Fic: Love Is Blind and Everything's Magical (Part 2)
Love Is Blind and Everything’s Magical (Part 2)
Back to part 1
Luna started simple. Every morning when she entered the ward, she hung charms in Madam Pomfrey’s office, and then crept through the still-sleeping ward to hang charms all around Neville’s bed as well. She began with the normal ones-charms for cheerfulness, to ward off depression, and to keep away the various magical creatures so many seemed oblivious to.
She was also careful to bring the sweetest smelling flowers she could find to hang around Neville’s bed alongside the charms. They weren’t always terribly pretty arrangements, but the smell was fabulous; she just knew they’d help keep Neville’s spirits up.
When Neville remained silent and unmoved, Luna redoubled her efforts. The flowers and charms had reached the ceiling and covered the wall behind the beds two over on either side of Neville’s when Luna came up with an idea.
It was a brilliant idea, but one she quickly realized she was going to need help actualizing. So Luna made a special trip to Diagon Alley on her very next day off to visit the brilliant inventor genius, George Weasley.
When she arrived at Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, she was only slightly surprised to find it still boarded up and dusty. After a few minutes of standing and staring at the door-a door that just felt wrong all closed and grey-Luna looked up.
There was a dim light in the recesses of the apartment above the store, so she conjured a Patronus and sent a greeting George’s way. When there was no response, she did it again. And again. And again. She quickly cottoned on to the fact that she was being ignored, but that didn’t faze her in the slightest.
Luna was used to being ignored by her fellow classmates (when they weren’t laughing at her, stealing her things, or looking at her oddly). She’d never let that stop her from doing what was necessary in the past, and she wouldn’t now either.
Luna was going to make George talk to her if it killed her. Because she couldn’t do this without George, and Neville needed her to do this. But also because, while she understood that George was still deep in mourning, Fred would have wanted George to keep being George. And George just wasn’t himself without pranks and WWW.
Eventually George came down. Luna stood still and silent while he yelled himself hoarse for disturbing him, and then hugged him when he cried. When he was calm, she gently petted his head with one hand and gave his shoulders an equally gentle squeeze.
“We all love you, George. You don’t have to be here alone with his ghost.”
She didn’t mean a literal ghost. But she figured he knew that.
George let out a mangled sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and turned away to wipe his eyes.
“Alright, Moon-face,” he said, and Luna was pleased to see his humor had come back enough that he was playing with her name. “What are you doing here?”
Luna took a deep breath. George was fragile. If she handled this wrong, used the wrong words, reminded him too much of Fred, he might break. And that would break Luna’s heart.
For the first time in a long, long while-possibly ever-Luna was worried about conducting herself appropriately in a social situation.
Luna scooched close to George again, thinking that if it were her, she’d want a cuddle when listening to something hard to hear, especially if she’d been sitting in the dark alone (for days on end, if his facial hair-somewhere between stubble and a beard-was anything to go by). She looped her arm through George’s and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, then forced herself to speak. “I have a friend who has lost his eyesight,” she said quietly. “And...And his family. I think he feels like he has nothing left. I think he thinks that, but I can’t be sure, because he won’t talk. But he hasn’t lost everything. He still has me. And Harry and Ron and Hermione. There are so many people who love and admire him. And he’s so miserable, he can’t see it.”
George looked at her shrewdly, a hint of amusement on his haggard face. “You fancy this guy, huh, Lovegood?”
Luna felt her face heat a bit. “I have been making charms to ward off wrackspurts and Chizpurfles and depression-causing Shmoonoggles. But it’s not enough. It’s not really surprising considering all that’s happened at the castle-Shmoonoggles are particularly fond of battlefields, you know,” she told him, conspiratorially. “Now, I have an idea, but I don’t know how to make it work. But I think it will help; not just my friend, but anyone who feels hurt and alone right now.”
“That’s an awful lot of people, Luna-Lu.” He tried to smile, but it just looked sort of twisted.
