fic: and you, my wayward girl (neville/luna, R)
and you, my wayward girl
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R/mature
Ship: Neville/Luna
Summary: Luna Lovegood defies cartography.
A/N: This one is for hildigunnur. Thanks so much to my beta readers, marauderthesn and krabapple. Thanks also to gehayi for her immeasureable help in the brainstorming stages. Approx. 3,100 words.
It's when he's not looking that it happens. Folds up the map and shoves it into his back pocket, hops aboard the Muggle train. Puts his chin on his fist and gazes out the window at the rough countryside while around him, people chatter in their native language. He's picked up a few words on his travels, but he doesn't understand most of what's being said. He gets off at the first station that doesn't look too dodgy, and where does he find himself?
Off the map, clearly. Because the girl standing by the wall, alone except for some pigeons twittering around her feet - that's Luna Lovegood. And Luna - Neville's always suspected - has never existed in any place that could be mapped properly.
Maybe that doesn't make much sense, Neville thinks as he tries to get to her, shouldering his way through the crowd on the station platform, clutching his rucksack protectively to his chest, muttering apologies as he treads on feet and jostles with his elbows. It doesn't have to make sense. He's been traveling for months and here he is. Here she is. Off the map.
Here be dragons, Neville thinks, remembering the old maps in the Hogwarts library. In ancient times, the wizards would scribble those words on Muggle maps, to keep the unwitting out of the territory of real dragons. Over time, the words became synonymous with I haven't explored this bit and I've no fucking clue what's there.
Neville thinks, I've no clue what I'm doing.
But then he sort of stumbles out of the crowd, and he's only a few meters from where she's standing.
She's still looking out over the wall, toward the fields beyond, and she doesn't see him. She's wearing Muggle clothes - clunky brown shoes and a long, shapeless dress that's just a few shades lighter than the stone wall. Her hair is actually a little lighter than he remembers it; she must have spent some time in the sun recently, a thought that warms him. Another thing that warms him is the crown of balloons she's wearing. Long green and pink balloons, twisted into what he supposes are flowers.
It's odd how little she seems to have aged in the last few years. He suspects that when he finally gets back to Britain, Harry and Ginny and the rest of his friends will look shockingly older. But Luna…
It's not that the dirt of things doesn't get under her fingernails, Neville reflects. She just…somehow…
The words flit through his mind, but he pauses to think, No, but… and he loses them. He's never understood this girl. But that's all right. It's bloody good to see her. To see anyone after all this time.
"Oh, there you are," Luna says just then and looks over her shoulder at him, smiling.
The thing is, she'd said the words before turning to look at him, and she couldn't have heard him over the noise of the crowd. Could she?
There is some sorrow at the corners of her eyes and smile, he sees. It's jarring because of how she seemed when he first caught sight of her, but not so surprising, really.
"Er," Neville says. Don't let me flounder, he thinks. He has the oddest notion that she'll disappear if he can't find the words to bind her, engage her. It's not just because she's Luna; he's never really known how to talk to people.
His gaze flits to the crown of balloons, then back to her face. "Um. Did you get those here?" He gestures around the station platform, where vendors are selling postcards and other souvenirs. "Those balloons," he says, when she looks at him quizzically. "Someone make them for you here?"
She raises a hand, touches the balloon crown. She blinks as if in surprise. "Oh," she says. "Yes." But she sounds a bit uncertain.
Same old Luna.
"So. Were you waiting for someone here?" he asks. She couldn't have been waiting for him, he thinks, despite the way she greeted him. She couldn't have known he was coming here. He didn't know he was coming here until just a few minutes ago.
She shakes her head. "I like to watch the people. You never know who'll turn up. Or what," she adds, cocking one pale eyebrow.
"Um," Neville says again.
"You can never be too sure," Luna explains. "Some things like to travel in disguise. It's safer. Wazrels, for example. It's very hard to tell them from normal humans."
Neville has never heard of Wazrels and suspects that they don't exist anywhere outside Luna's imagination and the pages of the Quibbler. "You weren't expecting any Wazrels…were you?"
"No," she admits. "But you never know." She tips her head to one side and narrows her eyes.
"I'm not a Wazrel in disguise," he says quickly.
"They're very good liars."
"Really, I'm not one. You can tell by looking, can't you? It's just me. Plain, boring Longbottom."
