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Luna waltzed out of the DA meeting feeling lighter than sunbeams. She had never given much thought to popularity, but it was such a nice change to have so many people cheering her on instead of laughing at her. She hadn’t been called “Loony Lovegood” in days.
She was now on her way to the great hall for dinner, her head filled with visions of puddings. Then the statue she was passing by giggled.
Well, no.
It didn’t giggle. Perhaps it… chortled? The sound was mischievous, whatever it was to be called.
Luna stopped and turned round. The statue gave no indication of an inclination to move. She left her wand tucked safely away. She was certainly more danger to anything hiding behind the statue than it was to her. Her father had taught her to treat all magical creatures with respect.
The creature that stepped out from behind the statue was a Weasley twin. Fred Weasley stepped out of thin air and grinned at Luna.
“Oh! Hello, Fred. Didn’t see you there.”
“That, my dear Miss Lovegood, is the point.” He was tucking something into the pocket of his robe, and Luna couldn’t quite see what it was.
“Another joke candy?” she asked. She was the only fourth year who had volunteered to test any of the candies. Most of the guinea pigs for first years. But she figured it was her chance to be part of something great. Whatever Fred and George were planning for their business, she knew it would be successful. They were clever, those boys, and no one gave them enough credit.
Fred put on a mask of coyness. “That’s proprietary knowledge, Miss Lovegood.” She simply blinked at him. “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”
Luna shrugged. “Walk with me to the great hall? I’m starving.”
“Just where I was heading myself.” And he fell in beside her. They had not walked four steps before Fred continued talking. “How would you feel about helping out George and me with a new scheme?”
“Would I get a share of the profit this time?”
Fred’s ginger eyebrows raised, his brow furrowed in surprise.
“I’m only joking,” she said, giggling at his shock.
He grinned appreciatively. “Clever, Luna. And you know what? You would get a share, in a manner of speaking.”
“Do go on.”
They were close to the great hall now, and Fred stepped closer to her and lowered his voice to avoid being overheard by the amassing students. “The thing is, we have a common enemy, you and I.”
Luna’s eyes went wide. “You mean Professor Umbridge?” She had not thought the prank to be so risky as that.
“Less maniacal. Bit more troll-like.”
“Oh! You mean Ronald!”
Fred clapped an arm round Luna’s shoulders. “I do! This is why we like you, Luna.” And he proceeded to tell her the plan.
Two days later, Luna was walking down the hallway in a particularly dreamy sort of way. It was getting rather frustrating, to be perfectly honest. What she knew to be a perfectly affected expression of daydream everyone else took as her usual face. Getting anyone to ask her what was on her mind was proving more difficult than she’d anticipated. On Luna’s fifth particularly lilting sigh, Ginny finally asked her if the wrackspurts had gotten to her.
“Oh! Ginny!” she said, as though only just noticing her friend was with her. “No, no,” she shook her head. “No wrackspurts. Just a boy.” She kept walking as Ginny faltered.
“A boy?” Ginny immediately caught back up, and they continued to make their way out to the lake. It was an uncharacteristically sunny day in November, and they intended to make the most of the fine weather.
Luna nodded. “Mmhmm.”
“Oh, don’t make me guess, Luna. I hate guessing games.”
Luna shrugged, then blinked as they stepped outside.
“Ahoy!” Fred waved to them from across the way, already by the lakeside with George, Ron, and Harry. Hermione must be off knitting more hats for S.P.E.W. Admirable, that. Luna felt people ought to take Hermione’s efforts more seriously, but no one was asking for Luna’s opinion.
“Is he in the DA?” Ginny asked as they crossed the lawn.
Luna nodded. “Of course. That’s where all my friends are.”
Ginny grimaced at this, but Luna was unbothered. It was more friends than she’d ever had. And not everyone could be as popular as Ginny. Because then no one would be popular.
“Is he our year?” Ginny whispered, for they were drawing close to the boys.
Luna shook her head, her eyes landing of Fred and fixing there. She felt Ginny eying her quizzically, but ignored the urge to glance over at her.
“Took you two long enough!” Fred said by way of greeting. “Was beginning to think we’d be stuck out here all afternoon with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”
Ron scowled. Harry was too focused on releasing and catching a snitch to notice the comment.
“Had to freshen up.” Luna hoped she was blushing. She wasn’t sure how one faked a blush.
“And you look like a pair of daffodils, truly,” George offered from behind his brother. The two of them had been throwing a Quaffle back and forth, though this gathering was allegedly a study session. Not that any of the boys present ever did much studying.
