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“Stop moving so much,” Luna mumbled. “It's hard to draw.”
Ginny huffed out a breath of fond annoyance; the grass she was laying in was tickling her neck, and her head was bent at an awkward angle, and, to be frank, she sort of needed to piss. “Sorry,” she said, instead looking up at Luna, who was sitting, cross legged, and looking very concentrated on the page in front of her. Her blonde hair was coming out of its plait, tendrils curving around her face and filtering the sunlight so that it danced on the tips of her eyelashes. Ginny thought she looked like a fucking vision. “It’s a bit uncomfortable, though. Is there any chance that you can hurry it up a bit?”
Luna blinked, and Ginny averted her gaze. “Not really,” she said, sounding bemused. “I mean, I suppose I could take a photograph, and copy from that, but it wouldn’t look nearly as nice.”
“How do you mean?” Ginny asked, and Luna tilted her head in that way she had.
“There’s the… hold on,” she answered, erasing a line on her paper. “There’s the way that your hair shines in the sun, and your freckles look like little stars right now, and a camera wouldn’t be able to capture that the way that human eyes can.”
Ginny blushed, and Luna smiled, and went right back to drawing – completely unaware of how much Ginny wanted to kiss her at that moment.
“Luna?” She said.
“Hmm?”
“I – do you really think all that?”
Luna laughed, a sound like spring rain. “Of course I do,” she answered. “It’s true.”
And Ginny felt her heart fill with that special sweetness that Luna saved just for her, so full it was ready to burst. Oh, how Ginny loved her. She was so close to saying it, too. It was in everything she did and everything she said, and the way she would go very still when Luna fell asleep on her chest, and the way her expression would go soft when Luna tugged on a strand of Ginny’s hair to get her attention.
I love you I love you I love you, she thought as loud as she could, praying that Luna could hear them without Ginny having to speak them.
And then she closed her eyes, the feeling of the sun settling on her skin, tingling pleasantly in the way that Ginny knew meant she’d have the most awful sunburn known to man in about an hour. Luna began to sing, a song that Ginny didn’t know but wished she did. She would’ve asked what it was called, except she could feel the warm embrace of sleep drifting over her, tugging at the edges of her consciousness, painting everything with a black that somehow felt golden.
She dreamed of a fairy garden and a pink swing that swung in a forest, emanating with an otherworldly light and a million other things that felt like magic – the kind of magic in storybooks, as opposed to the magic of Hogwarts. The kind of magic that lingered around Luna like a mist of perfume, woven into her voice and her eyes and her hair and her clothes like a shining thread of topaz and diamond and precious, precious feelings.
When Ginny woke up, it was with her head on Luna’s lap, with fingers carding through her hair.
“Hello,” Luna whispered, softly, like Ginny was someone to be gentle with.“How are you?”
“Sleepy,” Ginny answered, with dreams clinging to the edge of her words. “Very sleepy.”
Luna hummed, and the noise was like a cat’s purr to Ginny, who sighed contentedly. She would’ve been quite happy to spend every day for the rest of her life like this, if it meant that the warmth in her chest would never leave. “I finished your picture,” Luna said. “Would you like to see?”
Ginny tried to nod, and then simply said “Yes,” when it became apparent that she couldn’t nod with her head in its current position. She sat up, and almost began to cry at the sight on the paper that Luna had shown her. It was done in coloured pencil, and Luna had enchanted it to move – like a photo did. The Ginny in the drawing blinked lazily, watching a butterfly land on her nose. She laughed, and the butterfly took off, and Ginny-on-paper’s eyes flickered toward the – well, where the camera would be if it was a photo – and crinkled around the edges. Real-life-Ginny’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt herself choking on a thousand little I-love-yous.“Oh, Luna,” she mumbled. “You made me pretty.”
“You are pretty,” Luna answered, and Ginny swallowed, and reached across the space between them to tuck her hair behind her ear. She tapped on one of Luna’s radish earrings, and watched it swing like a wind-chime would in the breeze.
“Well, you’re beautiful,” Ginny said. “I-” she cut herself off. I love you, her mind supplied. I love you I love you I love you, so much it scares me.
“Yes?” Luna was looking at her, and there was a crown of flowers in her hair, and her sweater had a loose thread that Ginny wanted to pull on. She was radiant.
“Are we, um, together?” She asked. “As in – uh – a couple. Romantically involved. Us.” Ginny pointed to herself, and to the girl in front of her, as though she was clarifying.
Luna’s brows drew together. “No,” she answered. “I don’t think so.”
Ginny’s heart sank. “Oh. Okay.” She pulled her legs closer to her chest, and felt her expression close. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have – I’ve made it weird, haven’t I? Sorry. Just – I’ll leave now. Sorry.” She picked her denim jacket off the ground and shook the pollen off it, making her sneeze, and shrugged it on as she stood up.
She was sunburnt, and it wasn’t nice and tingly anymore; it was too hot and she wanted it to stop, and her eyes hurt from holding back tears, and she still needed to piss. They’d been having a nice time, she thought as she walked away, wrapping her arms around herself. Why did she have to go and ruin everything with her stupid feelings that still pounded in the back of her head like a drum sounding out the beat of her steps?
“Gin! Wait!” Ginny turned her head slightly to see Luna, running through the field. “Hold on, please,” she panted, stopping to catch her breath, bent over double. She caught up to Ginny and grabbed her wrist so hard it felt as though it would bruise.
“What is it?” Ginny asked, aiming for hurt and angry, and internally sighing when her words came out soft and concerned. “Are you alright?”
Luna grinned like a jar of fireflies on a shelf in a dark room. “Yes,” she answered, and reached up, threading her fingers through Ginny’s hair. And then she gave a small, experimental tug, and touched their lips together.
Ginny felt like someone had lit a Lumos inside of her stomach.
She pulled Luna closer by her waist, and felt the other girl smile into her mouth. Ginny pulled away for a second. “Hi,” she said, a smile painting her face with a look she knew was the sappiest thing to ever exist, and Luna pouted.
“Kiss me again,” she said, and so Ginny did, open mouthed with closed eyes, and Luna tasted like apples and cinnamon, and Ginny had never been good at identifying scents, but Lune – she smelled like Luna, and it was marvellous. She tightened her grip on Luna’s waist, and Luna leaned closer, pulling a little harder on Ginny’s hair, drawing a gasp out of her. When they broke apart, Luna was glowing, in the way that she always did, with stars and magic and the moon in her eyes, and her cardigan was falling off one shoulder, and Ginny loved her.
“Luna, I-”
Luna shook her head. “Me first,” she began. “Gin, earlier, I didn’t mean I was against the idea.” Ginny felt her heart soar. “I just didn’t think it was something you wanted, too.”
“It is,” Ginny intoned. “It is.”
Luna smiled. Ginny thought she would never get sick of the sight. “I know.”
They stayed like that, for a moment. In the field, with wildflowers growing around them and the sun beating down as Luna rested her forehead against Ginny’s.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ginny muttered, revelling in the way that her breath disturbed the strand of Luna’s hair that was untucked from her ear. “But I really need the toilet.”
Luna raised an eyebrow, and pressed a feather-light kiss to Ginny’s cheek. “Well then,” she answered. “Off you go.”
Unwinding her arms, Ginny stepped back.
“Come back, this time,” Luna said. It wasn’t a question.
Ginny answered it anyway. “I will.”