Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. It's all J. K. Rowlings.
Author's Note: Read and review, please! I'm a little bit unsure about the whole story, so constructive criticism would be welcomed!
She'll watch the sky for hours; thinking to herself about a dozen different things at once and looking for creatures that most are insistent do not exist. Time passes, but it seems intangible to her- an hour can be a minute and a minute can be a day. It's all the same to her, as she's never had a grasp of time.
She'll stay perched on her second floor balcony, occasionally lying on the hard wooden floor, occasionally sitting on the railing and watching people walk by. She likes it when they don't notice she's around, it makes it easier to see just how they would normally act without an unknown or unwelcome person in their presence.
Lately she's been watching for Ronald Weasley.
He comes around almost every day at about half-past noon, following a gravel path to his destination. Sometimes he'll look up at the house, as if he can feel her eyes on him, but he never sees her. She's invisible, even if she is hiding behind the railing and crouching on the floor.
Sometimes he's with his younger sister, Ginny. She knows Ginny- they're classmates at Hogwarts, and even though they aren't friends, she rather thinks they could be. But friends are to keep, and she isn't sure Ginny would let her keep her- the red-headed girl seems like too much of a free-spirit to let her do that.
She went to visit Ginny once this summer, on a humid day in July when she was antsy because of an upcoming storm and couldn't find it in herself to sit still and think. She needed to do something, so she called on her neighbors in her finest outfit. She never went back, after realizing she had scared almost everyone in the house.
So she just watched, smiling to herself and humming a familiar tune under her breath as she saw things that were never meant to be seen. It was the easiest way into their world, so she took advantage of it and paid attention to everything.
Someday the things she has learned will come in handy, but that time hasn't come yet. It might not for a long time, or it might come tomorrow. She's never been sure; she just knows its not here yet.
So she watches.
She knows how Ronald pushes his hair back away from his face when it's sticky and humid, and she sees how Ginny laughs at him and tells him Hermione had just written her a letter, and would he like to know what she wrote? He always does, and their voices carry long after they leave with pulsating excitement and the realization that perhaps Hermione does like him.
She knows more of his secrets than he would expect, having kept up a correspondence with Harry Potter over the summer. She knows him, and she knows him well enough to know that he's terrified of her.
She smiles as he looks up at the balcony, even as she hides from his eyes. She would be too crazy in his eyes, and she always wants to stay pure just a bit longer.
When he does occasionally get a glimpse of her, he sees pale eyes focused on him as if he's the only thing in the world. He looks away quickly, and never looks up again until he's almost out of her sight.
It makes her smile.
One morning, she was outside watering her flowers when he walked by. She looked up and waved at him, with a song thrumming throughout her head, and after a moment's pause, he walked over to where she was standing.
"Hullo," he said to her, his voice deeper than it had been when they had left school. She thought about laughing, but decided it wouldn't be polite, so she settled for cackling to herself instead.
"Hello, Ronald." She smiled as her mother had taught her, nicely. She reached her hand out before withdrawing it and picking up her wand from back behind her left ear. Waving it slightly, she muttered to herself and laughed as water sprayed out of it and onto the flowers- as well as both her and Ronald.
"You're wet," she stated with a slight grin, looking up at him. His hair was sticking to his forehead, and there were droplets of water running down his nose. She didn't mention he looked amusing, nor did she mention what she really wanted to say. Best to keep her thoughts to herself, since she was feeling oddly lucid this morning.
"I know." He glared at her before looking down at her roses- blue and white checkered- and smiling oddly. "What are you doing out? I've thought you weren't an outdoor person- I never see you."
"You haven't been looking," she replied loftily, knowing full well she wasn't an outdoor person unless she had a blanket to lay on or flowers to water. Most of the time she preferred to be inside, lying on the floor or watching people where nobody looked for her. If they looked, which they hardly ever did.
Ronald looked at her with a serious expression on his face. "How do you know?" He asked her, still looking at her flowers with the air of someone who was doing something thoroughly interesting.
