Despite two of the hospital beds in Hogwarts still being occupied by petrified students, the Christmas break seemed to do wonders to lighten the mood in the castle. Though Flynn was certain that nobody had forgotten about the two victims, it seemed like a majority of the students didn't seem to want to discuss the matter anymore, content to let the subject float silently in the halls without giving voice to it.
Sally and Lily seemed to be swept along in the sudden air of good cheer, their bags of sleeplessness were gone, and neither of them seemed to shy away from smiling anymore.
The entire school seemed to fall back onto familiar routines, with the only real change being that most of the students walked around in groups of three at the minimum.
Somehow, Flynn found himself inexplicably being swept up in the same pattern, with Lily and Sally glueing themselves to his side, even dragging him to lunch and dinner whenever they could physically catch him trying to avoid it.
It took about a month before he realised that with the duo's constant presence around him, he hadn't had the opportunity to go to an abandoned classroom to practise his spellcasting since the Christmas break, and with his skills starting to get rusty, he had no other choice but to let them tag along.
He went to an abandoned classroom that was a bit more out of the way, since he knew that the more accessible ones were occasionally visited by the older Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that he'd run into a few times over the Christmas break and started his usual practice. While Lily and Sally were both shocked by how violent his spellcasting was, with neither of them having attended the duelling club and having had no other opportunity to see Flynn's spellcasting in action, they were both impressed by his display of his own custom spell.
It didn't take long for Lily and Sally to join in to the practise, admitting (to Flynn's annoyance) that neither of them really practised their spellcasting much outside of classes, despite having similar or better grades in Charms and Transfiguration than him.
It took about half an hour for Lily and Sally to grow tired of spellcasting, and took a break while Flynn continued for about an hour longer before he decided to stop so they could go to dinner.
Flynn led the way, since neither of the girls had any clue on how to navigate the halls with how deep into the castle Flynn had taken them, but the pair almost bumped into him when he stopped suddenly in the halls, his eyes narrowing at what he saw.
"Why'd you stop?" Lily asked, rubbing her nose gingerly after bumping into him.
Flynn didn't answer as he stared up at the ceiling, debating to himself whether he should turn around and run or not.
"Are those shoes?" Sally asked.
Flynn didn't answer, not bothering to state the obvious, but while the shoes were obviously shoes, the question was what the shoes represented. If he were back in Fredericton, a pair of shoes dangling from a telephone wire was often a sign that you should turn around or at least watch your back for crackheads or gangs, but he hesitated to assume the same thing for Hogwarts.
"Yeah, those are shoes," Lily responded, obviously not sharing the same distaste that he had for stating the obvious.
"You must be a very confident person to make that assumption," a quiet voice said, suddenly enough and close enough that Flynn felt a pair of hands grab his sleeves in surprise.
To their credit, Flynn hadn't noticed the source of the voice either until she spoke, but he had managed to hide his surprise before he spotted a small blonde hair head, peeking out from behind a pillar, low enough to the floor that he imagined she was sitting down behind it.
Flynn glared at her, and she tilted her head at him, like a curious animal, saying nothing in response.
It took a few more seconds for Lily to spot the girl, and her grip around Flynn's sleeve relaxed when she realised who and what had spoken.
"Why would I need to be confident to assume that they're shoes?" Lily asked.
The girl's head tilted further, until it was almost completely sideways.
"We're in a magical castle," the girl said. "Even if something looks like a pair of shoes, it doesn't mean it is a pair of shoes. It could be a fuzzy eyed fubbletrout. I hear they like to nibble on people's toes, and I imagine looking like a shoe could help them with that."
Lily paused for a moment, before looking back up.
"So those aren't shoes?" she asked.
"Oh, no," the girl said, shaking her head quickly, whirling her hair around her. "I'm pretty sure those are shoes, unless the nargles replaced them with something else while I was blinking. I'm pretty sure they're not fubbletrouts at the very least. You won't usually find them outside the water, with them being fish and all."
"You must be a very confident person to make that assumption, then," Lily said, with a smile.
The girl blinked a few times, before grabbing her chin in deep thought.
"I suppose I am, aren't I?" she asked, before standing up and walking forward so she was no longer hiding behind the pillar.
Being shorter than either Lily or Sally, Flynn had to assume that the girl was a first-year, since he doubted she was older than them, and he at least recognized all of the students in his grade by face, even if she was a Ravenclaw, judging from the colours of her robes.
The girl stared at the shoes intently, tilting her head from side to side to look at it from different angles, as if she were seriously considering whether they were truly shoes or not before she jumped up on the spot, as if something had startled her.
