You might understand the plot more now

Fine print

Luna awoke and immediately looked around her. Nobody had seen the man she killed last night, though, who would? It was hard to see though the disillusion charm. Last night was a little blurry to her. She wasn’t sure why she killed the man, he was just a muggle, nothing more. He could do no harm to her whilst she had her wand. Yet she killed him. Luna thought about all the people the man could have who cared about him. He might have children, loved wands, parents, grandparents! He was the first person she killed who she had no idea about their family. She had known about Rodinth’s and she obviously knew about her own. The man had done nothing to her. And she killed him. She then realised, she didn’t care.

Determined to get as far away from Hogsmeade as possible she stood up and began to walk away. It was then she noticed the letter on the floor beside her, she turned back and picked it up. It was Eliza’s letter and after quickly reading through it, Luna moved to burn it but stopped. Looking back at the letter. Something wasn’t right about it. “They were reading our letters and they don’t even know what I’m telling you now.” She whispered. Something wasn’t right about that line. Surely Eliza would just write ‘They were reading our letters but they’re not now.’ There was something odd about the line. “I understand why you did what you did. Totally.” It made Luna think that Eliza was being careful with words, she was careful with how she phrased things, Luna realised that now.

Any ministry person would think that Eliza was referring to Luna taking her hostage, but the word Totally, Eliza was referring to Luna pretending to attack her. If Eliza wasn’t saying this directly, it meant that the ministry didn’t know what happened and that they were reading her letters and Eliza knew it. When she read over the rest of the letter closely things began to click.

Eliza had been taken to the ministry when Luna ran, that was obvious even without Eliza stating it. Luna knew that normally after something like that, Eliza would understand Luna’s mistrust and wouldn’t ask them to meet after a quick apology. Someone was making her ask them to meet. And that someone had to be the ministry. But the fact that Eliza wasn’t mentioning anything that the ministry didn’t know, showed Luna that Eliza hadn’t told them, or she would be encouraged to mention things openly. And finally, she only had until the end of the Christmas holidays for them to meet.

Luna was tired out from all the thinking, but she had to get everything straight in her head. One question she hadn’t answered was why Eliza would agree to something like that? But Luna realised she actually did have the answer. Eliza had helped Luna to escape them, she could be charged with assisting a murderer, she could be sent to Azkaban. Unless she helped to catch a bigger criminal, and they had only given her until the end of the Christmas holidays.

Luna realised that it was far fetched and could be a load of dragon dung, but she would much rather clutch to the hope that her friend wasn’t a back stabbing traitor, and was actually doing her best to keep both of them out of Azkaban. So Luna decided that Eliza deserved a response.