This seemed to Luna a shortcoming of Harry’s in particular, since he was constantly battling basilisks in basements and dueling Dark Lords in graveyards. But again, no one was asking her opinion.
“I was wondering if you might help me, Fred,” Luna said. “I’m having a bit of trouble with my potions homework.”
“I’m totally at your service.” He threw the Quaffle over his shoulder, back to George, and sank down onto a blanket on the grass. Luna sat down near him, and he immediately sidled closer. His right arm was behind her back as he looked over her shoulder at the textbook she was opening. His warmth was quite nice.
Ginny was now gaping at them. Ron looked immediately confused, then cross, then once again confused.
Luna lowered her gaze and began to explain the homework assignment to Fred. He nodded along and furrowed his brow as though he intended to help. He did truly have knack for potions – he and George both – but as Luna didn’t actually need help understanding the anti-aging effects of crushed Thunderbird talons, he and Luna both could focus their energies on their charade.
After a few minutes of sitting very close together (he smelled like grass and citrus) and talking in very low voices, their guise had its intended effect.
“Fred!” Ron barked indignantly. Both Fred and Luna looked up. “What’ve you got your arm round Loo- round Lovegood for?”
Harry was glancing back and forth between Ron and the new couple, Ginny’s eyebrows were raised, and George became very interested in gazing out at the lake.
“Are you jealous? Does Ickle Ronikins have a crush?”
Ron’s face twisted into an expression of disgust that made him one of the ugliest people Luna had ever seen. Even though she knew that the prank would bring out this side of Ron, that it was meant to bring out this side of him, she felt a corner of her stomach knot in discomfort.
Ron was the only person in the DA to still call her Loony Lovegood.
His dislike of her was not as easily brushed off as say, the dislike she received from Pansy Parkinson, because Luna was – in a tangential way – friends with Rom. She was friends with Ginny, with Harry and Hermione, with the twins. Yet Ron insisted on being a bit of, well… he was a bit of a twat, really.
And thus the prank was born. Force Ron to be nice to her by “dating” Fred. Force him to deal with and maybe fix that nasty little piece of him that was so thoughtlessly rude to her. Fred had convinced her it was worth a go.
It was only now that she noticed how aware she was of Fred’s body close to hers that she began to wonder why she had been so easily persuaded. She had not thought the charade would be difficult to pull off. But perhaps it was too easy.
“I do not!” Ron said, and Luna pulled herself out of her ruminations. “Do you?”
“Mate,” Harry said, nudging Ron with his foot.
“Sod off, Harry! It’s bloody weird. What are you, four years older than her?”
“Three,” George offered, then turned back to the lake.
“That’s bloody creepy. She’s a child.”
They all now gazed somewhat curiously at Ron, who was of course not even a full twelve months older than Luna.
After a long, uncomfortable silence, Fred turned back to Luna. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek as he asked, “What was your question about anti-aging potions?”
Luna followed his gaze down to the book in her lap and resumed her explanation. Within a few minutes, Ron, followed by an apologetic Harry, disappeared back into the castle.
The charade went on for days. Fred popped over to the Ravenclaw table at breakfast to peck Luna on the cheek and wish her good morning. He held a seat for her at the Gryffindor table at supper and saved her favorite puddings if she was running late and the sweets were running low. He walked her to classes, sometimes when they weren’t even going in the same direction. “Hardly matters if I’m late,” he’d said. “Most of them expect as much, and the She-Devil’s already doing her worst.”
Ginny had to be let in on the secret three days in, as she was too close to all parties involved and had begun asking too many questions. “Too smart for her own good, that one,” had been George’s comment.
Ron continued to be bullheaded. The twins were coming up with all manner of unflattering names for him. Luna was mostly uncomfortable. She had never been fully convinced this was the best way to go about fixing Ronald Weasley, but it had seemed a good laugh. The twins were involved, after all. But if anything, Ron had gotten more hostile over the past few days. “He’ll come round,” George said, though even he didn’t look fully convinced.
The singularly bright spot in this, the reason Luna didn’t call the whole thing off, was Fred. He played the part of a doting boyfriend awfully well, and as Luna hadn’t yet had a proper boyfriend…
She wasn’t about to toss this in the bin.
The attention was nice, far nicer than she would’ve thought. Being doted on was lovely, it turned out, and dating Fred Weasley was earning her new status across the Hogwarts houses. Fred and George were wildly popular across Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw, and while Luna didn’t want to be popular, she did enjoy being scoffed at less. Not a single belonging had gone missing since the first time Fred kissed her on the cheek in a public hallway.
Two weeks into the charade, and the Christmastime trip to Hogsmeade was approaching. On the Thursday before the Saturday outing, Fred looped his arm around Luna’s shoulders as they walked toward the great hall for supper. “You’ll be my date?” he said with a grin.
