“I spent most of it home with daddy, of course.” Luna didn’t look up from the article she was in the middle of reading because she couldn’t just then, but it would be rude not to answer a question when one was asked. “We fished for hinkypunks and watercress buttons, and daddy let me plant some dirigible plums for our garden all by myself. Do you like my earrings?” She pointed to the radish-like things dangling from her ears, apparently not aware of the incongruity of her question. There was no response but Luna had learned not to wait for compliments from other people, so she continued cheerfully, “As you can see the plums are doing well.”
There was still no reply. Luna couldn’t look up from the magazine in front of her right now, so after a moment to see if her companion in the train compartment would speak, she kept talking: “We thought about going to the World Cup, but of course it would have been awkward to appear to support the Ministry by attending right after daddy published an article denouncing the corruption of the Sporting Division and their ties to the Gubwallock Network’s use of mascots for match-rigging.” She shook her head sadly but after a moment her smile brightened. “We did listen to a little of the match on the wireless though, and it seemed like it would have been quite fun to watch. Were you there?”
Again only silence met her words. Thinking that perhaps that was an uncomfortable subject – that perhaps her companion had wanted to go but couldn’t, or felt awkward admitting that they had attended after Luna’s mention of the Gubwallock Network, or simply was sad because they had hoped for Bulgaria to win–she decided to change it, saying kindly, “Of course I’m sure most of the people watching were there to support the teams and not the Ministry, which was very nice of them, since it’s hardly the players’ fault that the matches get rigged at the expense of the magical creatures performing as mascots, is it? Anyway, we didn’t do any other traveling either, although daddy and I do want to travel to Africa soon. We’re hoping to find the Pinkwish Allimonkey, have you heard of them? Wonderful creatures but very shy. Of course, publishing The Quibbler keeps daddy and I very busy, and it’s important to make sure that people have somewhere to read all the things that the Daily Prophet and the Ministry are trying to cover-up, so I’m not sure when we’ll be able to go.”
Luna smoothed the page of her magazine, careful not to break her line-of-sight with the strange little squiggles she was staring at. Another minute and she would be able to look up, but breaking eye-contact now would leave her unprotected by the charms she was currently studying and she would have to start all over. “I am sorry to be distracted,” she explained to her companion, “I know it’s rude to read while you’re talking to someone, but daddy published an article about the growing threat of the Davimorphus Dream Leech, and it includes a section on self-protection. It’s very easy, all one has to do is stare at the shielding charms and let one’s mind drift so that the symbols can be absorbed by one’s subconscious. Are your dreams protected? You can borrow this when I’m done, if you like. The Davimorphus population in Britain is on the rise you know, so it’s very important to shield oneself, or all your dreams could be sucked right out of your head. That sounds dreadful, don’t you think? I quite like my dreams.”
There was no response, her fellow student perhaps too horrified by the prospect of having their dreams stolen to speak. This time Luna was tempted to look up, and not just because her eyes were watering from the strain of not-blinking for so long: she was very protective of her father’s tabloid and she wanted to see how her companion was reacting to her mention of The Quibbler. It would have been disrespectful to daddy to look away in the middle of mastering a protective charm he had printed though, not to mention to the author who had been kind enough to include the shielding magic in their article, so she kept staring.
Luna also knew it was rude to monopolize a conversation, so she asked politely, “But how was your holiday? I hope it was a pleasant one.” When there was no answer after a while Luna decided that either her visitor was shy, didn’t want to talk about their summer, or just preferred listening to talking. Since she didn’t mind silence she let that linger for a while so that she could finish with the article she was studying. When Luna finally turned away from her magazine to look around the train compartment she saw that it was empty. Interesting, she thought to herself, wondering if whoever she had been talking to had been called away by something important, had fled to join their friends because they didn’t like her story, or if she had in fact imagined the voice in the first place. Perhaps she had been talking to some kind of invisible creature that was too shy to show itself. There were certainly plenty of beings like that all around, even though most people tended to be difficult to convince of that without proof.
Humming quietly, Luna turned back to her copy of The Quibbler. When she finished with it, though, she left it on the seat next to her, folded open to the article on Davimorphus Protective Charms – just in case there was anyone else in there with her who might be interested in reading that.
