Written for The Golden Snitch - Prompt of the Day: (object) gloves
557 words long excluding author's note and title.
I own nothing
Thief
Thief.
The word stared back at her in spiky lettering, engraved into the back of both hands, marring previously unblemished skin. She'd never taken that much pride in her appearance- she had more important things to think about, after all. She had always been a very peculiar girl, and still was. She knew what people thought of her- they whispered it to their friends, whether or not she could hear them.
Loony Lovegood. Crazy. Delusional. Oddity. Friendless.
And now they could all add another- thief.
Despite never much caring for her appearance, her hands were different. These were the hands that painted, that wrote, that drew, that worked. These hands created.
Thief.
Thieving hands weren't regarded as creators. They were looked upon with suspicion, hatred. She was no thief.
But now her hands were.
She couldn't bear a lifetime of allowing people to see those words- those words that painted an idea in everyone's heads that wasn't true. She wasn't one who liked taking things from other people. Now she might as well be, as far as anyone else was concerned.
Luna hadn't taken anything from the Carrows- yet, as punishment for 'inciting rebellion' among the students, she had been blamed for something of theirs going missing, she really didn't know what.
She had the hands of a thief.
Luna forced herself to stand up, tearing her eyes away from the word, that horrible word. She went through her trunk, pulling out a pair of gloves that had not been stolen by the other Ravenclaws. She quickly pulled them on, covering up every trace of the words. Her hands could be any kind of hands under gloves, and no one would know.
She didn't tell Neville, or Ginny, about her hands. She did not want them to know her hands were a thief's hands instead of a creator's hands.
Then Ginny tells them that the sword of Gryffindor is in Headmaster Snape's office. She proposes they take it from him. Neville agreed- of course he agreed.
She doesn't tell them if she will help or not. She simply hums: "There are hands that create and those that steal."
The pair give her identical looks of confusion, but they do not ask what she means. They rarely question her words anymore, which was quite unfortunate. They would never learn what her words ever meant if they did not ask.
A plan is made. She doesn't pay much attention, too busy picking at the gloves hiding her hands. She hasn't ever worn gloves that often before, unless she needed to for Herbology. Wearing them all day could be quite uncomfortable.
She keeps the gloves on the entire way there. They stop in front of the door of Snape's new office. She takes a breath, then removes the gloves.
This is a job for a thief, not a creator.
Thief stares at her. Neville and Ginny didn't notice her remove the gloves, nor did they notice the words permanently written upon her hands. They fail the steal the sword, caught by the Headmaster.
It is only as they await judgement that the pair notice the word. They don't ask, but she knows that they've seen all the same. She can tell by their eyes. Eyes tell you so much about a person.
So do hands. Her hands only said thief.
Thank you for reading.