Wrackspurts and the Sporadic Kiss (Prologue, Part 1) ~
A/N: This takes place during 6th year- well, obviously, once you start to read it, duh SM (that's me, by the way). Anyhow, Ron Weasely and Luna Lovegood have a bit of a run in during a sporadic moment. He's having a bit of a bad day due to an insult he inadvertently threw at Harry during Quidditch Trials, and his day only gets worse- poor soul. This is a bit AU, but I hope you like it anyway.
{Disclaimer: I of course own none of this- it all belongs to JK Rowling}
"Really Ron, I don't think it was very kind of you to tell Harry that his Quidditch trials weren't important- "
"I never said they weren't important!" Ron spluttered, staring at Luna as if what she had said was completely out of the normal realm of all the possible outcomes that anyone could have thought of.
"Well, if you say so," she said serenely, while she walked along the edge of the corridor, her arm reaching towards the stone the knob of small snake-carved stone that seemed to rear up at them with a that dashing tongue that apparently wanted to come alive- and flick at them insidiously, swiftly raising up before them while their footsteps paddled against the stone staircase in their descent.
"Don't know why everyone thinks that I'm as cold as the Snape bloke whom we're unfortunately about to see . . . " he muttered underneath his breath, as an aside to the talk- they were close to the corridor's end, and Ron almost stumbled at the door to the dungeon, which had just remarkably flown open, so he was forced to back into the wall behind Luna, while Snape's sibilant voice wafted towards them, in a deathly-quiet tone.
"Inside." The small group of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors piled in, even as Ron and Luna remained where they were sadly standing, as Ron began measuring the amount of time that it would take him . . . to simply walk towards the very end of the hall.
"Ron!" Luna quickly nudged him in the ribs while he started towards this destination, so he was forced to follow her back into the potions classroom, grumbling the entire way. When they were finally inside a room that had been for a vast amount of time inundated by the aromatic displays of slimy vehicles for disastrous attempts made by many gregarious students of Severus Snape over the years, that had used the smelly nuisances for their own precarious and unethical endeavors, the black-black potions master stood at the front of their line of vision – Ron maneuvered behind Luna carefully, and crept towards a black cauldron, turning his walk into an intentional labyrinth in order so that he could avoid Harry and Hermione. Raising an eyebrow at the two of them, he promptly sat beside Luna, in a corner at the back of the room situated on the opposite side. While she fell into the seat beside him easily, Snape called out, in his sneering voice,
"Five points from Gryffindor, Weasely, for distracting those within this classroom from maintaining focus with your original and abominable attempts to find a proper seat." Ron flushed a bright red, inasmuch as it caused his very ears to turn another shade almost entirely. It was odd to see the red-head become a plump, his mess of carrot hair that looked odd gracing the top of the merry spectacle. He heard Harry give a snort from his seat that he did not bother trying to hide, and, when he glanced at Hermione, she didn't even bother to look over at him. Her eyes were carefully trained upon the book that was in front of her. 'Well, that was fine,' he thought, glancing away from them quickly, and instead opting to glare at the top of his desk. If that was how they were going to be . . . well then, he could play that game just as prolifically. He felt a nudge in the side of his ribs.
"Owww!" Several people turned. Ron simply wanted to borrow his head- or, better yet, vanish all of them with a swift flick of his wand. Yeah . . . that would be the most fluent way to rid himself of these annoying termites . . . what right did they have to pretend as though he were nothing to them except his precocious animal that had turned its wee little nose up at all of them- as if they thought that he was a possum . . . they were simply, merely termites-
"Ron!" Luna nudged him in the ribs again, softly, making him glance up at her, the tuft of his orange hair sticking up as he swiveled around in his seat-
"You might lose more points," she whispered to him serenely. He sighed rather tragically at Luna's directive, but he wisely did not respond. At the front of the room, the flurry of black semblances caught the eyes of the entire class while he stalked back and forth before the rows of seats.
