Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks, or that she was reading a magazine upside-down.

*

She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans.

*

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."

*

"She didn't enjoy it very much," Luna informed him. "She doesn't think you treated her very well, because you wouldn't dance with her. I don't think I'd have minded," she added thoughtfully. "I don't like dancing very much." She retreated behind The Quibbler again.

*

"Of course not," said Hermione scathingly, before Harry could answer. "The Quibbler's rubbish, everyone knows that."
"Excuse me," said Luna; her voice had suddenly lost its dreamy quality. "My father's the editor."
"I - oh," said Hermione, looking embarrassed. "Well ... it's got some interesting ... I mean, it's quite ..."
"I'll have it back, thank you," said Luna coldly, and leaning forwards she snatched it out of Harry's hands.

*

"I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."

*

Luna took a great breath and then said, without so much as a preliminary hello, "I believe He Who Must Not Be Named is back, and I believe you fought him and escaped from him."
"Er - right," said Harry awkwardly. Luna was wearing what looked like a pair of orange radishes for earrings, a fact that Parvati and Lavender seemed to have noticed, as they were both giggling and pointing at her earlobes.
"You can laugh!" Luna said, her voice rising, apparently under the impression that Parvati and Lavender were laughing at what she had said rather than what she was wearing, "but people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!"

*

"Ginny's told me all about her; apparently, she'll only believe in things as long as there's no proof at all. Well, I wouldn't expect anything else from someone whose father runs The Quibbler."

*

"There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you -"

*

Many people were staring at her and a few were openly laughing and pointing; she had managed to procure a hat shaped like a life-size lion's head, which was perched precariously on her head.
"I'm supporting Gryffindor," said Luna, pointing unnecessarily at her hat. "Look what it does ..."
She reached up and tapped the hat with her wand. It opened its mouth wide and gave an extremely realistic roar that made everyone in the vicinity jump.

*

"Mistletoe," said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over Harry's head. He jumped out from under it. "Good thinking," said Luna very seriously. "It's often infested with Nargles."

*

"My dad thinks it's an awful paper," said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly. Sucking on her cocktail onion, she gazed at Rita with her enormous, protuberant, slightly mad eyes.
"He publishes important stories he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn't care about making money."

*

"Dad's reprinting!" she told Harry, her eyes popping excitedly. "He can't believe it, he says people seem even more interested in this than the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks!"

*

"When you say 'Sirius', are you talking about Stubby Boardman?"

*

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack can't fly," said Luna in a dignified voice, "but they [thestrals] can, and Hagrid says they're very good at finding places their riders are looking for."

*

[...] Luna and Neville were bewitching the doors along the opposite wall - then, as Harry reached the very top of the room, he heard Luna cry:
"Collo - aaaaaaaaargh ..."
He turned in time to see her flying through the air; five Death Eaters were surging into the room through the door she had not reached in time; Luna hit a desk, slid over its surface and onto the floor on the other side where she lay sprawled, as still as Hermione.

*

"Daddy sold it to them," said Luna vaguely, turning a page of The Quibbler. "He got a very good price for it, too, so we're going to go on an expedition to Sweden this summer to see if we can catch a Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

*

"I can hear them too," breathed Luna, joining them around the side of the archway and gazing at the swaying veil. "There are people in there!"

*

"I think they think I'm a bit odd, you know. Some people call me 'Loony' Lovegood, actually."

*

"Have you ..." he began. "I mean, who ... has anyone you known ever died?"
"Yes," said Luna simply, "my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine."
"I'm sorry," Harry mumbled.
"Yes, it was rather horrible," said Luna conversationally. "I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?"
"Er - isn't it?" said Harry uncertainly.
She shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you?"
"You mean ..."
"In that room in the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all, you heard them."

*

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"Hello, Harry," said a girl with long hair and large, misty eyes, who was just behind Neville.
"Luna, hi, how are you?"
"Very well, thank you," said Luna. She was clutching a magazine to her chest; large letters on the front announced that there was a pair of free Spectrespecs inside.
"The Quibbler still going strong, then?" asked Harry, who felt a certain fondness for the magazine, having given it an exclusive interview the previous year.
"Oh yes, circulation's well up," said Luna happily.

*

"I enjoyed the meetings, too," said Luna serenely. "It was like having friends."

*

"People expect you to have cooler friends than us," said Luna, once again displaying her knack for embarrassing honesty.
"You are cool," said Harry shortly. "None of them was at the Ministry. They didn't fight with me."
"That's a very nice thing to say," beamed Luna, and she pushed her Spectrespecs further up her nose and settled down to read The Quibbler.

