fic for redshoeson: Moments of Luna See (Harry, Luna, G)
Title: Moments of Luna See
Author: cedarlibrarian
Recipient: redshoeson
Rating: G
Character(s): Harry, Luna
Author's Notes: Many thanks to D for the beta!
--
The doorbell at the Lovegood residence hadn't worked correctly since half the house had been destroyed during Harry's last visit. It clunked tunelessly when Harry rang it.
"I'll get it!" came a female voice from behind the door. Harry heard footsteps and saw dishwater blonde hair bouncing when Luna opened the door.
"Harry! It's so nice to see you! Why don't you come in?"
Harry could see there was still a lot of work to do on the house. Some walls had holes and the wood floor beneath his feet was scarred. Still, the house was imbued with light. Pictures of creatures and places Harry had never seen before hung on the few walls that had survived the collapse.
"Would you like tea?" Luna asked, heading for the kitchen. "We have a new one in that Dad got a sample of. It's from Brazil. Quite good. He says it's oddly good as a nargle repellent."
"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks." Harry had no clue what nargles were despite knowing of them for years, but it would be rude to refuse Luna's offer.
As she set the tea and a thick white ceramic mug in front of him, Luna asked, "What brings you here, and without Ron and Hermione?"
Harry shrugged. "I just wanted to say…" He'd rehearsed a million speeches but he realized none of them were quite right. "Thanks. For…for what you said at the end of the battle, and for getting me out of there."
Those words will suffice. For now.
Harry doesn't tell Ron or Hermione about the nights he invites Luna to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for dinner. He's sure it would be an uncomfortable foursome. They all get along, of course, but there are things Harry can talk about with Luna that he finds Ron and Hermione don't understand. Luna knows what it's like to lose someone important at a young age. While Ron and Hermione prefer to have each other's company, Luna understands the power of solitude. There are nights when they sit in the living room drinking tea or wine or brandy and not speaking, and Harry knows this is fine with Luna.
"What next?" she asks him one night after Voldemort has been dead for two months.
"What do you mean?"
"Voldemort's gone. What's left for you now?"
If there was one thing Harry had learned from Luna's company, it was that sometimes the questions that seemed the most complicated had the simplest answers. There were a thousand answers to her question. He could have said, "Traveling to America" or "days' worth of press junkets" or "spend the rest of my days as a wizarding socialite." All would have been perfectly viable answers.
Instead, he replied, "Absolutely nothing. And I'm really looking forward to it."
When Harry was finally ready to take Ginny out on their first official date since the end of the war, to the Holyhead-Puddlemere game, he was so nervous that he couldn't eat for two days beforehand. He thought about that book Fred and George had given Ron with ways to attract witches, but all those ideas seemed ridiculous now. He needed a woman's opinion on his preparation for the date but as much as he loved Hermione, he couldn't deal with Hermione's need to apply logic to everything.
Can you come over early on Friday night? he asked Luna via owl. I've got a date with Ginny.
Harry knew he didn't have to add the rest for Luna: and I'm scared as hell.
Luna arrived at Twelve Grimmauld Place carrying a gold bag. "I've brought a few things for you to take on your date," she said happily, sitting in the chair at Harry's desk. "First, here, you'll want to put this on."
He uncorked the glass vial she handed him and white vapor curled up from the opening. "Erm, Luna, I really appreciate this but…"
"It's not going to hurt you," she said. "It's just a little potion I put together. It'll help calm you down. But it's for wearing, not drinking."
Harry ignored her and reached into his closet for a different tie. He held both of them up for Luna. "Green or blue?" he asked.
"You're not going to wear them both at the same time? I think that color combination would be very nice on you. Why don't you try the potion? Put some behind your ears."
Annoyed, Harry took the potion and did as he was told. He smelled the sea and freshly cut grass and wood polish. A deep breath, and he could feel his stomach unclench.
"Hey, that…" He took another breath. "Thanks."
"You're most welcome," Luna answered. "And I think Ginny would like it if you brought her some flowers. I'm partial to yalsawog blossoms myself but they can be an acquired taste."
"Um, I was planning on daisies. Are daisies okay?"
"Daisies are wonderful. No one can be sad looking at a daisy. But if I do say so myself they are a little ordinary."