"You are now to open your books to page three hundred and forty-nine, and to read the instructions thereupon. The instructions for the potion- " he gave his wand a rapid flick to his side, causing everyone to move their eyes carefully towards the blackboard, upon which glittering words written in a familiar spidery scrawl were now working their way effectively across- "are on the board, as you can plainly- see," Snape told them in a cold, flat tone that made Ron think of a deadly venomous something that he didn't want to describe.
"Urgh," he spat quietly.
"What was that, Ron?" Luna asked in a voice that sounded of pure, sweet innocence.
"I didn't say anything- nothing at all," he muttered.
"Oh, okay," she said, quite happily, he thought- too happily. The cauldron before them flared to life all of a sudden, making Ron step back into Luna accidentally. She caught him by the shoulders, and, mustering as much dignity as he could, he straightened himself, shooting yet another look of pure repulse down at the newt's eyes and scorpion tails that were swimming about in a basin of murky black water that had magically appeared in front of them.
"You seem to be quite temperamental today," Luna observed serenely, as she turned her large, blue, protuberant eyes him. Ron now endeavored to begin cutting up the scorpion tails into four square blocks as were dictated according to Snape's instructions.
"Yeah, well . . . I haven't got much reason to be in a good mood, have I?" he grumbled, as she studied the flame to be certain that it was the precise spectrum of pink and white.
"After all, if you are worried about anything, then I would assume that you could just go and apologize to Harry," she said again in that serene tone, removing her eyes from the colorfully warm creation in favor of staring at Ron as though he were part of their potions experiment, almost as if she were trying to break him down like the tails he was slicing. He glanced down at the murky puddle, embarrassedly.
"It really wouldn't be that difficult. After all, Harry is a better player than you, and he's more important to the team," she said sagely, causing him to accidentally cut his finger in a bout of instant anger.
"Weasely." To his further aggravation, Snape had chosen that exact moment to look over their shoulder in order to observe their progress, so he turned to face him, with slight apprehension. "What do you call these?" he asked him, in a voice dripping with apparent disgust. A few of the other Ravenclaws, and, he surmised, even some of the Gryffindors chuckled when he raised a few of his admittedly hacked up tails high for their benefit. "A child could have done better than this attempt at mud-pie making. Tell me, Weasely. Are you a muggle at the playground?" Ron's ears reddened with anger. He clenched and unclenched his fists unconsciously, as he said,
"No, sir."
"Very good," Snape said softly. He placed the tails back into Ron's bowl before vanishing all the work he had finished. Then he snapped his fingers over Luna's head. "See if you can do a better job than him Miss. Lovegood," he sneered, as he whipped away from them and walked toward Harry and Hermione's cauldron. Harry, he noticed, was looking at him, and something crossed his eyes that Ron feigned the inability to see, while he went back to his work. He couldn't help himself from peeking at his impediment of his two friends however as they continued their progress, but, apparently, Snape could find nothing to criticize, and a moment later he walked toward the next set of students, looking, Ron thought, a bit displeased.
"Hurry, Ron," Luna whispered from beside him, "grab some more scorpion tails. We might still be able to finish this before the bell rings," she said quickly. Begrudgingly, he went to the cupboard to grab some more, thinking to himself that working with Luna did not have any more merits than when he attempted to brew potions with Harry. A bit pleased by the notion, he made a fervent grab for the pile of them- but as fate would have it, he had forgotten that they were not magically packaged like the other ingredients. As they all came tumbling forward and scattered themselves about the floor at his feet, Snape's voice wafted out to him distinctly,
"And that'll be another ten points from Gryffindor, Weasely . . . "
As Ron meandered from class to class throughout the day, his friends steadily ignored him as Luna, beaming radiantly with her radish earrings swinging about gaily, talked to all of them as though she was blissfully unaware that anything was slightly out of ordinary. Every passing moment was one in which she spoke of nothing save for nargles, and a new breed of venomous Wrackspurts that she had read about in her father's magazine. After she had taken this conversation to a certain measure, Ron no longer thought he knew what the argument was actually about, and he chanced a quizzical glance at Harry and Hermione, who were sitting about midway down the Gryffindor table, speaking in lowered voices. He couldn't help but to notice that Hermione was looking up at him and Luna every so often, appearing to be faintly amused by his companion's perpetual chatter, or rather the nature of her individually unique monologue that she was with herself having. He did not think that it was possible for anyone to be quite as happily engaged as she was at this particular moment.
