Work Text:
The noise of dozens of students celebrating Valentine’s Day in Three Broomsticks rang in his ears, but Harry wasn’t celebrating. He sat with his head in his hands. He had just finished telling Rita Skeeter about the graveyard, Cedric’s death, Voldemort’s rise, and the duel. Hermione and Rita were talking about their deal.
Tingles trailed across Harry’s back. His face creased with a small smile. “Luna,” he thought. His muscles started to loosen and his breath deepen, but he didn’t want to move since her touch would stop. He thought about Cho, and realized they had been doomed from the start; Cedric’s death hung like a dementor between them. “Luna was quite pretty,” he realized. It wasn’t the burning passion he used to feel for Cho and had clung to long past it withering. But he felt something. An openness, about possibilities, about friendship as the basis for maybe something more.
Harry sat up and smiled at her. “Thanks, err, that really helped.”
Luna smiled back. “I’ve always believed you, Harry. I know the readers of the Quibbler will too!”
Harry used a grin to prevent a comment on the readers of the Quibbler.
Luna looked away. “You know, my mother was a very talented witch, but um… she liked to experiment. One day her experiment went wrong and she died.” She took a depth breath, then went on. “It’s given me a fear of trying new spells. Outside of the DA I have to learn the magical theory inside and out, then practice the wand movement with a stick before trying a spell with someone else’s wand so if I do it wrong the damage won’t kill me or someone else.” It all came out in a rush. Luna wasn’t looking at or touching Harry anymore, but was kind of crumpled in upon herself.
Harry thought for a minute about what she said. The tight band around his heart and nausea in his stomach lessened a bit. He realized that it had helped make his pain more bearable to know that someone else was struggling too. That he wasn’t alone.
Harry reached out and lifted her chin with his hand. Their eyes met. “I think you’re the greatest witch of our age” he said and he kissed her. “Peck-tastic!” He thought.
He looked at her again and she dropped her eyes, blushed and said “I think you may be infected with wrackspurts.” Then started looking all around his head for them. But she didn’t turn away from his touch.
“Would you like to go to Honeydukes with me as a Valentine Date? I think I could use some chocolate,” Harry asked spontaneously.
“Oh!” Said Luna as she jumped up and took his hand “Nobody’s ever asked me on a Valentine’s Date before.”
They left the Three Broomsticks completely unaware of the pleased look they were getting from Hermione.
Honeydukes was packed but they had lots of fun together sharing their favorites: chocolate, snowflakes and jelly slugs and avoiding acid pops.
“Did you know,” whispered Harry conspiratorially, “there’s a secret passageway back to the Castle from the basement?”
“Of course, the entire magical world is connected by invisible tunnels guarded by manticores. It was in the Quibbler.” Luna replied. “But if you’re asking if I would like to use that tunnel to go back to the Castle, then yes. It seems like a storm came up while we were in here.”
“Oh! You’re not afraid of the manticores?” He asked, looking outside and noticing the torrential rain storm for the first time.
“No, I’m with you,” she said matter-of-factly, and led the way to the basement with a group of large seventh-years providing convenient cover.
Once in the basement he took the lead and quickly got them into the tunnel. They lit their wands and moved ahead cautiously.
“Helpful that it stops being invisible when you go inside, isn’t it?” Luna asked.
“Definitely,” Harry replied. “If everything was invisible down here I’d have a right time doing this.” And he leaned in for another kiss. This one was even better because neither of them was quite so surprised. They parted and Harry said “smooch-tastic” as they started off again.
“Did you get me down here just to snog?” Luna asked.
“So what if I did?” Harry replied and raised an eyebrow as he swaggered a bit.
Luna looked at him sidewise. “Well that’s all right then,” she thought, but didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure she trusted her voice when her stomach seemed to be doing flip-flops.
They came around a bend in the tunnel and the left-hand wall just disappeared off into the distance as they came into a large cavern. “Look out!” Harry called, pulling out his wand and jumping in front of Luna when he spotted the manticore.
“It’s alright,” she said as she moved around him, “she just wants to say hello.” As she crossed the cavern she looked back at Harry and motioned him to lower his wand.
Harry took a more careful look and realized the manticore was looking a lot like a Labrador Retriever at the moment. It was sitting on its haunches, scorpion tail twitching, mouth closed and ears perked up. He lowered his wand but didn’t tuck it away.
When Luna was close to the manticore, she stopped and said a cheery “Hullo,” and bowed. The manticore lifted a paw, and she moved closer to shake it. A short time later she said “bye Susan” and rejoined Harry. As they walked, Harry looked back and saw the tunnel was narrow again, like it had always been.
“Er…what was that?” He asked.
“That was a manticore.”
“Well obviously, but I’ve taken this tunnel for years and never seen that cavern before, let alone any creatures.”
“Oh,” she giggled. “My aunt who’s a squib calls me a Monster Mutterer after the muggle celebrity the Dog Whisperer. She says it’s my calm and open energy. Hmm, I guess you probably haven’t seen Susan before because you didn’t threaten others in the tunnel or the tunnel itself. Obviously, no one would use the tunnels if they were encountering manticores all the time.”
“Obviously,” muttered Harry, as they continued to walk. “So… when I asked you about being afraid of them?”
“Yes, well, err… I think I did so well in the DA because you believed in me. I figured I could probably draw on that through any encounter we might have today.” Luna replied.
Suddenly they were in the Castle corridor. Harry looked right and left, checking for others out of habit from sneaking around while putting his hands in his pockets. Luna looked closely at the One-eyed Witch as if she’d never seen her before, tucking her hands behind her back. They just said “bye” and quickly headed to their dormitories.
In her Ravenclaw dorm room Luna swayed and twirled to a song only she could hear with a dreamy smile on her face. In the Gryffindor common room Harry sat between Hermione, who was reading a book, and Ron, who was playing chess with Seamus.
“How was your date with Luna?” Hermione asked.
“Whhhhaaaattt? Loony Luna?” Ron laughed. “Why would you think Harry would date her? He’s dating Cho.”
Harry rubbed the back of his neck as it turned scarlet. “Well, Cho dumped me and err… Luna was really nice so we went to Honeydukes together and then came back to the Castle.”
“You can’t be serious. Sounds like a rebound to me.” Ron said.
“ ‘Suppose not,” shrugged Harry.
“What?” Hermione dropped her book. “But she’s really sweet, smart, and pretty.” She argued, ticking them off on her fingers.
“And bonkers,” replied Ron with a thumbs down. “Com’on Harry, I‘ve schooled Seamus enough for one day. Let’s have a go at chess now that we’ve sorted out your love life.”
The next two weeks were a whirlwind for Harry as Rita Skeeter’s article had come out. Between detention with Umbridge, fan mail, and dreaming of the Department of Mysteries he had no time to think about something as normal as a date.
On Saturday morning a school owl brought him a note. “The one-eyed’s wand is broken into 10 pieces. Expect foul weather and enemy spies.”
Harry made a wry smile. “Somebody having him on, obviously, probably Fred and George with a new prank. Wouldn’t hurt to have a distraction though,” he thought.
Dressed in hiking clothes and under the invisibility cloak, Harry made it to the One-eyed Witch a bit after 10am. Of course, it was Luna who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Luna, who seemed to have a knack for knowing what he needed.
“Hi Harry. Ready to do some more exploring of invisible tunnels filled with monsters?” She asked, ignoring the fact that he couldn’t be seen.
“Only if there’s plenty of opportunities for snogging,” he replied.