Immediately Flynn tensed up, as he glanced around for whatever she might've been scared by, before she turned to face him directly and gave a gesture that looked vaguely like a curtsey.
"I haven't introduced myself," she said. "I'm Luna Lovegood."
Flynn glowered at her, feeling instantly foolish for tensing up at all.
"I'm Lily. And this is Flynn and Sally," Lily said, in their stead. "Are you a first-year?"
Luna stared silently at Lily for a few seconds before nodding, with more resoluteness than the question called for.
"Yes," she said boldly. "I am. And those," she said, pointing up at the ceiling. "Are shoes. My shoes, to be exact."
Flynn immediately glanced down towards Luna's feet, only to see that her robes were long enough that he couldn't see them. As if sensing the collective gazes, Luna quickly kicked out one of her legs, showing off her foot, devoid of a shoe, only being covered by a blue sock with orange stripes.
"And I'm quite confident of that," Luna said, proudly.
There was a long pause as, in a rare instance, Lily seemed to not know what to say.
"I see," was what she eventually settled for.
There was another long pause, as Luna stared at her with her foot still sticking out of her robes, before she suddenly decided to sit down on the floor, hugging her knees and staring up at the shoes wistfully, like she had spontaneously and completely forgotten about their presence.
"Umm," Lily said.
Luna gave a start, as turned to Lily with a surprised expression on her face.
"Yes?" Luna asked. "What is it?"
Lily hesitated, before giving a strained smile and speaking up once again.
"You shouldn't be out here on your own," Lily said.
Luna tilted her head sideways.
"I have heard the teachers mentioning that before," she said. "You're not a teacher, are you?"
"No," Lily said, only hesitating for about half a second before answering.
"Are you sure?" Luna asked.
"It doesn't matter either way," Lily replied, apparently deciding that avoiding the question was easier than trying to answer it. "It's dangerous for you to be alone regardless. Do you usually travel with your friends?"
Luna tilted her head further, until she was resting it on her knee.
"I don't have any friends to travel with," she said casually, as if she was telling them what she'd had for breakfast.
There was a short pause before Lily detached herself from Flynn's side and walked over to Luna before gently taking the smaller girl's hands in hers, to Luna's utter bafflement.
"We'll be your friends," Lily said.
"Oh," Luna said. "That's very nice. I've never had a friend before."
Lily made a strangled sound before gripping Luna's hands tighter, to which Luna winced at.
"You have very strong hands for someone so small," she said.
"It makes grabbing people easier," Lily replied, as she pulled the younger girl to her feet.
Luna made a small hum of understanding.
"Should we get your shoes and go?" Lily asked.
"I would love to," Luna said. "But I don't know how."
Flynn glanced up at the shoes, inspecting them once again, trying to figure out how they could get the shoes down. While it was difficult to try and take a pair of shoes down from a telephone wire, since the shoes acted like hooks, thankfully Luna's shoes weren't hanging from a wire by their shoestrings, but were simply floating in the air, as if held up by magic.
It took Flynn half a second for him to realise that was because they were probably held up by magic.
Glowering at himself for not realising the obvious, he pulled out his wand, ready to solve the magical problem with a magical solution.
Drawing his wand back and casting it forward, he shouted out a familiar spell.
"Retraho!"
It was only when Flynn watched the wild sparks of magic flying from his wand, untamed and unrefined, that he realised that he might have made a mistake in his haste. While it was functional, he hadn't developed his pulling spell to a degree where he could control its output, and with how many pillows he had accidentally torn apart over the Christmas break, he could only hope that his spell was unrefined enough that its lack of precision would make him miss Luna's shoes entirely.
Unfortunately for him, he was either skilled or lucky enough that he managed to hit Luna's shoes directly, and with a loud bang, the shoes shot directly towards his face.
The three girls around him let out a loud yelp at the sound, and with Sally still standing beside him, he made sure to grab her head and force her to duck the incoming shoes with him. The shoes hit the wall behind them, and the sound of leather slapping against brick echoed loudly in the halls, before Flynn figured it was safe enough to stand back up and walked over to inspect the shoes.
He frowned immediately when he saw the damage, subconsciously letting out a strangled sound.
While the shoes were technically still in one piece, they were noticeably damaged in comparison to what they had looked like a few seconds before. They were still wearable, on a technical level, but the tongue of one of the shoes had almost been torn off entirely, and was just hanging on by a small strip of leather, while the other shoe had its laces forcibly torn, destroying some of the lace holes entirely.
Flynn stared wide eyed at the shoes, wondering just how much something like it would cost, before he heard a set of footsteps coming from behind him.
Instinctively, he shoved the shoes into his pockets.
