Luna Lovegood

Madam Umbridge is horrid. She truly is.

She thinks she can simply root around in our private belongings. Perhaps turnabout is fair play?

I heard Lee Jordan talking about letting a couple of Nifflers loose in her office. That has possibilities, don't you think?

It also occurred to me: Hydra said at the meeting of the Tea Appreciation Society that the kittens on the plates mounted on her walls were alive.

Could we come up with a spell to let them go? That would be a good thing to do, don't you think? It would be nice to see something freed for a change.

I mean, it's certainly not sneaking muggleborns out of camps, of course. But perhaps we can work up to that, and we have to start somewhere.

Madam Umbridge:

I went during my lunch to do some more sketches in my naturalist notebook of some of the creatures that Professor Grubbly-Plank has for the Magical Creatures curriculum. I'm afraid there's a hinkypunk that escaped from its confinement, and I'm having trouble with it because I'm not allowed to cast Lumos Duo on it repeatedly to solidify it enough to take it out with Flipendo? And it became very cross when I tried to solidify it by other means, and it's blasting fireballs out of its lamp at me. I'm SO sorry about the wall hangings in the classroom, and one of the portraits in the corridor outside was rather scorched but I wasn't sure if I should use magic to put them out? Since I wasn't actually in an official Magical Creatures class at the time?

(Note to others: dumping ice on them does not solidify them. Nor does dumping treacle on them. Nor turnips. Mr. Milland, there's something in the classroom you'll probably want to see to. Sorry about that.)

There are actually some things that are rather nice about getting up so early.

Like seeing the sun rise.

And being able to spot animal tracks first thing in the morning in the new snow.

The cold air really wakes me up, too.

One of the pleasures of the new year for me each year is cracking open my new naturalist field notebook for the year (I always buy a new one over the Christmas hols at Flourish and Blotts). I spent the weekend reading over last year's book, writing up the year end observations and transferring over my notes about what I particularly hoped to observe this year. I keep a running total creatures list each year. Last year I recorded observing twelve new creatures (although to be fair, I'm not sure it's entirely fair to include the Darbyshire Hexkork I included on the list from last summer, because to be honest, I just saw their tracks, not the creature itself).

I do think my artwork is loads better than when I started my notebooks five years ago. I'm using more colours in my pen and ink drawings, and that makes looking back over my notes much more fun, too.

Professor Grubbly-Plank says that my notebooks are 'very idiosyncratic and unusual.'

I wonder who might be interested in doing a magical creatures club this summer? I've talked with several people who thought it might be fun. The idea would be to get together to visit various sites to see the sorts of creatures we've been learning about in Professor Grubbly-Plank's classroom.

For a first meeting, what about getting together at the Whipsnade Magical Menagerie? Would this Saturday at 10:00 am work? They're having a special exhibition this month of exotic magical birds. I've heard they've obtained a nesting pair of African Jaberknolls, which are purple instead of our native blue, and this is a really rare opportunity to see them.

For future meetings, there are other menageries and museums, or we could meet at some sites that are supposed to have magical creatures, and we can try to identify them in the wild.

I was so busy with the trials that I never made a post for Day 1. I had meant to last night, but Portia and Delia were hashing over what happened at the first day trials, and it took awhile to get Portia calm sort it all out. So I was up late, but I never had a chance to put quill to parchment.

We had four group exercises today, but the groups were not the same every time. There was some confusion after lunch, because we started out the third exercise and then stopped five minutes in because one of the examiners (the very curious lady--she kept asking question--dressed in pink, with the brooch of the kitten that kept meowing) switched several people around, which meant the exercise seemed a bit off kilter. We were all starting at different times, which I don't think was the original intention. But Gareth Archer said it would give us a chance to show how well our group could show, even with a disadvantage. That cheered us right up, and so we did! We came in first place on that one. We managed to find the all of the clues, even the two we had to trade with other teams to find. That was probably the high point of the day for me.

Several people seemed rather cross at dinner. I hope they get a good night's sleep, because we're expected to be up early for the flying examination.

I'm so happy that my owl didn't find you too busy to consider being my mentor for the CCF application. I've thought a great deal about the questions you asked me in return, and I hope my answers will help give you a better idea of why I'd like so very much to be a naturalist.

My father always took me for long walks in the woods around our home from the time I was a very little girl, and he was the one who taught me to look for the signs of magical creatures. I learned how to sketch because I became fascinated with recording the details of what tracks and nests looked like, or the details of the way feathers lay on the back. (My handwriting was a bit sloppy because I was so young at that point, and so sketching was easier). I added paints later because I wanted so desperately to capture just the right colour of the iridescence on the wing of a Fireball Fly or the different jewel-like tones of glowing salamanders. I've spent years collecting notes and sketches in field books (my father showed me how). We kept a Life List of the magical animals and birds and so on that we saw, and it was always particularly exciting when we would find signs of a truly rare creature.

So Care of Magical Creatures is my favourite class, of course. But I'm particularly interested in what you do, working with particularly endangered magical species. My primary interest in Potions class is a little off-centre: I like trying to adapt potions or potion ingredients so that it's not necessary to use as much or as many ingredients taken from the really rarest animals. For example, did you know that when you're brewing Romney's Elixer for Speed, if you add three ounces of hag toe nail clippings, you only need three parts of unicorn hoof shavings to one part horse hoof shavings (instead of five parts)?

I only had to blow up four cauldrons to find that out, too!

I'm sending one of my field notebooks by return owl. I hope you will find it interesting. Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,
Luna Lovegood

Would you like to come over tomorrow morning?

Mrs Brown has said it was all right if I invited over a friend. She doesn't give permission very often, so it would be very nice to see you. I thought we could look through some Mrs Brown's magazines and gossip about the summer fashions, and perhaps go to a tea shop for lunch.

Please do come. Lavender isn't very good company.

I've been going back and rereading old entries, trying to catch up on everything. It's quite fascinating to have this new view of history of the past few years, realising for the first time that there are all these other stories going on there in the background and I didn't even know that they were there at all until now. (I'm very glad, if I didn't say it before, that Hermione Granger and Terry Boot have wands, even if they're hidden. I believe everyone who has the ability to do magic should have the right to have a wand.)

I'm extremely curious about the wand smugglers. I understand why Hermione Granger can't answer any questions about them, but still...it's quite a nice thing to know there ARE people out there doing what Sirius Black said we should do: paying attention to what's really going on. And helping others. Even the people who are the most powerless and despised.

So, who are they? How, exactly, are they operating? Where are they getting the wands? How are they smuggling them in? How do they move them around to get them to new owners? Sally-Anne Perks thought that Mrs Weasley might be involved. Could the barter network be a part of it? She's so involved with it, and that might be a good way to move suspect goods from one part of the Protectorate to another, if you have enough people in the network. Especially if not everyone in it knows exactly who everyone else is.

There are always bits in the papers telling everybody how people shouldn't use the black market, that no true patriot would ever do such a thing. But everybody barters, really. Well, I suppose except for the most important people in the government who can afford to buy rare goods for money at the very expensive shops.

Oh, and also: THAT'S why there were all those bugs in Ravenclaw tower. I really didn't think that people had left out enough food to cause such a big infestation.

Do you promise not to do it again? Or at least a warning first would be nice.

I hope you are quite all right again? All of us with the Tea of the Strange are ready and willing if you need to talk.

Or to practice your duelling technique. Although I might not be as much help as Pansy or Sally-Anne.