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Her Moment by orange_balloon

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Luna was very excited. She was so excited, in fact, that she was wearing her favorite radish earrings. She sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast with the latest issue of The Quibbler at her elbow. If only her friends would hurry up and come down to breakfast! She thought she might burst waiting for them to arrive.

Luna did not have many friends at Hogwarts. She was in Ravenclaw house. Most of her own housemates called her “Looney Lovegood” and she didn’t consider them her friends. Luna’s friends were in Gryffindor. She had already asked Neville Longbottom if he had seen the others this morning. He had said that Harry Potter was just getting up when he was leaving the dormitory and that he had not seen the girls. Luna returned to her eggs, a bit dejected, to wait. Now, she dipped her toast into her egg yoke and turned around one more time to see if they had come into the hall, yet. Neville smiled at her sheepishly. He was still alone. She turned a politely interested face to the boy on her right, who was pretty much having a conversation with himself.

The boy was a seventh year, Dominic Maguire. He was Muggle-born and fancied himself a bit of a punk. His hair was always sticking up and out all over his head. He was forever going on about Muggle music groups that Luna did not know. Several of their teachers frowned each time Dominic raised his hand in class to reveal his black leather bracelet covered in silver studs. The other Ravenclaws were mostly afraid of him. They thought him odd, but Luna thought he was alright. However, she was entirely convinced that he wore eyeliner sometimes, even though he insisted it was not true.

Sitting across the table from Dominic and Luna was Anastasia Atwood. Anastasia was a painfully shy girl in Luna’s year. She and Luna always sat next to each other in classes and were partners every time it was required. Anastasia was so quiet that sometimes they would go an entire day together without her saying anything except, “Can you please pass me the essence of moonstone?” Luna was used to talking to herself though, so it did not bother her too much.

Dominic was telling the girls that he wanted to start a rock band at school, but he was having some trouble. He had gotten a guitar over the summer holidays and he felt certain that there had to be other students who would want to play in a band. It was just a matter of finding them. He had spoken with Blaise Zambini in Slytherin house. Blaise played the drums and also was a good singer. The problem, however, was that no one else wanted to join a band with someone from Slytherin. Dominic had talked to a few Hufflepuffs and Dean Thomas from Gryffindor, but none of them wanted to hang around with Blaise. Dominic sighed as he recounted his conversation with the Hufflepuffs. “And I said, ‘Honestly, he’s not that bad and he’s got a good voice. Who cares what house he’s in?’ I don’t understand. This is music, man!”

Anastasia was suppressing a grin as she sipped her juice. Luna patted his arm distractedly and looked over her shoulder. Neville was waving wildly in her direction. Ginny Weasley and Hermione Granger were just settling down to breakfast. “I’m sure someone will come around,” Luna said vaguely as she got up from the table. She grabbed her copy of The Quibbler and moved over to the Gryffindor table.

Hermione was actually the person that Luna most wanted to see. Earlier this week, they had been talking about Siberian Sasquatches. Well, actually, the conversation started out about Care of Magical Creatures class and Luna had brought up the Sasquatches. Hermione had naturally said that the Sasquatch was an imaginary creature. Luna told her about all of the sightings and photos that had been taken, but Hermione held her ground. Ginny just laughed. Harry had looked slightly confused as if he didn’t know who to believe. Luckily, Ron Weasley had said that he believed her.

Ron was always so nice to her. Luna thought he was awfully cute, too. She really liked him, but she would never say anything because he clearly liked Hermione. Occasionally, she had been concerned that she might have laughed a bit too loudly at his jokes, but for the most part she didn’t think anyone noticed.

Luna had told no one else about the Sasquatch exchange, but when the new issue of The Quibbler came today from her father there it was - a 6 page article about Siberian Sasquatches, complete with pictures! It was like he had read her mind. She couldn’t wait to show Hermione all of the evidence.

“Good morning,” she breathed excitedly as she approached the table.

“Hey, Luna,” Ginny mumbled around a mouthful of waffle.

“Luna, hello,” Hermione smiled. She was riffling through her bag, looking for something.

Neville smiled brightly, encouraging her. She began, “I’ve been waiting for you to get down here this morning. I have something exciting to show you.”

“I’m sorry, Luna, my fault,” Ginny said. “I had Hermione testing me on the giant wars of 1672 last night and she found an error in my notes. We went to the library this morning to clear it up. Turns out Professor Binns had not said that the giants liked blueberries. They liked blue fairies. The wizards sent the fairies to cut a deal, which was how they were convinced to surrender. I was thinking someone handed them a basket of blueberries and they just put down their arms or something.”

Luna looked surprised, “I wonder if giants do like blueberries?” She looked up at the enchanted ceiling trying to remember if she knew anything at all about giants and fruit. It was partly cloudy today “ a lovely partly cloudy.

