Prompt: Meeting in secret (for a forum)

Notes: I took this as a meeting that's unknown by others

I'm not sure how well I met the prompt, but I don't care because I like this. I don't mind too much if this fails me, because I enjoyed exploring it all.

Tame what is not meant to be tamed.
Anger. Hatred. Fear.
Define words already defined.
Good. Evil. Bravery. Fear.
Engrave yourself into your heart.
Laughter. Tears. Joy. Sadness.
Paint a picture of your fingertips.
Stars. Suns. Moons. Skies.
Realise that the promised world is a lie.
Truth. Opinions. Lies. Facts.
Take the universe and state your claim.
Galaxies. Planets. Asteroids. Solar systems.
Be who you decide.
Choices. Decisions.
Death. Life.
Live.

The thing about Ginny Weasley is she never grew into bravery, never woke up one day with courage in her heart. That's not to say she isn't brave or didn't have the potential to be brave, it's just… Ginny got into Gryffindor because she wanted to, because she was daring. Ginny had been brave. She grew up being told that bravery was marching forward with her head held high. Ginny was told that courage was stepping in front of the weak and defending them. Ginny was told that attacking dark wizards was what made people brave. Ginny is eleven when she discovers that she isn't brave – that she can't march forward with her head held high, that she can't step in front of the weak and defend them without her wand shaking, that sometimes dark wizards attack and you can't stop them.

Ginny leaves the Burrow behind to return to a castle that had left her injured, had left her dying, that had relied on a twelve-year-old boy to save her. Ginny leaves the Burrow behind and leaves behind the people who tiptoe around her. She leaves her secret places, where she can spend her days outside beneath the sky and not feel the walls closing in, where she isn't judged, where no one tiptoes around her. Ginny leaves the Burrow behind, and she isn't relieved in the slightest, but she doesn't fear Hogwarts as much as she thought she would.

Ginny spends the first month at Hogwarts outside, flying on a broomstick and high above the green ground. She flies and flies and flies because the walls always seem to be closing in on her and she hates it. She hates that it makes her scared, hates that it makes her heart quicken and her heart race. She hates that she has to be saved. She hates that she is the one who needs saving.

On nights when Ginny can't sleep, she slips out of the Gryffindor dormitories and heads up to one of the windows on the fourth floor that looks over the lake with the moon shining above it. It calms her, reminds her of serenity, makes her think about flying.

Ginny lives, but she lives with anger and hatred. She lives in isolation, as an outcast. She lives with red hair and the name Weasley and fear – fear that she hates and hates and hates. She hates so much that sometimes she just ends up bursting into tears but there's no reason for it.

It doesn't do Ginny or Luna's relationship justice to say that they "met." It hadn't been so much of a meeting as it had been an accidental thing. A collision that couldn't be foretold or foreseen but occurred regardless. Forces coming together because Hogwarts is not full of good or kind or nice people, because Hogwarts isolates children and labels them as outcasts.

Luna is a little odd, a little strange, and sees things that no one else does. She speaks about creatures that don't exist, and she's pushed away from her peers, pushed into a corner so that no one else can see her. Ginny isn't a little odd or a little strange, she's known as the youngest Weasley, the female Weasley, she's known as the girl that Harry Potter rescued when he was twelve. Ginny moves with anger and hatred and fear wrapped around her like a blanket and has lost what bravery means; she has been made an outcast because she can no longer relate to her peers, because they do not know how it feels to have the walls close in on them, to be saved by someone else because they are incapable of saving herself.

Ginny met Luna on the shore of a strange lake with the clouds threatening rain. No one else dares stay outside in the weather, all hiding inside, warm and safe. Ginny doesn't believe in the safety Hogwarts offers, not anymore. Luna's outside because sometimes the Blibbering Humdingers come out in the rain. It isn't Ginny who speaks because she isn't aware that she's not alone. It's Luna who speaks, in her calm, slightly distracted tone. "I've seen you before. The Wrackspurts hang around you a lot. Have you tried eating radishes to get rid of them? Apparently, it works."

"Wrackspurts?" Ginny echoes, feeling her mind return to her body rather than focussing on how the lake laps at her feet, ready to drag her down into its depths.

Luna hums. "Make the brain go fuzzy," she says in explanation, before glancing at the sky and wandering away. She leaves Ginny wondering, but for the first time in a while, Ginny feels calm in company.

They meet again and again, accidentally and in out-of-the-way places where no one goes. They meet and over the course of five months, they become something like friends. No one knows of their friendship, but that isn't on purpose. Luna doesn't have anyone to tell and Ginny's still filled with anger and hate and she doesn't want to bother anyone with her problems – she wants to save herself, this time.

It's in the sixth month of their friendship that something changes. It isn't their friendship that changes, but something else entirely. Luna and Ginny trade smiles whenever they see each other or, at least, Ginny does and Luna always seems to be smiling absent mindfully. So, when Ginny sees Luna standing in a hallway made of grey, stone bricks with a trio of older girls in front of her, shoes in the tallest girl's hands. Luna's barefoot.

Ginny rages, anger burning in her veins and she marches forward, wand in her hand. "Oi!" She shouts in the hallway, the sound echoing and ignored, "What do you think you're doing?" The girls look at her, trade glances and laugh.

"It's alright, Ginny," Luna says. "They'll get tired of this eventually."

The leader of the trio goes to speak again, but Ginny doesn't give her the chance. She yells the only spell that comes to her mind and watches as it sends the trio running. Ginny grins wide and turns to Luna. "You shouldn't let them do that," she says. "It isn't right."

"They'll get tired of it," Luna says, "but it was very brave of you to fight them off."

"Not really," Ginny says with a shrug. "It's what anyone would do."

Luna hums, "I thought it was brave," she says decisively. "Did you see how many Wrackspurts surrounded them?"

"I saw bats following them," Ginny responds with a wide grin. "Did you see them?"

"They looked rather like Nargles," is the response Ginny is given, and the pair starts walking down the long and empty corridor.

In her second year at Hogwarts, Ginny redefines bravery. She engraves it into her bones as getting up every morning and spending the day out of bed. She carves it into her skin as walking in halls as fear makes her heart race and the walls appear to close in on her. She writes it into her heart as Luna giving a distant smile and walking forward no matter what anyone says or does to her. Ginny had been told what bravery was and learnt what it wasn't – she gives it a meaning of her own.

Luna finds a friend in Ginny, in a girl of anger and hate and fear. Luna still walks alone, still isolated, still apart from the crowd, but that doesn't make her lonely. At the end of her second year at Hogwarts, no one taunts her, no one faces her with stolen items in their hands. It doesn't mean that things don't go missing, it just means they avoid directly mocking her with it.

Luna and Ginny meet in their second year at Hogwarts. Their friendship goes unknown and secretive for years. This isn't because they try to hide it – it's because they don't need to tell anyone.

In the end, this is the result. Ginny learns to see past her fear, learns to take her anger and tame it, she learns how to save herself. Luna learns that you just because you choose to walk a path alone, doesn't make it not lonely, she learns that sometimes you can walk with someone and be on different paths. They learn that friends can be found in hidden corners, on the edges of groups, alone and isolated. They learn, together, that the world isn't what they were promised but they can make that enough.