Chapter 4 – Divers Alarums

I woke up early the next morning, as is usual for me. I looked straight down at the floor from where I hung suspended, stretched, and sighed.

Regrettably in my life, hanging from ceilings to sleep is also fairly common.

I cancel the camouflage spell, the levitation spell, and the drool catching spell, and drop to the floor.

Yes, a drool catching spell.

I learnt it from a vampire who, only after we were close friends, revealed some of the drawbacks of classic stereotypical activities like hanging from the ceiling like a bat: namely soggy patches on the Persian rug below in your gloomy atmospheric boudoir.

What a faux pas.

Anyway, I grab some fresh cloths from my trunk, run through a litany of cleaning spells, and secure a number of hazardous items about my person. I anticipate a somewhat more serious incursion today, and it's always good to be prepared.

I strike some overdone Bond, James Bond poses in front of the hall mirror. Or maybe I'm closer to Steve McQueen in Bullit. Either way you look at it, I am the sexy.

I go in search of an apron. It wouldn't do to get any grease spatters on my cloths while I produce a magnificent breakfast. And yes, I'm so in touch with the hotness within that wearing an apron doesn't make me look goofy at all. I hope.

As I suspected, Luna, like most humans, is unable to resist the smell of bacon being cooked in the morning, and stumbles into the kitchen wearing a dressing gown as I plate out a hearty breakfast for each of us.

"G'mornin," she mumbles, her eyes fixing on the mug of coffee I've made for her.

"Mornin' hot stuff," I say, saluting her with a spatula. "I suspected that you might follow stereotype for a newspaper editor, and prepared some brutally strong coffee for you."

"Mmm… fresh coffee," she groans, shambling towards the table with her arms out in front of her like a zombie.

Huh, only eight o'clock in the morning, and I'm already smiling.

She sees me smile out of the corner of her eye, and relaxes, slumping into the chair at the table, and looking over her breakfast.

"This looks heavenly. Is that really a fresh blueberry muffin?"

"Absolutely. And none of your foul, pre-made mix rubbish, neither," I say. "Luckily, there are others left which might be quite good at lunch time as well."

Luna would have answered me, but she has good manners, and her mouth is currently full.

After several minutes of appreciative noises, she pauses, and asks, "Do you do this for all the people you bodyguard for, Harry?"

"No, only the really special ones," I reply with another smile.

"So I'm part of a select group then." She ponders for a moment. "Do you do breakfast in bed?"

"I don't know, are you offering to be breakfast?"

She stares at me for a couple seconds while her mind catches up, and then bursts into hysterical laughter, clutching at her sides.

It takes her a few minutes to get over it, wipe her eyes, blow her nose, and look back up at me.

I'm not expecting the effect, and it feels a bit like a troll's club hitting my guts. Her hair is still toussled from sleep, her eyes are shining with laughter, and her cheeks are still a bit flushed. Wrapped up in her 'strange magical creatures' print dressing gown, I find her absolutely delectable. Even worse than that, deep down inside a traitorous part of me whispers that twenty years from now, we could be having just the same morning together.

From the flush that gets even higher in her cheeks, it isn't just me.

She looks down at her plate again, and we both munch away at breakfast for a bit.

Luna clears her throat and meets my eyes again.

"I have to say, even in my hopeful estimates, I hadn't considered that things would work out quite this well. At least, based on data from my perspective."

"You're such a Ravenclaw, you know?" I say with a grin. "But you're right. Data collection shall proceed, of course, but early analysis shows very promising results."

"Don't be a dork, Harry," she says with a light smile, waving a rasher of bacon about in the air on the tines of her fork, "leave data collection to me and stick with the Gryffindor stuff you're good at."

I wince theatrically.

"I never was any good at poetry. Anyway, the Gryffindor way seems to be rather full of Victorian melodrama to me, full of vows, lockets with bits of hair, and shit like that."

"That's a bit surprising from the Gryffindor posterboy. Or maybe not, since rather a lot of that is an act."

"Yup," I say. "You know that I almost got sorted into Slytherin?"

"No, really?"

So as we finish breakfast and wash up, I tell her the tale of my sorting. There aren't that many people who know it.

As I put the last plate on the draining board, I turn to her.

"Maybe you should get changed now, Lu."

"No lounging about then? You run a tight ship here, Captain Harry."

"Not quite. It's more a 'by the pricking of my thumbs, something evil, this way comes' sort of moment in fact."

"Right then," she says, and runs up the stairs.