He says it lightly, and is surprised when she grabs his wrist and looks up at him, the grey eyes suddenly fierce. "You're not."
Which? he wonders. Plain and boring? Or Longbottom?
A cold wind skitters across the platform. It slides against the back of Neville's neck, making him shiver. It toys with Luna's hair, nearly steals the balloons - but Neville seizes them. And pops one of them in the process.
"Oh!"
"Er." Neville looks ruefully at the torn rubber in his hand. "Sorry."
But Luna laughs. "Oh, that was funny! Do you know, I'd forgotten they were there again?"
"Have supper with me." The words burst from him like a sneeze.
He half-expects her to hand him a handkerchief or to look at him like he's just started speaking in tongues. Ginny did both when he asked her to the Yule Ball all those years ago.
But Luna blushes and lowers her eyelashes. She looks so demure suddenly, like one of those girls in the books his grandmother liked to read. She doesn't actually say yes, but her grip on his wrist becomes gentle.
Neville really has no idea where he is or what he's doing. There's no point in consulting a map.
Here be dragons.
*
It's too early for supper - the people in this country tend to eat late - so Neville and Luna get some takeaway and a bottle of locally brewed red wine and take it back to the room that Luna is renting in a hostel that looks like it was once a monastery.
The walls are thick and made of grey stone; the lights are electric, but illuminate about as well as torches. Neville sits cross-legged on the rug and watches her search for cups. All she finds is a canteen, but she transfigures it into a proper goblet. Her dress billows around her legs like smoke as she takes a seat opposite him and pours the wine.
She takes the first small sip, makes an odd face, then hands him the goblet. He takes it warily, brings it to his lips, hesitates. She smiles, so, with a sigh, he tips the goblet back and drinks. It's not bad wine, though Neville is really no judge. A little acidic, maybe. He's had worse.
"At least it's not too sweet," he says while Luna unwraps their takeaway. "My grandmother always had a couple of bottles of wine around the house, but it was always this horrible sweet stuff. It was almost syrup. Come to think of it, maybe it was partly syrup. She used to take it medicinally, she said."
"She died?" asks Luna softly, having noted his use of the past tense apparently.
"Yeah," Neville says, looking away from her bowed head. The darkness in the corners of the room draws his gaze.
"I'm sorry," says Luna.
"Yeah. It's all right." It had happened about two years ago. He'd been in Belgium at the time, and he'd hurried home. He'd stayed in Britain only long enough to get his grandmother's things in order and to visit his parents, who were still in Saint Mungo's, to make sure that they were being cared for.
It had been hard leaving them a second time, though they hadn't known him. I can't help them now, he'd told himself. I can continue trying to track down escaped Death Eaters and make sure that they don't do this to anyone else. Still, guilt drags at his bones whenever he thinks about them.
He realizes there's no reason for him not to say all this - except the last bit - to Luna. When his glance returns to her, she's watching him, wide-eyed, a half-eaten seedcake clutched in her hand.
"These are good," she says.
"I-"
"Here." She hands him one. When he takes it from her, their fingers brush.
Her skin is cool and dry and the brief feel of it sends a shiver up his arm and down his spine. He has no explanation for that; he wonders, as he takes another sip of wine, if she felt anything.
Of course, there's no reason to think she might have. There's never been anything between them except a common cause. Circumstances threw them together at Hogwarts, but never brought them close. He hadn't looked her up when he'd gone back to Britain for his grandmother's funeral. It hadn't occurred to him to do so, though he'd wondered about her a little.
He wonders what she's doing here in this random corner of the world. He ought to ask her, he knows. Still, he thinks, as he nibbles his seedcake, she hasn't asked him anything yet. Strange, considering her inquisitive nature. But perhaps he's too mundane to capture her interest.
They eat and drink. In addition to the seedcakes, they have a jar of green olives - which turn out to be wonderfully salty - thin, crisp crackers, and a wedge of goat cheese made with honey. It's an odd picnic, but it satisfies. Somehow, the second goblet of wine tastes better than the first.
They do talk, mostly about other people. Her father still publishes the Quibbler, he learns. He tells her what he knows about Harry and the others. He hasn't had a letter from Harry in months, so Neville can only assume that he's still teaching at Hogwarts, that Ginny's completing her Auror training, and that Hermione and Ron are still working for the Ministry.
