Disclaimer: The word that says it all.
Author's Note: I wrote this for an English assignment – a sci-fi fanfic, basically. And, of course, this is as sci-fi as my writing ever gets. Of course, I hope that my English teacher likes it, but in all honesty, your opinions matter far more than hers ever will. Bear with me, please – I had to write this in a single day, and haven't had a chance to get it beta-read.
Also, on a Desperate Measures-related note (for those of you who are reading it), writer's block sucks a lot. It took several hours just to get the 641 words of this thing out, and I can't stand to put out something sub-par on a fic as treasured as that one is – to me, at least.
Anyway, enjoy. Reviews are, as always, appreciated – I know my teacher's not going to tell me anything about it.
She was mad… Everyone had known that, of course, since the first time they spoke to her, it was blaringly obvious that she was completely and totally out of her mind. But this – this was a whole new level of insanity, even for her. But I suppose there's really no way of telling exactly how mad someone is until they're pushed to their limit – and I suppose that she was. I suppose that finally, after all that had happened, Luna Lovegood finally reached the end of her sanity. Unsurprising to some, maybe – after all, the majority of people didn't think she had any sanity left.
It's funny, in a way, how something so small, so seemingly insignificant, could make a person as usually calm as Luna do what she did… then again, she was pretty much the most atypical person I've ever known – it makes sense that her reactions would be the same.
It was my fault, really. She had never been to a muggle house before, and how could I say no? I mean, my aunt and uncle really had no say in the matter – even with Sirius gone, they were still under threat of the Order if they mistreated me. So all I had to do was invite her – it seemed harmless at the time. So I did. And, of course, she accepted. The chance to see an actual muggle home – in person? She was amazed.
So, summer came, and with it, the time of her visit. I casually mentioned it to my aunt and uncle – of course, they weren't happy, but went along with it regardless – as if they had a choice. She came on a Tuesday, I believe it was.
Of course, she met my aunt and uncle and was very polite – I could tell that she was trying very hard to be as charming as she could. They, of course, were not pleased – I doubt they would have been pleased had she offered them solid gold roses upon her entrance. Instead, she came inside, dressed very much like herself, only in muggle clothes. She stood out at Hogwarts because of her "unusual" choices in some things – a specific pair of earrings comes to mind – but there she had been restrained by the strict uniform. Now, there was nothing but her imagination to hold her back. I could bore you with the details of exactly what she wore, but I'll spare you; I'll just say that her personality was definitely not constrained.
She went into Dudley's old playroom – the room that had been "so graciously" passed down to me when I was nearly eleven – and almost shrieked when she saw the computer. I've always thought that, to a wizard, muggles must seem horribly backwards – pictures that don't move, brooms that don't fly; I'd never realized that wizards would assume that muggles were completely hopeless. I realized that, though, when I showed Dudley's old computer to Luna; though not one for stereotypes, she had probably still grown up thinking that muggles had absolutely no knowledge of anything, basically. So when I showed her how to use the computer, all of the things that it could do, she freaked out. I introduced her to the internet – a place with more people than she could ever meet from places that she'd never heard of.
I realize now that it was a mistake, showing it to her. I should have realized it before – it would have saved a lot of wasted energy if I had never bothered; but I didn't. A frantic wave of her wand – mixing magic with muggle technology is a very bad idea, I now know – and she hasn't been seen since. Of course, I can still talk to her whenever I want – she likes to frequent conspiracy-theory message boards and chatrooms. Because there, nobody calls her mad…