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Hermione Granger's world was like a library, every book in its proper place, information sorted and categorized, then recategorized, borrowed, returned, lost, donated, and above all, logical. Her world was adaptable, able to bring facts like magic, prophetic chosen ones, and immortal evils into the fold, yet inflexible when it came to nearly every word that came out of Luna Lovegood's mouth.
Hermione didn't know what Luna's world was like. She didn't know how Luna could say the things she did, backed up by entirely no data, utterly nonsensical, and often with one sentence effortlessly contradicting the last. If she were honest, she'd say she didn't know how Luna got up in the morning when, to her perception, Luna Lovegood's world was a poorly maintained, ill-sorted, rubbish pile of books stationed right before a good burning.
She had assumed Luna's world was illogical, disorganized, so at odds with her own worldview, Hermione couldn't guess at the function. She never assumed, of course, that was the function.
It was in a library, a physical one this time, that Luna had said the words that jarred Hermione to a sudden stop more effectively than any creature she explained could have. "I don't know why you take me so seriously."
Ron and Harry had left quite some time ago. The librarian was nowhere in sight. The only person who heard the words, delivered so casually, so lacking in the usual unfocused airiness of her speech was Hermione. The words were processed on a little sheet of paper in her mind and passed up to the reference desk to be assigned under 'Conversation,' in the 'Luna Lovegood,' subsection. "Sorry?"
The subsection rarely saw much use, as those slips earmarked for it were usually diverted to the 'Luna Lovegood,' subsection under 'Frustrations.'
"Most people hear what I have to say and think I'm joking or crazy. Either one is hardly the truth, but you're the only one who still challenges me on it." She hummed, turning the page of an upside down book. "If you thought I was joking, you'd roll your eyes like Ron does. If you thought I was crazy, you'd humor me like Harry does, so what do you think I am?"
The question was passed up to the reference desk, who fretted on it for a few moments before passing it back. "I'm really not sure," she said, clearly disconcerted by the realization. "I suppose, I thought I'd figure it out eventually, but I never did, or haven't yet at least." Her face scrunched up. "Wait, if you don't think you're mad or joking, then what do you think you are?"
"Oh, that's very simple." Luna shut her book and stood up to leave. "I'm a liar," she explained, casually, and left without another word.
The statement sat at the library counter, utterly unable to be processed no matter how long Hermione thought about it. After a while, once she'd departed from the physical library and went through the motions of eating, talking with Ron and Harry, and preparing for bed, she decided to simply turn off the lamp and leave it for tomorrow.
The only problem with that, was that tomorrow it was still there.
It was there the next day, too.
Then the next.
Hermione began to feel a sort of sluggish haze, where the errant scrap of unprocessed information began to build up to the point she felt like she couldn't think about anything else. Luna Lovegood was a liar? What? She couldn't get past that point, and if she couldn't get past that, she couldn't process anything else, either.
After four days where every lecture, conversation, homework assignment, and book she tried to read ended up queued behind the indigestible piece of information, Hermione finally ended up tracking Luna down once again.
"Hello, Hermione," she greeted, airily, feet dipping into the Black Lake, as she stared up at the sky. "You seem to be in quite a state, I can tell by your Dimarols."
"That," Hermione jabbed a finger down at her, "that's a lie, then?"
"Oh yes," Luna nodded. "I'm afraid it's very unlikely Dimarols exist at all, and I can't see them, at any rate."
"Then why? Why lie at all?" Hermione sat down beside her, neither putting her feet into the water, nor looking at the sky, as her eyes were firmly glued onto the perjurious Ravenclaw.
"Why not?" She countered with a shrug. "What have you ever gotten for telling the truth?"
"What are you talking about?" Hermione spluttered. "I'm a good student, I have friends, great parents, I go on adventures in what is probably the finest magical school in the world. What would I need to lie about?"
"Maybe nothing." Luna splashed her feet in the water. "But none of those are things you've gotten for telling the truth. If anything, you would have gotten them either way, but I seem to recall hearing you lied to the teachers during the troll incident that earned you those friends."
Hermione's cheeks burned as the memory came unbidden to her mind, already plucked off the shelf and placed in her hand to revisit. "That was-"
Luna continued as if she hadn't started to respond. "For your parents, I'm sure there's some tasteful omitting of the more dangerous parts of your adventures, which wouldn't be able to continue, themselves, if you went around blabbering about letting an Azkaban escapee out of prison. These are just guesses, of course, I have no way of really knowing whether or not you lie or have lied about these. But if you ask why I lie, I should point out the truth hasn't gotten you all that far."
She filed that away into a new shelf she was constructing tentatively titled, 'Luna Nonfiction(?)' for further analysis at another time. "But those were all good reasons to lie. The Dimarols and the Nargles and the Snorcacks, what reason could you possibly have to lie about them?"