“Yes.” She smiled sweetly and squeezed his arm. “It’s exactly the sort of thing you’re best at, George. If you’d be willing...I’d really appreciate your help,” she finished desperately.
George made another one of those half laugh half sob sounds and rubbed the heel of one hand against his forehead. “I haven’t...I haven’t done anything since...since before,” he said, voice thick with unshed tears.
“I know,” she said. She briefly wondered if it was too soon to ask this of George. It had only been two weeks...but she rather thought he might be the type to get lost forever in his misery if he didn’t get pulled out of it and set to a meaningful task.
“I know you’d rather I’d left you alone to mourn, and never made you think about...” Luna paused, found herself swallowing back tears of her own. “About starting again. Without him. But we both know that would be wrong, don’t we?”
George snorted softly, but gave no other response. The two of them sat in silence for a long time before George heaved a gigantic sigh, scrubbed a hand over his face, and turned to look her in the eye.
“What did you have in mind, then?” he asked. Luna was so happy with his response that she knocked them both sideways when she threw her arms around him.
Two weeks later, WWW released its newest line of products: whispering charms. The line consisted of various miniature shapes and figures (most of them were spheres, but in a snarky moment, George designed one shaped like Harry, which turned out to be a best seller) that were charmed to murmur a number of different messages. (The one shaped like Harry said “Whatever else is true, just remember: I killed old snake-face!”) Some of them also had light cheering charms built in, and some glowed in the dark, and some did a little dance. The one shaped like Dumbledore had twinkly eyes. All of them were designed to either hang on a wall or be carried in a bag or pocket. And all of them had the tendency of bringing smiles to the faces of their listeners.
The charms were simple, but effective. George named them Moonlit Whispers in Luna’s honor.
Luna hung them all over Neville’s bed the minute George declared them ready. Then, because they seemed to work better than she’d anticipated (she’d caught the stoic Madam Pomfrey giggling at them once), she started mailing them out to all her friends.
(She took the greatest pleasure in sending Harry the one shaped like himself. Harry had shown up the next day, caught her up in a bone-crushing hug, and told her it was from the entire Weasley family-both for the laugh, and for the joy that came from receiving a brand new WWW box, something they’d feared they’d never see again.)
Neville didn’t seem to respond to the charms, but Luna wasn’t discouraged. She just kept changing them out every day so that he never got bored listening to the same messages. The second line of Moonlit Whispers were specially designed for Neville-they identified themselves before speaking, if they were shaped like a person, and activated only when he moved a certain way. Not long after that, Luna spotted Neville experimenting: he raised his arm, and a little Dumbledore twinklingly remarked on the bravery of Gryffindors. He turned his head and a little star-shaped charm sang a song about flying. He wiggled his toes and a Luna-shaped charm reminded him that one is never alone when one has friends.
Luna felt somewhat encouraged by this, but it wasn’t until two days later, when George presented her with his latest Whispers prototypes, that she felt the dark cloud hanging over the ward finally lift.
When Neville awoke to hear Snape recite a dirty limerick about his potions and his wand, Neville laughed out loud for the first time in weeks.
Luna almost cried-did cry, when the sound repeated itself, albeit more subdued, every time he found a new motion that triggered one of the “Dirty Little Whispers” charms. (Luna noticed, though, that Snape was by far his favorite. He kept activating it and smiling. Smiling.)
That was the day Luna knew for sure that she was going to win the war she was raging against Neville’s depression. It might be a long, hard war, but she was going to win it in the end.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Some weeks later, when all but the bandages over Neville’s eyes had been removed, Luna sat down on the edge of Neville’s cot and extended the box with George’s newest invention to her favorite patient.
Neville held the box and frowned in her general direction.
Luna merely patted his hand, ever-patient. “It’s a gift from George, made especially for you. George was quite insistent that it will become your ‘very favorite possession ever.’” Luna tried hard to mimic George’s tone of voice, but suspected she wasn’t succeeding very well. She didn’t always understand the nuances in the tones of others’ voices.
