Author's Note: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.
Written for the OTP AU! Competition. Round 4: Language Barrier AU. Pairing: Luna/Ginny.
"They don't know what to do with her," Percy told Ginny, nodding at a straggly-haired first year with a Ravenclaw-striped tie knotted lazily around her neck.
"What do you mean?" Ginny asked, trotting to keep up and staring curiously at the girl, who sat cross-legged on a garden bench, satchel resting below her socked feet. Her shoes were nowhere in sight.
"She won't talk," Percy explained. "Or can't talk. All she can do is sign, and none of the professors know sign language."
"What's sign language?" Ginny questioned, stealing another glance at the girl. She remembered her vaguely from the Sorting; she'd had to be led up to the Hat, while the older students tittered. Ginny hadn't laughed, though.
"It's language spoken through your hands, I suppose," Percy said. "I don't really know it myself, Pene-someone has taught me a few signs." He demonstrated slowly, and Ginny thought the fluttering of his hands reminded her of birds.
"She's deaf, you know," Percy said after, tapping his ear. Ginny craned her neck behind and saw something bright purple glittering in the girl's ears.
"What are those?" she asked in a stage whisper, and Percy laughed. His eyes crinkled when he did.
"Hearing aids, Ginny," he explained. "Lovegood's deaf."
"Oh," Ginny said, blushing brighter than her hair. "The professors should learn sign language," she declared, speeding up to match strides with Percy so that they reached the front doors together.
"They should," Percy agreed, opening the door for her and letting her slip inside before him. "But not all of them will."
It started then, really. She told Tom of the girl in Ravenclaw, with glitter-strewn purple hearing aids and perpetually bare feet. She tucked her wand behind her ear and skipped down the hallways, humming in a slightly loud, but still pleasing voice.
Tom didn't care. Tom thought the girl sounded like a ninny and wondered how she'd managed to get into Hogwarts at all. Tom called her a Mudblood even and while Ginny had never actually heard that word before, she knew it was bad, one of the worst things you could call a wizard or witch, and she slammed the diary shut and nearly pitched it out the window.
One of her dorm-mates had a book on British sign language and Ginny nicked it one night, too embarrassed to admit why she wanted it, too influenced by the whispers in her ears and the shadows behind her eyes to confess what she was doing.
It was slow going, especially at first. Ginny stowed away in an empty classroom before curfew, book propped open on the windowsill and lit by moonlight (after carefully trundling a moving chalkboard in front of the window, so that at first glance, it would be difficult to spot her- she'd learnt some things from the twins). It was a magic book, so the pictures moved. The diary burned like a coal in the pocket of her robes, but she ignored it. This was more important than Tom. She didn't know why, but she knew that it was.
Night after night, she tiptoed back to the same classroom. She wasn't sleeping well anyway. She kept having nightmares about a giant snake slithering through the corridors and one morning she woke up with her pockets full of chicken feathers. When she found out that something had happened to at least some of Hagrid's chickens during the night, she went so pale Hermione thought she was going to pass out and made her put her head between her knees for five minutes while she scolded the others for bringing up such a sensitive subject around a first year.
She begged her mum for a more advanced BSL book when she reached the end of her classmate's (slipping it back into the girl's trunk while she slept). It took another week, Ginny practicing signs furtively in the hallway or the loo, before the new book came. She wanted to talk to Luna multiple times, but always ended up slipping away before she could. It was too soon. She hadn't learned enough yet. How could she try to step into the Ravenclaw's world like this?
Everything went to hell. Ginny woke up, soaking wet, Harry Potter himself curled around her. He was bleeding and his robes were shredded.
"I'm so sorry," she hiccuped. He patted her on the shoulder and told her it would be fine, but she knew it wouldn't be. There was an emptiness in her middle that wouldn't go away, and it howled with loss as a phoenix flew her up to the second-floor girls' bathroom, as she was taken to the Hospital Wing and cleaned up and put to bed with so many potions, her stomach sloshed when she moved.
When she woke up, Ron was sat next to her, half-dozing in a visitor's chair, and he jumped when he saw her eyes open.
"S-sorry, Ginny," he stammered. "So-sorry we-we didn't notice, we..."
"It's okay," she husked out, but he shook his head.
"I got some stuff- one of your dorm-mates helped me," he told her. "Books and stuff."
The BSL one was in the pile next to her bed, she noticed, and an idea sparked in her mind, blooming to life before she could stop it.
"Could you get Percy, Ron?" she asked, because she had no idea if Ron knew who Luna Lovegood was, and didn't relish him trying to find her. He was awkward, clumsy- and Percy knew sign language.
Percy's usual officious strut was reduced to a hesitant stumble, and when she looked into his face, she could see that he'd been crying.
"I love you, Percy," Ginny told him. "Could you get Luna Lovegood to come visit me, please? I-I mean, if she wants to?"
"Of course, Ginny," he said, and nearly bowed as he rushed out the door.
The next person to come into the Hospital Wing was Luna, who looked confused, yet mildly interested. She perched in the visitor's chair, socked feet dangling, and stared at Ginny inquiringly. Radishes dangled at her ear lobes, the colour an interesting contrast to her hearing aids, which now looked like the night sky.
Luna made scribbling motions in the air, but Ginny shook her head.
Hi, she signed. Her movements were shaky, because she was still so exhausted, but the radiant smile that spread across Luna's face was worth it. How are you?
It was a bit slow at first. She had to keep asking Luna to slow down because no matter how much she'd managed to learn through books, it wasn't the same as actually having a conversation with another person. But it was brilliant, and it made her smile, too, and even laugh (and she'd never thought that she would be able to laugh again, not with Tom Riddle so firmly entrenched in her, well, everything). By the time Madame Pomfrey came to check on her again, she'd smiled more times than she thought possible, learnt two easier ways to sign things, and learnt how pretty Luna's eyes looked when she was happy.
Will you come again? she signed, when Luna admitted that she needed to go. Without hesitation, Luna signed yes.