"How often do you suppose a new magical species is discovered?" She took her wand out from behind her ear and started stirring the water at her feet into tiny eddies with it. When Hermione said she didn't know, looking somehow more disconcerted by that fact than she had with Luna earlier, Luna hummed, nodding vaguely. "It's about one in thirty... no, at this point it must be a new species discovered every fifty years."
Hermione gasped, scandalized. "But muggle researchers can discover a few hundred new species every year."
She counted off on her fingers. "Muggle researchers have more funding, better equipment, less troublesome creatures to track, and most importantly more people to do the tracking with. The Ministry has a standing bounty for any verifiable new discoveries, which is pretty hefty, but the reality is, between the other jobs available and new species only being discovered about once every fifty years, the number of people actually out looking for them is pitifully low."
Hermione furrowed her brow as the information wavered between being accepted or rejected. "Is that a lie?"
"I don't think so," Luna said after a moment's consideration. "If it is, it makes the rest of my point a bit pointless, doesn't it?"
The paperwork for this question was lost in transit, but thankfully Luna continued despite Hermione not having a response.
"So, with that information in mind, what do you suppose would happen if the girl who, throughout her years at Hogwarts, kept going on about strange creatures of all shapes and sizes, mannerisms and magics, finally found definitive proof of some new animal? What would you think if, fifty years down the line, you pick up the Daily Prophet to see the headline 'Luna Lovegood discovers Nargles'?" She stood up, feet still in the water as she waded in the shallows of the Black Lake. "It could be, 'maybe she isn't as barmy as I thought,' or, 'all this time, I thought she'd been joking, but she really did it,' but eventually, I think a great many people will think, 'if those are real, how many others are, too?'" She clapped her hands together, smile widening. "The creatures are total fabrications, that's not the point. The idea of them is what's important. If people think there are a horde of magical creatures just barely out of sight, such that a Hogwarts schoolgirl could recognize them, then that means they might as well have a look, and as far as self-fulfilling prophecies go, adding in more people, funding, and equipment because you're convinced there are more species to find will inevitably give more success in finding those creatures, and when they do, the process repeats again."
Hermione's brow had furrowed as far as it could go, but to her unending surprise, given the presentation, but more importantly given the presenter, she found the idea to be totally sound. "All that, because of a lie?"
"Well, because of a great many lies, spread throughout years," Luna differed, gently. "I believe the muggles call it a 'long-con,' but you'd have to fact-check me on that."
'She's right,' the fact-check helpfully supplied. Hermione shook her head, ignoring it. "But that's so much effort, so many lies, all because you might find a magical creature and that might push others to do the same. How are you so sure that'll work?"
Luna laughed, crouching down in the water. "Who says I think it'll work?"
The question stopped her, cold. "What?"
Her hand flashed out, striking the water and making a splash. "What do you suppose is the most important thing for someone who wants to be Minister of Magic?"
Hermione blinked at the non-sequitur, but the question was simple enough, passed up to a political reference section and chosen from there. "A good knowledge of the people and a willingness to do what's right."
"That's valuable," she allowed, splashing the water again. "But it's not the most important, even if it probably should be. The Minister of Magic doesn't have any term limits, which means the path of least resistance for most people is going to be to keep reelecting the current Minister unless they do something tremendously damaging."
It was unfortunate, but the political reference section backed up that statement. "Granted, but what's your point?"
"If, twenty years from now, you saw that I was running against the seated Minister, would it make you stop whatever you were doing, even for just a second?" She splashed the water again, but the purpose behind the action still escaped Hermione, as did much of the conversation, honestly.
"I suppose," she said, slowly. "I'd definitely be surprised to see your name there, I didn't know you were interested in politics at all."
"That stopped moment, that pause, is the most important thing someone who wants to be Minister of Magic can have. Being dedicated isn't enough. Knowing what you're doing isn't enough. But the ability to stop what someone is doing, take over their mind with the thought of politics for even the time it takes to blink, isn't something that can be bought and sold." Her hand splashed against the water again, but this time, wriggling in her grip as she lifted it above the surface, was a fish. "It's something you build."
"But that won't make sure they vote for you," Hermione protested. "Just making them think about politics doesn't get you anywhere."
Luna gently ran a hand across the fish's scales before releasing it back in the water. "Hermione, people hate thinking about politics. Politics at its best, is something you don't have to think about at all because it's just working, you don't have to worry about it. If I can make people think about politics with nothing more than my name, then a good amount of them will vote me in, just so they can stop being surprised when they see my picture in the paper."
"But, that's ridiculous," Hermione spluttered.
Luna shrugged. "That's politics." She walked back out of the water. "Ideas like that are the whole thing the Rotfang Conspiracy is built on, you know."
"That's a lie," Hermione half-accused, half-realized, even as she was saying it.
"Yes," she admitted, easily, bending down to pick up her discarded shoes. "Do you want to head inside for a pudding?"
Hermione was just about to argue further, but between her splitting headache and growling stomach, she decided a delay would probably be best.
So they went inside for pudding.
Luna Lovegood was a liar. As the statement finally processed and placed itself on the shelf, Hermione couldn't help but feel like a filter had been removed from her vision and she could see just a little more clearly.
