Chapter Text
It had become a new ritual for Ron and Harry, after exiting school they would hang back by the park near it and when most of the other students and teachers left, they would smoke a joint.
It was a peaceful, calming ritual that announced the end of the school day and the beginning of their free time, Ron smoked to relax from the stress of school while Harry smoked to relax from the stresses of what awaited him at home, that house was the sort of hell that bred people like harry; people who deserved better, people who deserved to smoke a joint once and a while, to escape the depressing grays of life and the clutches of aunts and uncles, Ron would say that he mostly smoked so harry wouldn’t have to be high alone but that would be a lie, he liked detaching himself from every worry, he liked not having the doubts that he wasn’t good enough disappear from his mind, the weed was a pleasurable haze that clouded the part’s ron hated about himself.
One smoked to forget about himself, and one smoked to forget about the rest of the world, no wonder Ron and Harry were such good friends.
“I wish I could be like this forever” Said Ron to Harry as they sat on the multicolored swings.
“Not Me,” Said Harry, taking another deep smoke of the cannabis and passing it off to Ron “My uncle would kill me if he ever found out”
“When are you going to run away from that bastard?” Ron asked “You could sleep in my room if you wanted”
“Oh, I’d like nothing more to sleep in your room Ron” Harry laughed Madly and Ron followed, Even the slightest thing setting the both of them into a round of laughter, he did wish that Life was always like this, Just he and Harry in non-existence, watching the hours go by without a care in the world.
“Alright,” Harry stood up and stretched “I’ve gotta go before Uncle Vernon kills me”
“Or before you kill him” Ron Laughed, taking the Joint between his fingers.
Harry walked off, and Ron was left alone in the swings, the light of his joint casting a soft yellow light on his face as he took another puff, it was still 4 pm, and He and Harry hadn’t planned anything nor did it seem he could be able to escape his aunt and uncle’s tyrannical clutches today, Ron was all alone and without a plan in the world.
“Excuse me, Ronald,” A Misty voice said next to him, The Joint almost fell out of his mouth with how fast Ron turned, in the swing to his right sat a familiar girl with wide grey eyes and long squiggly blondish white hair that seemed to have gone unbraided for some time, she wore the same school uniform as him; a gray sweater-vest, a dark blue jacket, and a long blue kneed skirt instead of his blue pants.
‘Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck-’ Was the only thing Ron thought as he gave the girl a deer-stuck-in-headlights look, she was awfully calm, her eyes having a dopey, distracted look that made Ron think she was high as well.
“You like coming around here?” She asked casually, starting to kick herself off the ground to swing.
Ron swallowed, the way she was acting was making him feel she was a hallucination, he heard that could happen but it never happened to him before, oh he wished Harry had stayed.
“Are You-?” he coughed out some smoke “Are you real?”
She didn’t stop swinging “What do you think?” she said calmly.
“Fuck if I know!”
“I Am, at least I think I am and I feel I am, do you think I am?” She sing-songed as she stopped Swinging and looked over at him, genuinely curious to his opinion.
Ron poked her forehead softly with his index finger “Yes, Yes I think I do”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, The Girl stared at a tree as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, Ron was looking at her.
“What are you doing here?” He asked.
“I wanted to talk to you” She was still looking at the tree.
“Why?”
“Because I have a crush on you”
One of Ron’s eyes bugged out, this was a declaration that he thought deserved more pizzaz, maybe send a love letter beforehand not just casually declare as if it was nothing.
“Why though?”
Luna giggled, Ron found it kinda cute actually.
“You’re funny, you’re kind, you’re pretty smart but you don’t think you are, your hair reminds me of autumn leaves, your freckles map out a constellation”
Ron stared at her again, his mouth slightly agape, he was in no state to deal with this, he wanted to walk off the high and then go home.
“Who are you anyway?” He asked, wanting to know her name so that when he wasn’t high, he could verify she was real.
