Carefully pouring the goopy deliciousness into two mugs, he continued to speak.

            “And your friends?  How are they?”

            Luna stopped, her gray eyes bulging behind her father’s back.  What should she tell him?  What could she tell him?

            “Well, I do have a new friend,” she began explaining.

            “Oh?  And who would that be?”  He turned around and handed her a cup.  She held it between her hands, chapped from the winter’s cold, and inhaled the warm steam.

            “I think you may know her,” she said with a smile.  “Helena Ravenclaw.”

            Mr. Lovegood turned and sat across from her at the table.  “The Ravenclaw ghost?” he said with a smile.  “The Gray Lady?”

            “Oh, she doesn’t like to be called that,” Luna corrected him very seriously.

            “Well, that’s good.”

            Suddenly remembering, Luna said,

            “And I’m in a special club.”

            “And what is that?”

            “Well, it’s a secret, so if I tell you, you must promise to not say a word.”

            She had caught her father’s attention, and he leaned forward in his seat just a bit.  “Of course, Loony-bear.”

            She smiled at his pet name for her.  It felt so loving; so right.  “Well, we have formed an elicit Defense Against the Dark Arts group,” she continued, excitement glowing in her eyes.

            Mr. Lovegood looked at her cautiously.  “I hope you haven’t gotten in any trouble for this.”

            “Oh, no, not yet,” she stated, trying to calm her parent’s nerves.  Although by his still wary gaze, it didn’t seem that it had done the trick.  “Well you see,” she began yet again.  “Professor Umbridge is our new teacher and she is completely useless!  So Harry is teaching a whole group of us, in secret of course.  Umbridge would expel us all if she found out, but we’ve called it Dumbledore’s Army, because, as you know very well, that’s what the Minister is most afraid of.”

            With her speak over, her father just gazed at her solemnly.  He seemed to be contemplating what he would say.  Then he spoke.  “Loon, just promise me you won’t get into trouble?”  She nodded in response and he smiled grimly.  “These are the start of dangerous times, and I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”  He paused and continued more cheerily this time.  “But this group of yours is simply a wonderful idea.  I’m glad you’re leaning things that will actually help you.”

            Luna only smiled back in response.  Raising her mug to her lips, she breathed in the fragrant scent,  closing her eyes in content.  This truly was home.