In this case, it was more the faint twanging of a wide range perimeter ward, but still. I throw a drying charm, sort the dishes away, and put a sticking charm on the cupboard doors. No sense in having readymade shrapnel lying about.

By this point, showing a flair for the practical, Luna is back downstairs, dressed and cleaned up.

I derail any thoughts I might have about how nicely she's cleaned up, and focus on information from the wards.

"What's up, Harry," she asks, her wand out and in her hand.

"But soft," I say, "what light through yonder window breaks?"

A faint shriek is heard outside.

"It is the east, and it's a death eater who's just triggered a flame ward."

"You know," she says with a grimace, "the original was much more romantic. What do you think is going to happen?"

"Well, I'd expect that since the first two chaps didn't turn up at all, and they haven't heard anything, they sent a few more to sneak around and see what's going on. Still quite expendable, but much more cautious now."

"What are we going to do?"

"I was just considering that, actually. See, this lot will never make it through the wards that are set up, so they'll creep around for a few hours and eventually perish in various interesting ways. But this is tedious for us, and they might figure out more of the wards than we should let them do."

"So we sally forth and do some smiting?"

"It would be only me sallying forth actually," I say, and hold up an hand to forestall her comments. "Just to clarify, this isn't me letting my testosterone run free and wild. This is because you will still be safer inside your house, and you being safe is the whole point of this. Second, it's also because my intent would be to ensure their lives were nasty, brutish, and above all, short, and for as long as possible we both want to keep you from getting involved in that sort of thing."

My mind spins a bit. This whole thing is a bit like a chess game. A battle is also a good analogy.

Even though we don't have elephants with us, things are somewhat parallel.

I turn to Luna.

"I should be away for about five minutes, I should think. While I'm away, you can check on the languishing prisoners, and start some more tea."

She nods.

"Also, so I can explain what the plan is, you can also ponder Hannibal at the battle of Cannae. And no, this has nothing at all to do with elephants."

She looks perplexed, which is a novel expression on her face.

Then I'm invisible, and out the door.

I find the intruders gathered around their rather charred friend, which is convenient, but poor tactical planning on their part.

They weren't expecting me and my sword to be there with them, so they don't last long at all, and in under two minutes I'm back inside the house, my sword already cleaned with a spell.

Young fools. Just for a second or two, it really hurts. That was probably their first big assignment from their secretive superior. Maybe it was an older relative of one of them. Maybe they'd got quite good marks, and done quite well in secret training camps they'd been away to after school. Maybe they weren't really bad at all, just some misguided kids. And then they met up with me. Unlike Draco, they were never going to have a chance at being better because I'd just killed them all in cold blood.

Ah well. I seal that one away deep inside. One more piece of emotional baggage for me to reclaim from the luggage carousel someday. Maybe if I'm really lucky, the airline of life will send it to Newark instead and I'll never have to see it again.

So five minutes after I left, I'm lounging on the couch in her living room, discussing elephants with Luna, with no sign of what I'd been doing. Such was the beauty of the persona I'd built for myself.

"So, explain the elephants, Harry," she said, pouring out some tea for me. Again, she was looking quite fetching in some dungarees and a high neck embroidered Chinese vest.

"Well, long, long ago, in a country not so far away from here, a rather famous general from northern Africa, Hannibal by name, decided that in order to crush the roman empire he had to march a bunch of elephants across the alps."

I take a sip of tea. Very nice.

"He was wrong of course, since cold and unhappy elephants plus mountain trails equal avalanches galore, but he did the trick with normal soldier types anyway. The battle in question was that of Cannae, and the result was a lot of dead Romans. See, he got them to attack him, drew more and more of their forces in to attacking the center of his line, which was pushed backward by the pressure of the attack. Sadly for the Romans, this put the ends of his line all the way around the outside of all of them, and much unpleasantness ensued, at least from their perspective."

"I see, and in this situation, as it relates to us, I am an elephant," Luna asks, obviously poking fun at me.

"No, perhaps we shall be the heroic center of the line that holds firm, drawing more and more forces against us which are then mopped up by the others attacking their sides and back."

"Right, somehow I've never quite pictured myself like that but I'll take your word for it, Harry," she says.

"Perhaps if I demonstrate," I ask. At her nod, I gesture proudly to the tray with tea and biscuits on it.

"In that case, the breakfast teatime theatre company presents a reconstruction of the battle of Cannae, staring the assembled biscuit corps, and Marty the blueberry muffin as an elephant."

