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Luna jolted awake with a start as something moved outside the door, her light slumber slipping off her mind as the covers left her body. It sounded like a remote control car… or maybe one of those little-kid kick bikes? Without warning, Despacito blared through the dorm at full volume, making her startle so badly she fell straight off the bed with a thud. Her roommate stirred, grumbling something about two hours of sleep, and Luna stayed very still, hoping Padma would assume she was asleep.
“Get back here you stupid metal menace!”
She snapped upright and heard somebody blundering around in the hall, yelling over the loud spanish rapping emanating from the same place. At this point people were beginning to stir and pound on the walls in the quintessential collegiate gesture of shut the hell up you absolute moron. Concerned, for both the person outside’s chances of implication, and for the sanity of the entire dorm, she crept to the room's door, careful not to irritate Padma, and slipped outside. It was still completely dark, which made some interesting contrast to the abrasive meme music playing in the background. The voice came again, closer this time.
“Oh, whoever this is, be warned, I will find you. ”
Somebody stomped down the hall, closer and closer and closer and-
BANG!
Luna yelped as they collided directly, falling to the carpet in a heap, flailing around wildly and promptly getting thoroughly entangled in the long and dusty hall carpet.
“Oh my gosh, so sorry, I-”
“God fucking damn it, that little-”
“I didn’t mean to, I was just-”
“SOMEBODY TURN THE GODDAMN LIGHTS ON!” The other girl shrieked unexpectedly, and Luna hit her head on the ground for the third time that night. The lights went on.
Sitting on top of Luna, equally as entangled in the carpets as she, was a girl Luna knew by reputation alone. A formidable woman, a force of nature unto herself.
Ginny Weasley.
Her hair was a ginger cloud floating about her head in frizzy waves, and her face was red with both anger and embarrassment. Pulling her legs out of the dusty carpet, she got off Luna and sighed, “My goodness, I’m sorry, but I have to go. The fucking roomba got away.”
Luna grinned, so it was a roomba. “It’s fine. Let’s go catch the runaway roomba.” She giggled, “That sounds like a kids detective story: the runaway roomba .”
To her surprise, Ginny laughed, “I like you!”
From what she heard, Ginny Weasley didn’t laugh. But then again, from what people hear about me, I’m Loony Lovegood. Deciding not to judge by appearances, she ran after Ginny into the unlit next section of hallway.
She caught up to Ginny in the dark moments later, grabbing onto the shoulder of the other girl’s pajamas to keep herself from falling as they ran blindly down the hallway, following the sound of angered and tired students yelling and pounding on walls and doors, as well as the blaring, mangled dubstep emanating from the cursed object itself, now having moved on to Despacito 2.
There was a thud, followed by a horrific crunching noise, as the shadowed figure of Ginny disappeared downward and the music stopped abruptly. A second later, the lights clicked on, and Ginny was holding a dented roomba above her head in triumph. From the back of her pajama pants, she drew out a mallet at looked over at Luna. “You might not want to see this.” She warned.
“Are you in the habit of carrying mallets around at night?” Luna asked curiously.
“No, I usually carry a knife.” Ginny replied, “I’d better go, I’ve been dreaming of this day since the Roomba Raids began.”
Luna smiled knowingly, and walked away without a word.
For the second time that day, Luna blinked awake, noticing the sunlight streaming in through her window, she remembered the events of last night and smiled. After she had changed, she grabbed her tumbler and yoga off her desk and left the room, whistling an off key tune to nobody except herself.
Outside, as she passed the dorm bulletin, beside the roommate ads and social group notices, there was a roomba nailed to the wall in three places. On it was an envelope with LUNA written in blocky letters. Intrigued, Luna reached over and plucked it off from where it had been stapled to the roomba’s mangled exterior. Inside was a note.
We may have gotten off on the wrong foot yesterday but perhaps you’d still like to meet me for lunch after Psych this afternoon?