Written for CUtopia's A Different Rare Pair Challenge.
Prompts used: Transfigurations, dance, Madam Pudifoot's, and picture 6
No copyright infringement intended
Tutor
1
To say that Greg was displeased about tutoring would be an understatement. Tutoring was just another word for having to take classes in the summer, and summer was another word for not having to take classes. So basically it made no sense and was stupid and he shouldn't have to do it.
It wasn't even his fault he was failing Transfiguration. It wasn't like Potions of History of Magic where he could get someone else to do all the work for him. The exams were pretty much all based off of what you could do with your wand in front of Professor McGitagal (Greg had thought up this name himself and was quite proud of it).
Somehow his mother had written the school and arranged for him to move up to the next year as usual as long as he could prove he'd caught up over the summer. Apparently his various disciplinary incidents had impacted this decision as well, because his mother said it would keep him out of trouble.
Mummy had actually been thrilled about the whole thing. Of course she wanted him to be under the shining influence of the Malfoy and Crabbe boys, but she was very pleased with herself for having found a tutor for him.
"A Ravenclaw around your age, and a pureblood!" she had squealed, "How lucky is that?" His father had grunted his agreement, and the decision was made. It had helped that a peer tutor was cheaper, he guessed. Business things Greg didn't understand weren't looking bright for his father, because he'd broken more glasses than usual. That was something Greg secretly admired about his father. Some dads, like Crabbe, would take out their anger on their families. Greg's father just hurt objects and furniture, he was civilized.
It wasn't that he had had many expectations going into it, but Greg certainly hadn't anticipated that his tutor would look like this.
He had pictured a younger version of ugly Professor McGitagal. Instead, meeting him as prearranged at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, was a strangely ethereal being with her wand tucked behind her ear. He'd never picked on her himself, but he knew from Vinny that this witch was nuts. Loony Lovegood.
He had never looked for her specifically in the halls, but she was categorized somewhere in the back of his head as the sole subject in a folder labeled People Who Seem to Fly When They're Walking.
She set her copy of some weird magazine down on the table in front of her, closing it gently as if it were important and didn't cost probably three quid at the store.
He stopped in front of her, his dull brown eyes caught on her glassy grey-blue ones. She seemed to be studying him, too, for a moment, before a dreamy grin spread across her face and she held out a hand.
"You're Gregory Goyle," she announced.
He nodded. He looked down at her pale little hand and made to shake it. He tried to be gentle, half-believing he might break it. Her hand was weirdly soft and thin and he let go of it quickly.
"You're my tutor? Loony Lovegood?" he asked her.
"You can call me Luna," she said brightly as he took the seat across from her. He didn't know what to do with his hands now, and his right hand felt like somehow it had traces of her softness on it, so he clenched them together in his lap.
"Nice nickname," he said, trying to be polite and sophisticated. After all, if Mummy had to pay her to tutor him then she'd probably be the first to know if he scared her off.
"It's not my nickname, silly. It's my real name."
"Oh. Mine's Gregory."
"Yes, I know, I did say earlier. Shall I call you Gregory then?"
"Erm, Greg is fine. Or Goyle, I mean."
"Goyle. Like gargoyle," she said with that same dreamy smile. "I met a lovely gargoyle in Stockholm once with my father. Funny place to meet a gargoyle, but he was quite friendly. But I think I'll call you Greg anyway."
Greg wasn't quite sure what to think of Luna Lovegood. On the one hand, she kept bringing up strange things he didn't understand. And her huge eyes were kind of distracting. So were her shiny earrings, which looked like they were made out of bug wings. When she moved there was a twinkling jangling noise that seemed to suggest she was possibly wearing even more jewelry around her ankles.
On the other hand, she didn't seem even a little bit annoyed that it was taking him past two hours to learn how to do the doubling charm he was supposed to have learned the year before. She also didn't seem to hold it over him that she knew all of these strange things. She was weirdly not showoffish, for a Ravenclaw.
She also didn't seem bothered by the amount of ice cream he was eating. In fact, she offered to let him finish hers off. It was like she knew he wanted it but was aware it probably wasn't polite to ask.
When he'd finally managed to turn one spoon into two, then four, he looked to Luna to see if it was alright to be excited. After all, she might have just been very good at hiding how frustrated she was with him. That was the worst part of the tutors he'd had sent away as a kid. They always got so angry when he didn't get something the first dozen times they explained it that even when he did get it, they didn't bother being happy about it.
Oddly, wonderfully, Luna Lovegood seemed to be sincerely pleased with him.
