The Importance of a Word
The first time I noticed her was in our second year. We were waiting outside the Transfiguration classroom for the class to start, when Sebastian, the coolest, meanest bully in the class decided to have a laugh on my expense.
It wasn't the first time. Sebastian liked making fun of people. He enjoyed making them feel bad. I was a probably a very good victim. There was so much to poke at. My fascination for anything magic, having grown up in a muggle home without even knowing the existence of witches and wizards. My love for photography. My following Harry Potter around in our first year. It all made for good material for a laugh.
This day he was joking around about the camera. Saying that I must be weird to always carry it around.
"He was even stupid enough to try and photograph a Basilisk" he laughed. "I mean how daft can you get? Ever heard of running, mate?" he said to me, making me wish that particular fact hadn't made it into the rumor-mill. I didn't even have time to react, before he grabbed me and rubbed his knuckles against the top of my head as hard as he could, which was rather hard.
Still, it didn't hurt. Well I guess it must have, in some way, but I didn't feel it. Just as I didn't actually hear what he said after that.
I know it must sound ridiculous, I mean I was there after all, but I mean it. If Ginny hadn't told me what he said later, being mad at me for not standing up for myself more, I would still not know what he actually said. She didn't believe me when I told her that of course. But there was something that Ginny didn't understand. The reason I didn't feel the pain. The reason I didn't hear what he said. The reason was that that day I didn't care. That reason was Luna.
She had turned around already when he called me crazy, maybe because she had been called crazy so many times herself. But it was when he mentioned me trying to photograph the Basilisk that she said it.
"Oh."
It was just that word. If you could even call that a word. And fact is that she hardly looked at me. Her eyes were almost turned to the ceiling, which I since have learned is her custom. But that didn't matter. Somehow I knew I had a friend in her just by that one sound.
Later she told Ginny that she thought it was brave of me to try and take the photo. I remember smiling for most of the day after that.
The second time I noticed her was in our fourth year.
Well that's not really true. I mean we still had transfiguration together, and I did see her around in school. But I didn't really notice her. Not the way I did in our fourth year. To me she was still the girl that thought I was brave, which was nice but not much more. But when I literary ran into her before the DA meeting that time I noticed her.
She was surprised. She hadn't seen me.
"You," she said simply. Then she stepped back and gestured towards the door, beckoning me to go first.
Now Dennis who was with me nearly took her up on her offer. But I remembered what mum had taught us better than he did. I held Dennis back and gestured at the door myself.
"You" I said, echoing her word. She smiled then and her smile was really pretty. I wondered why I never noticed it before.
I watched her that year. Watched her failing attempts to get Ron's attention. He was really thickheaded that year, with two girls fancying him and not noticing either. Yet I never worried about Hermione. Anyone with eyes could see that Ron fancied her back even if he was too much of an idiot to do anything about it. I'm sure Luna saw it too. And that was why I worried more about her than Hermione.
Still she never refrained from trying. When she came to wish him luck in the Great Hall wearing that hilarious lion hat I knew it was for him. Still I laughed my head of that day and so did Dennis. Ron didn't laugh though. Mostly he just seemed uncomfortable. Fool that one. Although in a way I'm quite glad today that he was.
It wasn't until we started our fifth year that Ginny told me what he said to her.
Well in all honesty she wasn't talking about that in particular. She just mentioned it in passing while telling me what they had done at the Ministry, fighting the Death Eaters and all. Still what caught my attention was what Ron had said. He'd called her Loony.
I'd heard others use that name for her. Sometimes even to her face, as if it was just another nickname.
She always pretended that it didn't bother her. She'd look up at the ceiling like she always did, and pretend she didn't care. Yet there would always be something different about her. Something missing. Maybe no one else noticed, but I was sure the name bothered her.
It took me a while for me to forgive Ron for what he said. Not that Ron noticed that. I never said anything of course. It wasn't my thing to say. Besides he didn't remember what he said anyway. Ginny told me he wasn't in his right mind when he said it. But it's when you're not in your right mind that you say what you really think. And what he said must have hurt her feelings. Although I can't help but to admit that I was glad that she didn't fancy him anymore.
