After the first task

17

Harry and Hermione did their best trying to cheer Luna up. Neville even came over and stayed with Luna to keep her company. It broke everyone's heart to see her like this. No longer was she smiling or jumping in with facts about her creatures. She was silent and withdrawn. She had to be taken downstairs so she could eat. Harry and Hermione feared what would happened to Luna if her father died. They knew it would break her.

"I'm so worried Harry, she hasn't said a thing since we got here" Hermione said.

"I know Mione, but I don't know what else we can do. We've been doing all we can to help her" Harry said as he ran a hand through his hair.

"There has to be more we can do, maybe I can ask my parents, they might know" Hermione suggested.

"Okay, send them an owl" Harry said.

Hermione rushed off to write her letter.

Harry sighed and looked out the window at the falling snow.

/Scene Break/

Four days before Christmas Sirius rousted everyone out of bed early in the morning.

"Bloody hell Sirius, it's five in the morning" Harry said rubbing his eyes.

"I know, but we have a lot to do today" Sirius said cheerfully.

Hermione and Harry woke up and had leery expressions on their faces.

"Off we go" Sirius said cheerfully.

Sirius led them out to a tree lot where they'd pick out a tree.

"We got to find the biggest tree ever" he said before letting them go and search.

Harry and Hermione wandered around with Luna in-between them.

"What about this one Luna, you think this is what Sirius wanted?" Harry asked.

Luna looked up and sighed.

"I don't know Harry" she said sadly.

Harry felt a bit deflated. He tried, but failed to help Luna.

Hermione took Luna's hand and dragged her along.

"Come on Luna, we can't have Sirius pick the tree. He'd get a horrid looking one" she said.

Luna followed along, but said nothing.

It took several hours and six different tree lots, but they finally found the perfect tree. Once they got it back Remus and Sirius hauled out the decorations.

"Come on, now it's time to decorate" Sirius said.

Harry, Hermione, and Remus got to work, but Luna sat there looking despondent. Sirius walked over and put a Santa hat on Luna's head.

"There, now you're more in the spirit" he said happily.

Luna looked up then touched the hat that was on her head. She then looked at the others and how they were decorating the tree. Hermione was directing everyone on where to put what ornament. Sirius was ignoring Hermione and placing wherever he thought looked good only for Hermione to move the ornament and place it somewhere else. Remus and Harry seemed to be amused by this. Harry was also trying to decorate Hermione as much as he was the tree, which made Hermione irate, but you could see she was just pretending. Remus would every once and a while hover a piece of mistletoe over the couple and have them kiss, which they seemed to enjoy even though they blushed every time.

This made Luna smile slightly at the scene. She then looked down and decided it was time to pull herself out her funk. She got up and pulled out her wand. Without anyone noticing her she flicked her wand and caused a piece of silver tinsel float in the air. She formed it into a circle, which she made glow and had it hover over top of Sirius's head. Whenever he moved so did the glowing circle.

Hermione was the first to notice and she burst out giggling. This caused everyone to look at her. She just pointed and Harry and Remus saw that Sirius had a glowing circle hovering over his head and they began cracking up.

"What's so funny?" Sirius asked perplexed.

"Sirius, you, you got a, a, a" Hermione said through her giggles.

"A what, what do I have?" Sirius asked now getting a bit angry.

"You've got a halo, Padfoot" Remus said grinning.

Sirius looked up and saw that his old friend was right, but he had no idea who did it.

"I believe it looks quite charming."

This made everyone turn and found Luna standing there smiling. Her first real smile in sometime.

"You did that Luna?" Harry asked.

Luna just nodded.

Hermione was the first to get to Luna and pulled the lithe blond into one of her patent hugs.

"It's great have you back Luna" she said happily.

"Thank you Hermione, but I didn't go anywhere. At least I don't think I have" Luna said then stuck out her bottom lip and cocked her head to the side in thought.

"Come on Luna, let's finish this tree" Harry said smiling.

Luna skipped right to the tree and helped decorate it. Later that night they had Susan, Neville and Daphne over. The three were quite happy that Luna was back. Neville snogged Luna immensely.

"If that is the greeting I get for every time I return then I should leave more often" Luna commented.

Everyone laughed at this and enjoyed the cookies that were around.

/Scene Break/

The next day everyone decided they'd go out shopping to pick out whatever they were missing on their lists. It wasn't very hard to do since everyone had their lists. They first went to Diagon Alley to do their shopping then after that they went onto the muggle side to do the rest of their shopping. Once done they were exhausted and were lying in the living room.

"I am never shopping like that again" Neville said with exhaustion.

"Ditto" Harry said tiredly.

"I thought it was quite fun" Luna said as she perched herself on Neville's lap.

"You didn't have to carry a load of bags dear" Neville said.

"We didn't ask you to carry them, you insisted" Luna shot back smirking.

Neville was about to retort when he found that Luna was right. He just took the bags from the girls without a word. But he needed someone to blame so he decided to blame Harry.

"I was just following Harry's lead" he said.

"What, I never told you to help with the bags" Harry said shocked.

"Yeah, but you carried all of Hermione's" Neville said.

"She's my girlfriend, it's a boyfriend's job to carry her bags" Harry said.

"Yeah, and I get my advice on how to treat my girlfriend from you, so it is your fault" Neville said.

Harry sat there shocked, which in turned made Hermione and Luna laugh so hard that they fell out of their seats.