Luna plays with Hermione's hair when she stims and needs concentration
When they first started studying together, Hermione quickly realised that Luna needed something to fiddle with in order to focus. There was something about who she was that made her completely unable to just sit still. Hermione, of course, could not stand this and immediately focused her attention on finding something quiet for Luna to play with so that they could study in peace.
From a young age, Hermione’s mother would braid her hair whilst she did her homework, an activity that was mutually de-stressing from a long, focused day at their dentistry office and private school, respectively. Remembering this and knowing that she’d still be able to focus, she gave Luna permission to sit behind her and play with her hair whilst they read together, to help her concentrate.
This went down like a charm. They would sit together and study in the Gryffindor common room – where strictly speaking Luna shouldn’t be allowed, but nobody cared because she was such a delight to have around – and study silently in front of the simmering fireplace. Hermione sometimes like to lie down on her front on the carpet with her parchment in front of her to work, so Luna would sit down beside her and run her fingers through her hair every day. This arrangement also had the unintended side effect of Luna learning new and interesting ways to tie up her own hair after years of mostly letting it flow down her back and get knotted throughout the day.
She tried every new hairstyle she could think of on Hermione – braids, ponytails, pigtails, space buns: if you can think of it, they had discovered it together. Most of them ended up looking horrible, but that was more because of Hermione’s sensibilities rather than Luna’s craftsmanship, which ended up being quite impressive after a while; she was always focused and gentle. This settled them into a routine for a while, and it would mean Luna would often blast through her work with a tight focus in order to finish quickly and have both hands free to play with Hermione’s hair, and even led to her grades improving.
That is, until exam season. Hermione tried and tried and tried and tried to focus but the anxiety was killing her and she just couldn’t manage on her own. Something was just fundamentally wrong, and she wasn’t able to work with the focus she did in the years before and she couldn’t understand why.
It hit her like a tonne of bricks one day: around this time of the year, she would always be tugging at her own hair to destress, but now she couldn’t: Luna was doing that instead. Not wanting to tell Luna and risk her feeling bad, Hermione secretly tried any alternative she could think of: chewing gum, stroking Crookshanks, biting the ends of the muggle pens and pencils she brought every year in case of an emergency (“You never know when you need to take notes!”) but nothing worked. She was stumped.
Luna wasn’t always the most perceptive girl when it came to other people’s emotions, but it was hard not to notice when Hermione was stressed about something, so she asked her what was bothering her when they were studying (or failing to) one day. Hermione immediately came clean and spilled out about how she was no longer able to focus but she didn’t want to risk Luna’s ability to study, especially at exam season, and that they had become so synchronized to each other’s study schedules that working privately was no longer an option – not that either girl wanted to.
“I have an idea,” Luna gently told Hermione after thinking for a moment. She had them switch places, Luna lying down to work on the ground, with Hermione sat cross-legged next to her. Hermione didn’t understand how this would help either of them at all, and so she sighed in frustration and tried to attack that paragraph she was stuck on for the fiftieth time.
But just like that, Hermione realised she was suddenly able to work again. In fact, she had been for an entire hour! She blasted through the whole book, cover to cover; copied all her notes up and down and across; created magical flashcards that would test her autonomously; learned and relearned and rerelearned the names of medieval wizards and witches and warlocks – she worked more consistently than she ever had before. It wasn’t until she was finished that she realised how: she had been running her free hand through Luna’s silky blonde hair the whole time without even noticing. She looked down at her. Luna was still working; it seemed as if the sensation of having Hermione’s fingers drift through her hair had been enough to placate her fidgets as well. Hermione smiled to herself, and continued to play with Luna’s hair long after they both finished studying.
From then on, neither of them had any problems studying ever again.
