Author's Note: Written for Round 9 of the QLFC 6 — I am Woman

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 1

Prompt: Luna Lovegood

Prompts Used:

7 (word) evoke

8 (quote) Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer. - John Keats

11 (word) association

Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 1837

A/N: AU — I'm going to diverge from cannon a bit in the love department and insinuate myself a little Harmony. The best part of working with a team is when they convert you to their #ship. You know who you are ;)

There was something about the Keat's quote that struck me — and perhaps not in a conventional way. It somehow reminded me of Eleanor Rigby and the face in the jar — and it got me started on a path of imagining if Luna were somehow the odd duck we came to know in the books because that is the "face" she chose to wear in order to best communicate with others; as contrary as that might seem. Luna's nature would never be one of conventionality, but in being unique, was finer and better suited to playing her part in Harry Potter's life. From that perspective, Luna sort of reminds me of Cassandra of Greek mythology—except Luna is heeded even if she isn't always understood. So, I am playing and exploring with those ideas here.

Keats' wrote his original The Human Seasons in the same letter to a friend from which the quote here was taken. In that letter, he describes a drowning man still clinging to the hope of life. It is from that letter than I take my title and owe due to even more of John Keats' elegant words.

Beta Love: crochetaway and Story, Please

To the Surface

Harry looked up and waved nervously from the table. It had been some months since he'd seen his eccentric friend, even though she had taken up employment so close to the Ministry in Diagon Alley. Of course, Luna would never mention it, but it made Harry feel all the more guilty for his neglect of her.

The fact that he'd invited her to lunch so he could hash out his own troubles only evoked a deeper sense of remorse in him. He was not a good friend; not, at least, in the way he wanted to be. He didn't want their association to only be of benefit to him, but, to date, he hadn't found a way to make it right.

"Hi there, Harry," she said nonchalantly as she took the seat beside him. Harry slid over, shocked at her choice as he had purposefully left the seat across the table vacant. Luna wasn't one for social norms, but this was unusual — even for Loony Luna Lovegood. She immediately grabbed the steaming teapot and poured both of their cups.

"So," she said, stirring an alarming number of sugar cubes into her tea, "how are you?"

"I should be asking you that."

"But you didn't invite me over here to talk about me." She smiled despite her cutting, direct remark. Luna had that way about her. She could be devastating in her honesty; and she never seemed to be resentful about it. She accepted everything just as it was. Even him.

"Well, that's not entirely true…" he started to reply, but Luna only broadened her simpering smile over her cup. In her own, inimitable way, she called him out without ever having to say a word.

"Why don't you tell me what's on your mind, Harry?" she asked, the lilt in her voice, as ever, unassuming. It still caught him off-guard; how naïve she could seem. Now, as he sat there with her, his own mind clouded with doubts, he could not help but wonder if there wasn't something more than placid artlessness to Luna's approach to life. Her turnip earrings and her wrackspurts aside; she had always proven to be more than her odd exterior. Harry frowned at his jumbled thoughts.

"Harry?" Luna prodded, her hand reaching over to take his forearm. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he answered, hurriedly, grabbing up his teacup and taking a sip. "It's just…"

"...not what you originally wanted to talk about?" she finished for him.

"Right," he was more puzzled than ever. " How did you know?"

"How do I ever know, Harry?" She smiled, a crumb of scone still caught on her lip. Harry reached up, and gently brushed it away. "We are friends. I always know."

"Yeah, but how?" he pressed, insistent. Harry was sure he had invited Luna here for something else, but now it all seemed so irrelevant. The smile dropped away from Luna's face.

"You want to know about Ginny," she said. It wasn't a question. Luna turned her attention back to her plate, but her demeanor was uncannily un-Luna-like. "You want to know about love and how it feels and…" she looked back up into his eyes, "...and more."

"Yes," was all he could say. He didn't have the wherewithal to ask her again how she knew.

"Ginny has many passions," Luna went on. Her body was angled towards him now, her tea and scones forgotten. Harry would have been dumbfounded by the change in her bearing if he'd noticed; but he was so focused what she was saying, it had not yet gotten through. "She loves her family. And Quidditch. And sweaters with really long sleeves." Luna let out a giggle after that last one. "Did I ever tell you about the time when she stole my favorite sweater? We were in Third Year, I think. Or maybe Fourth..."

"Luna," Harry leaned in, taking her hands, "I just need to know. Does she love me?

Luna slid her hands out of Harry's, her eyes downcast. "At least as much as she loves a good cardigan with deep pockets," she said. "But maybe not as much as you love her." And then it happened again. Her manner changed and she looked at Harry directly. "Not as much as you think you love her."

Harry flopped back in his seat, his hand reflexively reaching up to his scar, rubbing. "What do you mean?" he murmured, his voice hardly audible. "That I don't love Ginny?"

"Are you surprised?"

And that was it, wasn't it? He wasn't surprised. It was the answer he'd been expecting.

"But why did you ask me?" Luna asked before Harry could. His eyes only widened with apprehension.

