As the thestral-pulled carriage continued onward, making its way towards Hogwarts, Ginny said,
“Did you all see Professor Grubbly-Plank? What’s she doing here? Hagrid can’t be gone, can he?” No, Luna thought, an eight or nine foot tall grounds keeper couldn’t simply disappear off the face of the earth without someone noticing, now could he? But she didn’t think she’d be in tears if he did. She remembered last year’s lesson on blast-ended skrewts. Luna ended the year with far too many visits to the Madam Pomfrey, the nurse.
“I can’t say I’d be upset if he is. He wasn’t a very good teacher, was he?” she said calmly, voicing her opinion.
“Yes, he is!” Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Ron exclaimed. Then they turned to glare at Hermione, who was sitting there looking uncomfortable.
“Umm, well, yes…he’s quite good,” Hermione stated reluctantly. Luna saw this reluctance and smiled. Maybe Hermione wasn’t so bad after all. Why hadn’t she been placed in Ravenclaw, though, with brains like hers?
“Well, in Ravenclaw, we think he’s a bit of a joke.”
“You’ve got a rubbish sense of humor then,” Ron retorted rudely to Luna’s comment. But Luna didn’t care. She just sat and stared at him. She looked between him and Ginny. There was definitely a family resemblance. There’s of course, the bright ginger hair, startling blue eyes, freckles across the bridge of the nose and cheek bones, and the same kind, rounded face that gave off a welcoming look. Then Luna’s thoughts drifted to the rest of the people in the carriage.
Ginny had always been kind to her, even when others weren’t. She stood up for Luna. Ginny was a valuable friend to Luna.
Ron had already proved himself to be funny, but a bit dim-witted. He always seemed to be fairly confused. Ah, well, Luna thought. A friend’s a friend. Ron could turn out to be a great friend, given the chance.
Neville Longbottom was an interesting character. Carrying his odd plant around gave Luna the idea that perhaps he liked Herbology. Luna liked it as well. She enjoyed telling Professor Sprout about all of the interesting specimens she and her father grew at the house. On her ears hung a special type of orange plum she grew in her garden. Neville had a round, perhaps a bit chubby, face. He had wandering brown eyes and combed brown hair. She thought he would be a good person to talk to. Perhaps they could find more things in common.
Hermione Granger seemed to be an extraordinarily intelligent witch. She seemed to know the answers to everything and always came up with a clever way of doing things. Luna had heard that Hermione was the top of her class. Even marked a mudblood (a horrible term for someone who’s parents are both muggles, or non-magical people), she still stood strong and showed them down, teaching the Slytherin’s that you don’t have to be a pureblood to be excellent at magic. Hermione had wavy brown hair that often looked fairly frizzy, chocolate brown eyes that melted you with any look- hatred or love, and pale skin that shone against the dark backdrop of the forest and the night sky.
And then there was Harry Potter. Well, what could she say about him? She had heard so many rumors about the boy who lived. Some said he was stuck up and snooty, basking in the glory of his fame. Others said he was as humble as anyone and basically a pretty nice kid. From what she’d seen of him so far today, she assumed the later…
There was a sudden lurch of the wagon and Luna realized they had arrived at Hogwarts already. Hermione, Neville, Ron, and Harry had already gotten out, when Ginny tapped Luna on the shoulder, snapping Luna out of her daydreams. Still in a daze, she clambered out of the carriage and onto the stony walkway that lead through the iron gates, complete with frowning gargoyles, up the drab steps to the entrance to Hogwarts. The door was held open by the caretaker, Argus Filch, who did not look too pleased to be doing so.
As Luna walked over the tile floor with the others on her way to the Great Hall for the feast, the paintings on either wall smiled and waved at her, greeting her to the New Year. She grinned back at them, thankful that at least someone was grateful for her presence.
Once seated in a far corner of the Ravenclaw table, Luna watched as the first years entered, looking as nervous as ever. She remembered when she was their age, but she was not frightened at all. As a matter of fact, she was smiling and bouncing up and down from excitement. She had always been unusual.
The sorting into houses began and Luna pulled out her Quibbler. She applauded politely when a new member to the Ravenclaw house was added, but other than that paid no attention to the ceremony until Dumbledore, the headmaster, stood up and cleared his throat, announcing the end of the sorting to the unobservant Luna.
Clearing his throat again, he said, “To our newcomers-welcome! To our old ones-welcome back! Now, I suspect you are all hungry, so, let’s eat!”
Cheers were heard all throughout the Great Hall as great mounds of food appeared on plates, platters, and in shinning bowls and dishes all over the room on each table, piled high. Gold goblets filled themselves with bright orange pumpkin juice. But Luna didn’t scoop heaping piles of mashed potatoes and steaming mounds of chicken onto her golden plate like the others. Instead, she silently pulls out her wand, and waves it at the bowl of peas just to her left and whispers: Wingardium Leviosa! And she carried a full spoon of peas back to her plate. Then, after returning the serving spoon to its rightful place, she arranged her food to spell “Luna Lovegood”. Finally, she ate her vegetables one by one, stabbing them with her fork, making a horrid face after each mushy, green bite. She had promised her father she would eat her vegetables, but that didn’t mean she liked it.