Neville’s fingers clenched tightly on the edges of the box. After several long, silent moments, Luna took the box back, opening it up and removing the contents. When she’d freed them from the packaging, she picked up Neville’s nearest hand and placed George’s gift in his palm.
“Hello,” said the wild-haired doll. “My name is Bellatrix Lestrange.” Neville froze. “I am an evil, evil Death Eater. Please, I beg of you, punish me for my sins.” Neville let out an odd, choking laugh at that, and Luna found herself smiling as she wrapped the fingers of his other hand around a long pin shaped like a sword.
Neville placidly let Luna maneuver his hand until the pin met the doll, but when Bellatrix let out a long, screeching “Ow!” at the contact, Neville cracked up. He began jabbing the doll with the pin on his own, cackling every time it let out a pained cry.
Luna was just feeling comfortable enough to leave Neville to it when he managed to catch himself with the pin rather than the doll. In a fit of frustration, Neville threw the doll as hard as he could, and Luna watched it bounce and slide under one of the beds opposite Neville’s.
Neville apparently retained enough sense not to throw the pin, although he clenched it in his fist so hard it bent.
Luna sighed at the sight of tears leaking out from under Neville’s bandages and gently pried his fingers open so she could set the pin aside. Then she took Neville’s hands in hers.
“I know they’re your eyes,” she told him quietly. “Losing your sight...that’s not a small thing. You must feel like you’ve lost your whole world. But Neville, you can do this. You’re a Gryffindor. You defied Voldemort. You can do anything,” she finished, tone and expression both fierce.
Neville sat and absorbed her words for awhile. Luna let him, holding his hands tightly and waiting for him to frown, or smile, or squeeze her fingers...anything to show he’d heard her and understood.
What she got was so, so much better.
“Do you think he could make a Snape doll next?” he asked, voice hoarse from more than a month of non-use.
Luna’s response was to throw her arms around him and cry on his shoulder.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Shortly after the Bellatrix incident, Luna dragged Neville out of his cot, bundled him up in cushioning charms (just for the walk), and forced him to go outside.
“Sunshine is good for the soul, Neville. You’re going out if I have to physically drag you,” she told him.
“You wouldn’t just levitate me?” Neville asked, in a now-common show of irritated snark.
“Dragging you would be more effective in making my point,” Luna replied serenely. “So I think I would probably choose that method over levitation.” She offered her elbow to Neville so that she could guide him out of the Infirmary. He grumbled when he took hold of her arm, but he followed her with complete trust in her ability to keep him from smashing his face into something, so Luna ignored his low-grade bad mood.
It took them awhile to make their way from the Hospital Wing to the lakeside, mostly because of the stairs and because Neville still tired easily, but eventually they made it. When they arrived, Luna gently helped Neville to sit down on the lawn not too far from the lake.
“There’s a tree trunk two feet behind you,” she told him, “so you have plenty of room to lay down and enjoy the sun.” She sat beside him, close enough that he could reach her with an extended arm, but far enough away to give him a sense of independence. “The Lake is four meters straight ahead, that funny rock outcropping-you know the one-a ways to our right, and nothing but lovely green grass everywhere else.”
“Okay.”
The two of them sat in silence after that. It might have been uncomfortable if Luna had been anyone but Luna...but she wasn’t. Luna was comfortable in almost any situation so long as she was with friends. Even friends who where were injured and perpetually grumpy because of it.
Luna flopped back on the grass, causing Neville to turn his head in her direction. It looked a little odd since his eyes were still covered by bandages-bright green today with little drawings of hinkypunks and doxies and the face of a tall, big-eyed creature Luna once saw in a Muggle magazine that Harry had informed her was called an “alien.” She giggled when his movement made it look as if the doxies were actually flying.
(Luna changed the bandages every morning, and every morning she drew new designs on them, which she described to a pretending-not-to-be-amused Neville in great detail. At least, she thought he was only pretending.)
Neville frowned at her, then reached a hand out and felt along the ground until his fingertips brushed her shoulder. “Are you lying down?”
