Discovering a lost heart.
Author's notes: I have decided to save the autor's notes until after the chapter, since I want to go in on something that may be a bit of a spoiler for you. But I first want to say thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. I noticed that I haven't taken the time to do so before, but you all deserve a big thank you for encouraging me to keep writing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Ron Weasley or any of the established characters and scenes from the Harry Potter books. I do however finally own myself after buying myself up from Microsoft. And I still don't make any money on this. I am not going to turn this into a movie. I'm not going to get this published by any bigger syndicate. If I did, I would have no defense in any court of law since these characters are copyrighted, so it would imply that I am a big idiot. You don't want to do that now, do you?
Chapter 5, Gossip.
Luna was hugging her pillow tightly to her supple body, as she lay curled up in her bed. Luckily, there was no one else in the dormitory. All the other Ravenclaw girls in her year, were out having fun in the sun. Probably talking about boys. She heaved a great sigh. Where did things go wrong? Why did she blurt it out to him even after she realised that he didn't and never could feel the same way? He was in love with someone else. And now he knew how she felt about him. The look on his face when she told him haunted her; he had been shocked to hear it. Was it really so shocking to hear a love confession from her? Yes, yes it was. She always shocked people, in fact she was mostly proud about that. She wondered if now that his shock might have passed, if he was laughing at it all. What if he thought it was some kind of joke? Oh, how come she had been able to be more accepting of her fate before, and now felt that her world had come crashing down on her? She started to cry some more. Ronald was the first boy she had ever fallen in love with, actually he was the first boy she had ever even fancied. And now he was her first heartbreak.
Meanwhile, Ginny was walking away from her brother. Boys! They knew nothing about the fragility of a girl's heart. Poor Luna. Ginny knew that she had to talk to her, she was in need of the comfort only a female best friend could offer. But Luna was in the Ravenclaw common room, and Ginny didn't have the password. What to do, she wondered. As she sat herself on the ground trying to figure out a way to get to Luna, she saw a couple of girls her age pass her by. A couple of Ravenclaw girls. Ginny rose up so quickly so she fell down again. Cursing a bit, she got herself up again and brushed off any grass straws that had stuck to her robes. She walked off to the group of girls. As she got closer she recognised one of the girls to be Mary Sue Johnson, a very annoying girl that always had to be right in everything. She always carried around her knowledge and good grades like it was a weapon of some sort, and she was always trying to make people believe that she was God's gift to men. With her good looks and her sophisticated manner, she claimed that she could get any boy she targeted to be hers. And by good looks she meant too much makeup. And by sophisticated manner she meant acting like a prissy know-it-all and slut. Ginny would have wanted to tell her that one of her targets, Harry, had been taken, but now was not the time. Right now she needed a favour, and had to be nice even if it killed her. Plastering a nice non-threatening smile on her face, she started waving her hand and calling out.
"Hi Mary Sue!"
Mary Sue turned around. She suppressed a snort. That Weasley girl was always hanging around with Loony Lovegood, trying to be friends with her or something. Loony was too weird to have around in her year and house, shouldn't she have been accepted in Hufflepuff or something? Mary Sue had made sure to keep others from becoming friends with Lovegood, but this Weasley girl was annoyingly persisting to be best friends with her. What did she want with her now?
"Well hello, Ginny," she said with her falsely cheery voice. With a quick elbow jab she had her cortege to follow suit.
"Hello Ginny."
"Hi."
Ginny looked at them, maintaining her polite smile, and wishing that she could use that ear-closing spell. Mary Sue's voice was unnaturally high-pitched.
"Hi everybody," she responded. "Could I ask you something?"
"Why yes, sure," said Mary Sue. She may not like to have to do with Ginny, but she was always one to see an opportunity when it landed on her lap. "Ask away."
"Well, I'm looking for Luna, and I was just wondering if you…"
"…had seen her? Not since breakfast I'm afraid. Why? Did you have something important to say to her?"
"No, not really," said Ginny quickly. She knew better than to let Mary Sue find out about Luna's current situation. If she knew about that, Luna would never be able to live with having to share a dormitory with them for another one and a half years. "It was just that we had planned to meet earlier today and she didn't show up."