Eventually when she spiraled away on what she seemed to feel was an enthralling tangent, Ron locked his eyes with Hermione, and although the happening was by total and complete chance probably, they were suddenly both grinning. Then, in what he deemed to be a beautiful sporadic moment, she burst out laughing. As she did this, Harry looked up, glancing between the two of them, while Luna simply blinked a couple of times, as if she wasn't exactly sure where she had become fashioned in the midst of her own babbling, all of which caused Ron to burst out in an unfettered laughter as well.
"I don't really think you should laugh at venomous Wrackspurt problems, Ronald," Luna said in a tone that was as serious as that used to comment on someone's recent death. "It's really quite horrible really. The Quibbler says that there were three outbreaks of the venom infusion only last week, and- " Ron was now positively chocking. Hermione was laughing freely still, and- even Harry now looked bemused. Feeling strangely relieved in a way that he couldn't yet fully determine, Ron thought that he could kiss Luna. During an extremely sporadic moment, one which he wouldn't be able to understand or break down into simple language for the rest of his days upon the Earth he lived in, he bent downward and kissed her cheek rather quickly. She placed a hand up to it softly and looked at him with a face filled with surprise.
"Why, Ron," she exclaimed, in a mellow tone. Ron turned a deep red up to the very tips of his hair follicles just as a sneeringly, horribly familiar voice said behind him,
"What uh . . . shall we say- odd taste that you have, Weazelby." Ron spun about quickly, ignoring the clatter of his knife and fork as they fell upon the floor, next to his feet. "I didn't realize that you went for the loony type, but then I suppose that suits you much better than any other prospect, since, after all, insanity runs pretty strong in your family line, doesn't it?" Malfoy asked him with distaste and blatant scorn, causing a low rumbling laughter to rise up from his two sides, rebounding off the bumbling, crass forms of Crabbe and Goyle. The two thugs were so closely pressed into Malfoy's side that the drool from Goyle's tongue poking between his lips like a protruding flowerbed nearly dripped onto the pale boy's robes. Ron made a face of disgust. Malfoy's eyes narrowed.
"What? You have a problem with the fact that I tell the truth, even if you don't have the guts to face it?" Ron shook his head.
"No. I just thought that you might want to check your robes for any lingering stains that might be on it, leftover from your rubbish bin, ya know?"
"Wha- " Draco Malfoy looked down at his robe front. Repulsion etched its way across his face quite rapidly, as he instantaneously spun around and grabbed Crabbe by his collar and spat, "You slobbered on me?" His face was beat red. While the three of them left the Gryffindor table in a one-ended pursuit of two larger, brutish, barreling shadows, nearly half of the table applauded Malfoy's efforts as he tried to strange Crabbe from the back, and a uniform guffawing arose, trailing them all the way back to the Slytherin side of the room. Harry wiped his sleeve across his eyes.
"Good one, mate," he threw down towards Ron. Ron's face flushed with a genuine smile for a moment. Luna looked at him and beamed brightly.
"That's nice," she said. "I'm glad to see that you two are back to getting along." She slid further down the table towards Hermione, taking advantage of the seat beside her that had grown vacant. She started talking to her about Blithering Humdingers. Ron glanced at Harry quizzically. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded at him, and then watched as his friend stood up, whispering something into Hermione's ear. Immediately she stood, allowing Luna to scoot down into her seat while she took Harry's vacant one. Harry sat down beside him. Ron could feel his eyes upon him, but he stared down at his hands, suddenly finding them to be quite interesting.
