Written for the Hospital Wing challenge in the Hogwarts Houses Challenge forum (Pssst! Go over there and join Hufflepuff!) Also, sorry for the lame title - I seriously could not think of anything else.
I'm Ginny/Luna trash. So sue me.
Except don't, because I'm broke as hell. Seriously.
"If she's really into you," Padma had said, eyes gleaming as they tended to whenever she had a particularly juicy bit of gossip. "Her body language will show you. Obviously, it's the not the same for every girl and since you're not telling me who it is..."
She had trailed off and looked at Luna meaningfully. Luna had refused to take the hint.
"Anyway," she had huffed. "Body language. Compare her body language when she's talking to you to when she's talking to other people. Does she sit straighter? Is the eye contact longer? Does she laugh more? Does she stand closer?"
Luna had blinked confusedly before admitting, "I haven't noticed that kind of stuff."
"Next time you talk to her," Cho had added from the armchair across them, finally looking up from her book. "Check. And Padma, don't you have better stuff to do than delve into other people's love lives?"
Luna frowned now at Ginny, who was mumbling under her breath, repeating the uses of several potion ingredients. Occasionally, Luna would catch phrase like 'temperature to a simmer' and 'stir clockwise'. She was sitting up on the hospital bed,
She wasn't holding eye contact with Luna at all, brown eyes squinting instead at the potion book on her lap. Prolonged eye contact wasn't valid if the eye contact was being made with a book rather than herself, right? Maybe she could make an exception for Ginny.
And she wasn't sitting up straight either. Although she had the headboard behind her to lean on, if she wanted to, she was slumped over, hair falling in her face and on the book resting on the knee that wasn't healing. She wasn't laughing, but then again, who would laugh when faced with Professor Snape and a terrifyingly difficult assessment in less than a week's time? She wasn't particularly close to Luna, though that was probably more to do with the fact that she was sitting on a bed and had been denied any right to move until her leg had improved.
Hm. Not quite ticking the check-list Padma had so helpfully provided. But then again, Ginny wasn't currently talking to Luna, so did it count?
"You need to infuse powdered root of asphodel and salamander blood to make the Drought of Living Death, right?" Ginny wondered aloud, frowning up at the ceiling and, when it didn't give her any answer, turning to Luna. "Or was it wormwood?"
"Wormwood," Luna confirmed. Ginny gave her a grateful before returning to her textbook to squint at the words, scribbling notes on a parchment without looking. Luna spent a minute watching the line she was writing tilt unevenly before her mind wandered back to Padma's words.
Luna thought back to other times her and Ginny had been together. Sure, Ginny did maintain eye contact when speaking with her, but surely that was just polite? Luna knew that she wouldn't appreciate it if someone kept glancing away when she was talking to them. It was rather like Neville, who always glanced away whenever she spoke to him. Come to think of it, he always seemed a little nervous whenever she spoke to him... He'd fiddle with his sleeves and he'd constantly be wetting his lips, enough so that Harry and Ron burst into laughter whenever they saw him doing so. She wondered vaguely if they were being mean. She doubted it - Neville was close to Harry and Ron, and the two would always pat Neville's back supportively after they were done laughing.
But back to her dilemma with Ginny. Close contact... Well, the two were normally quite touchy with each other, but how much of that was romantic, or even sexual, Luna wasn't sure. It wasn't particularly big gestures, just the little things, like holding hands so they didn't lose each other in the crazy mess that was the corridors, crowding into a single armchair together, sitting close enough in the Great Hall and the study rooms to be pressed together from their thighs to their shoulder. But none of that was particularly romantic. Luna could imagine herself being close to another person the same way.
Well, no, actually, she couldn't. But maybe that had more to do with her lack of friends.
And besides, close contact alone didn't equate to being soul-mates, did it? There were people like Seamus who were constantly craving contact and affection, who always needed to be touching the person they were talking. He couldn't even congratulate her on Hufflepuff's Quidditch win without patting her arm, resting a hand on her back, stroking her hair and flicking at her nose within that five minute conversation. That didn't mean Seamus was interested in her - she knew for a fact that he was more than slightly obsessed with Dean Thomas. So did it really apply to Ginny?
"Are you not going to study?" Ginny asked. Luna snapped out of her reverie, eyes widening ever so slightly at being caught with her mind elsewhere.
"I've been revising all week," she told the red-head, smiling slightly. "I don't think I can look at that silly textbook again without wanting to throw it out of the window."