"Flynn," Lily said. "Why did you put Luna's shoes into your pockets?"
Flynn scowled at her, gripping the shoes tight in his pockets.
"I damaged them a little, but it's nothing I can't fix," he growled, as if daring her to challenge him on it. "I'll give them back later."
Lily raised an eyebrow.
"Luna needs to walk now," Lily said.
Flynn immediately kicked off his shoes, in Luna's general direction. Though Luna's eyes lit up in excitement, Lily gave Flynn a flat stare as she crossed her arms.
"Flynn," she said. "Those are your shoes."
"She can use them while I fix hers," Flynn said. "I didn't like them anyways."
"I've never seen shoes like these before," Luna said, her voice full of awe as she stepped into the very unremarkable sneakers, her feet only taking up about half of the space in them, making her stumble as she tried to walk around in a circle. "They're very fashionable."
"They're nothing special," Flynn explained. "Everyone wears sneakers where I live."
"Oh, I know what sneakers are. I've just never seen shoes this full of history," Luna said, right before almost falling over and landing on her face, before Lily caught her shoulders.
"Flynn," Lily said, as she pulled Luna up to her feet. "Luna clearly can't wear your shoes. Just give her her own shoes back."
"No," Flynn responded, with no other excuses he could give.
"Flynn," Lily said, her voice flat as she placed her hands on her hips. "Give it."
Flynn scowled at her for several seconds, but when she didn't budge, her expression unamused, he felt his shoulders droop down and he pulled Luna's shoes out of his pocket and placed them gently on the floor.
Flynn looked away as Lily glanced down at the shoes, not wanting to see whatever expression she might make.
"Reparo."
Flynn glanced back to see that Lily had her wand out, and was kneeling over a pair of shoes that looked completely new. Luna's claps echoed quietly, the only sound in the otherwise silent hall, before Flynn heard a quiet snort as Sally turned to hide her face behind her hair.
Realising that his mouth was hanging open, he snapped his mouth shut and turned around, quickly walking away.
"Flynn," Lily called out. "Your shoes."
"I don't want them," Flynn grumbled back.
- - - - -
For the next few weeks, life continued as usual, with the exception of the fact that Luna has instantly carved a place for herself in their group, blending in so naturally that it took Hagrid a few visits for him to realise there was an additional blonde in his usual group of visitors.
Flynn almost got detention on February 14th, after he punched a dwarf in the nose when it tried to shove a chocolate into his face, but he was excused after ten more students got in trouble for the same thing, and the dwarves were kicked out from the school by a furious McGonagall when one of them tried to kiss a seventh year Gryffindor girl, insisting it was a part of the valentine's message he was being paid to deliver.
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One day after classes, Flynn was practising his spells in an abandoned classroom, as usual, and was followed by the gaggle of now-three girls, as usual. When Lily and Sally went to the washroom together, Flynn found himself alone with Luna for the first time, as she turned down Lily's invitation to join them, not understanding the logistics behind how they could all go at the same time.
Flynn was mostly content to ignore Luna, but at a certain point, while he was trying to refine his pulling spell, she walked up to him and squatted down by his side.
Flynn lowered his wand, not wanting to risk accidentally hitting her with a flying chair, and glowered down at her.
Luna met his glare with a curious stare, and when it quickly became clear that she would never receive his silent question, he decided to voice it.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Luna blinked a few times before considering the question.
"I'm avoiding the wrackspurts," she said.
"What the hell are those?" Flynn asked, knowing by now that she wouldn't explain unless specifically prompted.
"They're invisible," she said. "They float into your head through your ears and make your thoughts go all fuzzy. I thought I felt one floating around, and I'm not in the mood for them right now, so I thought I'd sit by you."
"Why?" Flynn asked.
Luna shrugged. "It's not something that the experts agree on, but from my own experience, I've noticed that wrackspurts like going into the heads of tall people. Wrackspurts are pretty hard to avoid, but I thought that if I got closer to a more attractive target, they might leave me alone. Wrackspurts like silence too, and hate it when people talk outside of their heads, but I didn't want to distract you. You seemed pretty busy."
"You're distracting me right now," Flynn grunted.
Luna's eyes widened slightly. "Am I?" she asked.
Flynn glared at her, unable to tell if she was genuine in her surprise or if she was mocking him. Surprisingly, it was Luna that broke her gaze first to look down at the floor, resting her chin on her knees.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Flynn frowned, and debated on whether he should just keep practising his spellcasting, either by switching to a new spell or just accepting that Luna might get hit by a flying chair, but he had been sufficiently distracted to the point where he couldn't help but stow his wand into his pocket.
