"To be great is to be misunderstood." - Oscar Wilde

“She’s barking!” Ron hissed. Harry tried to ignore him, which was easy giving the blinding obviousness of his statement.

The ‘she’ in question was Luna Lovegood, DA member and Hogwarts School’s resident eccentric. It hadn’t been her intention, but her arrival in the library had caused everyone to look up from their Potions essays and Transfiguration homework.

Luna often had that sort of effect on people.

The Hippogriff feathers currently platted into her long blonde hair probably didn’t help.

“Hello, Harry,” she said, giving him a bright smile as she’d wandered dreamily past on her way to the Divination books, “Hello Hermione. Hello Ronald.”

Harry nodded, and returned the smile. It was so bright, so utterly innocent, that ignoring her would have been like kicking a kitten. Even Hermione managed a weak ‘hi’.

Ron continued to stare at her, aghast.

Luna didn’t seem to notice, and drifted past, her robes billowing around her. Strange how her robes seemed to billow. They were the same school robes as the rest of Hogwarts wore, but they looked different on Luna. Ethereal, as if she was an all-too-solid ghost hovering through the castle.

No ghost would wear radishes as fashion accessories.

“She’s barking,” Ron repeated, allowing his voice to rise a little now Luna was out of sight behind the bookcases.

“Ron!” Hermione exclaimed, glaring at him, “She’ll hear you.”

“So?” Ron shrugged, looking a little sheepish, as he so often did when Hermione berated him (despite his best efforts to remain unmoved). “I don’t mean it in a bad way. She’s our friend. But, I mean, come on, Hermione, she must know she’s utterly insane.”

The ghost had drifted around the bookshelves while he was talking/ Ron, pink cheeked, opened his mouth to apologise, but it was rather redundant. Luna looked delighted. He’d called her a friend. He could have added several spiteful and intelligent adjectives after that, and she wouldn’t have cared. A real friend.

“To be great is to be misunderstood,” she said, pleasantly, before slipping past them and out of the library, a battered book clutched to her chest. They could hear her footsteps on the cobbles as she skipped along, but then she rounded the corner and disappeared out of earshot.

“I suppose it makes a chance from ‘wit beyond measure...'” ventured Harry, helpfully.