"I'm sorry," he said with a low sigh. "I shouldn't have said that your Quidditch trials weren't important, and I know that I shouldn't have left in the middle of them Harry." He shook his head. "I don't have any excuses, it's just that- when I saw you and Ginny, it made me think about Lavender, and, well- " He shrugged again, now looking as if he were at a loss for what to say. He bowed his head lower. "I think she only liked me for my skills in Quidditch," he mumbled, appearing shame-faced. "If it wasn't for you pretending to put that Felix Felices in my drink, she probably never would have gone out with me." He felt Harry's hand slide onto his shoulder and rest there. Finally he chanced a glance into his face. Harry's eyes were free of everything and it was as though all that had happened between them over the last few hours, had been magically vanished. The only thing he could detect in his friend's face was a light trace of sympathy.
"It's alright, Ron." He smiled slowly, shrugging. "Just forget it." Ron grinned at him. And, further down the table, Luna was pointing up at the ceiling, blabbering on about something indecipherable. Harry bent down into his ear and whispered,
"Anyway, maybe Lavender wasn't such a loss." He stared at him shocked, at a total loss for words. Nearly simultaneously, Luna sent Rona a look filled with dreaminess, although he wasn't sure whether or not it was intentional. Beside him Harry gave a low chuckle- he swallowed convulsively.
Two hours later he found himself affixed to the step of the Great Hall's entrance, looking wistfully at the snowy ground, rattling to himself on some inane topic or other that Professor Slughorn had assigned to him, and Harry's stolen potions book- well technically he did not really steal it, but it irked him that he had attained his hand me down version rather than getting the normal version with all of the usual spells- so he might as well have stolen it.
"Hello, Ron," said a bright voice in his left ear, and he practically moaned aloud when he saw Luna Lovegood standing next to him.
"Why aren't you at Hogsmeade with the others?" she asked him curiously. Ron looked away from her and mumbled something incoherent.
"What was that? I didn't catch it," she said with her abounding cheerful air.
"I said I didn't have anyone to go with," he stated, a bit more loudly. Harry and Hermione both had dates for the Valentine's Day outing.
"Oh," she paused. He thought he knew where this was going.
"Me neither," she added. "Hey. Perhaps we could go together. Well, just as friends I imagine, since I don't really think that you meant to kiss me earlier." He turned around finally now and looked at her with surprise, and, admittedly, relief.
"You don't?" She shrugged. Her misty eyes roved towards the Hogwarts windows.
"No. I think that it was a sporadic moment, obviously. You were happy that you'd just made up with Harry, and, well . . . I obviously just happened to be in the way." She shrugged again. Ron couldn't help but to notice how large her blue eyes were.
"You know . . . " she said thoughtfully, "I don't think that people ever really fall in love save for during sporadic times such as those. It seems as if it we're all part of a great cataclysmic particle that floats about in outer space- we end up together after an explosion, like a particle." Ron blinked. He realized that Luna had drawn closer to him, although he couldn't depict how that had happened had happened.
"You know . . . your hair looks like a burning bush of fire," she added in the same tone. They were staring-
At that precise moment, a clump of snow fell against the door's window. Luna smiled so widely that it nearly reached her cheekbones. Ron leaned in to kiss her. Then he spotted something in her hair that he hadn't before seen. He pointed to it.
"What is that?" He reached out and touched it.
"It is a nargle," she whispered.
They kissed . . .
Later on, he woke up in bed wondering-
Had it all been just a dream?
He could ask Luna.
She'd likely respond that it was all in the eye of the observer however. All in the eye of the observer- panting as his heart raced, Ron tried to go back to sleep, but, he couldn't. There was a nargle hanging over his bedsheets, and it was upside down, staring directly at him.
Nargles . . .
One couldn't depict them, couldn't understand them. He shook his head sadly- it was definitely a dream, wasn't it?
Sadly, no one ever really knows, do they?
Wrackspurts and nargle venom . . .
Please review if you have a moment. I always love to hear from you. Happy Wrackspurts and nargles my loves! Oh and bye the way- if anyone is intensely interesting in Luna Lovegood and simply can't bear to spend a day without seeing her, in some fashion, lol- please check out my new blog. It's called 'Luna Days.' Just me being silly, really . . . Web address: Thanks everyone =)
