DISCLAIMER: Everything in this chapter owned by J.K. Rowling. I forgot to mention that Brigid's first name is my own personal invention. I mean, not the name, but that B. Dunstan is a Ravenclaw named Brigid. I made that up. Also, FanFiction dot net is not mine in any way.
Luna smiled happily as she sat by herself at the Ravenclaw table. Of course, it was impossible to sit by yourself at a House table, but there was certainly no one sitting right next to her or across from her. She felt a little like an island. Maybe one with a lake and palm trees. She spotted Seamus Finnigan looking at her, and a squirrel appeared. Wait, no, there weren't squirrels on tropical islands, were there? How about a parrot, then? Yes, a tropical island with a lake and palm trees and coconuts and a parrot. Seamus looked away, and the parrot fell in the lake and drowned. She sighed and took another bite of her dinner. The sky above the island filled with clouds, and it begin to rain.
As Luna was leaving the Great Hall after dinner she spotted Seamus being accosted and flirted with by one of the other Gryffindor girls. She thought her name was Victoria Frobisher. Luna frowned and snorted. What an awful name! She thought, and vowed to hate her for all eternity. Perhaps she would feed her to a Umgubular Slashkilter. Or a Troll. She shook her head and made her way up the stairs as fast as possible, without glancing back. Well, ok, once. Victoria had grabbed Seamus' arm and was clinging to him, trying to drag him away somewhere. A hurricane whipped through the island, uprooting trees and sending parrots and squirrels (yes, squirrels!) running for cover or flying into the air. But she ignored this and continued to make her way up the stairs.
Upon reaching the door to Ravenclaw Tower, she banged with the knocker ferociously. The bird opened its beak and asked "What is love?" Luna glared at it. Did it sense what you were thinking, or something? "An illusion," she stated. The bird sighed. "If you say so," it said, and the door swung open. Inside, the common room was very peaceful. Not many student were in it – quite a few had already gone to bed. The ones that remained were studying the textbooks of the classes they had the next day. Luna was seized by the urge to disrupt the silence. She tried to hold it back, but couldn't after a minute.
"AMERICA IS IN A RECESSION!" she screamed, leaping into the middle of the common room. Startled Ravenclaws stared at her like they'd never seen anything like her. They probably hadn't. She continued screaming. "A RECESSION, I SAY! PROFFESSOR FLITWICK LOVES TO TANGO! I'M GOING TO BED!"
And she dashed up the stairs to her four-poster. She wrenched the daek blue curtains around her and lay down on her pillow. It was an unusual pillow, because she was was an unusual girl. It was not, like its counterparts on the other beds, covered in a bronze pillowcase. Instead, it was red, with a golden winged lion flapping across it she had made it herself. It was a display of her devotion to Seamus, but her dormmates regarded it as nothing more or less than a sign of her weirdness and abnormality. Usually, she liked to lie face down on it and think about Seamus. Now she lay staring at her ceiling, thinking about all the interesting things she could do to Victoria Frobisher. Eventually, though, she ran out of interesting things, and she crept out of her dormitory and out of the common room and down the stairs. She made her way to the other stairs, the ones leading to the sixth floor, and after that, the stairs leading to the seventh. She walked over to the statue slowly. It was almost midnight. Could Seamus be here already? But no, she was alone. She sighed with relief and pulled her hood up. The blue cloth hid her face from view.
After a moment of standing there, she spotted movement, and a painting swung away from the wall to reveal a small dark hole. Seamus Finnigan clambered out of it. The moon over her island shown brightly and happily. A nightengale was singing, because Luna wasn't sure what kind of nocturnal birds lived on tropical islands. Seamus spotted her and walked over.
"You're the one who sent me a message?" he asked, and at the sound of his voice, she melted into a puddle of happy melted Luna. She managed a nod. "Youa Ravenclaw, then?" he asked, and again she nodded. "Not Vicky Frobisher in disguise?" she shook her head. He sighed. "This seems a mite unfair, me doing all the talking. Who are you? How about we start with that?"
Luna took a deep breath. She flung her arms around him and kissed him, and her island vanished, because she didn't need it anymore, and she was really happy, as happy as she'd been before her mother had died. Then he pushed her away, and she had another small hurricane destroy her island. He raised his eyebrows. "Why don't we start with the name? I'm starting to wonder if maybe you are Vicky."
Luna reached up hesitantly and gripped a fold of fabric in her hood. She twitched it off, and his eyes went wide. "Luna?" he asked. She smiled at him. He frowned. "You read the list?" he asked. She nodded. "You read the list. God." He looked really embarrassed.
"I thought it was sweet, if it makes you feel any better," she told him, speaking for the first time.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.
She frowned. "What for?"
"I called you crazy. And unpopular. And air-headed."
"You also called me beautiful and light-hearted and smart."
"Can I ask you something, Luna?" he asked, as if afraid of the answer. Or of the question.
"I know you exist. I do want a boyfriend, as long as it's you. I don't think you're a terrible person. I think you're gorgeous too. I don't care about your experience with girls. I'm not dating Harry Potter. I think we have a lot in common. Do any of those answer your questions?" she asked.
"Well, no, but they're certainly good to hear," he replied.
"What's your question then?" she asked.
"Will you go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?" he asked.
A slow smile spread across Luna's face. She put a few girls dancing the can-can and some mango trees on her island for good measure. "Yes."
He pulled her back into his arms and pressed his lips to hers. It was even better than the first kiss, because he was actually involved in it. He ran his tongue along her bottom lip, and she let him deepen the kiss. She loved the taste of his mouth. Like peppermint and something else, something undescribable. He broke the kiss first, tugging gently on her bottom lip with his teeth. She opened her eyes then. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, pulling her into a warm hug. She relaxed against him, feeling as if nothng could ever go wrong.
"Luna," he said quietly.
"mmhmm," she replied, still dreamily happy. The moon above her island did loop-the loops.
"Goodnight," he whispered. He kissed her briefly before turning and walking back towards his common room.
"Seamus!" she called as softly as possible. She bit her lip.
"Yeah?" he asked, just as quietly.
"I…I…I love you," she told him, because she knew it was true.
He smiled at her. She loved that smile. "I love you too, Luna," he told her, before whispering the password to the portrait of a fat woman in a pink dress and vanishing inside. She stared at the portrait for a minute, still dazedly happy. She fixed the hurricane damage on her island. She probably would have stood there all night, if it weren't for the portrait.
"He's gone to bed, dear, so should you."
Luna jumped about nine feet in the air. "Oh," she stammered. "Right. I'll be going then." She walked back down the stairs, and back up the spiral staircase to the door. She knocked quietly.
"What is love?" it asked.
"You already asked me that one," she told it.
"It's too late at night for me to think of another," it answered grumpily.
"Hmm…" Said Luna. "I don't know what love is. But I think I'm going to find out."
"That's the only real answer, of course," said the bird, and if it could have smiled, it would. The door swung open, and Luna went back up the stairs to her dormitory. She lay down on her back, stared at the ceiling,and went to sleep without thinking of Seamus once. She didn't need to.
FIN.
Love, me. Hope you enjoyed it! If you did, I'm glad. If you didn't, perhaps you should read another fanfiction until you find one you do enjoy. That's the great thing about options, innit?