Note: I don't own anything. Not that characters, not the world, not the creatures, or places … not even the words I used but only the order in which I used them. Thanks.

It was the first time she'd seen him cry. She's forgotten good and well about George Weasley since that last time she'd seen him around with Fred, tackling each other and wrestling in the tall grass field that Luna could see from her bedroom window. Now, it flooded her. He was kneeling by his perished twin, staring down at his forlorn face with his hand held over his forehead. Everyone was jubilant over the conquer of the Dark Lord but George's was almost instantaneously gone, as quickly as it had come

He sobbed, quite plentifully as if there was an immense amount of pain surging through his body, as if his body had been severed. They were silent little sobs and he was dripping with snot and tears; it was a hideous thing, Luna thought, hideous but beautiful and cathartic. George thought no one was watching, that no one was paying attention but Luna was always watching. Luna was near omniscient in a sense. Her eyes, with that wide surprised look of her, were always watching people.

It was a moment before George started, realizing that a pair of shoes had walked up beside his kneeling, weeping frame – and looking up from her shoes to the tip of her head, he thought only about how greatly she resembled snow, and even a full moon over a lake, with silvery blond hair and a pale, round face. The tears were unstoppable but he opened his mouth, tried a pained, forced smile and opened his mouth. So many jokes died on his lips. Nothing seemed funny anymore. 16, she was only 16; he had seen her with Ginny but when she sat down beside him an took his hand gently in hers, staring up at him with her eyes of glassy blue, George collapsed in her lap in a heap of sobs and to him, she seemed a million years old.

She didn't ask him any questions not like he expected her to. No, Luna thought fondly of the stocky red-head sitting upon her knee, carding her slender fingers through his ginger hair as his tears began to soak through her robes. The crowd was dwindling, people were fallowing Harry, and they were all heading home. George made no move so neither did Luna, she simple waited with that eternal patience of hers.

Mrs. Weasley peered her head over at them, putting her hand upon Luna's shoulder and her smile said things that she could not. Stricken with her own grief she felt that she was inadequate in aiding her son, in losing the thing most important to him; her bearing of teeth told Luna that she appreciated her efforts, her never-ending kindness. Luna smiled that same smile of hers and she could not help but feel an enormous amount of affection for the Weasley's, for they had shown her great affections even when the other neighbors had no so much as said hello. "Thank you so much, Luna my dear." She heard her say and Luna nodded. She stood there with her tear-streaked face, hands clasped so hard in front of her they seemed to turn red.

Mr. Weasley normally chipper, care-free demeanor had been replaced by the face of an old man; and for a moment, Luna mourned for that care-free man and that smiling face. His lips were turned down into a frown and it seemed as though the bespectacled man's wrinkles were even more prominent than before, as he picked up the limp body, cradling it in his arms like a newborn and he gave Luna a nod of thanks as they headed out to Hogsmead to disapperate.

All the while, George had finally stopped sobbing, only breathing heavy hot breaths against her thigh with his hands crumpled into pathetic limpness at her knee. They were alone in the Great Hall with a mess strewn about the four tables. Luna didn't rush him and George appreciated it. Her cool hands only smoothed over his hair, running her hand over the blank spot where the boy's ear should've been. He sat up eventually, pushing himself up with weary hands. The torchlight glinted off his face and bore dancing shadows that still did not hide the wetness of tears on his cheeks or the air of hopelessness in his eyes. He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.

"Are you all right, George?"

She kneeled still as he stood and he looked down at her, finally feeling the weariness. He almost questioned her, how she knew the difference but stopped himself short because of the new anger, remorse, guilty, pity that surged through his body until he felt nauseated. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, she was standing. She looked no longer interested in his answer and for that he was grateful. He longed for fresh air and made a silent decision to walk the grounds instead of take the portrait hole. Luna fallowed him without question.

The two of them walked along the dirt path silently and George preoccupied himself with taking sharp intakes of breath to fill his needy lungs. His legs seemed to wobble as they walked but Luna seemed to float all together, skip almost. "Like Snape." He said suddenly, halfway down the trail.