"Oh, Greg, you've got it! I just knew you would!" she grinned broadly, looking up at him with her moonlight eyes and clasping her hands around his wand hand. He wanted to jerk his hand back but stopped himself. Even if summer tutoring was stupid and didn't make sense, it would probably be even worse if the strange Ravenclaw weren't the tutor, so he should probably try not to do anything that might cause her to quit.
Her left hand was just as soft as her right had been. He amused himself with the thought that it was like his hand was flanked by two small rabbits. Greg liked rabbits. They tasted good and didn't ask questions.
"Er, thanks," he said huskily as she released his hand. "I, uh, I think I get it now. Thanks."
Before they parted ways, Luna Lovegood gave him very specific instructions on how to create some sort of powder that should enhance his ability to transfigure. It sounded very official, but he already forgot all its contents before he got home.
His mother was explaining to a cluster of house elves how she wanted the fireplace redone as he stepped out of it. She looked up at him with a smile, but he could tell she was nervous. "Well?" she asked, "How did things go, Greggie?"
He shrugged, brushing some ash off his shoulder and sitting down on one of the silky couches. "Fine, I guess. The tutor girl you got is alright."
"Good, good. Did you begin working on any spells yet?" Again, he could tell she expected the answer to be "no."
Feeling a little left over pride from before, none of it having been dampened by Luna Lovegood's encouraging reaction, Greg decided to show off. He drew his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at one of his mothers expensive throw pillows.
"Geminio," he muttered.
Another throw pillow flopped down beside it, almost identical. The embroidery was kind of screwed up, but you could definitely tell that it was the same pillow. His mother applauded gleefully and shot a look at the house elves next to her, who joined in.
2
"I mean, I know it vanishes, but where am I sending it?" he asked her earnestly. By now, Gregory had learned that Luna Lovegood was a rare tutor indeed. A lot of professors finish their lectures by telling everyone that there are no stupid questions, but Luna seemed to not only actually adhere to this rule, but to live by it without every announcing it. At first he hadn't felt comfortable asking questions, but now he asked whatever came to mind. Even if he'd just asked it the same way and forgotten her answer, she would answer happily each time.
"Don't think of it as being sent anywhere," she explained, gesturing with her pale hands to the very much un-vanished mug on the table before them. "I see it as simply undoing it. The same way that conjuring an object creates it out of everything, vanishing it turns it into nothing by sending it back into everything."
Greg frowned. He tried to picture what it would look like to send it back to everything. "So, it explodes? But into a million tiny pieces, so we can't see it?" he asked.
"I think that's a lovely way to see it, Greg," she replied, toying with the small plastic reptile toy that hung at the end of her long necklace that day. Greg's eyes traced the outlines of the reptile before moving up to her pallid collarbone, which was visible above the top of her yellow sundress.
She seemed to only have noticed him eyeing the necklace.
"Do you like it?" she asked. "I made it myself."
His eyes drifted back to the little reptile. "What charm did you use?"
"Oh, I didn't use a charm. I did it by hand. It looks just like a tiny little umgumbular slashkilter, doesn't it? I'm hoping it will attract one."
Greg didn't want to admit that he didn't know what an umgumbular slashkilter was. He was ok with Luna Lovegood knowing that he was pretty clueless about transfiguration, but he wanted to seem like he knew about some things, at least. He was older, after all, so it was normal to want to impress her.
"I saw one of those once," he lied. He immediately felt stupid for lying, and he was about to add that he was only kidding, but her face light up. "Er, it was only a small one," he amended, "and I only saw it for a minute. I was busy-uh, it was on a trip to Hogsmeade."
Luna Lovegood eagerly barraged him with questions about the umgumbular slashkilter sighting. Fortunately, he was able to give her a satisfactory description based on her little necklace miniature. Mentally, he decided he would research these creatures later in the house library. It wasn't a room he often visited, but it seemed necessary in this case.
Eventually, they returned back to the vanishing spell.
"Evanesco," he tried again and again. At one point, the mug sort of flickered in and out, which he found almost more disheartening than nothing happening. Luna Lovegood looked hopeful, though.
The lesson ended several hours later than it was planned to, as was usually the case, ceasing when Greg finally got the spell down. And Greg thanked the strange girl and she did a little curtsy before stocking off to meet up with her father. He thought it seemed like more of a mother's job to be out waiting to pick up their child, but maybe her father had business nearby. His own father went in and out of Gringotts and places a lot, after all, and they weren't far from Knockturn Alley.
3
"You? You have a date, Goyle?" Draco struggled to keep himself from laughing, while Crabbe easily succumbed to it.
Greg shifted indignantly. "Yeah, ok? I just-I can't tell you who it is. She, uh, doesn't want people to know." It was another lie, but it was definitely more believable than the truth.