“Luna Lovegood” She held out a hand and he shook it, holding out for a long time to make sure her hand was physically there, her hand despite her pale-ish complexion was warm and inviting.
Luna smiled warmly “Your Hand feels nice Ronald”
This was weird, Ron Decided, he needed to walk this shit off immediately.
“You Know I’m high right?” He said, Pointing at her with the joint in his fingers.
Luna nodded.
“I-so-You-” Ron found himself lacking the proper words “You’re not gonna tell anyone right?”
Luna shook her head “No, I do it at home too”
Ron was taken aback by this “You-What? Are you high right now too?”
“No,” Luna said “I’m not at home”
“Sure doesn’t seem that way” he was fidgety, this was all too much, he jumped up and started pacing around “Ah SHIT!” he yelled “I need to-I need to-”
Luna stood up and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder “Relax Ronald, just let it pass”
“I’m taking a walk” He declared, crushing the joint under his foot.
“Can I come?” She asked, she had the same look as when Harry left when Ron didn’t want him to, she wanted to spend more time with him, Ron felt a little bit bad.
“Fine,” he said curtly.
Ron took a few steps but immediately fell, landing on his elbows to stop his chin from hitting the park floor.
Luna helped him up, carrying his bookbag on one hand “Maybe you oughta sit down”
“No, No, No” he waved her off “I always walk it off”
“Is that why you came in with a bruise last week?” Luna asked sincerely but Ron still scowled.
“Never mind” Ron rolled his eyes “I have to go home, I need some food”
“I know a place where they sell food for this sort of occasion” she piped up helpfully.
“Probably can’t afford it” Ron put his hands in his pockets.
“I’ll cover for you,” Luna said and Ron sent her a skeptical look, her untidy hair and disheveled clothing didn’t paint the picture of someone well-off.
“Do you even have money?” He raised a brow
Luna pulled out several crumpled-out pounds from her jacket pocket, Ron stared, she had more in her pocket than he had saved up…
“Fine… Where is this place?” Ron said, usually he wouldn’t follow strange girls to unknown places, but his general judgment is lowered, and besides he didn’t have any plans today did he? The thought of food alone had been a dealmaker for him.
Luna beamed at him, Ron found himself smiling too, that was the sort of smile people made songs about with weird lyrics born from a smoking session.
“Is it far away?” Ron asked “I’ll have to call my mom if I’m gonna be away for long”
“It’s near here,” Luna said.
And so they both started walking through the horrible gray world, when he was alone Ron would stare at the gray buildings and soft blue skies with an apathetic eye, there was nothing he could do to change it, he could either get out or stay and end up like all the people on the streets, or working in one of the many establishments behind the gray bricks, in the back of his mind, he already thought he was going to end up in some miserable job while all his siblings grew up to be special and interesting, after all, there has to be a black sheep in a perfect herd, an outlier in a set of cards that stopped you from having a full house, A Ron in every family…
He was broken from his musings by Luna.
“Oh, you see that Place?” She pointed out to a grimy restaurant by the corner which Ron recognized. “I went there once and got a cockroach on my eggs!” she said as if it was mildly interesting.
Ron nodded relaxingly “I Didn’t know cockroaches ate Yolk”
Luna laughed, throwing her head back exaggeratedly.
“Thanks for telling me that,” Ron said “I always wanted to go there”
“It wasn’t that bad, The sausages and bacon were alright” Responded Luna.
“And they didn’t have cockroaches?” Ron asked.
Luna shook her head, her white frills mopping around.
“You probably ate them without knowing then”
“No, I’d know, I have perfect taste, you know?” she said, showing off a little bit.
“So I’d trust that where we’re going will be alright, right?”
“Of course, I go there sometimes and it’s always interesting”
Ron realized that Luna was still carrying his bag alongside her own, whuch was decorated with many technicolor drawings on the skin of it "I can carry my own bag, Luna" He held out his hand to grab it.