"You know, reading upside down is proven to be easier than reading right side up."
"You've collected quite a few wrackspurts, today, Ron. I hope you don't have a test coming up."
"I can't imagine why so many people think Hagrid is a half giant, when really he's three half-goblins stacked up on top of each other."
She wasn't mad, wasn't moronic, or joking; she simply lied, so many times a day it made Hermione dizzy to think about. And any time she asked her why, Luna would respond with a new answer.
"If people think I'm an idiot, they'll underestimate me. That's the most valuable skill for a spy."
"I'm trying to develop an eccentric personality for my music career. The more people write about your personal life, the more those albums sell, you know."
"Really, I'm gauging which creatures the other students respond to or remember best, for when I start writing children's books on the subject."
Each one was said as easily as the last, each one completely different, and each one perfectly logical to a degree that deeply unsettled Hermione.
Lies, she thought, should never be that logical.
"How much of your personality is a lie?" She asked one day, trying to find some order for the shelf she had newly dedicated to knowledge about Luna.
"How much do you suppose I could fake?" Luna asked back, spreading a bit of mashed potato on a pastry like it was jam. At this time of day, there were only stragglers and gossips left at dinner in the Great Hall. Ron and Harry were not included in either category right then, which only left Hermione, Luna, and a handful of others spread across the various tables.
"I'm not sure," Hermione admitted. "What about that?" She gestured at the pastry. "Do you do that because you want to, or is that something to sell more eccentricities, for whatever reason you have today?"
"I think that's where you're confused." Luna took a big bite out of the pastry, smiling. "I never do anything I don't want to."
There was an archivist in some disused research section that idly wondered whether that tasted good, but Hermione quickly shushed it. "Okay, weird food, fine. I already know all the animals are made up, so what about your whole innocence thing?"
"Innocence thing?" She took another bite, a startlingly low amount of mashed potato seeming to actually make it into her mouth, smushed against her face as it was. "What innocence thing?"
"To put it bluntly, if you had told me you believed in Santa Claus a while ago, I would have had no reason to doubt you." Hermione genuinely didn't know, as she said it, if she was disappointed that that had changed or not.
"Santa Claus..." Luna considered it for a moment, but ended up shaking her head. "No, sorry." Before Hermione could respond, she continued. "There is something I believe in, though, even better than Santa Claus, if you can believe that."
Hermione's brow furrowed, as it often seemed to, talking to Luna lately. "And what's that?"
"It's-" she paused, stopping herself, before her expression slid into a mischievous one. "Actually, how about this? If you can guess the real reason why I lie about so much, then I'll tell you what it is."
Hermione pursed her lips. "What are the rules?"
Luna shrugged, returning to her food. "No rules, no time limit, no strings attached, guess as many times as you want, or never guess at all, it's up to you. I think..." she held up her pastry, staring at it for a moment before biting into it again. "It'll be fun."
'Fun' wasn't exactly the word Hermione would have used to describe it. 'Infuriating' was a better choice.
After some deliberation, she had managed to narrow down the reasoning for the lies down into a series of categories, eliminating possibilities as she went. For example, as there was no obvious immediate advantage to her lies, the purpose for them had to be long-term, or a 'long-con,' in her own words. Additionally, while most of her lies were animal based, suggesting a reasoning like her magizoology or children's book writer stories, there were other lies sprinkled in there that had no bearing on jobs like those, so something more in line with eccentricity like musician or politician seemed more likely.
Assuming, of course, that there really was some grand plan with her lies and they weren't simply a manifestation of some mental quirk, compulsive lying or a coping mechanism for trauma, perhaps.
That, in itself, was a big assumption to make. Too big to discard without research, at least.
"Quite an odd question to ask out of the blue, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall replied, not perturbed, but a bit surprised by the apparently unprompted post-class question. "May I ask why the sudden interest in Miss Lovegood's family?"
"Luna gave me, well, something like a challenge," Hermione hedged, trying not to get into too many specifics. "I was hoping, if you knew her parents, you could tell me about them, so I could find out more about her that way. I'd ask other students about her, directly, but unfortunately I don't think anyone here actually knows her all that well."
"Ah, yes. I had noticed you were spending more time with her of late." McGonagall gave a genial smile. "Luna, like Xenophilius before her, has had an unfortunate amount of trouble making friends at Hogwarts. I've often wanted to intervene in situations like that, but the direct action of a teacher is bound to do more harm than good. Still, it is good to see you're befriending her."
Hermione thought about correcting her, saying they weren't really friends, but McGonagall looked happy enough she decided to leave it alone. It wasn't lying, really. She just chose not to mention everything. That was different.
"Her father didn't have any friends either?" She asked, instead.
McGonagall pursed her lips at the memory. "Xenophilius was a Ravenclaw, a house that fit him almost too well, I'm afraid. He would often ignore, brush aside, or simply pass up opportunities to spend time with other students, in favor of reading any books he could get his hands on. This had the effect of a self-imposed ostracization from his fellow Ravenclaws, and the rest of the school with it."