Ginny snorted, leaning back to rest her head on the headboard behind her. Unfortunately, it made her hair fall behind her, exposing her neck and collarbones as she tilted her head. Luna tried not to stare, but the position was making Ginny's chest puff out and it was proving more and more difficult to give up eye contact and stare at the beautiful creamy skin on display.
"As if you'd throw any of your textbooks out," Ginny said with a grin, closing her own textbook. "You bloody Ravenclaw."
"I think this Potions book may be my first," Luna said sombrely, and Ginny laughed.
Ginny had a nice laugh, Luna mused to herself. a pretty tinkle, like chimes in the wind.
"Miss Lovegood?"
Luna twisted in her seat to turn and face the nurse standing at the curtains with a motherly smile.
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey?" Luna asked, eyes lighting up. She liked Madam Pomfrey, liked helping her out in her free time, even if it was just sorting out the medicine cupboard or helping her calm a student who had come in injured. Luna kind of wanted to be a nurse when she left Hogwarts. She didn't have an overwhelming passion for it, but it was the only career she had come across that she had been remotely interested in.
"I'm going to be treating Ginny now," Madam Pomfrey said, walking over with several small vials in her hands. She set them down on the small table beside the bed before facing Ginny. "I've got some more potions that will help with the healing process of your leg, but I need you take a Sleeping Draught after that. Miss Lovegood is welcome to stay, of course," she added to Luna, who smiled serenely. "But you will be asleep for a good couple of hours."
Ginny nodded. "Thanks, Madam Pomfrey. What are the chances of getting a strawberry flavoured medicine?"
Madam Pomfrey laughed. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but the closest flavour you will find to these vials will be the worst Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans you have ever tried."
Luna wrinkled her nose. She didn't envy Ginny's position at all.
"You don't have to stay," Ginny said as Madam Pomfrey disappeared, presumably to get more potions. "Watching me fall asleep isn't the most exciting thing you'll do all day, I promise you."
Luna smiled. Ginny was right - watching someone fall asleep didn't sound terribly appealing, but when it was Ginny, she found herself craving to see that bit of her. She wondered if that made her creepy, before deciding not to look too into it.
"I'll go when you fall asleep," she promised, setting Ginny's parchment on the table beside the bed and taking her Potions textbook.
"I thought you were going to throw the next Potions textbook you see out of the window," Ginny teased, raising an eyebrow playfully. Luna smiled.
"We both know that wasn't going to last long," she admitted, and smiled when Ginny laughed that pretty laugh again.
Madam Pomfrey returned, with another two vials in her hands. The red-headed girl took them, swallowing them quickly in an obvious attempt to get it all over and done with. Luna watched, amused, as Ginny swallowed potion after bitter potion, pulling faces at Luna after each one. Finally, came the Sleeping Draught.
"See you on the other side," Ginny joked, and she swallowed that too before handing the vial to Madam Pomfrey and snuggling into her blanket.
Luna remained in her seat and, realising that it was probably a little strange to stare at your best friend as they slept, began to look at the Potions book, going over potion recipes and committing them to memory as she traced her finger lightly over the notes Ginny had made around the margin.
She lost herself in the world of mandrakes and mistletoe berries and, when she eventually looked up, saw that Ginny was fast asleep, hair splayed around her like a strange, ginger halo. Her mouth was slightly open and a saliva pooled slightly at the corner of her lips. Luna stifled a giggle and reached into her bag to get her camera out - now this was a sight the two of them could laugh about later when Ginny gained consciousness.
She snapped the photo and smiled at it when it was ready. Despite it's originally pure entertainment purpose, it was rather pretty.
Luna sighed. She had fallen tits-over-arse if she found Ginny's drool endearing.
She pocketed the photo, returned the camera to her bag and got up to leave. Maybe one day, she would tell Ginny how much she loved the photo. But for now, she was content to not ruin what they had.
But maybe one day.
Prompts I used were:
4 - (Movie) She's just not that into you - this is basically Padma's list of 'how to tell if someone is interested in you' yeah lame sorry I know
6 - (Quote) "A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running" - urrgghh I had no idea how to fit this in, considering a) I have no experience of hospital bills, considering I live in the UK where we have free health care - so I was super confused when I first read this quote - and b) it's a school, so I doubt that they pay for health care... especially since it's set in Scotland so, hello free health care!
21 - (Song) Photograph by Ed Sheeran - yep, you guessed it, that's the photo at the end. Unoriginal? Yes. Did it work? Completely. =3