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What you see with Luna is not what you get, because Luna is a Ravenclaw for a reason and people forget that. They see a naive little girl with her head in the clouds, they see her as innocent and clueless and think she knows nothing, think she doesn’t understand. They see her alone and friendless and think its because she doesn’t understand people, she doesn’t understand how to make friends. But they’re wrong. She understands better than they think.
And that’s why, really, that’s why she doesn’t have much to do with most people. It’s not because she doesn’t understand how they work, its because she understands too well, and she understands that its nothing that she wants anything to do with.
She looks at them and she sees them with their cruelty and their mocking tongues and their narrow minds and the cynical little part of her wonders if she’ll ever have a friend because she could never be friends with someone like them. That’s not to say she won’t try, that’s not to say that her optimist’s spirit won’t reach out to each and every one of them at every chance she gets, not to say she won’t try as hard as she can to be nice, to be approachable, to be friendly, because she will. And she hopes that maybe one day, one of them will open their minds to a whole world that they can’t see, that one of them will leave their anger and their fear and their worries behind, that they’ll stop thinking about fitting in and they’ll stop thinking about being rich and they’ll stop thinking about being famous and that they’ll just do whatever it is they want, whatever it is they enjoy.
That’s what she does. She does what she must, and she does what she wants, and she does what she believes is right, and the only thing she hopes to get out of it is happiness.
But the cynical little part of her is not so little anymore and its learning to speak up and she’s beginning to think she’ll never have a friend, never have someone who’s willing to be unafraid and open up their minds skywards and find the world above their heads, or at least find someone else’s world.
And then it happens.
It’s the end of her third year and it’s herbology and Professor Sprout is busy and distracted by her plants and her work as ever and there are two boys beside Luna and but not really beside her, and they’re laughing and sniggering and then she hears the familiar whisper of Looooooooony Lovegood and she doesn’t even look up because she doesn’t care. She feels sorry for them, she knows why they do it. They do it because they think she’s weird and because they think she’s stupid and they’re both too worried about fitting in with with each other for either of them to pull away from the suggestion of mocking her so they both feel they have to do it. She hopes they don’t spend the rest of their lives trapped like this. She hopes they find it within themselves to be their own people. But she doesn’t care what they think about her.
And then it happens.
“Shut up and stop being such twats or I’ll hex you.” Threatens a voice behind her (only actually behind her). The voice sounds angry and protective and irritated and kind of like its wearing no makeup except for some bright red lipstick and it sounds an awful lot like hope.
The boys stop but they don’t apologise and Luna turns around to greet her saviour without their comment or their gaze. She doesn’t thank the girl behind her (who looks angry and irritated and red all over including her lips and an awful lot like a punch to the gut) but she does smile, because she doesn’t trust her voice to come out normal.
Because this is it. This is the first time someone has ever stood up for her, the first time she had ever found anyone brave enough not to care what their peers think, the first time she had ever found someone who had been willing to open up to the idea of a world that wasn’t their own and in this moment Luna knows that she is lost.
For Luna it’s not all about looks, her defender could have been four foot nothing and wider than they were tall, bald and covered with warts and she would still have felt drawn to them, attracted to them even, but no. Her defender was tall and slender and beautiful, fiery red with a personality to match, burning as bright and as warm as the flames that lent their colour to her hair and to her red red lips with skin of sun kissed porcelain and eyes of chocolate brown. Of course she was lost. Who wouldn’t be?
But Ginny didn’t talk to her again, and Luna began to fear that maybe it had been a fluke. She stood up for her a few more times, but they didn’t speak, and Luna began to re-accustom herself to the idea that she would never have friends here.
But not for long. Not for long because forth year brought Dumbledore’s Army and Luna truly saw for the first time just what she had been missing out on all this time, and how cold she had been when she thought she had been enough to keep herself warm. This was warmth. This was warmth and friendship and happiness and she had felt all those things before but this was what it was meant to feel like, what she wanted it to feel like forever.
Forth year brought Harry and Ron and Hermione and Dean and Seamus and Colin and Neville and Ginny. Oh god Ginny. She was more than Luna could ever have dreamed she would be, warmer and louder and happier and gentler and funnier and kinder and she laughed more and when she laughed… When she laughed.