Hermione tried to fit that image with the man who could have raised Luna, coming out even more confused by it. "And her mother?"
McGonagall removed her spectacles, rubbing the bridge between her eyes for a moment before answering. "Pandora was a Gryffindor. Dedicated to her studies and her friends, but with a worrying tendency toward delinquency. The amount of detentions I and the other teachers had with her for getting into fights with students, and even the teachers themselves, from time to time, I couldn't begin to count."
That didn't make any sense, backed up by multiple fact-check and reference desks. "But, how did two people like that get together?"
"I believe the specifics of that are best left to Miss Lovegood." McGonagall replaced her glasses. "Now, was there anything else, Miss Granger?"
"No, Professor." Hermione took her leave.
The other teachers had only slightly more to say, when pressed about Xenophilius.
"A quiet boy, and quite studious, but a bit lacking in the practical side of magic, I'm afraid," from Flitwick.
"Very hardworking, but his personality could be... abrasive at times. Thankfully he's mellowed out quite a lot since his schoolboy days," from Sprout.
"Who?" From Snape, obviously.
Their responses on Pandora weren't much more helpful.
"A very spirited girl, with a right hook to be jealous of." Flitwick.
"She had a great fondness for plants, but unfortunately no real talent in growing them." Sprout.
"I wonder at what point my being engaged in work seems to translate to you as an immediate receptiveness to inane questioning." Snape.
These responses were accepted and catalogued, even with their limited usefulness. Unfortunately, this also marked the latest dead end in her research, which meant resorting to a more direct approach.
"How did your parents get together?" Hermione asked, slapping her books down on the Great Hall table beside Luna.
"Oh, hello, Hermione," Luna greeted. "The heliopaths say you've been asking around about my parents."
Hermione folded her arms across her chest, all too aware of Luna's nearly hidden smile at the latest lie. "Is that what they say?" She challenged with an arched eyebrow.
Luna bounced her head up and down in a lazy nod. "It is."
Hermione sat down beside her, deciding not to pursue that particular snipe. "Xenophilius and Pandora Lovegood," she pressed.
Luna's expression flickered, falling for only half a moment. "Her maiden name was actually Athanasiou, you know," she said, blandly. "A bit ironic, really."
"Why?" Hermione asked, rifling through a few information desks to try and pin down the name.
"It's a name derived from Thanatos, supposed to denote immortality." Luna's voice softened, to the point only Hermione could hear her. "Just a bit ironic, that's all."
Hermione may have had the well developed social skills of an aquarium goldfish, but even she could connect those particular dots. "Oh... I'm sorry." She stood to leave. "Sorry."
"She punched him in the face," Luna said before Hermione could walk away.
Hermione paused. "What?"
"You asked how my parents met. It was when my mum punched my dad in the face." Her smile became a little less forced as she began recounting the story. "Though, more accurately, it was when my dad caught my mum sneaking around the school after curfew, made a rather off-color remark about the quality of her and her friends, and then she punched him in the face. By the time Professor Flitwick found them, they were rolling around the floor having a full on fistfight, I'd imagine he was quite upset because he gave the both of them a rather long detention."
"Wait, why didn't either of them use magic?" Hermione asked, sitting down beside her once again.
"According to my dad, by the time the thought even occurred, they were already on the ground, and any attempt at reaching for his wand then would have given him a black eye not even Madame Pomfrey could have fixed." She considered for a moment before adding. "And my mum never used spells against other people."
"Never?" Hermione echoed. "I thought she fought in the war."
"She did." Luna shrugged. "Not exactly sure how she fought in the war, but it was always a point of pride with her and dad that she'd never harmed another person with magic."
"Maybe she used that right hook I keep hearing about," Hermione muttered.
Luna chuckled, softly. "Maybe. Though I hope she didn't meet many other husbands that way, my life is terribly complicated enough as it is."
Hermione couldn't help the laugh that belted through her at that. For all the lies Luna told, that seemed to be nothing but the truth.
"Why so curious about my parents, though?" She asked. "I don't mind talking about them, but I doubt you'll find the answer you're looking for from them."
"Does that mean your lies aren't compulsive, or a way to-" Hermione swallowed roughly, the image of an aquarium goldfish passed unhelpfully up to her by a reference desk before she finished the thought, voice dropping almost to a whisper, "deal with trauma?"
"Afraid not," Luna answered, not seeming terribly put out by the suggestion. "Looks like you'll just have to guess again." She smiled, brightly, as she said it, and the way she so easily accepted it dulled the edge of Hermione's disappointment.
Of all things, it was possible she hated getting an answer wrong the most, but with no time limit, no guess limit, not even a snarky remark for getting the question wrong, Hermione felt prepared to take a deep breath and try again.
Those options were discounted, which left the next most logical: eccentricity long-con.
Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.
Okay, it sounded ridiculous, but it really was the next most logical option.
