AN: Look what we have here, a Luna one-shot-from C.G. o.O
Written for smile456smile's The Fanfiction Championship-Euro 2012 style. I'm Germany, can't get any cooler than that ;)
Also the lovely TuesdayNovember aka Lizzie practically invented Squiddelus. I'm just borrowing him to have some time with Luna not Dumbledore.
She was so tired she felt like she hadn't slept for years – no, more like millennia. Luna tried to close her blue eyes, begging Merlin to bless her with sleep, but she knew he would not be that kind to her. Small pale hands covered her closed eyes as she stood up from her bed. Taking a deep breath she repeated the silent prayer to the Fates: when all is dark and there's no light, lost in the deepest star of night, I see you. The wood fairy had told her that it would make her stronger and that it would help her to see the light in the darkest time of her life.
But it only made her think of Theodore and how he didn't love her anymore.
Dropping her hands she let out a wounded sigh. Everybody thought that she was strong and didn't cry of the people who liked to make fun of her for being dreamy, distracted, loony, strange and just plain weird. But she was no Gryffindor. She was a Ravenclaw. She saw what other people didn't take the time to notice. Luna had taken the time to notice a lonely and weedy boy a year older than her. When she had laid eyes on his scarred and stringy appearance she'd known deep in her being that he was her soul mate, her lover from another life that had been separated from her for reasons that were too cruel and unfair. Just like now.
Luna had been so young when she had met him – she had been just five years old but she had known in that moment, at the garden party that her mother had taken her to, that the silent boy was her soul mate. She had felt a burst of flames cover her body, wrapping her heart and lungs, hugging her with the warmest of touches and blowing on her face. It had almost been like sunbathing next to the lake near her home.
When she had gone to the sorting and spotted that same boy, she had known that it was him. Those flames had come back and that time she'd known that they would be together in this life as well.
Not caring to put on some shoes or to retrieve her school robe, Luna walked in her white cotton nightgown and with one hand turned the silver doorknob, opening the door of her dorm. As if she were floating she left her common room and swiftly headed down the stairs as she tried to battle the tears that were threatening to escape. She had lost something – no, someone that she couldn't replace. Theodore had been her other half and now she was no longer full. Luna had tried so hard to make him see that they had been made for each other, like a puzzle, and for a moment they had been happy and in love. Now she was not happy and he was not in love. Luna had failed and now she was suffering from Loser's Lurgy and it was just awful.
The cold air hit her petite face as she neared the lake. She was going to take her nightly walk to the forest just like she had done with Theodore, but this time she was alone. She stopped when she heard the water stir. A splash of water reached her ears and a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. Squiddelus the Giant Squid was still here – it had been some time since she had spoken to or drank tea with him. Luna gasped and turned around – oh dear! She had been an awful friend to poor Squiddelus. After being with Theodore she had only thought about him and had forgotten her classy squid friend – her first friend at Hogwarts.
Sitting on the grass, she reached for the water with a small hand, but before it could enter, Squiddelus' tentacle came out and wrapped around Luna's tiny wrist in a comforting manner. The Giant Squid was an intelligent being and knew why his small friend was here. Luna felt the wetness but also the care in the touch and in that moment she didn't have the strength anymore – she wasn't a Gryffindor!
Tears streamed down her face. "Oh Squiddelus!" she cried, letting all the hurt out. Her heart was broken beyond repair. "He doesn't love me. He hates me, he loves someone else."
Theodore now loved Daphne Greengrass and had told her to pretend that what they had, what they had lived through in this and their other life, had never happened. Another wet tentacle rose and reached for her cheek, caressing it, causing a sad giggle to escape her lips between the sobs.
"I've been an awful friend, haven't I, Squiddelus?" she whispered. The tears were still trickling from her eyes and it was a strange sight to see – a nymph crying her heart out to a red giant squid. Normally Luna would never cry, because tears wouldn't solve anything and also because it gave strength to the Wrackspurts who made your brain fuzzy. "Pinky promise that I'll visit often." Luna smiled as Squiddelus' other tentacle patted her head.
Sighing she lay on her stomach, her hands under her cheeks. "I knew that it would be hard, but I believed that we would be able to get through it," she confided sadly to the Giant Squid.
When they had come back from the summer holiday, Theodore had been so dark and Luna had known what he had become – a Death Eater. It was to be expected after the rise of He Who Must Not Be Named during the Triwizard Tournament. She'd known that Theodore would become a follower – he had told her after all and she had accepted it, because she loved him and would be there for him. But she hadn't realized that in those few days between their return and the Halloween Ball they had been falling apart, they who had held onto each other so dearly afraid to let go in fear of feeling hollow and empty. She didn't even feel his green eyes on her anymore, though there was a prickly feeling that she was being watched but when she turned he wasn't there. Luna was imagining it because he hated her now.
Why wouldn't these tears stop?
