Title: With Shoes and Fireworks
Rating: T
Chapter #: 1 of 1
Ship/s: George/Luna
Era/s: Hogwarts
Genre/s: Slightly fluffy, Romance

NOTE: I recommend you read this in 3/4 width and with the font size 2 steps bigger than the preset. It looks a lot nicer and much easier to read, I think:)

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I'd be rewriting the epilogue right now.

George keeled over in the shadows of the empty corridor, panting for breath. In his hands were the torn and creased remains of a few Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes flyers shouting bright promises of the genius of their latest product; Weasleys' Hair Scare. He had been tacking them up over a gnarled statue of an ugly hag a couple of corridors away when Filch had spotted him. The bastard had been chasing after him, bellowing gibberish at the top of his lungs, but giving the old caretaker the slip was an easy feat for George. Ancient git. George wondered if he had given the wheezy man a heart attack, and whether he was all that bothered if it turned out he had. Still gripping the wall for support, he kept his eyes on the burgundy-carpeted ground, waiting for his vision to stop blurring.

"Whippersnapping Squiliums at your heels?"

Lilting tones of a sweet Irish accent interrupted George's angry musings. He dusted his hands on his trousers before he began to straighten up, wondering who had asked him such an odd question. As he rose, however, he noticed that the feet of the girl were lacking shoes; only a pair of bright, blue-and-silver-striped socks covered her legs, reaching up over her knee. Bizarrely quite sexy.

She was an unconventional beauty: her wide, grey-hued eyes were her most prominent feature, though her nose and lips were equally perfect. Framing her face were curly tendrils of blonde hair loose from two bunches that tumbled down to the girl's midriff. Braided into her curls were barrettes of navy bluebirds, glittering with silver dust that George could easily believe had once floated around the planets; one of which he was certain this alien loveliness had fallen from. How had he never noticed her around the school grounds?

"Phwoar," he breathed, before his senses hit him like an icy, crashing wave. "I mean, hi. George Weasley – and you are?"

She was still beaming up at him – bloody gorgeous – as she answered.

"Luna Lovegood."

Determined to redeem the charm he was renowned for, George's quick mind prepared a bold quip.

"And is that true?"

Years of fast-thinking had proved him apt at witty responses – and in this case, smooth pick-up lines.

"Sorry, you've lost me – is what true?"

Bingo. She'd set him up perfectly.

"Do you 'Love Good'?"

Combined with a cheeky grin he hoped was more dashing than goofy, he watched for her reaction. After a few seconds for her to process the pun, she burst out laughing and playfully nudged his arm, returning his beam. "So, what brings you through the corridors at this time of the evening?"

It was pretty close to after-hours, and most students had returned to their common rooms by now. Fred and George had decided to disperse the posters late – each starting at opposite sides of the school and working their way back to the centre – so that they would be ready to be noticed in the morning, saving them from waking up early. He had noticed Luna's blue and silver tie that denoted her to be a Ravenclaw; the house renowned for their intelligence's common room was nowhere near where she stood close to him now.

"Shoes," she replied assuredly, as if strolling along the halls without any was commonplace. "I didn't realise how late it's gotten. I must have been out looking for hours..."

"You've lost them?" George was perplexed by her response to his initial question, and wondered how one could lose something that was tied to their own feet. "What did they do, run away from you?"

He delivered the last query as a joke, but his grin diluted when Luna dropped her eyes to the ground and shuffled her feet. Despite his comical demeanour, George could be serious sometimes; he understood that there was something unpleasant involved in the story of why she was shoeless.

"Luna? Are you alright? I didn't mean to offend you, it was just a—"

"No, no, I'm not upset." She raised her head again, meeting his eyes, but her weak smile was unconvincing.

George hated seeing her distressed. "It's okay, you can tell me," he replied soothingly, stepping closer to her.

Luna bit her lip. "George Weasley, did you say?" He responded with a nod; she shook her head fervently. "Then I can't tell you, definitely not ..."

By now George was not only confused, but a little frustrated. Had she deemed him unworthy just because of his surname? He understood that his family was looked down on by some of the more stuck-up pureblood dynasties because of his father's acceptance of Muggles and Muggle-borns, but was that why she had rejected him so certainly? It seemed completely incongruent with how she had appeared up to then; it couldn't be right.

"Excuse me?"

His challenging tone was also lined with hurt, and it pained Luna to think that he had thought she was looking down her nose at him. "No! I didn't mean it like that, honestly, it's just," she searched for words to finish her sentence off that veered around the truth – not lies, but not the full story either, "some people stole them. My shoes."

"Stole them?"