“Yes.”
“In the grass?”
“Of course.”
“Doesn’t it itch?”
Luna examined Neville’s puzzled expression-or what she could see of it anyway. “Haven’t you ever laid in the grass before?”
“Not without a blanket. Gran-” Neville stopped, then swallowed thickly. Luna winced a bit, knowing that Neville generally avoided mentioning the woman who’d raised him with an iron hand and then abandoned him in is time of greatest need. She wanted to get up and hug him but refrained. “Gran never let me lay in the grass without a blanket. Too dirty, she used to say.”
Luna reached out and took Neville’s hand, squeezing it gently. “It’s nice, laying in the grass.” She gave his hand a little tug. “Come on. Try it.”
Neville eased himself down beside her, wiggling in an effort to get comfortable. Despite the awkwardness of supporting himself one-handed as he did so, he refused to release her hand. He clung to it like a lifeline as he lay stiffly on his back, his eyes bound against all light and his face a mask of apprehension.
“Hey,” Luna said, gently shaking their clasped hands. “Relax. It’s just a little grass.”
“A little grass,” Neville repeated tightly. “And a few bugs. And some dirt. And who knows what else because I can’t see any of it!” Neville’s hand gripped hers, the pressure too-tight and painful, but Luna didn’t let go. Instead, she twisted onto her side to face him.
“You’re right,” she said. “You can’t. But that’s why you have me. To help you see with your mind what you can’t see with your eyes.” She poked his forehead for emphasis.
Neville’s jaw tightened. “What does that even mean, Luna?” he snarled.
Luna poked him again, letting her fingertip rub at the frown forming between his eyebrows, then smiled and wiggled closer, resting her head on Neville’s slightly hunched shoulder. Neville went completely still in surprise, and Luna’s smile widened.
She stayed like that, not moving, barely breathing, until she felt Neville’s hand loosen around hers. Then she kept still some more until Neville heaved a deep sigh and his shoulder relaxed under her cheek.
Only then did Luna begin to speak. She started with the dappling of the sunlight through the leaves of the nearby tree, moved on to the ants in the grass, the Giant Squid’s serene travels, and the shapes she found in the clouds above. Everything her eyes fell upon, she described in greatest detail, painting pictures of the Hogwarts grounds with her words so that Neville could “see” it all too.
Sometime in the midst of Luna’s description of a cloud shaped like a graphorn (but which morphed into a dragon mid-description, causing much hilarity), Neville loosened his hold on Luna’s hand long enough to lace their fingers together. Luna hid a smile against his shirt, rearranging their hands more comfortably between them, and went on to describe the a bird flitting by.
Sometime later, when Luna had described everything she could think of and had fallen silent, she noticed how hot the afternoon was getting and decided that wading in the lake would do them both good.
It took some cajoling, but Neville was in a much nicer mood than he had been when they’d first come outside, so she managed to convince him fairly easily.
“If I trip and fall and drown in the water,” he grumbled (rather good naturedly), “just remember it’s all your fault.”
“Alright. And when you have fun cooling off and finally remember how wonderful an afternoon at the lakeside can be, just remember, that’s my fault.”
Neville snorted, but he kicked off his socks and trainers and let Luna guide him into the shallows. He clutched at her arm nervously, but let go long enough to reach down and roll up his pant legs when his first step into the water soaked his cuff.
After that he was a little braver. He held her hand to keep himself stable but he waded around, kicking and splashing, with no encouragement from Luna whatsoever.
Things were going extremely well, so Luna relaxed a bit and quit watching Neville like a hawk to make sure he didn’t trip and fall. She started wading around a bit herself, laughing at Neville’s antics and describing things for him, like the fish darting around their legs and the watery plants wrapping around their feet and ankles.
And that was when Neville tripped and fell face-first in the water. The force of his fall yanked his hand out of hers, and Luna could only stare in shock as Neville was momentarily submerged.
She blinked and then leapt into action, reaching for whatever part of him she could get a hold of and mentally cringing at the foul mood Neville was bound to come out of the water in.
