Happy Radish Love, fireworkfiasco!
Author: bsafemydeers
Recipient: fireworkfiasco
Title: Damn the Man, Save the Quibbler
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/additional pairings: None, really.
Summary: A late night call from Ron leads Harry towards something most wizards had never even imagined: an angry Luna Lovegood.
Word Count: 2174
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters engaging in sexual activity are 16 years or older.
Author's Notes: None.
Damn the Man, Save the Quibbler
What Harry doesn't expect is a call from Ron at two in the morning, managing to sound bleary and worried and guilty through a Muggle phone line from somewhere in London.
"Ron," he groans. "Tell me you're holding the phone the right way. The little holes where the sound goes in are by your mouth and--"
"--yeah, yeah, little holes, make the rabbit ears and all that shit," Ron says desperately, but Harry isn't finished giving him crap.
"No, Won-Won, that's for trying your ickle shoes and what in the blazing bloody chilliest corner of Merlin's arsehole are you doing on the phone at this hour?" Lavender Brown taught Harry two things: how to call Ron stupid names, and how to swear like a real wizard. That's why he expunged the stalking charges off of her record down at the Ministry. "You know you're not supposed to be using Muggle devices when you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk," Ron shouts, clearly affronted. "I wish I was! I'm going to get drunk as soon as I possibly can, but right now we're having an incident and Hermione made me deal with things, and you know I can't deal with things and stuff so I just told her to go ahead and get angry for once. And she did! And shit, Harry, she's angry!"
"Hermione? But Hermione's always angry." Harry starts feeling around for his glasses. He doesn't think he's going to be allowed to go back to sleep. "That's very poor advice, Ron. That's like telling Malfoy you think he should be more of an affected fairy all the time."
"No, no," Ron says, and the fact that he doesn't go for the quick and easy hit at Malfoy signals that something truly is fucked up here. "See, I guess everyone who is any good at giving advice is dead or something, because Luna shows up at my place tonight and she's more spacey than usual 'til I find out the Prophet bought out the Quibbler and she's upset. I don't know if she mistook me for Ginny or what, but I maybe told her that she should get angry about things, instead of acting like she drank Filch's mop juice or something."
"Wow," says Harry, getting dressed. "You're truly bad at this."
"And so now we're on our way to vandalize the Prophet."
Harry is a little floored. He really hadn't realized Luna had that in her. It's impressive. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Except she's already breaking shit everywhere! We're going to get caught, and we'll be damn lucky if it's by Aurors and not Muggle cops, and come on, Harry, I know you have a soft spot for her."
This is all technically true, but at least that last part isn't supposed to be common knowledge. "I have a regular spot for Luna," Harry says stubbornly. "But I do think you should think things through more because you know she's a bit sensitive and nobody looks out for her like we do."
There's a rough laugh over the line, and Ron tells him, "You do realize that she almost set the record for prisoner of war time in the Malfoy cellar during the Second War?" Ron likes to try and call their Seventh Year battles World War II, but he's found it's not worth the way Hermione yells at him for it. "You're the only one who thinks she needs protecting, mate."
But it's true, isn't it? Luna's grown from some strange little girl to someone more ethereal and lithe, like some kind of nymph. Other people just stomp all over that. Like the stupid fucking Prophet, apparently.
"Ohhhhhhhh," say Ron in this horrified manner. "Oh, I think she just called that man in the cardboard box a bleedy cunt. Harry, I really fucked up, just come talk her down, you're Harry fucking Potter, and I don't think anyone else speaks her language."
Harry remembers a warm hand slipping into his, the only person who knew what it was like.
He's owed her for forever.
Blessedly, Ron's managed to keep any actual violence down, and when Harry gets there, Ron is sitting on a bench with a highly agitated Luna beside him, her delicate forearm clamped in his hand. Harry knows, of course, that Ron would never hurt Luna in any way and it doesn't even really look like a restraint-- but still, he doesn't like seeing that, Ron and his big clumsy hands on her.
"Harry," says Ron in unabashed relief.
"Harry?" questions Luna, and though he can tell she's still blisteringly angry about it all, the air around her doesn't feel like it's pulsing so much anymore. She gives him a shaky smile. "Ron's lost his balls, I'm afraid."
