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Fish In The Sea | ||||
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Category: Post-OotP Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Drama Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: G Reviews: 10 Summary: Fix what you break. Luna Lovegood observes the H/G relationship. Hitcount: Story Total: 4661 |
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Fish In The Sea When the sun sets, the sky is fire. When it rises, it is a sea, and Luna Lovegood is reminded that there's nothing that can be burned that can't be put out. Ronald likes to practice flying in the mornings, alone. Harry has stopped accompanying him - he is far too tired for these early morning diversions, his diversion of choice comes at night, long talks with Ginny into the wee hours, and as a result, his essay marks have suffered greatly. But the night brightened his colours, and even Hermione Granger, whose own diversions run as solitary as Ronald's, cannot begrudge him for that. "The sky is embracing the earth," says Luna, smiling serenely at him. "Dawn is joy. A diversion." "Yeah, well," says Ronald roughly, shaking his hair out of his eyes, fixed on the horizon, "Harry could use a little more of it, then." "Don't worry," she replies, tilting her head to get a better angle on the way sun glints off his hair. This is serious, she knows. This is monumental. She reaches out, grabs gravity and applies it to her voice, so that he will understand that she is trying to help. "Ginny is teaching him how to be diverted." Ronald stares at her wordlessly for a moment, his face lit up by beams of red sun. All red, always glowing, Weasley crimson. Covered in it, from head to toe. She holds his gaze for as long as he can allow it, before he has to look away and scowl. Longer than most. "Do me a favour, Luna," he says with tremendous effort, as though trying to erase some horrifying thought from his mind, "Never tell me that again." * There's a Hogsmeade weekend, and since Ronald has prefect duties with Hermione until noon, Harry and Ginny go off together first thing in the morning. They come back for supper, laughing; Harry carrying a stack of packages in both arms, and Ginny holding a Sugar Quill. She says something teasingly to him, and he pretends to be offended, until she holds out the feathery end of the candy so he can take a shy bite. Ronald's already eating, he's sitting by himself, chewing slowly, thoughtfully. Deliberately. When Ginny greets him, his smile is strained. She pecks him on the cheek and takes the packages from Harry before bounding off. Luna has taken to sitting at the Gryffindor table for meals. She eats at her own table first, but blue has never been her colour of choice. Ronald stared at her uneasily the first few times, but he has forgotten by now. Has integrated her into his routine, blended her stark unmatching colours into his field of crimson, made them match. Luna likes it. "Where were you?" Harry looks up from his porridge. "Me?" "You and Ginny." His tone is bluntly casual. "I didn't see you all day. Where'd you go?" "Oh. We were in the Shrieking Shack." "Doing what?" Colours belie the words, Luna observes, words that fall free when thoughts are uncovered and so easy to read. Those with the connection can't always see it, or perhaps they'd rather not see it. They can't, because they're attached - they don't think this should be how it is, they think the attachment is a fence, blocking out questions. It's not - if anything, it is all the more reason to ask them. Harry opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looks disbelievingly at Ronald, as though he can't imagine why Ronald would want to know. Stiff shoulders, cool green flicker of an eye. All gone. "Sight-seeing." "Your diversion," mutters Ronald. Harry drops his fork; Luna releases the breath she was holding. Ginny comes back, still smiling, but even that's gone. No one smiles back. * The table only seats two, but three can fit if need be. Hermione Granger is biting her lower lip, looking anxious. She has always been so easy to read, and Harry knows it, too. He knows where this is leading, and it's making him nervous. The fact that Luna is present isn't helping, and she knows they wish they could be alone for this, but Harry's not budging, and Luna - well, Luna was here first. "Ron doesn't know what he's talking about," she says insistently, hand on his arm. "He's just being - well, Ron." Harry shakes his head. "You can't ignore Ginny's feelings just because of something stupid Ron said -" "No," says Harry, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to rest against the edge of the bookcase behind him. The words take effort to come out. "He's right. I'm using her." Luna observes quietly, and Hermione looks aghast. "You are not!" Then, slowly, carefully, her words loaded with meaning, "Are you?" It's Harry's turn to be irritated. "Not like that," he mutters, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes with his sleeve. "I - I don't know, Hermione, what if I am?" There's a pause. "It's not a crime," says Hermione carefully, lifting her eyes to meet Harry's. Her face stays stubbornly free of emotion, but her skin is tinged with pink. "I mean... if it's consensual, and it helps..." "I told you, it's not-" "Parchment is willing to be written on," offers Luna, in an attempt to be helpful. Both Harry and Hermione flinch. "I can't," Harry says dully, shaking his head again. "I can't do it to her." "I know," Hermione replies, and she almost looks proud of him. "I couldn't, either." Luna thinks she's starting to catch on to this conversation. "The problem is," she announces, holding up her ink bottles to their startled faces, "Which colour to use?" * A broken heart is easy to spot. But it's not there yet, at the Gryffindor table, because hope hasn't left. It's stubborn - foolish, even. But admirable, in its singlemindedness, its unwavering determination. Ronald can't understand why Harry is mad at him but he can almost understand why he is mad at himself. He said the wrong