It took me almost the rest of the year before I finally hiked up my courage. But I did. Eventually.
It was after someone had called her Loony again. She was pretending it didn't matter, but I knew better. That's when I decided that it was now or never. And so I walked up to her and told her what I that I didn't think she was Loony and that I thought she had been really brave to fight the Death Eaters.
That's when she said it again.
"Oh."
And that's when my courage failed me and I turned and ran. But that didn't matter. I was happy anyway. She smiled before I left.
When the Death Eaters came to Hogwarts that year, she fought them again. I was called, but didn't know. I never checked the coin that day. I stopped when Harry made it clear there wouldn't be any more DA-meetings. I was terribly ashamed when I saw her at Dumbledore's funeral. I wish I'd been there too. But I wasn't. No matter the excuses I made for myself, she was and I wasn't. I didn't dare to speak to her more that year. I just wished she wouldn't remember next year. The end of our fifth year wasn't a happy one.
There were very few of us returning to Hogwarts in our sixth year. Parents were too scared. My parents were muggle though. They didn't know about the danger, and Dennis and I never told them. Luna was there too. Her father apparently said that she was safer there than at home. He was probably right.
Voldemort was finally beaten that year. Everywhere in the world witches and wizards celebrated. Hogwarts was no exception. From all over the country students returned and Professor McGonagall made sure to arrange a formal dance to celebrate the occasion.
I was too young to be at the Yule Ball in our third year, so for me this was the first time I went to a formal wizarding event. I didn't get a date. I was surprised to see that she did.
The boy wasn't very nice to her. He was annoyed with her robes, thinking they were too 'screamish', and he got angry when she didn't want to dance. She left the Great Hall and went outside when he called her Loony. It didn't take long for everyone to forget her.
Well everyone but me that was. So once more I found myself hiking up my courage, and then I went after her.
I found her by the lake, standing in the moonlight. Seemed fitting to find her like that.
"I don't think your robes are screamish," I told her. "I like them. They're unique."
She turned around and looked at me. I can still see it clear in my mind. She didn't look up at the sky or at the trees or anything else. She looked at me. Straight at me. And then she said it again.
"Oh."
I stood watching her. Not knowing what to say or do. It wasn't until I turned to leave that she said something else.
"Thank you."
When I turned back around she was smiling. I'd thought her smile pretty before, but in the moonlight it was beautiful. Of course I didn't dare tell her that. So I said I didn't like dancing. I still don't know why I said that, but it worked, because she kept smiling and from that day on we were a couple. Even if no one else understood why.
It wasn't until after our seventh year that I was allowed to go with her, but that summer was the best one I've ever had. We went to Sweden. She and her father been there before, hiking in the mountains in search for the Crumple-horned Snorkack. They hadn't found it then, so they had decided to go back. I was so happy when Mr Lovegood invited me to come along and photograph it if we found it. When he offered I wanted to say thank you. But that time it was my turn to chock and not be able to speak.
"You," was about as much as I could squeeze out. He seemed to understand though. He petted me on the arm and said that I was welcome.
We didn't find the Snorkack. Not that time. But I still had the best time of my life, and I still got great pictures. Pictures of Luna, with the mountains in the background. Pictures of her by a beautiful lake. Pictures of her in the glow of the midnight sun. I love taking pictures of her. Still after all these years I can't get enough of it.
We married not long after school. Most people thought we were too young, but we knew better. We wanted to travel around the world together, proving to the world that she was right about all those magical creatures they pretended didn't exist. We knew they did, and my photos would prove it.
She was gorgeous at our wedding, wearing the same dressrobes she had the night we started dating. No one understood why she wouldn't buy new ones. I didn't mind though. I understood. And I agreed. I wore the robes I had that night as well. Funny how no one seemed to think it was strange in my case.
That night surpassed everything I've ever dreamed of. When she said it that night, it was in a tone of voice that only I ever get to hear, with a look in her eyes that only I ever get to see.
