Disclaimer: I may be many things, but I'm not brilliant enough to come up with something like Harry Potter.
A/N: Written for a prompt named seashell. I would say it's 'implied romance'. Very very subtle, in other words.
Kindred Spirit
They had been surprised. Everyone expected Harry Potter to want a quiet existence; a life with stability, routines and a home – everything that seemed to be missing from his young life. In reality, all Harry wanted at the moment was freedom. Once Voldemort had been conquered at last, he had wanted to flee, to run without a goal in mind. All his life the road he had to take had been mapped out for him by prophecies and an irreversible mark laid upon him as he was still just a defenceless infant. When Voldemort had disappeared for good, his job had been done. There was nothing to hold him back.
They had let him go and he had left. He thought they understood that while they felt the need for peace and stability, he needed to really experience life and the world without a burden heavy as Hogwarts on his shoulders. With a promise to return he had left them all behind to travel aimlessly, let circumstances and coincidences lead him from place to place.
He often met other restless souls who travelled the continents in search for something neither of them could place. They'd offer him company for a few days and he would accept, following them to a faraway destination where they would once again part and individually seek new adventures. It gave him a strange feeling of satisfaction.
Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one who had chosen to really experience life like this after the hell they had all been through. Were there really no kindred spirit seeking a carefree period of life among those who had fought beside him? These thoughts were the only ones that nagged him on his journey. He'd sit on a park bench in a foreign country, wondering if he would find Neville standing in the ice cream parlour across the park on the other side of the street. He even went as far as picturing Draco Malfoy studying one of Mozart's old violins where they stood on exhibit in Salzburg. The very thought was of course absurd. Draco Malfoy would not travel to Austria, let alone visit the birth-house of a Muggle composer.
But there was just something in him longing for someone to share his wonder at travelling from place to place with, having no obligations to stay and no obligations to leave. He needed to feel connected to someone through the same need for freedom. And as the months passed he longed for it more and more as impressions and experiences passed him by.
On a particularly sunny day he climbed down the small hill from the hostel he had taken into for the night. The enticing air of the ocean lead him down towards its shore, finding white sand under his feet as he stepped closer. He closed his eyes and drew a deep, shaky breath, enjoying the exotic smell of the Mediterranean sea. As they opened his gaze fell – not on an empty beach, as he would have expected – but on a small figure whose contours were dark against the midday sun. She stood by the water, letting the waves wash over her bare feet as her long, blonde hair was rattled by the slight breeze.
He inclined his head to the side, watching the strangely familiar figure as he stepped closer, his eyes still on her when he came to a halt by her side. As a blonde lock of hair blew away from her cheek he recognised her immediately.
"The water is strangely warm," Luna said in quiet tones, looking down at the waves as crashed over her bare feet.
He didn't answer as his attention had fluttered down to her hand clutching a medium sized seashell between her slender fingers.
"If you hold it up to your ear you can hear the ocean," she told him, having followed his curious gaze.
She smiled slightly and lifted the seashell up against his ear, watching intently as his eyes widened in wonder.
"If we take it with us, we can always hear the ocean wherever we are."
He looked down on her as she held the seashell against her own ear and his lips pulled into a smile. She was humming now; a strange and haunting melody accompanying the roar of the ocean, the seashell still held up against her ear. Her hums grew quieter until they disappeared on a wave retreating from the shore.
"If you listen hard enough you can hear the melody of your soul," she then said, placing the shell delicately in his hand.
He smiled at her then and held the shell back up to his ear. Closing his eyes he heard the roar of the ocean from the shell and faintly, very faintly he could hear the tune she had hummed hidden among the dull murmur of noise. He recognised her then. She was his kindred spirit.
A/N: I hope you liked it. It was written on a whim with a sudden rush of inspiration. I've never written H/L before, but I like them together and I just felt the need to put them together. Please do review :D