"As for me," he begins at one point, and stops when Luna blinks at him.
"Yes?" she prompts.
"I don't know," Neville says helplessly. "I mean…"
"Here we are," murmurs Luna.
"Yes. Well…"
And they leave it at that.
*
They finish the wine.
It's late by the time they do. Luna says that it's raining, but Neville doesn't know how she knows, as the curtains are pulled across the room's single window. He can't hear the rain; the hostel's walls are too thick. The air feels thick, too. And the shadows. They're creeping up the walls; he can see them creeping. They pose no danger, he senses, but he tries to bat them away.
A normal person would have asked him what in the world he thought he was trying to do. Luna comes up behind him, puts her chin very close to his shoulder, and tries to follow his line of vision.
"What do you see?" she whispers.
I'm a bit pissed, Neville thinks. "Shmissed," is how it comes out.
"Shmissed," repeats Luna thoughtfully. "What are those?"
"No." He's not that pissed. He can think. He's just having trouble articulating.
The fact that she's so close isn't helping any. He can taste the wine on her breath, and her hair smells of damp grass.
"In any case," he says slowly, thinking each word before he tries to get it out, "I should… The rain…"
"I think you should stay," says Luna.
*
When his wine-induced stupor begins to fade he finds himself on his side, on a pile of blankets that Luna has laid out for him on the floor. He's staring straight ahead, but he can't see the wall; Luna has turned the lights off. He can hear her breathing nearby - in bed, he supposes, though he can't pinpoint the location.
He feels like a shipwreck survivor, cast upon an unknown shore. He's not the only survivor, of course. There's Luna. And his other friends - or acquaintances, or whatever he ought to call them - back in Britain. But somehow they made it home, whilst he and this girl washed up together here.
He remembers the countryside he glimpsed as his train sped by. They're near the sea; you can tell just by looking, without having to smell the brine or hear the waves. Everything has a bleached quality: the rocks, the pale grass, the villages carved from ancient stone.
Even Luna, Neville thinks.
His arm, tucked beneath him, is falling asleep, so he rolls over.
And finds himself nose to nose with Luna.
"I was thinking," she whispers, while he tries not to splutter. "It should have been obvious, but I was distracted before. You came here to meet me, didn't you?" Without waiting for his response, she continues, "Because I was at the station waiting for you. Only I just realized it."
"I thought you were looking for Wazrels," Neville says. But then he feels her lips against his cheek, dry and cool like her fingertips. He thinks, That doesn't make any sense. But he's sober enough not to care.
If she wants to kiss him - and she certainly seems to, she's found his mouth - what's wrong with that? He could push her away if he wanted to, make some sort of demurral. Perhaps she's had more to drink than he first thought; it's hard to tell with Luna.
He can taste the wine on her breath, and the mint of her toothpaste. The tip of her tongue flicks against his lower lip, and one of her hands grasps his shoulder.
She's not drunk. And he doesn't want this to stop. He's been alone for a long time - and he likes her. He doesn't have to understand her.
Neville kisses Luna back, clumsily because he can't see, and fumbles for her.
He hasn't had much experience. There'd been Susan, and those few times had been all right. There'd been that one time with Hannah, and there'd almost been that time with Ginny (if she hadn't still fancied Harry) but…
But this is just kissing, Neville thinks, his hands on Luna's waist. Just kissing, and her knee against his thigh, but that's all. There's no reason to think this may lead to more. Kissing is nice.
So is the shape of her. He can feel the soft curves through her thin, cotton nightgown. She wriggles against him, a ripple in the darkness, and suddenly - without really meaning to - he's cupping her bum. Luna's got sort of a large bum, but Neville likes that; he's got a large bum too, after all. She's got a soft belly, he soon discovers, and small breasts.
"Can't believe we're doing this," he whispers, cupping her through her nightgown. What exactly are we doing?
Luna doesn't answer him. She keeps kissing him - now on his chin, now his cheeks, now across his forehead. With one hand she pushes back the blanket, and gets on top of him, straddling his waist.
"Um."
She can feel his erection. She's got to be able to. It's right there, rubbing against her-
He wishes that he could see. He might have some warning, then. One moment her hands are on his chest, the next they're at his flies, undoing them.
"Definitely not a Wazrel," he hears her say as her fingers play over him.