"Pardon?"

"I feel like Snape. They went to sever us. Severus, y'know?" His voice trailed off and his eyes squinted into the night. That wasn't even close to humorous and his grief struck him again; he knew that Fred was looking down at him from heaven, fuming at his twin's poor choice of joke. "I'm sorry, I'll do better next time, yeah?" He grumbled.

He hadn't realized he said it out loud until Loony looked at him but she stared at him with that vacantly surprised look and cocked her head, a tiny smile appearing on her thin lips. George just then noticed a droplet of blood, drying there on her mouth and reached out to wipe his thumb across her lips. The joke was horrible, he was talking to himself and he was trying to make cheer of things, trying to cope his grief and lighten the mood as they walked to Hogsmead but it seemed that her smile, under the starlight was doing a much better job at it.

Luna didn't make George forget. That's what he liked about her. She didn't make him forget about his mourning, about his loss but somehow the wispy little girl before him made him feel less disconnected. He'd spent all 19 years of his life with a partner, never spent one moment alone, not really, Fred was always there in his mind. They had always been "the twins", or maybe, Fred and George, Gred and Forge. Now, being alone, being his own person was something he was not used to. He wasn't used to being George. Plain old George Weasley. Luna made him feel different, like he wasn't outcasted. She was so strange. Maybe it was because she danced instead of walked, sang instead of talked but she made George feel like he belonged somewhere, to something, to someone.

They spent the entire rest of the walk discussing Willowgimps which had become Luna's new favorite animal of late. She talked avidly about them and how if her father ever got out of the ministries hands, he had promised her he would take her to Prague where they would hunt them down. George stared at her, awed, how such a young girl with misty eyes could be so unphased. She told him how they resembled gnomes and that most definitely he should watch out for them because they were normally very dangerous if you didn't know how to properly handle them: "Be quite wary. You'll never know." She said loftily and George felt as thought she were talking more than about Willowgimps; confused by his girl's obvious silent implications.

"I'll be very careful, Luna." He chuckled and she beamed at him.

Hogsmead was empty, chilly with some hidden demeanors and though he'd heard quite avidly from Ginny (even when he was apt in telling her he was busy) that she and Luna had conjured full-body patronuses their fourth year, he still instinctively stepped closer to the blond.

"George?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it a pair of Candelskerps?"

He opened his mouth but decided against it and shook his head, no. She nodded. He told her to hold on tight but Luna did more than George expected. She wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her face against his chest, her cheek pressed against the wooly fabric of his sweater. With a faint pop they were swirling into darkness. When they felt solid ground beneath his feet, George nearly collapsed on the floor of the Burrow but Luna still had her arms around him; although she was quick to let go when she saw the entire crowd around them.

"Dad—?"

He wasn't paying attention to George. Mr. Weasley's eyes opened at the sight of Luna, they opened wide and his hands wrung his hat as he stared at the pale girl standing in the middle of their living room. The chatter around was loud and many people where already heading off to bed but there was a decent veil of noise that made it so only Luna and George, if he strained, could hear what Mr. Weasley was saying. When finally she turned around, Mr. Weasley bowed his head and excused himself to the kitchen. George looked at her solemnly but she bowed her head as well.

"I'm tired." She said. "May I sleep here tonight?"

George didn't answer but the 19-year-old stood up from the comfy chair that he were sitting in and let her take it, grabbing a blanket from Ron who blindly yelped but didn't bother seeking it out, and laid it across Luna. She didn't cry and maybe George was surprised, maybe embarrassed but he didn't say so. He just watched her for a minute.

Luna Lovegood didn't cry when they told her that her father had been killed, albeit gruesomely. Not a single tear fell from her eyes but instead she glowed, glowed radiantly in her grief and sort of cocked her head in a morose way as she slept. Still, George was awed by her silences; what volumes she spoke about her loss in those silences. But, silences, they were nothing more than tiny spaces where periods ended and capital letters begun.