Looking down at the girl, he glanced at the door to make sure that it was still closed, before he sat down on the floor next to her.
"Are wrackspurts really real? Or are you just fucking insane?" he asked, glancing around the room one more time to make sure that Lily and Sally weren't around to listen.
Luna glanced at him in surprise, before nodding her head.
"They are," she replied. "I've had them in my head too many times to not recognize when a wrackspurt is around. They're impossible to see, but we don't rely on our eyes for everything."
Flynn narrowed his eyes as he glanced around the room, not sure whether to take her seriously yet, but in either case, he gave up on trying to see them on account of their alleged invisibility.
"You were trying to avoid them just now. Does that mean there's one here?" Flynn asked.
Luna stared at Flynn and furrowed her eyebrows in a moment of intense concentration, before her eyes shot open in surprise.
"No," she said, tilting her head in confusion. "I was certain there were a few buzzing around my head a moment ago, but there isn't a single trace of them around, and they usually don't disperse this fast. It must have been my imagination."
Flynn frowned, unable to tell if Luna was insane or not, but in either case he was certain that she genuinely believed in the existence of wrackspurts.
He let out a noncommittal grunt that didn't mean anything in either way.
Luna parroted it with her own, as she placed her chin on her knees again, her face twisted into an expression of intense concentration.
"Very strange," Luna said. "I know that there are some people like Lily who naturally seem to repel wrackspurts, but I assumed that was because she smells like oranges. Maybe your chicken smell has a similar effect. It seems I need to do a lot more research."
Flynn stared at Luna, but she seemed to have forgotten about him entirely, as she mumbled something under her breath about what might happen if she hatched a chicken egg inside of an orange, but before she could complete her thought, Flynn heard a shrill scream coming from the hallway.
His blood froze when he recognised the voice as Lily's.
"Stay here and keep the door closed," Flynn said, not waiting for a response before he got up and ran out of the room.
Bursting out of the room and into the halls, he strained his ears to listen for the direction that Lily's screams were coming from, but grimaced when he heard nothing but the heavy beating of his blood pounding at his eardrums, the initial scream being the only one she made before falling into silence. A moment of panic washed over him, but he realised that if he headed to the nearest girl's washroom, he would probably find Lily.
Though a feeling of dread washed over him at what he might find when he got to her, he fell into a full sprint down the halls.
The nearest washroom wasn't too close to the abandoned classroom that he'd been in, but he managed to make it there in less than a minute. Charging through the door, with no concern for the fact that he was running into a girl's washroom, he almost hit Sally, the door passing only a few inches from her face.
Letting out a startled yelp, she recoiled away and fell backwards, landing on her butt.
Looking around, and seeing no sign of Lily, Flynn looked down at Sally, who was wearing a nervous expression on her face.
"Lily ran out," Sally said, quickly picking herself off of the floor. "We need to find her."
Not wanting to spare any breath to agree, Flynn simply nodded and ran out of the room, looking around for any signs of where Lily might've gone, he spotted a door to a classroom, slightly ajar and immediately sprinted towards it.
The door led to a small classroom that looked like it hadn't been used in some time, but that didn't mean it was currently unoccupied. Immediately after he kicked open the door, the sole occupant looked up sharply at him, glaring at him through a pair of translucent glasses. She had her arms up in the air, like a cartoon spectre, but slowly lowered them to cross them over her chest.
"Excuse me," the ghost girl said, frowning at him. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"
Flynn gave her a sharp glare, and was about to slam the door shut while yelling at her for wasting his time, before he noticed the small quivering bundle of blonde hair, barely visible from underneath the table that the ghost girl was currently floating over.
Flynn gripped his wand in his pockets angrily, but with nothing in his arsenal to deal with ghosts, he didn't pull it out.
"Hey!" he shouted instead. "Go crawl back to the fucking hole you died in you ugly four-eyed bitch!"
Surprisingly, the insult turned out to be much more effective than he expected. Though he had simply wanted to draw the ghost's attention to him so he could hopefully lure it out of the room, instead of becoming enraged, the ghost's annoyed expression immediately scrunched up and she started to bawl loudly.
"Why is everyone being so MEAN to me today?" she said. "You're the ugly one, you big old meanie!"
"I don't give a flying fuck about you, you fucking bitch," Flynn shouted. "Just fuck off!"
The ghost girl let out a loud whine as she balled her fists up and wiped her eyes of the fat ghostly tears that were pouring down her face.
"I just wanted to have a little fun," she said. "I was never a popular girl, and even after I died, everyone just thinks I'm annoying. I just wanted to bully someone, just a little bit. It feels good to make someone else feel miserable for once, I'm sure you would know."