Greg had grown to enjoy, to even look forward to, his lessons with Luna Lovegood over the summer. But if he told his friends that he had had fun at tutoring, much less with a girl Crabbe teased a lot, they would probably beat him up. So while it wasn't technically a date, at least calling it one made him look good.
And it was kind of like a date, anyway. Luna had asked only him, for example, to accompany her to Hogsmeade. That was a pretty date-like situation. She was probably scared of Crabbe and Draco, too, though, since she passed him a note in the corridor instead of asking him outright. She jingled as she walked past him, probably wearing anklets again.
"Well, whatever, just don't let it go to your head. And if it ends up being a prank, we'll be in Honeydukes, ok? Crabbe says he can score us free sugarquills."
Greg nodded.
That morning, he met Luna Lovegood outside Gladrag's Wizardwear as planned. He was glad they didn't intend to go inside. He hated clothes and shopping and nothing was ever designed for his build. Since most of Luna's outfits in the summer had been bright and muggley, he figured she probably didn't shop there either anyway. He wondered if maybe she made them, like the necklaces.
"Greg! Did you bring everything?" she called out to him brightly, skipping towards him in glimmering green rainboots, her perfect yellowy curls trailing behind her.
He nodded as she stopped in front of him, practically skidding to a halt. "Yeah, I brought the bread crumbs and the ink and the, the poractort," he confirmed. The last item had been difficult to acquire, but he found a third year Hufflepuff who had one and held him upside-down for a bit.
"Protractor," she corrected lightly, though he couldn't really hear the difference. He didn't mind her correcting him, because he knew it was always to be helpful, not to prove she was smarter.
"Where did you spot it before, again? Dervish and Banges?" she asked. He couldn't remember if that had been the answer he'd given two months ago, so he nodded. "Excellent, we'll start over there, then. They do move around a lot, I think they migrate actually, so it's good we'll be spotting it while it's still autumn."
Greg didn't expect anyone he knew to notice him with Luna, but he turned his collar up just in case. He almost winced when he saw that Luna noticed. He didn't want her to think she embarrassed him.
"Are you feeling a bit cold, perhaps?" she asked, and before he could answer, she shrugged off her scarf. It was navy blue and silver striped, with little white whales embroidered at seemingly random points. "I added the whales," she explained proudly as she turned to drape the scarf around his neck and he didn't move to stop her.
"Thanks," he mumbled, adjusting the Ravenclaw whale scarf needlessly as he followed her down the street to the magical instrument shop.
Despite waiting around for almost a half an hour and sprinkling bread crumbs on the most obvious surfaces, no umbgubular slashkilters appeared. Efforts to spot one at later locations throughout and just outside Hogsmeade also proved fruitless.
In all honesty, it would've been cool if they had found one, but Greg was content just to be spending time with Luna Lovegood again. It was refreshing to feel so wholly accepted. The two most common reactions to Greg, fear and disgust, never seemed to occur to Luna Lovegood. At first it had been a little intimidating, since he wanted to keep up whatever good impression he had accidentally made, but then he grew to realize that it was simply who she was. Someone who saw the good in everyone, including Greg.
It made him a little mad, actually, that people couldn't see the good in her. Why they called her loony for understanding more about nature and stuff than they did was beyond him. He couldn't be mad at Crabbe, obviously, but at least her own housemates should have been nice to her. He thought maybe if he got her to give him a list of names, he could beat some sense into them and they'd leave her alone after that, but it seemed like violence would just accept her.
As Greg watched her wait silently for an umgubular slashkilter to appear, he decided she was sort of like a moth. For one thing, she was all pale. But she also seemed to have a kind of nocturnal quality, and a weightlessness to her. "Moths are sort of the ghosts of butterflies," she had mused to him once over the summer. But she seemed so much more alive than him, or anyone else.
Eventually she gave up as the sun began to set.
"I hope you weren't bored?" she asked him as they walked towards the heart of Hogsmeade.
"Nope," Greg answered honestly.
"Hungry, though, I would think?"
It was the first time in ages that someone else had had to point out to him that he was hungry, but it rung true. He nodded.
"I dunno where we'd find someplace still open," she said, looking around. Most shops closed earlier on the days they were flooded with Hogwarts students, as regular residents usually planned their errands around them, and students didn't tend to spend the evenings there.
Greg looked around, too, and noticed the lights were all still on in what looked like a café up the hill. He pointed and Luna turned to look.
"No one has ever wanted to go there with me," she said wistfully. "But you do, Greg?"
He felt the emptiness in his stomach and nodded eagerly. "Yeah, let's."