“Of course, Fred.” She watched the other students as they filed past. Some of them noted Fred and Luna, others griped about the DADA teacher. Still others had found new gossip about the demented Harry Potter. Luna liked watching people. The hallways in between classes were where she learned the most.
Fred didn’t seem bothered by her silence. He rarely did. After several moments of silence, he said. “Do you like butterbeer?”
Luna smiled softly, looking up at the twin. “What’s not to like?”
“Grand!” He kissed her temple as they passed into the great hall.
Luna’s heart did a flip. Her stomach went fluttering.
Oh dear.
Fred was talking. She tuned in as he wrapped up a summary of their Hogsmeade itinerary. It sounded like the largest portions of time were going to Zonko’s and the Three Broomsticks. Luna smiled and nodded. The plan was as good as any, and she would be happy wherever she went with Fred.
It would be terribly disappointing when this charade was over.
Not that it showed any signs of ending. Ron was largely using an avoidance tactic to handle the situation. Fred and George insisted that this was unacceptable and that the charade must continue until the patient made further progress.
So on Saturday, Luna walked arm in arm with Fred toward Hogsmeade. George was there, too. She walked arm in arm with him as well.
When the three of them walked into the Three Broomsticks, George immediately began waving to someone. “Fancy seeing you here!” he called, and Luna followed his gaze. Hermione, Harry, and Ron sat at a table too large for the three of them. Ron’s back was to the door, but Hermione and Harry were waving them over.
Fred steered Luna over to the table as George went to the bar to get the butterbeers. Harry decided he needed another, and so Hermione scooted over to make room for Luna and Fred. The whole thing felt quite contrived. Luna wasn’t sure Ron noticed.
He was rather busy scowling into his butterbeer.
“Little brother!” Fred reached across the table and tousled Ron’s hair. Ron jerked away violently and swatted at Fred’s hand. “Watch it!” Fred protested. “I hardly see you anymore. Show us some affection.”
“Saw you Thursday,” Ron muttered before taking a long sip of his drink.
“Someone’s in a bloody mood. What’d you do to him, Hermione?”
Hermione made an odd, strangled sound and sipped from her tankard. Luna noticed that she was wearing jewelry today.
“What a lovely pendant,” she said, reaching for the necklace around Hermione’s neck. “Where did you get it?”
Hermione broke out into a relieved smile. “My gram gave it to me just before she died.”
Luna smiled. Hermione was so private. Compared to Ginny, she was positively secretive. This was the first time Hermione had volunteered anything about her family to Luna – apart from the standard Muggle Dentist bit. But everyone knew about that, so it hardly counted. “Oh, how lovely!” Luna said, still examining the purple pendant. “Were you two close?”
“Her grandmother died, Luna. Not exactly lovely, is it?”
Luna did not acknowledge Ron’s rudeness, but kept her eyes on the gold wiring surrounding the purple stone. It was beautiful craftsmanship.
“It was a long time ago, Ronald,” Hermione said. Her voice had regained its edge. Luna sighed. “Could you at least try to be nice to Luna?”
At this, Luna straightened. The pendant fell back against Hermione’s chest, and both females watched Ron intently. His grip on his tankard tightened. George and Harry seemed to be taking an awfully long time with the butterbeers.
“Hello, Luna,” said Ron at long last. Luna felt Fred tense.
“Hi, Ron. Are you enjoying the weather?”
Ron glanced at the window. “S’fine enough.”
“What’s that, Ron?” Fred said, leaning forward and shifting closer to Luna as he did so. “You’re mumbling.”
Ron exhaled rather dramatically. “The weather is bloody fantastic. What a picturesque snow!”
Fred grinned, but it didn’t fully reach his eyes. “There, Luna. You didn’t know my brother was a poet, did you?”
It was then that Harry and George returned with the drinks. Luna sipped hers thoughtfully, dissecting the flavors with her tongue. This butterbeer had more cinnamon than the last she’d drank. She liked it immensely.
With Harry at his side, Ron began to relax. He looked a lot less like a trapped animal, Luna thought. As banter and conversation found a natural rhythm, Ron became genuinely pleasant. He made jokes, grinned bashfully when he got a loud laugh from the twins, and looked up at Hermione through his eyelashes, waiting to see if she thought him clever. When she choked on her butterbeer at a sarcastic remark he made, his cheeks went completely red.
Hermione didn’t notice, and Luna found that impossibly charming. It should have been obvious after the Victor Krum incident last year that Ron was in love with Hermione, but apparently Luna and Ginny were the only two people paying any attention. Harry certainly hadn’t figured it out.
