Disclaimer: All legal rights to the Harry Potter books and characters of course belong to J. K. Rowling; rights to the movies belong to Warner Bros. I claim only the story idea as my own intellectual property, for which I seek no compensation.
Rating: T (PG-13-equivalent) for some mild language, innuendo, discussion of adult relationships, and consumption of adult beverages and substances.
A/N: My goal for this year was to write some sort of fic related to the anniversary of Harry and Luna's Slug Club date, as we are now approaching 25 years since what is arguably the most important event in the H/L ship. As it turns out, I am a good seven months ahead of schedule in coming up with an idea, and although it is strange to have written a Yule-themed story in May, it just shows that inspiration can strike at any time. I'm also very pleased that this story gave me the opportunity to write characters that I have never or only briefly included in a fic before: although Daphne will be a familiar face from her two previous appearances, and Fleur and Slughorn have at most had cameo appearances, it gave me genuine joy to write Trelawney and I will absolutely include her in a fic again when I get the chance.
The Slug Club Reunion
Friday night, December 20, 2002
"...And finally, I would like to thank the Delacour family for generously granting us the use of this mansion tonight, and I appreciate all of our guests from both France and Britain coming together for this fine Yule on the Isle of Sark," Horace Slughorn concluded, as the entire room burst into applause for what had admittedly been one of his less longwinded speeches. "Now is the time to mingle and doubtlessly to make many valuable acquaintances - and by all means enjoy the delicious food and maybe a dance with someone special." The crowd dispersed into smaller groups as the rather pudgy wizard picked up his cane and stepped away from the podium. A black-haired, bespectacled, and much younger wizard with an instantly recognizable scar was the first person to walk up and shake Slughorn's hand.
"Harry Potter," smiled Slughorn, "it is always the deepest honor to have you on the guestlist. I find that the parties do help things seem... close to normal again. I'll admit I wasn't sure whether you would come; I've been told you're rather reclusive of late, and of course one never does know the hours an Auror will be working... I hope it doesn't bother you for me to bring it up?" Harry smiled and nodded, although Slughorn sensed that the smile was a mask of sorts; with a shudder, he briefly remembered another young man who had been good at using a smile to hide what was actually going on inside his darkened mind.
"I don't mind you bringing it up, Horace; if anything, you're the only person who saw the whole story from beginning to end," Harry said, as Slughorn lowered his voice to a hushed whisper: "Merlin, Harry, it's so strange how it already feels like history, and yet we're only a few months from the five-year anniversary. You know, my health and other obligations won't really allow me to teach full-time anymore, but there are still students in my classes at Hogwarts who were present that day and haven't graduated yet. Oh, by the way, you will find this interesting: I have noticed an increasing number of Slytherins who are interested in being Aurors."
Harry's eyebrows raised as he took a sip of his drink. "That's, um, that's really something. I'll be pleased to meet them in a couple more years." His face twitched. "With all due respect, Horace, I didn't come here tonight to relive the battle or think about work."
"No, no, of course not, none of us did - that's why I left it out of my speech." Slughorn nodded in sympathy, pulled out his pocketwatch from his vest, and tapped it open with his wand. "Go on, then, there's still much of the night left ahead - you can even take a stroll outside on the grounds if you wish. There's no bloody Muggle light pollution on this island, so the view of the stars is wonderful. By the way... I couldn't help but notice you brought the same young lady you did six years ago."
Slughorn pointed to a certain corner of the luxurious ballroom they were in, where Harry saw Luna Lovegood in a sleek form-fitting silver dress that was a good deal more enticing in design than the one she had worn six years ago. He supposed that was because this time, he had asked her as an actual date and not just "as friends", which meant she wanted to give him a different impression of who exactly she was. Her normally unruly waist-length blonde hair was very neatly brushed, and she had eschewed her usual plum earrings and cork necklace. Luna was in the midst of a lengthy conversation with her colleague Rolf Scamander, a rugged redheaded man who Harry noticed had a Bowtruckle wandering through his hair, along with two other magizoologists. She quickly paused whatever she was talking about when she saw Harry looking in her direction, and excitedly waved to him with a beaming smile. Harry waved back, feeling a bit of the tension from talking to Slughorn lessen, before he was suddenly put on guard again by a wand pressing between his shoulderblades.
"Alright, see, I told you I could sneak up on him; you owe me five Galleons," came a thankfully familiar voice, and Harry turned around to see that Slughorn had stepped aside and a tall redheaded man with shoulder-length hair was standing there, while the redheaded woman beside him irritatedly reached into the pocket of her burgundy blazer and pulled out the requested gold coins.
"Bill Weasley," Harry said, finally feeling himself smirk, "how is it you can have scars from being attacked by the world's fiercest werewolf and still be the most annoyingly handsome man in the room?"
