FIC: Joy [Ginny/Luna]
Title: Joy
Author: marc_duork
Prompt: 67 BY leontinabowie
Pairing(s): Luna/Ginny
Word Count: 2.3K
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): brief mentions of canon character death
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: A big thanks to my lovely beta, pineapplebooks, and of course to the mods for running this excellent fest! This is my very first femmeslash btw; I enjoyed it :)
Summary: A few years after Voldemort’s defeat, and Ginny’s road to recovery has been bumpy. On a long weekend away in the mountains with their friends, a spontaneous moment with Luna might be good for her.
"What on earth are you doing?" Ginny calls shrilly to the figure twenty feet up in the tree, balancing dangerously far out on a high branch that should not, by rights, be able to support the weight of an adult human. Ginny’s heart gives a flutter of terror when a gust violently sways the tree. "Are you mad? Get down here now!" she shrieks, worried for her best friend’s life.
"It’s okay, Ginny," Luna calls back, voice calmly drifting on the wind.
"No, it’s not!" Ginny squawks, but with a whip-like crack Luna is suddenly by her side. The immediate lack of danger does not save Luna from admonishment, though, and Ginny ploughs on, hand on her thundering heart. "What were you thinking? You could’ve died! There’s a big storm coming in and, what, you thought you’d just -"
"I needed this flower," Luna says, as though that is the most rational explanation in the world. Ginny focuses on the blossom Luna’s holding under her nose. Very large and shockingly blue, she doesn’t recognise it from any herbological book she’s come across, but it gives off the sharpest, sweetest aroma she’s ever smelled.
"And why on earth couldn’t it wait until after the bloody hurricane?"
Luna gives her an incredulous look. "Because it has to be harvested in the right conditions. Right now, in fact." She smiles brightly and wanders towards the woods that border the grounds of the cottage they’re staying in, leaving Ginny standing exasperated and windswept beneath the twisted old tree.
"Hang on!" Ginny wheels around to follow her. "What do you even need it for, some kind of potion?" She falls back into rapid step beside Luna, who just grins serenely at her. "What else do you need for it? The tooth of an angry dragon?" She’s aware that she sounds worryingly like her mother right now, but Luna often brings out her protective instincts. In fact, lately, everyone does.
Luna simply laughs. "It’s a lure."
"For what exactly?" Ginny steps in front of Luna to block her path. Another gust of wind buffets them. Luna’s long hair whips into her face, and Ginny can smell the jasmine of her shampoo and the almost overpowering sweetness of the blossom curled in her hands.
"You never believe me." Luna tries to sidestep her, but Ginny merely crosses her arms and steps with her. Sighing quietly, Luna’s gentle smile falters and she looks Ginny in the eye. Giving in under Ginny’s unwavering scowl, she shrugs. "It’s for a creature. It’s called a flumsprout -"
"There’s no such thing," Ginny snaps, and Luna rolls her eyes amicably. Not that she doesn’t appreciate Luna’s wonderful imagination, but now is very much not the time for it. It hasn’t been the time for it for quite a while.
"I told you you wouldn’t believe me. Honestly, I think Hermione’s been rubbing off on you."
"Oi, you take that back!" Ginny gasps in mock indignation. "Luna, I love you, but you can’t just disappear on your own in an area none of us know!"
Luna looks almost annoyed with her, and Ginny can’t help but feel a little bit proud of herself; she can count on one hand the number of times she’s made Luna mad. The sky even seems to darken, in fact, as a crease starts to form between Luna’s eyebrows. Luna seems to notice the change too and looks up at the thick grey clouds.
"Ginny, please. I don’t have a lot of time." Luna tries again to step past her, but Ginny stands her ground.
"Time for what?"
"To see a flumsprout! They are very secretive and very picky, so I need to do this right if I’m going to attract one."
"It’s going to start pouring!"
"I know! That’s why I need to do it now."
"You’re not disappearing off into the wilderness in the rain alone, Luna, for Merlin’s sake! Not today!"
Luna fixes Ginny with a resigned glare, then suddenly breaks into an excited grin that gives Ginny the sinking sense that she’s just sealed her own fate. "Then you’ll just have to come too."