"Some—how," he stammered, "somehow I knew that you knew." Luna's smile returned; it wasn't nearly as full or as carefree anymore.

"And why is that?" she asked, prodding.

It was a damned good question. Harry sat there, his heart beating too wildly in his chest as his eyes darted back and forth. He looked as if he were searching for an answer on the bare table before him. "You always know," he managed, finally.

Luna never looked at him, instead folding up her napkin and reaching for her purse. She placed a few pounds on the table and sipped the last of her tea from her cup before moving to leave.

Harry grabbed her by the arm, preventing her departure. "No, wait! You can't go now."

Luna looked up at him, her eyes locked on his. "She will be miserable, you know." She was almost pleading with him.

"I know," he replied, softly.

"You could fix that," she whispered back.

"But he's my friend, too."

"He will forgive you," she said, "in time."

Harry felt his grip loosening on Luna's arm. She smoothed down her sleeve and stood up from the table. "Hermione," was all he said.

"Yes," she agreed with a smile. "Hermione." Luna grabbed her her jacket and made for the exit.

"Can I walk you back to The Prophesier?" Harry rushed after her, throwing an absurd number of bills and the check at the hostess on his way out the door.

"If you wish," Luna replied, serenely, as if she had not just delivered to him the most significant, life-changing information he'd ever received since finding out he was a wizard. They fell into step and headed back down Charing Cross.

"You're a Seer," he said after a few minutes. He felt stupid for having taken as long as he did to put it all together. How many times in his association with one Luna Lovegood had Harry wondered if she knew more than she was letting on. Too many to count.

"Yes," was all she said in reply.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"I didn't think I needed to. It wouldn't have mattered, anyway," she sighed. "People see what they want to see — they hear what they want to hear. It would only have made things worse."

"Worse? How?" Harry was genuinely perplexed.

"You were in the Department of Mysteries, Harry," she said. "You've seen the prophecy. And yet, you know full well how Sybill Trelawney was treated. Why would I reveal to anyone what I was?"

He couldn't argue that point. Trelawney was a laughing stock even among her fellow professors, and yet, her prediction had been true — it had altered the shape of the war. Had she ever received the thanks she so richly deserved? Had she ever been acknowledged for her vital part?

"Do you think I enjoy the funny looks? The odd names?" she asked him. Harry had been stunned speechless before — mostly from his own stupidity — but Luna was taking it to another level.

"I never thought about it. I—I guess I thought it was just who you were." Harry frowned and kicked a stone out into the street. "Are you—Are you saying it's all an act?" he asked.

"No, silly," she replied quickly with something like reassurance. "Not exactly. It was just easier."

"How could it be easier to be 'Loony'?" he gaped.

Luna stopped at the phone booth outside of The Porcupine. The box was occupied, so Luna sidled up against it to wait her turn. As she did so, she leaned in to whisper, "Because no one minded me. No one thought it strange when I said strange things — I was strange. Get it?" She peered around and gave an impatient harumph at the oblivious young woman chatting away on the phone before continuing. "Even you didn't think about it too much," she winked. "You would just think back on some crazy thing I'd said, and have an epiphany and...well, the rest, as they say, is history."

Harry couldn't argue the facts; he never really had questioned Luna's unique brand of friendship. He valued her just as she was; and when she proved to be right, in her oddball, roundabout way..." Harry could only stare with renewed admiration. Luna smiled at the budding revelation evident on his face.

Leaning in just a bit closer, she whispered, "Do you think you would have believed me if I had just come right out and told you that you were a Horcrux?" She arched her eyebrow at him to emphasize her point. "It's okay, Harry," she laid her hand on his arm to soothe him. "We all had a part to play," her eyes met his, "And mine was easy. All I had to do was be your friend — Ah! Finally!" she announced as the phone booth opened up and Luna jumped right in.

Harry propped himself up against the red box and brooded. Would he have believed her? Now, in retrospect, he'd like to think he would. But if he were being honest with himself, he knew that just wasn't the case.

After a few moments, Luna concluded her call and reemerged.

"Who was that?" Harry asked.

"Hermione," she said.

"Hermione?" he started. "Why did you call Hermione?!"

"I told her you needed to speak to her."

"But why? I don't— I can't!"

"Why not?" Luna asked. "You love her." She had stopped walking and turned, all but forcing Harry to run into her on the busy sidewalk. Luna reached out to steady him; there was something calming in her touch. "You have always loved her."

"Yes—no—wait!" Harry stumbled. "How do I do this? How do I just tell Hermione that I love her?"

"Perhaps you just did," Luna replied, her eyes focused on something just beyond Harry's shoulder. He closed his eyes, not daring to turn despite knowing exactly who stood there.

"Now there's a nice bit of scenery," Luna murmured to herself as she slipped away unnoticed. She could not help the snatches of poetry that came to mind in those moments. He has his Summer...to ruminate, and by such dreaming high is nearest unto heaven.

She would have hoped for it to be true, if she did not already know the outcome.