Title: Mobius Strip

Disclaimer: Not only do I not own Harry Potter, but I also do not own Ginny Weasley or Luna Lovegood, because nobody can own them.

Pairings: Ginny/Luna, although it's not explicit. In fact, if you want, you can read this as a friendship. I'm not going to know. I don't know your name, much less your thoughts. Also past Harry/Ginny and maybe even a past Neville/Luna if you read it that way.

Rating: T, I suppose? I think it might be even milder than T, but I'm going to play it safe here.

Warnings: 2nd POV, Harry in a less flattering light, and me being experimental with form. No car chases and explosions here, I'm afraid.

Summary: She is exactly what her name suggests: the moon, the love, and the only good left in the world.

Word Count: 1,184

Author's Note: This is my entry for Round 4 of the Quidditch Fanfiction Competition.

Prompts: GinnyLuna, bed, below, "Lesson learnt."

Okay, now for the part where I blather on about my feelings. (You can ignore this if you are a judge or someone only here for the story.) I am a huge Drarry fan. You all know that, if you know me at all. Yet at the same time, if a Drarry story involves Ginny bashing, I drop it, no matter how good the writing is. I will categorically refuse to read it. We should not, in the process of humanising our favourite characters, dehumanise another character.

Yet it's really hard, you know, to go into a character's point of view and not bash someone they dislike, because that is the urge one feels, to really show their dislike of someone else through ugly words. That is the challenge I face every time I deal with the breakup of Harry and Ginny or Draco and Astoria.

I am hopeful, however, that today I have managed to keep any "bashing" at a minimum, especially since my main focus is Luna through Ginny's eyes.

This will be a quickie, anyway. :)

She is long hair casually tied back and a flowing flower-print skirt. She is the door opening in the middle of the night when your carefully controlled knocks are the one sign that you feel crazy. She is soft whispers and the offer of herbal tea.

She is the moon, the love, and the only good left in the world.

Start over. Nobody understands you right now. You are being incoherent, they'll say. Typical bird, they'll say. Only a bloke can tell a proper story, they'll think.

Harry Potter is a hero.

Harry Potter saved the world.

Harry Potter will be remembered forever.

Yet if you look in between the lines, if you look at the shadows beneath his feet, if you look for the weight on his arm, will you find yourself?

If not, it is time to pack your bags and leave.

You don't want to be a chapter in his book.

You want to be beyond books.

"Ginny," pleads your mother as she runs into you at the market, forcing you to balance more than just your groceries. "Don't do this. Whatever he's done, forgive him. He's been part of our family forever. It would have been so nice to have him over for Christmas."

You look at her with her wet eyes and dry cheeks, her hand-stitched clothes and store-bought shoes, and you know that she means well, that she's always meant well, but sometimes you just don't want to puzzle out her meaning anymore.

"You can adopt him if you want, Mum. I'm not stopping you."

Luna Lovegood's apartment is how you used to imagine magic would be like, before they made you read used textbooks and gave you a specific list of instructions on how to use your wand, your cauldron, your broom.

There are plants growing out of cups, wine bottles, and shoes, and they all catch the sunlight because Luna's windows are huge and uncurtained, nothing but the clearest glass, yet there are also repellent charms on the glass because she knew you would want them.

There are books sprawled over shelves but also counters, chairs, and windowsills, and Luna caresses them every morning, because sometimes books get lonely if you let dust settle on them.

There are bottle caps, fortune cookie slips, pressed flowers, jars of dirt, dried up leaves, monogrammed handkerchiefs, seashells, and even a belt buckle that used to belong to Neville Longbottom, although you only know this because you've seen it in school.

There is no dining table. In fact, there is no dining room. When you want to eat, you gather up whatever tastes good, mix it together, and eat it out of a bowl from a spot on the floor, for Luna's floors are always clean.

"What's most important is what's below your feet," she once said. "After all, no one ever washes the ceiling." Then she frowned and looked up above her. "Maybe I should. Perhaps the nargles lay eggs upside-down."

You spend many a night thinking about that bit of wisdom. Perhaps what is below is the most important. Without a ground on which to walk, you would just fall, right?

Then one day, you have fallen asleep on the clean floor, and it is only when her bare feet are next to your face that you wake up and realise that she doesn't wear shoes.

Why is that? Is it because she wants to feel the precious floor better, or is it because all the bullies in school never permitted her to wear her shoes for longer than a couple of days?

You touch her feet, and you find that they are callused. This makes them beautiful.

"Come to bed, Ginny. It is not good to be too vulnerable."

Luna does not read the Daily Prophet, so it has no place in her home. She only reads the Quibbler, upside-down and sometimes sideways, and you find that you understand. The longer you live with her, the less "weird" you find her. Finding her is a journey in itself, one to which you devote yourself because there is no end in sight.

You are tired of endings. Luna is a Mobius strip, and that is what you need: the feeling of traveling the same path, over and over, yet finding something new about it each time.

So you sneak peeks at her Quibbler every morning as you eat your toast, you say "Honey, I'm home" every evening when you open the door, and you rest your head on her arm every night when you sleep, and each time, each occurrence, she is different, but not different in cruel fits of betrayal and defiance—just different like a moon is different every time you look at it: sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther.

Luna's lips wax and wane like waves before and after tide, and you let them wash over you like the lullaby your mum never had the time to sing.

You see him in the distance when you and Luna are browsing books at a shop. He sits at a table, autographing his autobiography, his hand tense and his face slack.

You used to think his jet-black hair, sprouting out of his scalp like overgrown weeds, was chaotic, but now that you've had the experience of tripping over the scattered detritus of your love for him and falling into Luna's solid arms, you almost laugh at his hair, his hair that is as common as his name. There is probably an entire continent filled with people wearing his hair, you think. Except, you know, it would be their hair, not his, and it would not make any of those people half as famous.

He looks up in between books, in between fans, and his eyes leap after yours, trying to catch your eyes like vines or that man-eating plant he once told you about.

But you have already turned away, because what is the point of soliloquising on a pair of eyes that you no longer find beautiful?

"Let's go, Luna. I don't see anything worth reading today."

She looks at you, but although there is understanding, there is no pity. "You are right—the books are not ready today. They are shy and still unsure of themselves; they blush whenever we get too close. Maybe tomorrow they will be more confident, and then we can enjoy what they have to say to us."

You glance over at the table again, at the copies of his autobiography being waved enthusiastically by dozens of people you will never know.

"I don't think I would enjoy all of them. There are some books whose lessons I have already learnt."

"Even that is valuable, though," she reflects as you both walk out of the shop. "To hold the last page under your fingertips and exclaim, 'Lesson learnt!' Is that not the best part of reading for many people?"

You look at her and smile, linking your arm with hers. "If it's a good book, there's no such thing as a last page."