Lightweight

Luna woke with a terrible headache.

It was pitch-black in her motel room, but outside she could hear the Spring Breakers still partying away. She had to admire their stamina; she'd passed out around midnight, and according to the tiny numbers on her watch, it was almost four in the morning.

Luna pressed the heels of her palms against her eyelids and tried to remember the previous day. She and Ginny Weasley, her roommate at Florida State University, had made the five-hour drive to Miami. They'd checked into this motel room — that was Ginny rolling over in bed beside her right now — and changed into bathing suits. Then Ginny had been bombarded by frat guys, and Luna had gone off to lounge by the pool and drink cosmos. At one point Dudley Dursley had made an appearance, but Luna had managed to have a civil conversation with the boy who'd broken her heart last year, and then he'd left . . . which was when Luna had switched to vodka tonics . . . .

Just thinking about alcohol made Luna's stomach turn. "Ugh," she groaned, throwing back the covers and groping for the light. She'd fallen asleep in her bikini; the straps bit into her shoulders, so she reached around to untie her top and fling it off. "Where are you?" she whispered, fumbling around for the lamp she knew was around here somewhere.

Ginny stirred, but she didn't sit up.

Luna's stomach rolled again. She began to feel across the night stand with both hands: there was the copy of The Quibbler she'd swiped from the lobby; the giant sunglasses that Ginny said made her look like a multicolored owl; the radish earrings she'd thankfully remembered to remove before collapsing into bed; aha! The lamp.

As she felt her way up to the pull-chain that would turn on the light, Luna's stomach heaved. She pitched forward and knocked the lamp off the nightstand. The motion yanked the cord from the wall socket, sending up a shower of sparks that lit the room just enough for Luna to see the bathroom. "Son of a bitch," came from Ginny's side of the bed, but Luna was too busy hurtling toward the toilet to offer an apology.

As she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet, Luna wrapped her hand around the wine cork she always wore on a string around her neck and thought back to the first time she'd been sick from drinking. Dudley had brought over a bottle of wine, and she'd been so nervous that she'd consumed most of the bottle and spent the rest of the date with her head over the toilet. He'd laughed and called her Lightweight Lovegood, but he'd also said I love you for the first time.

She'd kept the cork.

(She didn't really know why she still had it.)

Luna flushed the toilet and stood to rinse her mouth. In the bedroom, she heard Ginny's feet hit the floor. "I'm fine," Luna said, feeling her way out of the bathroom. "You don't have to — oof!"

She'd bumped directly into her roommate.

"Sorry," she said, and then: "Wait. Ginny?"

The figure in the dark leaned over to click on a light.

It wasn't Ginny.

"Dudley," she said, forehead crinkled in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Her ex-boyfriend, with hair tousled from sleep, squinted down at her. "You invited me?"

"I - " Luna cut herself off as she realized she was completely topless. She threw her arms over her chest and looked up at him in horror, but he gave her a tired grin and shrugged.

"Seen it all before," he said with a wink.

She laughed nervously. "I invited you?"

He nodded. "You were pretty hammered, though."

"And you came?"

"Yeah. But we didn't do anything," he added quickly. "Well, you kissed me. But nothing else."

She could feel herself blushing. "Sorry."

"I kissed you back."

She blinked. "You did?"

A nod.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I guess I miss you."

Being careful not to expose herself, Luna reached up to touch her cork necklace. "Really?"

"I know I'm the one who ended things," he said. "And I know it's been a year, but apparently we aren't over each other, so maybe . . . maybe we could try again?"

Luna swallowed. "Turn off the light," she whispered.

He did.

Her hands found his chest in the dark, and she pulled herself up on tiptoe to kiss him.

"You taste like vodka, Lightweight Lovegood," he said, and she laughed as she led him back to bed.

[Blindfolded Competition: Luna Lovegood on Spring Break; light; bumping into an old ex; 755 words]

[New Years Resolution Challenge: Luna Lovegood/Dudley Dursley]