Hanging the blue tie back in the closet, Harry replied, "Luna, I think Ginny kind of appreciates the ordinary."
Luna sifted through the contents of her bag. "I know," she said with a sigh.
They went as a group to the Quidditch World Cup the next year: Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. It was Canada versus Germany and Ginny and Ron couldn't stop arguing about who would win. Ron was rooting for Germany.
As they climbed the stands to their seats Luna stopped to buy a white scarf covered in a pattern of red maple leaves and a small German flag.
"What're you buying both of those for?" Ron asked. He couldn't keep the snide tone out of his voice. "There's no point. Steiner is a far superior Seeker to Guillaume."
"That doesn't mean both teams don't need my support, Ronald," Luna replied. "If I'm not cheering for one team or the other, why not cheer for both?"
Ron raised his eyebrow. Harry knew that look well, the one that said, "That girl is mental." He also knew that there was no stopping Luna when she got one of her ideas.
And cheer for both sides, Luna did. She stood straight and proud as "O, Canada" played and cheered with wonder as Germany's mascots honored their legacy of fairy stories. She stood on her seat and screamed and whistled every time a team scored. Ron frowned when Luna cheered for Canada and even asked Hermione to switch seats so he wouldn't have to sit next to her. Everyone around them, however, found Luna's enthusiasm infectious. They danced with her and waved their flags and shot sparks from their wands in a multitude of colors.
By the end of the evening, Steiner just barely beat Guillaume to the Snitch. Ginny scowled as she handed Ron ten Galleons.
"You're paying for our Friday night date this week," she said to Harry, taking his hand.
"That was a wonderful game, wasn't it?" asked Luna as they descended the stands. "Such exciting plays by both teams."
"The play where Steiner caught the Snitch was particularly wonderful if you ask me," Ron replied, poking Ginny in the shoulder. He seemed to have caught a little of Luna's spirit since Germany had pulled into a sizeable lead toward the end.
Luna looked to Ron, wide-eyed. "Ronald, you can't possibly have thought that Germany was the only team to make a good play."
"Actually, that's exactly what I thought. And I have ten Galleons that proves it."
Harry was the only one that saw both Ron and Luna turn to him simultaneously, smile slightly, and shake their heads.
There was a time when Harry best described his relationship with Ginny as on-again, off-again. They would fight, break up, make up, date, and cycle back to fight. In the off-again times he wasn't interested in dating anyone else even though Ginny had encouraged him to do just that.
But there was one night, deep in winter, when Harry and Luna were talking and laughing and drinking wine in front of Harry's fire, Harry set his glass down and leaned forward. He reached to slide one hand into Luna's tangled hair and tilted his head to the side.
He had just closed his eyes when he felt Luna's hand pushing against his shoulder.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
Opening his eyes, Harry saw Luna staring at him, her face intense and her jaw tight.
"I…um… Don't you know?"
"Of course I know. But I'm not going to let you."
Not going to let him? "Why?" he whispered, sitting back and folding his hands into his lap in an attempt to stop them from shaking.
"Because, Harry, I know things about you that you don't yet know about yourself, and I'm not interested in being anything more than your friend until you realize some of those things. To be fair, I might not want to be anything more than your friend even when you do learn those things. But I'll always want to be your friend no matter what."
Harry couldn't decide what stunned him more: that Luna had said anything so directly to him, about him, or that she had stated it in such lucid terms. "Wh… Wait. What things are you talking about?" It felt to Harry like the temperature in the room was climbing and he pulled at the collar of his shirt.
She looked away and Harry saw her eyes focus on a point somewhere in space. "They're not things I can put into words. They have to be felt."
"What do you mean by 'felt?'"
Behind them, the fire crackled and hot ashes died on the hearth. "If you have to ask me that, you're not ready to kiss me."
After a trip to Denmark two years later, Luna rang the doorbell at Twelve Grimmauld Place.
"Hi, Luna," Ginny said as she answered the door. "How was…you were in…Norway, recently?" Ginny stepped aside so Luna could enter.
"Denmark, thanks for asking. It was beautiful, and…here." Luna dug into a pocket on the inside of her cloak and pulled out a small box. "This is for you. Congratulations on your engagement."