"Well maybe she's in our dormitory, moping," said one of the girls that Ginny remembered to be called Mopsy.
"What? What makes you think that?" asked Mary Sue.
"Well I overheard one of the younger girls saying that they saw Loony heading towards the Entrance Hall with tears in her eyes." Mopsy seemed to enjoy being in the center of attention, she probably didn't get to be that often. "I just mean, I was kind of shocked when I heard it. Lovegood hardly shows any emotions at all, I can hardly imagine her crying."
"That's true, Loony crying, now that's something you don't see every day." Mary Sue laughed at the thought of it, and was then struck by a marvellous idea.
"Come on, everybody! This is something we have to see." Grabbing Ginny's arm, she continued. "You too. It will be all right, no one has to know that you got into a common room where you didn't belong."
"Don't be silly!" Ginny decided to go out on a limb. "You said it yourself, you could hardly imagine her crying, what makes you so sure that she really is?"
"Well, there's a first for everything, isn't there?" asked Mary Sue. "Besides, didn't you want to meet up with your friend?"
Ginny shivered at the sight of her smile. She didn't have much of a choice; there was only one thing that she could do that would reduce as much embarrassment for Luna as possible. She had to come with them and support Luna in any way she could. Resigned to her fate she let herself be dragged along to the Ravenclaw common room.
As they were almost at the hidden entrance to the common room, Mary Sue turned around to Mopsy.
"What is this week's password?"
"Eh? They changed the password again?"
"You don't know the password?"
"Why do they have to change it on a weekly basis? It's so hard to keep up with."
Ginny just couldn't believe that this gang of airheads were Ravenclaw students.
No wonder that Luna was ahead every one of them. There was only one Ravenclaw girl in their year that got better grades than Luna, though. Now was Ginny's chance. She had to come up with a plan now that the opportunity to do so had presented itself. But what to do? As Ginny was racking her brain to come up with a plan, the entrance opened on its own accord and Luna stepped out.
Looking at the grandfather clock standing by itself in the bedroom, Luna wiped her her eyes dry. It was already two'o'clock in the afternoon. She had missed lunch. Working up the courage to tell Ronald how she really felt, she hadn't been able to eat and had promised herself to eat directly afterward. A bit embarrassed she remembered having had a fleeting image of eating together with Ronald, perhaps as a picknick by the lake. No, she was not going to cry anymore. She promised mummy that. Mum. Luna thought back to that day so long ago. Her mother lying in a heap of shrapnel having difficulty to breathe and how she cried at the sight of that. And her mother saying with that sweet and gentle voice of hers;
"Don't cry. Good ladies don't cry. They find happiness even in sadness."
Since then Luna had only cried two times. The day of her mother's funeral, because her father looked so sad, and today. Thinking about it, she realised that technically she had cried three times, since she had cried at two separate times today. Her stomach growled, interrupting her thoughts. She chuckled a bit. Better find something to fill my stomach with, she thought to herself. Atleast now she wasn't crying anymore. She stood up and looked over her robes. A bit wrinkled but acceptable. Now for her face. She didn't often look into the wall mirror, like the other girls seemed to do constantly, but she had to make sure that there were no visible traces of her crying left on her face. After an extensive lookover she vent to the bathroom to thoroughly rinse her face with some cold water. Drying off her face she took a new look in the bathroom mirror. Much better. Now she could go and eat without worrying what people would think. She stopped on the way to the door. She had never worried about what other people thought of her before, why would she do that now all of a sudden? Shrugging her shoulders, she resumed her path to the entrance of the common room. As the entrance opened and she stepped out she noticed that the corridor was rather crowded.
"Hi Ginny. What are you doing here?"
Everybody stared at Luna. While the other girls seemed to be mostly disappointed at seeing her, Ginny lit up at the sight of her. She rushed up to her friend and hooked arms with her.
"I just wanted to see you, silly! You promised that we would meet up today, remember?"
"Oh. It seems I forgot." Luna was getting back to being herself.
"That's OK, come on. Let's go somewhere and have a talk."
As Ginny grabbed a hold of Luna's arm and started pulling her down the corridor, Mary Sue and her gang of girls stayed behind thunderstruck. Finally Mary Sue got a hold of herself and started laughing out loud.