She grabs Ginny’s wrist and starts to drag her along. "Hey!" Ginny protests in vain against Luna’s surprisingly strong grip. The wind direction changes and is suddenly pushing her forward, as though even the weather is encouraging this madness.
"According to Dad, there are flumsprout all over the woods in this area. Apparently, they’re absolutely stunning with colourful skins and these incredible long tails," Luna says as they storm through the overgrown field towards the tree line of the surrounding woods. The rustling of the leaves in the blustering wind is almost deafening, and creaking branches are ominous. Ginny could swear she’s starting to feel spots of rain already.
"Luna, come on! The others’ll start to worry!"
They come to a stop at the edge of the woods and Luna lets go of her wrist, runs to place the bright blue blossom against the roots of a creaking oak, and pulls out her wand.
"Flumsprouts are very shy things and very wary of males, much like unicorns. And they only come out in the rain, but they love the nectar of these blossoms - Dad told me this area’s lousy with them. And they’re drawn to joy. They can sense it."
Those are definitely raindrops, and they’re coming thicker and faster now as the wind drops a little. Ginny raises an eyebrow, incredulous. "So you brought me along?"
She hasn’t felt anything close to joy in years; not when she made the Harpies squad, not even when Bill and Fleur announced their pregnancy. Not since Fred. She had hoped this time away with her friends might at least help with the sleeping troubles, but no such luck so far. Harry is the only one who really understands her nightmares, and he’s away working. They’ve barely even spoken in weeks, not that their relationship is doing so well anyway.
"Well, you didn’t exactly give me much choice." She can hear the terseness in Luna’s voice as she busies herself casting odour amplifying spells on the blossom. "You’ll have to do." She turns around and Ginny sees a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. "And I’ve managed much more with much less before."
Before Ginny can do more than frown in confusion, Luna darts past her, back out into the field, just as the heavens open. The rain falls fast and hard in droplets the size of golfballs, pummelling the ground into submission within seconds.
"Luna, what are you doing? Get over here now!" Ginny squeals from the relative shelter of a tree, soaked through anyway and trapped by the wall of rain. She feels less than joyful about this. Just cold and annoyed and a little nauseous from the aggressively loud scent of the blue blossom. And Luna simply stands there, arms outstretched and head tilted back into the cascade.
Out of decency, Ginny tries not to pay attention the growing outline of Luna’s body beneath the thin fabric of her dress now utterly plastered to her skin as she stands proudly and unselfconsciously in front of her. She feels her face getting warm with the awkwardness of trying not to notice the droop of Luna’s neckline, heavy with water, the peak of her nipples under cotton, but she can sense that Luna doesn’t care. She never has about this sort of thing.
After a long minute of grinning serenely at the sky, Luna looks back at her and jerks her head in invitation. Ginny refuses to move.
Luna’s smile just broadens and Ginny’s breath catches in her throat at the sheer beauty of it, the unadulterated openness. Luna takes a step back, raising her pale arms over her head. And she starts to dance: spinning and twirling in the wind and rain to a tune in her own head, streams of water flying in spiral arcs from the hems of her translucent dresses.
Luna does bizarre things all the time; dancing in the rain is very low on the barometer of weird that Ginny has come to expect. In fact, it’s practically normal behaviour. Her tangled hair, now a sodden dull brown, whips around her face in tendrils, ears sticking out from under them. Her ever-bare feet are splattered with mud and grass cuttings all the way up to the knees. Her spotted purple underwear is so visible through her linen dress that she may as well be wearing them on the outside.
The whole display is so imperfect. Improper. And Luna doesn’t care at all. She just dances as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. As though she’s the only person in the world. As though the awfulness surrounding their lives had never happened; totally free of burden. And Ginny’s never seen anything so spectacular. Her heart actually flutters as she watches in awe and aches with a longing for that feeling.
"Come on, Ginny. The water’s fine!"
