It took something rather extraordinary to surprise Luna Lovegood. Yet today was the day she would be.
"Are you quite certain?" she was saying to the merman poking his head out of the water down by the Hogwarts boathouse. "I'm sure I saw one down here just the other day."
The merman rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Dabberblimps are very good at hiding," Luna pointed out. "You may have been living in the lake with them all your life and you would never know they were there. Can you not check for me one last time? My father would be ecstatic to learn there was a population of them in the Hogwarts Lake."
The merman shook his head again.
"I see. Well, that's a shame. Can you at least promise to keep an eye out for them for me?"
The merman nodded his head this time, already certain he would have been looking out for these Dabberblimps even though he was fairly certain they didn't exist.
"Thank you. And now I…" she stopped when she saw an incoming stream of bubbles and saw flashing shapes beneath the water that indicated the presence of more merpeople, and sure enough several more heads with long straggly hair and protuberant slightly fish-like faces emerged. But the head that caught Luna's attention in particular had long, smooth dark blue hair, and looked distinctly human.
"Oh… hello…" said Wendy, blinking as she wiped the water from her eyes and rolled off Murcus' back. "Can you give me a hand?"
"Oh, certainly," Luna stepped to the side of the pier and reached down to take the sopping wet hand of the strange girl and haul her out of the water, aided from behind by a couple of mermaids pushing her gently out. Wendy tottered slightly, shivering under the effects of the cold breeze against her wet skin, but she turned back to smile at the merpeople.
"Thank you for everything," she bowed her head to them. "I really appreciate your help and I hope I can visit again."
The merpeople smiled and screeched slightly before with several lithe, flashing splashes, they were gone.
Wendy suddenly felt hands running through her hair and turned around curiously to see Luna holding up some of her blue locks curiously. Wendy blinked at this strange behaviour, suddenly feeling slightly perturbed, but then it dawned on her that this was actually the first human she had set eyes on in this dimension. And thank goodness she at least looked normal.
But apparently Wendy herself didn't, because Luna asked, "Are you a Metamorphmagus?"
"Am I a what?" Wendy blinked.
"A Metamorphmagus. They are witches or wizards who are born with the ability to change their appearance at will, like their height, facial features, hair colour. I ask because your hair appears to be naturally blue rather than dyed."
"Um… no, I can't do that. But my hair is naturally blue."
"Really? How strange."
"It is?"
"I have never heard of anyone having hair that was naturally your colour," Luna shook her head. "And I have heard of a lot of things that most other people don't even believe in."
"Oh…" Wendy looked down at her hair. It had never been deemed an odd colour before - there were several people she knew that had blue hair - Juvia, Levy, both Jellal and Mystogan… but now suddenly she felt very much like an odd one out.
Well, this was another universe…
"You're cold," Luna observed and Wendy remembered she was shivering.
"U-um… yeah… yeah, I am."
"Hold on," Luna slowly pulled out a small wooden stick and said, "We covered this one in Charms just the other day." She jabbed her wand in Wendy's direction and Wendy gasped as she instantly felt herself grow warmer, nice and toasty from the inside out, making her wonder if this was what Natsu felt like whenever he ate fire.
"Wow… thanks," she smiled pushing more damp hair out of her face.
"I have a towel for you too if you want to dry off," Luna went on, picking up her nearby bag and pulling the towel out. "I always bring one with me when I come down here. You never know when a Dabberblimp will pop up and squirt you in the face."
"Thank you. What's a Dabberblimp?" Wendy asked as she took the towel and began drying her hair with it.
"Oh, it's a small fish-like creature that's actually totally flat for most of the time but when it wants to get away from people it swells up to the size of a beach ball by sucking up a load of water and then expels it rapidly to shoot itself above the surface of the water, where it then sucks in air instead and floats off to a place of safety."
"Wow… I've never heard of it," Wendy replied.
"An astonishing number of people haven't," Luna replied. "By the way, my name is Luna Lovegood. What's yours."
"Oh, I'm Wendy. Wendy Marvell. Pleased to meet you," she instantly bowed her head low as she did whenever meeting someone new.
"I have decided that I like you," Luna replied with a smile. "But why are you here? You're not a student so why have the merpeople brought you to the school? Did they find you lost and thought this would be the best option?"
