19 Years (HP - Drarry)

Chapter 35: Wrackspurts

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Harry was sitting in his rooms, brooding, as usual, when he was startled by several sharp raps on his door. He looked up, intending to tell whoever it was to go away, but froze when a rainbow burst into his room.

That the only way he could think of describe the vision that Luna made, breezing through his (locked) door, dressed in layers of multi-hued gauzy fabric with trailing sleeves and a full skirt, hiked up to reveal bare feet and surprisingly knobby knees. Trailing vines and vibrant flowers twined across the canvas of her skin, the magical tattoos moving constantly as if blowing in the wind. Her hair floated around her, weighted down by bits of shell and feathers, and dozens of silver bangles encircled her thin wrists, accentuating their frailty. She was almost etherial, and her smile shone like the sun.

Harry tore his eyes from her eclectic beauty and turned to frown at the door, sure that he'd locked it.

"Oh, yes," she said, voice light and musical, "it was locked."

"Er. How did you get in?" Harry kicked himself for sounding so unwelcome, but he'd grown used to his dreary solitude, and Luna was anything but.

She arched one delicate eyebrow, her eyes - an impossible shade midway between silver and blue - sparkling. "Why, I opened it, of course."

Harry stared at her, at a loss for words. Eventually he gathered enough wits to say, faintly, "Luna... what is it you do, exactly?" He was starting to suspect that the answer would be that she couldn't tell him - that she worked for the department of Mysteries. If anyone could understand Luna, he supposed they could.

Luna's laughter, airy and tinkling, echoed through the small room. "Oh, Harry. I look for rare and magical creatures. They are very good at hiding, you know. They have to be, or they would have been found long ago."

Harry didn't know where to start. Luckily, with Luna, that wasn't a problem. She could carry on her bizarre conversation perfectly well on her own.

"Take Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, for example," she said earnestly, taking a seat on the scrounged side table; Harry winced at the ominous creak, but relaxed when it seemed perfectly content to be used as a chair. "Took me years to figure out what sort of riddles they use to hide their colonies, then another few to work out how to answer them."

Harry couldn't tell if she was serious or not, and decided that the safest bet would be to take her words at face value. He resumed his seat by the fire, turning so he was facing her.

"And you, er, found them, did you?"

Luna beamed. "Oh, yes! Well, they'd already moved on by then, of course. But the signs were there. Next time, I'll have them for sure."

"Er," said Harry.

"You've a worse case of Wrackspurts than Draco, Harry! Goodness." Luna peered anxiously up at him, batting at the air by his face.

Harry scowled, and he could feel his features hardening. "If that's what you're here for, Luna, you may as well give up now."

"Oh, Harry..." Luna shook her head. "The Wrackspurts are worse than I thought. They're really clouding your vision. Here." She whipped her wand out from behind her ear and shot a quick succession of spells at his face.

Harry blinked.

"There." She nodded, apparently satisfied, and stowed her wand. "That's a start, anyway."

"Er... Luna," Harry said, feeling distinctly wrong-footed, "What did you just do?"

"Oh, I just removed some of the spell residue from your lenses. You really ought to get those lenses cleaned more often, you know."