Much fun was had in the process. Feeding Luna the Roman troops by hand was a highpoint for me, but she was far more interesting than biscuits.

About half an hour later on, Luna was wiping the crumbs off her mouth, and asking the question I knew she would eventually work her way around to.

"So why did this occur to you this morning, Harry?"

"Well, because there was a watcher on the hill to see what happened to the expendable types below. I could have chased him down, but I chose to let him report on what happened. What he saw will let him know it was me or someone like me here with you, which will cause him to panic, and call in all the reinforcements they can lay their hands on."

"But, Harry, doesn't that mean that everything you were saying about keeping me safe was bullshit?"

"What?" I ask, somewhat confused.

"Obviously our safety isn't your primary concern, because otherwise you wouldn't have made the choice you did. So, either there's a Dark Nargle infestation in your clothing trunk, or you aren't telling me everything."

"Well," I try.

"Neither of those things are good, Harry Potter," she says, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. "Make your explanation a good one, because we were getting along quite well."

I pause, somewhat taken aback by the sudden change in conversation.

To prevaricate or not, that is the question.

I sigh.

"You're right, of course," I say. "The whole point of this is to eliminate all the crooked swine in the ministry. Now, they're trying to kill you so you can't expose them. Of course, you weren't actually going to publish an expose, but they don't know that, and it's just as effective this way anyway because they still think they have to stop you."

I stop and make eye contact with a still-frowning Luna.

"The more they panic about the situation, the more mistakes they'll make, and the more likely it is that we'll be able to nab them for something. So that's why I'm here making people panic, because there's no way the ministry would have assigned someone important like me to protect you unless you really did have vital information."

I hold up a biscuit to forestall her commentary.

"So, that's story one, ok?" I say, "But, aside from that goal, there's a personal one for me, which is Luna protection. Now, you remember that little problem I had back at Hogwarts?"

"Which one in particular, Harry," she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Hmmm, ouch. Ok, I'm obviously not off the hook yet.

"I meant the 'saving people' complex actually," I inform her. "Anyway, point being that if you think that I'd let a friend of mine, let alone a brand spanking new other of significance get themselves hurt, you're totally wrong. Even if bad things happen, I do have a couple unplottable safehouses that you'll end up in, and I promise you that. So don't worry about that."

Luna sighs, and looks away.

"Silly rabbit, I know you wouldn't let anything happen to me," she says. "Although it's good to know that I figure in your calculations as a significant other."

She turns back and meets my eyes again.

"But you're missing my point. It's just as important to me that you keep yourself safe as well. So please, Harry, remember that you're not a Snorkak amongst the corn stalks before you decide to take the world on this time."

She wags a finger at me.

"So no Griffie heroics that involve self-sacrifice to save anyone, cause massive destruction, or well, other bad things. There's a lot of things that I haven't had a chance to talk to you about yet, and I don't intend to cross the veil quite yet to do it."

"And what sort of things are those," I ask.

"Well, Grindletubes, and conspiracy theories, and nargles, and back issues of the Quibbler, and why you didn't kiss me under the mistletoe in my fifth year. All sorts of things."

"I won't say I'm sorry that I didn't explain the whole situation straight away," I tell her. "But I should have factored your desire to understand things more into the equation. As for those things to talk about, we can cover one of them right now," I say.

"Don't tell me you already know about Grindletubes? We thought there was more ministry involvement than they admitted to us."

"I'm afraid not, it's actually about the mistletoe thing, sort of," I say, wincing a bit, mentally.

"Oh, well that's much less interesting, but it may be a more appropriate topic for talking about over tea anyway," she says.

"Less important? I'll have you know I spent nights agonizing over why I hadn't just gone ahead and done what I wanted to," I say with a grin. "I suppose part of it was the shock, because I'd been thinking about something totally different."

"For a Griffie, you seem to have a talent for over-thinking things, Harry," she says with a laugh. "It would have been a lot more fun all around if you'd gone ahead and snogged me senseless, don't you think? Image the rumours."

We both laugh, and fall into a slightly uncomfortable silence.

"Of course, I wanted you to," she says after a while. "I'd thought about you all that summer, you know, after your fifth year." She looks down at the table, and pushes some biscuit crumbs around with her finger.

"I felt so close to you for some reason, and all through that summer I kept feeling waves of sadness that felt like they were coming from you, somehow," she continued, looking down at her lap. "That, and you kept showing up in all my dreams, watching me, or running through fields chasing baby snorkaks. That sort of thing."

