The Right Kind of Belief
A/N: Throughout HBP, I regarded Harry/Ginny as The Ship That Never Happened, but it is mentioned in this fic. Spoilers for HBP within; standard disclaimers apply.
"Look!" Luna pointed at the sky. A bright orange light was traversing the heavens; to Harry it looked like nothing more than a Muggle plane. Well, knowing Luna, she was probably going to claim that it was an alien aircraft carrying the president of the Blibbering Humdingers.
"What about it?" he asked warily.
"It's one of Scrimgeour's heliopaths," she said solemnly. "It's going north, towards Hogwarts' ruins. I've suspected that he was sending them to spy on the school, to investigate that article in The Quibbler about McGonagall's clandestine love affairs with the merpeople. We ought to tell her about it; it'll probably inconvenience her and the others as they're doing the repairs."
"Er . . . really?"
He blinked, hating himself for allowing her to steer yet another of their evening rendezvous into an impossibly awkward corner. Harry liked Luna tremendously, but there were times (more frequent than he liked to admit) when he wished she would just shut up and kiss him. The mental image of McGonagall snogging a merman was more than he could handle, and he shut his eyes tightly to banish the thought. When he opened his eyes, however, she was smirking.
"Of course not! That's only a Muggle airplane." Harry's eyebrows went up—was this a rare bit of sanity coming from Luna? "Everyone knows heliopaths can't fly. Really, Harry," she continued, shaking her head, "sometimes I honestly can't remember why we're going out."
He would have risen to her bait if he hadn't seen the sly smile in her eyes. Leaning in, he pulled her into a stupendous kiss and drew away only after his pounding blood set fire to the backs of his eyeballs.
"Was it a choice between me and the Writhing Wrackpot?" Harry joked, affectionately tucking a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear.
The garden swing rocked slightly as Luna drew back from him.
"I think you mean Wrackspurts," she said admonishingly, tapping him on the nose.
"Sorry." He tried to keep his face straight, but it cracked in a grin.
"I know Hermione Granger says they don't exist," Luna said patiently, "and she is a very intelligent witch, but she doesn't know everything."
Harry flushed slightly. Luna was a bundle of laughs, but sometimes it was difficult to keep the laughter from being at her expense.
"Well, no one else believes in them either, love," he pointed out, regretting his words almost as soon as they left his mouth. After all, he wasn't seeking to pick a fight with Luna on the delicate subject of her father's credibility. They had been necking happily just a minute ago!
There was a pause before Luna responded.
"Is it so bad to believe in something that doesn't exist?" she asked pensively, suddenly looking uncharacteristically lucid even with her protuberant eyes and tire-shaped earrings. She propped her chin up on one palm and looked squarely at Harry. "It doesn't hurt me. I think it's far more dangerous for Mrs. Weasley to believe that Percy still wants to be accepted back by their family."
Last Christmas, he had relented a little by keeping the jumper his mother sent him, but he hadn't sent anything in return, and Fleur and Bill didn't get so much as a card from him on the occasion of their wedding. He had shown up only briefly at Ginny's funeral, dry-eyed and businesslike (Harry's breath hitched slightly at the thought of Ginny, which he banished quickly). There was no foreseeable improvement in Percy's attitude.
"It was dangerous for the wizarding world to believe the Ministry's lies about You-Know-Who. It was dangerous for Sirius to believe that Kreacher wasn't a threat." Harry's throat seized up at the mention of Sirius, but strangely enough, no anger rose in him at her words. Luna regarded him with compassion and continued, "It was dangerous for Dumbledore to believe in everyone's inherent goodness. But it's good to believe that they're both just there, that they're not far away at all . . . that they're waiting behind the Veil." With my mother, she added silently.
"With Ginny?" Harry asked, feeling a little guilty about bringing up his former girlfriend in front of Luna, but unable to keep his thoughts from returning to her.
"Of course," said Luna seriously, without missing a beat. Luna's ability to talk about nearly anything with ease was one of her most endearing traits to Harry.
He thought about what she had said, and it struck him that perhaps Luna was less loony than the rest of them. He inhaled deeply and the rich, wild smell of the moist earth in their garden filled his nostrils.
"It's not such a bad thing to believe there's hope when there is none."
"There was always hope!" Harry said fiercely, at once keenly aware of the absence of an old scar on his forehead, and all the newer scars on the rest of his body, and upon his heart.
Luna looked at him unblinkingly.
"The war against Voldemort wasn't hopeless," Harry said firmly. His mouth went dry when he thought of Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, and Ginny, but he went on. "It was hell, but we came through all right. And it's not hopeless now! We'll heal Hagrid, and patch up Hogwarts, and we'll catch Snape and Malfoy—!"
At last, Luna smiled. "Yes, you have to talk like that, don't you? Everyone's always depended on you. Harry. Our savior."
Luna tucked another escaping strand of hair behind her ear, and her gaze flickered down and then back to Harry's face. When her eyes met his, he thought it seemed as though she had overcome an internal struggle or arrived at a realization. She drew close and kissed Harry.
"For luck," she said simply. "Because you've carried a terrible load on your shoulders ever since you were born."
Slowly, Harry returned her smile. Although it was sad and heavy, there was an inextinguishable light in his face.
"Do you believe in luck?" he asked.
"About as much as Hermione believes in the Blibbering Humdinger," Luna responded lightly. "But I believe in you, Harry. We all have, ever since before you can remember."
He cocked his head, wanting to thank her, but unable to find the words. Luna saved the moment by leaning in and kissing him again, this time full on the lips.
"For you," she said. "Just because."
And though Harry didn't know how to say thank you, he took Luna's hand and squeezed it. From the expression on her face, she understood him perfectly.
They would heal Hagrid, and rebuild Hogwarts; they would get their hands on Snape and Malfoy.
And Hogwarts would be back, more magnificent and full of secrets than before, even if its halls would be populated by more ghosts; and the gamekeeper would raise illegal monsters in its hidden places and traverse the Forbidden Forest fearlessly; and two traitors would die, well aware that their deaths were mere inkblots on a great ledger that could not hope to conceal the record of their debts.
And he'd have Luna. And they'd go on, believing in fantastic things together.