"I never promised I would help you commit vandalism," Ron bursts out, and to Harry's own relief, he lets go of Luna. She's immediately on her feet, pacing with barely restrained energy. Ron turns to give Harry a well-practiced baleful look, the kind only Hermione has developed any immunity. "But Harry, I bet he's got loads of ideas. Damn the man! Save the Quibbler! All that good stuff."
He lets Ron leave without much more trouble, and then he's left alone with Luna, who is really on the warpath here. When she stops pacing, she turns to look at him, and Harry's blown away.
Her skin is usually only a few shades up from white, but it's taken a translucent marble quality, her cheeks stained with a passionate flush. Looks like she's been biting at her lips, because they're all swollen and red and Harry's not really qualified for this, he's only a few years out of school and just barely not a teenager anymore. He's got too many ideas about what that pink mouth could do, and the way her eyes are glittering, he doesn't find the reverie worrisome at all.
Turns out his soft spot for Luna is pretty much the opposite of soft. But who knew that winding her up until she was angry would become the thing that turned her into some silvery-haired goddess? Harry wipes his hands on his jeans. "Luna, I'm so sorry," he starts off.
"It's not your fault," Luna says, and she's standing still now, so Harry takes the opportunity to get closer. "Apparently people are tired of the Quibbler's play-acting."
Harry winces. "That what they called it?"
"Yes," Luna says, and suddenly steps back so she can sit on the bench.
Drawn by the sway of her body through the air, Harry sits beside her. Slowly, he slides his hand to rest flat on her back, but when she leans into the touch, his hand ends up on the warm nape of her neck. "We'll get it back," Harry says. "I'll buy out the damn Prophet, if you want. We'll call it an early Christmas present."
"Harry," Luna sighs, but it's not exasperated or even annoyed. She turns her head so that she can rest her cheek on his arm. "I can't let you do that. For one, neither of us would be able to own the Prophet without going mad over the amount of inane babbling crammed into each issue." There's a little smile, though, Harry can feel it through his shirt sleeve. "But it's very nice of you to ask. Like the knight in spangled robes."
"You mean a knight in shining armor," Harry half-corrects, but he's stuck considering the fact that she's almost pressed against his side. The thing is, if he could offer anything to Luna, it would be that. He would protect her, treat her delicately like no one else in either wizarding or Muggle worlds ever does.
"I mean what I mean," Luna says, and he can tell her heart is still pounding. She's riled up like he's never seen, her whole body radiating tense energy, coiled up and ready to do something. With how stunningly pretty she looks tonight, Harry'd be more than happy to find her something to do. "I need to get it back on my own, Harry." She turns her face up to him, eyes shining with purpose. "You know that. But I'd let you help me throw rocks at the building."
So it turns out that vandalism is really fun.
And one of the greatest things about being an Auror, let alone one Who Lived, is making sure there'd be no traces of either of them having been there.
Luna's picked up on how to use a Muggle spray can very well, and is writing in big bold fuschia letters, DAMN THE MAN, SAVE THE QUIBBLER. Her fingers are all fuschia from the efforts, and it's well worth trying to get her through the local all night shop in Muggle London. "Magic," he'd said to her, "is too easy to trace. And this is way more effective if you don't get caught."
"Has no one told you that it's about the journey, not the destination?" Luna says, and he realizes she's scolding him.
It's different. Harry really, really likes it.
For good measure, he's been egging the front windows, but now he's all out of eggs, and he's sitting on the ground with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He just watches Luna as she falls in love with the paint, and when her cannister's finally given out, she comes back to sit beside him. The anger's worn off by now into the glee of doing something they aren't supposed to do, but that bright spark that seems to be lighting her up from the inside hasn't gone.
"I've never seen you like this," Harry admits without thinking.
"Like what?"
"So... I don't know. Turned on," he answers, and then feels himself reel with stupidity. "I mean. I didn't mean like that," he says over Luna's laughter, "I mean it's like there's a light inside you that got turned on, I guess. You seem lit up."
"It's been a long time," Luna says, looking down at her fuschia-smudged fingers. "I was rather sad for a while, and then it's difficult to find yourself in the middle of a war, and after Daddy--" She swallows hard. "It's easier to have your head in the clouds. When you're looking from so far away, all of your problems look much smaller. I was like that after my mum died, too. I used to love experimental magics, but after that.... I just couldn't, not anymore."