Luna stopped and turned to look at him "It isn't bothering me Ron"
"I know" Ron said "I just don't like people doing stuff for me"
Luna smiled Softly "Sometimes people aren't doing stuff for you, sometimes people are just trying to help you out" she threw him the bag.
They turned a corner and passed a drunk hobo sleeping on a trash bag clutching a bottle, they went through more streets in silence, Ron was observing the world around him, the sky was grey, the streets were grey, the clothes people were wearing were grey, was it all grey? Or was it his imagination? It couldn’t be this bad, people would have noticed, they would have done something, or were they all observing, thinking to themselves just like Ron did?
“We’re near” Chirped Luna happily, did she notice too? Is that why she had taken to bohemian behaviourisms? He saw that she was wearing proud yellow socks instead of the school-mandated grey ones.
“You’re gonna love this place”
“Do you walk home?” He asked.
“Of course,” She said, her free silver hair bobbing a little bit as she nodded “It helps to get the blood flowing after sitting at school all day”
“Don’t you think things have gotten a little bit-” he shrugged his shoulders “Shitty, I guess?”
She pondered that for a moment “My dad says it’s a mourning period for the 60s”
Before he could retort Luna excitedly tapped his shoulders and pointed to a greasy-looking pub at the side of the road, squeezed between an occult bookstore and a record store with posters of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and the Rolling Stones covering up the windows.
“Luna, we’re not old enough to drink” Ron reminded.
“It’s also a restaurant” Luna responded.
“Do they serve minors?”
Luna looked just the slightest bit scandalized “You shouldn’t drink Ron”
“I don-wait, you have a problem with beer but not weed?”
Luna slightly stuck her nose up “One’s a plant and the other’s…” she trailed off as she speedwalked towards the pub’s door.
Ron followed Luna to the door of the pub. He noticed that the sign hung up on the door read in serious, black letters: “NO POLICE, PIGS OR FASCISTS ALLOWED” and underneath it in softer, rainbow coloring: “Enter if you are willing to spread free love” Ron wasn’t sure he fit into either sign.
Luna tapped once on the door and it was answered by a strange-looking man.
“Ah Luna,” he said absently, Ron immediately recognized him as a hippie but one who aged, he had long scruffy brown hair and was wearing a pair of circular sunglasses (Like Lennon) and tattered clothes that must have been found at the bottom of the bargain bin, He smelled quite bad too like weed and the grease from fish and chips.
He slowly turned his head towards Ron, his mouth hanging dumbly for a moment “And who’s your associate?”
Luna answered before Ron could open his mouth “Oh, he’s a friend from school but don’t worry he's one of us”
Ron wanted to ask what that meant but the Man spoke before he could: “Ah, so you do Acid?”
Ron opened his mouth but Luna spoke for him: “No he doesn’t”
“LSD?”
Again Luna spoke before Ron could: “No he doesn’t”
“Opium?”
Ron kept his mouth shut and let Luna answer for him but she kept quiet and looked at Ron, expecting his answer.
“No?” His voice came out nervously.
“Oh, so what do you do then?”
“I mostly smoke weed,” Ron said meekly.
“Why?” The man said conversationally
“Because it’s cool?” Ron paused for a moment “And it helps me relax?”
The Man nodded, apparently satisfied by his answer “Far out”
He stepped aside and let them in, the first thing Ron noticed about the bar was the smell, it made him stop in his tracks, it was weed, the overbearing smoke of weed permeated the pub like a ghost, haunting his nostrils with its musk, he blinked and looked around, the lights were low which gave the pub a relaxed, sleepy filter, several patrons were drinking dirty mugs of beer over desks or on sofas, wasted buds of cannabis letting out smoke resting between their fingers, Ron wondered if that’s how he and harry looked: looking sleepily into the distance, their mind unreadable.
There was a stage that all the tables gravitated towards, it had a red stage curtain pulled over it.
They sat down at a wooden table, putting their bookbags on the other 2 remaining tables ,Ron was still looking around at his surroundings so when Luna asked him: “What do you think?” he jumped a little in his seat.