So then, the only question was, what long-term benefit could Luna receive from being considered eccentric? The answer, as Luna's many false reasonings elucidated, varied.
Though, were all of those reasonings really false, or had she hidden away the truth, in amongst the chaff?
"Do you lie to become Minister of Magic?"
"No."
"To increase interest in magizoology?"
"Not particularly."
"To become a musician?"
"Nope."
"A writer?"
"I'm already a writer."
"A spy?"
Luna blinked for a few moments, then tilted her head, quizzically. "What's a spy?"
There was no truth hidden amongst the chaff.
So, with those options cut out of the realm of possibilities, Hermione just needed to find out what Luna would have to gain from a prolonged period of perceived eccentricity.
Unfortunately, after several days poring over a variety of books on eccentrics, manipulation through lies, and politics, Hermione hit a completely unbreachable wall in her research: she had no idea what Luna hoped to achieve because she didn't actually know what Luna wanted in the first place.
So, shuffling all the information she'd gathered to their proper shelves, Hermione prepared a different tack. If she didn't know what Luna's goals were, she'd just have to find out.
The idea to ask Luna directly was thrown out in a heartbeat. Even if this wasn't absolutely something she'd lie about, being asked about the future, what she'd want to do, where she'd want to go, always bothered Hermione.
Hermione wanted to graduate, she wanted to learn spells, she wanted to read every book on this strange and wonderful and terrible world that had been thrust into her lap one day. But what about after that?
From the way she had everything put together, people always assumed she had some kind of plan: she wanted to be Minister of Magic, or head of the DMLE, or a healer, or a librarian, or a researcher, but the truth was, she didn't know. She had no idea what she wanted to do, what would fit as a career spanning years and years of time and effort, what would make a difference, what would make her happy, if those two were exclusive or if maybe there was some magic answer that could be right, but she hadn't found it yet.
But, if she hadn't found the right answer yet, all the answers she had to give when people asked were wrong. She hated getting that question wrong, so she hated being asked it.
For Luna, maybe that was different. She seemed to have some kind of end goal, a dream that she was working towards even in such an unorthodox way, so maybe if she asked her, she'd have an actual answer, but Hermione wouldn't.
There was a face she saw, when she was asked that question and answered, 'I don't know' and it was a face she never wanted to make at another person, certainly not Luna: pure, unfiltered, disappointment.
If there was even a chance Luna would answer 'I don't know' and Hermione would make that face, she couldn't, wouldn't, do it.
So she had to ask someone else. Fantastic, all she had to do was find someone who actually knew Luna, and didn't just catch what she had put out on the surface level. That should be easy as pie-...
Hermione paused, as a paper was passed from desk to desk, evaluated, stamped, and evaluated again, before being passed up to her.
Luna's dad was a Ravenclaw. That meant he was magical. That meant she could owl him.
Turning and striding briskly, which turned into an almost run halfway, Hermione finally made it to the owlery, and pulled out a parchment and quill to quickly pen out a message.
'Dear-'
She scratched it out. No, dear was too familiar.
'Esteemed-'
She scratched that out, too. Esteemed was too formal.
Hermione tapped the feather of her quill against her chin, humming in thought. Maybe she should go with dear after all.
'Dear Mister Lovegood.'
Should she say Xenophilius? No, mister would suffice, since she was talking about his daughter.
'My name is Hermione Granger. I am a-'
She hesitated.
'Friend of your daughters.'
That wasn't a lie, right? Luna probably considered them friends, and Hermione… she'd figure that out after she figured out Luna.
'Luna gave me a sort of challenge, and in an effort to complete it, I wanted to ask you a few questions about her, like what she wants to do after Hogwarts, what her dreams are, goals, wishes, and things of that nature.'
Hermione considered for a moment before adding.
'Asking you does not go against the rules of the challenge.'
She nodded, satisfied.
'Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Hermione Granger.'
Finding an owl that didn't hop away as soon as she got close, she tied the letter around its leg and told it to deliver to Xenophilius Lovegood, watching as it took flight, hopefully to the correct destination. There were still some aspects of sending letters by owl that evaded her since she'd basically only used it to talk to Harry and Ron up until that point.
Hermione had figured, what with Xenophilius owning, writing, and publishing his own magazine, that the time it would take for him to actually read and respond to her letter was somewhere between a week and a month, so if there was no response in that time, she would have to find someone else to ask her questions to.
Having a letter from him dropped in front of her at the next morning's breakfast was surprising to say the least.
"What's that?" Ron gestured at the letter with a spoon, and Hermione quickly snatched it up.
"Research," she answered, maybe a little snappily.
Ron looked a bit skeptical, but he dropped it easily enough, which she was thankful for.
Setting her plate to the side, she used a butter knife to open the letter and begin reading.
Then she immediately stopped reading before she got a headache.
This letter was the undisguised work of a madman. Text crawled in the middle of the pages and the margins, sometimes wrapping completely around to the other side of the paper. Ink blotted in odd places, sentences started and stopped with barely any rhyme or reason, and the paper he used wasn't rectangular, but seemed to unfold into a disjointed sort of star shape.
