Practice Thread

[sees_them_too]

Luna likes Charms. She'd be partial to it anyway as it's taught by her head of house. But then too, you learn so many different things in Charms, all of them handy in one way or another.

Luna checks over her class notes. Consults her open text book. Picks up her quill and makes a few additions to her notes. And takes up her wand.

A moment later a ball of bright blue flames crackles cheerfully in mid-air over the table.

Charm achieved.

Comments

[noteful]

It's funny how, even in Milliways, were the extraordinary is, well, not all that extraordinary, certain things will get your attention.

Like, say, a ball of bright blue flames over a table nearby.

"Oh my goodness."

[sees_them_too]

Luna looks vaguely in the direction of the young woman with red hair.

(She could almost be a Weasley, except the Weasley family is mostly boys.)

"It's quite harmless," she explains, pleasantly.

"Bluebell flames. Comfortably warm, and they're good for providing light."

[noteful]

"Oh," Meg says.

"They're very pretty.

"I just wasn't expecting them."

[sees_them_too]

"I suppose sudden balls of fire are rather surprising."

Luna gives her wand a slight flourish, and the flames morph into a small shower of actual bluebells which fall into a pile on the table.

"It's my homework," she explains.

At least, the bluebell flames are. The flowery ending is an embellishment of her own.

[noteful]

"I think we must go to very different kinds of schools," Meg says.

"I'm Meg Ford."

[sees_them_too]

Luna smiles.

"I'm Luna Lovegood."

"What kind of school do you attend?"

She rather thinks that Meg might be a Muggle. Witches and wizards, even the school children variety, don't find many charms surprising.

[noteful]

Oh, Luna. It kind of doesn't get more Muggle than Meg Ford.

"It's very nice to meet you, Luna.

"I go to a university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, called McGill. Before that, I went a high school in Ontario."

[sees_them_too]

"I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In Britain."

Luna looks interested.

"My dad and I have a friend, Archie, who goes to a Muggle university. Oxford. It's supposed to be quite a good school from what we hear."

She leans a little closer, speaking quietly.

"Archie is a Squib, you see."

But Dad always says that that is nothing to hold against a person.

"What kinds of things do you study? Archie is interested in Muggle law."

[noteful]

"I've heard of Hogwarts," Meg says. "I met a young man who attends it, here, not too long ago.

"And, yes, Oxford is quite a good school."

No matter which college you're in.

"I'm studying to be a doctor.

"I'm afraid I don't know what a Squib is."

[sees_them_too]

"It's someone who was born in a wizarding family, but who doesn't have any magic."

Squibs are often roundly pitied in the wizarding world, but Archie seems happy enough from what Luna has seen.

"I didn't know there were other people from Hogwarts here. What was his name?"

[noteful]

"Oh, I see," Meg says, adding the term to her mental vocabulary.

"Albus," she says. "Albus Potter. And a young man named Scorpius Malfoy, as well, but I didn't speak to him as long or as recently."

[sees_them_too]

Luna absently stares at a passing waitrat.

Possibly she's thinking.

"I know a Potter and a Malfoy at school," she says. "Well, I know of them. But those aren't their first names."

She's never spoken to either Harry or Draco, though she thinks Draco might have tossed some scorn in her general direction from time to time.

"How funny. Of course, so many things here are."

[noteful]

"Things here do tend to defy logic as often as not," Meg says.

"They do seem to know each other . . ."

For whatever that's worth.

[sees_them_too]

"Yes. Though I'm sure it must make perfect sense to someone."

Logic is sometimes all a matter of perspective.

"The Potter and Malfoy that I know of know each other quite well. At least, they are always fighting with each other, but that would seem to be the same thing."

The posturing back and forth between Gryffindor and Slytherin is often commented on with rolled eyes in Ravenclaw House.

[noteful]

Meg would like to hope it all makes sense to someone. She's far from sure of it.

"I didn't get the feeling these two were especially at odds . . ."

She shrugs.

[sees_them_too]

"Oh, then it's certainly not the same two."

The animosity between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy is already somewhat legendary at Hogwarts.

Maybe time turners are somehow involved.

"It's really silly, isn't it? How boys can fight."