thing and he knows it, but he can't take the words back, can't say he didn't mean them because he did. The diversion has become taboo; the night no longer brightens. Harry goes back to practicing Wronski Feints at the crack of dawn. Lines mar his face, furrows grow between tired brows as he swoops and dives. He almost falls twice, almost breaks his neck trying to catch the snitch. It would be okay if he could just sleep, Ron says to Hermione between classes. In the Great Hall one night, he does. He falls asleep at his plate, hands curled into fists in his robes, knuckles white, lips murmuring. No one dares wake him, and he'll never ask them to, because the nightmares are his own. Hermione corners him after Potions, and Luna just so happens to be arriving late for Potions herself. "Harry, please - please tell me what's wrong -" Pause. "He talks to me." Pause. "But Occulmency..." "I'm as trained as is possible," he says, and the frustration is held back so barely in his voice that even Luna, lurking in the shadows, takes a step back. "I still hear him talking to me." He hears voices, and Hermione Granger cries for him when he isn't looking, because she was the one who said it first. Not a good sign. Not even in the Wizarding world. "How long?" "Months," he admits. Hermione looks at him intently, clearly pained. She grips her books tightly, and she has to ask: "She helped?" "She was a diversion," he says stubbornly. Deep breath. Blink. Clear gaze, obvious disappointment. "You have to tell her." He closes his eyes briefly. Grimaces. "I don't want to." "It's the right thing to do," Hermione says softly. "You have to." "Couldn't you...?" Hermione looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. But he's dead - she flinches - serious, and it's so hard to refuse Harry these days. There's so little she can do for him, Luna knows, that whatever little he does ask of her, she agrees to. "I'll try," she says reluctantly. "But Harry -" Harry cuts her off with a hand on her arm. "Tell her I really - just tell her." * Luna starts singing the Weasley Is Our King song whenever Ronald walks into a room, and is amused by the way he has gone from blushing scarlet to humming right along with her. It doesn't really mean anything, she knows. There's too much earth in between them, brown, moist, nurturing earth that Ron eats up , and Luna, for all her fluttery hues and startling colours, can't compete. But it's still a game, and she likes playing it. Harry and Ginny are sitting in a corner, taking turns to watch each other when they think no one's watching. It's all so familiar - they're playing their own game, and it looks like they're still losing. Harry's the only one who thinks he's winning. Luna tilts her head and the world tilts, too, so she understands this concept well. Mirrors reflect what they see, and it's altogether too easy to get confused. Five to none, odds high in his favour, the skies co-operating with light winds, and Draco Malfoy on a broomstick designed to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. Harry's not scared. He falls this time, breaks his arm in 3 places. Something went wrong, something hit him in the chest, made him lose his balance. When he came to, they found out it was just a leaf. * She didn't come to visit him, and it's tearing him apart. He thinks she hates him, and no one can blame him. He can't convince himself otherwise, that he doesn't deserve this after what he did to her. Luna creeps into the Hospital Wing one night to see Harry. He's awake, his eyes will not let him sleep. It isn't pain. Just too much seeing. "Does it hurt?" "It's numb," he answers, trying to wiggle a finger. He grimaces. "All for the best, I suppose." "You were learning how not to be," she says. "If it weren't numb," he says, insistently, "It'd hurt too much. I wouldn't be able to sleep without it." "You can't sleep anyway," she points out. He's silent for a long, long time. "She doesn't hate you," Luna blurts out. "She probably just thinks I'm crazy." He cracks a smile, and it's so sad, that for a minute, Luna's heart can't beat. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy. They're all afraid." "It doesn't matter, Harry." says Luna seriously, entwining her hands into the folds of her grandmother's shawl. "She's just a diversion." Harry doesn't react, only fixes his gaze on something just to the left of her. She smiles at him. She knows, and this time it's an offer. "Still plenty of fish in the sea for that." He doesn't sleep at all that night. * "I just want you to know," says Ron bravely the night Harry is released from the Hospital Wing, "That I'm a prat." In front of everyone in the Great Hall, his red halo blazes apologetically. There is a tense pause. There always is these days. "I already knew that," says Harry, grinning. * Luna twirls before the mirror, transformed. He'll like it, she thinks. He'll probably laugh. He does laugh when he sees her, and his laughter is probably as genuine as it can get. Luna is pleased to see that his mittens are missing, and the scarf wrapped around his neck belongs to Ginny. She recognizes the shiny, darkened circle near one end of a gold stripe - a stain put there by Luna herself, the result of a clumsy accident in Potions. Only not so clumsy on her end, but on some Slytherin's wandering feet. "I like your robes." Luna smiles at him. The fish on her robes twinkle, flash, shine. Every colour of the rainbow. "I wore it for you." He's silent for a moment because he can't find the words to say. "Sorry," he says, eventually, when Ginny comes up to them and slips her mittened hand into his bare one. Her other hand comes up to cover her mouth as she giggles, taking in Luna's robes. Luna curtseys, and Ginny laughs, eyes dancing. You look like something from a fairytale. Plenty of fish in the sea, Luna thinks, but the only one that matters is the one that catches you. * A/N: Written for the hpgw_ficafest on livejournal.com, specifically under the "Canon Characters Who Ship H/G challenge. |
| Reviews 10 |
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