“Hello Sir or Miss, have you any room for a servant in your household?”







The fifth door Barmy knocked upon was the first not to be slammed in his face. The young house elf was rather taken aback; would finding a new family to serve really be this easy? Putting on his most winning smile, Barmy looked up at his possible mistress-to-be.







What he saw took his breath away. Barmy was staring up at the most gorgeous human he had ever seen.







Her hair was a beautiful mix of gold and brown; long and rather scraggly, not unnaturally sleek like most humans. Her skin was pale and creamy like milk--but the eyes! Large and luminous, glowing blue orbs almost as big as his own. To Barmy, it was love at first sight.







“Oh, hello little Sir,” said the girl sweetly in a lovely ethereal voice. It had taken her a moment to locate him; she had been looking around at her own head level. With a serene smile on her face, the girl knelt down and offered Barmy her hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said dreamily, surveying the elf with mild interest.







Barmy was suddenly and acutely aware of his every flaw. Of his wrinkly face, his crooked nose... At least his ears were large and hairy enough to make any self-respecting elf jealous...







“Pleasure’s mine,” squeaked Barmy breathlessly, a goofy smile plastered across his face as he shook hands with the girl. “I--I is Barmy the house elf, and I is looking for a new family to serve, Miss...” He broke off, looking at the girl with an expression of polite interest.







“Lovegood, Miss Lovegood,” the girl replied dreamily. “But you can call me Luna--you can call me anything, actually, anything but Loony.” She gave a sad sort of smile. “I don’t like being called Loony one bit.”







Peculiar. The girl seemed to have forgotten that Barmy was there. But it all seemed rather appealing to the house elf; he immediately stamped upon his own toes to clear his mind of the strange, foreign thoughts drifting across it.







“Well, Miss Luna,” said Barmy, stressing the “a” sound in her name. “Barmy is wondering if you is having the need of a servant in your home. I is looking for work, you see, because my last family is kicking me out.” Barmy’s ears drooped in shame as he looked up at the girl, sure that she would ask why he was dismissed. He was wrong.







“I see,” she simply stated serenely. “Father is always talking about how we need a servant, but I am rather against elf-enslavement. Hermione Granger is, too--you should meet her sometime.”







Poor Barmy could not help but drop open his mouth in shock. Against house elf enslavement? It was unheard of. But here she was, the loveliest girl Barmy had ever seen, with a blissfully sincere expression on her face.







“Well, you’d might as well come in,” Luna smiled, throwing open the door. Before Barmy could think, the beautiful girl and grabbed his hand and was leading her into ther abode.




~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*




Luna Lovegood’s house was by far the most unique he had ever seen. It was very small and very old, with dusty windows and faded furniture that seemed to have come from another century. But what shocked Barmy was the walls.







Every available inch of wallspace in the Lovegood household was plastered with paper: old yellowed newspaper clippings depicting ambiguous photographs of fearsome monsters; magazine articles cut in all shapes and sizes. Full-color moving images of the Crumple-horned Snorcacks and Heliopaths, exerpts of books and encyclopedias of mythical creatures. Wrinkling his overlong nose at the smell of must and rotting, Barmy looked up to see garlic, gurdyroots, and an odd assortment of trinkets and vegetables hanging from the ceiling.







“It’s to keep out vampires,” said Luna matter-of-factly as her companion turned his head away from a particularly pungent clove. “You get used to it after a while,” she added in a musing sort of voice. “Well, come on, little friend.”







Barmy followed Luna down the narrow, darkly lit hallway, weaving carefully about the teetering piles of magazines that lined the way. Each and every magazine was a different issue of The Quibbler; it seemed that this hallway served as a sort of unofficial archive. Seeing the look of befuddlement on Barmy’s face, Luna explained.







“Daddy is the editor of The Quibbler,” Luna said proudly. “We’ve been meaning to move into a house with a real library for quite some time, but we’ve just never gotten around to it. Ahh, here we are!”







Brushing dirty-blonde hair out of her eyes, Luna opened the creaky wooden door and ushered Barmy into her room. “It isn’t much,” she said apologetically, giving the house elf a sideways glance. “But it’s home to me.”







Barmy noted with relief that Miss Lovegood’s bedroom was much cleaner than the rest of the house. A pale blue rug covered the hardwood floor, and sunlight streamed through the windows past colorful floral curtains. Luna also had a curio cabinet containing some of the strangest items, but what really caught Barmy’s eye was the photograph on the bedside table.







Framed in ornate silver, the picture was obviously much-loved. The glass was blurred with marks from where it had been loving caressed by Luna’s delicate fingers. But behind it, clear as day, smiled a plump and happy-looking woman with a little girl perched upon her knee.







“That’s Mum,” said Luna dreamily, lifting the picture frame from the table and pressing her fingertips against the glass. “She died when I was little, you know.” She sniffed, almost inaudibly. “I still miss her a lot.”







Initially, Barmy had been embarrassed to be caught scrutinizing the girl’s belongings so closely. However, the feeling was quickly overwhelmed by a surge of pity as he watched Luna smile sadly at the picture. The little house elf was suddenly filled with a strange, inexplicable urge to comfort Luna. Closing his big, tennis ball eyes, Barmy tugged viciously on his ears to rid himself of this strange feeling.







When he opened them up again, Barmy reeled backwards in shock.







“Miss Luna!” he cried, his saucerlike green eyes now the size of baseballs. “What is that?”

“Oh, this?” asked Luna mildly, a dreamy smile on her face. “They’re earrings.”





Barmy watched in fascination as Luna threaded the strange items through the lobes of her ears. His eyes were still wide with shock.