Not as clever as everyone gave him credit for, really. But she liked him anyway.
Half an hour into chatting and drinking, Fred put his arm around Luna. She stiffened slightly, waiting for Ron to withdraw again. Ron did in fact clock the motion, and his gaze lingered briefly on Fred’s arm around Luna’s shoulders. A flicker of disapproval moved across his face, but it passed just as quickly. The same thing happened when Fred leaned over to whisper in Luna’s ear.
Ron had moved from outright hostility to silent disapproval. George would later declare this to be “monumental progress!”
Indeed, as the twins and Luna browsed the goods at Zonko’s (the not-so-secret next location which Fred had decided to whisper about), George detailed what he called “Phase the Second.” This involved Ron accepting and supporting the fake relationship. Phase the Third involved an entire meal or study session between Luna, Ron, and one other person in which Ron maintained a genuinely pleasant conversation with Luna.
Luna herself thought this to be a rather ambitious goal.
“Then what is it all for, Lovegood?” George asked. “Friendship is within our reach. We need only dare to reach for it.” He then pulled out a smuggled good from a second-year boy’s pocket. “No free samples, ol’ chap,” he said, replacing the item on its shelf. The boy went pale and scurried away.
“Friendship?” Fred mirrored Luna’s skepticism. “I was thinking more along the lines of cordial civility.”
Luna nodded. “Phase the Second should be more than enough.” A foolish protestation, really. If she wanted Fred to keep laughing with her, whispering secrets, and saving the best puddings, she ought to readily commit to Phases the Third, Fourth, and Fifth. For Phase the Twenty-Seventh, they could stage a wedding.
“I am stunned by the lack of commitment.” George gave them each a feigned look of offense. “I really expect more from you two.”
“You really should know by now that it’s foolish to set expectations of me,” Fred said. He draped his arm around Luna, and she leaned into his smell – now accented with cinnamon and butterscotch. “Come, darling,” Fred said. “Let us away from this scoundrel.” She went happily with him.
The wind had picked up, and as they stepped outside, Luna curled in closer to Fred. Her right hand pulled the scarf up over her mouth and nose, and her left arm wrapped itself around his chest. “Where to?” she said, and when she looked up, his honey-colored eyes were gazing back at her in the most peculiar way. “Oh, sorry.”
She began to untangle herself, but Fred kept his arm around her. “To the Shrieking Shack!” he said, and the look in his eyes had melted away.
It bothered Luna that she could not pinpoint the emotion she’d seen there.
As they neared the Shack, the trees broke the wind, and Luna pulled away from Fred. There were no eyes watching them here, after all. He took her hand when he helped her over a fallen log, though, and he did not drop it once she was safely over.
Her stomach did its odd flips again.
By the time they reached the rotting, wooden fence that separated Hogsmeade from the Shack, Luna found herself rehearsing a series of objections and anxieties. Ron was right, after all…Fred was three years older than her. He was about to leave Hogwarts and start a business with his brother. He would be impossibly busy.
And of course, this was all one extravagant charade.
But he was holding her hand. With no witnesses.
Luna was not a fool. She knew that Ron was in love with Hermione, that Hermione fancied Ron, that Harry was falling for Ginny even though he was currently courting Cho, that Ginny wasn’t particularly interested in Michael Corner. At least not as interested as he was in her.
Luna saw things. She saw people’s feelings, even when they did not express them, even when people might not know what their own feelings were.
And so she knew that she was completely infatuated with Fred Weasley. She had also become uncomfortably aware that this infatuation made it impossible for her to really decipher what he was feeling.
This made Luna deeply uncomfortable. It felt like trying to have a conversation with earplugs in when one did not know how to read lips. Or like trying to read a book through a wall of water. How was anyone supposed to make sense of anyone else if one couldn’t read what everyone was feeling?
She leaned forward, and the rickety fence immediately gave out. She crashed down into the snow.
“Wotcher!” Fred cried. He offered Luna a hand, and she took it, but she did not make eye contact with the Weasley boy.
She dusted the snow and dirt off of her jacket. Her gloves became damp in the effort. “Oh bother,” she sighed. When finally she glanced up at Fred, he was scrutinizing her face.
“What’s the matter, Luna?”
She shook her head, though it felt fuzzy and muddled. Damned wrackspurts. “I’m fine, Fred.”
“You don’t look it,” he said. He reached out and brushed some snow out of her hair. Luna went very, very still. “You look angry.”
“I’m not angry,” she huffed.
Fred grinned. “I do believe you are. Miss Luna Lovegood,” he began pacing around her. “What has got your wand in a knot?”
