Like Harry, I guessed that Luna would be apprised of her acceptance on her eleventh birthday.  It could be that Harry’s birthday just happened to coincide with the delivery of acceptance letters.  In fact, this seems likely considering that letters first started arriving several days before his birthday.  However, it seems unlikely that all new students would be informed so late in the year, when so many would have already made a choice of schools.  Therefore, I suspect that Harry’s notification was sent along with all of the others for “late” birthdays — still very late in the year, but the bulk of the acceptances would already have been issued.  It may even be that Harry’s rogue magic with the glass front of the snake pen is what garnered him his acceptance letter finally, though Hagrid says, “His name’s been down since he was born.”  I automatically assumed that Luna’s birthday would be on April 1, but that bit of information is entirely unimportant to the story as it stands, so I did not state it explicitly. 

After writing the chapter initially, I decided that it wasn’t “loony” enough.  There had to be some Luna-esque humor, especially when both Lovegoods are present in the same room.  Less than a day before posting, the idea of a “how to detect a doppelgänger” article came to me.  As I wrote it, I found it necessary and natural to include Moody and Tonks in the story.  Moody’s paranoia makes him a natural for such a topic, and I suspect that he and Xenophilius are great friends.  I have little doubt that Moody is a frequent contributor of quotes to that paragon of conspiracy theories, The Quibbler.  Tonks naturally inserts herself whenever human shape changing comes to mind.  I was delighted by the results, as Moody and Tonks are tied for second place in my list of favorite characters.  It’s great that they wrote themselves into the story, preventing me from having to manufacture some excuse for including them.  I doubt that we’ll see Tonks again in this story, but I am very hopeful that Moody will make a personal appearance.