The tinkling sound of her laugh carries on the wind and Ginny can hear the depth of her smile, every carefree crack in her tone. Ginny loves her best friend. She’s never fully understood her frivolousness, or how it’s even possible to always live in the moment as she does, but at the sound of her laughter, Ginny steps right out into the torrent of rain. Their eyes meet and the intensity that’s inherent to Luna’s wide, piercing blue gaze hits her like another gale-force wind. Luna dances towards her and holds out a hand. Ginny takes it and lets herself smile for the first time in a long time.
Together they spin in the rain, wet hands slipping against each other, puddles of muddy water splashing beneath their jumps and skips. And as they dance gracelessly, Ginny swears she can hear the same music that’s playing in Luna’s head. They laugh with each other, more freely than they have since even before the war, chuckles swelling in her belly and flowing as wildly as if a dam had burst.
At some point they fall down, whether by accident or intention Ginny isn’t sure, laughing so hard that she has a stitch, and Luna rolls over in the grass to stare into the trees.
"Any sign of your flumsprout yet?" Ginny grins, lying flat on the ground, unfazed by mud and grass in her tangled hair. She can barely feel the rain now, dumb from the cold and sheer constant battery.
"Not yet." Luna looks back at her and her smile slides into a crooked smirk. "Perhaps we need to be a little more joyful."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah…" Luna rolls back over until she’s practically on top of her, and slips her pale fingers between Ginny’s freckled ones. Instinctively, Ginny recoils. Her hand flinches under Luna’s, but she doesn’t pull it away. She stops laughing and blushes furiously, avoiding Luna’s eyes. But another hand comes up to meet her chin and Luna tilts Ginny’s head to face her with a gentle nudge of the thumb.
Brown eyes meet sharp blue ones once more and Ginny is hit by the intensity again, somehow the most inviting stare she’s ever experienced, and her heart starts to hammer in her chest. Never breaking eye contact, Luna traces her ice cold fingers softly over Ginny’s jaw, slowly dipping lower, closing the achingly wide distance between them until they’re barely inches apart.
"How so?" Ginny whispers, wide eyes finally dropping to rest on Luna’s lips. She can feel the warm press of Luna’s hip against hers, her hard nipple barely grazing against Ginny’s bare upper arm.
"Perhaps," Luna murmurs, "we could..." The space between them narrows imperceptibly, and she can taste the warmth of Luna’s breath. "We…"
Then their lips meet, full and soft and cold from the rain. She can still smell the jasmine in Luna’s hair, the wet earth beneath them, the blue blossom hanging faintly in the air. She can feel the gritty mud caught between their lips, Luna’s hair slick and cold against her cheek, her delicate fingers migrating into Ginny’s red waves as Ginny’s fly up to cup Luna’s face. The smoothness of her cheeks beneath Ginny’s fingertips is so different from the stubble and roughness she’s experienced before; the softness of Luna’s curves against her body are a stark contrast to the hard chests and bones she’s been used to.
Ginny lets herself soften into the kiss and almost too quickly, as though it had been waiting for the opportunity, her mind goes completely blank. All the nightmares and the worries and the stress of the last year melt away, and she falls into Luna so deeply and wholly that the only thought that she can muster is of Luna and her simple, easy love. As if through the meeting of their lips, Luna pours out for her all of her heart. And, if only just for a moment in this awful year, this one moment, Ginny is filled with joy. Deep down, she knows that it won’t last, that the pain isn’t gone forever, but right now, she doesn’t care about anything but Luna and her overflowing heart.
Eventually, Luna pulls away and the emptiness between them feels colder than ever before. She glances over at the woods, eyes roving the trees wildly. Ginny grins and pulls her back down with very little resistance. In stark contrast to the frigid wetness of her lips, Luna’s tongue is warm and welcome.
It’s a long time before they pull apart again, and when they do it takes a good few seconds before Ginny notices that at some point it stopped raining. A sudden breeze brings their attention to the fact that they’re both shivering, and covered in mud and grass stains. But Ginny doesn’t care.
"Do you think that was joyous enough for your flumsprout?" Ginny says softly against Luna’s forearm.
"I don’t know."
Ginny raises her eyebrows playfully. "Well, did it come out?"
But Luna doesn’t look away from Ginny’s face. "I don’t know," she whispers back.
