ginny's eyes haunt luna nowadays; something's hidden behind the smoky brown, an abyss she can't help her out of.

*;*;*

Harry Potter: Wanted Dead or Alive

100 000 Galleons

(luna tears down these signs with a vigour no one would've supposed her of, because the taste of firewhiskey burns her still from the last time she kissed ginny.)

*;*;*

"Listen, you lot," says Neville, face fierce and scarred, "Harryhermioneron may be gone, but that doesn't mean we should give up!"

Luna, who's spent the last ten minutes conjuring soap bubbles from her wand and smiling, nods dreamily without really meaning it at all. To her, hope is like a butterfly; beautiful while there, but oh so fleeting.

fly, fly

*;*;*

neville kisses her softly and tells her she's like moonlight and beautiful, ginny kisses her rough and crude and calls her a slut and whore and get the fuck down before I push you.

she just looks at it all from above, humming unheard melodies while dancing to the sound of her own heartbeat.

(their eyes are both h a u n t e d)

*;*;*

You're fucking Longbottom, aren't you? Ginny asks casually, sipping her rum-and-butterbeer in the middle of Potions while despair and hopelessness swirls around them like yesterday's dinner.

Well aren't you? She asks again, fingers and face pale and thin, hair bloodlike.

luna hesitates to say yes because it sounds so ugly like that, so real, but she nods anyways. ginny's face stays the same but changes, and luna sees her break.

she takes a long sip but says nothing.

*;*;*

Do you think, she asks neville one day, voice like stardust, do you think i love you?

their legs are tangled together and so are their fingers and neville half smiles, half frowns, while life smirks and mocks ahead of them. luna stretches out a finger to catch the gossamer webs ahead of her and tastes it—

Yes, says neville. Yes I do.

luna smiles.

*;*;*

"Luna, Luna, love doesn't exist." Ginny laughs and the sound is like pebbles hitting cold water. They're sitting in the library, shoes off and ties undone, Madame Pince glaring and Carrows lurking. "Merlin, I could've fucking told you that forever ago."

Luna feels herself falling off of the cloud she's been on for the last three hours, and she lands hard.

"But Harry… what about—"

"I don't love him." Ginny interrupts smoothly, tucking hair behind her ear. "He was just—"her voice breaks—"he's dead to me now, okay? Now, why don't we shut the hell up before Pince throws us to the Carrows."

So they do.

*;*;*

the screaming's the worst part.

It echoes in her head long after the blood has been cleaned and scars healed; after the bodies have been long carted away and Death Eaters hunted down. Luna sits alone on her four-poster and thinks about nothing at all, yet everything seems to come crashing down on her like a bloodstained wave.

Then neville comes in, shutting the door behind him softly and collapsing wordlessly behind her. The sword of Gryffindor clangs onto the floor underneath. Their eyes meet.

And suddenly they're kissing, and he tastes like blood and fire and Luna whispers onto his lips,

it was always you.

(she's not gonna think about ginny lies and betrayal because it hurts too much.)

fin