I'm suddenly struck with a half remembered dream where I'd been scrambling through a field of wildflowers with Luna, chasing something.

"That's funny, because I kept thinking about what you said about your mother, and you kept on showing up in my dreams as well," I say. "Although I'm not sure what a Snorkak looks like, I do remember chasing something with you in a field."

"Hmmm, so that's why you were so useless at blocking it's way then," Luna ponders.

"So you really think we shared dreams?" I ask.

"Well, give it a shot. Fill me in on one that you remember well and I'll see if I remember it," she says, sounding eager.

I think for a bit.

"Well, there was one dream where we were out in a shopping mall, and you kept hugging me, and running off to look at the displays."

She stops and thinks for a minutes.

"Yes, I think I do remember that. It was one of the first times that I hugged you in a dream. Come to think of it, we spent a lot of time..."

She trails off.

"Well, I do remember quite a few other dreams, but I didn't want to start off with them," I say, feeling defensive for some reason.

Luna looks up and beams at me.

"We must have been sharing dreams, Harry, that's the only possible explanation," she says, and continues. "You also have to know, that there's only one possible cause for all this, and it's terribly exciting," she says.

"Really? Do you think someone was implanting memories in our minds, or something like that?" I ask.

"Why, Harry, that sounds almost like a consipiracy theory, which would normally be intriguing of course. In this case, it's a tiny bit disturbing that your first guess is evil mind controlling forces, but there you are. I actually meant that we might have developed some sort of magical synchronicity with each other."

"Never heard of it," I say cheerfully. "It sounds good though."

"Well, absolutely. If I had to guess, I'd say that, well, the danger we shared at the Department of M, and I certainly felt close enough to you after to share about my mother. Maybe you could think of us being surrounded by… well, giant glue balls that cover our whole body. When we get close to each other, then our glue balls would sort of stick together, and when we moved apart again they'd form a thin filament between us."

"Mmm, so magical synchronicity is a glue ball we shared? It's how the French say… Ah, l'amour: c'est un grande balle de colle."

"It seems like you had a goofball, not a glue ball," she says with a grin. "But no, it seems that our magic was what stuck, and formed a conduit between the two of us. At least it certainly could be that. I suspect we'll have to do quite a bit of research on this to be sure though."

"So we were able to communicate with each other somehow that way, while we were asleep?" I ask. "It sounds plausible to me as well. I mean, magic has certainly done some weirder things than that. Plus, come to think of it, I've managed to do some other things through accidental magic, so it doesn't seem to be so out of the question that if I'd really felt a deep need to connect with someone, that it would have done that as well."

"Gosh. Well, once this is all over and done with, I have some owls to send out. That's quite an interesting theory."

I get up and walk over to her, and motion her to stand up as well.

She does, and I surprise her by wrapping my arms around her. I look down into her eyes.

"Still, whatever the technical reason, you gave me the best dreams I've ever had. Thanks, Lu."

I give her a hug, just like the many we shared in our dreams, and I feel exactly the same sense of comfort and peace.

Alarm bells start to ring in my head.

Danger, Harry Potter! Danger!

I begin to suspect that this is feeling suspiciously close to emotional involvement on my part.

Luna interrupts my thoughts though, pulling away a bit and looking up at me.

"Harry," she says, her eyes wider even than usual. Then she looks down, blushing a bit, but after a minute a tiny smirk forms on her face.

"You remember the dream where we started in the middle of the great hall, and then eventually flew up and up, through the roof, into the sky, and eventually into the sun?" she asks.

Did I?

Comprehension dawns for me, as I think back and remember that particular dream and waking up, gasping and covered in sweat when we hit the sun together. Well, mostly sweat.

I consider, somewhat salaciously, that it was only the first time I found myself in that situation, but of course all the other times there was someone else waking up with me.

I was, however, unprepared for her next comment.

She meets my eyes again and says, "You give good dream, Harry Potter."

Of course, after a statement like that, there's no alternative at all but to snog her senseless as I probably should have done all those years ago.

So I do.

All goes very well indeed, and might have continued and gotten even better if someone behind us hadn't chosen that moment to say, "Oh dear, sorry for interrupting!"

END CHAPTER 4

Well, sorry about the long wait. Work has unfortunately got in the way of writing quite a bit. Damn it. The next chapter should be out sooner, though, as I'm almost finished it as it is.

Cheers everyone, and thanks for continuing to read.