Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(AU - Luna is introduced sooner, as she ought to have been, and Harry asks Luna to Yule Ball)

Oh well, he’s very tall, isn't he? Luna admired his form at the Ball, swooping Hermione around like a veritable princess. She took a sip of her drink and looked over at Harry and Ron. Harry was staring into his own cup miserably, which she didn’t take to heart, while Ron's piercing blue gaze shot directly into Krum's broad-shouldered back.

"Do you fancy him?" Luna asked innocently and loudly, just over the sound of the music. Harry immediately began snickering, and she saw, with some relief, that the collecting nargles about his head was starting to dissipate. "Only, he seems to prefer girls…"

"What?!" Ron’s otherwise freckled face was turning red to match his hair, and Luna had a slight feeling she misread things once more. Undisturbed by that notion, it was one she got quite a lot after all, she sipped from her drink and watched Ron sputter out words that didn't quite make sense altogether. Still, it sounded as though he was replying in the negative to her question. 

"He's just using her to get close to Harry!" Ron finally quieted once he managed to get this full sentence out, folding his arms over his chest and slouching down in his chair.

"Oh, is that so?" Luna didn't understand that at all. They looked quite happy from here, Krum and Hermione, but perhaps she was reading that wrong as well.

Her solemn gaze followed the Durmstrang student and world-renowned quidditch player for some time after, one quiet admirer in a sea of faces.

The next time they were at a dance together, he was glaring daggers into her father. Curiosity overcame her, and she intercepted him with her usual disarmingly charming way. He had never heard of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks or Nargles, and she could talk for ages about them, showing off her bite from the Gernumbli gardensi with enthusiasm. He didn’t once interrupt, nor did his eyebrows unfurl from their squinted appearance, but he danced very well.

“Your father,” his voice was still roughly accented, but his English was much better than last she heard. “Why does he wear that symbol?”

“Oh? The Deathly Hallows?” Luna hummed, sweeping him in a circle to face away from her father once more. “It’s an old tale about three wizards… do you want to hear it?”

“It’s the mark of an evil wizard,” Krum glowered, and the tension around him grew to a prickly degree. Luna was tempted to pick at it, undo the knots, soften the tangles, but she had been informed lately that it was rather rude to go plucking at people’s auras without asking.

“Perhaps,” she murmured. “Perhaps it was misused in his case.” She explained the story, about to tie it into why her father wore it, when the patronus arrived. Krum’s protective arms around her were rather comforting, until her father spun her away and back to their home.

“I read your story… about the Snorkacks.”

Luna looked up from her golden drink, smiling, “Oh! I was hoping to see you before you left.”

He had been crowded by gawking fans since he arrived at the wedding of Harry and Ginny Potter, an impressive feat given who was being married today. She had to admit, he looked quite nice in his dark red dress robes. The sparse goatee he had worn last year at Bill and Fleur’s wedding was now a fully grown beard and the dark curls handsomely decorated his square chin.

Krum blushed softly, and with his wind-burnt, bearded cheeks, one might not even notice. But Luna could see the way the faint few nargles around him fluttered tellingly.

“How did you like it? Many people responded to it, not all favorably, I should say…”

“I’d like to go with you, next time,” Krum bit his lip. “I’m… growing tired of the quidditch world.” He sent a look over his shoulder in disgust at his manager, who tapped at her watch impatiently. The sun was setting, and he was being treated as a child - reminded forcefully of a bedtime. Suddenly all the annoyances he had building up inside him, bottled up in the midst of war veterans and child soldiers alike, began to pour out onto Luna’s shoulders.

Alva, his manager, had been following him around for most of his life, ensuring he ate and drank right, and associated rightly with the right people. Fans bothered him on every outing, begging for autographs and heaping compliments on him that belonged to his entire team. Waking up at the crack of dawn for hours of practice, the pressure of the game, the jealousy of his teammates, and then going to sleep when everyone else was coming alive… these all felt like such petty complaints, but Luna listened carefully and intensely, as she always did. 

Viktor hesitated only briefly before explaining exactly what that random occurrence of seeing her father’s paper in a market aisle did for him. (He didn’t tell her until much later that it was her picture on the front, smiling and waving at the camera as the sunlight poured over her hair, that immediately drew him in.) Reading The Quibbler introduced him to a new fascination - traveling. He had loved coming to Britain for the 1994 Quidditch Cup and then Triwizard Tournament. It was warmer here, and Viktor had never been to a tropical area such as Luna described in her article. When his team traveled, the coach and managers kept the members safely tucked away in their 5 star hotels and away from society. It was for their own safety, supposedly, but Viktor explained with vitriol how coddled and sheltered he felt being treated this way.

He was excited by the idea of large yellow flowers that could swallow a man whole and the intense heat of the sun through palm tree leaves.

“I, I liked the cover, it was a nice picture,” he stumbled for the first time in what he said, dark eyes softening in recollection. “One day, I would like to visit that same place.” With that same girl seemed to echo after his words as he stared into her, and Luna felt a small thrill, dousing it slightly, just in case she was wrong. 

Luna smiled and, setting her cup down, took his hand to stand. “I would love to travel with a friend.” She had no false hopes about anything more and was happy enough to simply be his escape.

Krum faltered, ever so slightly, before restoring his firm grip and speaking softly, “Friends would be a good start. If that’s alright.”