"Hey, don't be jealous of me, you've done alright landing a blonde girl of your own - thank you, Ginny," Bill replied, taking the money from her. "It's just nice to be out of the house. This is the first party we've been to since Victoire was born, and holy shit, does Slughorn know how to cater. I mean, Harry, you've got to see the spread he's laid out - there's literally puddings as big as my head here. Ginny, you've got to try it."
"I'm an athlete, Bill," Ginny quipped back, "I have a figure I need to watch - I can't just fill my face with pudding all night. Besides, do you really want to stuff yourself before Mum's big Christmas dinner?"
"How is Fleur enjoying the party?" Harry cut in. "We're on her family's estate, after all - I imagine she's a guest of some distinction here?"
"Oh, she loves it," said Bill, "and it was so nice of Hermione to babysit. You know she finds parties like this stuffy, plus she never did like how Slughorn couldn't keep Ron's name straight." Bill's expression suddenly grew more concerned. "Although, now that I think about it... you and Hermione are both kind of difficult to drag to these shindigs. You both tend to keep to yourselves."
Ginny spoke back up: "Harry, you know you're practically our brother. Mum worries a lot about you. She just wants to make sure you're feeling alright, and eating well, and that you have someone to talk to... Harry?" He had briefly looked back over his shoulder to where Luna was; based on the stern expression on her face and how she was gesturing with her arms, the conversation now seemed to have turned into a debate. Harry surmised that someone in the group must have said something unsavory about The Quibbler. He glanced back over to Ginny, who had a sad expression.
"We're your family, Harry - please don't ignore us," she said. "I know it's not easy, but you have support if you look for it." Ginny sighed and stepped forward. "If not with us, then look for it with Luna. She's my best friend, and I can honestly say that it brightens up her day every time you take her somewhere. She's so happy to be here tonight. But... don't forget that she has her own things she needs in her life, things she wants from you." Ginny tilted her head as Harry blushed: "Go on then, you know what I'm talking about... just try it and it might help you get better. Dumbledore always did say that love was the greatest weapon against darkness, right?"
"Look, we all know Ron's not here tonight," Bill added, "but in his place, take it from his sister and oldest brother: Let yourself fall in love tonight. You'll kick yourself later if you don't, mate. Go give yourself and her a Merry Christmas and Happy Yule. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to that pudding, and maybe grab one of those mince pies while I'm at it, too." Bill and Ginny walked off in opposite directions, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts.
What was nice about the dates with Luna over the past few months, he supposed, was how light and fun and casual they all were. Dating usually felt like navigating a minefield full of secret codes written in a language he was only semi-fluent in, and his first guess was that Luna's unpredictability would make things even likelier to fall apart. Still, he had nothing to lose - but to his delight, Harry found that Luna never pushed him to talk about things he didn't want to talk about (unlike a certain other Ravenclaw he had dated), or even seemed all that conscious that he was the most famous wizard in Britain. He just felt like a normal guy who happened to be named Harry Potter (and also just so happened to practice magic) when he was around her, and he couldn't help but feel that this was exactly what his life could have been like with no dead parents, no Voldemort, and the ability to grow up no more famous than anybody else. And indeed, her gentle and whimsical nature was something he now found deeply endearing, and he even felt somewhat ashamed for not having given her a closer look when they were in school together. How that date to the Slug Club "as friends" hadn't been the launchpad for something more, Harry had no idea - but then the invitation came from Horace Slughorn for a six-year reunion. It was the exact same calendar date, right down to the day of the week, and even though Harry normally declined parties nowadays, the opportunity to give Luna the date she had deserved was too unparalleled a second chance to pass up.
From Luna's perspective, however, there was something still missing from all of these dates - as enjoyable as it was to spend her time with someone as honest and selfless as Harry Potter. He would gladly hug her or kiss her on the cheek at the end of a date, but as far as offering up any more physical affection than that, Harry still remained quite aloof. Luna tried not to let it bother her, and told herself that he just needed more time to warm up to her, but she still found herself repeating a similar pattern after every date. She would close the door to her apartment after walking home unkissed and suddenly realize it was difficult to see because her eyes had gradually filled with tears. If anyone asked, he called her his "girlfriend" and she called him her "boyfriend" - but did those words have any corresponding actions beyond arranging to meet somewhere in public together and occasionally going off on a more remote excursion? Fine, it was understandable that he wouldn't kiss her in the middle of Hogsmeade, but what was wrong with doing it on a picnic in the fields near The Burrow? Or while hiking in the Grampian Mountains? Surely that was enough isolation away from anyone who might know them that Harry would feel comfortable pulling her aside for a lip-lock? By this point, Luna was tossing and turning with desire at night, longing for even the most basic relief but knowing that her long-term goal was to have Harry Potter in the most intimate way possible. That could surely wait - one step at a time - but her patience for a kiss was running thin.
