"God I'm bored."

Dean lay flat on top of his bedspread, staring up at the beams. Confined as he was to Shell Cottage, he hadn't been doing much else for the last five days.

"I just hate all this waiting around! I want to be out there... doing something - helping Harry defeat You-Know-Who!" There was a pause. "I mean, look at me." He gestured vaguely and with obvious disdain at his own reclining body. "I'm lying around here doing nothing when there's an actual real proper wizarding war going on out there. I just feel so... so... inadequate."

Dean let out a kind of angry groan. He banged his fist on the bed in frustration then, when it hadn't made him feel any better, turned to his side to prop his head up on his elbow.

"Luna, what are you doing?"

Luna made no immediate reply. In fact, she seemed to have not heard Dean at all. Her brows were knitted in deep concentration. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, she was engrossed in the construction of what appeared to be one half of a foil rugby ball.

"You know, muggles have names for weirdos like you." Dean grinned.

"Hmm." Luna replied distractedly. "So do witches and wizards - they use them all the time at school."

Dean said nothing. Her matter-of-fact tone always left him a little taken aback. Instead he let the silence draw out, to be broken only occasionally by the sound of foil crunching. He watched her work with interest. Wasn't it funny how her mouth hung open slightly, almost lopsided, when she was concentrating.

"It's a hat." she smiled, as she held it up to proudly admire her own handiwork. "You see, the foil reflects away mind-reading invasive radiation." She put it on and then added: "From Gollywinks, obviously."

Dean didn't even attempt to question her further. Apparently he didn't need to.

"Not many people know about them because they're very good at invisibility charms."

"Right."

"Yes, and they keep the information they retrieve in a large data bank. So, you see - " she glanced suspiciously around the room before shuffling closer to Dean. She continued in a hushed whisper, as if she was letting him in on an important secret. " - with everything happening at the moment with You-Know-Who, it stands to reason that he is going to be absolutely desperate to get them on his side."

"Desperate."

"So, especially with everything we know about Harry and the others, we both need to be extra careful that he can't get hold of the Gollywinks' files on us. That's why..." she said, searching for something. "... I made two."

Dean couldn't help smirking - Luna's hat wobbled dangerously on her head as she rummaged.

She appeared to have found what she was looking for. Grinning broadly, Luna held up an identical, if not slightly bigger, version of her own foil hat. She held it out for him to take, and he noticed that, on what he assumed was the front, was a minuscule West Ham shield. He didn't know whether to laugh or to be genuinely touched.

She looked expectantly up at him.

"Luna, you can't expect me to actually wear this. I'll look like an idiot."

"Why not? Would you rather Harry got discovered?"

"Of course not. But that's not the point - "

"It's exactly the point. It's all about security. Daddy always says that - "

"But Luna, these 'gollywogs' - "

" - Gollywinks," she corrected.

"Whatever, they don't actually exist do they?"

Luna opened her mouth as if to retort, then seemed to think better of it. Instead she simply smiled as she took both hers and Dean's 'Gollywink-resistors' and stowed them back under her bed.

Dean sat up. "Don't get me wrong, it was a really... sweet idea. I just wouldn't feel comfortable."

"Oh I wouldn't worry, your mind's already so closed I doubt they'll have any chance of tapping in."

"My mind is not closed." Dean replied defensively. "Yours is just too open."

She turned around and fixed him with a curious wide-eyed stare. "That," she concluded simply. "Is just nonsense."

"Fine." fumed Dean. "Fine. You know what? I'll wear your stupid bloody foil golly radiation thingy hat. If it makes you happy. It's not like I have anything to prove anyway."

Luna burst into sudden and inexplicable giggles. It was a tinkly, silvery kind of laugh that gave Dean a tightening sensation in his chest. He watched the curve of her body as she bent down the retrieve the hats, and the feeling continued.

"You're very funny when you're angry."

It wasn't a question. "Here you go." She pushed it down onto his head in a clumsy childlike manner. She began to tuck and rearrange his wiry black hair around his face. Dean closed his eyes as his skin burned from the contact. Eventually she kneeled back onto the carpet as if to properly take in his new look. "Hmm, you're right. You do look like a bit of an idiot."

They both laughed, Luna more so than Dean. He was still looking curiously at Luna's face and wondering what the hell had come over him. True, he had always found her weirdly attractive. She was certainly different from all the other girls. Luna flitted around life like a fairy - in some ethereal otherworld, completely separate from everyone else. She was natural, earthy. When she reached up to take the hat back off of his head her long blonde hair gently brushed his cheek. She smelt like wild flowers. Without particularly thinking about what he was doing, he placed his hands lightly around her waist. Luna just continued to smile benignly as she examined Dean's hat.

For some reason this angered him. How could she not feel what he was feeling? How could she be so calm when his mind was on fire with confusion and curious arousal. Until of course she looked down at him, again with a maddeningly nonchalant air, and said:

"Are you going to kiss me?"

Dean let go of her waist in shock.

She continued in the same emotionless tone. "I've liked you for a while now, but I thought you wouldn't want to be seen with me. You know, because I don't have many friends."

Dean willed himself to say something, anything, in reply. Yet her stark words somehow silenced him, and prevented him from relating the thousand different thoughts whizzing around his head at that moment. Sure, Seamus was bound to disapprove of what he was about to do.

But did he really care?

Now painfully self-concious and aware of the fact Luna was watching, he took her waist again. He swallowed hard against his nerves and drew her inwards. Their bodies were now completely pressed against one another. On the other hand, Luna didn't move at all. She just stood, head cocked, and looked at him - wide-eyed and expectant. Dean wondered whether he should let go. Then, without warning, a playful glint flickered in her large blue eyes. Her right hand slid slowly down his chest. Further and further downwards until...
"Is that right?" she asked, like a small child seeking approval.
"Err yep." Dean half breathed, half squeaked.

And then he kissed her.

At first it was chaste, nervous. He had barely closed his eyes before he drew away again. Then Luna, seeming to draw confidence from the kiss, touched him again. His senses exploded. Open mouthed and eager, he let his hands slide down from her back and to her thighs. Her body was pressed in between his legs and he never ever wanted to stop kissing her. The atmosphere had changed. She let out a little yielding sigh and hands, his hands and her hands, were sliding and caressing everywhere. Their lips wandered, down the neck and onto the chest. Neither of them were sure what they were doing. Fingers fumbled frantically and inexpertly at trouser zips and shirt buttons. He could smell her scent and taste her skin. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Everything was a blur.