Luna ran to the Headmaster’s office as fast as her hooves could carry her. Strangely, she knew exactly why Dumbledore had summoned her in the dead on night. It was the Potter boy. She hadn’t really officially met him, but his dreams were another story.
“Professor Dumbledore!” she exclaimed, almost knocking the door to his office off of its hinges. The elderly wizard was standing in front of his desk in a dressing-gown, examining her sudden presence with his steel-blue eyes. The Potter boy was sitting in his pyjamas in one of the leather chairs opposite him. Professor McGonagall and the other red-haired boy were also in the room.
“Ah- I see that you’ve received my message. Mr. Potter here has had a rather, well, inexplicable dream, and I believed that you could possibly contribute some insight.” Luna knew instantly what he was referring to.
“I– I– saw Mr. Weasley, he– he was–”
“I know” said Luna. Harry looked at her quizzically.
“But… how?”
“In Equestria, where I come from, I am the Princess of the Night. I can– well, I can see into other’s dreams, if you could call it that”. Harry Potter just kept staring, dumbfounded.
“So– you… you know about… about the–”
“Yes”.
“So… you saw… That I… I…”
“All I witnessed was a man being attacked by a snake, Mister Potter”.
Harry Potter was very confused. Eventually, it was decided that Potter and his friend (whom Luna had learned was the attacked man’s son) would go home for the holiday early. After they had left, Luna was left alone with Dumbledore in his office.
“You realize that the fall term ends in two days?” He said. The princess was quite surprised by this; she’d been having so much fun tormenting Umbridge that she had lost track of time. When had she arrived? October? “I am assuming that you have no plans for the winter break?” Luna nodded, a bit embarrassed. She really had not figured on staying so long as to needing somewhere to stay until January.
“Uh… yes.”
“Then, I would like to invite you to follow Mr. Potter, to his godfather’s home.”
“I– what?”
“Mr. Potter and the Weasleys are traveling to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, a.. er, well, a society devoted to the destruction of dark magic, more specifically, Lord Voldemort.” Luna nodded in understanding.
“You wish me to keep an eye on the Potter boy?”
“Yes, and I also wanted to spare you from spending all winter here at Hogwarts.” He chuckled. “Rubeus Hagrid is not much for company”. Luna smiled, remembering the immense man with mighty rivers of black hair flowing from his magnificent scalp.
“The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Twelve Grimmauld Place, London. I trust you are familiar with portkeys?”
“Well, er, I–” Luna replied hastily. Dumbledore laughed, handing her a rusty spoon, which she held aloft telepathically.
“Now, how exactly does this w–”
By the time she had arrived, all of the other temporary residents of the house had absconded to their bedchambers, so it was quite a shock to Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, and Sirius Black when the blue mare descended the stairwell mid-breakfast.
“Y-you‽” Exclaimed Harry, “What are you doing here?”
“Professor Dumbledore has invited me to stay here until the spring term”.
“Erm– excuse me, but– who are you?” inquired a bewildered Molly Weasley.
“Oh. Excuse me. I am Princess Luna. I mysteriously woke up at Hogwarts one day, and I don’t really know how to go back”.
“But– Your, um– Princess, where exactly is back?”
Over the next fifteen minutes Luna explained everything, from Equestria, to her disappearance and simultaneous reappearance, being thrown out of Umridge’s class, et cetera, wondering why they all couldn't just go back and read the first seven chapters of this story instead of making the illustrious author deign to summarize the plot yet again. When she had finally reached the beginning of this paragraph, there was a very pregnant silence. Not pregnant in, like, expecting a baby, but, well, just look it up. Finally, Ginny, noticing the already shabby condition of the fourth wall, asked a question.
“So– you’re staying?”
“Unless this is all a part of one of Dumbledore’s complex plans, then yes, I’m assuming that I will be staying”.
“So, you’ll be here for Christmas?” inquired Ron, spitting out a bit of hash browns as he talked.
“Christmas?” Princess Luna assumed this was of some importance, as all seven at the table began to stare at her in the way that one stares at a friend who has just said that he’s never seen Inception.
“You’ve– you’ve never heard of Christmas?” said Fred, slightly appalled.
“Well, no, based on the fact that I’m from an alternate universe and have been here for a sum total of less than two months”.
“Anyway-” said Mrs. Weasley before George or Fred could even consider anything mischievous, “We were about to leave for the hospital, to check on Arthur. Would– would you like to join us?”
