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First Girlfriends
Luna didn’t know any other queer witches or wizards. She knew there had to be some, but some days it seemed like a really lonely world. She tried going to a few gay bars in the Muggle world, but if she was considered weird to witches, she was ten times weirder to Muggles.
Ginny had made out with her that one time, and that was fun. But she knew even at the time that Ginny was just goofing around. She had so many crushes on boys, and so many boys had crushes on her. It wasn’t that Luna didn’t like boys…she just liked girls better. Maybe she liked them better because they were so hidden from her, so unavailable to her.
So she was surprised to run into Parvati Patil at a Muggle gay bar in Charing Cross on Tuesday night. These days, being in the parts of the Muggle world even straight Muggles didn’t go to much felt safer than being in the wizarding world. Luna missed Harry and Ron and Hermione this year at school. She wondered where they’d gone off to, wished she could have gone with them.
“Parvati?” Luna asked, pulling up a stool next to her classmate from Hogwarts. “What are you doing here?”
Lavender Brown showed up a few seconds later and giggled at the sight of Luna. Luna tried her best to not roll her eyes. Of course Lavender was here. She never seemed to go anywhere without Parvati.
“Same thing you are, I suppose,” Parvati tilted her head slightly and made eye contact with Luna.
Lavender giggled some more.
“Lav, will you get me some more soda?” Parvati asked. Lavender looked from Parvati to Luna and back again and seemed to get the message. Parvati then turned back toward Luna. “You wanna dance?”
“Are you serious? Sure!” Luna was still feeling in shock.
Parvati took Luna’s hand and led her out onto the dance floor. Luna expected them to dance around without touching, the way she did most of the time, but Parvati pulled her hips toward her and began to gyrate into her.
Luna struggled to regain her balance, but she didn’t want her to stop. She tried to play it cool, but she was never very good at this.
“I didn’t know you were…into this,” Luna leaned in toward Parvati.
Parvati smiled. Luna wasn’t sure she actually heard what she had said, the music was so loud. But then she leaned in toward Luna, her breath hot against her cheek.
“How long have you known?” she whispered.
“That I’m – whatever I am –“ Luna stammered. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve always known.”
“Me too,” Parvati whispered. “I wondered for a long time how I could be, when Padma isn’t. But something just are, I guess.”
“But you…you went out with Harry Potter ,” Luna said.
“Oh that? I never felt like that was a real date. In fact,” Parvati took this opportunity to grind her knee into Luna’s crotch a little, “I thought he was gay for a long time. I kind I wished he was.”
“I totally thought the same thing,” Luna confessed. She wanted so badly for Parvati to kiss her..
Out of the corner of her eye, Luna could see that Lavender had returned with a couple sodas. She didn’t seem surprised to see Parvati dancing this way, or that she was doing so with Luna. She looked kind of bored.
“Lavender isn’t though, is she?” Luna asked.
“Lav? Oh hell no,” Parvati laughed. “Straight at they come. I think she kind of wishes she wasn’t though. She has terrible luck with boys.”
Luna smiled and didn’t say what she was thinking, that Ron had been a terrible boyfriend to her. Luna had learned over the years that it was best to not share about seventy-five percent of the thoughts that popped into her head. The other twenty-five percent already seemed to get her into plenty of trouble.
“I’ve always thought you were cute,” Parvati’s mouth was close to her ear now, still pressed up against her.
“You have?” Luna asked.
And with that. Parvati kissed her, a sudden, passionate kiss that once again caught Luna off guard. She suddenly felt like the rest of the club had stopped dancing, the music had stopped playing, and everyone was watching them. Of course, when the kiss broke, their mouths still wet from each other’s saliva, the club continued to pulse and vibrate as it always had.
“Yeah,” Parvati grinned at her.
“I was starting to think there weren’t any other…witches like us,” Luna confessed.
“I felt like that for a long time. But they’re out there. You know about Madame Hooch, right?”
“I thought she might be,” Luna said.
“She is. She took me to a club in the magical world once. She said it might be one of the only ones. It’s in London. We should go sometime. She did say she thinks there might be another one in Berlin…”
“I’d love to go there,” Luna felt as if a huge weight was being lifted from her chest, which she hadn’t even noticed was feeling so tight.
“We’ll go next weekend,” Parvati took Luna’s hand again, walked her back to where Lavender was standing. “Promise.”
“Promise what?” Lavender asked.
“I’m taking Luna to that club I told you about next weekend,” Parvati said.
“The one…the one Madame Hooch told you about?”
“She didn’t just tell me about it, she took me there,” Parvati said firmly.
Lavender giggled again. “You didn’t tell me that. Did you, you know? Did she?”
“What? Lav, no! She’s like a million years old. Anyway, you can come if you want, but…” Parvati squeezed Luna’s hand.
“…I’d be a third wheel. Maybe Padma wants to do something instead,” Lavender nodded knowingly. “I’ll ask her.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I’ve got to get home,” Parvati turned to Luna suddenly. She leaned in and kissed her again, just as intensely, and Luna instinctively ran her fingers through her thick black hair. “I’ll send you an owl about next weekend.”
“I can’t wait,” Luna said. “Are we like, girlfriends now? I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”
Parvati smiled at her.
“That was too direct, wasn’t it?” Luna asked. ”I’m always doing that.”
“You’re fine,” Parvati said, and kissed her a third time, quickly this time. “I think it’s cute. And yes. I’d like that.”
Luna left the club that night feeling as if she were flying, and she hadn’t even used magic once the whole night.