Okay, everybody! Thank you for your patience, here's the next chapter. It takes place in the same summer as last chapter, the summer after Luna's fourth year (Harry's fifth year). Enjoy!
Disclaimer: If either one of us was pretending to be J.K. Rowling, we wouldn't both be trying to do it at the same time, on the same story. That would just be stupid.
As Time Goes By
Chapter 3
By Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane
"Don't mind Bilbo, he's just being playful."
Viktor looked down at the hairy boar uncertainly; he wasn't used to large, tusked beasts rubbing their prickly-haired bodies against his leg. "If you say so, Lunah."
Luna tilted her head, examining Viktor's face closely, and looked back at her sketch. "You're very kind to sit for me, Viktor. It must not be very exciting to sit and do nothing." She stared at her sketch in an abstract manner, correcting a mistake in the eyebrows with the flick of her delicate finger.
"It is nothing," Viktor gave a barely audible sigh of relief to see the grunting boar lose interest in him and waddle listlessly out of the room. "I vould do anything for you." A slight ache leaked into his voice that betrayed a second meaning in his words.
Luna smiled pleasantly. "You are a very good friend," she mused, outlining his chin on the paper. "When I was in the DA, there were some nice people who talked to me, but I don't expect they would have gone fishing for Gulping Plimpies with me. We must do that again soon."
"It vas my pleasure, dear Lunah. I enjoy everything vith you."
She nodded and smiled in acknowledgment, but returned to her attention to her drawing. The eyes were giving her trouble, and she wanted to get the shape just right. Her artistic reverie was disturbed by Viktor's voice again.
"Lunah?"
"Yes?" A higher curve on the left eye would definitely be an improvement.
"I vish that perhaps, vee may go flying on the brooms together. It vould be fun, no? I may teach you tricks..." He looked at her mildly interested face for approval.
Her eyebrows arched in pleasant surprise. "Did you know, Viktor, that flying is a renowned cure for Wrackspurts?"
"You have told me so," Viktor said unabashedly. "That is, you have always said, vat keeps the Vrackspurds away from me."
"I suppose it would be fun, too," she contemplated, running her thumb along the edge of her artist's drawing book. "When should we go?"
"Today? After you are finished vith the sketch?" Viktor asked, a hint of eagerness in his request.
"Certainly, bidding that it doesn't rain, I should think." She smiled, her delighted eyes wandering away in a daydream. Viktor followed her gaze towards the sky, judged the blueness with the certainty of a career Quidditch player, and decided that rain was nowhere on the horizon.
Luna continued, "And perhaps we will spot a swarm of Wittpackle Flies. They prefer to congregate at treetop level."
"Vee vill go far above the treetops, dearest Lunah," Viktor murmured softly. "Vee vill find as many Vittpackle Flies as you vish." He stepped forward off the bed and grasped her free hand. Just as he raised it to his lips to impart a gentlemanly kiss, Bilbo the boar chose that exact moment to dash into the room, knocking Viktor's legs out from under him. Viktor landed on his rear with a sharp, painful thump. As he sat on the floor in humiliation, Luna looked at him with gentle, inquisitive concern.
"Are you alright? I'm dreadfully sorry about Bilbo's behavior; he's most stubborn about his house-training, and we haven't made any headway for months." Setting down the sketch, she helped Viktor up by the arm.
In an attempt to regain his lost dignity, Viktor straightened and completed his former endeavor to accost the fair maiden's hand.
"Never trouble yourself, Lunah. I am vell, most particularly because I am vith you." He repossessed his seat on the bed. "Vill you be done very soon?"
"Oh, not really, but I can finish it later if I like. I don't usually finish these things, you know; I rather like imagining how it could have been, rather than being limited by how it is."
So saying, she laid down her charcoal pencil and paper, and looked around the room for her shoes, which did not appear to be anywhere.
"Oh, those bothersome Nargles!" she lamented placidly, "They've gotten my shoes again! I'll just get some boots from the hall closet."
. . . x . . . . X . . . x . . .
Not too much later, Luna and Viktor were outside in the summer morning, rising into the air and circling slowly around the house while Luna practiced keeping her balance.