"I told you I wasn't."
This is all too strange. Not that he doesn't like that it's happening. Not that he doesn't want it to keep going, to whatever end Luna has in mind (if she even has one in mind).
It's just…
What?
Just…
She has his erection in her hands. She's teasing it, breathing over it. Neville groans. The muscles in his belly tighten and he can't help it; he bucks his hips.
He folded up his map, didn't he? Tucked it away, took his chances. And here he is, in the dark with Luna and she's doing things to him that she really shouldn't be doing, but he seems to have tucked the rules away with the map.
And he's glad suddenly. So glad that he's here with her, and that this is happening, whatever it is. They washed up here together. He came here to meet her. Of course.
Can't let her do all the work, though, even if she seems to be having fun. That's one rule he'll keep.
"Luna," he says. "C'mere. I want-"
She's beside him again before he's finished the sentence. She's naked now, which is too bad, since he'd have liked undressing her, but maybe he'll get to that another time. He finds her face, finds her cheeks, strokes the tangled hair back behind her ears.
"You're utterly mad," he informs her. "But so am I, I reckon."
She laughs when he rolls her onto her back, rolls on top of her. She spreads her legs wide and he settles between them. His hands on her sides, he lowers his lips to the skin between her breasts. Something inside her shudders like a moth trapped beneath a glass. He kisses her a little lower and she stops laughing.
"I took a potion," she says. "So it's all right. I took it this morning."
This morning. Before she knew she'd meet anyone.
"I mean," she says, "you never know, do you?"
You don't. Ever.
He slides his hands down her body, up and around her thighs, then between them. Her hair is coarse, but he probes upward with his thumbs, and there's the softness, the heat, the damp. And now it's Luna's turn to buck and moan.
It's good that she took her potion, but right now Neville only wants to use his hands and his lips and tongue, to map her. He was wrong earlier, he thinks; she is the shore he washed up on. She's the country he's sought all this while.
Here be dragons, Neville thinks. Here in this dark room. Here be water that runs uphill and bread that grows on trees. Here be singing fish, and yes, Wazrels and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Here be the whispering songs of the dead. Here be lands beyond the stars. Here be Luna.
02/11/06
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R/mature
Ship: Neville/Luna
Summary: Luna Lovegood defies cartography.
A/N: This one is for hildigunnur. Thanks so much to my beta readers, marauderthesn and krabapple. Thanks also to gehayi for her immeasureable help in the brainstorming stages. Approx. 3,100 words.
It's when he's not looking that it happens. Folds up the map and shoves it into his back pocket, hops aboard the Muggle train. Puts his chin on his fist and gazes out the window at the rough countryside while around him, people chatter in their native language. He's picked up a few words on his travels, but he doesn't understand most of what's being said. He gets off at the first station that doesn't look too dodgy, and where does he find himself?
Off the map, clearly. Because the girl standing by the wall, alone except for some pigeons twittering around her feet - that's Luna Lovegood. And Luna - Neville's always suspected - has never existed in any place that could be mapped properly.
Maybe that doesn't make much sense, Neville thinks as he tries to get to her, shouldering his way through the crowd on the station platform, clutching his rucksack protectively to his chest, muttering apologies as he treads on feet and jostles with his elbows. It doesn't have to make sense. He's been traveling for months and here he is. Here she is. Off the map.
Here be dragons, Neville thinks, remembering the old maps in the Hogwarts library. In ancient times, the wizards would scribble those words on Muggle maps, to keep the unwitting out of the territory of real dragons. Over time, the words became synonymous with I haven't explored this bit and I've no fucking clue what's there.
Neville thinks, I've no clue what I'm doing.
But then he sort of stumbles out of the crowd, and he's only a few meters from where she's standing.
She's still looking out over the wall, toward the fields beyond, and she doesn't see him. She's wearing Muggle clothes - clunky brown shoes and a long, shapeless dress that's just a few shades lighter than the stone wall. Her hair is actually a little lighter than he remembers it; she must have spent some time in the sun recently, a thought that warms him. Another thing that warms him is the crown of balloons she's wearing. Long green and pink balloons, twisted into what he supposes are flowers.
