//------------------------------//
// The Princess and the Potter 
// Story: A Tale of Two Lunas 
// by Everythingpossible 
//------------------------------//

That night, there was a stranger present in the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle. There was hardly a student who didn’t notice the appearance of the midnight-blue pony next to Professor Snape, whose sulking frown seemed to have dropped by a few degrees. However, not Dumbledore nor any of the other teachers said anything. Harry Potter was sitting at the Griffindor table, when his friend Hermione pointed out the unexpected addition to the teacher’s table. 
“Harry,” she said, “do you know who– or what that is next to Snape?” Harry looked up from his meal and was taken aback a little at the sight of the alicorn princess, who had apparently forsaken the dinner entirely and was now devouring a large pile of Cauldron Cakes. 
“No idea. You don’t figure it’s something of Hagrid’s?” Hermione frowned. 
“If it was Hagrid’s, why would it be at the staff table?” 
“Maybe,” interjected Ron Weasley, through a mouthful of potatoes, “It’s another scheme by Professor Umbridge.” As he said this, however, Umbridge began to leer at the strange creature, who in turn shot a death glance back at the magenta monstrosity. 
“Definitely not” said Hermione.
The mystery was as yet unsolved when, after the dinner was finished, Professor McGonagall tapped a silver goblet with a golden spoon, and called the students to attention with her Scottish brogue, as Professor Dumbledore stood up to speak.
“As some of you,” he said, glancing in Harry’s general direction, “may have noticed, we have a new addition to the staff at Hogwarts School. I would like to introduce you all to Princess Luna” he said, pointing in the general direction of the equine, whose face was now almost covered in an even layer of orange frosting. She smiled sheepishly and nodded. Dumbledore chuckled under his breath. “Princess Luna arrived, rather unexpectedly this morning. Until such time when we can return her to her own world, so to speak, she has expressed a desire to observe some of the classes at our distinguished school. I expect you all to welcome her and treat her as an honoured guest.” He began to clap in a polite way, and the teachers followed suit (with the exception of one Dolores Umbridge), and then the students joined in. Luna, slightly embarrassed, raised a napkin to clean up what she hadn’t already licked off. Dumbledore dismissed the students, and they all returned to their dorms, a bit curious of this newcomer.





After the students and most of the staff had left, Luna was approached by an absolutely grotesque old man, accompanied by a silver cat with blood-red eyes. 
“Mr. Filch, I presume?” she said, a bit nervous. 
“Aye. Let me show yeh’ to yer’ room.” He then turned away, the cat following him, and walked to a large chamber filled with stairs, which moved from landing to landing randomly. Without giving any sign to Luna, he began to ascend a stairwell, then another, and another, until he found himself on the seventh floor. He turned around, and was shocked to find the princess not there. Before he could look, though, she landed with a THUD on the top stair and folded away a pair of indigo wings. Argus Filch made a disgusted sound, and silently led her to a small oaken door. Without a word, both he and the cat turned away, leaving her to her own devices. She opened the door, located the bed, and immediately fell asleep despite the jetstreams of sucrose in her royal blood. She woke up to the sounds of students scurrying about in the hall. She went to leave, when she found a schedule in the hand of Albus Dumbledore on parchment nailed to the door, with directions to each room.