“But... Miss Luna!” Barmy thought it rather presumptuous of him to question the young lady’s knowledge, but he could not stop himself. “Is Miss Luna knowing that those are elf earrings?”





Luna’s perpetually wide blue eyes were shining happily. “But, of course she is knowing!” she mimicked the elf’s voice most adorably, melting Barmy’s heart all at once. “Actually, my little friend, they were given to me by an elf at Hogwarts...”





Her voice was captivating, mesmerizing. Swaying slightly as he stood, Barmy drank in her every word.






It was a bright Sunday afternoon at Hogwarts, and thirteen-year-old Luna Lovegood was wandering the corridors alone. Her fellow Ravenclaw third-years had all taken advantage of the gorgeous weather and gone swimming in the lake, but Luna knew better. Her father had only just warned her that a Fish-tailed Crocoray had been spotted sunning itself on the lake’s edge, and Luna was not about to venture out there--not for a thousand galleons, or even the chance of spotting a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.





So it was that Luna came to be alone, in a strange and empty corridor she had never seen before. Fingering her Butterbeer-cork necklace, the girl looked around nervously. She still tended to lose herself in the labyrinth of corridors and staircases that was Hogwarts, and she knew from experience that being alone, inside, on a Sunday afternoon was never a good thing. After all, she knew better than anyone--and everyone knew very well--that this unlikely combination put her at risk of attack from the dreaded Bludgerbee.





Pawing nervously at the wand in her pocket, Luna proceeded cautiously down the corridor, looking out for the telltale wisps of smoke that would signify the presence of the dangerous insects. Suddenly, though, something much more appealing caught her eye.





Squealing with delight, Luna rushed to the portrait that waited at the end of the hall. It depicted a very delicious-looking bowl of very delicious-looking fruit: apples, grapes, bananas, and one very fuzzy, hiccupping pear.





“Hello there,” cooed Luna, tickling the cute little pear on the stomach (or, rather, what would be the stomach, should fruits ever develop the need to digest food). “You are a cutie, aren’t you?” The girl beamed at the fruit, who giggled in his--or her, Luna couldn’t quite tell--frame.





...A frame that suddenly, for no apparent reason, swung open to reveal a long and empty corridor that led into the ominous blackness.





“So,” finished Luna, snapping out of her reverie, “I followed the corridor and came into what I knew must be the Hogwarts kitchen. There must have been hundreds of house-elves working there--sweet little things, don’t you think? I just love house elves. One of the little females was nice enough to give me a pair of the lovely earrings I admired so much--they’re beautiful, aren’t they?”





”Yes, beautiful,” murmured poor Barmy, still dazed from her comment about ‘loving’ house elves. He was thinking of all the bejewelled elfmaidens he had ever seen--for it was something of a fashion among them to wear vegetables as earrings--and of the fact that none of them looked so gorgeous in radishes as Luna did.





Miss Lovegood chose that moment to giggle most uncharacteristically. It had suddenly struck her that Barmy acted very much like Harry Potter--shy and polite, albeit in a rather more...elfish...way. Blushing slightly at the thought, Luna sat down upon her bed and looked down at Barmy with vague interest.



Shifting awkwardly under the girl’s pensive gaze, Barmy coughed and opened his snaggle-toothed mouth. “Miss Luna, Barmy is wondering if you is wanting to be his mistress. He... he is needing a home desperately, miss, and few people is wanting an elf who has been dismissed...”



Barmy’s heart sank horribly when Luna did not respond. She merely looked at him in a distant sort of way--and shook her head slightly, humming distinctly under her breath.



Humming? Was he really that boring? Barmy’s heart ached at the thought. But it didn’t matter, didn’t matter. This lovely loony Lovegood did not want him in her home. His large, proud ears drooping sadly, Barmy allowed his shoulders to slump forward as he gathered his ragged dishcloth about him. “I is going now, Miss Lovegood,” he said quietly, blinking back tears of disappointment. He turned to leave.



“Now where are you going?” Luna snapped out of her reverie in time to see the strange little elf reach for the door. There was a politely puzzled look on her face.



Feeling another inexplicable surge of anguish as he looked at the girl, Barmy shrugged his shoulders expressively. “Barmy is leaving to find a good home, miss. Miss Luna is not wanting him.”



To the house elf’s utter surprise, Luna smiled pleasantly. “I know the perfect place for you, Barmy. But you can’t expect to go for a job interview in that.”



Some time later, Luna stood over Barmy with an appraising look on her face. She had spent the last hour sorting through her father’s clothes and using various charms on them, so that they now fit the perfect size and proportions of a house elf.



Luna was immensely pleased. Barmy was clad in a miniature set of her daddy’s old Gryffindor robes--hopefully, he wouldn’t miss them--with a pair of little boots covering his rather hairy feet. As a finishing touch, Luna had perched an untidy mop on his head (she had severed the pole and magically dyed it black--the mop, of course, not his head), and placed a pair of round glasses on Barmy’s long robes. Perfect. Harry would simply love him!



Barmy, however, was not impressed. As much as he loved his new robes and boots, he felt immensely uncomfortable wearing clothes--not to mention a pair of glasses and a very strange wig. But Luna seemed confident about her plan, and Barmy trusted the girl completely.



“Come, now, little Harry!” said Luna happily, her face shining with excitement. Barmy could tell that Luna wasn’t used to being so gleeful, but it really did suit her. Pulling the house elf with her to the fireplace, Luna seized a handful of bright green Floo power and threw it into the flames.



At that moment, Barmy panicked. He tried desperately to tell Luna that he had never travelled by Floo powder--and had no desire to--but she could not hear him over the crackling of the flames. Barmy’s eyes widened as he heard Luna shout, “Harry Potter’s house!”