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Halfblood Imposter: Still at Large!
Luna rarely spent her time reading the Daily Prophet, but today was a different story. It had been nearly a week since Rigel Black’s dramatic disappearance, and the students seemed just as shocked as ever. Luna didn’t understand why. The ruse had been obvious to her, even from afar. Maybe it was the wrackspurts that tipped her off.
Rigel’s face was plastered underneath the bold headline, blood dribbling down her chin and head held high in silent defiance. Her grey eyes were focused on something out of the frame. It was cut short, like someone didn’t want the others in the photo. That was another reason why Luna did not like the Daily Prophet. They had the habit of allowing their work to be manipulated. Nothing like her daddy’s Quibbler.
In any case, the Great Hall seemed to be brimming with invisible wrackspurts following Rigel’s disappearance. Luna couldn’t walk two steps without one of them whizzing by her head. She had already received strange looks for batting one away, and she felt very sorry that none of her fellow peers could feel them wiggle into one ear and out the other.
The wrackspurts seemed especially concentrated by the Slytherin table. Luna suspected that they liked stiller, quieter targets, as opposed to the Gryffindors, who—despite their shock—seemed to be toasting Rigel daily for the greatest prank ever. Luna’s gaze followed a nargle to the Gryffindor table. The students seemed especially subdued today, as the Weasley twins were gone—probably to set up a prank. Perhaps it was just Fred and George who were especially delighted at Rigel’s deception.
The nargles were especially active too, flitting back and forth between different students. They were little opportunists, taking advantage of the chaos like this. That was why Luna had taken to making new dirigible plum earrings for anyone who needed them. Her fellow Ravenclaws didn’t seem to appreciate her offers—Luna didn’t understand why they all sneered at her—but Ginny had taken to wearing a pair. She had promised to pester her brothers too.
Another nargle flitted from the Gryffindor table to the Slytherin table. The poor Slytherins. They seemed to be constantly under attack and didn’t even realize it. Draco Malfoy, in particular, always had a cloud of nargles drifting after him.
Perhaps she should offer him a pair of dirigible plum earrings too!
Luna drifted to her feet, supported by two of the braver nargles. They darted away when Luna’s robes didn’t lift over her head. Mischievous little things.
The Slytherin table was already quiet when Luna sauntered over.
“Miss Lovegood.”
Luna waved airily to the older Slytherin. She didn’t quite remember his name (not that they have ever been introduced), but she recognized him from the way the nargles positively danced around his head whenever he spoke to Rigel.
“May I?” Luna didn’t wait for an answer before taking an empty seat at the table. She reached into her pockets, pretending not to notice the way the Slytherins tensed. “I noticed the nargles like to fly around your heads. If you’re not careful, they’ll start to steal your shoes.”
“My shoes?” the older Slytherin’s lips twitched upwards to affect a polite smile. It didn’t work, considering his mocking tone. She ignored this. Once he started losing his shoes, he wouldn’t be so smug.
“Yes,” Luna smiled happily at the group, placing a pair of her newly made dirigible plum earrings on the table. “I thought you might need this. There’s a considerable amount of nargles here now compared to when Rigel’s magic chased them away.”
At the mention of their friend, the table stiffened.
“I suppose Rigel never really existed anyway,” Luna mused, blinking dreamily at Pansy Parkinson. The girl was normally so kind, but Luna had noticed (when she donned her Spectrespecs) that wrackspurts tended to shy away from her.
She turned her eyes on Draco, who seemed to be boiling with anger. A pink flush crept up his neck as he spat, “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand, Lovegood.”
Luna watched as a nargle tugged at his unusually ruffled hair, “I didn’t mean to offend you, Mister Draco.”
The blond-haired boy gaped at her. Luna thought he looked a bit like a Blibbering Humdinger when he did that. The rest of the Slytherins shot her confused glances, and too late, she remembered that the old pureblood families had their own rules and strange, outdated etiquette. In any case, Luna thought it was pointless to refer to Draco as anything other than his first name.
“I think it was rather clever of her,” Luna offered, pulling out another set of dirigible plum earrings and setting it in front of Draco. “I suppose in the end though, she was tired of pretending.”
Silence met her words, but she was used to this. Daddy told her that it was hard for people to accept the truth, and she had to be patient.
“I’m sorry,” Pansy’s eyebrows were attempting to stitch themselves together on her face. As if realizing that the action would give her wrinkles in the future, she set her hands primly in her lap and forced her expression back to one of polite interest. Luna didn’t have her Spectrespecs, but she could guess that the girl had forcefully expelled a wrackspurt from her ear. “Did you say ‘she’?”
Luna tilted her head to the side. She thought, out of everyone, Pansy would have been the first to notice.
“Of course. Hasn’t everyone else noticed the number of wrackspurts around her head? I thought it was strange that her magic didn’t react to them,” Luna blinked expectantly at the group of Slytherins. “Perhaps the wrackspurts confused her magic too.”
“You talk as if magic is sentient,” a dark-skinned boy peered curiously at her with amber eyes. “Rigel mentioned that too.”
“Of course it is,” Luna smiled at him, producing another set of dirigible plum earrings from her robes. She set it in front of him. He had a fewer number of nargles fluttering around his head, but she thought it would be safe if he had a pair anyway. He spent a lot of time with Draco and Pansy.
“You shouldn’t worry too much about her. She’s smart and quite the inventor,” she stood, casting a look at the professors at the front of the room. Headmaster Dumbledore looked back, blue eyes twinkling. Luna beamed as he moved his head, exposing the dirigible plum earrings she had given him. The elderly man gestured at Professor Snape, who was glaring imperiously at the student body, daring them to question him about his wayward apprentice. Luna watched as a bold nargle darted forth and plucked a hair from his head, “Do you think Professor Snape needs a pair of dirigible plum earrings too? It doesn’t look like he’s exempt from the nargle infestation…”
She drifted away from the table, humming to herself.
Rigel Black would surely change the Wizarding World. Luna paused at the thought. What were the odds that the witch needed a Crumple-Horned Snorkack to aid her?