*

"A Wrackspurt ... they're invisible, they float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy," she said. "I thought I felt one zooming around in here."

*

"Oh, hello, Harry," said Luna. "Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?"

*

"She's a bit upset," said Luna. "I thought at first it was Moaning Murtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about that Ron Weasley ..."
"Yeah, they've had a row," said Harry.
"He says very funny things sometimes, doesn't he?" said Luna, as they set off down the corridor together. "But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year."
"I s'pose," said Harry. Luna was demonstrating her usual knack of speaking uncomfortable truths; he had never met anyone quite like her. "So have you had a good term?"
"Oh, it's been all right," said Luna. "A bit lonely without the DA. Ginny's been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me 'Loony' the other day -"
"How would you like to come to Slughorn's party with me tonight?"
The words were out of Harry's mouth before he could stop them; he heard himself say them as though it were a stranger speaking.
Luna turned her protuberant eyes upon him in surprise.
"Slughorn's party? With you?"
"Yeah," said Harry. We're supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like ... I mean ..." He was keen to make his intentions perfectly clear. "I mean, just as friends, you know. But if you don't want to ..."
He was already half-hoping that she didn't want to.
"Oh, no, I'd love to go with you as friends!" said Luna, beaming as he had never seen her beam before. "Nobody's ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine, too?"

*

[...] he approached Luna. She was wearing a set of spangled silver robes that was attracting a certain amount of giggling from the onlookers, but otherwise she looked quite nice. Harry was glad, in any case, that she had left off her radish earrings, her Butterbeer-cork necklace and her Spectrespecs.

*

"Yes, he's [Rufus Scrimgeour] a vampire," said Luna matter-of-factly. "Father wrote a very long article about it when Scrimgeour first took over from Cornelius Fudge, but he was forced not to publish by somebody from the Ministry. Obviously, they didn't want the truth to get out!"

*

"The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They're working from within to bring down the Ministry of Magic using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."

*

"And that's Smith of Hufflepuff with Quaffle," said a dreamy voice, echoing over the grounds. "He did the commentary last time, of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think probably on purpose - it looked like it. Smith was being quite rude about Gryffindor, I expect he regrets that now he's playing them - oh, look, he's lost the Quaffle, Ginny took it from him, I do like her, she's very nice ..."
Harry stared down at the commentator's podium. Surely, nobody in their right mind would have let Luna commentate? But even from above there was no mistaking that long, dirty-blonde hair, or the necklace of Butterbeer corks ... Beside Luna, Professor McGonagall was looking slightly uncomfortable, as though she was indeed having second thoughts about this appointment.
"... but now that big Hufflepuff player's got the Quaffle from her, I can't remember his name, it's something like Bibble - no, Buggins -"
"It's Cadwallader!" said Professor McGonagall loudly from beside Luna. The crowd laughed.

*

"And Harry Potter's now having an argument with his Keeper," said Luna serenely, while both Hufflepuffs and Slytherins below in the crowd cheered and jeered. "I don't think that'll help him find the Snitch, but maybe it's a clever ruse ..."

*

[...] Luna did not seem to have noticed; she appeared singularly uninterested in such mundane things as the score, and kept attempting to draw the crowd's attention to such things as interestingly shaped clouds and the possibility that Zacharias Smith, who had so far failed to maintain possession of the Quaffle for longer than a minute, was suffering from something called 'Loser's Lurgy'.

*

"I could hear the match commentary from here," said Ron, his voice now shaking with laughter. "I hope Luna always commentates from now on... Loser's Lurgy..."

*

"Nice commentary last match!" said Ron to Luna, as she took back the green onion, the toadstool and the cat litter. Luna smiled vaguely.
"You're making fun of me, aren't you?" she said. "Everyone says I was dreadful."
"No, I'm serious!" said Ron earnestly. "I can't remember enjoying commentary more! What is this, by the way?" he added, holding the onionlike object up to eye-level.
"Oh, it's a Gurdyroot," she said, stuffing the cat litter and the toadstool back into her bag. "You can keep it if you like, I've got a few of them. They're really excellent for warding off Gulping Plimpies."

*

The crowd continued to swell; with a great rush of affection for both of them, Harry saw Neville being helped into a seat by Luna. They alone of all the DA had responded to Hermione's summons the night that Dumbledore had died, and Harry knew why: they were the ones who had missed the DA the most ... probably the ones who had checked their coins regularly in the hope that there would be another meeting ...