Suddenly, there was a boy’s voice right next to her, “Who likes blueberries?” She looked to her left and Ron was standing very close to her. Luna smiled at him dreamily. He didn’t see, though. He was looking up at the ceiling trying to figure out what she had just been looking at. He really was quite sweet.

Hermione laughed. “Giants may or may not,” she said as Ron sat down next to her. Luna wished she could sit down next to him on the other side, but Harry was already moving into the seat.

“Sorry we’re so late,” Harry said. “I just didn’t want to get up today. Hi, Luna.” He reached across the table to pull a piece of bacon off Ginny’s plate.

“Hey! Get your own,” Ginny protested. Everyone was laughing and they had forgotten that Luna was standing there. She tugged at her hair for a moment and then just began talking again.

“I’m glad everyone is here now. Hermione, I received the latest issue of my dad’s magazine today.” Hermione looked up from her breakfast, slightly startled. Luna flipped through the pages and handed The Quibbler to her.

Hermione read aloud, “Siberian Sasquatch Sightings “ First Pictures in 8 Years.” Luna smiled proudly. Ginny laughed out loud. Harry had a funny sort of look on his face and he raised his eyebrows at Hermione.

“What?” Ron asked clearly shocked. “Weren’t we just talking about this?” He grabbed a corner of The Quibbler so he could see better. Hermione wrestled the magazine out of his hand and flipped the pages.

“Luna, this isn’t real,” Hermione said firmly. “You know that, right?”

“But, Hermione, there are pictures,” Luna said. She leaned in between Ron and Hermione to flip to the two-page spread of photos. She pointed triumphantly and smiled over her shoulder at Ron. He was just staring at her with his mouth open.

Hermione laughed, “Luna, these photos aren’t real, either.”

“I don’t know,” said Neville, who was leaning over the table trying to look at the magazine. “That one on the left looks awfully convincing.”

“Neville, the Sasquatch is waving,” Hermione said flatly.

“Well, they might be friendly,” Harry said with a smirk. Ginny let out another loud peal of laughter. Ron was watching Hermione now with an amused look on his face.

Now, it was Luna’s turn to sigh, “Stewy Bevington has always been a reliable source for my father. He took those pictures, Hermione. They’re real.” Besides the waving Sasquatch, there were several photos of what looked like a shaggy creature crouched in the opening of a cave. There was the ever-present shot of a Sasquatch walking away from the camera. The largest photo at the center of the page showed a Sasquatch standing near a lake, looking very surprised at having been caught on film.

Harry took the magazine from Hermione and flipped through the pages. Ginny was leaning over the table to look at the photos, her tie nearly in the pumpkin juice. Neville turned to look at Luna. “I believe you,” he said simply and nodded his head once.

Harry piped up, “This one of the Sasquatch in the cave here, that’s real.” He smiled across the table at Ginny who giggled.

“Oh, I totally agree,” she said enthusiastically. Luna’s smile grew. She knew Ginny was very silly sometimes, but she was a smart girl. They had several classes together and Luna thought her incredibly clever. She was also rather funny, just like her brother. “What do you think, Ron?” Ginny pointedly asked her brother. Luna looked expectantly at Ron.

He was smiling mischievously at Hermione whose mouth was hanging open in indignation. Ron turned around slowly and locked eyes with Luna. He winked, very quickly. Her stomach made a small flip-flop. “That large photo has me convinced. I mean, look at the detail. That’s definitely a real photo. You’re right, Luna, there are Siberian Sasquatches.”

Luna’s heart swelled. Everyone agreed with her! She knew that as soon as she presented the evidence, they would know that the Sasquatch did actually exist. Hermione looked absolutely flabbergasted. Her mouth flapped open and closed a few times, like a fish, before any actual sounds came out.

“Well, I mean, if you’re all going to be that thick,” Hermione said as she hastily grabbed a piece of toast.

Luna felt a bit bad that all of their friends had just sided with her when Hermione was usually the one who was always right. Perhaps if she left the magazine with Hermione, she might see the truth. “Do you want to keep this, Hermione?” she asked. “You can look over it closer when you have more time.”

Hermione spun around in her seat. Luna smiled languidly and held out the magazine. Hermione opened her mouth again and then just smiled instead. “Sure, thank you,” she said and took the magazine. She put it on the table next to her plate.

Luna surveyed the Gryffindors happily. Harry and Ginny were smiling at her and Hermione. Neville casually flipped open the magazine again to look at the pictures one more time. Ron laughed and said, “That’s better now.” Luna sighed and smiled at him.

The bell rang disrupting Luna’s dreamy staring session. They all had to break up to go to their first classes of the day “ Neville, Hermione, Harry and Ron to Transfiguration and Ginny and Luna to Potions. They walked out of the Great Hall in a raucous group and then broke off in separate directions. Luna felt as though she really did belong with the Gryffindors. She smiled to herself all the way down to the dungeons.