"It happens all the time, don't worry. I assume they find it funny, it is a bit like a game, but I'm starting to tire of having to hunt for them. It dirties my socks."

George's anger had melted, but he was still baffled. "Where was the harm in telling me that?"

Her eyes became downcast again, and she wriggled her toes as possible responses were tossed about her head, each one sounding worse than the last. "Well?"

She sighed. He'd forced her into answering, so he would just have to deal with what she said.

"The group that stole them is led by Ginny. Ginny Weasley, your –"

He cut her off, his expression thundery.

"My sister? You're honestly trying to tell me that little Ginevra – the girl that blushes whenever Harry Potter's name is mentioned, the one who still cries whenever Mum kills a mouse at home – is tormenting you?"

Luna turned and began to walk away, but was stopped by George grabbing her upper arm and twisting her back to face him, a little too roughly. She winced and let out a gasp – naturally, being a Beater, he had strong hands – he let go instantly upon realising he was hurting her.

"Crap, I'm sorry – I didn't mean to grab you that hard, I just ..." he paused, "...didn't want you to leave." He started along the corridor, gently tapping her to come with him. They fell into step, silent for a minute, until he continued. "I shouldn't have been such a twat right then, it was just a surprise – I mean, I find it hard to imagine Ginny purposely hurting anyone."

"So – so you don't believe me?"

"If I didn't, would I still be here?" He left the question rhetorical, and gave her a friendly nudge. "Now come on, we'll never find these shoes at this rate."

The pair traversed Hogwarts' corridors for a while, chatting and laughing. George had his wand out, and was waving it lazily to hang the remaining flyers with a Permanent Sticking Charm. That'd show bloody Filch. Soon, after searching for quite some time, they found themselves at the foot of the spiralling staircase that led up towards the Astronomy Tower. Both turned to look at the other, each reading their companion's thoughts.

"Should we ...?" Luna asked, shooting a tentative glance up towards the high ceilings of the out-of-bounds tower. Her gaze fell back down to meet George's. His face looked like it would split into two, his grin was so huge.

"Of course we should," he laughed. So, carefully and cautiously, they crept up the staircase until they reached the top of the tower. There, just past the huge globelike structure that stood in the draughty room's centre and hanging from a crevice in the widest arch of the tower, were Luna's shoes. Worn and scuffed, the slightly ratty laces of the teal baseball boots had been knotted around a bar at the peak height of the portico that connected the classroom area of the Astronomy Tower to its surrounding parapet.

Luna gasped.

"Oh!"

She pointed towards them and giggled; it was just her luck to find the shoes in the last place she looked. Skipping towards the archway, she gestured to George to follow. "There they are," she said brightly.

Retrieving the boots was set up to be yet another challenge to the pair, however – Ginny and her thieving friends must have doubled up on each others' shoulders to hang them there. Even when she hopped into the air and stretched her arms as tall as she could manage – feeling like they were going to shoot from their sockets and fly into space – Luna's fingers strayed inches from the shoes' toecaps. Unwavering and determined, she tried a couple times more, yet each time all her fingers caught was the crisp winter air that blew faintly around the tower. As she jumped onto her toes once more, about to leap into the air and try to grab her boots again, George appeared in front of her. Luna stumbled as she cut her jump short, but his arms were ready to steady her. She glimpsed back up at the crevice to see that the shoes were no longer dangling.

"Wh-... huh?" Her brow furrowed and she scanned the stone floor around her, to no avail. The sound of George's deep laughter made Luna lift her eyes from the ground, when she understood why he was chortling. Suspended from his fingers by their laces were the shoes – being so tall, reaching up to pluck them from their hanging spot wasn't too difficult for him. "Oh, thank you!" She took the outstretched shoes from him and slipped them onto her feet, beaming.

Only then, with the boots on Luna's feet and the task completed, did the pair of them really stop. Silent, standing under the deep violet sky that stretched infinite and motionless above their heads, the pair locked eyes; brown on grey. For a few seconds they remained still, until the space between them had diminished.

And so it was that beneath a velvet blanket splashed with silver gems, ignoring the Bloody Baron's clanks and moans, with the night breeze rushing around them, the prologue to a great story erupted on the parapet to the Astronomy Tower; with shoes, and fireworks.

A/N: Well, reading over that again, I realise it's almost nauseatingly fluffy - but then I guess that if you're reading this now you read it the whole way through, so hopefully you liked it! If you did, and you're feeling kind enough then please do leave a review - it only takes two seconds and absolutely makes this writer's day:] Thanks again for choosing to read my fiction; I'm honoured and hope you come back to read something new!