in the mourning, through the shades
.
.
.
He looks out into the street. The sun is shining and there's no blood anywhere, people are smiling, and he can't help but think that it looks more horrible than anything else.
.
It's a year after the war, and there are places Harry should be.
At the hospital, maybe. At Mungo's, there's a woman with silver-gold-blonde hair and icy blue eyes, who still makes him jump and blush a little bit if he's not paying attention. She's been in labor for fifteen hours already, and it's two in the afternoon. Bill would be there too, and he'll be nervous, so he'll probably be eating steak. Bill always eats when he's nervous. He supposes that Mrs. Weasley would be there too, because it's the first grandchild and he thinks that's important.
He wouldn't know. He's never had anybody important to him be born before, except for Teddy. And you could say – maybe that he'd been busy at the time.
Or a bar. He thinks that's where a lot of the war heroes are today. Lavender, with all those scars raking her body. Dennis, with no family left. George, without his twin. Drowning themselves in drink and firewhiskey and strangers and trying to forget.
There are about a million parades and celebrations, fireworks and shooting stars and everything that he doesn't remember from when he was a year old.
One especially going on in the center of London. It even made the muggle news. A bunch of people partying and having fun and smiling and celebrating. And he knows, somewhere, that they're celebrating him, celebrating the end of a war, celebrating goodness. But part of him thinks of dead bodies and sour smiles and gaunt skeletons and he doesn't know – he doesn't know if he can celebrate that and still be okay.
He should probably go home. Home to the standard apartment in London that he bought because he couldn't share with Ron and Hermione anymore and being at No. 12 just felt wrong, a little like he was living in a mausoleum. But back there with Hermione and Ron, where he could just sit in silence and try not to think, all three of them in complete understanding. But he thinks they might be on a date and then Ginny would be there. Ginny, who he loves, but Ginny – Ginny doesn't get it. And he could blame himself for that, but he's already doing that for hundreds of deaths and injuries and insanity, so he'd rather blame that one – just that one – one someone else.
So instead, Harry James Potter is sitting in a lonely muggle coffee shop – he thinks he might have been here before, maybe once – and making a pyramid out of creamers and sugar packets.
It's mostly empty.
There's a muggle girl scribbling on a pad of paper, with three different books open in front of her and the barista behind the counter – who had sullenly handed Harry his black coffee about an hour ago – and an old man quietly napping in one of the chairs.
Then a girl with a wedding dress walks in, and Harry is barely even surprised when she tosses the veil over her shoulder and he's looking into dreamy, blue-grey eyes and tangles of blonde hair and Luna Lovegood.
.
"I'll buy you a cup of coffee." He says. She grins, like, oh of course, Harry Potter, this is the place he'd be, I was expecting this and says she'd prefer tea.
"I just had some gurdyroot infusion and it never reacts well with coffee. I think it's the color."
He nods, like it makes sense.
She sits at his table, dusting off the chair first. He doesn't ask her to explain.
"You know you're wearing a wedding dress, right, Luna?"
"Oh – yes. I was supposed to marry Rolf today, you know." And he shakes his head, a quick no. She blinks. "Right. Yes. I forgot. We didn't invite anyone. Just me and Rolf. We were going to have a quick thing here with some priest that Rolf's mother knows, and then we were going to fly off to Norway. There's been a spotting of some Lethifolds there, and it's not really my thing, but apparently these are living in packs!"
Luna's looking at him like oh isn't that the most interesting thing you've ever heard and it makes him smile for the first time in what feels like ages. Mostly because he doesn't know if packs of Lethifolds are unusual or normal, or even what Lethifolds are.
He missed Luna. He missed Hogwarts. He missed going to classes with Ron and sneaking through passage ways and sitting in the common room with Hermione pretending she was looking over his homework, when she was really just doing it for them.
He missed before the war, which was a stupid thing to miss.
So Harry looks at Luna, because she's still in her wedding dress. That's the odd part, because it's just a wedding dress. White, with a puffy skirt and a strapless, uh, top part and – she's not even wearing her butterbeer cork necklace.
"Where's your, uh, necklace?"
"Which one?"
"The butterbeer cork one."
And then Luna smiles, so bright it's kind of sad. "It was my mothers, did you know that?"
"Um. Uh. No?" He says it like a question and regrets it once it's out of his mouth.
"It's all right. I never told you. Yeah. Rolf's mother – she's very, um, traditional. And I though, you know, just for this one thing – I could. This was her wedding dress, and everything. And Rolf… He's planned the most marvelous honeymoon, and it's just – weddings barely last 15 minutes, or just the vow part. So it's not – yeah."