"Did you work with her?" Harry asks, trying to be as careful as he can be. "I mean, did you do the magic too?"
She shakes her head. "Too young. Well, I did read her journal a lot, and I made a couple of the spells work. Mostly some important Transfiguration."
"You could show me some time," Harry says, still treading lightly. That, and he feels like he's waking up, and he finds that he wants to see her again. Except that instead of again, he means, all the time.
Luna holds up one fuschia-splashed set of fingers, and wiggles them, murmuring an incantation. There's not much of a change, especially in the dim light of early morning. Then, after favoring him with a wide grin, she licks the color right off of her fingertip. "Turns anything into strawberry jam. Very useful."
"If you like strawberry jam," Harry allows.
"Don't you?" Luna holds her hand out, one sticky finger poised right at his mouth. "Go on. I promise it's perfectly fine. Doesn't taste like paint in the least."
This is how Harry comes to have her slender, jam-coated finger in his mouth, and it stays there far past the removal of any jam. Luna makes a tiny sound, her lips parting as surprised breath escape them. "Oh," she says, turning to him fully now, and it's not a stretch for him to ease her onto his legs. He surmises it's alright when she doesn't get up, and instead offers him another finger, slicking the seam of his lips.
"Luna," he says, surprised at how low his voice has gone.
Like always, she knows exactly what he means.
"Yes, please," she says.
Harry kisses her on the mouth, and her lips part and he's tasting the inside of her mouth, feeling the slick slide of her tongue, and somehow he's on his back on the bench and their limbs are all tangled up. When it's either stop for a moment or explode, Harry has to rip his mouth away, and he feels her cheek resting in the crook of his neck. She takes a long, slow breath.
"I suppose you could help a little bit," Luna says. "With the Quibbler. You can't buy it back, but I suppose you can come along and look menacingly at them."
"I hate the fucking Prophet," he grumbles.
"Me too," says Luna, and she's standing up, holding out her hand. "Come on. Let's go forget about them for a while."
When he takes her hand, he's not sure where she's about to Apparate them to, but he knows it's somewhere he wants to go.
Recipient: fireworkfiasco
Title: Damn the Man, Save the Quibbler
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/additional pairings: None, really.
Summary: A late night call from Ron leads Harry towards something most wizards had never even imagined: an angry Luna Lovegood.
Word Count: 2174
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters engaging in sexual activity are 16 years or older.
Author's Notes: None.
Damn the Man, Save the Quibbler
What Harry doesn't expect is a call from Ron at two in the morning, managing to sound bleary and worried and guilty through a Muggle phone line from somewhere in London.
"Ron," he groans. "Tell me you're holding the phone the right way. The little holes where the sound goes in are by your mouth and--"
"--yeah, yeah, little holes, make the rabbit ears and all that shit," Ron says desperately, but Harry isn't finished giving him crap.
"No, Won-Won, that's for trying your ickle shoes and what in the blazing bloody chilliest corner of Merlin's arsehole are you doing on the phone at this hour?" Lavender Brown taught Harry two things: how to call Ron stupid names, and how to swear like a real wizard. That's why he expunged the stalking charges off of her record down at the Ministry. "You know you're not supposed to be using Muggle devices when you're drunk."
"I'm not drunk," Ron shouts, clearly affronted. "I wish I was! I'm going to get drunk as soon as I possibly can, but right now we're having an incident and Hermione made me deal with things, and you know I can't deal with things and stuff so I just told her to go ahead and get angry for once. And she did! And shit, Harry, she's angry!"
"Hermione? But Hermione's always angry." Harry starts feeling around for his glasses. He doesn't think he's going to be allowed to go back to sleep. "That's very poor advice, Ron. That's like telling Malfoy you think he should be more of an affected fairy all the time."
"No, no," Ron says, and the fact that he doesn't go for the quick and easy hit at Malfoy signals that something truly is fucked up here. "See, I guess everyone who is any good at giving advice is dead or something, because Luna shows up at my place tonight and she's more spacey than usual 'til I find out the Prophet bought out the Quibbler and she's upset. I don't know if she mistook me for Ginny or what, but I maybe told her that she should get angry about things, instead of acting like she drank Filch's mop juice or something."