Author: marc_duork
Prompt: 67 BY leontinabowie
Pairing(s): Luna/Ginny
Word Count: 2.3K
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): brief mentions of canon character death
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: A big thanks to my lovely beta, pineapplebooks, and of course to the mods for running this excellent fest! This is my very first femmeslash btw; I enjoyed it :)
Summary: A few years after Voldemort’s defeat, and Ginny’s road to recovery has been bumpy. On a long weekend away in the mountains with their friends, a spontaneous moment with Luna might be good for her.
"What on earth are you doing?" Ginny calls shrilly to the figure twenty feet up in the tree, balancing dangerously far out on a high branch that should not, by rights, be able to support the weight of an adult human. Ginny’s heart gives a flutter of terror when a gust violently sways the tree. "Are you mad? Get down here now!" she shrieks, worried for her best friend’s life.
"It’s okay, Ginny," Luna calls back, voice calmly drifting on the wind.
"No, it’s not!" Ginny squawks, but with a whip-like crack Luna is suddenly by her side. The immediate lack of danger does not save Luna from admonishment, though, and Ginny ploughs on, hand on her thundering heart. "What were you thinking? You could’ve died! There’s a big storm coming in and, what, you thought you’d just -"
"I needed this flower," Luna says, as though that is the most rational explanation in the world. Ginny focuses on the blossom Luna’s holding under her nose. Very large and shockingly blue, she doesn’t recognise it from any herbological book she’s come across, but it gives off the sharpest, sweetest aroma she’s ever smelled.
"And why on earth couldn’t it wait until after the bloody hurricane?"
Luna gives her an incredulous look. "Because it has to be harvested in the right conditions. Right now, in fact." She smiles brightly and wanders towards the woods that border the grounds of the cottage they’re staying in, leaving Ginny standing exasperated and windswept beneath the twisted old tree.
"Hang on!" Ginny wheels around to follow her. "What do you even need it for, some kind of potion?" She falls back into rapid step beside Luna, who just grins serenely at her. "What else do you need for it? The tooth of an angry dragon?" She’s aware that she sounds worryingly like her mother right now, but Luna often brings out her protective instincts. In fact, lately, everyone does.
Luna simply laughs. "It’s a lure."
"For what exactly?" Ginny steps in front of Luna to block her path. Another gust of wind buffets them. Luna’s long hair whips into her face, and Ginny can smell the jasmine of her shampoo and the almost overpowering sweetness of the blossom curled in her hands.
"You never believe me." Luna tries to sidestep her, but Ginny merely crosses her arms and steps with her. Sighing quietly, Luna’s gentle smile falters and she looks Ginny in the eye. Giving in under Ginny’s unwavering scowl, she shrugs. "It’s for a creature. It’s called a flumsprout -"
"There’s no such thing," Ginny snaps, and Luna rolls her eyes amicably. Not that she doesn’t appreciate Luna’s wonderful imagination, but now is very much not the time for it. It hasn’t been the time for it for quite a while.
"I told you you wouldn’t believe me. Honestly, I think Hermione’s been rubbing off on you."
"Oi, you take that back!" Ginny gasps in mock indignation. "Luna, I love you, but you can’t just disappear on your own in an area none of us know!"
Luna looks almost annoyed with her, and Ginny can’t help but feel a little bit proud of herself; she can count on one hand the number of times she’s made Luna mad. The sky even seems to darken, in fact, as a crease starts to form between Luna’s eyebrows. Luna seems to notice the change too and looks up at the thick grey clouds.
"Ginny, please. I don’t have a lot of time." Luna tries again to step past her, but Ginny stands her ground.
"Time for what?"
"To see a flumsprout! They are very secretive and very picky, so I need to do this right if I’m going to attract one."
"It’s going to start pouring!"
"I know! That’s why I need to do it now."
"You’re not disappearing off into the wilderness in the rain alone, Luna, for Merlin’s sake! Not today!"
Luna fixes Ginny with a resigned glare, then suddenly breaks into an excited grin that gives Ginny the sinking sense that she’s just sealed her own fate. "Then you’ll just have to come too."
