Oh God Not Again!

Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

That night at dinner, Harry found himself unable to eat. As a growing pre-teen boy, he found this to be quite worrisome. Fortunately, Harry also deduced that this was because of the nauseating celebration that was occurring at the Gryffindor table. Between Hermione's rapid-fire answers to Professor Sprout's Herbology questions and his own punishment for not taking Lockhart's quiz seriously, they had already netted 90 points. Combined with the rest of the House, Gryffindor was up 112 points from that morning. Only Snape looked as sick as Harry felt.

Deciding there was no reason to he had to partake in these festivities, he stormed off to the Ravenclaw table in protest and plopped down in front of a surprised Luna Lovegood.

"Hello, is anything the matter?" she asked curiously.

"It's only the first day of school and Gryffindor already has an eighty point lead in the House Cup and its all my fault," Harry moaned.

"I see. I've always thought that the desire to win that was indicative of the presence of Wrackspurt myself, but no one ever believes me," Luna confided.

"That's because Dumbledore's got them too well indoctrinated," Harry explained. "He's making them think it's about 'House Pride' and proving that your House is better than the others, which is really quite detrimental to the concepts of school unity, if you think about it…"

"Exactly," Luna beamed. "Thus, Wrackspurts. Why are you sitting here?"

"I had to get away from THAT," Harry gestured disgustedly over at the Celebration. Was that butterbeer he saw?

"But why here? I heard last year when the House Cup was awarded to Gryffindor at the last minute, you went over by the Slytherins."

"Well, I'm kind of avoiding Draco," Harry admitted. "Seeing as how he had Defense Against the Dark Arts this morning and no doubt saw that, once again, that rumor about his mother and Snape that I accidentally started just won't die. And besides, why not sit here? I like you."

"We only met yesterday," Luna pointed out.

"Ah, but what a meeting it was. I ordered that subscription of the Quibbler you recommended. I can't wait to hear about the things the Ministry is hiding from us so I can be properly outraged. But let's talk about you: Are the other Ravenclaws treating you okay?"

Luna nodded. "Oh yes. They seem to think that I'm under your protection or something because of last night and I expect that after tonight they'll think that even more. They haven't even laughed at any of my theories once. I'm thinking of coming up with progressively more outlandish ones to see how long before they crack."

"Now that is a noble goal," Harry laughed. "See, I knew there was a reason I liked you: we're both lone warriors in the fight against sheep mentality!"

"I like sheep," Luna told him.

"So do I, but when people like them so much they decide to think like them, they do all sorts of crazy things like declaring I'm the next Dark Lord," Harry countered.

"It must be the Wrackspurts," Luna suggested.

"Ah yes, the Wrackspurts wreaking havoc yet again and trying to blame it on the poor sheep," Harry shook his head sadly.

"And that's going in next week's Quibbler. Thanks, Harry."

"Harry! A word, if I may," Lockhart said, intercepting Harry on his way to breakfast the next morning.

Harry's friends looked concerned, but he just waved them off. He could handle himself. And if worse came to worse, he didn't want his friends to see him do some damage-control. What, with it not being 'ethical' and him being a 'second-year' and all.