She folded her arms across her chest. It was hard to be cross with Fred, particularly when it wasn’t truly him she was cross with. “The wrackspurts,” she said. “My head is full of them today.”
“I’m not very familiar with wrackspurts,” he said, and she was surprised to see that he was partially sincere. “Anything in particular usually cause them?”
“Oh, any number of things,” she said, taking several absentminded steps toward the Shack. “They’re apt to appear when you’re low on sleep, or after a fight with someone close to you. Harry’s got them all the time,” she said over her shoulder. Her feet had decided they would be going into the Shack, and Fred was following dutifully.
His hands were in his pockets, and he strolled in a long-legged lope, leading with his toes as he strolled down the slope. He smiled appreciatively at her comment about Harry.
“He’s a feisty little bleeder, I’ll give him that.” They walked in silence for a couple moments before Fred said, “What else causes wrackspurts?”
Luna did not like where this was going. The look in Fred’s eyes from earlier became clearer. He had seen her feelings. He knew that she was mad about him, and it made him uncomfortable. He wanted her to admit it so he could head it off and end the prank on Ron.
Well, there was no point putting it off. She slowed as they reached the bottom of the hill. The Shack was now less than thirty feet away.
“Love,” she said. “Sometimes love, infatuation, even small crushes can attract wrackspurts.”
Fred caught up and stopped beside her. His hands were still in his pockets, but he was inches away from her. “You have a crush on Ronald? Luna, what’d you go and do that for?”
Luna laughed. It was a big, full-body laugh that released her body’s tension into the crisp December air.
Fred was grinning. “George will be awfully disappointed. He fancies you so.” He then began walking toward the Shrieking Shack.
Luna recovered herself and followed. “Can we go in? Won’t the floorboards break?”
Fred waved aside the concern and placed his hand on the door. She expected him to open it, expected to follow him in, and so her face was inches from his when he turned to say, “They say you can see Moony’s claw marks all over the walls.”
His breath formed a cloud, and the cloud dissipated on Luna’s face. She exhaled steadily. “Moony?” she breathed.
“Professor Lupin,” he whispered, his voice all mischief. “Come on.” He yanked the door open and stepped inside.
Feeling rather lightheaded, Luna followed. She hadn’t noticed before that Fred had two tiny, conjoined freckles just below his right eye. They were strays, separate from the constellation painted across his cheeks and nose.
The floorboards in the Shrieking Shack creaked and groan in protest at their presence. As Fred had promised, there were claw marks raked into every surface imaginable. “Poor Professor,” Luna breathed. “Can you imagine, Fred?”
Fred turned from his inspection of the Shack to watch her, but he didn’t answer in words.
“To be all alone in here…” she trailed off, lost in the imagined horror. Her favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, subjugated to a brutal transformation. Clothing shredding, dignity slipping away. Did he wake up in the morning unsure of where he was? Had he ever woken up covered in blood? Did he know who the blood belonged to? Did he…
“He wasn’t alone.”
“What?”
Fred took a step toward her. “He wasn’t alone, Luna. That map Harry’s got?” Luna nodded. She’d seen Harry with a magicked map, but he was very secretive about it. “Lupin made that with his friends, Harry’s dad and godfather, and Peter Pettigrew. They became Animagi so they could spend the full moon with Professor Lupin.”
Luna’s body relaxed. “He wasn’t alone.”
Fred took another step toward her and placed a hand on her cheek. Her body tensed again. “No, he wasn’t. He had friends.” Fred swallowed. “Friends who cared, cared so much that they were willing to enact absurd, half-baked schemes in order to help him feel less alone.”
They weren’t talking about Lupin anymore. Not entirely, at least. Luna hadn’t known Fred could be so insightful. She felt bad for underestimating him.
He was really quite close now. Maybe he didn’t intend to tell her off, after all. Maybe…
Fred’s eyes fell to her lips. She hadn’t been kissed before, but she was fairly certain that was about to change. Luna looked at Fred’s mouth. Such a perfect cupid’s bow. She should learn to sketch, just so she could draw those lips.
“Luna.” The word breathed out in a puff of fog. It was magical. Her name in his mouth was magic.
She closed the space between them, and his lips met hers.
She was kissing Fred Weasley.
It was dizzying and lazy and impossibly heady. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and his right hand combed gently through her hair. When he pulled away to look at her, his cheeks were rosy – though that might have been from the cold – and he was smiling down at her. She smiled back, and her arms wrapped around his neck. “Can we do it again?” she said.
Fred broke into a full grin. “If you’d like,” he said, and then he – Fred Weasley! – was kissing her again.