She grabs Ginny’s wrist and starts to drag her along. "Hey!" Ginny protests in vain against Luna’s surprisingly strong grip. The wind direction changes and is suddenly pushing her forward, as though even the weather is encouraging this madness.
"According to Dad, there are flumsprout all over the woods in this area. Apparently, they’re absolutely stunning with colourful skins and these incredible long tails," Luna says as they storm through the overgrown field towards the tree line of the surrounding woods. The rustling of the leaves in the blustering wind is almost deafening, and creaking branches are ominous. Ginny could swear she’s starting to feel spots of rain already.
"Luna, come on! The others’ll start to worry!"
They come to a stop at the edge of the woods and Luna lets go of her wrist, runs to place the bright blue blossom against the roots of a creaking oak, and pulls out her wand.
"Flumsprouts are very shy things and very wary of males, much like unicorns. And they only come out in the rain, but they love the nectar of these blossoms - Dad told me this area’s lousy with them. And they’re drawn to joy. They can sense it."
Those are definitely raindrops, and they’re coming thicker and faster now as the wind drops a little. Ginny raises an eyebrow, incredulous. "So you brought me along?"
She hasn’t felt anything close to joy in years; not when she made the Harpies squad, not even when Bill and Fleur announced their pregnancy. Not since Fred. She had hoped this time away with her friends might at least help with the sleeping troubles, but no such luck so far. Harry is the only one who really understands her nightmares, and he’s away working. They’ve barely even spoken in weeks, not that their relationship is doing so well anyway.
"Well, you didn’t exactly give me much choice." She can hear the terseness in Luna’s voice as she busies herself casting odour amplifying spells on the blossom. "You’ll have to do." She turns around and Ginny sees a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. "And I’ve managed much more with much less before."
Before Ginny can do more than frown in confusion, Luna darts past her, back out into the field, just as the heavens open. The rain falls fast and hard in droplets the size of golfballs, pummelling the ground into submission within seconds.
"Luna, what are you doing? Get over here now!" Ginny squeals from the relative shelter of a tree, soaked through anyway and trapped by the wall of rain. She feels less than joyful about this. Just cold and annoyed and a little nauseous from the aggressively loud scent of the blue blossom. And Luna simply stands there, arms outstretched and head tilted back into the cascade.
Out of decency, Ginny tries not to pay attention the growing outline of Luna’s body beneath the thin fabric of her dress now utterly plastered to her skin as she stands proudly and unselfconsciously in front of her. She feels her face getting warm with the awkwardness of trying not to notice the droop of Luna’s neckline, heavy with water, the peak of her nipples under cotton, but she can sense that Luna doesn’t care. She never has about this sort of thing.
After a long minute of grinning serenely at the sky, Luna looks back at her and jerks her head in invitation. Ginny refuses to move.
Luna’s smile just broadens and Ginny’s breath catches in her throat at the sheer beauty of it, the unadulterated openness. Luna takes a step back, raising her pale arms over her head. And she starts to dance: spinning and twirling in the wind and rain to a tune in her own head, streams of water flying in spiral arcs from the hems of her translucent dresses.
Luna does bizarre things all the time; dancing in the rain is very low on the barometer of weird that Ginny has come to expect. In fact, it’s practically normal behaviour. Her tangled hair, now a sodden dull brown, whips around her face in tendrils, ears sticking out from under them. Her ever-bare feet are splattered with mud and grass cuttings all the way up to the knees. Her spotted purple underwear is so visible through her linen dress that she may as well be wearing them on the outside.
The whole display is so imperfect. Improper. And Luna doesn’t care at all. She just dances as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. As though she’s the only person in the world. As though the awfulness surrounding their lives had never happened; totally free of burden. And Ginny’s never seen anything so spectacular. Her heart actually flutters as she watches in awe and aches with a longing for that feeling.
"Come on, Ginny. The water’s fine!"