Luna angrily poured herself a cup of eggnog, adding in an extra shot of rum. Rolf had been as polite as he could be in addressing their colleagues' objections, but it was still frustrating and humiliating to have had her theory about the existence of the Patagonian Squizzle rejected so soundly. At least the rest of the night still had the potential to be better. She and Harry had agreed that they each had different people they would want to seek out at the party, so there was no need for them to be side by side all night long. Independence, after all, was as important as togetherness. Still, she had gone to all the trouble of putting on the sexiest dress she owned (per Ginny's appraisal); it would be a shame not to spend some time later in the night getting close to Harry and showing him what he'd been missing so far. If ever there were a time and place to convince him to finally snog her... this was surely it.
"Oh my gosh... Luna? Luna Lovegood!" She turned around and saw a familiar face from her days in Dumbledore's Army: a cheerful blonde woman wearing a lime green dress. "Oh hello, Hannah - I didn't realize you'd also been invited," Luna replied in her distinctive Irish accent with a grin. Hannah Abbott reminded her of a female version of Neville Longbottom, to whom Hannah was currently engaged: they were both excitable and somewhat clumsy and awkward, but also exceptionally polite and thoughtful.
"I've been looking all over for you when I heard you were here," said Hannah. "Oh, you have to come upstairs to the sitting room and join the Blonde Club at once; we'd love to see you there. Come on, surely you have time for a bit of girl chat?" Luna looked back off in the direction that Harry had been standing when she'd seen him talking to Slughorn, but he was no longer there. Knowing Harry, she suspected he had maybe stepped outside for some fresh air; she did have to admit that there were perhaps more people gathered at this mansion than he had expected there to be. Next thing Luna knew, she was nodding politely, and then Hannah was leading her up a grand spiral staircase, chattering all the way before they finally walked into a room where a circle of white couches had been gathered together. Luna and Hannah both took a seat, and Luna realized that both of the other people in this room were faces she recognized as well.
Sitting immediately to Luna's right in the circle was a dear friend whose cottage she had once stayed at and who was largely responsible for the arranging of this party. Fleur Delacour was wearing an elegant white dress and had her hair trimmed into a pixie cut, while directly across from Luna sat another blonde figure, clad in a dark blue blazer with a cool chessmaster's expression on her face and a cigarette tucked between her index and middle finger: none other than Daphne Greengrass. Luna wasn't that surprised to see that she and Fleur had hit it off, as she often thought of Daphne as the most French English person she knew.
"Luna, dear, I have not seen you for so long, how have you been?" asked Fleur gently. "I understand my brother-in-law Harry brought you here tonight; how long have you been dating?"
"Only a few months," Luna replied. "I'm doing very nicely; in fact, I'm just about done studying to be a magizoologist."
"Oh, that's wonderful," Hannah chimed in. "I'm studying to be a Healer, but there's so much to learn and it takes such a long time... still, it felt like the right thing to do after the war, you know?" She glanced over at Daphne: "What is it that you do again, Daphne? You never really talk about it."
"That's because I'm an Unspeakable, Hannah," Daphne retorted after inhaling from her cigarette. "I literally can't tell you what I do; it's in the name of the bloody job."
"Surely you could tell us and then just obliviate us, though?" Hannah asked cheerily. "Come on, please, it's secret and I want to hear about it."
"No, I'm not even authorized to do that," said Daphne sharply. "Besides, I'm in the department's Eldritch Horrors unit, so it's more likely you'd just go catatonic with madness instead."
"Wait... there's an Eldritch Horrors unit in the Department of Mysteries?" Luna asked suddenly, her interest perking up. "Would you mind giving more information about that to The Quibbler?" But the conversation quickly moved on as Fleur spoke back up: "Ahh, so nice to see all of you pursuing your careers. I still prefer to just work part-time at Gringotts with William; thankfully, zey are very generous and flexible with zeir maternity leave policy."
Hannah took a sip from her eggnog. "Do you mind if I ask... I don't know that I'll have children myself, but I'm curious... does it make it more difficult to be, er, intimate with your husband?"
"It's gotten easier now zat Victoire is a year old," Fleur replied, "although we do still have to do a certain amount of scheduling. You just do it when you can find ze time, non? Even if all you have time for is a quick morning wake-up call." Luna gazed at the grandfather clock in the nearest corner, wondering exactly how long the other ladies expected her to stay in this room. The conversation became a bit of a blur, although she could tell that Fleur was talking about Bill and Hannah was mentioning how sweet and cuddly Neville was; Daphne, when prodded about her own love life, mentioned a couple of women she'd dated recently but Luna didn't catch their names or hear much about them... Then she noticed that one of the other women was saying her name and they were all looking at her...
