Theme: Circinus, the compass constellation- characters must embark on a journey or adventure and overcome together, can be taken literally or figuratively
Note: This round we had to write something that a given member of our team decided for us, and I had to write something assigned to me by our Year Seven, Liz. She gave me a couple of pairings and genres to choose, and I think I've got a good idea of what I'm going to write. I choose to write a Luna/Harry fic.
Prompts: (Setting) St. Mungo's' Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries(main prompt), (action) stargazing, (dialogue) "If I had a star for every time you brightened my day, I would be holding a galaxy."
Word Count: 1988
Position: Year Six, IWSC (I switched to this cause our old Year Seven came back!)
Harry stood outside the ward where his friends had been brought after the Department of Mysteries battle, waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Remus Lupin to finish with their own visit with Hermione, Ron, Tonks, and Mad-Eye Moody so that they could go back to Hogwarts. It was late; Harry could see stars outside the windows, and outside of one, a bright half moon.
He was waiting with Ginny and Luna. Every now and then he caught Ginny's eye uncomfortably, and he was grateful that Luna seemed engrossed by the drawings on the wall. He didn't have the energy to speak.
He had caused Sirius' death. There was no getting around that, no matter how much he tried. He'd been so easily fooled, tricked into believing that Sirius had been kidnapped by Voldemort. It was that image of his godfather being tortured at the hands of faceless Death Eaters that had caused him to act rashly. If he'd only waited and thought things through, none of this would have happened.
There had been no members of the Order at Hogwarts to help him - aside from Snape, but Snape was a spy and a bully, and Harry hadn't trusted him. Only when he'd run out of other options had he asked for the potion master's help. Snape had reacted as expected, and that made him just as responsible for what had happened next as Harry himself, no matter what Dumbledore said to the contrary.
He had led his friends into a trap, and Sirius and other members of the Order had followed. If he had only waited, been more thorough…
"Want to go and get some tea?" Ginny asked them after a few minutes of quiet. Harry jumped at the opportunity; he wanted a distraction from his turbulent thoughts.
"Why not?" Harry agreed. He needed to move, to keep himself distracted. He didn't want to think about everything he'd done wrong or all the people he'd hurt, didn't want to think about how lost he was without Sirius to confide in.
He followed Ginny and Luna through the corridors of the hospital towards the fifth floor, where they remembered the tearoom was.
Harry was distracted until they passed the Janus Thickey ward. Seeing the sign and recalling everything he'd seen last time he'd been in that ward, he stopped in his tracks, unable to bypass what he had learnt then.
Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom were behind those doors. They had been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange using the Cruciatus Curse, which had made them insane and barely able to recognize their son Neville. If Harry hadn't been picked by Voldemort as the more dangerous of the two of them, their fates might have been reversed. It might have been his own parents in that ward, tortured into mindlessness, and he would not have that uncomfortable connection with Voldemort that had led him to the Department of Mysteries.
"Harry?" Ginny questioned, a look of concern on her face. She and Luna had stopped a bit ahead. "Are you okay?"
"The wrackspurts are probably bothering him," Luna spoke up in her dreamy voice. "I thought I noticed a few as we rounded that corner."
Harry nodded, glad to have the excuse to jump on. "Sure. I'm alright though. Let's go."
Ginny looked unconvinced, but Harry thought he noticed Luna give her a warning look, and she stayed silent. They continued and managed to get to the tearoom with no more delays.
The tearoom of St. Mungo's was a cozy place. There were many tables with comfy chairs surrounding them. A crackling fire glowed in the grate, and the lighting was low. There was a counter to one side where a small line waited to get their drinks. The trio stood in the doorway, unsure what to do next. Luna looked as though she wanted to say something, but didn't know where to start.
"I'll go get our tea, shall I?" Ginny said, and she tactfully strode towards the front counter to order. Harry and Luna found some seats and claimed them.
For a moment, neither of them spoke as they waited for Ginny to return. Before the silence grew uncomfortable, Harry said, "Luna, I'm sorry you got hurt. I'm sorry all of you got hurt because of me."
Luna's eyes were as dreamy as ever, but her voice sounded uncharacteristically alert as she replied, "You don't have to apologize. I believe I would have done the same thing if it had been Dad."
"But if I had been able to calm down and think reasonably, I would have realized it was a trap, and…" He was unable to finish the sentence.
"Sirius might be alive," Luna finished. "I understand how you feel, Harry. When Mum died, I kept thinking about whether I could have helped her, or stopped her from making that mistake with her experiment. But I believe that no one goes before their time. I believe that Mum had to die for me to be who I am today, and someday Sirius' death will make you into the person you will be for the rest of your life."
Harry thought about it for a moment. "I like that, Luna. But that doesn't change the fact that…" He had been about to say, "It doesn't change the fact that I'm going to have to murder or be murdered by the most powerful wizard of all time," but he didn't feel ready to explain the details of the prophecy to anyone just yet. He instead said, "It doesn't change the fact that neither of them will be with us again. Nearly Headless Nick told me that Sirius probably wasn't going to come back as a ghost, and neither has your mum."