Ron steadied himself “It looks like a place for bums,” he said honestly.
Luna looked the slightest bit offended, the look didn’t fit her face, People like Luna weren’t meant to feel offended “My dad takes me here often”
“Well as someone who doesn’t come here often this place is…” Ron tried to find the right words but he couldn’t “I don’t know, it feels too much like a pub for people with problems”
“We all have problems, Ronald,” Luna said calmly “Maybe you have another way of escaping, they have theirs”
Ron didn’t respond for a moment, if he disagreed with her that’d make him a hypocrite “Fine, but why’d you bring me here? I was trying to get down and you bring me here? There’s more marijuana aftertaste than pure air here!”
“You can’t get high off that” Luna shrugged.
“Are you sure? I’m feeling a little bit lightheaded” Ron ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath.
Luna pondered “Hmmm, maybe you can…”
“What even is this place?” Ron asked, calming down.
“It’s a pub that allows customers to smoke on the inside” Her face went absent-minded for a moment “I think it was based on something in Dutchland”
“Well, do they serve food here?”
“Oh, Sure, you just gotta ask them at the counter” She pointed towards the end of the room, where a man? Woman? Ron wasn’t sure. They stood behind a counter, washing one of many dirty glass bottles left in the sink, there were shelves full of alcohol and a little window that let Ron see into what he could make out as a downtrodden kitchen.
This place didn’t look one of quality, maybe it’d had more successful years behind it but food was food in Ron’s state of mind, he made his way through the pub, all the patrons looking at his uniform curiously.
He approached the counter cautiously “Do you serve food here?” he asked.
The person gave him a speculating look “How old are you?”
“I’m not here to drink, I'm here to eat,” Ron said.
The person stared at him, slamming down the glass bottle “What do you want?”
“Fish and Chips?”
“Would you mind if the fish came from the sewers?” The Bartender asked “Because with how cheap we’re getting them, that’s probably where they came from”
“As long as the potatoes weren’t grown with sewer water”
The Bartender nodded and went out back to relay the order.
When Ron found Luna, she was adjusting several cards on the table with meticulous care.
“Are we playing poker?” Ron joked, taking a look at the pack that Luna was scrambling on her side of the table, they didn’t look like poker cards although Ron wasn’t sure what those looked like either.
Luna took one of the cards, which were laid face-down on the table, leaving only the intricate details of the back of the card for the world to see, and looked at it with interest before she put it back down and answered “No, but that’d be interesting, I wonder which cards would fit which”
“So what are you doing?” Asked Ron.
“I’m gonna read you your tarot cards,” Luna said in a matter-of-fact tone as if the matter had already been decided.
“Tarot Cards? Aren’t those the ones from the carnival?” Ron raised his ginger brows “Are you planning on working as a carny or something?”
“I do find it interesting” Admitted Luna while she was organizing the messy pile of cards into something more orderly “Are you spiritual Ron?”
“I pray sometimes” Ron answered.
“Hmm” Luna took that information in “I do, I believe that life sometimes tries to give us signs whether it be by stars” she pointed a finger upwards “or by cards” She finished organizing the cards.
“You do seem the type,” Remarked Ron, staring at the cards with held-back curiosity, now he didn’t believe in mysticism or anything like that but still it wasn’t boring and Luna was nice, and he didn’t want to seem rude “How does it work anyway?”
Luna shuffled three cards in front of her and then put another trio on top of them “I See…” She said, not bothering to answer Ron’s question “I See..” she flipped two cards to reveal a pair of eight wands, one reversed and the other upright “That you’re stuck, you want but fear change, it may be yourself or others holding you back but whatever it is you cannot allow it to hold you back, you need to take risks, don’t let your fear stop you from doing what you want”
She continued “I See…” three of wands this time “I See… that you have ambition and drive but lack optimism and are ill-willed to use those traits for your own good, what is it that’s keeping you down?”