"Luna! Hey, Luna, are you there? I asked you what it's like to date Harry Potter!" Daphne was snapping her fingers; she had evidently asked this question at least twice already.
"Oh yes, I'm very sorry; I drifted off for a moment," Luna trilled. "Yes, Harry is a very kind man and I do like spending time with him."
By this point, Hannah had drunk enough eggnog to become slightly tipsy, and was both blushing and giggling. "And I imagine it's a very nice view whenever he takes off his clothes?"
"Aye, I imagine that as well, but I wouldn't know as I haven't actually seen that." Luna noticed that Daphne now had a curious look on her face, as if a possibility had just crossed the Slytherin's mind and was working its way through several layers of calculation. Hannah had an embarrassed look as if she regretted what she had just asked, and a silence settled over the group.
"Ah, well, it is to be understood, non? You are still early in ze relationship, and some men take off zeir clothes at a different pace zan others," Fleur intervened, while Luna looked down into her own cup of eggnog and realized she had already drank it all. She couldn't tell if she could feel the rum yet or not, but something in her chest or stomach felt a bit tight at this latest conversational topic.
"But you can at least imagine him in ze meantime, which can't be zat bad, and of course you can both still kiss," Fleur continued as Luna felt the room spin a bit and mumbled, "No, he doesn't really kiss me either - not on the lips, that is, he doesn't want to..." She had the sensation of being back on a train where Death Eaters were approaching, and then a dungeon, and then the middle of a battle, and when she snapped back to the room, she could see all three of her friends looking at her with concerned faces.
"No, wait... really?" asked Hannah. "Harry doesn't kiss you at all? But why wouldn't he do that? There could be so many reasons..."
"Yes there could, and I've thought of one of them," intoned Daphne as she put her cigarette out by conjuring an ashtray with her wand. "Look, I'm the only exclusively lesbian person here, so let me bring it up before anyone else does. Has anyone considered the possibility that the famous Harry Potter, he who saved the entire Wizarding world, might be... not straight?" Hannah and Fleur looked at her quizzically, and Daphne shrugged with both hands in the air. "Hey, I'm just saying let's consider it - might be gay, might be asexual, might be neither, but he's not exactly proving me wrong when you consider how short-lived things have been with his past girlfriends."
"No, no, I don't think that's it..." Luna felt another tightening if she wondered whether Daphne was right, in which case a sexy dress would be completely futile tonight. "But if he was... nobody would hold it against him, would they? He's Harry Potter, he's beloved everywhere - he doesn't need to keep a secret like that... especially not from me!"
"No, he doesn't need to keep the secret," Daphne nodded, "but the question is, if I'm right, would he really want the publicity? 'Harry Potter Comes Out' would basically be the only story in every newspaper and magazine - including your dad's - for a month. The headline print would be this big; plus, imagine all the sordid details that Rita Bloody Skeeter would go digging for." She gestured with her arms, while Hannah nodded in consensus.
Fleur used this moment to summon four mugs of hot chocolate, keeping one for herself and levitating the other three to everyone else in the circle. "Now of course I don't doubt zat Mademoiselle Greengrass knows what she is talking about," she chimed in, "although one should keep in mind zat Harry has had a lifetime of having much more on his mind zan ze rest of us. Ze war affected us all - but he is likely even more shell-shocked from it, non? And zen to go straight from zat to deciding to be an Auror? One imagines it is quite overwhelming, and..." Fleur looked down into her mug and wrinkled her nose. "Mmm, non, perhaps I should not say, it is rather intrusive and explicit."
"No, I want to know what's going on," said Luna, briefly taking a kerchief offered by Hannah to wipe her eyes. "If you have a theory, Fleur, please tell me." Fleur took a deep exhale, which she tried to pass off as blowing on her hot chocolate to cool it.
"Alright, very well," said Fleur. "He has not yet kissed you despite many months of dating, nor have you seen him take his clothes off. He is obviously very hesitant to take things to le boudoir - zat is to say, ze bedroom. And zen you take what I just mentioned before, and it may be zat he... does not feel he can present himself to you." Hannah's eyes grew wide, as if she had just deduced a key piece of information, but the meaning escaped Luna.
"I don't see why that should be a problem either - Harry's a very handsome and presentable lad!" Luna said, as Fleur rolled her eyes and muttered "Oh, mon Dieu," not quite under her breath. She took another sigh and clarified: "No, what I mean is... how shall I put it... perhaps he does not wish to remove his clothes because... his manhood will not rise to ze occasion."
"Oh!" Luna exclaimed. "Oh, you were talking about my boyfriend's genitals... You should have just said so; I wouldn't have minded."