It's odd how little she seems to have aged in the last few years. He suspects that when he finally gets back to Britain, Harry and Ginny and the rest of his friends will look shockingly older. But Luna…
It's not that the dirt of things doesn't get under her fingernails, Neville reflects. She just…somehow…
The words flit through his mind, but he pauses to think, No, but… and he loses them. He's never understood this girl. But that's all right. It's bloody good to see her. To see anyone after all this time.
"Oh, there you are," Luna says just then and looks over her shoulder at him, smiling.
The thing is, she'd said the words before turning to look at him, and she couldn't have heard him over the noise of the crowd. Could she?
There is some sorrow at the corners of her eyes and smile, he sees. It's jarring because of how she seemed when he first caught sight of her, but not so surprising, really.
"Er," Neville says. Don't let me flounder, he thinks. He has the oddest notion that she'll disappear if he can't find the words to bind her, engage her. It's not just because she's Luna; he's never really known how to talk to people.
His gaze flits to the crown of balloons, then back to her face. "Um. Did you get those here?" He gestures around the station platform, where vendors are selling postcards and other souvenirs. "Those balloons," he says, when she looks at him quizzically. "Someone make them for you here?"
She raises a hand, touches the balloon crown. She blinks as if in surprise. "Oh," she says. "Yes." But she sounds a bit uncertain.
Same old Luna.
"So. Were you waiting for someone here?" he asks. She couldn't have been waiting for him, he thinks, despite the way she greeted him. She couldn't have known he was coming here. He didn't know he was coming here until just a few minutes ago.
She shakes her head. "I like to watch the people. You never know who'll turn up. Or what," she adds, cocking one pale eyebrow.
"Um," Neville says again.
"You can never be too sure," Luna explains. "Some things like to travel in disguise. It's safer. Wazrels, for example. It's very hard to tell them from normal humans."
Neville has never heard of Wazrels and suspects that they don't exist anywhere outside Luna's imagination and the pages of the Quibbler. "You weren't expecting any Wazrels…were you?"
"No," she admits. "But you never know." She tips her head to one side and narrows her eyes.
"I'm not a Wazrel in disguise," he says quickly.
"They're very good liars."
"Really, I'm not one. You can tell by looking, can't you? It's just me. Plain, boring Longbottom."
He says it lightly, and is surprised when she grabs his wrist and looks up at him, the grey eyes suddenly fierce. "You're not."
Which? he wonders. Plain and boring? Or Longbottom?
A cold wind skitters across the platform. It slides against the back of Neville's neck, making him shiver. It toys with Luna's hair, nearly steals the balloons - but Neville seizes them. And pops one of them in the process.
"Oh!"
"Er." Neville looks ruefully at the torn rubber in his hand. "Sorry."
But Luna laughs. "Oh, that was funny! Do you know, I'd forgotten they were there again?"
"Have supper with me." The words burst from him like a sneeze.
He half-expects her to hand him a handkerchief or to look at him like he's just started speaking in tongues. Ginny did both when he asked her to the Yule Ball all those years ago.
But Luna blushes and lowers her eyelashes. She looks so demure suddenly, like one of those girls in the books his grandmother liked to read. She doesn't actually say yes, but her grip on his wrist becomes gentle.
Neville really has no idea where he is or what he's doing. There's no point in consulting a map.
Here be dragons.
*
It's too early for supper - the people in this country tend to eat late - so Neville and Luna get some takeaway and a bottle of locally brewed red wine and take it back to the room that Luna is renting in a hostel that looks like it was once a monastery.
The walls are thick and made of grey stone; the lights are electric, but illuminate about as well as torches. Neville sits cross-legged on the rug and watches her search for cups. All she finds is a canteen, but she transfigures it into a proper goblet. Her dress billows around her legs like smoke as she takes a seat opposite him and pours the wine.
She takes the first small sip, makes an odd face, then hands him the goblet. He takes it warily, brings it to his lips, hesitates. She smiles, so, with a sigh, he tips the goblet back and drinks. It's not bad wine, though Neville is really no judge. A little acidic, maybe. He's had worse.
"At least it's not too sweet," he says while Luna unwraps their takeaway. "My grandmother always had a couple of bottles of wine around the house, but it was always this horrible sweet stuff. It was almost syrup. Come to think of it, maybe it was partly syrup. She used to take it medicinally, she said."
"She died?" asks Luna softly, having noted his use of the past tense apparently.
