Luna was not present at lunch.
Ginny realised that the moment she set stepped into the Great Hall, the sight of the countless candles floating in the air in front of her, the enchanted roof—today imitating the blue sky she had admired when she had looked up while walking from her Herbology lesson and back to the castle—the endless rows of food, and, of course, the chatter of the hundreds of students, most of them already seated around the tables, causing her to pause for a moment the way it always did. But even then, it barely took her more than a moment to cast a glance at the crowded Ravenclaw table.
With how Luna's hair always seemed to glow in the sunlight, Ginny knew that she would not have missed her, so she did not waste her time by walking past the table, instead heading over towards the nearest platter, stacked high with sandwiches. If there was one good thing about having inherited most of her belongings from her brothers, it was that the cape she has wrapped around her shoulders was too big for her, providing Ginny with the perfect size to allow her to hide a couple of sandwiches close to her chest and hurry back outside the Great Hall, not once letting Umbridge know what she was doing. Although Ginny doubted that she would have cared enough to stop her if she did, the risk was still present, so she smiled into the fabric of her cape as she was once more able to leave the castle and head back outside.
Although winter had already passed, the air was cold against her skin, so Ginny did not waste any time, already running when she spotted the lone figure in the distance.
She found Luna, as it so often seemed to be the case those past couple of months, sitting next to the Great Lake.
Seeing Luna sitting there, with her legs pulled up under her, the sketchbook nestled securely between her hand and elbow with her underarm acting as the surface beneath it, and her quill—the one with the purple tip, Ginny realised, Luna's favourite—pressed against the paper, Ginny knew that she had made the right decision when she had taken those sandwiches, for nothing she could possibly say now would ever have been enough to make Luna walk back to the castle with her. A quick glance revealed that at least Luna was wearing shoes. Her feet were not completely unprotected from the cold, and Ginny knew that even though Luna had left her cape as a piece of rumpled fabric next to her on the ground, the cold air would not be enough to harm her. So rather than making an attempt at convincing her that the warmth the castle had to offer would be able to compete with the feeling of the breeze playing with her hair, Ginny walked over to join her on the ground. As Luna occasionally looked up, nodding at the air before placing the tip of her quill against the parchment once more, seemingly able to see something Ginny cannot, she simply observed her.
It was in moments like these that Ginny could truly see the reason why they had been separated into different houses. As her legs began to twitch, restless energy creating the small movements as Ginny allowed herself to imagine jumping up from her spot next to Luna, running around the lake, trying to persuade Luna to fly through the air on the school broomsticks, Luna sat still, small even strokes of her quill slowly creating a drawing of a creature Ginny was unable to recognise from any book, painting, or lesson she had ever witnessed about magical creatures. While Ginny's attention was pulled first towards Luna and the way her hair fell in front of her face as she leant in to smudge the ink before it got the chance to dry, only a little, to create an almost eerily real shadow underneath the creature, and then towards the castle, her thoughts flying towards first her family and then her friends, she could practically feel how Luna was so absorbed in her quest to form the perfect lines and curves to complete the drawing that even Ginny moving over to sit closer to her, leaning in over her shoulder, careful not to touch her if the contact should be enough to make Luna's arm twitch and create a mistake in the picture, was not enough to alert Luna to the fact that she was no longer alone out there. Not that Ginny was even sure that she necessarily wanted her to glance up from her drawing and over at her. As she watched Luna, and saw how she had lost herself completely in her art, Ginny knew that not even looking at Luna and seeing the way her face always seemed to first reveal the surprise of seeing her there before Luna's eyes would turn soft, a fond smile tugging at her lips, would be able to make her heart feel as light, send the same kind of bubbling warmth through her veins as simply taking in the serene look on Luna's face could.
Finishing what to Ginny looked like scales, Luna paused, scratching her cheek with the tip of the quill. It left a trace of ink, and, almost instinctively, Ginny reached out towards her.
