Disclaimer: Don't own and never will.
AN: Written for round thirteen of The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition and the five words challenge by Bittersweet x
Dear Luna,
I am writing to you to inform you….
No, wait. That sounds far too formal. This isn't a bill or letter of application or anything like that. I'm not trying to impress you, I'm trying to….
Sorry, I'll start again.
Dear Luna,
How are you? Have you managed to find many new species of rare magical animals on your travels?
No, that sounds wrong. I'm talking about work and I know about your research. Everyone in our department does, especially since you must be the youngest witch to have ever discovered an entire genus by herself. My research into Amazonian magic's barely makes a splash by comparison. Beside which, this is much more important than that. At least, that's how it feels to me. Perhaps I should start from scratch.
Dear Luna,
Do you remember your first kiss? Not ones from your family or friends, but your first genuinely romantic kiss? The one that is supposed to make you first feel the power of love, if those soppy romances of Lavender's are to be believed. The kiss that signals the end of your childhood and marks the beginning of your transition into womanhood.
I remember mine. I had just turned fourteen. It was my birthday and you were there, in the Ravenclaw Common Room. I was feeling a bit put out at the time. We had classes to go to, homework to catch up on and virtually no time to party or anything. Worse, with Sirius Black on the loose, we couldn't even organize a secret trip out to Hogsmeade and celebrate there.
So there I was, feeling very put upon (ah, teenage angst. Somehow I don't think I miss it. Merlin was I a drama queen when I was younger.) When my then boyfriend (well first boyfriend to be honest) Micheal something or another (I used to think I was going to be with him forever and ever. Typical teenager!) And kissed me on the lips. I don't remember much about the kiss, but I do remember noticing the brief look of hurt behind your eyes. Or at least, that's what I thought I saw. Maybe I'm just projecting with hindsight, but…I definitely saw something in your eyes when he kissed me and it puzzled me just a bit. I wish my younger self had been a little more insightful. You were and I feel ashamed of how I oblivious I was.
After Micheal dumped me for another girl, I was pretty upset. I actually thought that I would, what is it I said? Oh yes, 'never find happiness again' I was just going to be a spinster for the rest of my days. (Yes, I know, teenage drama queen!)
You were the first person I saw after he dumped me.
You were sitting on a footstool, looking positively angelic. I asked you what you were doing and you said you were looking for Painting Spectre Brownies in the Hogwarts paintings. You said that they could only be seen by staring at the paintings for a very long time, just out of the corner of your eye. The look on your face…no, everything about you in fact, looked so beautifully serene. It was almost a vision of perfection. I felt something move in me, but I didn't know what.
It scared me and then I did something I have always regretted, even from the moment I did it. I grabbed you by the wrist hard, so hard in fact that I expected to leave bruises and screamed and yelled at you for all I was worth. I called you so many horrible things, things you didn't deserve to be called. And you just looked at me strangely and said that it wouldn't always hurt. It made me feel even worse, especially as you were innocent of any wrongdoing when it came to Micheal. But instead of having the courage to apologise for my unwarranted and unjustified outburst, I simply stormed away. I guess there's a reason why I went into Ravenclaw and Parvati went into Gryffindor.
Then there was the whole Yule Ball fiasco. Not only did my boyfriend of six months dump me a week before the ball, but the boy I ended up going with was a badly dressed Ron Weasley, who spent the night staring at the girl he SHOULD have gone with.
It wasn't all bad. I met a Beaubatons boy when I was sitting there waiting for Ron to stop ignoring me, so the night wasn't completely terrible.
I actually toyed with the idea of asking you to the Yule Ball. I thought it would be interesting to create a stir. Turning up with a girl as a date and not a boy would certainly get attention and something about the idea of having you to myself appealed to me as well, but what it was I didn't know. At least, not then. And even if I had, I think my fourth year self would probably have freaked out. But in the end, I chickened out. Like I said, there's a reason I'm not a Gryffindor.
And that lead to my first dream about you. We were at the Yule Ball and we were dancing with one another. The world around us had a sense of unreality about it that made it feel like I was floating, like nothing was real. Nothing except you and me. And then we kissed and- well, I'll tell you about that in person. Merlin knows I'd be too embarrassed to write what happened in a letter. It should suffice for me to say that I woke up feeling incredibly flushed afterwards.
It didn't stop me sounding off to you and just about everyone who would listen about how bad a date Ron Weasley was. But you in particular. I kept seeking you out and Merlin knows you must have gotten sick of hearing me go on and on about him and that night, but you were always there and willing to listen. I always wondered why. You were never sneaky or cruel, although people were cruel to you. It was like…I don't know…the world didn't effect you quiet the same way as it did us.