"Wow," says Harry, getting dressed. "You're truly bad at this."
"And so now we're on our way to vandalize the Prophet."
Harry is a little floored. He really hadn't realized Luna had that in her. It's impressive. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Except she's already breaking shit everywhere! We're going to get caught, and we'll be damn lucky if it's by Aurors and not Muggle cops, and come on, Harry, I know you have a soft spot for her."
This is all technically true, but at least that last part isn't supposed to be common knowledge. "I have a regular spot for Luna," Harry says stubbornly. "But I do think you should think things through more because you know she's a bit sensitive and nobody looks out for her like we do."
There's a rough laugh over the line, and Ron tells him, "You do realize that she almost set the record for prisoner of war time in the Malfoy cellar during the Second War?" Ron likes to try and call their Seventh Year battles World War II, but he's found it's not worth the way Hermione yells at him for it. "You're the only one who thinks she needs protecting, mate."
But it's true, isn't it? Luna's grown from some strange little girl to someone more ethereal and lithe, like some kind of nymph. Other people just stomp all over that. Like the stupid fucking Prophet, apparently.
"Ohhhhhhhh," say Ron in this horrified manner. "Oh, I think she just called that man in the cardboard box a bleedy cunt. Harry, I really fucked up, just come talk her down, you're Harry fucking Potter, and I don't think anyone else speaks her language."
Harry remembers a warm hand slipping into his, the only person who knew what it was like.
He's owed her for forever.
Blessedly, Ron's managed to keep any actual violence down, and when Harry gets there, Ron is sitting on a bench with a highly agitated Luna beside him, her delicate forearm clamped in his hand. Harry knows, of course, that Ron would never hurt Luna in any way and it doesn't even really look like a restraint-- but still, he doesn't like seeing that, Ron and his big clumsy hands on her.
"Harry," says Ron in unabashed relief.
"Harry?" questions Luna, and though he can tell she's still blisteringly angry about it all, the air around her doesn't feel like it's pulsing so much anymore. She gives him a shaky smile. "Ron's lost his balls, I'm afraid."
"I never promised I would help you commit vandalism," Ron bursts out, and to Harry's own relief, he lets go of Luna. She's immediately on her feet, pacing with barely restrained energy. Ron turns to give Harry a well-practiced baleful look, the kind only Hermione has developed any immunity. "But Harry, I bet he's got loads of ideas. Damn the man! Save the Quibbler! All that good stuff."
He lets Ron leave without much more trouble, and then he's left alone with Luna, who is really on the warpath here. When she stops pacing, she turns to look at him, and Harry's blown away.
Her skin is usually only a few shades up from white, but it's taken a translucent marble quality, her cheeks stained with a passionate flush. Looks like she's been biting at her lips, because they're all swollen and red and Harry's not really qualified for this, he's only a few years out of school and just barely not a teenager anymore. He's got too many ideas about what that pink mouth could do, and the way her eyes are glittering, he doesn't find the reverie worrisome at all.
Turns out his soft spot for Luna is pretty much the opposite of soft. But who knew that winding her up until she was angry would become the thing that turned her into some silvery-haired goddess? Harry wipes his hands on his jeans. "Luna, I'm so sorry," he starts off.
"It's not your fault," Luna says, and she's standing still now, so Harry takes the opportunity to get closer. "Apparently people are tired of the Quibbler's play-acting."
Harry winces. "That what they called it?"
"Yes," Luna says, and suddenly steps back so she can sit on the bench.
Drawn by the sway of her body through the air, Harry sits beside her. Slowly, he slides his hand to rest flat on her back, but when she leans into the touch, his hand ends up on the warm nape of her neck. "We'll get it back," Harry says. "I'll buy out the damn Prophet, if you want. We'll call it an early Christmas present."
"Harry," Luna sighs, but it's not exasperated or even annoyed. She turns her head so that she can rest her cheek on his arm. "I can't let you do that. For one, neither of us would be able to own the Prophet without going mad over the amount of inane babbling crammed into each issue." There's a little smile, though, Harry can feel it through his shirt sleeve. "But it's very nice of you to ask. Like the knight in spangled robes."
