Chapter 3. Sugar in the Marmalade

I stand in the middle of the room and brush off my hands. The house seems clean, or at least as clean as it was going to get without… well without a total change of lifestyle. The walls of books and parchment suited me, but other people just wondered where the corner table was, and where it was that they were supposed to sit down. At least that's what Ron had asked, but that's because he always sprawls and takes up all available space. Hermione had asked what sort of system I was using to sort my books on the shelves and had peered about with a air of faint horror when I told her that I didn't have one.

Not that I had many visitors.

After the events of… well, just the events, I'd pulled away from everyone again. I know, it's a habit of mine.

I can't help it.

It seems like a copout to me, but I'd have to put some of the blame it on the isolation I suffered as a child. A cupboard doesn't provide one with much of an opportunity for healthy emotional growth.

So I was here in this tiny old house on a crooked street in a small seaside town on the south west coast of England. I'd told people I was writing my memoirs.

The house had been rented out for years, but it was part of the Black inheritance Sirius had left me. Of course between that and the inheritance from my parents, it was pretty clear that I wasn't going to have to work doing anything unless I wanted to. And of course I was making money off Fred and George's hard work as well. They were doing well these days.

So: my memoirs. I'd dripped some ink on some pages. I'd bought a computer and sat staring at the keyboard. I'd bought dictation software for the computer. I'd uninstalled the software and taught myself how to touch type.

But the only thing I'd written were a few owls to my friends, and some to Luna.

I'd sent her a note on impulse a few months ago when I found an article in the Quibbler that interested me. Well, it was the article, and a vague sort of wistfulness about the time I never had a chance to spend with her while we were at Hogwarts. There were plenty of people I'd spent more time with, but there was a closeness and ease between us that I didn't have with other people. Anyway, since I'd first written her, we'd exchanged mail a few times. She was working a story for the Quibbler somewhere in Europe, so we hadn't talked that much. But it still felt like there was some sort of closeness there.

So when she got back to England, I'd invited her for tea, and she'd accepted.

And now I'm terrified. Well maybe terrified is the wrong word, but I'm seriously uneasy at the very least.

My experiences with females can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Thumb not included.

And Ginny aside, none of them were even closed to wonderful. And with Ginny, I'd just started dating her too early. Ah well.

Besides that, this was Luna Lovegood. I've been writing to her with no problems at all, but what if she just started talking my ear off about something, and I just end up sitting looking at her in bemused silence until I can get her to leave.

She's damn eccentric and… who knows if this is even anything other than tea, and…

She's just knocked on my door.

…

I guess I should open it.

Right.

So I do.

"Hello, Harry Potter," she says, with what sounds like distinct satisfaction.

She's wearing jodhpurs. That jacket is surprisingly sensible, but the dress shirt is a bit out of place.

I wonder what she's using as cufflinks.

"Harry?"

Thank God her hair is still long.

"Are you going to invite me in, Harry?" she asks. "And don't worry, there's nothing vampiric about me, you know."

"Right, sorry Luna, umm… right… come on in," I manage.

She wipes her boots on the mat, and steps in.

"You seem to have built yourself quite a nice home here, Harry," she says, looking around the cluttered living room.

"Well… ummm… the house has been here for centuries actually," I correct.

"Harry," she says with some disappointment, "of course I meant the home, not the bricks. Of course you didn't build the house." She grasps my hand and turns it over, looking at the palm and fingers.

"Although it seems that you could if you want to. You have rather a Winston Churchill bricklaying set of hands in some ways."

I retrieve my hand, and smile at her. "Thanks," I say to her, "this is really the first place I've had that's been my own. But it's good to have a home. Look, do you want to take a walk down on the beach before tea?"

"That would be lovely, Harry," she says. "It's a bit orgulous out, but quite a nice day for beach strolling. I came prepared as well, so the weather shall be an accompaniment, rather than an impediment."

Still grinning, I put on some boots and a jacket, and lead her out of the house and down the cobblestone street to the seafront, chatting as we go.

Hours later, we stumble back, laughing in the gloom of the early evening, soaked head to foot with salt spray from the sea.

