I don't own Harry Potter.
Antithesis
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The night air feels very heavy, laced in a sweetness thick as treacle as it gathers the two of them against it, the Fluttering Flashwhethers weaving through the darkness before them like a troupe of tiny stars which had become dislodged from the distant, dark creases in the heavens to dance only for them.
Luna admires the motion, weaving her long fingers through Hermione's curls, parting them like a ruffled curtain, and placing her lips at the soft, peach skin stretched at Hermione's temple; while looking out at the dancing pinpricks of light, she asks Hermione which is most real now: that which is observed or that which is felt. Hermione presses very close, but her words still come balanced on the sharp steel edge of a sceptic, for she is not unaware of what Luna is on about:
"They're not the same sort of feelings, a physical touch and your intuition."
The words sound short of breath, and Luna's lips involuntarily curl into a smile, the way a lazy cat stretches in a patch of sunlight. Hermione's head is tipped toward the long veils of light dangling low from the moon, and when Luna leans back, she sees Hermione's hair illuminated around the edges, like the silver lining which manifested in February:
"It's absolute rubbish, and I don't believe a word of it."
(Because after hearing those words come from that mouth dozens of times, it was the only time which Luna had thought to answer differently.)
"Don't worry; I'll help you to."
The long fluff of Hermione's hair hangs around her face like a tiny, contained sandstorm which tickles the tip of Luna's nose. She feels an unruly fluttering of brittle, paper-thin wings brushing the lining of her stomach, and she smiles. Luna asks of love then, and how it fits into Hermione's logic.
"You know it's there, but only because you feel it," Luna presses, quite possibly for the hundredth time. "It's here." Luna is able to reach then, in one way she couldn't last February: she places her hand over Hermione's stomach, chin familiarly resting over her shoulder as she curiously feels for signs of fluttering. Hermione makes a tiny surprised noise, almost like a mouse. "There's nothing to calculate," Luna whispers very close to Hermione's ear, placing the words in with care as if she is afraid they would dare scurry away.
And it is all very well with grabby, winged things like the Fluttering Flashwhethers about.
Instead of her usual exasperated response, Hermione replies that the Fluttering Flashwhethers are ordinary fireflies: nothing more, nothing less.
Later that same mouth is a soft, slick curve against Luna's own, and it breathes the words which maybe give her hope: "Nothing will ever feel quite as real, nothing at all." They encase themselves within the quick pulse of their warm breath, Hermione's crashing against Luna's neck, and Luna feels exhilaration spread though her like the moonlight is crawling under her skin, warming her bone-deep with the force of a bursting dam.
The night tumbles over itself in a pale bruise of pink and blue and gold as morning hurtles in, further etching out the lines of Hermione's smiling face and dulling the Fluttering Flashwhethers who zip out like nothing more than a low tide: not so easily observed anymore; temporary.
Hermione's fingers twine and flow into Luna's blonde hair, her curling fingers mirroring the fluent, twirling motions of fireflies as she recalls easily a previous warm tangle of limbs which still penetrates her down through the bone (through brick, through steel) though it is knots of a rushing, flittering feeling (brittle tips of paper-thin wings brushing the lining of her stomach) which is most solid of all.