She looked at him for a second before reaching down and plucking a few stray weeds from the ground, being careful to keep their roots intact. She'd transfer them to the weed garden later. "I've been watching you," she finally told him, watching as he looked up in surprise and met her eyes.
He nodded to her, sitting down in an awkward style next to her garden. He was all legs and arms, and she wondered how comfortable it would be to feel like a young dragon. Not very, it would seem- she liked being the size she was, short and thin.
"I want to know why." Ronald stared at her with serious brown eyes, and she counted his freckles to herself. She grew bored by the time she had reached a hundred twenty-two, and decided to leave the game to another day.
"Because I wanted to." It was logical, and she said it with the confidence of someone who knew her arguments were foolproof but could never quite believe there weren't more intelligent fools out there somewhere, waiting.
"Why?" He glared at her again, and she wondered briefly just what he was expecting. She had given him the truth; did he want a lie instead?
"Because I like you." She smiled at him as he went red and began to sputter in an odd fashion, his ears a brighter red than his hair. It was amusing, and so she was amused. It wasn't everyday a king blushed around her.
After he had calmed down a bit, he nodded. "That's what Gin said, but I thought she was lying."
She stared at him, plopping down next to him and crossing her legs as she absent-mindedly teased a loose string on her purple sequined top. "Why?" She finally questioned, echoing his earlier words with the same air of bemusement he had used just moments before.
"Because you're… odd. And I'm not." That, she decided to herself, was not foolproof logic. And even though she wasn't a fool, she could still see through it as easily as she could see through her front windows. (Which had just been washed yesterday, after her father had finally had enough with the fact everything looked brown when he looked out of them.)
"I'm not odd. Have you ever thought perhaps you are?" The words left her mouth in a flurry of colour, and she realized as soon as she had finished that she had sounded more upset than she had wanted to.
Would he have hid her stuff too, if he could?
"No," he admitted, frowning in an odd sort of way as she studied the flowers as if she had no desire to ever look up at him. "But, I mean… Okay." He sighed heavily, and muttered to himself, "Are all women the same?"
She kept quiet, her attention having been snared by a small butterfly that was playing by her fingers, brushing her every once in a while as it floated along. Wings of pale yellow and black, it reminded her more of a bee than a butterfly. But it was pretty, in an odd sense.
He was silent for a moment as well, before scrambling to his feet and sighing again. "I should go, Mum needs me to run up to the store for a bit of milk- would you like to come with me?"
She looked up at him, startled. "Are you asking me because you feel required to?" It was a valid question, and she didn't regret asking it.
"I'm asking you because I want to. And isn't it better than sitting on your balcony, watching me and hiding?" His brown eyes gave her another odd look, and he waited for a moment before reaching down and offering her his hand.
She grasped it and allowed him to pull her up, taking care not to fall after she had stood up. Her right leg had fallen asleep and felt like it could fall down at any moment, so she kept a hold of his hand for a second longer.
"Let me get my shoes," Luna finally said, letting go of his hand ands moving towards the back entrance to their house. "It'll be just a bit- they're in the kitchen, but I think I need to leave a note for Dad as well. He comes home for lunch sometimes, you know, and I wouldn't want him to get upset if he couldn't find me."
She walked into the house, leaving the door open just a bit so she could watch him out of the corner of her eye. She wasn't too sure that he wouldn't walk off and leave her, so she wanted to make sure… Well, she wanted to make sure of something.
He simply stood out there on her porch, looking in every so often as she scribbled a quick note to her father, tucked her wad behind her ear so she wouldn't lose it and grabbed her coconut purse.
After she was properly ready- and had looked to make sure she really had finished the last of the chocolate earlier and hadn't been imagining things- she pulled her hair back and left.
He was still waiting outside when she walked out there, in the exact same position he had been in when she had gone in. She thought briefly about asking him if he really did want her to come with him, finally deciding he wouldn't have asked if he hadn't. From all she had seen of him, he didn't appear to be entirely polite, and she had seen him act awfully unhappy when he had to spend time with someone he didn't want to.