It wasn’t long before they were friends, good friends, Luna thought. Ginny thought so too, she must have done. Surely people who were’t that close didn’t tell each other the things Ginny told her, they didn’t share their secrets and their fears and their hopes and dreams and ambitions and loves they kept hidden close and deep in their heart, did they?
Luna knew she had kept away from people for a reason, she had kept away so that she could stay herself, she had been kept away because she refused to conform to who they wanted her to be and nothing and no one could make her regret that. But now, just now, she wished she knew just a little more about how friendship worked, because she wanted, no, needed to know just what she meant to Ginny and for the first time she was afraid to do what her instinct told her to do. She was afraid to ask Ginny what she meant to her, she was afraid to be told Not much, she was afraid to hear Everything and be lied to, she was afraid that the mere question would change the answer, she was afraid that Ginny would know just how Luna felt about her and be disgusted, and for the first time she was afraid to be honest about how she felt and how she saw the world.
But she looked in the mirror and she still knew who she was. It was still okay.
The things Ginny told her hurt sometimes. They hurt like a punch to the gut. They would curl up together in blankets by the fire in the Room of Requirement after dinner on cold nights until the fire burned low, and Luna would talk about fantastical creatures or the latest news from her father even though she knew that Ginny didn’t believe her and only smiled but she didn’t care and it made Ginny smile, and Ginny would talk about quidditch and boys and that was what hurt.
“Can you keep a secret?” She had whispered once across the semi-darkness into Luna’s ear.
Luna had given her usual smile though wider than it usually was because she was happier than she usually was and whispered back “Of course.”
Ginny had smiled back and shuffled closer in her duvet cloak, impossibly close, was it usual to be this close? And whispered, “I’m still in love with Harry, you know. I have been since I was eleven.”
And Luna had fought to keep her expression still, fought to keep the atmosphere light and warm and taken herself out of herself so that she could look at Ginny and think about Harry and notice what a good match they could be and how sweet Harry was, how good he would be to her friend, and it must have worked because life went on.
Life went on and Ginny kept dating boys and talking about them to Luna and Harry kept teaching them spells and smiling when they all learned them and Umbridge kept trying to ruin their worlds and steal their smiles and Luna kept smiling anyway because she had never been happier than she was now with her friends and her freedom despite the restrictions.
But it still hurt, it still felt like her heart was being gently stepped on whenever she saw Ginny kissing Michael after their DA meetings and it still hurt when Ginny leaned in close and made her heart beat so fast it scared her and whispered about Harry in her ear and it still hurt that she still got that jolt of lightening in her chest every time she saw Ginny in the corridor, and it hurt that she kept hoping that Ginny would see her and smile and it hurt even more when she didn’t.
But overall, in the scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Ginny was her best friend in the world, she had a best friend in the world, and she was happier than she had ever been.
The next year was lonelier, but she still had Ginny, and the year after was worse, though in a very different way. In a way it was almost better.
She spent the beginning of the first term consoling the girl who meant the most to her in the world and trying not to do anything to get herself killed, and the rest of term holding the hand of the girl who was stronger than ever and doing everything that would get her killed and trying not to get caught doing it.
The crying stopped quickly, the sadness stayed longer, the anxiety would never go away, the strength that had never left multiplied a hundred fold and together with Neville they became the most looked-up to students in the school. They were friends, they had each other.
The other students still thought she was weird, still knew she was an outcast, but for the first time her dreamy demeanour was overlooked, and her refusal to conform to what she was not was her shining trait, her most admired and much admired best feature, emulated and imitated by everyone who dared.
And they talked to her. And they laughed with her. And they loved her. And she loved them back. But not as much as she loved Ginny.
Ginny: her straight best friend.
Ginny: always and eternally in love with one of Luna’s best friends, a wonderful and deserving man.
Ginny: properly, thoroughly, completely boyfriend-less for the first time since Luna has known her.
Ginny: both mourning and exasperated over the loss of the boy she has loved for the last six years or more.
Ginny: her best friend in the world, her confidante and co-conspirator, comforter and collaborator.
Ginny: straining under the pressure from the weight of supporting her family and her friends, and shouldering the burden of hope thrust upon her by what remained of the school, and the responsibility she had picked up for keeping their own rag-tag band of miscreants safe and well and raucously spirited, and the weight of her own issues, her own griefs her own fears her own loneliness for being the dumped girlfriend of the Boy Who Lived who had left her in an attempt to spare her life while risking his own, and under the weight of her own four limbs with no one to lean on (no one to lie on, no one to wrap her limbs around).