“Oh, no. I would not want to impede upon your generosity. I shall stay here”.
“Wonderful!” said the older man with untrimmed hair sitting near the rear, who was yet to get a word in edgewise.
“I’m sorry, you are–?”
“Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, internationally-loathed criminal”.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance”.
As the days went by, various members of the Order came through the house, slightly but not completely shocked by the presence of inter-dimensional equine royalty.
“So, you said that you control the moon?” asked a particularly intrigued Remus Lupin one night.
“Yes, except for the thousand years that I spent on it”.
“What for?”
“Attempted regicide”. Lupin whistled, apparently impressed.
“I see we have a similar problem with that, the moon”.
“We may have another thing in common, come to think of it” Luan said, winking suggestively.
“And that is?”
“Starting next term, I may be taking your old job”.
“Impossible,” Remus said, laughing. “No way in hell you’re taking Umbridge down”.
“You’d be surprised at how often I manage the impossible, Lupin”.
“I’d like to see you try”.
“My pleasure.” She turned to Hermione Granger, now seated on the other side of the table. “I’m really sorry, Miss Granger, I–”
“You can call me Hermione. And it’s no problem”. Lupin looked, puzzled, from Luna to Hermione, then from Hermione to Luna.
“Anyway–” she said. A small silver tape recorder emerged from her ethereal mane, coaxed by the soft byzantium aura of her magic. “I meant to return this to you earlier.”
“It’s been quite useful” she added.
Christmas day arrived, and Luna awoke in her small bed on the top floor. She was still in the same place that she had fallen asleep, which was good. The last thing she needed was to mysteriously teleport into another plane of existence. Again.
She calmly descended the stairs, quickly overtaken by Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Hermione, and Ginny, who seemed to be excited to wake up at six o’clock in the morning for some strange reason, which she immediately saw upon entering the dining room. The normal table was stacked nearly to the ceiling with packages bound in colourful paper. Luna was a bit excited as she saw that there was even a small pile of bounty at her usual place, and sure enough, all four packages were addressed to her.
“Well, go ahead then” encouraged Molly Weasley, entering from the kitchen, coffee in hand. The six eager children made like angry termites before a mahogany canoe, ripping the neatly folded paper to molecular bits, eager for the mysterious loot within. Following the crowd, Luna began to politely unwrap her gifts. The lumpy one on top, wrapped in plain brown paper, was from Mrs. Weasley.
It was a sweater, midnight-blue, with a silver L embroidered on the breast. Luna looked around. The other six had received similar garments, but treated them with much disdain.
“I’m sorry if it’s the wrong size,” she said, as Luna laid eyes on her gift. “I had to guess really, plus I’m not used to making them for your…. figure”.
“It’s…. It’s….” Luna said, as Mrs. Weasley looked at her nervously. “Magnificent!” finally came, and Molly exhaled in relief. She was quite surprised when the alicorn leaped from her seat and embraced her with the fatal grip of a ball python.
“We have not received such an excellent gift in ages! Oh, most wonderful of days!” She utterly failed at suppressing tears of joy. Mrs. Weasley looked awkwardly around the room, ensnared in the vise-like embrace of the grateful pony. The four Weasley children, Harry, and Hermione, couldn’t help staring at the scene. At some point, Luna saw what she was doing, and returned to her seat, blushing. The evisceration of the presents continued. Luna looked again at her presents, now numbering one sweater and three enigmatic boxes. The one on top was from Dumbledore.
She looked at it once, twice, three times, still unsure of exactly what it was. It was a stone bowl, ornately carved with some indecipherable writing. Luna looked around it, turned it upside down, placed it on her head, but still couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. “Is that… a pensieve?” asked Sirius Black, who had just joined her on the opposite side of the table.
“I… guess so?”
“Who gave that to you? Dumbledore? Bloody hell. Those things are valuable. Useful, too.”
“Um.. but what does it do?”
“It lets you store memories, and go back to them later. Quite useful, for someone as–” he searched for the right word, Luna looking a bit menacingly towards him. “...enlightened as you”.
“Interesting”, she said, pushing the pensieve aside, attacking her remaining presents. In addition to the sweater, she also received a book on the history of Hogwarts from Lupin, and a score of home-baked Cauldron Cakes from Professor Flitwick, which had passed into nonexistence by lunchtime.
“I quite like this ‘Christmas’,” thought Luna.