If even a single thought in her head was organized like that letter, she'd be sent to Saint Mungo's a gibbering mess, never to recover. The fact that the letter had to be created by someone, then sent off like it was fit for human eyes was an absurdity too vast to contemplate.
However, despite how much she didn't want to even think of it, much less look at it, the information contained within might be essential in completing Luna's challenge, and she'd invested far too much time and effort to be put off so easily.
A reference desk passed up the sunk cost fallacy, which she dutifully ignored. She would beat this. She had to. Even if she wasn't entirely sure why she even cared.
It wasn't the 'prize' Luna had offered. Finding out which ridiculous mythical beast she actually believed in only interested her in the vaguest sense. But finding the true reason why she lied so much, forcing Luna to tell the truth in the bounds of this little game, that had real value.
Hermione was just hoping figuring that out would finally end the unpleasant sort of buzzing that seemed to continually come from the Luna Lovegood shelf ever since the revelation of her true nature.
With no small amount of reluctance, she turned back to the letter and began painstakingly copying down most of its contents in a slightly more readable format.
She eventually ended up with something that looked like this.
'Ah Hermione, heard a lot about you. Sometimes heard, sometimes spoke. Never met you before, though, though I suppose I'd also read about you. Luna, you know, and the Prophet. Blasted paper, rotten all the way through like a centaur if the centaur also had the consistency of a tooth and didn't clean itself often. Do you use charms to brush your teeth? I used to, and now I walk with a limp. No good, really. Nothing but clean apple juice for the leg now, brush my teeth with my crutches. Lovely girl, wants to be an adult when she grows up, never understood it, but I support her anyway. Like a well maintained toothbrush, come to think of it. Are you playing games? I won't stand for it. I love games. My daughter's heart isn't a shuttlecock. Can't be mucking about with it. Send that across the net on White Day. Ever heard of it? Done it yet? No no no no no. Don't tell me. Luna will talk about chocolates when she's good and ready and not a moment before. Do you bake? Cook sweets? I do love a good sweet. Bad for the leg though. Teeth. Teeth teeth teeth. My, I've been going on I must sound like a barker. Got leg on the mind, really. Woke up wrong, nothing to be done though potion makes me woozy can't have that before the paper's printed. You ever read it? Glorious stuff. Couldn't be prouder. Luna's work in places you know. Absolute gift. You should have fun playing games with Luna, but don't play games with Luna. I'll have you know I fought in the war so don't test me. Lovely girl though I know you wouldn't do that. Trust Luna's judgement. The girl hardly ever doesn't not ever mostly always know what she's doing. Have to pop off, printer's on fire. Good luck with the challenge.'
There were several other parts of the letter left out in the transcription for being completely illegible, covered by a large soot stain in one case, another section what appeared to be jam, and yet another with simply indecipherable handwriting, but the overarching theme of the message, Hermione found abundantly clear.
Xenophilius Lovegood wasn't going to be of any help in the slightest.
And plan B was what, exactly?
"Is that a letter from my dad?" Luna inquired, leaning over Hermione's shoulder to peer down at it.
Hermione gave a yelp, nearly falling over in surprise at Luna's sudden, extremely personal space invading, appearance.
"Why would your dad be writing Hermione?" Ron asked, skeptically.
"She'd know better than me, wouldn't she?" Both of their heads turned to Hermione, expectantly.
"It... is a letter from your dad," Hermione allowed, slowly. "I wrote him about your challenge."
Luna's smile seemed to brighten at that. "Oh, that makes sense, then. Was he any help?"
Hermione passed her transcription along, a small amount of bitterness leaking into her tone. "See for yourself."
She took a look at it, reading through apparently without any trouble before rolling her eyes and passing it back. "I wish he wouldn't say things like that, it's quite embarrassing."
"Embarrassing?" Hermione echoed, taking the paper back and looking through it. "What part of that's supposed to be embarrassing?"
Luna stared at her unblinking for a few moments before giving a short shrug and walking away.
Hermione looked through it a few more times, frustratedly, but still couldn't grasp the contents. Whatever message Luna had gleaned from her father's ravings, it was completely lost to her.
Ron offered to read it, himself, to try and find what she was talking about, but Hermione turned him down. On the off-chance he could decipher it, she didn't want him to know whatever Luna found embarrassing. That would be a breach of…
Well, she didn't quite know what it would be a breach of. Trust, she supposed. Luna had trusted Hermione enough to tell her the truth even when so much of her person was a lie, and Hermione guessed she trusted Luna enough to believe she wasn't lying when she said she understood it.
So what next? She'd tried teachers and parents, the likely and unlikely, approaching Luna's lies from every angle she could think of, and all she had to show for it was a large book of guesses with the word 'NO' stamped on every page in large red letters.
The letter was useless, all the information she'd gathered so far was useless, she was useless.
Useless.
