Keep Me Steady
A HariPo oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. A snapshot of post-war Linny, with a good dose of Luna being…Luna. X'D Read, review, and enjoy!
- ^-^3
Ginny's grip on her hand—those Quidditch-roughened digits covered by the lovingly knitted individual fingers of her gloves, in contrast with Luna's puffy, homemade mittens—tugged Luna onto the stoop before the pub. When the toe of Luna's right boot caught on a broken piece of cement, Ginny's other hand flew up at the ready, steadying Luna's back so the blonde didn't teeter backwards. "Easy there, Lune."
Luna smiled. "You make it easy for me, Ginny," she pointed out. She tapped one mitten-covered hand to her chin while the redhead opened the door to the Leaky Cauldron for them. "In fact, I don't think I've fallen nor had even a scrape in…six months, thanks to you."
Ginny paused but chuckled and followed her inside. "Why am I even surprised you'd be keeping count…?"
Luna opened her mouth to elaborate precisely why, but Ginny's content profile told her that it had been a rhetorical question. Besides, the din ahead of them drowned out any opportunity of Luna answering her at that second.
"OI! THEY'RE 'ERE!" Even in his enthusiasm, Seamus' accent couldn't be shaken.
Glasses clinked, almost matching his volume, much in the same way people pushed out of their chairs, causing chair legs to scrape terribly against the tired wooden floorboards. Then, as though realizing not everyone needed to be up, there was a second clamor as half those gathered sat right back down.
The scene made Ginny grumble right as Ron came up to her and Luna. He blinked between the two of them. "You—You made it," he stated.
"Well, this is a Dumbledore's Army get-together, isn't it?" Ginny groused.
Ron's red ears gave him away, but he kept his temper in check. He pulled his sister into a hug and even gave Luna a one-armed one. "You never said you were coming, just so you know. Harry and I picked up 'Mione from the Ministry, and there's no way the rest would let this go on without us."
Luna nodded at that. "Although it was a difficult task to do exactly that this past year and we did," she remarked.
He froze, his blue eyes wide as some of Luna's pans of paint back home as he stared at the Ravenclaw. Then he nodded and motioned to two free chairs at the end of the long table Tom the barman had set aside for their group. Quietly, he shuffled back to his seat several chairs up from theirs, between Hermione and Neville, the latter of whom paused to wave exuberantly at the pair before Seamus yanked him into some heated discussion with Parvati.
Luna pursed her lips and cocked her head at Ginny. "Was it something I said?"
Likely it was, given how Ginny stifled her snickers. But Ginny shed her scarf, cloak, and gloves and dismissed her brother's reaction with a wave of her hand. "Just forget him, Luna. We all have every right to be here—although, if I were to see Smith right now, I'd give him my worst Bat-Bogey Hex and then a swift kick in the pants without a second thought."
Luna mused on the mention of Zacharias Smith. So often she felt ambivalent towards most people until she interacted with them, but Smith…no, Ginny had the right idea there.
Their concerns over the absent Smith turning up were imagined, though. The witches ordered butterbeers as well as mini pumpkin tarts (Luna ordered caramel pudding to go with hers), but, as time wore on and their food and beverages came, no one else arrived after them.
They weren't the final members to complete the picture, as most other of the younger students who had joined in the past year were at the castle and not taking advantage of McGonagall's permission this weekend to leave for the day. But the D.A. was as whole as it could be, especially with the older graduates taking time from their schedules to meet up. Still, it was nice to see so many familiar faces.
…although, perhaps she did stare too much, Luna mused, given the way Hannah's kind smile trembled before the pigtailed witch turned away towards Justin and Susan; the same, too, occurred with Lee, whose efforts to make both his Quidditch mates and Cho laugh dimmed the longer Luna observed them. But Luna couldn't be certain. After all, Cho excused herself from the opposite end of the table and joined Luna and Ginny.
"Cho, hullo," Luna said.
The older girl's smile was warm as she glanced between them. "Luna, Ginny, hey." She dodged a flying plate of treacle tart before resting her arms on the table. "How're things?"
Ginny shrugged, the action bumping her right arm gently against Luna's left. "About as good as they can be, for the first year back." She paused, noticed the crumbs on the front of her jumper, and flicked several off onto the table before picking at her fingernails. Then she ran that same hand through her hair. "…it's…quiet, though."
Cho nodded. After a beat (Luna counted a beat and a half, really, part of a recent tune her father had stuck in his head courtesy of the mating Whirlibug's fluttering wings in their backyard, he insisted), Cho piped up, "Er, Ginny, I like what you've done with your hair."
"Thanks." No explanation, no mention of when she'd cut it. Just "Thanks."
