Charmed-in-the-Dark
A/N: So, Ginny/Luna. Ginny can't remember the last time Luna slept in her own bed, but she wouldn't have it any other way. First kiss. Hope you enjoy :3
"Do you think you're gay?" Luna says, and the words hang there in the darkness for a moment, glowing like the stars charmed to the canopy of Ginny's bunk. Not threatening, but waiting. "Lesbian, I suppose."
"I'm- I'm not sure." Ginny replies- surprised as always at Luna's out-of-the-blue questions, but not worried. Luna squeezes the hand Ginny had forgotten was wrapped in Luna's own.
"Neither am I." she says, and suddenly there's another secret between them. "I'm not even sure it matters." Those words hang there for a while, too, puffing up and down with the girls' slow breaths.
"If I am," Luna says, thoughtfully now, unsure of whether this is the right decision or not. If Ginny thinks her idea's stupid, she doesn't want to look like she's put too much of herself into it. Ginny can be a little cruel, though she doesn't mean it. "If we are- promise we won't like each other?" Ginny laughs.
"I don't think I could like you." she says, and it's not an insult, for all it sounds like one. "So yes- promise." she holds up her pinkie finger and they shake, solemnly, and for a minute it's important, and then it's forgotten. They sit there in the silence for a moment, thinking, and someone shifts closer to someone else until they're curled together like always, joined at the hand and the hip and the knees, legs curled backwards underneath themselves and breaths mingling together.
"I should go back to my dorm." Luna says, and Ginny just shakes her head.
"Room for both of us." she whispers, and settles the two of them closer together. Clothes in the morning won't be a problem, there's as much of Luna's stuff strewn through Ginny's trunk as Ginny's own, and no-one will even notice Luna in the morning. Ginny can't remember the last time Luna slept in her own bed, and she doesn't know why Luna continues the charade night after night that this is a rare occurrence. Then again, neither of them likes to stir at the reasons why the Ravenclaw dorms are so inhospitable these days. Aside from everything else, they're empty of just about everyone but the Carrows.
"Night." Ginny whispers, and Luna giggles and points to the clock, which is flashing a pattern of red 0-shaped Nargles onto the wall.
"Morning." she whispers back, and sometime after that, they fall asleep, missing the way the stars fade as daylight sloshes into the room. Someone stirs and mutters something about a knitted vampire as someone else pulls Luna's bright patchwork blankets back onto the lump they form in the centre of the bed, and the last remaining star winks knowingly at them from the ceiling.
It's a Friday, so of course they're arguing. Luna thinks that this time it might be a repeat of last week's 'I'm trying to concentrate would you please stop talking to me', but she's not sure. It makes sense, in a roundabout way, to both of them- first period on a Friday means double arithmancy, which means neither of them understanding anything, which means Luna spacing out, which in turn means Ginny frantically trying to scribble down everything from the writing on the board to the posters on the wall to the chalk-spell used by Professor Tuna. Classes are a little more stressful now, with teachers who might just as easily curse you as teach you, but Arithmancy is reasonably stable. The Professor doesn't seem criminally insane, for a start.
"Professor Tooma." Ginny whispers, like she wasn't the one who made up the name for their gape-mouthed arithmancy teacher in the first place, and Luna realises that perhaps she's said a little too much of that aloud. Whoops. Still, at least that means Ginny hasn't stopped talking to her completely. Thank heaven for small miracles. Or possibly thank Professor Tuna.
"Tooma." A second whoops.
"Sorry!" Luna whispers, and goes back to trying to decode the notes on the board. A few seconds later she's abandoned that attempt, and is instead staring out the window at a class of sixth years zooming in circles above the pitch. Mmmm, boys without shirts on. And that girl in the tight singlet- yum. The last thought draws Luna up short, and she wonders what on earth is going through her head. She shrugs, knocking a pencil off the lab bench, and ducks down to get it, knocking Ginny's hand in the process and leaving a trail of ink through the notes the freckled girl has just spent an hour carefully scribing. Sheesh- if looks could kill... At that moment, Luna's reminded of Ginny's well-formed imagination, which- despite her innocent-as-a-Potterling-pygmy-puff looks- contains several thousand fictitious devices of torture. The glint in Ginny's eyes seems to be shaping the patent fingernail-and-eyelash-slowly-puller-outer-and-burner-er, originally designed for the sole use of one chubby Ravenclaw, whose "rotund figure", they had decided, was due to his being stuffed to the goog with his own obnoxious arrogance.
And, if Luna's not mistaken, the sharp line of Ginny's eyebrows indicates a set-up for implementing the Chinese water torture, only with ink. Luna supposes she deserves the glower, and theatrically sits on her hands for the rest of the period so as not to disturb anything else, grinning her typically winning Luna smile. Ginny rolls her eyes at that, but accepts the ceremonial Chocolate Frog of forgiveness passed under the table and grips Luna's hand for a few seconds after the chocolate has left it. When the last bite is saved and given to Luna after class, the fight is officially over, and everything's back to sticky, chocolate-ridden normality. Luna swipes her finger across a chocolate freckle that has melted on the corner of Ginny's lip, and neither of them bats an eyelid.