Her beam grew a little wider.

Chapter Text

The handwriting was thick and heavy-handed. It certainly appeared to be a typical male’s style, but Luna had many times received such letters. Still, with so many newcomers in the castle, it was entirely possible this one was true. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students who hadn’t heard of her yet, had fingers pointed in her direction so as to see and laugh.

Luna might be accustomed to the way she was treated, but that didn’t mean she walked blindly into these little jokes. She just didn’t take them to heart the way others expected her to. It was amusing to watch them laugh at their silly little pranks that amounted to very little in Luna’s own life. She’d let them have their fun, no harm in it to her, really.

“Who gave it to you?” Ginny asked, thumping down at the breakfast table, late as usual. Her messy orange hair was pulled back into a braid, and she reached for two rolls at once.

“An owl,” Luna responded breezily, turning it over in her hands. “Do you think he wrote it as well?” Most would assume this to be a sarcastic response. Most were not Luna. She was already envisioning an owl plucking his own feather and writing this letter oh so carefully in some stolen ink from his master. It put a dreamy little smile on her face.

Ginny choked on her food, trying not to laugh, “Doubtful, Lunes. Is he asking you to meet him somewhere? Should I come?” Ginny puffed out her chest and sat up straight, as if this would make her five foot tall body any bigger. Luna smiled pleasantly.

“I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing,” she dismissed, setting aside the secret admirer’s note. “I’ll show up though. I’d hate to be wrong about this.”

The note asked to meet her in the library, that he had been curious about her since their eyes met in a corridor, and a few other poetic ramblings that Luna had seen elsewhere in fictional works.

She sat at a table by the window and proceeded to sketch small doodles of various creatures, smiling in satisfaction when they turned out well-shaped. Minutes faded into hours, and the day went on without Luna’s notice. No one approached the table. Well, at least, not at the time the note mentioned.

An awkward cough drew Luna’s attention, and she looked up. Even she knew who Viktor Krum was, although his quidditch prowess didn’t impress her overly much. 

"These girls," he gestured in the direction of a fleeing pair. He scowled at their backs. "They… make fun, I think, of you."

"Oh, that's just their way of passing the time," Luna smiled easily. "I think the nargles have gotten to everyone this year, since the Tournament was announced."

"Vut are these nargles?" Viktor looked confused.

Luna brightened, patting the seat beside her. "I can show you! Daddy wrote a wonderful article about their habits and sightings in his last edition…" she pulled out The Quibbler and flashed through to page 46 where there was a full spread of sketches and watercolors proposing what nargles looked like based on each story. Viktor sat carefully, eyes darting between her and the page, as she explained and read aloud.

"What're you doing with Viktor?" Geraldine Loomis scowled at Luna, hands on her hips.

Luna blinked back, "We were just talking…"

" Talking ," Geraldine rolled her eyes, and her cohort giggled. "What could you two possibly have to talk about?"

"He was very interested in my father's paper…"

" The Quibbler is trash opinion pieces and everyone knows it, Loony," Connie Gobwater chimed in, sneering. "The only person crazier than you writes it, after all."

Luna bristled defensively, sadly, "My father's not crazy! He puts out what people want to hear!"

Geraldine and Connie started laughing, encouraging their entourage and audience to do the same, until a bulky body shifted through the small crowd that had gathered around Luna.

"Vut is going on?" Viktor demanded, eying the students with a particularly contemptuous stare. "Vy are you laughing?"

"I think I've told a particularly funny joke," Luna offered lightly, tugging on the older boy's sleeve. "They seemed to like it at any rate."

Viktor looked at them all suspiciously, but the crowd immediately changed tactics upon his presence and mostly faded away to a few fangirls blushing and lingering. He grasped Luna's arm lightly and turned her around from his groupies.

"I do not like their faces," Viktor muttered under his breath. "Is very… bad." He struggled for the right words, clearly, but Luna understood perfectly.

"It's alright," she assured him. "I'm used to it."

He glowered, "No."

"No?" Luna tipped her head, amused.

"No. You are like танци орхидея ,” Krum's voice lowered with his mother language, and a lightness filled his expression for the first time that Luna has seen. “Flower shops in my hometown make magic flowers that dance in the sun.”

“Oh, that sounds marvelous," Luna's eyes went wide. "I'd love to see them! I wonder if Bulgaria collects different sorts of invisible creatures than England…" she rambled on in curious wonderings as Krum watched her, almost smiling.

Ginny handed her the piece of paper at the beginning of transfiguration, winking, and not explaining a single thing before McGonagall began class. Luna unfurled it carefully, wondering, and smiled. For once, a secret admirer that she could trust would be there.

She met Viktor at the library, and he shuffled awkwardly on the spot before blurting out, "Do you vant to go to the Ball with me?"

Luna sparkled, "Of course!"

Viktor smiled, with teeth, and Luna thought it was a very handsome look, only matched by himself in his dress robes at the dance itself. She wasn’t the sort to revel in the stares people gave her as they passed, but Ginny was, and the Weasley girl shot her two big thumbs up and a big grin. Geraldine, Connie, and pretty much every other girl stared with slack-jawed jealousy, but Luna only had eyes for Viktor’s tiny smile and dark, serious eyes.