And Luna: watching from the distance she preferred to keep from herself as she watched her friend deliberately not look like she was going to cry, watching herself as if she was not herself after all the others had left, watching Ginny let her lower lip tremble but allowing it no further.
Luna: doing whatever she could and whatever she had to do.
Luna’s preferred way to act was not to spend too long worrying about what to do. The best approach was generally the first one, your first idea was what you most wanted to do. (When it came to Ginny she’d been not doing that for a long time, but now) she knew that her first thought, her first instinct, was the only one. The only one that would work, the only one that she wanted, the only one she was sure would help her friend, at least for a week or two.
She could have waited until Ginny came to her, could have waited until Ginny was weak and crying, stricken with nightmares and, vulnerable and open and desperate for comfort. It would have been easier.
But she didn’t. How could she? To take advantage of her friend like that would have been a complete betrayal. Despicable.
Instead, she waited until Ginny needed no one, until she was in one of those moods that felt like she was wearing no makeup except for some bright red lipstick and ready to take on the world alone. She waited until Ginny was in complete control of her entire world, and then she went to her.
They talked for a while normally, Ginny pumped and full of enthusiasm, Luna pensive and quieter than usual. In these moods of Ginny’s, the ones where she is loud and confident and oh-so strong, she is not as observant as usual. It takes her a full five minutes to ask is something is wrong (Luna counts) because this is the moment she hadn’t realised she’d been waiting for.
This is the moment where Ginny pauses, comes in closer, and looks at her with concern, with care, with love and Luna doesn’t think. She pauses a moment though, and the silence stretches on and Luna meets Ginny’s curious gaze with her own level stare. This is the moment, and Luna takes a moment to smile. She smiles softly, before leaning forward and pressing her lips gently to Ginny’s.
It is a soft kiss, a whispering of lips, barely there, barely real, but it is enough.
If Ginny turns around and rejects her, tells her never to do that ever again it will be okay, Luna has done what she has so desperately wanted to do for so long now and it is enough.
Ginny’s breath seems to stop, she freezes where she is as Luna pulls away, and for a moment Luna is afraid, but then the moment passes and Ginny steps back, eyes wide and glassy, lips parted, cheeks flushed, not looking at Luna. But the corners of her mouth begin to tilt upwards, just slightly, just a little.
Then she turned back to Luna and her expression is, more sombre, very nearly neutral. She swallows, then speaks. “Luna” She breaths, her voice a whisper where it has always been a shout. She pauses again, and then, “I suppose this explains why you’ve never really talked about boys.” She laughs a little, a little nervous.
“Luna, I…”
“It’s okay Ginny.” Luna smiles at her, serene as ever and radiant with her truth.
“No, Luna, I… What was that?”
Luna smiles again. “A kiss.”
Now Ginny smiles, a proper one now, but the tension remaines.
Luna could have said it was because she loved her, could have said because she was in love with her, could have said that it was anything Ginny wanted. But she doesn't. She doesn't have to.
Instead, she merely walks over to Ginny and wraps her arms around her and hugs her tight, and smiles in relief as Ginny does not hesitate to hug her back, to hold her tighter, to press her face into the crook of Luna’s neck and shake as she sobs.
Because she knows. She knows that Luna loves her, knows that Luna is in love with her, knows that Luna would never push anything on her that she didn’t want, knows that Luna hadn't meant to try and steal her away and steal her heart, knows that Luna offers her nothing but comfort and affection.
I would like to tell you that this was the beginning of their beautiful romance, a fanciful love affair that spanned decades and continents, fire and ice, but alas that is not true. It did not last through that time. It never even began.
Because when Ginny pulled away from that hug it was with a smile that was both happy and sad, hopeful and regretful, and Luna knew what it meant. Knew that she had done enough, but was not enough. She was not right. She was not Ginny’s, she was her own, and was so truly again for the first time since that fateful Herbology lesson so many years ago.
So she smiled, and she moved on, and the two of them were stronger for it, endowed with a hope that would never burn out and a love that would never end, a beautiful friendship that spanned decades and continents and, even after years and worlds had gone by, always met with a kiss.