"Yeah," Neville says, looking away from her bowed head. The darkness in the corners of the room draws his gaze.
"I'm sorry," says Luna.
"Yeah. It's all right." It had happened about two years ago. He'd been in Belgium at the time, and he'd hurried home. He'd stayed in Britain only long enough to get his grandmother's things in order and to visit his parents, who were still in Saint Mungo's, to make sure that they were being cared for.
It had been hard leaving them a second time, though they hadn't known him. I can't help them now, he'd told himself. I can continue trying to track down escaped Death Eaters and make sure that they don't do this to anyone else. Still, guilt drags at his bones whenever he thinks about them.
He realizes there's no reason for him not to say all this - except the last bit - to Luna. When his glance returns to her, she's watching him, wide-eyed, a half-eaten seedcake clutched in her hand.
"These are good," she says.
"I-"
"Here." She hands him one. When he takes it from her, their fingers brush.
Her skin is cool and dry and the brief feel of it sends a shiver up his arm and down his spine. He has no explanation for that; he wonders, as he takes another sip of wine, if she felt anything.
Of course, there's no reason to think she might have. There's never been anything between them except a common cause. Circumstances threw them together at Hogwarts, but never brought them close. He hadn't looked her up when he'd gone back to Britain for his grandmother's funeral. It hadn't occurred to him to do so, though he'd wondered about her a little.
He wonders what she's doing here in this random corner of the world. He ought to ask her, he knows. Still, he thinks, as he nibbles his seedcake, she hasn't asked him anything yet. Strange, considering her inquisitive nature. But perhaps he's too mundane to capture her interest.
They eat and drink. In addition to the seedcakes, they have a jar of green olives - which turn out to be wonderfully salty - thin, crisp crackers, and a wedge of goat cheese made with honey. It's an odd picnic, but it satisfies. Somehow, the second goblet of wine tastes better than the first.
They do talk, mostly about other people. Her father still publishes the Quibbler, he learns. He tells her what he knows about Harry and the others. He hasn't had a letter from Harry in months, so Neville can only assume that he's still teaching at Hogwarts, that Ginny's completing her Auror training, and that Hermione and Ron are still working for the Ministry.
"As for me," he begins at one point, and stops when Luna blinks at him.
"Yes?" she prompts.
"I don't know," Neville says helplessly. "I mean…"
"Here we are," murmurs Luna.
"Yes. Well…"
And they leave it at that.
*
They finish the wine.
It's late by the time they do. Luna says that it's raining, but Neville doesn't know how she knows, as the curtains are pulled across the room's single window. He can't hear the rain; the hostel's walls are too thick. The air feels thick, too. And the shadows. They're creeping up the walls; he can see them creeping. They pose no danger, he senses, but he tries to bat them away.
A normal person would have asked him what in the world he thought he was trying to do. Luna comes up behind him, puts her chin very close to his shoulder, and tries to follow his line of vision.
"What do you see?" she whispers.
I'm a bit pissed, Neville thinks. "Shmissed," is how it comes out.
"Shmissed," repeats Luna thoughtfully. "What are those?"
"No." He's not that pissed. He can think. He's just having trouble articulating.
The fact that she's so close isn't helping any. He can taste the wine on her breath, and her hair smells of damp grass.
"In any case," he says slowly, thinking each word before he tries to get it out, "I should… The rain…"
"I think you should stay," says Luna.
*
When his wine-induced stupor begins to fade he finds himself on his side, on a pile of blankets that Luna has laid out for him on the floor. He's staring straight ahead, but he can't see the wall; Luna has turned the lights off. He can hear her breathing nearby - in bed, he supposes, though he can't pinpoint the location.
He feels like a shipwreck survivor, cast upon an unknown shore. He's not the only survivor, of course. There's Luna. And his other friends - or acquaintances, or whatever he ought to call them - back in Britain. But somehow they made it home, whilst he and this girl washed up together here.
He remembers the countryside he glimpsed as his train sped by. They're near the sea; you can tell just by looking, without having to smell the brine or hear the waves. Everything has a bleached quality: the rocks, the pale grass, the villages carved from ancient stone.
Even Luna, Neville thinks.
His arm, tucked beneath him, is falling asleep, so he rolls over.
And finds himself nose to nose with Luna.