"Oh how dumb you are, Mopsy, believing such a dumb thing! Of course Loony would never cry, she's completely emotionless."
"Hmm, then maybe the other thing I heard about her is wrong, too?"
"What are you talking about, Mops?" asked one of the other girls.
"Well I heard something about Loony hanging out with that Weasley boy, you know. The Gryffindor keeper, whatever his name is."
"Ron Weasley!"
All the girls turned to stare at Mary Sue. There was a strange aura around her.
"Yes, that's the guy," Mopsy continued. "Appearantly it was after talking with him, she was supposed to have started crying."
"Maybe she has a crush on him?" the other girl said. "I mean, she talks a lot about him. She even asked Padma what she thought about him, and made that ridiculous hat for Gryffindor when he made the team."
"Hehe, silly girl." Mary Sue had a strange smile on her face. "Doesn't she realise that she doesn't stand a chance for the heart of Ron Weasley?"
"That's true, I mean they're in different houses and different years. It's not like..."
"When it is I who Ron's heart is pounding for!"
All the girls stopped up to look at their leader. They knew that she was God's gift to men, but had she already conquered the heart of all the Gryffindor boys?
"But, Mary Sue, I thought that you were aiming for the heart of Harry Potter?"
"Who says I can't have both?" Mary Sue got a dreamy look in her eyes. "The brave and mysterious Harry Potter and the handsome and muscular Ron Weasley, the dreamiest boys in all of Gryffindor's sixth year. They both deserve a beautiful and smart girl like myself. Right, girls?"
"Right!"
"You had me so worried, Luna!"
"Worried?"
Luna and Ginny were marching towards the Great Hall, a decision made unanimously by their stomachs' growling.
"You didn't come talk with me after you talked with my brother, like you promised that you would, and then I hear a rumour going around that you were crying. What happened between you two, really?"
"Well, I... I'd rather not talk about it. Not here anyway."
"Then where?" They had reached the Entrance Hall and were nearing the Great Hall.
"Somewhere not so crowded, so we can talk alone."
As they walked up to one of the tables, Ginny started grabbing some sandwiches and a couple of chicken bones that she placed in a napkin. Ignoring the outcries from a enraged Slytherin she picked up a couple of apples and a bottle of pumpkin juice. As Luna picked up a couple of goblets, they turned around and made their way out again followed by more cries from said Slytherin which they ignored.
"How about by the lake?" Ginny asked.
"No, preferably not." Luna didn't feel like returning to the scene of the crime.
"Hmm, over by the cherry trees, then?"
"Sounds good."
They made their way to a secluded area on the grounds where six cherry trees were growing, a place that they called their own as they had spent a lot of time there. It was the one place that Luna could feel comfortable talking about the previous events that day, but she tried to sound as neutral about it as possible. She didn't want Ginny to worry anymore than she already seemed to be doing. Having been friends for some years now, Luna could usually tell when Ginny was too worried about her. Usually Ginny would worry about Luna not having many friends, but she would always make a show of not seeming to care about that. It always made Luna feel a bit happier to know that Ginny would care so much. They reached the the shade of the trees and sat themselves down and started to eat on their belated lunch. After a couple of bites on her sandwich, Ginny turned to Luna.
"So? How did it go?"
"I told him."
"And?"
Luna stared out in the open for a while.
"It didn't matter. He let me know how he felt before I even had the chance to tell him. But I told him anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Although I felt a bit..., Ginny?"
Ginny had dropped her sandwich and was staring at Luna.
"He did what?"
"He let me know that he was in love with Hermione. He didn't do it on purpose, but he did let me know atleast. After that I wasn't sure if I should tell him, and then he walked away. And then Malfoy, or whatever his name is, showed up and saw me crying, and Ronald came to my defense, but he didn't understand why I cried so I told him that I loved him and then he frooze up and I walked back to the dormitory and then I cried my eyes out and then I stopped and now we're sitting here." A lot of what Luna said was said very fast and with a very emotional tone behind it.
"Slow down, Luna." Ginny grabbed Luna's arms and pulled her into a comforting hug. "Now, take a few breaths and relax."
Luna didn't want to breathe, she was afraid that she would start crying again if she did. But she realised that she had to, and started drawing in deep breaths of air.