"Um… yes. Just that," Wendy nodded. "One of them saved me from drowning and I got separated from my friends… I'm supposed to go and talk to someone named Albus Dum… Dumblee… oh no, I've forgotten."
"Oh don't worry, I know who you mean," Luna nodded. "That's the Headmaster. He's funny and very nice. He found me lost in the corridors once in my first year and walked me all the way back to my common room then told me it was a crime that my father had not ended up on a Chocolate Frog card yet."
"Chocolate Frogs?" Wendy looked rather alarmed.
"They're not real frogs," Luna replied simply. "But the company who makes them used to mix Fwooper droppings into them before my father called them on it. Anyway, do you want to go up to the castle and find the Headmaster?"
"Yes, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you so much," Wendy smiled, falling in step beside the taller blonde girl as she rubbed at her back with the towel and they headed up the stone steps from the boathouse together.
"So, what about you? You must be a witch, right?" Luna asked.
Wendy was momentarily affronted before she remembered that Murcus had called this place a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry… so she decided to take Luna's words with a pinch of salt. "Erm… no, I'm not. I'm a Mage."
"A Mage?" Luna's eyes widened slightly. "Like some sort of shaman? For healing people?"
"Well… I can heal people but no, I'm not a shaman," Wendy replied. "I'm a…" she hesitated wondering if she should actually mention she was a Sky Dragon Slayer. Did they have Dragon Slayers in this world? And if they did, what were they like? Would anyone believe that Wendy wielded the magic of dragons within her? She doubted it, so she just said, "Sky Mage. I use Sky Magic."
"What does that do?" Luna asked.
"Well… a lot of things," replied Wendy. "I can heal people's injuries, cure fevers and purge poison, and I can give people power boosts when I need to… and I manipulate air any way I like. Watch…" she closed her eyes briefly and Luna shivered slightly as she felt the air currents change a little, and begin to whirl around them to make their hair whip around briefly before Wendy opened her eyes and the wind died down again.
"Is there any chance that my father can write an article about you in our weekly magazine?" Luna asked. "You're really interesting. You don't even use a wand."
"Um…" Wendy blushed slightly. "I… I wouldn't have to do a… a… photoshoot would I?" she squirmed, remembering all the pictures she'd seen of Mirajane in bikinis in numerous copies of the Weekly Sorcerer back home.
"Oh no, you'd just have to show him what you can do and he'd write about it. This is all so fascinating."
Most people would have probably been questioning if they were dreaming or not at this stage on wondering what the heck Wendy's deal was. But not Luna Lovegood. She was well aware that there was still a great world of mystery out there even now, so the idea of someone with magic she didn't even recognise was not even that shocking to her. It was as if she had always known that this was the case or something.
"So then if you can use magic, that means you can see the castle, right?" Luna went on.
"Um… yes, I can see it. Why?"
"Because when Muggles look at the castle, all they see is an old, unstable looking ruin. It's meant to keep them away."
"Oh. Okay…. what's a Muggle?"
"Do you not know?"
"Would I be asking if I did?"
"Fair point, but it is surprising that you don't know the word for non-magical people. Does not every magical person know that?"
"Oh… I see. We don't call them that where I come from. We just call them… people. Like the rest of us."
"And where do you come from?" Luna asked, as they ascended the top of the steps and they began to walk out onto the grounds.
"Well I…"
Wendy was about to launch into a big explanation but suddenly her attention was distracted by something in the distance, and for a while she forgot about everything important. She forgot about her friends, about her position, about finding this Dumbledore person. She could only stare in amazement at the distant figures of what were unmistakably people flying around in the air.
"Wow…" she gasped, shading her eyes for a better look. "What's going on over there?"
"That is the Quidditch pitch," Luna replied.
"What's Quid Ditch?"
"It's a sport with lots of funny rules where all the players fly around on broomsticks."
"Broomsticks?" Wendy asked, excitedly. "You mean like in all the stories? Oh, can we go and see this? Please. I'd really like a look."
Luna smiled dreamily and nodded, laughing slightly as she watched Wendy hurry off towards the pitch and followed at a more leisurely pace, gliding as if she was some type of ghost.
If she'd been paying a bit more attention, she might have noticed that the people on the broomsticks were wearing green.
...
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