The tinkling sound of her laugh carries on the wind and Ginny can hear the depth of her smile, every carefree crack in her tone. Ginny loves her best friend. She’s never fully understood her frivolousness, or how it’s even possible to always live in the moment as she does, but at the sound of her laughter, Ginny steps right out into the torrent of rain. Their eyes meet and the intensity that’s inherent to Luna’s wide, piercing blue gaze hits her like another gale-force wind. Luna dances towards her and holds out a hand. Ginny takes it and lets herself smile for the first time in a long time.
Together they spin in the rain, wet hands slipping against each other, puddles of muddy water splashing beneath their jumps and skips. And as they dance gracelessly, Ginny swears she can hear the same music that’s playing in Luna’s head. They laugh with each other, more freely than they have since even before the war, chuckles swelling in her belly and flowing as wildly as if a dam had burst.
At some point they fall down, whether by accident or intention Ginny isn’t sure, laughing so hard that she has a stitch, and Luna rolls over in the grass to stare into the trees.
"Any sign of your flumsprout yet?" Ginny grins, lying flat on the ground, unfazed by mud and grass in her tangled hair. She can barely feel the rain now, dumb from the cold and sheer constant battery.
"Not yet." Luna looks back at her and her smile slides into a crooked smirk. "Perhaps we need to be a little more joyful."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah…" Luna rolls back over until she’s practically on top of her, and slips her pale fingers between Ginny’s freckled ones. Instinctively, Ginny recoils. Her hand flinches under Luna’s, but she doesn’t pull it away. She stops laughing and blushes furiously, avoiding Luna’s eyes. But another hand comes up to meet her chin and Luna tilts Ginny’s head to face her with a gentle nudge of the thumb.
Brown eyes meet sharp blue ones once more and Ginny is hit by the intensity again, somehow the most inviting stare she’s ever experienced, and her heart starts to hammer in her chest. Never breaking eye contact, Luna traces her ice cold fingers softly over Ginny’s jaw, slowly dipping lower, closing the achingly wide distance between them until they’re barely inches apart.
"How so?" Ginny whispers, wide eyes finally dropping to rest on Luna’s lips. She can feel the warm press of Luna’s hip against hers, her hard nipple barely grazing against Ginny’s bare upper arm.
"Perhaps," Luna murmurs, "we could..." The space between them narrows imperceptibly, and she can taste the warmth of Luna’s breath. "We…"
Then their lips meet, full and soft and cold from the rain. She can still smell the jasmine in Luna’s hair, the wet earth beneath them, the blue blossom hanging faintly in the air. She can feel the gritty mud caught between their lips, Luna’s hair slick and cold against her cheek, her delicate fingers migrating into Ginny’s red waves as Ginny’s fly up to cup Luna’s face. The smoothness of her cheeks beneath Ginny’s fingertips is so different from the stubble and roughness she’s experienced before; the softness of Luna’s curves against her body are a stark contrast to the hard chests and bones she’s been used to.
Ginny lets herself soften into the kiss and almost too quickly, as though it had been waiting for the opportunity, her mind goes completely blank. All the nightmares and the worries and the stress of the last year melt away, and she falls into Luna so deeply and wholly that the only thought that she can muster is of Luna and her simple, easy love. As if through the meeting of their lips, Luna pours out for her all of her heart. And, if only just for a moment in this awful year, this one moment, Ginny is filled with joy. Deep down, she knows that it won’t last, that the pain isn’t gone forever, but right now, she doesn’t care about anything but Luna and her overflowing heart.
Eventually, Luna pulls away and the emptiness between them feels colder than ever before. She glances over at the woods, eyes roving the trees wildly. Ginny grins and pulls her back down with very little resistance. In stark contrast to the frigid wetness of her lips, Luna’s tongue is warm and welcome.
It’s a long time before they pull apart again, and when they do it takes a good few seconds before Ginny notices that at some point it stopped raining. A sudden breeze brings their attention to the fact that they’re both shivering, and covered in mud and grass stains. But Ginny doesn’t care.
"Do you think that was joyous enough for your flumsprout?" Ginny says softly against Luna’s forearm.
"I don’t know."
Ginny raises her eyebrows playfully. "Well, did it come out?"
But Luna doesn’t look away from Ginny’s face. "I don’t know," she whispers back.