Samhain Night
Hermione's breathing stills as Luna snuggles closer, the sleeping bag concealing intertwined fingers and legs beneath its green and mocha cover. She can't help but smile, as Luna sighs softly into her ear, her light breath tickling and full of love.
She squeezes Luna's fingers delicately in response; even now, three years into their joining, there is not a day that Hermione doesn't wonder at the strangely winding road that led her to a life of bliss. But she had come to terms with the notion that some things were best accepted as they were, without reservation or self-doubt. One didn't always have to understand why things were, or how they came into being. Sometimes, just sometimes, fairy tales did come true.
She was, for truly the first time in her life, happy – did anything else matter?
She gazes up at the canopy of stars and her mind wanders as it so often does of late; she tries to imagine who might've lain upon this small hilltop and witnessed the same splendour overhead in ages past... a princess and her knight, perhaps, finding escape from courtly intrigues atop the ancient faerie mound, its wild slopes overgrown with dried honeysuckle and hawthorn, perfect for providing sanctum for those hopelessly in love.
But it is Hermione and Luna's sanctuary this night, a tiny realm of magic which the hill's guardians have allowed them to share on this magical night. The little folk are out and about in number, some peering down curiously from the branches overhead at the two entwined souls below, before fluttering off into the darkness to meander through the mortal realm.
Hermione turns her head slightly. Luna's delicate features are bathed in gentle luminescence from her namesake's silvery light. Hermione marvels at how utterly beautiful she is, Luna's pale skin giving her an almost ethereal glow. She is curled up against a gossamer faerie, a warm scarf of sandy blonde hair wrapped loosely around a pair of necks. Hermione smiles once more as several windborne strands tickle her cheek, and she snuggles closer still.
To this day she still wonders at Luna's mystifyingly paradoxical nature; at once childlike and innocent and ancient and wise, she is the square peg to Hermione's round hole, and yet, to Hermione's shock, they had come to fit together perfectly. Luna, conversely, did not seem the least bit surprised at their union – indeed, it was her assertion that their merging of souls had been inevitable, and this was one point Hermione had never deemed necessary to argue.
She places delicate kisses along Luna's lithe, pale neck, moving ever so slowly upwards until she gently brushes Luna's soft lips with her own. Her silver-eyed soulmate smiles dreamily, that quirky smile that always promised endless love and wonder and never disappointed.
She nestles herself in the nook of Luna's neck and sighs contentedly. The crisp night air trickles through the leafless branches, the gentle creaking of tree limbs providing a primal and beautiful music that Hermione might have overlooked not very long ago. But she was no longer that Hermione Granger.
So many things had changed...and for that she would be eternally grateful.
She sighs as the otherworldly energy of the place envelops them. They might have been anywhere this night: enjoying double helpings of pumpkin pie at the Weasley's Hallowe'en feast, distributing homemade toys to Muggle children at the orphanage, helping Hagrid retrieve his runaway pumpkins, or even donning costumes and try out the quaint Muggle concept of trick-or-treating. It was not for lack of choices, to be sure – but there was no place Hermione wished to be more than right where she was.
This was where she belonged.
A soft whimper of contentment escaped her lips, and, as she closes her eyes and gives herself to the magical energies coursing through her, she drifts off into the realm of dreams...