A/N: Written mostly for the fun of it, but also for several Boot Camps: Family with 'minute', Favourite House with 'pretty eyes' and Character Trait! with shy!Luna.
Enjoy!
)O(
All it took was a minute, stolen away from the world in the privacy of a bathroom, to make Ginny absolutely smitten.
She had gone into the bathroom trying not to cry. She had no reason to cry, really. The thing over which her eyes were tearing up was so trivial anyone else would not have given it a second thought, but for Ginny, at that moment, it was the world to her. Her real ambition in life, one she had been striving to achieve since she could walk, was to play Quidditch for England. After this afternoon's match however, the possibility seemed like an impossible one. She had fumbled her passes and failed to score twice, her attempts at goal careering wildly away, yards from their intended target.
All this wouldn't have been so bad, because Gryffindor did manage to win the match, if a certain very important person had not been sitting on the stands, watching the game. Gwenog Jones was a busy woman but she needed to find someone talented who would be able to play in the next match of the Holyhead Harpies against the Dragtown Drones. The fact that the match was in three weeks and that the team had lost its star chaser filled the woman with such an amount of desperation that she was willing to give anything a chance, even going around to Hogwarts to look at their players. Having a child on the team was the lesser of two evils, she reasoned. There was no way she was going to let her team lose to the Drones.
Ginny had thought making it into the Harpies would be as easy as pouring milk, but she had underestimated the power of stage fright. Never in her life had she been shy when it came to flying, but the pressure to play well when so much was at stake had overwhelmed even her.
Misery engulfed her. She was never going to get what she wanted in life, no matter how hard she tried. On top of that, Harry hadn't been talking to her as much since he joined the ministry as an Auror. There he was, probably relaxing and chatting with Ron over a nice cup of tea, while she slaved away studying into the night to pass her NEWTS. It really was unfair.
Ginny slammed her fist down on the bathroom sink before finally succumbing to the torrent of tears. She sobbed uncontrollably and without stopping, pouring all her sorrows out into the open where anyone might come in and see them…
The door to one of the stalls, previously presumed empty, opened with a soft bang as it slammed into the partition separating it from the next one. Ginny couldn't bear to let anyone see her shame, so she let her head fall forwards, hair covering up her face. She waited for the other girl to wash her hands and leave, hating her with a passion for the embarrassment she had made her feel.
"Would you like me to help you with that?" a soft, familiar voice said from behind her.
Ginny turned around, relieved. Luna wouldn't judge her no matter what she did or how she looked.
"Please," she managed to say, still hiccupping.
Luna took her wand out from behind her ear and said, "Scourgify!" pointing it at her friend's face. The tears which had dried were cleaned away along with the freshly wet ones. Ginny, using all her self-control, stopped crying and let her body collapse into a sitting position on the floor. For the thousandth time in her life, she thanked Merlin that she hadn't been born a boy. To do this in a boy's bathroom would be similar to suicide by nasal sensory overload.
"You're upset about the Quidditch match," Luna said. She didn't need to ask questions about matters which were obvious.
"Yes," Ginny calmed down enough to be able to take a breath without bursting back into tears.
"And you're worried that Harry doesn't want you anymore."
To Ginny, this seemed to come out of the blue. Never before had Luna made any indication of what she thought about their relationship, not even a simple 'congrats' when she found out about Ginny and Harry getting back together. Briefly, Ginny wondered what had changed. Maybe Luna was having romantic troubles of her own and wanted to talk about them?
"Yes. Is there something you want to tell me, Luna?"
"You have very pretty eyes, even when they're bloodshot like now. They shine like stars, pointing sailors in the right direction."
"Um, that's not what I meant. Are you having problems too?"
"Yes. I don't think the person I love loves me back."
"Oh, well, I had that problem too, but really," Ginny looked up at Luna, smiling slightly, "I'm sure that they could love you. You're a wonderful girl and I know that anyone with half a brain would fall over their feet to have you. You're lovely."
"I don't think she takes me seriously enough to know what's going on. It's either that or there are too many Wrackspurts in the air for her to be able to think clearly." Luna batted the air half-heartedly.
"She? I can see that might cause a few problems. Why don't you just go up to her and tell her how you feel, then. I know you're the kind of person who doesn't mind having what others think, so why should you lose this chance to get what you want? Worst case scenario, you'll get rejected and that'll be it. Nothing else to do." Ginny looked down at Luna, who had lowered her head in an uncharacteristically shy way and was twirling a strand of white-blond hair around her finger.
"You're right. You're always right," Luna said, just before she raised her head and kissed her friend on the lips. It was a chaste kiss, unobtrusive. One might even call it sisterly.
After a few moments, Luna broke away, looking expectantly at Ginny.
"Well, I can't exactly say that was unexpected," Ginny giggled nervously. Truth be told, she had enjoyed the simpleness of it much more than any of the rough kisses Harry had ever given her.
When she looked at Luna again and saw the girl sitting demurely with her hands in her lap, Ginny was struck by how pure she looked. This experience was a first for both of them, so Luna couldn't possibly know what was going through Ginny's mind at the moment. If she had, it would have been incredibly embarrassing for both of them.
Purity wasn't one of Ginny's traits as much as it wasn't one of Luna's.
Ginny leaned in to the other girl so they were eye-to-eye, their noses touching by the tips.
"Why don't we go somewhere more private," she whispered. Before Luna could respond, she pressed her lips to the girl's and kissed her hesitantly, then more passionately as Luna matched the movement of her lips with Ginny's.
"I think my dorm will be empty; everyone will be celebrating the victory over Slytherin in the common room," she said when the kiss reached its end.
"We can have all night."
)O(
Fin
Reviews will help me improve *hint hint*.