Which is why she was shocked when, upon righting himself, Neville sat in the shallows of the lake, sputtering and laughing.
“Are you alright?” she gasped, catching his face between her hands and tilting his head this way and that, checking the bandages to see if they’d come loose.
Neville batted her hands away. “I’m fine, Luna.”
“Yes, but you know how important it is that your eyes stay covered until the curse has completely run its course,” she said, double-checking the charms sealing the bandages to the side of Neville’s head. “Otherwise you could have a relapse and possibly-” Luna was cut off when her knees were knocked out from under her by a sweep of Neville’s arm and a wave of water suddenly washed over her head.
Luna resurfaced, coughing and spitting. “Neville!”
Her friend laughed. “You brought me out here to relax and have fun, right? Take you own advice, Lovegood.” He splashed water at her. “Stop worrying about me-I’m fine-and my bandages-also fine-and have a little fun.”
Luna blinked once, twice, her brain still processing Neville’s words. But when they finally sunk in, Luna grinned wickedly. “I’ll show you fun, Longbottom,” she said, and there must have been something of her expression in her voice because Neville lost the playful expression and raised both hands, palms out, between them.
“Now take it easy, Lu,” he said. “Remember, I’m just a poor blind boy. A cripple. A-Ah!” His words devolved into laughter and then spluttering as Luna tackled him backwards.
They spent the afternoon laughing and splashing and laying in the sun.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What are you drawing on my face today, Luna?” Neville asked, tilting his head so that Luna could secure the bandages (blue today, she’d told him) to the side of his head.
“Nothing,” she replied happily. “There’s no time for arts and crafts today.”
“No time for you to draw on my face?” Neville’s tone was incredulous. “It’s practically your favorite thing to do, after drawing on Lavender’s face.” He frowned. “We should maybe talk about your obsession with drawing on people.”
Luna laughed. “Today is a day for new favorite things.”
“Like what?”
“School!”
“What?”
“You,” she poked his chest with one pointy finger, “are going to school today.”
“Luna-”
“I found your wand. I’ve been searching for it for ages, you know. But now that I’ve found it, I’m taking you back to school.”
“What good will that do?” Neville burst out angrily. “I’m blind, remember? My wand is more useless to me now than it was during first year when everything I touched became a new disaster.”
“Neville-”
“And thank you so much for reminding me that I am now effectively a squib!” Neville ended on a deafening shout.
Neville’s displays of temper were far and few between these days, but Neville was still a far cry from the determined, easy-going boy who’d lead a guerilla army of schoolchildren against a castle infested with Death Eaters for months on end.
Madam Pomfrey came hurrying out of her office to scold him, but Luna met her eyes and signaled that she was taking care of it. Pomfrey looked doubtful, but retreated all the same.
When Pomfrey was gone, Luna studied Neville’s defensive pose and angry scowl and sighed. She shifted the tray full of bandages and potions from Neville’s cot and placed it on the bedside table. Then she sat on the edge of Neville’s mattress.
“Neville,” she said, touching his chin gently with her fingers, tilting his stubborn face back toward her. “I know. I know how much you hate feeling useless and how much it meant to you when you realized what a good wizard you actually were. When you realized you could do whatever you wanted, anything you set your mind too. But-”
“Luna-”
“Hush, Neville.” Luna took his face between her hands when he tried to jerk his chin away. “You are incapable of being useless, Neville. And after what you’ve done this last year, no one, no one, other than you, is ever going to think you’re useless again. Even without your eyesight. Even if you never did magic ever again.”
She held his face still for a long, long moment, knowing he could feel her stare. Then she released him, brushed his hair from his face.
“But, as it happens, you are capable of doing magic. With your wand. Without your eyes. Neville, you are not a squib. Not now, not ever.”
Neville’s jaw dropped. “Wha-what?”
“You. Are. Not. A. Squib.”
“How? I thought...I thought...How?”