Ron was about to respond but found his mouth too dry, what luna had said Made Ron think back to all those nights he’d spent looking up at his ceiling or wondering in class thinking if he would make something of himself, now he’d had those same fears said by someone else and Ron could not begin to decide if he was glad he could talk about it to someone else or despair that his personality issues were that obvious.
Luna curtly pressed a finger against his lips “I’m not done yet Ronald” She flipped over the last two cards: Knight of Wands “You have a fighting spirit inside of you, Ronald, the fire that burns inside of you glows as brightly as your hair in the sunlight and you charge forward like a knight”
“You mean a lancer?” Corrected Ron but Luna shrugged.
“But you need knowledge and strategy otherwise charging is simply mindless running, I'd say that you need to listen to other people more”
Ron raised his brow at that “Is that you saying all that or the cards?”
Luna who had started shuffling all the cards back into her pocket paused for a second before replying “I Simply see what I see”
Ron sighed “Well, what do you see in me? You, I mean, not the cards just you”
Luna thought for a moment, her eyes turning upward and her lips scrunched in a matter that Ron thought was cute, Oh no, he had found two things cute about her, did that mean he was starting to like her?
“Well, I see, a lost soul-” Luna started.
“Thanks for that” quickly blurted out Ron.
“But one who has a lot of potential, smart, funny but not taking things too seriously”
“As if you can take things seriously” Again interrupted Ron.
Luna shrugged “I think you can do great things, Ronald, I do”
Suddenly Ron felt a warm weight settle in his gut, it wasn’t uncomfortable or like the ones he got when he thought about his future, someone believed in him… Ron couldn’t help his mouth break into a soft grin. It must have been the contact high, yes that was it.
“Nobody’s ever told me that Luna… thanks, I guess”
Luna made a sound of contentment “Nobody’s ever told me that aside from My Dad”
“Well” Ron wished he had a cup or something to toast so he instead put his hand in front of Luna, in a fist bump “Here’s to us, then”
Luna giggled before she returned the substitute toast, at that moment, the person at the bar came over with his fish and chips.
Even his contact high couldn’t stop Ron’s eyes from bugging out at the sight of his meal, he hadn’t expected anything overly decent from a place like this but he wasn’t expecting anything too horrid: the chips were soaked in a brown, glassy liquid which seemed to be grease and were soggy and sad, the fish had been a bit overburdened, Ron stared at it for a moment, his mouth churning in regret.
“Are you gonna eat that?” Luna asked neutrally, and it could have been Ron’s bad mood but he sent her an unenthusiastic glare.
“Well, better than nothing” he said, although he found his stomach disagreeing with him but he was so hungry even this seemed bearable “You owe me somewhere nice next though”
He ate one of the chips slowly, letting his teeth dig into it, they were soggy and easy to bite into but not in the good way, they were half-burned, making them crunchy but easy to break.
Next was the fish and Ron was not surprised at its taste, grease, it must have been dunked in grease and then even more grease, it was greasy from the outside to the inside, with every bite Ron felt some grease spread to his lips.
Luna looked just the slightest bit disgusted but not overly “I think it’s time for us to leave”
Ron felt his stomach go a bit queasy and his head go light, he felt his surroundings shift, the bad food and high making his head panic, he heard music coming from somewhere… everywhere, surrounding him as if the walls were made of stereos.
“ Picture yourself in a boat on a river… ”
He stood up and felt himself almost fall, he leaned over and supported himself on the table, he distantly heard Luna calling out for him and leaving her chair.
“ Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eeeeeeeyyyyeeessss”
His head snapped towards the stage, the red curtained had been pulled back, there, the people ron least expected stood, dressed in colorful band uniforms were the beatles singing Lucky in the Sky of Diamonds.
He blinked once, then twice and then thrice but they didn’t dissapear and neither did the noise.
“ Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!
Lucy in the sky with diamonds!”
Luna shook him by the shoulders, he turned to look at her, she seemed quite worried “Are you feeling alright Ronald?
He turned back to the stage “is that ringo?”
He then passed out.