Useless.
Useless.
Hermione stood up from the table, her breakfast discarded, and walked steadily out of the great hall. She didn't run, even when her legs ached for it, even when she felt her throat beginning to choke around tears she hadn't shed. When she was out of the hall, out of sight to any wandering students, then she ran.
Dozens upon dozens of guesses, fluttered past her, torn out pages in a book in her mind, all wrong, flawed, useless.
She wasn't giving up; as she curled up into a ball in the corner of a rarely used back staircase, the thought didn't even occur to her. She was just… taking a break. That was allowed, wasn't it? Just a little rest time to recover some willpower so she could hop back into the problem. Some time to be away from being wrong. Away from being herself.
Did Luna ever get tired of being herself? Of being quirky and unattached, breezy and impractical, of being a liar? Or was that the reason she lied at all, to take a break from who she really was.
Maybe she'd been lying for so long she didn't even know who she was anymore. Then again, sometimes it felt like Hermione didn't either.
'What do you want to do when you grow up?' A reference desk passed up that damnable question, and Hermione could only curl up into herself tighter.
"I don't know," she mumbled.
'Where do you want to go?' Another question, but with the same answer.
"I don't know," she spat, frustrated.
'Who do you want to be?'
"I… I…" she hesitated. Why was this so hard? Why didn't she know, it seemed like everyone else knew. Harry wanted to be an auror, Ron wanted to be a quidditch star. Why was it so hard for her to decide?
"I don't know," she finally admitted, quietly into the air of the disused staircase.
"It's okay not to know, you know?" Hermione gave a start as Luna's voice appeared a moment before she did, picking her way carefully down the dusty steps and taking a seat across from her. "I don't know a ton of things and it's never stopped me."
"Yeah, well," Hermione chuckled, hollowly. "I think we both know I'm not a lot like you."
"No, you're not," Luna shrugged. "You're determined, and brave, and far cleverer than any non-Slytherin has any right to be. You're always ready with a spell, with a lesson…" she smiled, fondly. "With a right hook, if necessary."
Hermione felt her cheeks heat as that time she'd punched Malfoy in Third Year flashed in her mind.
"You care about learning, about magic, not just in what it can do for you, but in what it is. And this, this little lying game of ours, has been fun for me." She smiled, but the shift in her expression seemed more pained than anything. "Probably more fun than it should have been. I liked seeing you go all up and down the school, spending time with books and letters, all of that focus I'd seen in you directed entirely on me, it made me feel quite special. But it has to end now."
Hermione felt her blood run cold, and she shot to her feet in an instant. "No, I can do this. I can still figure it out."
Luna laughed, soft, but with a heaviness her voice normally lacked. "I never thought you couldn't, but I've been selfish. This whole thing, you've been spending so much time on it, and in the end, what would it get you? A distraction from your classes? From your friends?" Luna stood, carefully dusting off her robes like it could disguise her downcast eyes. "They need you more than I do."
If she hadn't been paying so much attention to Luna lately, if she wasn't aware of every twist and trick to her words, Hermione might have missed it. "But you do need me."
Luna froze, before breathing a sigh. "I forgot to mention perceptive."
"When I was talking to Professor McGonagall, she said… you don't have any friends in Ravenclaw, do you?" Hermione saw Luna's hands squeeze into fists, more confirmation than anything Luna could have said, verbally. "Did you do all this, because you want me to be your friend?"
For a moment, a smile slid over her face, that same carefree airiness she wore so often, and it looked like she was happy, and starting to nod along, to agree, but she hadn't worn it for more than that moment before the mask cracked.
"Sorry." Her new expression wasn't anything like she'd seen Luna wear before. It was bitterness, and rage, and sorrow, uncertainty and hate. "But I don't want to be your friend, Hermione." She laughed again, but even the shadow of humor was gone from it. "I'm really just too selfish, aren't I?" She turned to go, and Hermione could see her try and put her expression back together, pick up the broken pieces of her mask and piece it into a smile, but she just couldn't.
"Do you lie to get attention?" Hermione called after her.
"The game is over, Hermione," she said, tiredly, still walking away, and Hermione could feel it, could see into the future in that moment more effectively than any divination lesson, that if she let Luna go here, she'd never see her again, not really, anyway.
She'd go down to the library, and Luna would be there, and she'd say something crazy and Ron would roll his eyes and Harry would humor her, and that smile would be plastered over her face and it would never fall around her again. Luna wouldn't just be a liar, she'd be a lie, and Hermione would never see the truth in her anymore.
She couldn't let that happen.
"Do you lie because you're scared what people would think?" Hermione pressed, and irritation flashed over Luna's expression, for the first time she'd seen.
"There's no more game," she snapped, frustratedly. "It's over. Give up."
Hermione's hands squeezed into fists, her determination only burning hotter. "Do you lie because you're worried if you don't, if you get rid of all the quirky sayings and easy smiles, there'd be nothing else to you?"