“You’re not the first wizard to lose his eyesight,” she reminded him gently. “There’s such a thing as blind magic. It’s hard,” Luna added. “The book says it’s difficult to learn it when you’ve been doing magic by sight all your life. But I believe in you, Neville,” she told him with quiet confidence.
“Ok.” Neville sucked in a breath. “How?”
“Hermione and I have been doing research. In the restricted section,” she added in a hushed voice. Hermione had seemed very familiar with the restricted section, but Luna had never been in it before. “The restricted section is fascinating, Neville. And a bit creepy. There is a book in there that-”
“Stay on point, Ravenclaw,” Neville murmured with a quiet chuckle.
“Oh!” Luna remembered. “Yes. Well, Hermione and I finally found something last week. It’s all about how to do blind magic. Instead of seeing the world around them with their eyes, aiming their wand, and casting, this book explains how the blind ‘see’ the world around them with their magic and then cast according to what they sense. There’s also a chapter on blind-aid spells, like how to get a book to read itself out loud. I’ve been studying the spells and techniques all week, and now I’m going to help you learn to do it.”
“Blind magic.” Neville sounded awed. “Alright then, Lovegood. Instruct me.”
“That’s ‘Professor Lovegood’ to you.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The first week was torturous for both of them, and the second was little better. Halfway through the third week, Neville accurately cast a Cheering Charm at Luna from across the room.
At the end of the fourth week, he cast a Summoning Charm that hit her on the first try. When she flew across the room into his arms, knocking them both over backwards, he laugh in excitement, then tugged her close and kissed her square on the mouth.
“Let’s try the charm again,” he said. “I think I’m starting to get the hang of this.”
It was several minutes before Luna got her wits back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The day Neville’s bandages came off permanently was the day Neville first kissed Luna without a magical success prompting it.
She was almost accustomed enough to the kissing that she didn’t go speechless afterward.
Almost.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Neville left the Hospital Wing and moved up to Ravenclaw Tower (which now functioned as the living quarters for all who remained at Hogwarts), he held Luna’s hand all the way.
Neville was more than capable of getting around on his own these days-he was proficient enough in blind magic to navigate the steepest of stairs and the tightest of crowded corridors-but he held Luna’s hand anyway.
“Just so you know, I’m holding your hand because I want to, Lu,” he assured her as if she didn’t know already. “I always want to hold your hand,” he added, kissing her knuckles as they walked.
Luna just smiled, and when she thought Neville least expected it, she crowded him into a corner and kissed him. He kissed her back with a happy laugh, completely unsurprised.
“One of these days,” she told him when she pulled away, “I’m going to manage to surprise you.”
“Persistence is the key to success,” he replied mildly. His grin was gigantic. Luna looked up into his unseeing eyes, perfectly aimed in her direction, just as they always were (as they always had been, she was only just now realizing), and kissed him again.
Luna took great joy in trying to surprise or scare Neville, which was almost impossible to do now that he could “see” so much of the world with his magic. Her favorite method was sneak-attack kisses, but she’d been known to tackle him coming down stairs, tip-toe up behind him when he was preoccupied with something, and leap out around corners and doors. She’d even creep about when he was conversing with Dean or Hermione. Sometimes Neville tried to play along, but Luna could always tell when he wasn’t surprised.
It didn’t stop her from trying. It was fun, and helped reemphasize how much Neville could do with his magic these days.
But mostly it was just fun. Especially the kissing bit.
Neville tugged her closer, leaning back into the corner and settling her securely against his chest. He brushed his hands through her long blond hair, tucked a few loose strands behind her ear, then cupped her jaw and tilted her face up. “I see you, Luna,” he murmured, proving that he sort of could, in an odd and magical way, by unerringly brushing a finger down her nose.
Neville always said “I see you” when they played this game. Luna was beginning to realize that when he said “I see you,” he meant “I love you.”
She smiled a smug little smile that he couldn't see-because Luna was a clever clever Ravenclaw who'd figured out his I-can't-say-the-words-yet boy-code-and teasingly whispered back, "I see you too."