If you touch me like this / And if I kiss you like that / It was gone with the wind / But it's all coming back to me / It's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now
Cho toasted everyone she could reach at her table, the ring of glass on glass filling the friendly quiet of the banquet hall, murmured exchanges passing between family and friends assembled. Her cousin and his bride sat at the head table, their traditional Taiwanese pureblood finery glittering in the candlelight, brightened more by the way the charmed wings of swans reflected every light source. High in the mountains and away from prying eyes of muggles or wizard media, the Changs enjoyed relative privacy for the first wedding of Cho's generation.
A swell of music followed the toasts, and the last formal action of the ceremony. Cho's eyes fluttered closed for a moment in relief, though her back was still taught and straight, the tiny feathers glued to her eyebrows and the corners of her eyes growing more uncomfortable by the minute.
The goosebumps on her arms, raised by the draft of winter wind oozing through the protective charms, were hypersensitive to the warm hand that rested on them. Her reflexes demanded she twist to face the person touching her, but years since the war helped to dampen those instincts to only be used on the Quidditch Pitch.
Oliver dimpled at her, the pads of his fingers resting between the spaces where a silver bracelet coiled from her wrist to elbow. If the charm were hammered flat then her family's emblem would appear, but where it wrapped around her forearm, it swirled into delicate lines, looping around her muscles and restricting her movements.
"Did you want to step out?" Oliver whispered, the laughter and conversations rising to a level around them that hid his comment to all but her.
"Oh, Merlin, yes," she replied.
Her parent's gazes slid over her as slow as molasses when Oliver helped her to stand and leave the outdoor pavilion. The move was slow enough they could cast their own aspirations on her chosen date, but quick enough that they could still feel validated in ignoring their youngest daughter. It stung. It always did, but she found it didn't hurt so badly tonight. Whether the sparkling wine, cold air, or years away from them, or all three combined dampened the blow, she didn't know or particularly care in that moment.
Her feet felt clumsy in heels, the straps wrapping around her calves felt too delicate, the skin there accustomed to heavy leather bracings favored by the Quidditch players in the English league. Oliver moved effortlessly in his tailored robes and she rolled her eyes when he held out an arm for support, but took it anyway. She pinched the inside of his forearm to keep the status quo.
"They haven't accepted your place on the Tornados?"
Leave it to Oliver to cut right to the point, just like she did.
"I didn't bring you to this wedding to hear you speak," Cho teased, stepping over a slippery patch of ice with his help. "I brought you to parade around that pretty arse and to make claw marks in it later."
"Cho-"
Pinching her lips and mimicking his warning tone, she drawled, "Oliver." The next time she almost tripped, she purposefully ran her hand down his chest and brushed the front of his pants, capitalizing on the three glasses of fruity alcohol running through her veins.
He grabbed her wrist gently, pulling it back up to rest on his arm for the rest of the walk to the apparition point. "Don't play with fire if you're already burning."
The silence that was previously comfortable while leaving the hall grew a fissure of tension, but the two had known each other for enough years that the fissure did nothing to break the layers of comfort beneath.
When they reached the Apparition point, Oliver kissed the top of her forehead, carefully missing all of the jewels still glued there, before hugging her solidly around her shoulders. His cheeks were flushed from the cold and small amount of alcohol he'd drunk that night, and she wished, not for the first time, that she loved him the way he deserved to be.
She could still feel the way his heated fingers cupped her check in a soft goodbye while she fumbled to simultaneously cast the unlocking wards while her key turned in the lock of her flat. Her mouth had dropped open to ask if he wanted to come in, to at least warm up, he'd dithered in the doorway without speaking. His look was all she needed to receive in response, and he left before she went inside.
The room was illuminated, the soft glow of a motion sensing magical light in the corner blooming to life to help her eyes adjust from the darkness outside.
"You look like a swan."
The soft chime of one of her bracelets sliding off of her arm punctuated the silence. Her voice, so primed to rib Oliver a moment before, fled her as she lifted her gaze to meet the eyes of her would-be uninvited guest.
Luna glowed from the light behind her, all warm tones and sunshine, and Cho could sense the cold armor around her rib cage begin to buckle from the brilliance.
She blinked, hyper aware of the charms keeping the gems and feathers attached to her face, but not the way her hands shook at her sides. Her voice resisted the temptation to shake as she said, "You can't be here. You aren't real."
"I'm as real as you want me to be."
"That's not good enough!" Cho gritted out, a hand reaching up to yank one half of her headdress out of her hair, one half of her face now curtained in darkness. "You left two years ago, and you come back to me talking in inane circles?"
Luna stood, her crossed legs unfolding to the floor and her dress, hitched up above her knees, fell to meet the floor. The dark greens and browns of the material played with the light as Luna moved closer to Cho. "I never left you alone, though, did I? I told you I'd need to leave now and again." A hand, coated in a fine layer of something that sparkled and shined in the low light, rose up to remove the other ornament from Cho's hair, releasing it all.
"Two years?" The words landed like burning ashes to the floor, burning holes through layers of memories they hadn't shared.
"And I'm not here for long, so please listen to me."
Cho's eyes burned, but the stomach-turning rage simmered to complacent despair as Luna's fingers carded through her hair. The shaking in her hands moved up to her arms and through her entire body, flesh memory making her sick with how responsive she was to a simple touch; the soft and thin fingers moulding the Quidditch-tough muscles like so much clay. Luna continued the movements until Cho's shaking subsided slightly, guiding her by touch alone to the couch where they sat to face each other.
"The wedding you attended, it brought you closer to the moon, so I was able to come back to you sooner than planned. Do you remember when I told you what I'd accepted, and the scroll?"
"Yes," Cho said, the word hissing slightly out between her lips, her tears mingling with the massaging movements of Luna's hands.
Luna drew her into an embrace, slight arms cradling Cho within them. With soft pressure, Luna moved Cho's head down to rest against her sternum. Whatever anger coiled within her, boiling in her blood at the sight of her once-lover, Cho felt it melt away.
"I miss you," she whispered.
"I'm in the sky most nights, and some days."
Cho shivered and soaked up the time spent in the arms that felt like protection and home. "Not the same."
"Well of course not," Luna chuckled against the crown of Cho's head, one hand moving to stroke gently along the dark unbound hair shimmering in the half-light. "You are my cloak, Cho, and can join me anytime you're ready."
A bubble of fear formed in her gut again and the way her limbs felt heavier, she knew she couldn't say yes. Instead she cuddled up closer to the steadily fading apparition of her love. Luna stayed silent in understanding, and stroked Cho's hair until she fell asleep against her chest.
When she woke the next morning sleeping in her own bed, without a blonde wraith at her side, Cho thought she would be angry again. Instead, a new resolution settled in her chest.
The next time, she would be ready to fly.
[a/n] September 28th, 2016 - Themes here are very roughly inspired by myths about the moon coming to earth to bathe and when her cloak of swan feathers was stolen, and she was forced to remain on earth. This myth is very similar to the selkie, if that is something you're familiar with.
For kreeblimsabs, her songfic request based on Céline Dion's It's All Coming Back to Me Now, and also to fulfill the Femslash Week on tumblr for ChoLuna