I'm holding her hand, but that's only because her thin fingers are icy cold.

The door creaks open, shuddering the way it always does when it's damp out, and we're inside, squeezing around each other in the tiny entryway as we remove boots, jackets, and blow noses that are suddenly running.

Her socks are bright green with individual toes. She sees my gaze and curls her toes under her feet.

"Well, it seemed a bit like that sort of day," she says to justify them, and turns hastily into the living room.

"Look, why don't you go up and borrow some cloths. I'll start some dinner, and you can put your cloths out to dry," I suggest.

And I don't really want her to leave.

"I'm not on the floo network, so unless you want to apperate home that's probably best," I finish.

So she wanders off upstairs, looking at the maps up on the walls as she goes.

I start a fire in the fireplace, prepare the ingredients and put a pot of stew on the stove, and make a couple mugs of hot cocoa. I can hear the water running upstairs, so I guess she's washing the salt out of her hair.

She's the first person other than me to be in the bedroom.

"I'll stir the stew while you go and change Harry," she says from behind me. I'm not startled. A mouse couldn't get up or down the stairs without them creaking like a sailing ship in a storm.

"I hope you don't mind what I borrowed," she says. "I can always change into something else."

I shake my head, and wander off upstairs to change, my mind occupied with the image of Luna wearing an old pair of my pyjamas and a dressing gown. It strikes me in a strangely visceral way.

We eat dinner at the tiny table in the kitchen, still talking. We move into the living room with glasses of wine, and sit in front of the fire.

"You mentioned your memoirs, Harry," she says. "I don't expect they're going well, are they."

"They aren't going anywhere at all," I admit with a grimace. "How did you know?"

"Well, I thought about writing memoirs of my own," she says with a sigh, "and it seemed to me a tricky sort of thing. The part of memoirs that one would want to remember isn't the part that other people would like to, or at least that's how it struck me."

"Too true," I say, gesticulating with the glass of wine. "They want the amazing action story of The Boy Who Lived in all its Lockheartishness, but I don't want to think about that much. And when I think about how much time I spent being a prat… well, there's a lot that's shameful really."

"Harry Potter," she says, "you did really quite a wonderful job, and I have some fond memories of you from that time. So don't hex yourself when you don't have to."

She pulls her knees up to her chest, and looks down at her bare feet in the slightly embarrassed silence that follows.

I clear my throat and say the first thing that came to mind.

"You know, you have quite aristocratic toes."

Damn the wine.

We fall asleep soon after, in front of the fire. As I drift off, I realise that she could have just dried her clothes with a spell and gone straight home.

I wake up in the morning with a sunbeam shining in my eyes. Luna is peering down at me from the couch, her hair tousled and her eyes dreamy.

We wash up a bit, and make breakfast together.

I'm munching on some toast when she looks up from an old issue of the Quibbler she's peering at, and points to the marmalade behind me on the countertop, her green clad feet up on the bench.

"Could you pass the marmalade, love?" she asks.

And she freezes, her hand in front of her mouth, and a flush rushing up her cheeks.

I could hear my heart hammering in the silence.

I turn around, pick the jar up, and pass it to her, my hand shaking.

"Here you go, Lu," I manage to say.

I take a bite of toast, and chew it, dry in my mouth and scratching my throat as I swallow.

I get up, walk around to the other side of the table, pull her into my arms, and kiss her.

Some time later on, she's sitting in between my legs on the couch, my arms around her. I press another kiss to the bare patch of skin behind her ear, and smell my shampoo in her hair.

She takes another bite of toast and turns in my arms.

"Harry, this marmalade is simply heavenly," she says, and beams at me, her warmth feeling more like the sun than the moon.

No wonder the others hadn't been quite comfortable here when they'd visited. She fits into my home like the last piece of a puzzle.

Luna stays somewhat longer than just for tea.

Notes:

If anyone is wondering, the title really was taken straight from a particularly silly Leon Lai song.

Orgulous is a word, and jodphurs are those funny bulge-out-at-the-top riding pants, just for those who were wondering.

This is all I have written at the moment in this little series, but I 'spect I'll add some more sometime.