They walked in comfortable silence together towards the café, which turned out to be called Madam Puddifoot's Teashop. Greg could've sworn he'd heard Pansy mention it before, but he couldn't recall in what context she'd done so. If Luna wanted to go there, Pansy probably held it in disdain. Goyle didn't really like Pansy, who always ignored him, so he was pleased with his potential little rebellion of entering the shop.
He pushed the door open and held it behind him for Luna. If she murmured any thanks, it was drowned out by the jingling of bells hanging from the entrance. The teashop seemed small enough that the owner shouldn't need bells to know if new people had come in, but maybe they were really busy, he mused.
"Do we just sit anywhere?" he asked Luna, looking around at the semi-empty room of little tables, none of which had more than two chairs.
"Let's sit in a corner. Speckled zaprooters always avoid corners and you're hungry enough as it is so we shouldn't chance it," she replied sensibly, leading him to the farthest corner of the shop.
A matronly looking woman came over once they'd sat down in the little wiry café chairs. She eyed Greg's chair for a moment, probably wondering, as he had, if it would break under his weight. So far so good.
"Hello, dears. What can I get for you two today? A spot of tea? A cup of coffee?" the woman asked, hands resting on her hips, marking the perimeter of her frilly apron.
"Hello! I would have some green tea, if it's no trouble?" Luna answered readily. "And a slice of chocolate cake, to share," she added. She flashed Greg a dreamy smile, which he hoped meant that she intended to take a smaller portion.
"Um, could I have black tea, please? Three sugars?" he asked, scratching the back of his head absentmindedly.
"Of course! I'll have all that right over for you two. Let me know if there's anything else I can get for you!" the woman chirped, and with that she hurried off to check up on a table seating a starry-eyed couple. As Greg looked around, he realized that everyone else in the tea shop seemed to be there on some kind of date. It lent some validity to his lie to Draco earlier, he guessed.
"Very frilly in here, isn't it?" Luna asked. "I don't know that I would've done quite so much, but it's nice."
Greg nodded. "It's like we're inside a doll's house," he agreed.
"Funny, I never cared much for dolls, myself. How about you?" he would think anyone else was joking, but Luna seemed entirely serious.
He shook his head no. "I wasn't allowed. I mean, I never asked, but it was a rule. I only got to play with brooms and toads and things. I had a plush tiger I liked-before it wore out, it used to bite people."
"I have a lion hat, you can try it sometime if you like."
"I think I'll get kicked out of Slytherin if I wear a lion hat," he said, half serious but appreciative as always of her generosity.
Not long after, the chipper woman returned with their tea and the cake. Luna took about two bites before sliding the slice in his direction. She said something about it being too rich, but the dreamy smile she wore suggested, to Greg, that she had really ordered it for him to begin with. He thanked her, forgetting to swallow first.
Once he'd finished the cake, there was a lull in conversation which Greg sought to break. He didn't really have anything to say, but he liked hearing her talk, so he asked, "What were you saying before, about the sparkle zoopers?"
"Speckled zaprooters," she corrected happily before explaining the creatures. They were very small, she explained, but looked sort of like tiny birds with long fur instead of feathers, with little horns and snake-like tongues. They liked to perch on people's shoulders and whisper rude things either about the people around them, or that person's own shortcomings. Then it got confusing for Greg, as Luna explained how they feasted on some sort of chemicals people released through their skin or something when they got angry or anxious. They adored the smell of caffeine as well, which was why they might've been there. He wasn't really sure that he expelled chemicals, but he was comforted by the fact that speckled zaprooters were very apparently seasonal and usually could only be found in remote parts of Estonia.
Greg couldn't think of anyone more magical than Luna Lovegood. It was like she wasn't a real witch, she was a veela or something that was just trying to pass as one. But veelas could get very scary, and she didn't seem like she had a huge temper. It was sort of mindboggling to know that someone with so much goodness could really exist. And not goodness in a goody-two-shoes, fake-hero, snarky Grangery way, like real, sincere, everyday, sunshine goodness.
When they'd both finished, he'd insisted on paying. They'd come here because of him, he rationalized to her. The real reason was because that's what you do on dates. And yeah, Greg knew it wasn't really a date, but Draco had been right. Who would date him? He wasn't really a romantic figure at Hogwarts. So he could at least do something little like pay so he could pretend for a minute.
After they left, he walked her all the way back to Ravenclaw tower. He didn't really realize until later that maybe that was a risky move. But walking together wasn't nearly as damning as looking for umgumbular slashkilters.
"Thanks for walking me, Greg. I was really happy today, even though we didn't find any umgumbular slashkilters. I hope you aren't too disappointed," Luna said, smiling faintly as she looked up at his face.