Sorry that sounded wrong. Like you didn't have feelings. What I meant was that you seemed to be above it all, like an adult looking at a child. I admired that wisdom, even though I never said so.
Then there was the following year, when we joined Dumbledore's Army. I joined because I wanted to learn defensive spells at first. A part of me hoped that Harry was just delusional, that he hadn't really seen You-Know-Who come back at all and that Cedric's death was just an unfortunate accident. But after the breakout from Azkaban, I realized that his story was the one that made much more sense.
I was still in two minds about going. I despised what You-Know-Who stood for and what he and his Death Eaters were prepared to do, but at the same time, they terrified me. But my sister told me she was going to join and then I discovered you were as well and that sealed my fate. The two people I cared about most at Hogwarts were going to be in the firing line and I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I didn't at least try to protect them. I just wish I had the courage to have protected you against the bullies.
And then there were the events of the end of that year and I felt a wave of anger at Harry for letting you follow him into such a dangerous situation. I told myself it was because you were younger than him, that he should have known better. But that wasn't true and although I refused to acknowledge it, the real reason was because he placed you in danger before I could tell you what I felt for you.
The next year was a bit of a blur. I finally admitted that I liked girls as well as boys (my sister had long figured that out though, I could never keep a secret from her or visa-versa) and I became annoyed at Harry for taking you to the Slug Club party. I was still in denial at that stage, at least when it came to you. Which just goes to prove that even Ravenclaws can act incredibly stupid when it comes to love.
It was in the Year of Hell that everything came to a head. Sort of. Everything went crazy and battle lines were drawn up in all but name. A type of Cold War scenario settled over the school and everyone waited with baited breathe for the war to erupt into open conflict. And in this atmosphere of fear and hostility, we pulled together, all of us. The petty little things that kept us apart no longer seemed to matter. All that mattered was that we protected one another. We did a lot of minor things for the resistance together and when I was with you I felt happier then I did at any other time during that time.
Then there was the Christmas party in the Room of Requirement and I snogged you, a serious, powerful, deep one that expressed my feelings perfectly. I planned to tell you how I felt and somehow ended up snogging you instead.
Of course, you remember how I reacted. Instead of having the courage to come out with you, I tried to dismiss it as a drunken mistake from me. I've never seen your face look so hurt and I'm sorry.
Then you disappeared and I could barely sleep for worry about you. I told myself that it was just because you were too young to be drawn into this, that I was worrying about a fellow student.
But you're a lot tougher than that. In fact, you're probably the toughest person I've ever met.
No, the real reason I was so worried was simple. I didn't want to admit the truth. Like I said, there's a reason that I was sorted into Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor.
When we heard that you had escaped, my heart soared out of my chest and I almost started dancing with happiness.
Then came that final battle and I told myself that I would tell you the truth when it was all over but it didn't work out that way. Instead, I was hit by a powerful curse that almost killed me and I spent weeks in St Mungos. Fool that I was, I took it as a sign that we weren't meant to be together, that fate was against us.
And now, four years after leaving Hogwarts, I write to you to ask…
Padma suddenly paused, her pen hovering over her letter. It looked like a ridiculous rambling thing that was wrong for such an important letter.
"Who's getting the small novel?" Padma's co-worker and friend Anna Colfer asked as she returned from her lunch break. Padma frowned. She liked Anna well enough, with her shock of vivid red hair and smattering of freckles, but she didn't want to talk about her love life to her. She quickly scrunched up the parchment and threw it into the fire with contempt.
"Nobodies getting it," she said in a slightly sullen voice as the flames licked greedily at the paper. "It was a stupid thing to write."
"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," Anna said and Padma shook her head.
"No, it was stupid because I shouldn't be asking this in a letter at all," she replied firmly. "It's something I'll ask in person later."
Anna gave her an indulgent smile. "Well don't leave it too long, or you'll lose him," she said obliviously, before giving Padma a sly smile. "You should ask him now in fact."
"But…" Padma began, but Anna cut her off and handed her a yellow slip that gave her access to other parts of the Ministry.
"Go on. You'll regret it otherwise. And we can't really get anything done until Zacharias Smith gets back with the results from the lab. So GO!"
"Thank you," Padma said smiling. She turned and walked towards the department of magical zoology with her heart beating hard. She was going to ask Luna out if it killed her!