"Well, as a Healer-in-training, I can say that that problem is easily fixed by a Priapus spell," Hannah finally piped up, as it was now her turn to present a theory. "And what Fleur says is plausible, although it certainly wouldn't prevent him from kissing you. There's something else here, I think - she's certainly correct about the effect that the war could have had on Harry's mental state." She took a sip of hot chocolate as a sense of epiphany began to hover over the group. "And also..." Here Hannah lowered her voice to a whisper, and the other three women leaned in closer: "Let's not forget what his childhood was like. He grew up away from all of this with no family or friends at all, except for his Muggle relatives who were... well, I have heard that they weren't nice. It's understandable that such an environment would cause him to develop a pattern of withholding affection."
"Yes, indeed I sense it!" cried a female voice from elsewhere in the room, jolting the four women out of their private conversation and causing Daphne and Fleur to reach for their wands defensively; clearly, they were no longer the only people present. A tall thin woman with shaggy brown hair, large round glasses, and multiple shawls on was walking some distance behind them, gazing up at the ceiling. "There is an air of melancholy in this room," she sighed, "and it is coming from over... there!" She pointed directly to where Luna was sitting, and while Fleur looked somewhat confused, the other three instantly knew who had walked into their midst.
"Hello, Auntie Sybill," Luna said with as cheerful a tone as she could muster, and the older woman shuffled over to join them, seating herself between Luna and Hannah while briefly pointing an arm with open palm in Daphne's direction. "This one has been in the presence of something even more fearsome than a Dark Lord," she proclaimed ominously, and Daphne moved slightly closer to Fleur.
"Wait... Professor Trelawney is your aunt?" Hannah asked Luna. "I feel like this explains so much."
"Aye, on my mother's side," Luna replied, before turning her attention to Trelawney. "Auntie Sybill, I am having a bit of a conundrum tonight; is it possible you can help? You see..."
Trelawney cut her niece off with a wave of her hand. "Conundrums are my specialty, my dear - first I shall deduce the issue at hand that has caused this melancholy. I can begin by reading tea leaves." She picked up Hannah's hot chocolate mug.
"But that's not tea, it's hot chocolate, and it was mine," Hannah whimpered, as Daphne quipped, "Hang on, let's see where she's going with this," pulling another cigarette from her blazer pocket and lighting it with her wand.
"Ahh, very observant, Miss Abbott; in that case, I will require the nearest rubbish bin," Trelawney continued. Fleur, still visibly confused, picked up a rubbish bin that was nearby and placed it at Trelawney's feet, and to Hannah's disappointment, the professor dumped all the liquid from the mug into the bin. Trelawney now held the mug and its dregs up for the rest of the women to look at.
"Yes, now this is something you very rarely see, my dears," she said gently, turning the mug this way and that and then turning it around so she could look inside. "Yes, quite sinister indeed, you can notice the shape of a tall man clad all in black, almost like a Pharaoh... I dare not look at this any further; it is displeasing to both my inner and outer eyes." Trelawney tossed the mug backwards over her shoulder and it shattered on the floor behind her. She pointed a finger directly at Daphne: "The Crawling Chaos, my dear... you have been in its presence on a recent business trip."
"Auntie Sybill, I'm sorry to interrupt, but none of this has been about me," said Luna, tugging on one of her aunt's shawls. "I'm the one who needs advice on what to do."
Trelawney adjusted her glasses and took Luna's hand in her own. "Ahh, yes, I see now; you are in need of a palm reading, Luna love; we did not need those tea leaves after all." She ran her fingers over Luna's palm, scrutinizing what she was seeing bit by bit: "Yes, indeed, your life line, head line, and career line are very promising... your union lines are strong... ah, but your heart line, here is the problem. You are in distress over a dear someone in your life, yes, I am reading more details now. It appears you have distress over a man, yes, a man you have known for some time. You crave physical intimacy from this man, but he places himself within a shell, yes, a shell which other people made but which he has added on to, and this shell needs to crack so he can allow you in."
"Bloody hell, she's actually right," said Daphne, her cigarette clenched between her teeth. Fleur leaned over and asked whether Trelawney was also right about the Crawling Chaos, to which Daphne simply responded by saying "Classified."
"Aye, that's precisely it!" exclaimed Luna excitedly. "What do I do about him? How do I crack the shell?"
"You go and talk to him, Luna," Trelawney smiled, placing her hands on her niece's shoulders. "He is here in this very mansion, and he just needs to be reminded that he isn't alone in the world, even if he's often felt like he is. I sense that he is very nearby." She embraced Luna and whispered into her ear: "In fact, I believe you will find him in the billiards room with some of his mates. He's been waiting for you." Trelawney stood up, bowed gracefully to the circle of women, and stepped away from the couches.
"My goodness, I did not expect the guests to be quite so dreadfully messy," she said scornfully when she was only a few steps away. "Someone threw their mug on the floor and completely broke it to pieces."