They walked the short route to the store in almost complete silence, exchanging only short pleasantries, and (on his side) questions. He was properly polite and she was the same; as they entered the store, she was left with the impression they had acted like inhuman creatures the entire time.
He separated from her almost as soon as they had walked in; she walked to where the chocolate frogs were located while humming to herself. She didn't have to debate over what she wanted, she just grabbed it and paid for it.
Then she was left with a quandary. Did she leave or did she wait for Ronald? And actually, who was to say he had waited for her? For all she knew, he had darted out of the store the second she had left his sight.
While she was debating quietly to herself, he walked up and placed a hand on her arm. She jumped before glaring at him, and wanted to sigh as she saw the almost mischievous look on his face. Gryffindors.
"Good, you're still here." She nodded at his statement, raising a pale eyebrow as he gave her an awkward look. Just like the queen- his words said one thing but his actions said quite a different story. Now if only she could figure out just what was being told, she would be fine.
His sheepish smile said a bit, but again, she wasn't sure what. Maybe if she had been twenty feet or so away from him it would have been easier to decode, but as she was only a few inches away from him instead…
He began walking suddenly, and she hurried to keep pace with him. His legs were long enough she had to make an effort of it, but it wasn't bad- her dad had the unfortunate habit of walking at a speed that was almost impossible for her to keep up with without killing herself.
They were almost to her house when he stopped in the middle of the road, his face red. "Luna, why do you like me? Is it because I'm a friend of Harry's? Or because I'm on the Quidditch team?"
They were both ridiculous suggestions, and she thought about ignoring them in their entirety. But he seemed almost desperate in his questioning, and she had watched him enough to know his confidence wasn't exactly at a high level.
"I like you because you're amusing and because you interest me. It has nothing to do with either Harry or Quidditch." His face was a mixture of looks, and she continued walking after a bit- staring at him was fine and lovely, but she was beginning to feel uncomfortable. All she wanted to do was get home and go up to her room, now.
"Oh." He had resumed walking, but at a more languid pace. Every so often she saw him quickly look at her and then look away, but she didn't bother commenting. No need to hear another spiel about how she was 'loony'.
Once they had reached her driveway she nodded at him, more out of politeness than anything else. She felt embarrassed, an emotion she usually didn't feel, and she wasn't positive it was a fun experience. "It was nice to talking to you Ronald. Perhaps I'll see you again sometime."
Her parents had raised her to be polite, and she wasn't going to stop now. But she wasn't going to say what she was thinking, even if his eyes felt like they were begging her to do so- that would say too much.
"Luna. Wait." He grabbed her arm, and she turned to see his face a red colour that clashed horribly with his hair. "Maybe we could- Do you think we could do this again sometime?"
"Walk to the store together?" She felt confused, which was something she was actually used to feeling every time she bothered to come out of her own universe and rejoin the rest of civilization. Males were confusing, evidently.
"Or something else. Just, you know, talk. About things." His words were coming at intervals, and he stuttered several times throughout what he was saying. It was oddly refreshing, and it made her smile.
"We could do that," she allowed. "You know where I live, you may stop by and see me sometime if you'd like." She wasn't going to go back to his house- she felt awkward there, and she didn't like it.
"Soon?" Ronald sounded impossibly hopeful, and she smiled again. Swinging her arms back and forth, she wished she could fly- and she felt like she was falling.
"Ronald. Would you like to come in?" She smiled up at him as he nodded, and wondered to herself whether he was in trouble of some sort at home. The eagerness he was displaying was a bit unnerving.
"Yes." He grinned at her and she felt her cheeks turn red, and she briefly wondered if someone could smile too much. It felt like she couldn't stop; her lips just wanted to move on her accord.
She led the way up to her house, humming happily as she saw the butterfly she had been playing with earlier. It had found a friend, and was now chasing it around her mother's roses.
It made her smile, too.
And when Ronald looked over at her with a large smile that mirrored her own, her smile got wider.