"Oh, Luna, thank you. You didn't have to do this." Ginny looked at the box skeptically. It didn't smell bad or seem to be making noise, so she opened it. Inside was an uncharacteristically normal gift, a garnet on a gold chain.
"Yes I did." Luna smiled but didn't elaborate on her reason why. "Ginny, is Harry around? I've got something for him, too."
"He's upstairs and…Luna, thank you so much. I really like this."
"My pleasure." Luna drifted up the stairs to the spare bedroom that Harry and Ginny had converted into an office. She knocked on the door.
"Come in!" called Harry. Without turning around, he said, "Ginny, you don't have to knock."
"Good thing I'm not Ginny, then," Luna replied.
"Luna! Hi!" Harry pushed his chair back and they hugged. "How was Denmark?" he asked, indicating for Luna to take a seat on the couch along one side of the room.
She smoothed her robes under her legs and sat. "It was lovely. I saw a Green-Winged Sprite, and those are extremely rare. Most people go their entire lives without seeing one, which is so sad. They're nocturnal and their wings sparkle in moonlight. But they're very mean-spirited, so you can only really observe them from afar."
"Mmhmm." Harry, as much as he cared for Luna, could never understand her fascination with the weird.
"And I brought you something." She reached into her cloak and pulled out a second box about the same size as the one she'd given Ginny, this one black. She presented it to Harry.
He opened it carefully and took out a deep purple stone, jagged at the edges with a hole in the center. "This is…different," he mused, weighing the stone in his hand.
"Look through the hole in the center."
Luna couldn't help but smile as Harry looked through the hole. His jaw dropped and she knew he was seeing a spectrum of swirling colors, purple and blue, gold and silver, and that the kaleidoscopic pattern would never be the same twice.
"I almost didn't give that to you," she said. "I hate the idea that I'll miss the designs it creates, because each one is unique and there's only one opportunity to see it."
"But I'm glad you did," he replied. With a smile, he added, "You're the only one that could have given this to me." He looked through it again and asked, "Is this what the world looks like to you?"
Luna laughed and her gaze wandered to the window on the south wall. "It just might be, Harry."
Author: cedarlibrarian
Recipient: redshoeson
Rating: G
Character(s): Harry, Luna
Author's Notes: Many thanks to D for the beta!
--
The doorbell at the Lovegood residence hadn't worked correctly since half the house had been destroyed during Harry's last visit. It clunked tunelessly when Harry rang it.
"I'll get it!" came a female voice from behind the door. Harry heard footsteps and saw dishwater blonde hair bouncing when Luna opened the door.
"Harry! It's so nice to see you! Why don't you come in?"
Harry could see there was still a lot of work to do on the house. Some walls had holes and the wood floor beneath his feet was scarred. Still, the house was imbued with light. Pictures of creatures and places Harry had never seen before hung on the few walls that had survived the collapse.
"Would you like tea?" Luna asked, heading for the kitchen. "We have a new one in that Dad got a sample of. It's from Brazil. Quite good. He says it's oddly good as a nargle repellent."
"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks." Harry had no clue what nargles were despite knowing of them for years, but it would be rude to refuse Luna's offer.
As she set the tea and a thick white ceramic mug in front of him, Luna asked, "What brings you here, and without Ron and Hermione?"
Harry shrugged. "I just wanted to say…" He'd rehearsed a million speeches but he realized none of them were quite right. "Thanks. For…for what you said at the end of the battle, and for getting me out of there."
Those words will suffice. For now.
Harry doesn't tell Ron or Hermione about the nights he invites Luna to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for dinner. He's sure it would be an uncomfortable foursome. They all get along, of course, but there are things Harry can talk about with Luna that he finds Ron and Hermione don't understand. Luna knows what it's like to lose someone important at a young age. While Ron and Hermione prefer to have each other's company, Luna understands the power of solitude. There are nights when they sit in the living room drinking tea or wine or brandy and not speaking, and Harry knows this is fine with Luna.
"What next?" she asks him one night after Voldemort has been dead for two months.
"What do you mean?"
"Voldemort's gone. What's left for you now?"