It took Luna several minutes to identify the route from the sitting room to where the billiards room was. Along the way, it became clear that there would be far more to clean up than just a broken mug, as she walked past Slughorn and Aberforth Dumbledore and found them engaged in a heated argument over whether or not a goat was an appropriate party guest. Aberforth had pulled his invitation from his pocket and was pointing out that nowhere on it, in either English or French, were goats specifically excluded, while Slughorn was countering that Aberforth should have known how much damage a goat would cause. Luna, finding herself briefly pulled into the argument while asking for directions, simply stated that she wouldn't have personally brought a goat inside the house and suggested that it might be best to take it outside and let it walk the grounds. Aberforth seemed satisfied by this answer and apologized to Slughorn for the trouble, while Luna continued on her way.
She finally found Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and Lee Jordan in the billiards room; she and Seamus hugged each other and greeted each other in Gaelic, and then he told her that she'd just missed Harry but could probably find him outside on the nearby balcony. Luna headed in that direction, and sure enough Harry was there, standing in front of the railing and looking up at the stars. She silently walked up beside him and placed her hand on his. Harry was startled for a moment, but smiled at her when he recognized who she was. The December breeze from the Atlantic was a bit chilly, so Luna's hand provided some much-needed warmth, along with a different kind of warmth coming from her smile.
"Do you need a moon to go with your stars?" Luna asked flirtatiously, and Harry now observed that in the starlight, her silver dress suddenly revealed a subtle stars-and-moon pattern that he hadn't noticed earlier tonight. "You're very enchanting tonight," he remarked, and Luna beamed with pride and confidence. Now was the time to use her Ravenclaw wisdom to put her plan into action: one snog with Harry Potter, something she could go to sleep feeling good and warm about - and hopefully something which she could carry with her into a night of heated dreams which would, as always, be her own private experience for only her to know about until she could make them reality in the waking world.
"So, Harry," said Luna, "this is the first time we've been alone together since the party started, and after all we are on a date... and not just 'as friends', right? We're still keeping our deal?"
"I keep my word, Luna," Harry nodded solemnly. "I haven't changed the terms of the date on you."
"Noble as always, Mr Potter," said Luna as she surveyed the various guests walking the grounds below; two or three of them seemed to recognize Harry as they looked up. "Do ya mind - I'd actually like to talk with ya a bit - can we go back inside and find an unoccupied room?" Harry suddenly looked nervous. "No, I promise it's nothing bad, I just... want us ta have some privacy, that's all." With her free hand, she twirled her hair with her finger, and Harry felt a sense of relief. Luna was trustworthy and, unlike his other attempted girlfriends, always upfront with her intentions; if she had wanted to end the date and go home - or worse yet, break up with him - she would have said so. Even so, some amount of nerves remained: Luna wouldn't have asked for privacy if she didn't have something serious to say to him.
Luna led Harry back inside and down the halls until she found an unoccupied study. They walked inside and Harry stood anxiously to the side with his hands in his pants pockets while Luna shut the door behind them and moved her wand at it and then around the rest of the room. "Colloportus, Muffliato," she intoned, and then placed her wand aside and turned to face Harry.
"Harry..." she began, wringing her hands together as she talked. "You know I don't ask you for much, and I never demand anything, but..." She let out a sigh and then placed her hands on her hips, looking directly into his eyes. "Harry, just please tell me and I'll understand: why don't ya kiss me? You've called me your girlfriend, this isn't exactly a secret relationship - so why don't we kiss? Are you hiding something? Are you asexual? We can make it work if you are, I'm not askin' for you ta take my clothes off - not tonight, at least - I just want ta be kissed once in a while, is that too much ta ask?!" Although she had started out calm, Luna's voice had become increasingly agitated and her accent had become more apparent, and Harry briefly flashed back to a vision of her following him up a staircase at Hogwarts and suddenly losing her patience with a yell that had startled him. This was perhaps the first time since then that Harry had seen this side of Luna directed at him; he knew it was a side that only came out when she felt pushed to her limit.
"Luna, I kiss you plenty of times," Harry said patiently, before cutting himself off: "Wait... do people think I'm asexual?"
Luna kept her hands on her hips for a moment more before folding them across her chest. "Well, actually, at least one person at this party thinks you're gay... but never mind that. And a goodnight peck on the cheek isn't what I'm talking about, Harry Potter." Her temper had faded as quickly as it emerged - a trait of hers which Harry was very grateful for at this moment.
"Um... that one person isn't you, is it?" Harry asked concernedly, to which Luna could not help but break back into a smile. "Oh, bless your heart, Harry, my sweet lad," she said, before once again looking serious. "Harry, I know you're an honest person; you're noble and you don't lie and you treat people fairly. I just want you to feel like you're in a safe place, too. Tell me what's holding you back and I promise I won't tell a soul."
