He finally tracked her down as she emerged from a girl’s bathroom on the floor below. She was accompanied by Luna Lovegood, who was patting her vaguely on the back.
“Oh, hello, Harry,” said Luna. “Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?”
“Hi, Luna. Hermione, you left your stuff…”
He held out her books.
“Oh, yes,” said Hermione in a choked voice, taking her things and turning away quickly to hide the fact she was wiping her eyes with her pencil case. “Thank you, Harry. Well, I’d better get going…”
And she hurried off, without ever giving Harry any time to offer words of comfort, though admittedly he could not think of any.
“She’s a bit upset, “ said Luna. “I thought at first it was Moaning Myrtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about Ron Weasley…”
“Yeah, they’ve had a row,” said Harry.
“He says funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?” said Luna as they set off down the corridor together. “But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year.”
“I s’pose,” said Harry. Luna was demonstrating her usual knack of speaking uncomfortable truths; he had never met anyone quite like her. “So have you had a good term?”
“Oh, it’s been all right,” said Luna. “A bit lonely without the D.A. Ginny’s been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me ‘Loony’ the other day—”
“How would you like to come to Slughorn’s party with me tonight?”
The words were out of Harry’s mouth before he could stop them; he heard himself say them as though it were a stranger speaking.
Luna turned her protuberant eyes to him in surprise.
“Slughorn’s party? With you?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “We’re supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like… I mean…” He was keen to make his intentions perfectly clear. “I mean, just as friends, you know. But if you don’t want to…”