If there was one thing Harry had learned from Luna's company, it was that sometimes the questions that seemed the most complicated had the simplest answers. There were a thousand answers to her question. He could have said, "Traveling to America" or "days' worth of press junkets" or "spend the rest of my days as a wizarding socialite." All would have been perfectly viable answers.
Instead, he replied, "Absolutely nothing. And I'm really looking forward to it."
When Harry was finally ready to take Ginny out on their first official date since the end of the war, to the Holyhead-Puddlemere game, he was so nervous that he couldn't eat for two days beforehand. He thought about that book Fred and George had given Ron with ways to attract witches, but all those ideas seemed ridiculous now. He needed a woman's opinion on his preparation for the date but as much as he loved Hermione, he couldn't deal with Hermione's need to apply logic to everything.
Can you come over early on Friday night? he asked Luna via owl. I've got a date with Ginny.
Harry knew he didn't have to add the rest for Luna: and I'm scared as hell.
Luna arrived at Twelve Grimmauld Place carrying a gold bag. "I've brought a few things for you to take on your date," she said happily, sitting in the chair at Harry's desk. "First, here, you'll want to put this on."
He uncorked the glass vial she handed him and white vapor curled up from the opening. "Erm, Luna, I really appreciate this but…"
"It's not going to hurt you," she said. "It's just a little potion I put together. It'll help calm you down. But it's for wearing, not drinking."
Harry ignored her and reached into his closet for a different tie. He held both of them up for Luna. "Green or blue?" he asked.
"You're not going to wear them both at the same time? I think that color combination would be very nice on you. Why don't you try the potion? Put some behind your ears."
Annoyed, Harry took the potion and did as he was told. He smelled the sea and freshly cut grass and wood polish. A deep breath, and he could feel his stomach unclench.
"Hey, that…" He took another breath. "Thanks."
"You're most welcome," Luna answered. "And I think Ginny would like it if you brought her some flowers. I'm partial to yalsawog blossoms myself but they can be an acquired taste."
"Um, I was planning on daisies. Are daisies okay?"
"Daisies are wonderful. No one can be sad looking at a daisy. But if I do say so myself they are a little ordinary."
Hanging the blue tie back in the closet, Harry replied, "Luna, I think Ginny kind of appreciates the ordinary."
Luna sifted through the contents of her bag. "I know," she said with a sigh.
They went as a group to the Quidditch World Cup the next year: Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. It was Canada versus Germany and Ginny and Ron couldn't stop arguing about who would win. Ron was rooting for Germany.
As they climbed the stands to their seats Luna stopped to buy a white scarf covered in a pattern of red maple leaves and a small German flag.
"What're you buying both of those for?" Ron asked. He couldn't keep the snide tone out of his voice. "There's no point. Steiner is a far superior Seeker to Guillaume."
"That doesn't mean both teams don't need my support, Ronald," Luna replied. "If I'm not cheering for one team or the other, why not cheer for both?"
Ron raised his eyebrow. Harry knew that look well, the one that said, "That girl is mental." He also knew that there was no stopping Luna when she got one of her ideas.
And cheer for both sides, Luna did. She stood straight and proud as "O, Canada" played and cheered with wonder as Germany's mascots honored their legacy of fairy stories. She stood on her seat and screamed and whistled every time a team scored. Ron frowned when Luna cheered for Canada and even asked Hermione to switch seats so he wouldn't have to sit next to her. Everyone around them, however, found Luna's enthusiasm infectious. They danced with her and waved their flags and shot sparks from their wands in a multitude of colors.
By the end of the evening, Steiner just barely beat Guillaume to the Snitch. Ginny scowled as she handed Ron ten Galleons.
"You're paying for our Friday night date this week," she said to Harry, taking his hand.
"That was a wonderful game, wasn't it?" asked Luna as they descended the stands. "Such exciting plays by both teams."
"The play where Steiner caught the Snitch was particularly wonderful if you ask me," Ron replied, poking Ginny in the shoulder. He seemed to have caught a little of Luna's spirit since Germany had pulled into a sizeable lead toward the end.
Luna looked to Ron, wide-eyed. "Ronald, you can't possibly have thought that Germany was the only team to make a good play."
"Actually, that's exactly what I thought. And I have ten Galleons that proves it."
