When Harry entered his apartment with Luna, it was to find Doreen lounging in front of the TV watching some kind of cartoon. It wasn't until he'd taken a second look at it that he realised what it was – an animation featuring the Avengers. Currently, his cartoon counterpart was battling some kind of alien monster, sending different coloured beams of light at it before sending the four armed, red-skinned creature flying across the screen.
Closing his eyes, Harry counted to ten while simultaneously making a mental note to rant to Tony about it. Not that that was likely to do much good. The man simply loved to be the centre of attention and to be immortalised like that was probably a dream come true.
Clearing his throat had the desired effect, although Luna's disappointed 'ahh', was not what he'd been expecting when Doreen sat up and instantly snapped the cartoon off, most likely because she felt that it was too babyish for a teen to be caught watching.
Deciding to ignore the whole situation, Harry settled for introductions.
"Luna, this is Doreen Green," Harry said, gesturing to the teen girl now standing in front of the couch. "She 'rents' my spare room and also works in the Den, when she's not at school.
"Doreen, this is my friend from England, Luna Lovegood. She'd visiting for a couple of days and will be staying with us."
A great smile blossomed on Doreen's face as she bounced across to shake hands with Luna.
"Hi! It's great to meet you. I'm guessing that you've known Harry for a while?" she said in one great rush.
Luna, for her part, cocked her head quizzically towards the girl, her large blue eyes scanning her up and down before she turned to Harry.
"You didn't say that she was a w…" Luna began before Harry's eyes rounded and he practically slammed his hand over her mouth.
Seeing the aghast expression on Doreen's face, Harry blurted the first thing that he could think of.
"Don't mind Luna, she often has no filter between her brain and her mouth. Um, just excuse us a minute, I need to … to …"
In the end, he faltered and with a shrug practically dragged Luna out of the room, down the hallway and to his room where he closed the door and raised a silencing charm. It was then that Luna decided to lick his hand, making him shudder and quickly remove it from her mouth and wipe it down the legs of his jeans.
"Now, why did you do that, Harry?" Luna asked intently. "I was only going to point out that she's magical, just like us."
"That's just it, Luna, she's not," Harry replied before continuing quickly. "That's not to say that she'd not different, because she is. Just that I'm not sure how and I'm positive that she's trying to keep it a secret."
"Well, that's silly. We're all different in some way. The world would be rather boring if everyone was exactly the same," Luna pointed out.
"I know, Luna," Harry replied. "But we both know what it's like to be made fun of and hurt for being different and I'm pretty sure that Doreen's suffered in the past because of her differences. I'm hoping that she'll eventually open up if I can show that I'm trustworthy and that I won't hurt her or make fun of her."
"That's very kind of you, Harry," Luna smiled, patting him on the arm.
"Um, Luna? How'd you know? That she's different, I mean?" Harry asked.
"I'm not sure," Luna replied, her eyes going slightly out of focus. "Doreen has a touch of an animal about her. I was wondering if she'd been trying to become an Animagus and something had gone wrong?"
"Well, she's not a witch, so that can't be it," Harry said. "Let's just try to act normally and see what happens."
Luna giggled at Harry's suggestion. "After your antics a few minutes ago, I'm not certain that normal is possible."
Harry sighed. He'd missed Luna. But there were definitely times that he didn't miss the obvious statements that she was prone to make, highlighting just how idiotic he could be every now and again.
ooo00ooo
Dinner the night before and even the evening afterwards had been incredibly awkward.
Doreen kept giving both Harry and Luna the oddest looks, as though she were both worried for their sanity and waiting for either Luna to say something strange or for Harry to try to stop her. Harry, of course, did his very best to avoid looking at Doreen very much at all, or else making sure to change the topic away from anything that could even remotely set Luna off onto one of her creature stories. Luna simply found the whole thing amusing and spent the night grinning and giggling the whole time.
The morning hadn't been much better. What didn't help was that Doreen had that particular day off work. And then she'd gone and said that she was going to go to Central Park, the only real green area in the city, and there was no way that Luna was going to miss that, so promptly invited herself along.
Of course, that meant that Harry had to go, too.
"Do you come here often?" Luna asked Doreen as the three wandered one of the less frequented paths.
Doreen nodded eagerly and quickly took a big lick of her mango ice-cream that they'd gotten from the vendor before answering.
"Every chance I get," she finally replied. "Reminds me of back home. And Monkey Joe loves it here."
Their three heads automatically swivelled to regard the squirrel who was currently scampering along amongst the trees a little distance in from the path. No matter where they went, Monkey Joe did an excellent job of keeping pace with them, sometimes on the ground like now, or more often than not, by scampering from branch to branch and tree to tree.
"Your little friend is incredibly loyal," Luna remarked.
As one would expect, the instant that Luna had been introduced to the squirrel, she'd been captivated. She'd even made squirrel-like noises at Monkey Joe the night before, which had caused the squirrel to chitter back at her and for Doreen to roll around the floor of the lounge laughing so much she'd had to hold her stomach.
The three of them watching Monkey Joe caused him to pause in his run along the ground between a pair of trees and to look back at them.
That pause and distraction, though, was exactly what the predator needed.
The brown-coloured snake wasn't large; indeed, Monkey Joe was actually larger, but that didn't seem to be a deterrent to the snake. As soon as the squirrel was distracted, it slithered from its hiding place and poised before darting its head forward, its mouth open and fangs ready.
§Stop§! Harry yelled, one hand extended as though he could physically restrain the snake even from that distance.
At the same time, Doreen had taken a couple of quick steps forward as she, too, yelled out.
ʆ"Look out! Behind you!"ʆ
At Harry's command, the snake froze mid-strike before swivelling its head to look at him.
§Speaker§? the snake asked in confusion.
§Leave the squirrel. It's a friend§, he commanded.
§As you wish, Speaker§, the snake replied before dropping to its belly and turning about to slither back into its hidey-hole.
ʆ"I think it's okay, Monkey Joe. I think that Harry told the snake to leave you alone,"ʆ Doreen told a still-shivering Monkey Joe as he scampered across the grass and up her body to perch on top of her head.
Finally, with the danger past, Harry and Doreen turned to stare at each other.
"You speak squirrel?" Harry asked.
"You can talk to snakes?" Doreen asked at the same time.
"As fascinating as your abilities are, I think that we should have this discussion somewhere a little more private," Luna commented.
Without taking their eyes off of each other, both Harry and Doreen gave simultaneous nods of agreement.
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