DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry likes watching Luna. He likes the way her hair looks when half of it's fallen out of her ponytail, if that's what it was supposed to be, and it's in her face and everywhere. He likes the way her eyes reflect everything when you look at them from a certain angle. He likes the way she laughs without restraint when something's funny, and doesn't mind it eclipsing his quiet chuckle.

Harry likes Luna.

Harry likes how Luna can be polite and kind to everyone, how he can never quite tell what she's thinking. He can never quite tell who she's thinking of. Most importantly, Harry can never quite figure out the answer to two questions.

Does Luna love anyone? Does Luna love everyone?

She loves her father, he learns, and Harry likes that. He likes that he can tell. That he can watch her eyes light up with the fairy lights that dance around her soul, and her smile become less hidden, how she embraces him and he swings her around like a little girl. He just wishes that maybe Luna would look at him that way once. Give him half that smile, maybe, instead of the guarded ones everyone at Hogwarts settle for. Harry wishes that he were the father swinging a little girl around, and that that little girl was the daughter of the little girl he was currently watching. He likes that idea. He likes to dream that far in advance, because it assumes that he is normal, that it's all in the definite realm of possibility, not depending on who kills whom.

He likes this side of Luna, like the others he's gotten a glimpse of.

Summer comes and summer goes, and her laugh plays in his head, chasing away the dark clouds that fog his mind. He can think clearly for the first time since that night Luna and the others fought beside him. The night everything changed. Clarity, now, comes at a price, as he watches friends and enemies fall, sharp in his memory, the laugh trying its best to chase the memories away.

Luna lives and Luna loves, but she still gives away nothing.

She's frustrating and calming and crazy and fantastic and wonderful, and he doesn't mind the frustration that he lives with, as long as he can find these patches of wonderful in the life he was forced to live. He likes those patches, he lives for them. Once, he catches those silvery eyes staring at him, different somehow from the way she stares at everyone, or so he hopes. He soon decides that he imagined it, but he can't deny that there's more in her smile lately.

Harry thinks of that smile when he casts a Patronus now. Dementors have never been chased away faster, he's sure.

They hear the same things when the Dementors approach. She tells him about the scenes for which he wasn't present, so similar to his own memories. She cries. He has never seen her cry before; she is the last of the women in his world to cry in front of him, and the men have few holdouts. But he wraps his arms around her, and for a moment things are all right. They are together, safe and comfortable in the world created by this moment of solitude and togetherness. This world is everything the real one lacks. It cannot be saved, though, because eventually they must go. Harry loves this world.

The next day, the real world decides to fall in on itself.

The one glimpse he gets of her during the battle, she is kneeling beside Hermione, trying to awaken her. He sees the concern and fear in her eyes, the same he has felt for all of his friends since he's had them. He has seen it in all their eyes, but hers are striking. He casts another spell, and it drains him, darkness engulfing him.

Harry is not quite sure if he is Harry when he awakens.

Then voices. Ron. Luna. He knows them as he knows himself. They're talking together, civilly, politely, comfortingly, consolingly. Have they ever been like that with each other? He could barely make out words.

Something 'love her, you know that. Just don't know if' something something.

Something something something 'them too. Couldn't stand it if' something something 'so worried about Harry' something something 'I love him.' A kiss on his cheek.

Harry understands, finally. His question is answered.

Luna does love everyone, but most especially Harry.