"Oh"
Hermione asked me once, when we had been married for a few years, traveling around the world trying to prove our theories to be true, why I believed her 'nonsense'. I still can't understand the question. After all, when I was ten I thought dragons and unicorns weren't real. Magic was just something in fairy tales. When I was eleven, I knew otherwise. Now if dragons and unicorns could exist, why couldn't Nargles and Snorkacks? I told Hermione that when she asked me. She didn't answer. I actually think she pondered it for a while. Or maybe she just tried to be nice, but I don't mind. That was kind of her anyway. I wish more people would keep an open mind, though. After all, I almost got that picture of the Fluffyfurred Hornhog, although some still say that it was only a Koala. But then what do they know? Fluffyfurred Hornhogs actually happen to be very similar to Koalas sometimes.
Those years of travel were a lot of fun. But we both wanted more. We both wanted a family, the larger the better. But somehow, Luna didn't seem to get pregnant. Years went by and finally we faced the fact that we wouldn't be parents. That we couldn't have the family we wanted.
We faced it together, head on like we did everything else. But it was still hard to accept, especially for Luna I think. She is an only child, and with her mother dying when she was young leaving only her and her father, she wanted a big family of her own. It didn't make things easier to see Ginny and Harry having children. Although when Ginny got pregnant with number four, we had gotten used to it.
That's when it happened. Only a few weeks after Ginny told us about the baby, we found out that Luna was pregnant as well. At first we didn't believe it. We knew we couldn't have children, after all. But the hospital assured us that she was; that we were finally going to be parents.
Funny that all we could think to say when we found out was that word.
"Oh."
The day Kevin was born I was a nervous wreck. I ran around the house like a maniac when Luna refused to go into the hospital right away. She claimed that it wasn't time yet. How she knew, I will never understand, but to this day she has never been mistaken. She always seems to know when it's time.
When we finally went in I hardly knew what to do. I never felt so helpless in my life. Yet when Kevin was born and they placed him in our arms there was nothing I could do but smile. Luna smiled too. A wonderful, beautiful, tired smile that lit up the room as Kevin opened his eyes and yawned.
She probably wanted to say more. Yet the only word she had the strength to say to welcome him into the world was 'you'. Not that Kevin seemed to mind. He just yawned again, as tired as his mum. I can't remember ever loving anyone like quite like that before that day. Not even her. It was as if something changed when I watched the two of them. I became a father.
We thought we had it all. We never dared dream of more. We never even dared to talk about having more children. But it was if Kevin was the key. Once he was born, it seemed as if there was nothing simpler than getting pregnant. One became two, became three and four. I know people think we should have stopped long ago, but why should we? We always wanted a big family, why shouldn't we enjoy what nature gives us?
It's not that we don't know what people are saying. It's not like we don't know that people are wondering why we chose to have seven children in less than nine years. But we are happy. Our children are happy. So why should we care?
I have to admit, the twins were a surprise. But Kevin is thrilled at finally having a couple of brothers. I guess things got a bit lonely for him with only sisters, although he has always been a good brother, never letting them know that he's tired of dolls and whatever else they choose to play with. I can see that he's happy about his brothers though. And I heard him tell Christopher that boys are more fun than girls. It always puts a smile on my face. I certainly know that I would have thought as much when I was nine.
Luna told me that Ginny had asked her the other day when she picked up Christopher, if we would stop having children now, or if we were trying to have more. I can't say that we're trying, after Kevin we never really have been. It always just happened. Will we take precautions? Probably not. What happens, happens. We will be happy either way, and we're not old yet.
Looking at them now, playing in the garden, I'm grateful for what I have, what we have. They are wild and messy and don't always obey the rules, but they are good kids. They are our kids.
Of course things have changed. We don't travel the way we used to. And we don't get to spend as much time alone anymore. And of course we don't look like we used to, anymore. We're both older. Luna changed the most, though. Her hips are wider and her stomach bares the traces of the children we had. She even has lines around her eyes. It doesn't make her any less beautiful. Every line, every mark, every change is a sign of our life together. And she still light up a room when she smiles. And when we are alone, it is still only I that get to hear that tone of voice when she says it.
"Oh."
Who knew there could be that much power in such a small little word?
Thanks to Cantabile for the wonderful betaing.