Severus Snape sighed as he began another notch in the endless succession of days that was his miserable life. His already-subterranean mood was not improved by the arrival of a certain blue pony to his gloomy Potions classroom. The students all looked for a second as she took a seat near the back of the room. 
“I’d like you all to welcome our esteemed guest,” he said in his normal monotonic drawl to a group of fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, “who has.. excitingly selected to observe our class this morning”. His speech was once likened to that of a suicidal NPR reporter. 
“The instructions,” he said as if delivering an extremely nihilistic version of This American Life, “are on the blackboard, as usual. Attempt not to create any explosions”. He then withdrew to his desk, which is where he usually went to consider all of his failures.
The art of potion-making was not in the least foreign to Luna, however some of the ingredients selected by Professor Snape for this, a potion that was apparently the antidote to love potions, seemed a bit obscure. She was doing very well, until she encountered a snag in step twelve.
Stir six times clockwise with wand.
With a wand? Were those the sticks that all of these wizards carried? Was she supposed to receive one? She guessed not, for as she looked around the room, the other students seemed to have their own wands. She thought for a second that she would fail this class, until she remembered that she wasn’t being graded but was here of her own volition. Still, she was determined to get this potion right. Sighing, she slowly lowered her head and placed her long, navy-blue horn into the brew and began to awkwardly stir with it…
“What are you doing?”
The voice of Professor Snape, who now didn’t seem so much disappointed but curious, scared her, and as she looked up, she caught the rim of her cauldron, and sent a spray of green liquid across the room, until it finally landed atop her head, cauldron and all, and began to run down her neck and mane. The other students looked away from their potions towards the unicorn, and began to laugh until Snape quieted them with his normal leer. 
I’m not very good at this, thought Luna.





Her next class wasn’t until after lunch (at which she again ignored everything except dessert). She was excited to see a class called ‘Defence against the Dark Arts’, until she walked into the room and saw the fat, rose-coloured abcess that was called Dolores Umbridge.
Professor Umbridge said nothing about the visitor to the class of fifth-years, only told them to put away their wands and begin reading Chapter Eleven of Dark Arts Defence: Basics for Beginners, which Luna found a tattered copy of on her desk. After a good quarter of an hour in which nothing particularly exciting happened, she raised a hoof to ask a question. Professor Umbridge tried to ignore it as long as possible, until at least half of the class had noticed as well.
“Yes, Miss Luna?” She asked, a sour tinge to her voice.
“Would it not be more helpful if the students were to practice these spells in class?”
Her question caught the attention of most of the class, which included Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who had all asked the same on the very first day of school. Dolores’ face twisted into an awful shape, then sprang back into its standard cheeky smile.
“There is no situation that would ever require the use of these spells in class, Miss Luna”. The sour tinge had now accrued into a cupful, and was almost enough to make a glass of metaphorical lemonade. 
“Well, surely–”
“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Luna, but I do not believe you are a Ministry-trained expert in the Dark Arts.”
“Well, no, but–”
“I also do not believe you scored an Outstanding in your Defence O.W.L., so–”
“The point is–”
“The point, Miss Luna, is that I am the teacher of this class, whereas you are no more than a–”	
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE POWERS WE POSSESS, OF THE MILLENNIUM WE HAVE SPENT IN EXILE, OF THE WAYS WE KNOW OF THE DARK ARTS IN A WAY WHICH YOUR MORTAL MIND COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND”
Her eyes glowed white with fury, and a few students in front of her had been blown out of their seats by the sheer power of a well-executed use of the Royal Canterlot Voice. Dolores Umbridge’s face turned the same ugly shade of pink as her sweater, as she slowly edged her way towards the door. As she left, the class erupted into applause as she regained her breath.





That evening, after observing a Herbology class (which had miraculously occurred without a single disturbance on her part), she tiredly flew up to the seventh floor, and threw herself into bed. However, there was a disturbance from the next room which prevented her from falling asleep. Irritated at the noise, she went to the hall to investigate. To her surprise, there was no door next to hers for a while. Confused, she walked the length of the hall, then back, then again, only wanting to find the source of the cacophony. As she gave up to return to her chambers, though, she noticed a large iron door, that she could’ve sworn was not their the last time. This was definitely the room from which the din originated. Opening the door, she was surprised to find a large group of students, who immediately noticed her presence. Distracted by Luna’s entry, a tall, lanky boy was thrown back by a charm launched by a black-haired boy with glasses opposite him, who had seen her arrive a second later. 
“Oh…. sorry….” she whispered, as she slowly shut the door.