Summary: Luna doesn't like to dance in Order of the Phoenix. She dances in Deathly Hallows. Ever wonder why?

Universe: Canon, at the end of chapter 15 of Half-Blood Prince, after Harry's just spied on Snape and Draco during Slughorn's Halloween party.

The rest of the party

After a few minutes, Harry returned to the party. He had to tell Hermione about Malfoy refusing to tell Snape what he was doing. He spotted the back of Luna's head and rushed over.

She was talking to Cormac McLaggen. He walked up behind her and waited for her to finish. "...which is how they find each other, you see. They can see the reflections from their ears on the bottom of the surface of the water."

McLaggen looked exasperated. Harry knew how McLaggen felt, but considering that Hermione had earlier been subject to large amounts of Quidditch talk, which she wasn't interested in, he felt that McLaggen deserved having to put up with Luna's strange ramblings about animals that probably didn't exist.

But she had finished, so he opened his mouth to talk. Before he could say anything, Luna said "Hello, Harry." without turning around.

"Hi. Er, how did you know it was me?" Harry asked.

"I can see your reflection in the window, just like a dabberblimp." She pointed. "I was just telling Cormac here. He wanted to talk about Quidditch, but I wanted to talk about dabberblimps, and he was too polite to interrupt when I kept talking." Harry looked and saw her reflection looking at him. It smiled at him.

"Have you seen Hermione?" he asked them both.

Luna said, "Not since you left."

But McLaggen said, annoyed, "Yeah, she said she was tired and going to bed. I don't know why she came to this thing, or invited me."

Luna said vaguely, "Well, she was trying to make Ron annoyed by inviting someone else, and she thought you were the most annoying person she could find."

Harry had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. McLaggen stared at her for a second, mouth open, and spun on his heels and marched off.

Luna stared at McLaggen's back as he left, then turned to Harry and said, worried. "Oh, you don't think he thought that I meant that he was annoying, do you? I just meant that Hermione thought that, not me. I thought he was polite. I did say that he was polite, right?"

Harry, still grinning, said, "Oh, I'm sure he knew what you meant." She smiled, and Harry was struck with an idea. "Would you like to dance?"

She frowned, "No. I don't like to dance.".

Harry vaguely remembered her saying something like that when he first met her a year and a half ago, on the Hogwarts Express. At that time, he'd just met her, so hadn't commented. But now, if he had been asked to pick among all his friends the one most likely to enjoy dancing, it would have been Luna, who, now that he knew who she was, he often spotted wandering around humming and twirling.

Maybe she meant she didn't know how to dance formally, he'd certainly been worried about that two years ago at the Yule ball, but glancing around, he saw only a few people were doing that. The Christmas music didn't really lead itself to that, and most couples were just moving back and forth to the music.

So he asked, "Why not?"

For a split second, her silver eyes seemed to fill with tears, but she blinked and they was gone. "I-I don't want to..." She thought for a second. "But this is a party. And I'm here, and people are supposed to dance at parties. And it's not really the same..." she trailed off, looking at her feet.

Then she looked up, and normal cheerful Luna was back. "Yes, I would like to dance with you." She extended her hand, and Harry looked at it for a second before it registered he was supposed to take it.

He reluctantly did so, not understanding what was going on. He lead her out to the dance floor, where the band was just winding down the last song. Harry hoped if they started a waltz or something that he remember enough from the Yule Ball from two years ago to dance in some reasonable manner, although if Luna didn't dance she'd probably never know the difference, and suspected she wouldn't care if he danced poorly anyway.

She'd probably tell him he couldn't dance, but she wouldn't care in the slightest. It was nice not having any pressure for once.

The band started in with a Christmas tune, and he reached out to take her other hand, but she yanked it away before he could.

Startled, he looked into her face. She had a horrified expression on it, and before he could ask her anything, she slipped out of his other hand and ran out of the party.

Harry stood there, blinking, as people turned to look at him. He was aware that they probably thought he'd done or said something rude, but he really didn't care. He'd never seen Luna upset before. He'd seen her a little annoyed when Hermione insulted the Quibbler, but that was about it.

He couldn't imagine what she had been upset at. It couldn't be him reaching for her hand, that didn't make sense, and he hadn't even started to dance yet, the music have just started.

Had she gotten upset at the music? He realized the song was an instrumental version of God rest ye merry, gentlemen, and was reminded of Sirius, last Christmas, singing in parody, God rest ye merry, hippogriffs to Buckbeak.

Luna had been there for him after Sirius had been killed, and he was going to be there for her now, whatever had upset her. He ran out after her.