Luna Lovegood (was young Dumbledore like her?)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Luna struck me as an affectionate outsider's portrayal of a New Ager. 
She reads a ridiculous journal and believes all the nonsense 
it publishes, wears necklace of Butterbeer cork (or bottle caps) ... 
and is very spiritual. An UNaffectionate outsider would have 
portrayed their New Ager with self-serving rationalizations 
rather than with courage and emotional balance.

A bit about that necklace: UK edition says "Butterbeer corks" and US 
edition says "butterbeer caps". (The US one is in error: the first 
evening at 12 Grimmauld Place had Ginny rolling butterbeer corks for 
Crookshanks to chase.) More important, why is she wearing them? Does 
she think they're beautiful? Or is she trying to save up some number 
of butterbeer corks and atringing them into a necklace is the easiest 
way to store and transport them? Or did the previous issue of The 
Quibbler explain how a necklace of corks would prevent Mugglepox?

On to spirituality: Luna does what she wants (what she thinks is 
right), wears what she want to, says whatever's on her mind, never 
constrained by fear of people mocking her. She showed physical 
courage by joining the raid on the Ministry and continually shows 
emotional courage by not minding what people say about her. She stays 
always calm and sympathetic, never weepy nor angry, despite people 
picking on her, even hiding her things, and her mother's death. 
Severus and Ron could both stand to learn some lessons from her about 
reacting to nasty words (as could I!).

Many HPfGU listies have mentioned that she thus resembles Dumbledore 
("Newt! Blubber! Oddment! Tweek!" "Would you care for a sherbert 
lemon?"). Do people think that Dumbledore was like Luna when he was 
young? I've always thought he was a clever but rowdy kid and young 
man, and learned his enlightened equanimity by long experience.

I've always imagined the young Dumbledore and his close friend(s) 
were a lot like James and Sirius, a bit like Fred and George: 
intellectually brillliant with excellent marks, magically talented, 
athletically talented, socially talented (i.e. charming and popular) 
but also energetic, playful, and rowdy ... rule-breaking for many 
reason including to see if they could get away with it, practical 
jokes on all and sundry, fights and duels with Slytherins (I believe 
Dumbledore was a Gryffindor like Hermione said on her first Hogwarts 
Express, and that that House "rivalry" goes back a long time). 
Feeling such unenlightened emotions as anger, fear of embarrassment, 
wanting to impress people, no empathy for victims of the practical 
jokes... 

But endlessly curious. Pureblood enough for ordinary purposes, he 
took Muggle Studies, then sneaked out of school to mingle with 
Muggles and check whether what he learned in class was true. Playing 
magical practical jokes on Muggles until he noticed how *very* much 
it upset them, and had an attack of compassion. (Wizards were merely 
embarrassed at having been discomforted, but poor Muggles went into a 
total panic: they thought they were going mad or had been attacked by 
the Devil.)