"Now, let's start again. One thing at a time. How did Ron let you know how he felt?"
"He... He got angry when I said that Harry and Hermione were obviously getting toether and that Hermione wouldn't fit with anyone else. He asked if I didn't think that he and her could have been together, and then he got angry and walked away."
That stupid bastard of her brother, why hadn't he told her about this before? It seemed that Ron had hurt Luna a lot more than he realised. Why were boys so irrepairably stupid?
"And then I started crying. And then that Malfoy boy showed up and started teasing me for crying."
Another person on Ginny's to-curse-list. It was already growing a bit too long for her to handle it over the weekend.
"But Ronald came back and told Malfoy off. And then he realised that I was already crying, and he got all embarrassed."
Ginny was slightly impressed. So her brother had his finer points after all.
"And then he thought that it was because I had a crush on Harry, that I had cried. And I just started laughing then. I couldn't believe that he hadn't seen it by then. And so I told him."
Ginny released Luna from her hug, so that she could sit up straight. She looked at her friend with tears glistening in her eyes.
"But now I think that it was a mistake. He looked so shocked when I said it. I probably embarrassed myself in front of him. What if he tells everyone about it, so that they can laugh about it?"
Ginny tried so hard to come up with what to do, that her failure at it only hurt more. She couldn't tell her what her brother had told her, because then she would have revealed to Luna that she had talked to him first. Not to mention that Ron still needed to figure out some things on his own. But she couldn't just let Luna sit here and think that Ron would publically announce what Luna had said to him.
"Luna. I think it is okay."
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that Ron was probably just surprised at finding out that you like him. I don't think he dislikes you or anything."
"Small comfort, Ginny. He still loves another girl."
"That doesn't really mean anything, Luna."
"How do you figure?" Luna's eyes were drying up. If Ginny thought there was still hope, then maybe it wasn't all over. Of course Ginny had thought that there was still hope for Harry to get together with Cho, but this was different.
"What I mean is that Ron doesn't know that much about love. He may think that he loved Hermione, but he may still be wrong on that. And besides, Hermione's with Harry now. Ron is wide open. You just have to go in and steal his heart."
"Ginny! This isn't quidditch! I can't just go in and steal his heart."
"Yes, you can! Stealing a heart is easy, the tricky part is keeping it..." Ginny got caught up in her own musings. "Or better yet, have him steal your heart!"
"What!"
"Since he is the Gryffindor keeper, he will have to keep your heart if he steals it."
Luna looked down at the grass, where their napkin filled with food was still laying. Forcing herself not to start laughing, or get angry at her friend, she looked up at the smiling girl in front of her.
"First of all, I think that you are taking these quidditch analogies a bit too far. Secondly, Ronald already has my heart! He doesn't need to steal it! And thirdly, the problem is getting him to want to steal it."
"Yes, I know. I didn't mean anything really with it anyway. You're taking things a bit too seriously I think."
"Well, it is my lovelife we are talking about."
"Don't worry about it, it will turn out all right."
"How can you be so sure? What if Ronald tells everyone about what I told him?"
"He won't do that, and I should know. He is my brother after all. Eventhough he can be incredibly stupid sometimes, even he knows better than to do something like that."
"I guess you're right."
"Come on, Luna! You better eat up now, or I'll eat your half of the lunch as well."
And with that, they started to dig in on their food.
Meanwhile, Ron was walking around the Great Lake. He had finally realised that he had missed eating lunch, but he didn't feel like eating. Not when he may have crushed a girl's heart. A friend's heart. Even though Ron had not known Luna for as long as he had known Hermione, she was still a very close friend of his. They had fought against death eaters together, they had laughed together and they had practised in the DA together. But, it had also been together with a lot of other people. How did he really feel about Luna? What did he think about her? Would he still be laughing together with her, if it were only with her? He remembered the first time they met. He had been frustrated about Malfoy being the Slytherin prefect, which made it less enjoyable for him to be a prefect himself. He hadn't noticed her then. Not until she spoke up about him going to the Yule Ball with Padma. At first he couldn't believe that anyone would be so interested in knowing all that she did know about that. Nor could he understand why she would just continue reading her paper like nothing had happened. He stopped up a bit. Had she felt that way for him already back then? Well, it certainly would explain why she had told him that she wouldn't have minded not dancing. And then he had said that joke, and she had been laughing like crazy. Well, she was a little crazy after all. He chuckled at the thought of it.