"Flynn," Lily said, in a shaking voice, though she didn't lift her head from the foetal position she was in. "Help me."
For some reason, that seemed to make the ghost girl cry even harder.
"Of course! You're here to protect her, aren't you? From ugly old moaning Myrtle. I'm not a monster that girls need saving from, you know. I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for that horrid little girl who came into MY washroom and started yelling at me, but suddenly I'm a bad girl for doing it to someone else? Why can't someone protect me for once?"
"I don't give a shit," Flynn shouted. "Just fuck off!"
The ghost girl let out a wail and floated off into a random direction, with her hands over her face as she blubbered loudly. She flew directly into a wall, disappearing through it, the sounds of her sobs being muffled immediately.
Flynn waited a moment with his hand still gripping his wand, before he decided that Myrtle wouldn't be coming back. Rushing over, he knelt down underneath the table to look closer at Lily for any signs that she'd been hurt.
Lily didn't react at all to him, not even flinching as he got closer, but with how tightly wound up she was, he wasn't surprised. Sitting down on the floor, hugging her knees over her chest and her face shoved deep into her knees, even with how loose her robes hung over her body, he could tell that her entire body was tense, like every one of her muscles was clenching at max strength.
"Lily," Flynn said, as softly as he could, so as not to scare her.
Lily seemed to twitch at that, though he wasn't sure how she could tense up even harder than she already was.
"Flynn?" she asked nervously. "Is that you?"
Considering that she had already called out for him a moment before, and with how loudly he had been shouting, he was surprised by how unconfident she sounded, like she hadn't actually noticed him until now.
"Yeah, it's me," Flynn said. "The ghost's gone."
Lily didn't raise her head.
"We should get out of here," Flynn said. "Can you stand?"
Lily didn't react immediately, but after a few seconds, her head twitched from side to side, in a vague movement that Flynn interpreted as her shaking her head.
"Do you want me to carry you?" he asked instead.
Again, she didn't react immediately, but after a short pause, her head twitched up and down.
Needing no further prompting, Flynn stood up and grabbed the table that Lily was hiding under and lifted slowly away from her, so he wouldn't accidentally hit her head. Being careful not to scrape it against the floor, so as not to make any sudden noises and accidentally startle her, he gently placed the table down.
Looking back at Lily, he frowned when he saw that she was still curled up in a way that would make her awkward to carry, but with how small she was, he figured that he could at least try to carry her as she was.
Kneeling down and putting his hand gently around her back, he was surprised when Lily suddenly uncurled and turned towards him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and her legs around his waist, clinging to him like a koala around a tree.
Flynn decided not to say anything, especially not anything about the slowly growing spot of moisture against his shoulder, where her face was buried, and stood up, grateful for how easy it was to lift her with her clinging onto him, at the very least.
Out in the hallway, he saw Sally looking around frantically, apparently having left the washroom too late to see where he had gone, and a look of relief and confusion appeared on her face when she noticed him.
Even as Sally fussed over her, Lily refused to let go of Flynn, though she did seem to feel well enough to start answering Sally's questions with quiet hums and nods, at the very least. Wordlessly, Flynn headed back to the classroom where they'd left Luna, and was surprised to find that the door was barred shut, like there was something heavy blocking it from the other side.
Once Sally and Flynn managed to convince Luna to go against Flynn's previous instructions, Luna opened the door and immediately complimented him on his fashion choices.
Lily snorted, and immediately Flynn felt a wet glob hitting the side of his neck, before Lily frantically rubbed at it with her robes while mumbling an apology. Flynn grumbled something unintelligible in response, but didn't complain otherwise.
After Luna invited them into the classroom, as if it were her home, she mentioned something about nuzzleflops and Sally latched onto the offered topic eagerly, if only to help disperse the serious air a little bit faster.
Sitting down on the floor, when it became clear that Sally was interested in learning the entire history of nuzzleflops, Lily continued to cling onto Flynn, only gripping him tighter whenever he suggested that she get the fuck off of him. It was only when he called her heavy that she spoke up, scolding him for daring to speculate on a lady's weight.
Despite the tension in the air dispersing almost immediately at Lily's rise in her mood, she still refused to let go of him. By the time they left the classroom, it had gotten too late for dinner to still be served, so they went to the kitchens instead. While Luna immediately started to ask the house elves about how many different species of elves there were, and if any of them had ever personally met the elusive moon elves, Lily finally hopped off of Flynn, hiding her face as she ran to the nearest sink and washed her face in it.
Though her eyes were still a little pink, Flynn didn't comment on it.