Harry sighed and sat himself down in a nearby easy chair. "I'm sorry, Luna," he confessed, "you deserved better than that. You've always deserved better than what I've offered you. That's why I asked you here tonight; it felt like I could finally give you something better than what I did the last time I asked you to the Slug Club. For Merlin's sake, I was more focused on what bloody Draco Malfoy was doing at that party than on you... maybe I don't deserve to have you around me."
Luna gracefully perched herself on a nearby table. "I don't have any reason not to be around you; it's quite pleasant, you know," she reassured him. "I'd quite rather be around you than anyone else."
"It's just all still there in my head," Harry finally said after some silence while Luna sat patiently nearby and gazed down at him, now having moved herself into a lotus position. "Every person I cared about became someone I lost, one by one... I'm prepared to lose almost anyone else now. I can handle it; I've learned to handle it. If I lose Ron, if I lose Hermione, if I lose Molly... I'll move on. But not..." Harry's leg had started shaking; he grabbed hold of his kneecap to make it stop.
"But not who?" Luna inquired. She picked her wand back up and summoned a silver rabbit Patronus, which she directed to sit in Harry's lap. Even though it was little more than air, Harry still stroked it and looked directly into Luna's equally silver eyes as he did.
"Not you," he finished. "Never you. I wouldn't move on from that. Luna, you're the most beautiful and amazing person I know, and you give me an adventure every day - which you would think I'd had enough of, but it turns out an adventure is quite nice when it's not one that's going to kill you." The rabbit Patronus now stood up in his lap and pawed at his chest while sniffing at him. "Luna, you're my absolute favorite person in the world, and that makes me afraid of what will happen. You'll be here and then you won't, just like everybody else. Believe me, I've wanted to kiss you very much, and I don't even know if this makes sense, but... I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of it because I love you."
As Harry watched, Luna's smile grew increasingly larger and tears formed in her eyes, until she finally clutched her chest at the last three words. "Making sense isn't something you should ever have to worry about," she said in a somewhat weakened voice, "just let yourself be yourself. Harry... I love you too." Once again there was a moment of silence as the Patronus finally vanished, and Luna uncrossed her legs and lowered herself to the floor. Harry stood up and the two of them now faced each other, their similar heights allowing for direct eye contact.
"Remember I spent part of the war in a dungeon, Harry," Luna said gently, reaching out so she could hold his hands. "It may not be much compared to you, but... I have dark memories as well. But I've kept believing that my life can only get better than that, and so can yours. Anything that's still out there is something you can beat, and nothing will possibly be ruined if you kiss me. I spent a good deal of the night wondering why you didn't, and I thought of so many possibilities and impossibilities, but now I know: it's because you haven't allowed yourself to. You've defeated Voldemort but you haven't defeated your worst enemy." Leaning forward, she lightly kissed Harry on the forehead. "Let's both defeat him tonight, shall we?"
Harry closed his eyes and was once again transported back to the Battle of Hogwarts, but this time, it was not a vision of someone dying or being wounded: it was Luna, in the midst of everything, saying something to him that had kept him going. He opened his eyes, saw her beautiful face, and told her the same words: "We're all still here. We're still fighting."
"Yes," Luna trilled, letting go of Harry's hand so she could stroke his cheek. Then, in typical Luna fashion, she surprised him by doing the one thing he did not expect: putting her hand in front of his mouth so that he didn't move in to kiss her. "No, wait, not here," she said, suddenly pointing to a corner of the room where a green plant was hanging from the ceiling. "Over there."
"Mistletoe?" Harry asked with a mischievous smirk. "I don't know; a very trustworthy person told me once that it was full of Nargles."
Luna chuckled: "Well, we'll just have ta manage it then. I have an itch that needs ta be scratched, and as a hot-blooded Irish girl, I'm not about ta let a handsome man slip away at this time o' night." Harry noticed her accent picking up and wondered if that was a sign of increased friskiness, but suspected he'd soon come to know the answer to that quite well - not just tonight, but over the course of many future nights.
Luna felt almost dazed as she led Harry over to where the mistletoe hung, and from then on every move was methodical: she pulled his glasses off, folded them, and placed them in his suit pocket; she put her hands on his shoulders while making sure that his were around her waist; she made sure he moved one hand up to her hair instead; she placed an entire arm across his shoulders so she could have a hand in his hair as well. Then she once again felt herself being pulled from reality, as Harry's lips finally pressed into hers. Though her eyes were closed, she could see fireworks going off in multiple parts of the Wizarding world, from this mansion to Hogwarts to the sky between The Burrow and The Rook. She was lying in a field of grass, then it was wheat, then it all turned to water and she was immersed in the ocean with its sweet taste of salt, then she was covered in seashells in place of clothes, then she was naked in outer space, looking down at the Delacour estate from the stars, and then she was back in Harry's arms where he had kissed her. Although she knew it was physically impossible, Luna could swear that her heart had jumped all the way to her throat. It took her a few seconds to realize that Harry had a pleased but slightly puzzled expression on his face.