He shrugged. "It's alright. I mean, I've already seen one, I was just hoping you could, too. But, um, I mean, I had a good time, too. Thanks."
He could feel his stupid face turning a little red, maybe with the lie or maybe from her silvery gaze, so he tried to turn around to walk off as quickly as possible, but she stopped him, placing an impossibly delicate hand on his shoulder. He froze at once and turned back around.
"You should take this, and let me know if you see any more, alright?" she said, pulling the little reptile necklace out of her pocket and pressing it into his hand.
He nodded obediently. "Yeah," he said, "Definitely. Um, thanks, Luna."
"Of course! Good night, Greg."
He wore it tucked under his shirt every day of the weeks following. It didn't quite lay flat against his chest, but he didn't mind, because it served as a reminder of his failed expedition with Luna.
4
Greg was excited and nervous about granting Luna this favor. It had maybe been unwise, but at the time he hadn't seen anything wrong with mentioning that he knew how to dance. It was one of the few things that he was actually, undeniably good at.
His mother had made him take a few lessons as a child and when she'd seen that, as soon as he was out of sight of the other boys his age, he excelled, she continued enrolling him for several years. It was true, he wasn't professional or anything, but he would waltz, or even mazurka, with some proficiency.
And Luna had known this since summer. In fact, he'd forgot she'd known this. That is, until she asked.
It was by way of another slipped shred of parchment in the corridor. Her fingertips grazed his palm in the passoff, a detail he relished uncertainly.
Now they were here, in the weird room that Potter and friends had used last year for their Dumbledor's Army meetings. He should've enjoyed this privilege, the fact that he had been able to enter, not Crabbe or even Draco. Instead, this fact paled next to the fact that he was there with Luna. Even though Mummy wasn't paying her, she still seemed to actively pursue his company.
"I wore a skirt so it will swish while we're dancing," Luna explained lightly, gesturing down at the billowing blue fabric below her uniform sweater. He wondered for a moment where she even got it before he realized she probably conjured it.
"What sort of dance do you want me to teach you?" he asked, still admiring the skirt as she swished it about demonstratively.
"The foxtrot," Luna answered readily.
There was little dwelling on obscure magical creatures or ministry conspiracies that evening. Luna seemed very determined to perfect the dance.
Two step back,
then a step away,
then together,
then two back again, and so on.
Greg admired how quickly she learned. He wished he had been as quick a learner when she tutored him, but he supposed being in the teaching role was at least a little impressive.
"You're great," he said honestly as they continued to sway along. Her gracile figure followed him easily. It was as if she were a whisp of smoke just floating alongside him, except that he could feel the minimal weight of her hand in his and her side against his other hand. They weren't extremely close, but Greg was very conscious of their proximity the entire time they danced.
When they finally sat down, on a sort of back-less couch that appeared out of thin air, it occurred to Greg that he hadn't asked a key question.
"Why did you wanna learn to dance, again?"
Luna smiled, looking dreamily towards nowhere in particular along the wall. "I've been asked to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party. It sounds like something of a ball. I don't want to embarrass my friend if we've got to dance."
"I don't know how I feel about you dancing with someone else," Greg grumbled. Realizing he'd said as much aloud, he added, "I-I mean, uh, maybe you'll dance wrong with them, since you learned from me. And I'm, you know, kind of a large partner to dance with. So it could work differently, or something."
Now she looked at him, dreamy smile still on her face. "I don't have to dance with anyone else if you don't want," she told him softly. "But if I don't, won't your hard work teaching me have been a waste?"
"Not if you dance with me again," he replied, a little stubbornly.
"Ok," she said easily, "Then I will." Her hands had been woven together in her lap, but now she parted them, and placed one down beside her, exactly where Greg's hand already was. He felt his heart pound. Thump.
Thump.
She raised her right hand as well, turning towards him and brushing her fingers against his neck. In a moment, she had lifted his necklace out from under his shirt, running her hand down the string until she reached the little painted reptile, which she then placed gently on his tie before letting it go.
"Spotted any more yet?" she asked in a near-whisper. He shook his head no, entranced by the continued contact of their hands and by the silvery seams in her grey-blue eyes.
"You will," she assured him, then leaned in and put her lip gingerly on his, her glassy eyes falling closed. He brought his free hand up to the back of her head, stroking her hair with tame desire.
5
When Greg started wearing the weird lizard necklace over his shirt in an effort to demonstrate his love for his strange, loopy Ravenclaw girl, Draco and the Crabbe didn't quite have the heart to disown him, and he had about a hundred pounds on the other Slytherins, so they let it slide. For now.