[noteful]

"I suppose it's not any sillier than the way girls can fight, sometimes," Meg says, thoughtfully.

"Well, if you're at Hogwarts, you must be in a house, right?"

[sees_them_too]

"Yes. One of my roommates seems to actually enjoy fighting. It's very strange."

"I'm in Ravenclaw House," she adds. "I'm a third year this year."

Luna smiles a bit.

"It's rather funny. A Muggle knowing so much about Hogwarts."

[noteful]

"That's about all I know, really.

"Though everyone I've met seems to be in that house . . . "

[sees_them_too]

"Really?"

That alone is interesting.

Gryffindor rather likes to think it has the corner on adventures.

"Perhaps everyone is keeping it a secret."

[noteful]

"I think people generally do, unless they know person they're talking to has been there, too.

"It's not the easiest thing to explain."

Meg would know.

[sees_them_too]

"Yes. I've only ever mentioned it to Dad."

Dad had been very intrigued. He is of the opinion that a Department of Mysteries experiment may have somehow gotten loose.

"I don't really have anyone at school to tell."

[noteful]

"I told my dad, too," Meg says.

And it was just about the hardest thing she's ever done.

Luna's second comment gets a slightly puzzled glance.

"What about your roommates? Or friends?"

[sees_them_too]

"Oh, no. I couldn't do that. I don't have any friends, you see."

Very few people can make such a statement without sounding, at least a little, like they are feeling sorry for themselves.

Luna is the rare exception. It is simply the way things are.

"But it's all right. I don't mind."

She records things in her journal. And writes to Dad.

[noteful]

Meg is . . . uncertain what to make of that.

"I . . ."

It doesn't sound all right, for all Luna's matter-of-factness about the statement.

"Maybe you'll make some here," Meg offers, finally.

[sees_them_too]

Luna looks a little as if she has not considered this possibility.

"I hadn't really thought of that."

Luna doesn't think much about making friends. Mostly because of the aforementioned not having any friends. It's a little like asking an elephant to think about trying out for the ballet.

"Perhaps I could."

It won't be quite like having friends at school, but it wouldn't be bad.

[noteful]

"I've made friends here," Meg says. "Very good ones."

Of course, she has friends at home, too.

But still.

[sees_them_too]

"Oh? What are they like?"

Luna hasn't been coming to Milliways long. But there seem to be all kinds of people here.

[noteful]

"Aside from nice, it's hard to say that there's a single characterstic they all share.

"They're from different times and places, and they have different interests.

"They're not all human.

"A lot of them live in America . . ."

[sees_them_too]

"America is an interesting place from what I hear."

On both the wizarding side and the Muggle side.

"Very fond of fireworks and the like."

[noteful]

It's not the first thing that springs to Meg's mind about America, but okay.

"Have you ever been?"

[sees_them_too]

"Oh, no. Never. Dad and I, we don't travel much."

Certainly not that far.

"We lived over in Ireland for a while, to help take care of Mum's parents when they got old and needed some help."

But that's not quite the same.

"And since then, Dad's been awfully busy with the Quibbler."

[noteful]

"What's the Quibbler?" Meg asks.

[sees_them_too]

"It's a newspaper. Dad's the editor."

And founder. And secretary. And janitor and general man of all work.

"It prints the news that the other papers don't consider worthy of ink."

If it sounds like she's quoting, it's because she probably is.

[noteful]

"Like . . . what sort of news?"

[sees_them_too]

"Well, right now he's working on a story about corruption within the Quidditch League."

"And a story about how some unprincipled wizards are selling spells to Muggle cereal companies for them to print on their boxes."

"And of course, sightings of the Crumple Horned Snorkack. Dad's been tracking sightings of them for years."

Luna is quite proud of her father's journalistic prowess.

[noteful]

Where does Meg even start?

"What kind of spells on cereal boxes?"

[sees_them_too]

"There's supposed to be one coming out on the Weetabix boxes that, if you can solve the puzzle and read it aloud, will make people sprout morning glory vines out of their ears."

"Which wouldn't be much of a concern for any Muggle reading it, but what if a Muggle-born wizard gets a hold of it, not knowing what it is?"

"Well, you can imagine what a mess that could be."