"I'm not very good with brooms, I'm afraid," she confessed as she wobbled. "I've always preferred to ride a Thestral, if I must fly at all."
"A Thestral?" Viktor was incredulous.
"Oh, yes, a Thestral. We have them at Hogwarts, you know."
Polite but flabbergasted, Viktor inquired, "How in the vorld did you get to ride a Thestral? And, vasn't it terrible to ride an animal that…how vould you say…you can not see?"
"Oh, I can see Thestrals," Luna replied flippantly. "So it's not nearly as scary as riding a broom, for me."
Quiet, Viktor stared ahead for a moment, then rapidly commenced an incredible somersault in the air. Once he was upright again, he asked, as though nothing had happened, "Vot is the reason that you see the Thestrals?"
"My mum died when I was nine, in a rather bad potions mix-up. She substituted asphodel for the wings of ash-winged moths, and the entire lab combusted. I happened to have been locked in the desk-drawer and I saw it happen."
Aghast, Viktor marveled at the complacency with which she relayed the information. He did not bother to ask why she had been locked in the desk-drawer, because it was fairly obvious that it had saved his beloved from the fire. Instead, he latched on the aspect that Luna (at a tender age) had watched her own mother die as a result of a blundering chemical mishap.
"My dear Lunah," he breathed, "That is horrible."
"Yes, I am still rather sad when I think about it at times," she replied, staring off in the distance. "We never had pot roast again," she added enigmatically. For an instant, her eyes appeared a bit glassy, but it might just have been a reflection of the sunshine.
His heart bursting with affection for the girl, Viktor made a few graceful, impressive swoops in the air. It would not be fitting for him to embrace her, as much as he wanted to do so. She did not understand, he knew, that he was thoroughly in love with her, but he treasured the feeling in spite of himself.
"I vish to tell you something that I think is good, Lunah," he told her when they had alighted on the ground and put their brooms away. They were sitting on a half-rotten log in Luna's untidy backyard, which served as a grand breeding-ground for all sorts of magical flora, fauna, and fungi.
"What?" Her eyes, luminous and bright after their little escapade in the air, met his pleasantly.
He tore his eyes away from hers, and focused on his carefully-polished dragon-hide boots. "I am going to stay in England for a long vhile. They have made me an Ambassador to Bulgaria, my home country."
"Oh, wonderful!... well, I can't say I'm very surprised." She looked over at him, pushing aside the scraggly blond locks that the wind had blown in her face. "Quidditch could never be your official career, you see," she asserted, smiling. "You're too intelligent."
Viktor's mouth formed a small, quizzical smile at the strange compliment. "I thank you, but perhaps you think too greatly of my ability. I vould not have accepted the offer, I must say, except for one thing."
Steeling himself visibly, he raised his chin and looked at her, prepared to make his declaration of love—but Luna's attention was suddenly focused on some invisible animal in the brush. Her ears were perked and her top lip was curled under. Viktor bit his tongue, realizing that perhaps it was too early to make his case known. She was barely fifteen, after all...
Suddenly, Luna's head turned back to him, and she asked pointedly, "What one thing?"
He shook his head. "I... vant to join the Order of the Phoenix," he stated, eluding his truest reason.
Luna nodded in approval. "That is very noble and very brave."
Sadly smiling, Viktor felt his heart warm at the fact that she thought him noble and brave, but he still felt the agony of wanting to tell her, I'm doing it for you, because I want to protect you, because I love you.
"I have to make my dad some dinner, or he'll forget to eat entirely," Luna said, standing, "Would you care to eat with us, too?"
Knowing that Luna's dinners were entirely passable, if not delicious, Viktor nodded. "Of course I vould."
As he followed her into the house, he told himself, "I vould follow you to the end of the vorld."
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OK, third chapter done. As you can see, Viktor is still having pronunciation problems with his English, but is getting better as he spends more time with Luna. ^_^
In the following chapters, things will pick up speed as the DA is reformed, the War begins, and Viktor & Luna's friendship is tested for the first time.
Please review.... constructive criticisms, feedback, and requests are welcomed!
~Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane