Quibbles and Quarrels (Part Four)

"Good morning, Luna," Harry said as he passed the younger blonde in the Entrance Hall.

"Good morning, Harry Potter," she replied airily.

"You know, you can just call me Harry," Harry said with a chuckle.

"You don't mind?" she asked cocking her head at him.

"I really don't. The only ones who call me Harry Potter these days are people just interested in staring at my scar and a slightly manic house elf." Harry smiled thinking about Dobby. Hopefully the little guy was living large and enjoying his life with its new freedom.

"Well then, I shall refer to you as Harry, Harry." Luna paused to consider for a moment before sighing and shutting her eyes. "If you wish…you may call me Loony."

Harry frowned at that and stopped before they could make it to the tables. "Why would I want to call you that, Luna?"

"It is what nearly everyone else calls me. I am convinced the wrackspurts encourage it though I have not ruled out the nargles either." Luna's eyes had opened and she turned to look at him. Her face was very carefully set and betrayed next to no emotion. "The term first started when I defeated Ronald in chess while visiting Ginny two years ago."

Harry's gaze swept to Ron and he glared at the back of the boy's head hard enough it was amazing the redhead's head didn't spontaneously explode, before turning back to Luna and smiling softly. "Luna, I have no intention of ever calling you Loony, okay?" He saw her eyes widen but that was the only thing that registered on her face. "And I'll see if I can find some of the…wrackspurts and have a bit of a talk with them about that name also."

"Why would you do that, Harry?" Luna's gaze abruptly shifted from distant and unseeing to piercing and scarily focused.

"Because you seem nice, Luna. I was called names myself for a long time. It wasn't very fun." Harry shook his head. "Would you like to sit down with Hermione, Neville and I for breakfast?"

"Change tables?" Luna asked.

"Yeah. We could always move to sit with you over at the Ravenclaw table if you'd prefer…"

"I…Yes," Luna said nodding. "I would like to sit with you, Harry. May we sit near Ginny as well?"

"Sure." Harry led Luna towards his usual spot sitting down across from Hermione and Neville with Luna plopping down to him. Both his friends shot him a questioning glance but Harry just shrugged smiled prompting the other two to shake their heads and return to their breakfasts.

When Ginny walked into the Hall a few minutes later Harry waved her over next to Luna. "Morning, Luna," Ginny said with a yawn. "How come you're over here today?"

"Harry invited me," Luna said simply.

"Oh. Cool. Can you pass the bacon please?" Ginny yawned again while taking a few slices from the proffered plate.

"Luna," Hermione said after they were all looking a bit more awake. "Harry, Neville and I were going to start looking into a rather old case shortly. You said your father was the editor for the Quibbler, yes?" Luna nodded. "Have you helped him write any articles by chance?"

"I have written a few," Luna said, fingering her radish earrings. "I used to have a column on things the blibbering humdingers said."

Hermione shut her eyes and visibly took a breath before shaking her head and continuing with her query. "Would you be interested in helping us with our investigation? Perhaps assisting in the write up of any potential findings?" Harry smiled over at his friend for the suggestion.

Neville was nodding along as well. "Yeah, that'd be good to have an actual reporter help out."

"I'm not really a reporter…" Luna said glancing down. "I prefer to think of myself as an explorer. A reporter would have far less success finding the crumple-horned snorkack than an explorer."

"Well," Harry said, "you still have more experience tracking down this kind of stuff than we do. We tend to solve mysteries right in front of our noses. This one might take a bit more work."

"You truly want me to help?" Luna looked at Harry with that same piercing gaze from a few minutes ago. He felt like his soul itself was being weighed by this young blonde.

"We do, Luna," he responded not breaking her gaze. Luna blinked slowly and smiled nodding yes to them all.

Ron finally looked up from his third helping of food at that point and noticed Luna sitting nearby. "Why is Loony sitting here?" Fred and George sitting a bit further down the table smacked their heads against the wood.

Harry watched Luna's shoulders slump slightly before her distant smile returned. Harry bumped her shoulder and when she turned to him, raised his eyebrows at her and mouthed 'watch this'. Luna's gaze widened in reply and her eyes focused again.

Harry turned to Ron before Hermione could start in on the redhead. "Hey, Ron, do you remember last year when you tried to steal my Cloak?" The table immediately fell completely quiet. The only people who didn't remember that little incident were the new first years. And even some of them had heard the story already.

"Y-y-yeah?" Ron mumbled starting to pale.

"If you don't want similar wards to mysteriously appear around your bed you should probably call her 'Luna' or 'Miss Lovegood' or really anything but 'Loony'." The silence in the Hall had stretched to include the other three House tables.

Ron's eyes widened but color returned to his cheeks as he got redder and his complexion grew splotchy. "I can call her – "

"Ron," Neville cut in, "remember who your brothers are too. And which side they tend to support in these arguments."

All the red again drained out of Ron's features and he turned to look at the twins who still had their heads on the table but flashed identical thumbs up at Neville. "Right. Yeah. Sure. No problem."

He abruptly shut up and conversations seemed to restart. Harry turned to see Luna staring at him wide eyed. "Fun, eh?" She slowly nodded and giggled a bit.

Harry noticed Snape standing up from his place at the faculty table with a sneer firmly plastered onto his features. Harry sighed and murmured, "Comm on, contact Daphne."

"Harry?" Daphne responded almost immediately. "I assume you're about to want the rule verbatim?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I know we had discussed this for us but it looks like I'm about to need it now instead."

"Shame. This would have been far more fun if I or Tracey cited it. Oh well, just repeat what I tell you when prompted."

"Will do. Thanks, Daph," Harry turned to face Snape as the man walked up to him.

"Lovegood. Return to your table immediately," Snape said with a scowl.

Harry placed a hand on Luna's shoulder keeping her sitting down as he raised his brow at Snape. "May I ask why, Professor Snape?" Again conversation in the Hall quieted down. Harry caught a glimpse of Shiva at the faculty table leaning over to whisper to McGonagall and Flitwick. All three quickly covered their mouths obviously stifling potential laughter.

"Students are to sit at their House tables, Potter. This does not concern you. Now, Miss Lovegood."

"Actually, Professor, that's not true," Harry said with a lopsided grin.

"What are you blabbering about?"

"Harry, said your statement was untrue Professor," Luna stated with a dreamy smile. "Perhaps the wrackspurts have been hovering around you too much?"

"Get back to your table now, you silly girl," Snape said barely containing his sneer.

"Sir, before you interrupted I was telling you that you were wrong about the requirement to sit at House tables," Harry responded calmly.

"Of course they are required to sit at their tables, Potter!" Harry saw Shiva giving him a small salute.

"Well…" Harry started and then waited a moment for Daphne to murmur the exact wording to him. "According to Hogwarts bylaws Section D, Subsection 2, Paragraph 3A, Line 12: 'Hogwarts students are required to sit at assigned House tables only during the Welcoming and Leaving Feast and any specifically designated Special Occasions Feasts such as welcoming a Foreign Visiting School. At all other times, students are encouraged to sit at other House tables with friends, family or acquaintances in an effort to foster inter-house camaraderie and cooperation.' So Professor," Harry said smiling up at Snape, "Luna is not only allowed to sit here, she is actively encouraged to do so."

A pin could have dropped like a cannonball in the Great Hall for all the noise that was going on. Harry caught sight Shiva shaking with her hands desperately clamped over her mouth. Flitwick wasn't even trying to hide his laughter, holding his belly and chortling merrily. McGonagall had a smirk plastered on her lips which – for her – might as well as been her rolling on the floor. Surprisingly the new Defense teacher was also chuckling though he was attempting to hide it if a bit less successfully than Shiva.

Snape just snarled and spun on his heel to stalk out of the Great Hall.

"Excellent work, Harry," Daphne said into her Comm Stone. "We'll make a Slytherin out of you yet. Disconnect."

Dumbledore watched his Third Year students filing out of the Great Hall with mixed feelings. On the one hand he could appreciate a well executed prank even if the victim was Severus. That the prank had been performed simply by knowing the Potions Master's likely reactions and having a rulebook handy was impressive.

On the other hand…Harry had undermined the staff authority quite decisively. And in a distinctly Slytherin fashion. He could see Greengrass' hand in this. A fact that was distinctly worrisome. Even more so – Minerva and Filius tacitly approved. That Bathsheda did not lift a hand in prevention came as no surprise and Remus had been a Marauder so his amusement was expected as well. Dumbledore had hoped that another summer with the Dursleys would have reminded Harry just how precious Hogwarts was as well as how trustworthy its teachers could be.

But Minerva and Filius…Dumbledore was losing control of his faction. Voldemort was moving again.

He could not afford to lose control. Not when so much was at stake.

"Hermione…" Harry said looking at her schedule for a third time and finally giving up rubbing his forehead as he handed it back to the girl. "How can you possibly take every single course at once? You realize three of those classes meet at the same time?"

Hermione blushed and snatched her paper. "I'm surprised you noticed that honestly. I know it will be difficult but I have no doubt I can handle it."

Neville just shook his head at the girl. "Seriously though, why do you want to take Muggle Studies? Your parents are Muggles."