"I know," she agreed. "But they can be with us in our hearts, can't they? They impacted our lives for however short a time, and that isn't a bad thing. We need to feel the grief so that we feel the love, I think. And I also think that they wouldn't want us to mope around because we miss them so much."
This didn't make Harry feel altogether better, but he felt a weight lift off his heart. Luna was right; Sirius wouldn't want him to be like this. Hadn't Sirius' last act been to laugh while battling Bellatrix Lestrange?
They didn't speak again until Ginny returned with three steaming mugs of coffee and some cookies.
The next evening, Harry had fallen asleep in the library as he tried to study a bit for the make-up History of Magic test he had to take the next day. He had the nightmare he'd been having for the last week; running down the dark corridor, passing through the doors, the blue lights, the first room with strange flickering shadows, the room with the veil. He saw Sirius falling through it, again and again, saw himself stopped by Lupin.
"Harry?"
He awoke covered in cold sweat, and stared around, his eyes unfocused, searching for his awakener. Luna stood there, and instead of wearing her typical expression of polite boredom, she seemed concerned
For the first time, Harry noticed that Luna was actually quite pretty. She wasn't pretty in a conventional sense; it was more of a Sara Crewe type of beauty.
"Luna!" he exclaimed, grabbing for his glasses, which had fallen off while he slept, as he tried to reorient himself. "What are you doing here?"
"Neville noticed you weren't back in the Gryffindor dormitories, and so he, Ginny, and I have been looking for you."
"I just fell asleep doing some studying," Harry said, blinking from the lamp Luna carried, which was bright in the dimness of the library.
"You were muttering and yelling," Luna remarked. "Nightmares? Don't worry, I get them too occasionally."
Almost afraid to ask, he said, "Do they ever go away?"
Luna considered as she answered. "Not really. You just have to bear them and distract yourself when you wake up. I like to stargaze up in the Astronomy Tower when I wake from one of them. Would you like to try it?"
"Sure," Harry agreed. "Sounds a lot better than going back to sleep right now."
Standing up and stretching the stiffness from his limbs, he followed Luna out of the library and through the dark corridors of the school. It took a short time for them to arrive at the top of the Astronomy Tower, the tallest part of Hogwarts.
They didn't talk for a few minutes as they stared at the surrounding mountains, which rose like black mounds among the thousands of bright stars. There was a slow breeze that chased off most of the heat of the day, blowing strands of Luna's hair around her.
"Do you remember the constellations?" Luna asked him quietly. It felt like a time to be quiet, in order to not disturb the peaceful atmosphere.
"It's been since second year that we actually studied them," Harry remarked. "I remember a few. There's Circinus, right? The Compass?" He pointed up to the constellation
"That's right," Luna agreed. "I'm surprised that's one you remember. It's not one most people do."
"Well, I liked the idea of it when we learned it," Harry explained. "The thought of having something to guide you where you need to go."
They were silent for a few moments before Luna said, "I like that idea, too."
Standing at the rail watching the bright stars shine, Harry realized something. He and Luna had much more in common than anyone had ever imagined, least of all himself. It was the first time he wasn't thinking of his mistakes and Sirius' death.
The moment seemed to last a lifetime. Harry turned to Luna, and before either of them could interrupt the moment with some bumbling excuse or awkward comment, he bent down and kissed her.
He wasn't sure what had possessed him to close the distance between them it; it had felt like the right thing to do, so rather than think it through, he'd done what he always did and acted rashly. His friendship with Luna was new, but it meant the world to him. He didn't want to lose her over this. He should have asked her first to check that they were on the same page, instead he'd rushed into it. She probably didn't even want to kiss him.
With that gut-wrenching thought, he jerked away from her, an apology already coming to his lips. He felt every muscle in his body tense as he waited to see her expression turn to one of horror because of what he'd just done. Any other girl might slap him, but Luna wasn't like that. She would turn him down gently.
Only she didn't. Her expression wasn't one of horror at all, in fact, she was smiling at him. "That was nice. You know, I've never kissed a boy before. We should do it again."
Harry smiled a bit nervously at first, sure that she couldn't be serious. But her face was earnest, no mocking expression or smirk. It was this that made him break into a full blown grin. All the tension and anxiety that had come with that first kiss faded away.
"I can't believe we haven't done that before. You're amazing."
Luna smiled still more broadly as she said, "You're pretty great yourself."
Harry had never been so happy in his life. He was sure he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn't stop himself. Luna leaned forward and laid her head on his chest.
"If I had a star for every time you brightened my day, I would be holding a galaxy," Harry said quietly.
"Don't be silly," she let out a laugh. "Your hands are much too small to fit a galaxy in." She stood up on her toes to reach him and they kissed once again.
It was like kissing a star.