They sit quietly after that, until Harry's finished his coffee and Luna's finished her tea, and then he orders one more of each, because he's not quite ready to leave yet.
.
"Did you know – there are these creatures that live on the coast of Denmark, they look like wasps, except they're about the length of your arm? If they sting you, even once, you turn red – or really more maroon – and die within 22 hours. Legend says they're attracted by unhappy couples and fighting friends."
Luna takes a long, slurping sip of her tea. Her dress makes this sort of wrinkling noise as she moves.
"W-well. Guess I won't be going to Denmark, then."
He doesn't mean it as anything, not really. He just doesn't want to die. Especially not by a giant, unhappy wasp. They sort of sound like dementors, honestly.
.
"You know, Fluer's baby has probably been born by now."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Uh. Bill's nervous, you see, because, uh, because of the whole werewolf thing."
"I'm sure she'll be fine."
"You think?" I mean – Teddy's fine. So I didn't think he should be nervous but –"
"My father's dead."
Harry chokes on his coffee and just for a second, in the back of his head, he wonders why he's drinking it because he has never actually enjoyed it before and it probably shouldn't start now.
"W-what?"
"Yes. I guess that makes me an orphan now too."
And Harry wants to ask, but something about Luna and her scary way of staring right at him like she was looking at a person and not Harry Potter made him want to shut up.
So he didn't ask questions. She talked anyway though, but this time it was about a recent expedition to some jungle with an unpronounceable name and how she met Rolf.
She ends the story with: he drowned, and he thinks she's talking about the chief of the tribe who had expressed interest in buying her hair and using it as a wig.
"My father, I mean." She clarifies and he chokes on coffee again and thinks about buying her one of those books on the art of conversation.
.
And it turns out that Luna had been away, and it had happened three weeks ago when he was fishing for plimpies in the stream near the house.
"He just slipped and hit his head, and of course, plimpies are easily distracted by wands, so ours were both back at the house."
Harry remembers her house, remembers shattered glass and frenzied watery-blue eyes. He thinks about asking how the Quibbler is going. If she's running it now. If she wants help. Maybe he'd become an editor. Or copy things. It might be better than auror training, and he can sort of see himself sitting in an octagonal room with butterbeer bottles and messy papers on the floor and floating lanterns in all different colors. That makes him think about her room and those pictures and how none of those people are dead yet, which is a good thing.
"I'm sorry." He says, and she gives him a look. But he really is, this time. "We've all seen too many people die."
She nods, and stirs her tea. It's turned purple and he's not really sure why.
.
"Do you ever cry?" Luna asks him.
"Sometimes." He replies, because lying about it just seems stupid.
"I don't. It's odd. Sometimes underwater though. Underwater, or maybe when it's raining – it's like you're not crying, because there's already so much water on your face."
He nods, and he's about to say something – maybe even something profound, but she starts again.
"Of course when you mix salt water and fresh water it can ruin your vocal chords. Father was working on an article about it – that's what happened to the lead singer in that band, you know – the one the green hair?"
He thinks of Sturgis Pidmore and Sirius Black and the Weird Sisters and he laughs so hard that he cries.
She's crying too, but no one needs to know that.
.
"I miss him."
He doesn't know who she means, but it's not like it matters.
.
It's dark outside now and he doesn't know how long he's been here, but the store is closing.
"You both need to get out." The barista says. It's not a surprise, because he's too skinny and wearing a shirt that might have been Ron's and his jeans had a hole on the left knee and Luna is wearing a wedding dress and he supposes they look like they could be a serial killer duo. The Bridal Bandit, maybe.
Harry narrows his eyes at her, but Luna smiles. "Oh – of course. And you should drink some of the licorice tea. It's good for sore throats."
Then the blonde girl – sunshine, fairy tale, crazy, blonde girl who's not really his, but sometimes he likes to pretend – grabs his hand.
"You should get home." And she kisses him on the cheek, and it feels like a lot of things.
"You should get married." He replies, but he doesn't really mean it (at least not right now.)
.
She'll have a husband the next morning, and he walks along empty streets that look only a little less miserably happy.
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i listened to a lot of sufjan stevens writing this. just go with it. also i ship harryluna so hard it's not even funny. alwaysalwaysalways.
but really, found this on some random usb and cleaned it up a bit. did realize i had luna getting married at like 17-18. but. eh. don't care so much. ALSO IT IS SORT OF ONLY IMPLIED SO GO WITH THAT.
please don't favorite without reviewing.