"Could it be worse?" she asked her debonair friend.
Squiddelus' tentacle went up and down. Yes, it could be worse. Her breaths rasped as if she were wounded; she was just too in love to let it go. But she was never selfish. She had to let him go and accept the fact that he wasn't in love with her anymore. His heart, soul and body belonged to the beautiful and cold Daphne Greengrass. Actions spoke louder than words – that's what she and Theo had agreed on, what they'd based their quirky relationship on since the beginning. It was also how it ended – his words didn't hurt that much, but his actions were the poisoned daggers that made her fall apart.
Luna felt she was in a dark place. Just like the wood fairy had told her – she would be lonely as well. But the fairy had also said that lights would guide her home. For Luna, home was where Theodore was. The castle was her home. But it was just so dark and so cruel. Sniffing, she let her head droop, not even noticing or caring that her blonde hair got wet. The wet tentacle patted her head in a comforting way. The tiredness came back to her. Again she repeated the prayer under her breath.
He wasn't the Theodore she had known. He was now this dark, cruel and sinister young man. He was a closed door that was forever locked. Theodore didn't want to open the door to her – she was banned from his life and wasn't welcome.
Her eyes fluttered shut as a small whimper escaped her lips. It felt like flames enveloped her whole – just like whenever Theodore was near. But she knew it was all wishful thinking. He wasn't here. The flames caused her bones to ignite with a sense of fulfilment and longing, only for him. Soothed by the thought of him hugging her, his nose on her neck while she cuddled to him, she fell asleep next to Black Lake, while her faithful friend Squiddelus continued to pat her head in the most comforting way. Luna did not notice that her ex-lover was hiding behind a tree, looking at her with wounded emerald eyes.
Luna was so deep in her sleep that she believed she must have been dreaming when she felt those familiar arms, full of scars and bruises and now marred with a Dark Mark, pick her up and hold her close to a familiar chest that she loved to lay butterfly kisses on. She would never know that it had been real. Her face nestled into his neck. Luna complemented her ex-lover, and she was now a broken porcelain doll. For her it felt that she was high up above, looking at this strange and bittersweet dream, wishing that Theodore was holding her and taking her inside the castle. She wanted to wake up but it was just too warm and just too beautiful and it would be awful to wake up and realize that it was all a figment of her imagination and helped by the Wrackspurts.
She tried to fix herself, but she knew she was beyond repair. Her dreamy attitude was the façade and armor to help her take a small step at each time and the dangling of the raddish earrings which Theodore had gifted her with were the heavy reminder that one day not so long ago she had been loved. The memory of faint touches kept her smiling and believing in rare magical creatures. That lonely boy who didn't even look her way had listened with interest when she'd talked about those creatures and he used to hold her with love and care and make her feel whole, playing her body like a piano, causing her to tingle in want from the touch of those long fingers.
Those same fingers erased the tears that were still escaping her, those same lips that used to cover her face, lips and body with passionate kisses now went to her cheeks as he tried to make her smile that distracted, all-knowing and dreamy smile that she kept only for him. As if these simplest touches and kisses could fix and mend her.
This bittersweet dream was too real for her taste, but she did not dare open her blue eyes. Luna just cuddled more to his body as if it were a dream – why would she wake up to the cruel reality of being alone? Maybe this was what the prayer gave to you. A dream when you most needed it. Luna would take it with gratitude; this bittersweet dream would help her overcome her sadness and make her whole again, make her stronger and able to see what she was worth.
Luna Lovegood was so deep in her dream of the bubble that she and Theodore had built only for them that she didn't even whimper when he laid her down the couch of her common room. He was still here, she told herself. Yes, he was still here with her and loving her. Her dream was the most beautiful one that she had ever had. It was magical and she even thought she heard words that were whispered in her ear.
"I promise I will learn from my mistakes." Theodore's whisper was soft like the wood fairy's voice from the summer.
A dreamy, all-knowing, distracted smile came onto her face as her lover looked down at her with hopeful green eyes. Both he and Luna knew that it was him – that wounded, broken and lonely boy that she had met all those years ago at that garden party, the same that she had laid her big dreamy eyes on at her sorting, the same that had spoken with his actions that he loved her while they became one in the clearing of the Forbidden Forest, the same that was her soul mate and lover from their other lives. Yes, she knew this Theodore.
And with that thought she slept like a happy Nargle when it finds its home in the mistletoe among the stolen items of its victims. She did not notice her lover backing away to walk down to the dungeons, alone, broken, and hopeful.
He left her as Theodore, not Nott, who was his other self, the darker, evil, cruel personality that had hurt his Luna beyond repair. No, he was Theodore, the boy who loved his nymph more than his life, the Theodore who knew that if he was still with her, she would have the same fate as his lovely dead mother.
AN: With writing this, I felt my muse came back to me. So come on leave a review and I'll invite you to Carl's Jr. to celebrate!