She could see the moment Luna properly saw her, pinpoint it from the way Luna's eyebrows rose before she recognised her.
"Ginny," Luna said, and just as Ginny had expected her to, she sounded like her thoughts were both there and yet not quite in the same place as her own, perhaps even further away than the castle in front of them, "how long have you been here?"
"Not that long," Ginny admitted, "a couple of minutes, maybe a little bit more than that." and then, pushing the side of the cape back behind her shoulder, she showed Luna the sandwiches, extending one of them to her. "Here. I couldn't find you at lunch so I got you something to eat." as Luna sent the sandwich a quick glance, Ginny gestured towards the lettuce and slice of tomato that the piece of bread was not quite able to hide. "Don't worry, I made sure to remove the ham. This is just butter, lettuce, tomato, and then a bit of cheese."
Luna accepted the sandwich with a tiny nod that Ginny was not sure she would have noticed even a couple of years before. Tearing off a bite of the sandwich before eating it, Luna nodded at her, sending first an approving look towards the sandwich in her hand and then a smile at Ginny. "Thank you. This is quite good!" as she spoke, she turned the sandwich around, inspecting it from every angle. Ginny simply watched as a slice of tomato managed to escape, coming dangerously close to falling to the ground before Luna caught sight of its plan and shoved it back into the sandwich.
They sat like that for quite a while, none of them saying anything. While Ginny took another bite of her sandwich, leaning back onto her elbows as she took in the sight of the Great Lake in front of her and how the surface of the lake reflected the sunbeams, sending light back up onto her, she saw how Luna slowly tore off another piece of bread, looking at it for a second, before tossing it into the water.
"It is for the dabberblimps," she explained when she noticed Ginny looking at her, "they like bread, I have noticed, or at least they always seem to stay for longer when I have a piece of bread or something like that to give to them. Just last week, I managed to make one stay to let me draw her for an hour by giving her a slice of cake."
Ginny's gaze travelled from Luna's face and the way her eyes shone as she talked about the creatures towards the sketchbook that she still clutched close to her chest. "I presume that—" Ginny fought to pronounce the word, and from the way Luna let out a tiny, melodic laugh, her eyes becoming just a little bit brighter as the mirth made her look more relaxed, she already knew that she was not succeeding, so, eventually, she gave up, instead settling for merely pointing towards the artwork, "is a dabberblimp?"
Following her gaze, Luna took the time to position the sketchbook in her arms to give Ginny a better view of the drawing. "It is. A dabberblimp, I mean, just not the same as the one I drew last week."
Luna turned over a few of the leaves of her sketchbook, and Ginny could see how there was page upon page of sketches, paintings, and the familiar sight of Luna's handwriting, the letters occasionally showing her how Luna had been focused on nothing but writing, the perfected flick at the end of each word making it so that Ginny could vividly picture the time Luna had dedicated to each line, and other times serving as proof that there had been something far more important than her handwriting present while Luna had scrawled down the words. But it was the art that really kept her spellbound, making Ginny lean in even closer, resting her head on Luna's shoulder as she looked at the pictures.
Though many of them seemed to show some corner of the castle that Ginny could not remember having ever seen before—a window showing a certain angle of the Forbidden Forest that made Ginny unsure where in the castle it was located, a deserted classroom Ginny could not remember having ever been in, a closet Ginny could vaguely remember from one of the many times that Luna had pulled her aside, to explain how the creature she had found was more important than their next lessons, eyes shining brighter than her hair in the moonlight they would later find themselves bathed in when Ginny had agreed to come with her—there were far more of her and Luna, together. The two of them sitting in the Great Hall, with Luna reaching out towards the plates with pudding, Ginny smiling at her as she sat next to her, both of them seated at the Ravenclaw table. Luna lying in the grass, Ginny resting her head on her stomach, the way Luna's arms were waving around her head telling her that it had been meant to show one of the many lunches they had come to spend in each other's presence, far away from the Great Hall and the other students. Their first kiss, Luna having pulled her away from the noise that had filled the Great Hall during the Yule Ball to instead show her the stars, insisting that the ones she could see in the ceiling would never be able to outshine the ones they would find outside, the real ones in the sky, Luna having slowly moved closer to her until Ginny was not quite sure who had been the first to close the distance between them, only that she had kissed Luna for the very first time that night.
