I'm With You
By
Sannikex
A/N: This is a short fluff piece, the second part in my The Weasley Love Stories. I know Harry isn't a Weasley but almost so he got to be in. This is published because I wanted to show I'm not dead because I won't update for a while. I'll be in Oxford! Gee! Just as Broom(b)ride (Ron/Hermione) this story will contain small vignettes from the leading couple's life. So enjoy!Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Harry Potter universe or Avril Lavigne's lyrics.
No footsteps on the ground
I'm listening, but there's no sound
Isn't anyone trying to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you, take me by the hand, take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I, I'm with you
I'm with you
It was rather cold. But she couldn't leave, not just yet. The sun was setting and a beautiful rainbow stretched over the firmament. The clouds were peach and pink colored with a gold lining.
A week ago now, Harry Potter had defeated Voldemort. He was still unconscious in the infirmary. His two best friends were watching over him, no one else was allowed in. Luna sighed lightly. Now the war was over and all over the world people were celebrating. But not Luna Lovegood. She had no one to celebrate with.
Her long hair that this year had reached her slender hips was blowing gently in the rough breeze and glinted with the last rays of sun. He hadn't expected to find someone here and was about to walk down the stairs again when she turned.
Something in her eyes stopped him. In the blue depths he saw something he could recognize anywhere. Loneliness. It was like looking into a mirror. The same endless emptiness he knew filled his own eyes.
"Harry? What are you doing up?"
Luna had always liked Harry's appearance, she found him nice to look at. She knew from hearing the other girls' in her dormitory talk that he wasn't a very tractable catch. It was common knowledge that The-Boy-Who-Lived got very clumsy and nervous around the opposite sex, he didn't look more than fairly good and there was always hidden panic in his eyes. But Luna thought he was very handsome. His eyes were green as the feathers of a Papegoja, he had a rather long, thin, face. His mouth was always too serious but when he smiled, his real smiles, not the 'I'm fine, don't worry' ones, he handed out to people around him he looked really good. He didn't look like a hero. He looked like a pirate, she had mused once.
"I sneaked out. Hermione and Ron are sleeping and Madame Pomfrey didn't notice."
She nodded and he came up besides her, putting his hands in his pockets. Lord knew, how many times he had wished for someone to just stand beside him when he felt alone. Not asking, 'How are you?' just standing, offering silent comfort.
She watched, a bit surprised that he hadn't left her she dared to look at him as he was silently gazing off in space. Something was gone in his eyes. The hunted look wasn't there, instead a tired look of resignation had replaced it, darkening the colour a few shades. Long, dark lashes were shielding the depths and cast shadows over his cheekbones.
"So why are you up here? Shouldn't you be celebrating his death?"
He turned and met her gaze, green meeting blue, sky meeting grass.
"I had no one I could celebrate with. Besides, Cielarcers likes to fly through the rainbow to collect colours so they can paint their houses. Cielarcers love colours. They're the ones that put the gold at the end of the rainbow. They pay for what they take."
Suddenly he understood why Luna believed in the made-up creatures. They were her. She identified herself with the Snorkacks, weird creatures that no one understood and ridiculed. The Cielarcers had to signify a wish for something beautiful...something that lasted...something about giving and taking.
Was that possible? Was that a way to interpret Luna Lovegood? It was like she spoke another language. He didn't doubt she was more complex than that, odd and different but now somewhat more human, a human who just as himself hungered for warmth. Without realizing it his hand reached out and slowly caressed her long hair.
She was staring into his eyes and wished she had stayed silent. Why did she have to talk about Cielarcers now? He would think of her as weird and leave. But she wanted him to understand. She wanted him to see.
Suddenly his hand caressed her hair. Unable to hold herself she stepped closer and sighed as his arms embraced her. Resting her head at his lean shoulder she watched the rainbow. Later she would swear that she had seen tiny, pixy-like faeries dive into the colours, their laughs sounding like bells in her ears.
"You didn't want to kill him..."
He tensed by reflex but found that he could easily tell this girl in his arms his thoughts.
"No. I wanted revenge because of my mum and dad and Sirius and..." He swallowed and her arms circled his waist. "...And the others. But I didn't want to kill him. I was afraid...god...I was afraid it would make me into him. That it would let something inside me loose. I was the only one who knew how big the part of him that was left inside me. At the end I could almost read his thoughts and he mine. And I wanted him gone forever, out of my mind, of my life..."
"That you killed him doesn't make the part of you that is his bigger, Harry. It's the other way around. You showed how much you didn't want to be him by defeating him."
He didn't think so but he said nothing. Some of the pain had lifted from his shoulders. It occurred to him that he was standing, embracing Luna Lovegood and that she had her arms wrapped around his waist and her blonde head leaned on his shoulder. He didn't mind, it felt nice.
"Why are you really up here?"
He already knew but he asked anyway to see if she would answer him truthfully.
"I was feeling so alone. I just walked and ended up here."
She looked up at him almost shyly. And there and then he fell in love with Luna Lovegood. Beneath a rainbow with Cielarcers zooming through it and the sun setting the girl's hair off into a golden curtain.
"I know how it feels," he murmured and from pure instinct he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.
Luna didn't think about things that didn't exist. For once her full conscience was fastened in reality, on the sweet lips of a boy that she realized had been in love with for a while. Three minutes to be exact, ever since he saw through her lies and asked her what she was doing all alone up on the roof of the Astronomy Tower.
Hesitantly they separated.
"I feel better now."
"Me too, Luna."
I'm looking for a place
I'm searching for a face
Is anybody here I know
Cause nothing's going right and
Everything's a mess
And no one likes to be alone
Isn't anyone trying to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you, take me by the hand, take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I, I'm with you
I'm with you
A/N2: How was it? Do tell!