Harry was the only one that saw both Ron and Luna turn to him simultaneously, smile slightly, and shake their heads.
There was a time when Harry best described his relationship with Ginny as on-again, off-again. They would fight, break up, make up, date, and cycle back to fight. In the off-again times he wasn't interested in dating anyone else even though Ginny had encouraged him to do just that.
But there was one night, deep in winter, when Harry and Luna were talking and laughing and drinking wine in front of Harry's fire, Harry set his glass down and leaned forward. He reached to slide one hand into Luna's tangled hair and tilted his head to the side.
He had just closed his eyes when he felt Luna's hand pushing against his shoulder.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
Opening his eyes, Harry saw Luna staring at him, her face intense and her jaw tight.
"I…um… Don't you know?"
"Of course I know. But I'm not going to let you."
Not going to let him? "Why?" he whispered, sitting back and folding his hands into his lap in an attempt to stop them from shaking.
"Because, Harry, I know things about you that you don't yet know about yourself, and I'm not interested in being anything more than your friend until you realize some of those things. To be fair, I might not want to be anything more than your friend even when you do learn those things. But I'll always want to be your friend no matter what."
Harry couldn't decide what stunned him more: that Luna had said anything so directly to him, about him, or that she had stated it in such lucid terms. "Wh… Wait. What things are you talking about?" It felt to Harry like the temperature in the room was climbing and he pulled at the collar of his shirt.
She looked away and Harry saw her eyes focus on a point somewhere in space. "They're not things I can put into words. They have to be felt."
"What do you mean by 'felt?'"
Behind them, the fire crackled and hot ashes died on the hearth. "If you have to ask me that, you're not ready to kiss me."
After a trip to Denmark two years later, Luna rang the doorbell at Twelve Grimmauld Place.
"Hi, Luna," Ginny said as she answered the door. "How was…you were in…Norway, recently?" Ginny stepped aside so Luna could enter.
"Denmark, thanks for asking. It was beautiful, and…here." Luna dug into a pocket on the inside of her cloak and pulled out a small box. "This is for you. Congratulations on your engagement."
"Oh, Luna, thank you. You didn't have to do this." Ginny looked at the box skeptically. It didn't smell bad or seem to be making noise, so she opened it. Inside was an uncharacteristically normal gift, a garnet on a gold chain.
"Yes I did." Luna smiled but didn't elaborate on her reason why. "Ginny, is Harry around? I've got something for him, too."
"He's upstairs and…Luna, thank you so much. I really like this."
"My pleasure." Luna drifted up the stairs to the spare bedroom that Harry and Ginny had converted into an office. She knocked on the door.
"Come in!" called Harry. Without turning around, he said, "Ginny, you don't have to knock."
"Good thing I'm not Ginny, then," Luna replied.
"Luna! Hi!" Harry pushed his chair back and they hugged. "How was Denmark?" he asked, indicating for Luna to take a seat on the couch along one side of the room.
She smoothed her robes under her legs and sat. "It was lovely. I saw a Green-Winged Sprite, and those are extremely rare. Most people go their entire lives without seeing one, which is so sad. They're nocturnal and their wings sparkle in moonlight. But they're very mean-spirited, so you can only really observe them from afar."
"Mmhmm." Harry, as much as he cared for Luna, could never understand her fascination with the weird.
"And I brought you something." She reached into her cloak and pulled out a second box about the same size as the one she'd given Ginny, this one black. She presented it to Harry.
He opened it carefully and took out a deep purple stone, jagged at the edges with a hole in the center. "This is…different," he mused, weighing the stone in his hand.
"Look through the hole in the center."
Luna couldn't help but smile as Harry looked through the hole. His jaw dropped and she knew he was seeing a spectrum of swirling colors, purple and blue, gold and silver, and that the kaleidoscopic pattern would never be the same twice.
"I almost didn't give that to you," she said. "I hate the idea that I'll miss the designs it creates, because each one is unique and there's only one opportunity to see it."
"But I'm glad you did," he replied. With a smile, he added, "You're the only one that could have given this to me." He looked through it again and asked, "Is this what the world looks like to you?"
Luna laughed and her gaze wandered to the window on the south wall. "It just might be, Harry."