A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends
Comment-fic! Round Three!
-How To: Find the appropriate fandom thread and comment here with a prompt (add the pairing in the subject line). Or a few prompts, actually. However many you can dream up. If the fandom you want doesn't have a thread, make one by replying to the actual entry. Then it's time to respond! Find a prompt you like and run with ( Read more... )
-How To: Find the appropriate fandom thread and comment here with a prompt (add the pairing in the subject line). Or a few prompts, actually. However many you can dream up. If the fandom you want doesn't have a thread, make one by replying to the actual entry. Then it's time to respond! Find a prompt you like and run with ( Read more... )
Neville was wearing what looked to be hip-waders as he stood knee-deep in the lake at Hogwarts. He had a bucket in one hand, and a very fine net in the other, dripping with bits of wet seaweed. He was staring so intently at the section of water at his feet, that he didn't notice Luna sidling up to stand on the edge behind his left shoulder. Tiny black shapes swarmed about his feet, making a dark cloud and stirring up the muck at the bottom.
"Be careful, the muckaltas can wriggle into tiny spaces and can cause foot rot," she advised, her wispy voice floating up to his ear. To Neville's credit, he didn't jump, but simply turned his head to look at her.
"Not sure about the muckaltas," he replied, giving his net a tiny shake to free it of the seaweed bits. They fell with a splash, causing the cloud to scatter a bit, before they came back to the dark cloud. "The tadpoles, however, I'm trying to catch."
Luna's grey eyes widened, and she crouched in the rocky sand at the edge of the lake. She plopped down and began unlacing her shoes, then removed them along with her socks. She tiptoed up to the water's edge and walked in slowly to join Neville. He glanced down, a small smile playing on his lips. "The muckaltas aren't interested in you if you're not wearing shoes," she explained.
He nodded, and returned his attention to the tadpole swarm at his feet. Neville slowly dipped his net nearly parallel to the water, before tilting it sharply at an angle, and scooping a dozen or so tadpoles. He tipped the net upside down over the bucket and shook it lightly, freeing the wriggly tadpoles from their temporary prison and into a miniature version of their previous home.
Luna wiggled her toes in the lake's sandy bottom, and leaned over to look in the bucket. "Why are you keeping them?"
"I'm going to see how they fare with imported water plants from another area," Neville replied, looking down at her. Her usually-wandering eyes were now fully focused on his face, and he was struck for a moment just how silvery they were. He was reminded of the moon reflected off the lake on a clear night. He blinked a few times, then cast his eyes back to the bucket. "They're, ah, a similar species up here in Scotland to one down in the southwest of England, so I'd like to see if--"
"Are you going to keep them?" she persisted in her lilting tone. Her large eyes got impossibly larger as she took a step closer to him.
"The trial is going to run about two weeks," he said, trying to avoid looking directly at her, and focused on the tadpoles in the bucket. "By then, some of the larger ones will have started to sprout legs. They'll feed on the plants, hopefully, and I'll measure how much of the new plants they eat as opposed to this lake's plants."
"I do hope they'll all live," she said, bending at the waist and looking closely at the swarm in the water at her feet. The tips of her wavy blonde hair dripped into the water, and some of the braver tadpoles went to investigate the new intrusion. "It is an experiment, after all. They probably won't."
Neville stared at her. "No, no I suppose not," he conceded. "I hadn't really been focusing on that. It was more about the plants."
Luna tilted her head to the side, unconsciously dipping more of her hair in the lake. "You'll release the rest, right? Back into this lake? To go be with their brothers and sisters?"
He smiled at her. "Of course I will. It's where they belong." He watched her straighten, her dripping hair clumping in a wet mass to the front of her shirt. She paid it no mind and took another step toward him.
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"Baby frogs?" he ventured, raising his eyebrows a bit.
She returned his smile. "More than baby frogs."
"What do you see, but baby frogs?"
"Hope. Opportunity. Freedom to grow into more than they are." With each sentence, she moved closer to him, her eyes locked with his. Neville gulped audibly. "Everyone deserves the chance of getting what they want. Even tadpoles." Luna grinned then, and Neville took an involuntary step back, startling the cloud at his feet.
"I'll, uh, I'll remember that," he mumbled as she walked back to the shore.
Luna picked up her shoes and socks, and began to pad back to the castle barefoot. "Besides, the muckaltas will get lonely. They need the tadpoles to keep their cover." She cast one last glance over her shoulder as she heard the light splash of the net fall from Neville's hand and hit the water.
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A really lovely ficlet! :D
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