Title: A Much-Needed Conversation
Prompt: Written for the 'Monthly Characters & Prompt' competition on the HPFC
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is a trademarked brand owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers. Any material used belongs to the aforementioned parties. This material is only used in recreational purposes and I receive no monetary or material rewards from using it. Please don't sue me.
"Is this seat taken?"
Cho Chang looks up from her charms essay to find a pale wisp of a girl with dirty blonde hair and radishes dangling from her ears. Luna Lovegood. Despite the fact that the seat in question is unoccupied, Cho hesitates with her answer.
"Um… yes- I mean, no. You can have it," she answers, gesturing vaguely towards the seat in question.
With a whimsical smile, the younger girl daintily perches herself in the blue cushioned chair, pulling a copy of The Quibbler out of a lime green shoulder bag. Cho glances nervously around the common room. Luna Lovegood is not popular amongst the females of Ravenclaw. Cho doesn't know the girl very well, but she's well aware of her reputation: just being seen with the oddball fourth-year is pretty much asking to have all your socks vanished. But no one is around, only that strange third year who spends all his time cracking eggs three at a time in the corner.
"Lots of people like you Cho," Luna pipes up from behind her magazine, flipping lazily through glossy pages. Her hands are covered in black ink, but she seems to not have noticed. "You're very popular; you shouldn't be so worried."
Blushing slightly, Cho turns back to her homework but Luna keeps talking. "You've been very sad," she observes, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. This isn't a question, and there's no emotion to color her mild tone, but Cho feels the need to defend herself anyway.
"It's been hard this year," the Asian girl admits quietly. Part of her is astounded that she's choosing to confide in Luna Lovegood of all people, but there's something reassuring about Luna's judgment-free silver-blue eyes. "Defense is a joke, Marietta hates me, and all that's happened with-" Cho falters, but she forces herself to say the name. "Cedric," she finishes quietly.
The fourth-year doesn't ask if Cho's okay, she doesn't point out her suddenly watery eyes, and she offers none of the 'I'm so sorry, that must be so hard for you's!' that Cho's come to hate. She simply nods along as if the taller girl's ramblings make perfect sense to her.
"I think you suffer from a bad case of halfa."
Cho doesn't ask, but confusion is painted plain across her features.
Luna continues on undeterred, "In a relationship in which two people become one, the end result is two half people. You have halfa, you're only half of a person."
'Half of a person?' Cho's grip on her eagle feather quill tightens with each word, but the blonde continues to speak. She's either oblivious to the Asian girl's discomfort, or she simply doesn't care either way.
Suddenly, Cho doesn't want to keep listening. She wants this barely tolerated fairy girl to go back to her lair and leave the past in the past. Cho would be lying to herself if she said she hadn't been thinking of Cedric almost constantly and that her Ancient Runes grade hadn't been suffering because of it. However, that doesn't mean she wants some stranger to come in and try to reassure her of Cedric's love for her.
'Or lack of it,' a slimy voice whispers in her ear. Cho doesn't ask or want to think of such horrible things, and she's sure that this isn't what Luna meant by halfa, but these fears seem to weasel their way into her subconscious. She's already been so confused in her head, her own emotions twisted like some impossibly infuriating to solve puzzle. The last thing she needs is to keep doubting (torturing) herself.
"He really did like you," Luna starts suddenly, eyes fixed dreamily in the opposite direction.
'Ookkaaay.' She either read Cho's mind or made a really good guess, and with what little Cho knows about Luna Lovegood, either one is equally possible.
"How do you know?" the brown eyed girl asks, curious despite her annoyance.
"Cedric was one of my neighbors," offers the fourth-year. "We weren't very close, but our mothers were best friends, so he was something like an older brother to me."
She contorts and shifts herself so as to be able to sit backwards on her chair and meet Cho's gaze with a wide-eyed stare at the same time. "He talked about you a lot. Whenever it was Valentine's Day or your birthday, he'd ask me to sneak your present into your dorm."
Luna hasn't said very much, but Cho muses over her words carefully. There's a warming lift in her stomach, and a smile graces her features for the first time tonight.
"Really?" she asks hopefully.
The other girl nods, drumming her fingers on the table in a soundless beat.
"He really did like you," she repeats. "It's okay to be sad that he's gone, Cho. It's okay... but you're still letting yourself be broken." She pauses mid-sentence to beat at something floating in the air that only she can see, before continuing on with no change in her tone. "I think that you should try to heal; to get back the other half of you. You can't give away half of yourself if you don't have enough of your heart to make a whole."
Cho nods her understanding. Luna has a strange way with words, but Cho recieves the message loud and clear. To an outsider, this whole conversation doesn't make any sense, both the participants and what is discussed, but somehow… Cho feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
With those parting remarks, Luna stands, moving with surprising grace considering she's wearing a different shoe on each foot.
"Luna!" Cho calls to the back of the blonde's retreating head. "I… I really," Cho falters in her words as the blonde turns back around, bystander's guilt filling her like water in a sinking ship. "One of your shirts is stuffed behind bookshelf near the Astronomy section," she finishes in a shameful whisper.
The blonde smiles dazedly, but her words are sincere. "Thank you, Cho. The nargles are quite fond of the color green and cotton-wool blends. They love to steal my shirts."
Cho smiles back, her grin only slightly forced, "Of course."