Author's Note: I think I might have gotten over my severe case of writer's block. Sorry if the last entry is a little… strange… but that's the only way I could manage to finish it.
Author's Note: This is the tenth chapter, so, as promised, there's a little surprise added in here. Enjoy!
Author's Note: I'm not quite sure how this chapter is going to be, there's quite a bit of thinking and imagining, but I tried to make it interesting!
Author's Note: As always, please review! I'm sorry that a while ago, I wasn't accepting anonymous reviews, but that was completely unintentional, and I have no problem with them whatsoever, because anonymous reviews give the same amount of help, encouragement, whatever, as the signed ones.
Author's Note: I can't believe I've made it to ten chapters! I almost always give up before this!
Author's Note: Thank you, as always, for taking your time to read this. I feel all happy and special inside! J
Chapter 10
Preparations and Meetings
Saturday morning at last! Ginny, Luna, and Neville all awoke in different rooms but with the same general feeling. Ginny had put off asking Neville to go until Friday night, at dinner, and she had kept in mind everything that Hermione had told her. As she awoke, the scene replayed automatically in her head.
The sky was clear, dotted with stars. Neville was shaking slightly, as if he were nervous about something. About what, Ginny didn't even want to hazard a guess.
Besides, she had a mission. She had chosen to wait until the last minute to ask because she was afraid that, if she gave him too much advance warning, would change his mind. She was hoping that she could startle him into agreeing to go, and not give him a chance to change his mind.
"Neville," she said, shaking slightly herself. 'What if it doesn't work' she asked herself. But he knew she had to try. "Tomorrow morning, before the sun comes up, will you go to the tree where…" People were listening, she could tell. "The tree on the western end of the lake? You know the one. Just, go there while it's still dark, and stay there until the sun comes up. I think you know why." Neville nodded his head, looking slightly ill and relieved at the same time, and Ginny walked back to her seat, feeling much the same.
And as Ginny thought of this, Neville woke, himself, feeling wide-awake even though he had barely slept at all. He felt very much relieved that he didn't have to weave through throngs of students who were oblivious to his presence in order to find Luna. But he did wish that he had had the courage to talk to Luna without being asked to. He wished that she was in Gryffindor, or a year older, or both. He wished that he saw her every day, and that she talked to him whenever she saw him in corridors, and, though he never really liked people to talk about him, he wished in some small part that he could announce his feelings for Luna in front of the entire school, and that Luna could do the same for him. He pictured it in his mind.
The entire student body was gathered in the Great Hall, and the staff as well. Neville Longbottom was standing next to Luna Lovegood on a raised platform on one side of the huge room, visible to all. He heard his voice sound louder and stronger than usual, as he said the most unusual thing he had ever heard himself say.
"I have something very important to announce." The room was silent now, not even the Slytherins were whispering. "I LOVE LUNA LOVEGOOD!" He shouted the last part as he had never shouted before. He stepped back, and Luna began to talk.
Neville shook himself out of his daydream before he heard Luna speak. The absurdity of it all refused to allow it to continue. He was slightly disappointed, but he remembered that he was expected before daybreak, and he definitely didn't want to be late. He pulled on his socks, lit a candle, and started out for the lake.
Luna woke to the sound of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack that her father had recorded and sent to her. For one of the first times in her life, Luna Lovegood was nervous. Of course, no one would have been able to tell just by looking at her. She wasn't shaking, her face wasn't unusually pale and she wasn't blushing. She spent only a few moments longer than usual choosing what earrings to wear (in the shape of cows today), and she looked in the mirror only twice.
But she had a knack for looking permanently calm and unattached. Inside, she was screaming in fear and joy. The butterflies in her stomach just had children.
She was nervous about Neville, of course; after all, he was the entire reason she was up at that hour of the morning. But she was also worried about Ginny. What is her "date" didn't show? But Luna had a feeling that he would. It had taken her an unusually long amount of time to write the letter asking him to come. She wasn't sure how she wanted it to sound.
I know something about you that precious few know. I know the secret that sets your soul afire.
If it wasn't dramatic, he wouldn't give it a second thought. Better to overstate than understate.
I know who you yearn for. And I know where you can meet her.
No use in hiding the reason for the letter. But no reason for not drawing it out.
Rise before the sun on Saturday, and watch it wake. The perfect viewpoint is the large, yellow and green tree on the western end of the lake.
If the closing isn't good, the letter is useless.
She'll be expecting you, and a gentleman never keeps a lady waiting.
So it was written. Luna decided to not sign her name, because if he knew it was from her, he wouldn't go. She didn't mention any names, because she didn't want anyone to know who it was, and, when something belonged to Luna, the school considered it public property.
So, absent-mindedly twirling her hair around her index finger, Luna left her dormitory, feeling very much afraid.
Ginny arrived first. She was disappointed that she had to sit alone in the dark until Luna and Neville came. She barely gave a second thought to the person that Luna had invited to sit with Ginny. It didn't really matter. No matter what Luna said, there was no way that she could get the person Ginny really wanted to see to show up; and Luna didn't even know who that person was. A few years ago, Ginny would have been hoping that somehow Luna managed to convince Harry to show up; a few months ago, she would have just come with Dean. But she considered Harry as no more than a friend now, and she ended it with Dean last month when she caught him in an empty classroom with Parvati Patil.
She heard the sound of leaves rustling on the ground near her; she looked up and saw the last person she expected and the only one she had hoped for. She didn't think that he was there for her, so she didn't want to say anything incriminating.
"Malfoy. What are you doing here?"
