Luna Lovegood sits alone on her bed, in the sky-blue Ravenclaw Seventh Year Girls' dormitory, painstakingly copying out Transfiguration work for Hermione. No one asks her to, no one thanks her - she just does it.

It seems fair, after all - Hermione is her friend, like Harry and Ron; though she gets the feeling that they wouldn't be particularly pleased to return home to a mountain of work. Hermione would be in a dream world, though.

There was no guarantee anyone would even survive to use her copies, but still she lies there, alone, on her bed, for hours. She zones the whole world out, Gnargles and Wrackspurts along with it. No one ever disturbs her - not because they care for her, but because they don't see her.

If anyone ever bothered to really, really look, they wouldn't see an intelligent girl lost in dreams of clouded myths and legends. They wouldn't even see a pretty girl with a gaze obscured by clouds, hopes, wishes.

They would see the life and soul of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She's not particularly happy; she doesn't smile excessively, or laugh loudly. Her smiles are rare and in- between, a quick flash of gratitude before it disappears behind a veil of stories. Her laugh is quiet, but sounds like bells chiming. She's not particularly outspoken; whenever she opens her mouth, it's almost immediately accounted as nonsense - she doesn't mind, even when the Slytherins' laugh cruelly at her small comments.

Luna Lovegood is, in fact, invisible. Not in the literal sense, but in that no one ever looks hard enough to really see her.

Not one person notices that the quiet words of encouragement whispered in their ears during DA sessions are spoken by a witch with dreamy eyes. Not a single person sees that a girl with white-blonde hair is the one behind the small, hardly noticeable, extra pieces of meat on their plates at mealtimes, when the 'Professors' prowl down the tables like terriers. No one thanks a girl with her shoelaces always undone when she takes the blame for a late-night, barely whispered, conversation.

No one knows that if Luna Lovegood, the witch with dreamy eyes, white-blonde hair, and her shoelaces always undone, ever disappeared, they would not last a day.

And yet, she continues to light the castle in her own little ways, unknowingly being the one barrier between high-spirited hopes, and complete and utter dejection. The dreamer, silently weaving her way into so many hearts with her ridiculous remarks.

Those with her in their heart do not even realise she's there. But she is. She's such a major part of their daily life now, so expected, taken for granted, that everything would fall apart if she left. If she fell subject to the turmoil biting at every pupil's ankles.

She dots one last 'i' with a little heart, signs 'Love, Luna' at the bottom, and rolls the parchment up, tying it with a piece of red ribbon. A name-tag reading 'Hermione' in curlicue italics hangs off of it. Luna picks it up gently, and adds it to the ever-growing pile of identical rolls underneath her bed. So many hours spent by herself, maybe in vain, and yet she smiles to herself as she shuts the door quietly behind her.

Off to sprinkle her little sparks of dependable magic just where it's needed most.

The invisible girl.