"Look- I'm, I'm not sure how to say this." Ginny has never been good with words, but then Luna has never needed them, content with a language of smiles and fleeting touches, probably able to read as much meaning into the constellations of Ginny's freckles as an upside-down Quibbler. Problem is, it's Ginny who stepped away, and Luna who won't step back.
"Then don't." Luna's voice is soft, tears wearing off the sunflower cheeriness until she doesn't sound like Luna. Or not Ginny's Luna, at any rate. Ginny knows this is wrong, knows it shouldn't be this way, that it doesn't have to be this way, but she's not sure how to go about mending the rift. This rift that she's as responsible for as if she'd taken out her mother's hugest sewing scissors and cut the fabric weaving the two of them together, enjoyed the snick as the blades slid home.
"I can't just not." Ginny almost snaps, the edge of her tone trying to scrape the sadness into submission. Can't Luna see? She's sorry, alright? She's never been so great at apologies, either.
"Oh?" Luna asks, and now her voice is stronger, harsher again. "Just like you couldn't keep your lovely little comments to yourself, when was it now?" she glances up at the sky but doesn't focus on it, sliding a hand onto her chin to stroke an imaginary beard, pretending to be thinking. "That's right- last time we spoke." She turns now, glaring right into Ginny's eyes, but the typical Luna brightness that normally glimmers there is gone. This is the glare she once offered to the bully's backs, when they'd stolen her shoes or her mother's quill. The glare that had slipped away after Ginny found her, folded off her body and apparently stored up to deliver to Ginny in one fell swoop. This is all the glares piled one on top of the other, tinged with the betrayal that underlies the whole conflict, the heavy cauldron-bottom.
Ginny doesn't know what to say, what to do to make herself sound older than a five-year-old, plaintively assuring her parents that she hadn't meant to push Ron down the hill on the old broom one of the older brothers had given them, the one that only flew a few feet off the ground unless you could get a really good running start. It had just- happened. She opens and shuts her mouth a few times. Luna just stands there, looking as though she almost wants to take the words back but can't quite manage to. It's like she's got a cupful of sand clutched in her hands but can do nothing more than watch the grains tumble, one by one, between her fingers. Ginny is trying impossibly hard not to take the attack, here, not to stumble back on the warlike form of defence she's perfected for dealing with mothers and bullies and know-it-alls who are, in her opinion, wrong. Because Luna's not the enemy here, not at all. Ginny's played that role enough to burst, played it better than any of the other bullies because she knew which buttons to press, which hurts to pull between them into the freezing air of the potions' dungeon corridor.
"I'm sorry." she says, and it's quiet for a moment as something grows between them, popping out of the ground and sending tendrils winding round both their ankles, gluing them to the spot. "I'm really sorry, Luna- I didn't, I didn't mean it. Them." she amends, clumsily. Luna doesn't say anything, but a magpie swoops down over them and the students milling around the cold quiddich pitch are as gone as if they'd been blown away with the breeze from its wing beats.
"One for sorrow." Luna mutters, and Ginny feels, ironically, hopeful.
"I'm kind of done with sorrow." she says, her voice low and more tear-laden than she'd like. "Are- are you?" she asks, and stops kicking at the dirt to join their eyes for an instant. Luna shakes her head slightly, and Ginny's heart sinks into her stomach, a heavy weight that wants to push her to her knees, begging and breathless, tears in her eyes.
"I-I mean-" Luna nods frantically, like the little bobbing-head model of Fluffy perched on the handle of Ginny's broom, head bouncing away unconnected to the body after a sharp turn. "Doesn't really matter, anyway." she says. "We're both just being silly." she smiles, with only a fraction of her crazy warmth, but still- it's there. If that's not quite the return apology Ginny was hoping for, well- it's the Luna-equivalent.
"Two for joy?" Ginny says, pointing to a second magpie alighting beside the first, and feels her heart stutter a few beats, back in its rightful place in her chest. Luna smiles, full and real now, and Ginny can't help pitching forward to hug her for what feels like an hour. It might be her imagination, but she swears she hears a whispered "I'm sorry, too." and feels warm breath from warmer lips skate across her ear. Luna squeezes her and lets her go, and their grins sweep them up and carry them all the way to Ginny's- their- four poster, and bury them under a cover of Chocolate Frog wrappers until they're laughing too much to eat any more.
"I'm so confused." Ginny says, and Luna is silent. "It's just- she's beautiful, you know? Her skin is so- I wish I had Cho's skin, it's always so soft-looking. And so-"
"Boobs." Luna says, and laughs. Ginny shakes her head, giggling like she's twelve again.
"Hello, Miss Maturity." she manages around the little hiccups.