"Was that good?" he asked, to which Luna blinked a few times - itself a rather out-of-the-ordinary occurrence for her - and finally said with a sigh, "exhilarating." She seemed to be catching her breath and taking a quick assessment that all her body parts were in place, then added, "I think just a few more might be in order tonight - I believe I have some back wages to collect, Mr Potter." And then came another kiss, except she was much more conscious of where she was on Earth, and she pressed herself closer to Harry's body so that he was right up against the wall. This time, his hands were on her waist, so she adjusted herself so that his hands were on her hips instead. After she felt his hand on her bum, she turned him around so they had swapped places and now she was the one against the wall, and placed her hand on his bum instead. Luna wasn't sure based off of all the articles of clothing between them, but a vague sensation of what she could feel from his front suggested that Fleur's theory from earlier in the night was incorrect. As tempting an idea as it was for Luna to unbutton Harry's pants and find her own evidence, she decided such investigations could wait for a later encounter in one of their own apartments.
Clearly, Harry was having similarly heated thoughts, as she could hear him mutter, "Taking your clothes off might not be such a bad idea," in between kisses. By this point, they had moved to a couch in the study, which they were half-lying, half-sitting on, while the kisses moved to other places besides just lips. Part of her mischievously wanted to tell Harry to just use his imagination for what she looked like, which was certainly what she was doing for him (and, in complete honesty to herself, had been doing for a few months), but the rest of her just wanted to silently enjoy the sensations. Harry had now kissed her lips, forehead, nose, both cheeks, both ears, chin, both sides of the jaw, neck, nape, collarbone, and her chest at the very bottom of her dress's neckline, right where a small but noteworthy bit of cleavage emerged. All things considered, Luna decided she would have to rate this dress a success. And yet, as pleasant as this all was, Harry's comment suddenly reminded her that they couldn't stay at the party indefinitely. Despite the spells she had cast, this was not a private room, and someone could come along at any minute and open the door by casting Alohomora.
"Aye, like I said, not tonight," Luna said, finally pulling away from Harry and conjuring a hairbrush that she could run through her hair. "Let's not grab everything off the trolley in one night; ya still need a little somethin' left ta look forward to. Besides, Fleur's family's estate isn't really the place ta do that. I like your spirit, though, Harry Potter. We're certainly not done with each other."
"I hope we never will be," said Harry in a near-whisper while putting his glasses back on, looking in the room's mirror, and fixing his hair - but he also made sure Luna was near enough that she could hear him say it. "This is honestly the best time I've ever spent with you, Luna - everything you said was just what I needed to hear. But... it doesn't change the past. It doesn't replace the people who are gone. It doesn't cure me or heal me fully."
"I know, and I never said that it would," shrugged Luna. "It doesn't happen in one night; it happens in a lifetime - which, of course, I'll gladly stay around for that long."
Harry suddenly looked a bit apprehensive: "Well, Luna... you know I do love you, but that's a long time to plan ahead for anything, even someone you love."
"Aye, you're right," Luna nodded. "I do suppose we should think more about what we'll do every day, rather than decades ahead. After all, we're both going to live to be at least 120, I would say. How about this: I'll be here every day if you will, and we just keep doing that every day?"
"I'll agree to that," said Harry, "and we can start by enjoying the rest of the party; I'm sure we haven't even seen half the people here yet. And besides..." Harry gave a wink. "Bill Weasley recommended some very nice pudding - and plenty of it - that's back in the main ballroom."
"Oh, that will be very nice," said Luna as she undid the spells and opened the door. "I do enjoy a good Yule pudding. Oh, I almost forgot to say: Happy Yule, Harry Potter - or Yule Shona Dhuit, I should say."
"Hunna gwitch?" asked Harry, mimicking the words he had just heard and scratching his head as they walked back down the hall to the nearest staircase.
"Oh, don't worry, we have plenty of days ahead for you to learn Gaelic," Luna smiled, "but I should warn you it's not spelled anything like how it's pronounced." As they descended the staircase, Sybill Trelawney passed them.
"Oh Luna, you found him, I'm so happy for you," Trelawney cried, quickly embracing Harry and then looking at them in concern. "I would advise both of you to leave this party as soon as you can. I was taking a walk on the grounds outside when I swear I saw the late Professor Dumbledore and the Black Goat of Doom! It is one of the most ominous of all ominous signs, and that includes a teacup I looked into not long ago!"
"Yes, it's nice to see you too, Sybill," Harry laughed. One thing was certain: things were never going to be boring with Luna in his life.