"You mean a knight in shining armor," Harry half-corrects, but he's stuck considering the fact that she's almost pressed against his side. The thing is, if he could offer anything to Luna, it would be that. He would protect her, treat her delicately like no one else in either wizarding or Muggle worlds ever does.
"I mean what I mean," Luna says, and he can tell her heart is still pounding. She's riled up like he's never seen, her whole body radiating tense energy, coiled up and ready to do something. With how stunningly pretty she looks tonight, Harry'd be more than happy to find her something to do. "I need to get it back on my own, Harry." She turns her face up to him, eyes shining with purpose. "You know that. But I'd let you help me throw rocks at the building."
So it turns out that vandalism is really fun.
And one of the greatest things about being an Auror, let alone one Who Lived, is making sure there'd be no traces of either of them having been there.
Luna's picked up on how to use a Muggle spray can very well, and is writing in big bold fuschia letters, DAMN THE MAN, SAVE THE QUIBBLER. Her fingers are all fuschia from the efforts, and it's well worth trying to get her through the local all night shop in Muggle London. "Magic," he'd said to her, "is too easy to trace. And this is way more effective if you don't get caught."
"Has no one told you that it's about the journey, not the destination?" Luna says, and he realizes she's scolding him.
It's different. Harry really, really likes it.
For good measure, he's been egging the front windows, but now he's all out of eggs, and he's sitting on the ground with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He just watches Luna as she falls in love with the paint, and when her cannister's finally given out, she comes back to sit beside him. The anger's worn off by now into the glee of doing something they aren't supposed to do, but that bright spark that seems to be lighting her up from the inside hasn't gone.
"I've never seen you like this," Harry admits without thinking.
"Like what?"
"So... I don't know. Turned on," he answers, and then feels himself reel with stupidity. "I mean. I didn't mean like that," he says over Luna's laughter, "I mean it's like there's a light inside you that got turned on, I guess. You seem lit up."
"It's been a long time," Luna says, looking down at her fuschia-smudged fingers. "I was rather sad for a while, and then it's difficult to find yourself in the middle of a war, and after Daddy--" She swallows hard. "It's easier to have your head in the clouds. When you're looking from so far away, all of your problems look much smaller. I was like that after my mum died, too. I used to love experimental magics, but after that.... I just couldn't, not anymore."
"Did you work with her?" Harry asks, trying to be as careful as he can be. "I mean, did you do the magic too?"
She shakes her head. "Too young. Well, I did read her journal a lot, and I made a couple of the spells work. Mostly some important Transfiguration."
"You could show me some time," Harry says, still treading lightly. That, and he feels like he's waking up, and he finds that he wants to see her again. Except that instead of again, he means, all the time.
Luna holds up one fuschia-splashed set of fingers, and wiggles them, murmuring an incantation. There's not much of a change, especially in the dim light of early morning. Then, after favoring him with a wide grin, she licks the color right off of her fingertip. "Turns anything into strawberry jam. Very useful."
"If you like strawberry jam," Harry allows.
"Don't you?" Luna holds her hand out, one sticky finger poised right at his mouth. "Go on. I promise it's perfectly fine. Doesn't taste like paint in the least."
This is how Harry comes to have her slender, jam-coated finger in his mouth, and it stays there far past the removal of any jam. Luna makes a tiny sound, her lips parting as surprised breath escape them. "Oh," she says, turning to him fully now, and it's not a stretch for him to ease her onto his legs. He surmises it's alright when she doesn't get up, and instead offers him another finger, slicking the seam of his lips.
"Luna," he says, surprised at how low his voice has gone.
Like always, she knows exactly what he means.
"Yes, please," she says.
Harry kisses her on the mouth, and her lips part and he's tasting the inside of her mouth, feeling the slick slide of her tongue, and somehow he's on his back on the bench and their limbs are all tangled up. When it's either stop for a moment or explode, Harry has to rip his mouth away, and he feels her cheek resting in the crook of his neck. She takes a long, slow breath.
"I suppose you could help a little bit," Luna says. "With the Quibbler. You can't buy it back, but I suppose you can come along and look menacingly at them."
"I hate the fucking Prophet," he grumbles.
"Me too," says Luna, and she's standing up, holding out her hand. "Come on. Let's go forget about them for a while."
When he takes her hand, he's not sure where she's about to Apparate them to, but he knows it's somewhere he wants to go.