"Because you're so much better." Luna says, and her carefully-accented laughter crawls inside Ginny's chest and lodges there, bobbing up and down and thumping like a second heartbeat.
"So many feelings." Ginny sighs dramatically, draping a hand across her forehead and swooning back onto the mattress, her head disappearing between a pair of fluffy cushions, long hair spilling out behind her. The cushions frame Luna's face when she leans over Ginny, reducing her world to a pair of silvery-moon-coloured eyes. Luna's lips curl for a second and she leans down until their noses are touching, freckled to plain.
"Well- she'd be lucky to have you." Luna says, and pauses as a moment grows between them. She's not as good as you, you know. Ginny almost says, and Luna almost adds I'd be lucky to have you, but neither of them does, and so Ginny breaks the moment by tickling Luna until the two of them collapse, half on the bed and half off, almost too tired to laugh, and the shattered pieces retreat to a corner, waiting for another day.
"You're infested." Luna says, once she's caught her breath, "By Grebles."
"Oh yeah?" Ginny says, and Luna nods.
"They render one evil." she replies, but the laughs frame the words until they're meaningless.
"Love you, too," Ginny says, and grins.
"There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernaaaaaandooooooo" The music is still pumping up from the common room though the party ended hours ago, with the supposed culprits marched by some minion or other down for detention while everyone else slipped off to their dorms. No-doubt there'll be consequences, but for a few hours the music had drowned out the misery, and even McGonagall realises the importance of those few hours. The frown adding creases to her forehead were less ironed than they once would have been, just as her her was less rigidly pinned.
The music was charmed to play all night, something purchased from Fred and George no doubt, and so play all night it will, regardless of the Carrow's attempts to blast the stereo into submission. They seemed to be more insulted by the fact that it was muggle music than anything else.
The noise soars up the stairs drumbeats knocking at the door of Ginny's and Luna's room and then leaping through without waiting for a reply. The backing sounds blurred and Ginny feels like if she peeled back the curtain she'd see the notes of the keyboard strung like fairy-lights over the room, caught in between trunks and beds, supposedly-sleeping students and piles of blankets, but the vocals come out eerily clear. Ginny and Luna are lying still and silent- but they're awake, eyes not-quite meeting. Luna's hair shines in the moonlight spilling through the window, glowing spectrally as her namesake.
Luna shifts her foot against Ginny's, snorting when Ginny mutters something about iceblocks and shifts closer again. "How're your feet so cold when the rest of you is so toasty?" Ginny complains, but shifts closer to Luna's warmth anyway. Luna slips one of her smooth legs between Ginny's and sighs contentedly.
"I think we need a bigger bed." she mutters, and throws an arm over Ginny so they're creating a cave beneath the blankets. She slips it down Ginny's side until it comes to rest on her hip, and suddenly Ginny feels wide-awake, skin crawling with pinpricks of Fernando's stars. She moves her own hand until it mirrors Luna's, thumb rubbing tiny circles on the exposed piece of Luna's skin just above her pyjama shorts.
Luna shifts her face closer to Ginny's, and Ginny looks up to find their gazes locked. She flashes her eyes down to Luna's lips, round and plump and pink. She thinks of the muggle song played earlier in the evening- I kissed a girl- 'the taste of her cherry chapstick'. But Luna's lips would taste faintly of chocolate, the soft cocoa butter lip balm she uses. Luna shifts forward again, bringing their bodies flush together so warmth bleeds from one to the other. Ginny's heart beats faster, pumping out the rhythm to the song still soaring through the dorm, pounding louder and louder in her ears until she can't hear the words Luna's lips are shaping. Luna smiles, shifts her face forward again, and brings their lips together. And, suddenly, there's nothing in Ginny's world but Luna. Luna's breathing, the flutter of Luna's eyelashes against Luna's cheeks. Luna's scent, soft chocolate-honey-Luna. The world seems to revolve around the blonde, and Ginny likes it that way, all of Ginny's solar system swirling round her moon.
Luna pulls back, forgiving dreamy smile folded across her face. Her lips shape the 's' that Ginny knows will start the avalanche of a 'sorry', and Ginny realises she's frozen.
"Hello, beautiful." she whispers, and moves to kiss Luna back. Luna's like everything Ginny has ever dreamed of- her lips are soft, she's warm and comfortable and familiar. Luna smiles against Ginny's lips, soft and sweet. She raises a hand to run her thumb along Ginny's cheek bone, curious as ever, and the kiss grows between them until there's nothing else in the world. They pull back with a laugh, foreheads together and eyes blurry but bright.
"Beautiful yourself." Luna whispers back, and Ginny is glad the darkness hides her blush. The stars on the canopy see it, though, and glow just a little brighter.
A/N: So...hope you enjoyed :) That's my first femslash, in an attempt to add to the snitch-sized selection of fics out there. If you want a few sweet Ginny/Luna 's by other authors, check out my favourites list :) Reviews are little glowing stars to hang from my ceiling.
MS xx