"I was thinking," she whispers, while he tries not to splutter. "It should have been obvious, but I was distracted before. You came here to meet me, didn't you?" Without waiting for his response, she continues, "Because I was at the station waiting for you. Only I just realized it."
"I thought you were looking for Wazrels," Neville says. But then he feels her lips against his cheek, dry and cool like her fingertips. He thinks, That doesn't make any sense. But he's sober enough not to care.
If she wants to kiss him - and she certainly seems to, she's found his mouth - what's wrong with that? He could push her away if he wanted to, make some sort of demurral. Perhaps she's had more to drink than he first thought; it's hard to tell with Luna.
He can taste the wine on her breath, and the mint of her toothpaste. The tip of her tongue flicks against his lower lip, and one of her hands grasps his shoulder.
She's not drunk. And he doesn't want this to stop. He's been alone for a long time - and he likes her. He doesn't have to understand her.
Neville kisses Luna back, clumsily because he can't see, and fumbles for her.
He hasn't had much experience. There'd been Susan, and those few times had been all right. There'd been that one time with Hannah, and there'd almost been that time with Ginny (if she hadn't still fancied Harry) but…
But this is just kissing, Neville thinks, his hands on Luna's waist. Just kissing, and her knee against his thigh, but that's all. There's no reason to think this may lead to more. Kissing is nice.
So is the shape of her. He can feel the soft curves through her thin, cotton nightgown. She wriggles against him, a ripple in the darkness, and suddenly - without really meaning to - he's cupping her bum. Luna's got sort of a large bum, but Neville likes that; he's got a large bum too, after all. She's got a soft belly, he soon discovers, and small breasts.
"Can't believe we're doing this," he whispers, cupping her through her nightgown. What exactly are we doing?
Luna doesn't answer him. She keeps kissing him - now on his chin, now his cheeks, now across his forehead. With one hand she pushes back the blanket, and gets on top of him, straddling his waist.
"Um."
She can feel his erection. She's got to be able to. It's right there, rubbing against her-
He wishes that he could see. He might have some warning, then. One moment her hands are on his chest, the next they're at his flies, undoing them.
"Definitely not a Wazrel," he hears her say as her fingers play over him.
"I told you I wasn't."
This is all too strange. Not that he doesn't like that it's happening. Not that he doesn't want it to keep going, to whatever end Luna has in mind (if she even has one in mind).
It's just…
What?
Just…
She has his erection in her hands. She's teasing it, breathing over it. Neville groans. The muscles in his belly tighten and he can't help it; he bucks his hips.
He folded up his map, didn't he? Tucked it away, took his chances. And here he is, in the dark with Luna and she's doing things to him that she really shouldn't be doing, but he seems to have tucked the rules away with the map.
And he's glad suddenly. So glad that he's here with her, and that this is happening, whatever it is. They washed up here together. He came here to meet her. Of course.
Can't let her do all the work, though, even if she seems to be having fun. That's one rule he'll keep.
"Luna," he says. "C'mere. I want-"
She's beside him again before he's finished the sentence. She's naked now, which is too bad, since he'd have liked undressing her, but maybe he'll get to that another time. He finds her face, finds her cheeks, strokes the tangled hair back behind her ears.
"You're utterly mad," he informs her. "But so am I, I reckon."
She laughs when he rolls her onto her back, rolls on top of her. She spreads her legs wide and he settles between them. His hands on her sides, he lowers his lips to the skin between her breasts. Something inside her shudders like a moth trapped beneath a glass. He kisses her a little lower and she stops laughing.
"I took a potion," she says. "So it's all right. I took it this morning."
This morning. Before she knew she'd meet anyone.
"I mean," she says, "you never know, do you?"
You don't. Ever.
He slides his hands down her body, up and around her thighs, then between them. Her hair is coarse, but he probes upward with his thumbs, and there's the softness, the heat, the damp. And now it's Luna's turn to buck and moan.
It's good that she took her potion, but right now Neville only wants to use his hands and his lips and tongue, to map her. He was wrong earlier, he thinks; she is the shore he washed up on. She's the country he's sought all this while.
Here be dragons, Neville thinks. Here in this dark room. Here be water that runs uphill and bread that grows on trees. Here be singing fish, and yes, Wazrels and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Here be the whispering songs of the dead. Here be lands beyond the stars. Here be Luna.
02/11/06