Once she had eaten her fill, she sat and waited for the final portion of the meal. Eventually, everyone finished eating and Dumbledore stood, raised his wand making the food disappear, but more arrived. This time it was every kind of sweet imaginable. There were filled pastries, chocolate truffles topped with chopped nuts, creamy sauces with biscuits to dip. It all looked mouthwatering, but Luna frowned. Something was missing. She looked up towards Dumbledore and he caught her eye. He winked and four large dishes appeared in front of her. Luna looked back up at him and smiled, thanking him.
In each bowl was a different flavor pudding. Luna simply adored pudding, and was just about all she ate. She was not picky, but when offered pudding, it was all she could help herself to do but eat every last drop. In the first bowl was a creamy yellowish pudding that could only be described as vanilla. The next rose pink was obviously strawberry, and the third was a delicate, brown chocolate. Lastly, the final bowl was filled with a suspicious looking green one. She ate her until her stomach was about to burst, and surprisingly the green pudding had quite a delightful, yet indescribable taste.
As she leaned back with a sigh, the food yet again disappeared and everyone turned to Dumbledore for his start-of-the-year speech.
“Now that we are all full,” he started, “let’s just go through a few announcements. First our staffing changes: Professor Grubbly-Plank will be returning to take over our Care for Magical Creatures class.” A murmur of agreement came from the Ravenclaw table. Professor Grubbly-Plank was a tall, rail-thin witch in her mid-forties. She had cat like glasses that Luna thought fit her job description well. Dumbledore continued, “And we’d like to welcome Professor Umbridge as out new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.” There was polite clapping from the house tables as the new professor nodded her head at the students, smiling.
Professor Umbridge was a short, stout lady, dressed entirely in pink. From her fuzzy sweater, to the idiotic hat, to the rouge on her cheeks (that was not rouge, but indeed pink), shoes on her pudgy feet, and the gloss on her lips. She grinned down at the Hall as if it was plastered to her pug-like face. Her short, brown curls bobbed up and down awkwardly as she nodded in response to the applause.
“Secondly,” Dumbledore began again, “our caretaker, Mr. Filch, would like to remind you that-”
“Hem, hem,” Professor Umbridge interrupted. She stood up and walked in front of the staff table. There were murmurs all around the room. No one had ever interrupted the headmaster’s speech before.
“Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome,” she continued, nodding to Dumbledore. “Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts and to see such happy little faces, looking back at me.” Not a soul was smiling, or even looking slightly amused at this woman’s overly happy tone or beaming face. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you all, and I’m sure we’ll be very good friends.” Luna, and several others around her, smirked at this absurd assumption.
Then a business-like tone took over and Professor Umbridge embarked on a speech that sounded, if anything, very well rehearse. “The Ministry of Magic has always considered education to be of vital importance in a young witch or wizard’s life. The unique gifts with which you possess may come to nothing if not nurtured by careful instruction. Every headmaster or headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be decay. But, progress for progress’s sake, must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between…” Luna’s attention had snapped so she pulled out her Quibbler and attempted to drown out the lady’s droning, but with little success. Finally, she gave up and set it down. Umbridge was still going.
“…because some changes will be for the better, while others will come with time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Some old habits will be retained, whereas others must be abandoned. Let us move on, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.” As Professor Umbridge returned to her seat, Dumbledore began to clap, followed by the staff, and then finally, and reluctantly, the students. The applause died out quickly and some students stifled yawns. But Luna’s wheels were turning. Something was up.
“Thank you, Professor Umbridge,” Dumbledore said. “Now as I was saying…”
But Luna wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the last thing that Professor Umbridge had said-it had caught her otherwise fading attention. “Pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.” She broke it down in her usual Luna-way. Pruning meant getting rid of; we was intended as the Ministry; prohibited? Uh-oh. Things at Hogwarts were going to change, soon.
“You are all now dismissed,” Dumbledore announced. Luna got up and left as if in a trance and headed for the Ravenclaw entrance. She was swept in to the common room with the crowd.
Looking up she saw the familiar statue of Ravenclaw towering above her. The woman’s smooth marble skin glowed in the dim lighting of the fire and her sparkling diadem shone. She was, for a moment, reminded of her own mother, smiling down on a nine year old Luna. Her mother had been a Ravenclaw. She wondered if she had ever stood where Luna was, looking up at the goddess-like statue. But she shook the thoughts away and settled herself down in front of the fireplace, untied her favorite red shoes, placed them on the floor, took out her Quibbler, began to read, but promptly fell asleep.