She whirled on her feet, hands clenched so tightly to her side, Hermione was sure if she looked, there'd be the imprints of fingernails marked on the palms. "It was you," she shouted, the sound echoing in the empty staircase. "That's it. That's your big prize."
Hermione stopped, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"When we started this, you asked what I believed in, and I told you that if you guessed why I lied, I'd tell you. Well, there it is." She ran a shaking hand through her hair. "You didn't guess it, but I already told you, so you… you win, I guess."
"You believe in… me?" Hermione quirked her head as all the papers contained within seemed to flurry about in chaotic patterns, the conversation utterly upending all her usual organization.
"Hyeah," she barked, like the question was ridiculous. "Hermione, you saved the school, saved the world more times than I can count. You've fought dark wizards and horrific creatures, put yourself forward to protect people without so much as blinking your eye. You're a hero. And when it came to me, well. You asked why," she admitted, quietly. "You're the only one who ever did."
Hermione didn't know what to say to that.
"I… need to go." Luna turned, and started walking quickly, but before she'd made it up two stairs, Hermione had shot forward and grabbed her wrist.
"You don't want to be my friend," Hermione repeated, and Luna didn't turn around, but gave a minute nod of her head. "You want to be more?" A pause, hesitation really, long enough Hermione thought she wouldn't answer at all, but finally she nodded once again. "So that was your plan, then? You weren't waiting for me to guess the real reason you lied, you were trying to get up the nerve to confess. You were prepared to agree with any reason, as long as you could get the words out."
The longest pause yet, but finally, her head sagged. It wasn't a nod, but it was an admission all the same.
"But you couldn't get the words out. I kept guessing, and you kept saying no." Hermione's eyes narrowed. "And you gave up."
Luna winced, the action carried all the way through her body.
"You wanted me to quit, to get frustrated and end the stupid game, but I didn't. I just kept finding out more things about you, making new guesses, and you had to end it yourself. But I'm sorry to say your plan backfired again." Before Luna could respond, Hermione pressed forward. "Because now I know why."
Hermione's hand remained on Luna's wrist, and it was through that she was able to feel her go totally still in an instant at the words.
"You told me, before the game even started, I just didn't notice. You probably didn't even realise it either. But when I asked if you ate your pastries like that because you liked it or if that was part of your lies, you said you never did anything you didn't want to, and that: that's the answer, isn't it?"
It was so strange, with the way the conversation seemed to be tipping over her mental bookshelves left and right, she should have found it impossible to move, let alone think. But somehow, the chaos brought with it an odd sense of clarity, like flipping rocks that had been there for ages and seeing what laid underneath.
"You don't have a reason to lie at all, do you?" Hermione accused, lightly. "At least, not really. No grand plan, no 'long-con,' no trauma or irresistible impulse; you just do it because you like it. Because you never do anything you don't want to."
"You got me," she sighed, trying to pull away even as Hermione's grip stayed fast. "But there's no more game and no more prize, so…"
"You are ridiculous," Hermione asserted, and yanked backward, causing Luna to stumble, cursing down the two steps she'd managed to climb.
She would have hit the floor, except Hermione put herself in the way, and Luna found herself caught in an awkward half-dip, the position feeling liable to come apart at any moment, and yet.
Luna quickly decided that position was infinitely more difficult to escape from than a simple captured wrist.
All it would take was a shove, and they'd go tumbling to the ground. But she couldn't bring herself to move.
"I'm not a lot like you," Hermione reasserted. "I'm not patient, or insightful, or open-minded. I can't think of anything on the spot, no strange creatures or witty responses, and when I make people smile it's rarely on purpose."
Luna looked like she was about to object, but Hermione brought their faces closer together and suddenly the air seemed too thin to say much of anything.
Hermione managed anyway. "But I do think there's one thing we have in common, and it's the reason you should have known cancelling the challenge never would have worked."
The buzz in Hermione's head the Luna Lovegood shelf produced was humming loud enough to drown out every thought she might have had.
All the papers had stilled.
No reference desks were operational, no books were being stamped.
Luna opened her mouth. "Wha-"
Hermione closed the distance, pressing her lips into Luna's and sealing away whatever words she was trying to get out.
They were in a dusty hallway, right outside a staircase only used by the desperate or the lost. Hermione's arms were starting to ache from the strain of holding Luna up, while Luna's cork necklace was digging into her collarbone. On top of that, Hermione would never consider her snogging exceptional in the best of situations, which this was clearly not.
But when she pulled away, Luna was smiling, and that…
It was the best kiss she'd ever had.
"I never do anything I don't want to, either," Hermione finished, breathlessly.
All the strain, all the worry and guilt she must have been hiding for months just bled off Luna's expression, like ink in rain.
She laughed, and choked on tears almost in the same moment, and after a few false starts managed to force out, "I don't know what to say."
"Do you want to head inside for a pudding?" Hermione echoed the words Luna had used herself, not too long before when Hermione had felt much the same.
The biggest grin split across Luna's face, as she nodded yes.
They went inside for pudding.