"Well it will be interesting to see them from a witch's perspective don't you think?"

Harry sighed. "I think you should just get a notebook to compile a list of issues if you're going to take that class, Hermione. We're still using quills and parchment plus 90% of the magical population can't even pronounce electricity let alone know what it does. Don't complain to us when you find out the things they teach are a hundred years out of date."

Hermione glared at her friends. "We shall see." The trio walked into the Ancient Runes class waving at Shiva who winked back at them. Grabbing seats near the middle Hermione stopped and stared wide eyed. "Lavender? You're taking Ancient Runes?"

Lavender shrugged, tossing her hair a little. "I've seen some of the things Harry comes up with in the Common Room. It seemed interesting. And besides," she smirked, "just because I love to gossip doesn't mean I can't study as well as the rest of you."

"She's got you there," Neville laughed. "Hello, Susan. I hope you had a good summer."

"Hi, Neville, Harry, Hermione," the redhead said flashing them all a smile. "My summer was great thanks. Harry, I hear some congratulations are in order?" She winked at him and slyly nodded toward Shiva.

Harry nodded back at her. "Thanks, Susan. Tell your Aunt we appreciated the advice by the way."

"Will do. So is anyone else surprised that Millicent Bulstrode is in this course?"

"Harry's exploits have made a rather big impression on her. She's trying to follow in his footsteps a bit," Daphne said as she and Tracey grabbed seats nearby. "Millie may be intimidating, but she's a lot smarter than she looks and she's pretty nice if you can get her talking."

"Well," a raven haired, oriental girl said sitting in front of Harry said, "I for one was planning on taking this class before you starting making waves, Harry. We haven't really been properly introduced yet. I'm Su Li."

"Nice to meet you, Su," Harry said shaking her hand.

"Alright, people," Shiva said, rubbing her hands together and getting the class' attention. "Welcome to Ancient Runes. Let's get started, shall we?"

"I can't believe Hagrid is teaching hippogriffs for the first class!" Hermione muttered besides Harry and Neville.

Harry had just gotten off of the hippogriff named, Buckbeak after a short flight around the campus. The animal was beautiful sure but…"Give me a broom any day. That was not my idea of a fun flight."

"Says the man who flies directly towards the ground at a 100 km/hr," Hermione scoffed.

"Yeah but I'm in control when I do that," Harry grumbled. "How the hell am I supposed to know what my flight partner is going to do if it has a brain of its own?"

"Heads up, people," Neville murmured. "Malfoy's up."

Harry's eyes narrowed watching his self-declared rival stalk towards Buckbeak. He palmed his Fishing Line rune just in case. It had been an idle experiment in pranking over the summer that ended up turning out pretty good. The cluster functioned somewhat like a modified version of the summoning charm they'd learn next year, but this one was directed and could just yank on a distant object and pull it a short distance in whatever direction the rune stone was jerked. He knew Fred and George would have a field day with it when he showed them.

"I still think if the blockhead is foolish enough to annoy the hippogriff you should just let him get hurt," Tracey said from beside the trio. "Getting a bit bloody would serve the ponce right."

"And if he runs to daddy afterwards, Trace?" Daphne commented watching Malfoy sneer at the animal.

"Yeah, I know…it wouldn't be fair to the critter. I still want to see him bloody after he tried grabbing your arse earlier," Tracey replied.

"Well the Whomping Willow is close. Maybe we'll get lucky and the Fishing Line will be a bit stronger than I expect," Harry snorted.

Malfoy glared at the hippogriff who screeched back at him and pawed the ground, obviously rejecting the boy. Malfoy didn't care. "Stupid birdbrain. You're just a pathetic little animal. You'll submit to me." He smirked and strode forward. Buckbeak reared back onto his hind legs talons extended to slash Malfoy. The boy's eyes' widened and he held up his arm to fend the hippogriff off. Harry groaned and stretched out his hand with the Fishing Line. He latched onto Malfoy and jerked the boy away from Buckbeak before the half bird could get in trouble for injuring a student. Malfoy sailed arse over teakettle about 5 meters towards the Whomping Willow though he tumbled to a halt well short of its reach.

"Pity," Tracey muttered, "though I admit seeing his robes flapping over his head like that was satisfying. I would've figured him for a boxers kind of guy, but I guess not…"

"Yes, we certainly have something to taunt him with now," Daphne agreed with an evil little grin.

"You see? This is why hippogriffs should not be shown to Third Year students." Hermione shook her head and sighed at the moronic quality displayed by her yearmate. She was careful to hide the upturn of her lips from her friends. It simply wouldn't do for them to find her laughing at the misfortune of another during a class. Even if that other was Draco Malfoy.