Yes, as Ginny caught sight of the drawings, only able to look at each for a split second before it was gone already, Luna moving on to the next page, she realised that, somehow, Luna had been able to capture both the way she could make even the darkest night seem bright, her hair acting as its own source of light, and the look Ginny had had to listen to her brothers tease her about in the months surrounding the Yule Ball, the way she would supposedly look at Luna like she had singlehandedly invented everything good in the world. And as Ginny looked at the drawings, she could not help but feel that perhaps she did understand her brothers a little bit now. Perhaps she really did look like that sometimes.
Finally, it seemed that Luna had reached the correct page, for she held up the sketchbook with her free hand. "Look," she said, pointing towards the collection of lines, curves, and surfaces that came together to form the image of something Ginny could not remember having ever seen before, a creature that seemed to swim around underwater from the way the tiny fins appeared to cut through water, "this was the dabberblimp I drew last month. As you can see, she was quite happy about the cake, she even smiled at me," Luna gestured towards what Ginny assumed was the head of the dabberblimp, a serious expression on her face as she nodded at her, "and trust me, it is not every day you manage to see a dabberblimp smile." shoving the last bit of the sandwich into her mouth, Luna glanced back out towards the lake, seemingly recalling the sight of the dabberblimp, at least if the dreamy look on her face was any indication.
"Did you manage to see one today?" Ginny asked, careful not to let her voice become too loud if the answer was yes. She did not want to scare the creatures away, not with how happy Luna had seemed at the memory.
But Luna shook her head. "No. I had hoped that she might still be here, but it seems that she has already moved away. This," she quickly went back to the page where the half-finished drawing look back out at them, "is just what I remember of her."
Now that Ginny had gotten the chance to observe both, she could tell the differences, how the first picture had seemed more round, the dabberblimp having a more lifelike look in her eyes when Luna had gotten the chance to look at one while drawing.
"It looks beautiful," she said, "you drawing. Really, it does."
For the longest time, Luna simply looked down at the lines. Then she spoke. "I suppose it does." as Luna glanced back up at her, Ginny was relieved to see the familiar sight of how the corners of her lips curled upwards into a smile before Luna continued. "I just cannot wait for the next time I get the chance to draw them. Perhaps if I try to give them something sweeter… though I am not sure what that would be."
"We could think about it on our way to transfiguration." Ginny suggested. When Luna shot her a surprised look, she pointed towards the castle where they could already see small groups of students walking out through the oak front doors, some of them making their way towards the greenhouses and others again making their way towards their lesson in care of magical creatures. "I think we might have to make our way back now if we don't want to be late."
"Yeah, I suppose we do," Luna echoed, though the way she clutched her quill just a bit closer to her and tightened her grip on the sketchbook told Ginny that she would much rather have stayed out here.
Truth to be told, Ginny would have preferred that as well. Not necessarily because she did not want to learn more, but simply because Luna was here, and if Luna wanted to stay then so did Ginny. But as Luna finally pushed herself off the ground, pausing for a brief second to brush the dirt off her robes before turning around, shifting her quill over to have one hand free, extended her hand towards Ginny, she did not hesitate for a second to take her hand and let Luna help pull her to her feet.
"We will be back tomorrow?" Luna said, the almost breathless sound of her voice letting Ginny know that it was a question.
"Yes. Tomorrow. Then, I will see if I can manage to find something sweeter than a sandwich and a cake combined!"
Luna giggled as the two of them ran back towards the castle together, and the sound of it along with the way Luna stepped closer to her, pressing a kiss to her cheek as they stepped onto the staircase to let it take them to their classroom made Ginny's heart beat just a little bit faster.