"Stop it," he said out loud.
He was getting around the subject again. He had to figure out how he felt about Luna as soon as possible, so that he could tell her as soon as possible. He didn't want to hurt her. Could it be because he actually did feel something for her? Or was it just because she was his friend? It was all so confusing. It would be better to look at it from a different angle. How did he feel about her in comparance with Hermione? She had been his crush for a couple of years now, shouldn't she be a good way to meassure his feelings towards Luna? But at the same time, he had to admit to himself that he still wasn't sure of how he had really felt about Hermione. Had he just fooled himself when he thought that he had been in love with her? Considering that he got over her so fast, that would be very probable. Well, he didn't have any other girl he could think of to compare with, except Fleur then. As a whole myriad of embarrassing memories flooded his mind, he decided to try and avoid thinking of the veela-similar beauty that had occupied his mind for a big part of his forth year. He started to think about Luna, focusing on only her and what he thought of her. She was pretty, that he sincerely thought of her. She was smart, and a good friend when it mattered. When he had been insecure about his abilities at the quidditch field, she had given him support. She could be very fun to be with sometimes, and she obviously thought he was fun to be with. But did he love her? What was love anyway? Was it more than friendship? More than family? Or less? Or just different? He walked up to the lakeshore and started to take his shoes off. It felt like a good idea to soak his feet in the water for now, while he tried to sort things out. If they could be sorted out that was.
At that moment, Mary Sue had finally come up with a new plan of action. Excusing her group of girls for the day, she made her way out to the grounds. Knowing the quidditch practice schedules for each team, for boy-scouting fun, she knew that Gryffindor did not have practice today. However, knowing that there wasn't any practice at all today, it would not surprise her if some Gryffindors were practicing anyway. And Ron being a Weasley would very likely mean that he would be there, if one were to consider some things, like a huge interest in quidditch, to be genetical. And if he wasn't there, she would just have to go look after him. Since if there was a small chance that Luna was in love with Ron, then what better way to really destroy her than to make him the property of Mary Sue, God's gift to Men? She laughed with mirth at the thought of it.
Author's notes: As you can see, I have decided to poke a little fun at the whole Mary Sue phenomenon that you can find in most fanfics. For those of you who don't know what a Mary Sue is, you are either very lucky or just without a name for these fools. A Mary Sue is a character created by the fanfic author, that is usually overly perfect and annoying. She usually have everyone fall in love with her and becomes friends with everybody. Why I gave her the surname Johnson, I don't know. It sounded right at the time. While I'm pointing out this little humour bit of mine, I would like to take the opportunity to point out other inside jokes from a previous chapter. In chapter three, just before Luna confesses her love to Ron, there are three instances of my own twisted self-refering humour. The first is of Luna staring at Ron as he was a martian, this is a small tribute to Seph who is a martian and a fellow Ron/Luna-shipper. The second is Luna "bursting" out in a "bubbling" laughter. This is refering to a entry in my guest book at Crumple-Horned Snorkacks Nest, where the R/Hr-shipper writing said "Sorry to burst your bubble, but Ron is Hermione's couple". It is thankfully the only negative entry I have gotten, other R/Hr-shippers have been very nice and polite to me, and it is just so plain funny to me that I have to joke about it all of the time. It just shows how people seldom takes the time to look at what they are writing. The third one is probably a lot more wellknown for shippers. Luna says to Ron "Isn't it obvious?" in reference to her love for him. This is a wellknown statement by many R/Hr-shippers, about Ron and Hermione hooking up together.
Now that we are through with all of the self-refering and disturbing humour of mine, I shall leave you with these questions:
Who is the mysterious stranger?
Does Ron really love Luna?
What will Ginny have to do to keep Luna's spirits up?
What is Mary Sue up to? Will she steal Ron's heart?
Will there be any more snogging in this fic, besides the one in the first paragraph in the first chapter?
Seriously, where's the snogging?
And will any of these questions be answered in the next chapter?
And will someone stop the author from filling up the fics with notes that doesn't bring the story further?