A/N: Written for Cheeky Slytherin Lass for the Holiday Fic Exchange.
Pairing: Cho/Luna.
Prompts: "I fell in love the way you fall asleep-slowly and then all at once"-John Green, broken glass, spilled ink, method to my madness, secret, holding hands
"I fell in love the way you fall asleep-slowly, and then all at once."
-John Green
It's only when everyone else has gone home for Christmas break that Cho lets Luna hold hands as they wander through the hallways. Lets Luna kiss her cheek in the open, when the winter wind whips their hair about them and flutters Cho's cloak and the hem of Luna's skirt. When Professor Flitwick wanders around the corner, his hands full of evergreen wreaths, Cho springs apart from her, her cheeks too flushed to be from the cold. It's a secret, but it's not meant to be, and Luna wonders why.
It's not like anyone in Ravenclaw Tower isn't privy to the wide-open secret that Cho likes girls-and only girls. It spread like wildfire last year when she was caught kissing Marietta in the broom closet at Easter hols. The only people who have a problem with it are the people who don't matter, even Cho says so, with her head tilted in that haughty way she has, and her eyes flashing.
But maybe she's lying to herself. Luna's no stranger to lying to one's self. She knows all too well from the restless nights full of crumpled parchment and spilled ink, from picking through the broken glass littering the floor from another shattered mirror, wishing the pieces would fall into dust.
"Let's go somewhere new," Luna suggests on impulse on Christmas Eve morning. Cho looks at her in surprise, her braid slipping from her fingers half-finished.
"What do you mean?" Cho asks, and Luna grins, seizing her hand before she can think to move.
"I'll show you," Luna whispers, and tugs the girl out of the common room. It is so early, no one else is awake, and the hallways are empty. Not even the people in the paintings stir as Luna and Cho slip past them, hushed and reverent.
"Here," Luna says, as they come to a slightly flushed stop on the seventh floor. She paces back and forth, thinking fervently of what she wants, what they both want. What they need.
The door knob that sprouts from the wall is the most ornate and old-fashioned one that Luna has ever seen, and she and Cho turn it together, Cho's eyes widening as the Room of Requirement springs into full view in front of her.
It is an indoor garden, a fantastical bower, anything and everything all at once, and there is only Luna and Cho to drink it all in. Luna's fingers convulsively squeeze around Cho's, her eyes desperately seeking her girlfriend's in the vague fluttering of hope that stirs, somewhere deep inside her breath.
"It's beautiful," Cho says, but there is a hint of restraint in her tone, a guarded look in her eyes, and Luna feels her heart begin to splinter, although she desperately keeps the airy look on her face, showing Cho this way and that.
The Room has thought of everything, even a secluded cupid's bench in the very back corner, surrounded by lavender, and Luna draws ever closer to it, her bare feet shuffling through the luxuriant carpet of grass, toes slipping across the velvety lost petals of roses and tulips.
"Look, Luna..." Cho fumbles to a stop, letting Luna's hand drop to her side. "It's not that this isn't lovely. It is! I just...I don't know. I need to go."
And suddenly Cho is gone, shouldering past Luna in a blur of robes and honeysuckle-scented black hair, and Luna feels herself thud down on her knees. A stab of pain prickles the right one and she looks down, dazedly registering the thorn piercing her skin. It figures, really, she knows it does, and she huddles in a corner of the indoor garden, of the Come and Go Room as the flower petals eddy around her on their own private dances.
It's Cho who finds her, three hours later. A remarkably pale and barely-composed Cho, who's barefoot herself and clad in only her school skirt and uniform blouse, her tie only loosely hanging around her neck.
"Luna?" Cho asks gently. Her girlfriend is sat against the wall, wreathed in clinging ivy and the deadliest-looking roses Cho has ever seen. She doesn't even stir when Cho says her name, her eyes half-closed. "Luna?" Cho says again, her voice raw, and this time, Luna opens her eyes. They look dead in a way Cho has never seen before, and her heart cracks open that tiny bit more.
"Yes?" Luna asks, and her voice is just as flattened as the rest of her. It's like she's a fragile butterfly, pinned to a card, and she can't even move her wings, for fear of shredding them completely.
Cho kneels before her, heedless of the thorns that reach toward her, and takes Luna's hands in her own.
"Luna, I'm so sorry," Cho whispers. "I've treated you so badly, I just-I don't know. I was ashamed. Not of you, of-of myself," she stops, biting her lip as Luna's eyes widen in shock.
"I've never had a girlfriend before," Cho admits. "I mean-I've kissed girls, you know that, people know I like girls, but I've never had a girlfriend, and it was like...I don't know. Like it wasn't what I was supposed to do. My family doesn't understand, y'know, they think it's-it's a phase, I'll grow out of it, but it's not. And it's just been strangling me for the past month, and my mum sent me a letter this morning, and she wants me to meet some bloke she met on her last trip to Diagon Alley, and it just...I'm sorry, Luna, I'm sorry, it's not you, I love you, I should have told you, you must think I'm the worst girlfriend ever."
"You're not," Luna murmurs, and this time, when Cho looks up and hesitantly meets her eyes, Luna is smiling. "I understand, Cho. My father thought it was a phase, too, but I think he's realised it's not. I just wish you would have told me sooner."
"I should have," Cho says, shoulders slumped in regret. "I should have earlier, I meant to, but then you showed me this, and-and then I saw the look on your face when I left, and I felt like the biggest git alive."
"Not the biggest one," Luna says seriously. "I think that honour may have to go to You Know Who."
Before she can help herself, Cho's giggling, clutching at her girlfriend's shoulders like she's drowning, and they're both rocked together, as the flowers rustle around them, and the sun lighting up the room seems to glow that bit brighter.
When school starts again, Cho greets her friends with Luna by her side, their fingers so tightly laced together, nothing can drive them apart.