Luna half faced her girlfriend to appraise said style. She liked Ginny's long hair (she liked them matching), but she liked this choppy bob, too, that hung close to her jawline. The edge was jagged, and it echoed the past year even though this, too, was meant to be Ginny moving on from what they'd suffered.
"Um… You, Luna?" Cho's smile was smaller this time when she turned to her fellow eagle. "How're things?"
Luna faced Cho and considered the question. "We're two months in, and the professors are holding us all together remarkably well. A bit like Spellotape, really."
Ginny snorted to hide her laughter, but Cho grinned at that, too. "That's good to hear. I read in the paper that the castle construction hadn't quite completed, though?"
"Oh, that's a fresh load," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes. "No, they finished the castle just before term started. It's the pitch and some bits of the grounds that are still in-progress, so those are off-limits." She shook her head. "Aggravating that, even after a second bloody war, we still can't trust the damn Prophet. 'Course, the Ministry's not much better."
Cho's smile waned. "The Ministry's also a work-in-progress, Ginny. I'm sure Hermione's told you, as has Harry, but they're not the only ones working on restructuring things." She hesitated before adding, "There're…others, too."
Ginny met her with a frown but dropped the topic. Luna didn't pick it up, because she, too, didn't care much for the Ministry (she thought of her father's conspiracy theories…as well as how the Ministry had not swooped in to save her last holiday, when she was captive at Malfoy Manor).
Instead, Luna tore her eyes from Ginny and mused on how Cho also had once been half of a whole. "It's nice to see you well, Cho. Is Marietta well, too, these days?"
Those immediately around them—Terry and Michael on Cho's other side, and Hannah and Ernie beside Ginny—froze, and Cho stiffened. Then the older eagle's face crumpled, pinched in the middle as though Luna had grabbed hold of her brow and offered her an extra-sour lemon drop at the same time. Her dark eyes turned glassy, and she shoved away from the table without warning, running from the room.
This time, Luna was the one everyone stared at, and all eyes landed on her for three heartbeats.
But then a glass fell behind the bar, and the shatter broke the tension. Quietly, slowly, the din at the D.A.'s table grew once more, and everyone's attention turned elsewhere.
Luna, however, dropped her eyes to the remnants of her pudding dish and scraped her spoon along the traces of caramel clinging to the bottom. There was too little to build up on her spoon, but still she stuck the utensil in her mouth, and she kept it there until the faint sweetness overwhelmingly tasted metallic.
Cho never returned to the table. Ginny chatted some with Michael (there was some discussion about who had the better hair these days), and Ernie let others rotate in his seat to say their hellos with the youngest Weasley.
No one dared bring Luna back into the conversation.
After a second pudding appeared before Luna and she inhaled that, as well, Ginny's hand once more found its way to Luna's, under the table and on Luna's lap. Ginny gave her fingers a squeeze.
Luna finished her treat, and—the moment her spoon clattered against the glass dish—she was tugged along again, this time to her feet. She blinked several times as Ginny helped her slip her cloak on. "Ginny?"
Ginny grabbed her things and didn't even say goodbye to the rest. She held two fingers briefly by her right eyebrow to give those paying attention a quick salute, but her grin was tight. Then she ushered Luna out of the pub.
"But, Ginny, what about the tab?"
"Eh, my brother will cover our portion." Ginny yanked her cloak and gloves on once outside, but she draped her scarf loosely over her shoulders. She took a deep breath of the chill November air and laced her fingers with Luna's bare ones.
Luna liked that and decided to keep her mittens and earmuffs in her pockets for now. Yet, as they began a lazy stroll in the general direction of King's Cross Station, the warmth of Ginny's hand in hers couldn't chase away the cold realization that she'd been responsible for ruining their visit. "…I did it again, didn't I?" she asked as they crossed the street.
Ginny looked both ways for both of them. Her brown eyes flicked to Luna's face, but Ginny was a terrible liar when it came to certain topics (if she were doing something dangerous, if she'd been thinking about Quidditch instead of her studies, if Luna were being extra Luna at any particular moment—for better or for worse). Her freckles moved along with her cheeks as she smiled softly at the blonde. "Some people are just—sensitive, Lune. You didn't actually say anything wrong. Not to my brother and not to Cho."
"I wasn't even talking about creatures."
"No, you weren't. You just pointed out a fact to Ron, and you asked something of genuine curiosity regarding Cho and her friend."
Luna almost mentioned the staring thing, too, but Ginny had been telling her not to worry about that for years, that curious people stared, that Luna was the most curious person she'd ever met (that it wasn't something to be ashamed of).
"Hey." Ginny squeezed her hand anew and pulled Luna in close. They stopped in the middle of the pavement on the other side of the street, and Ginny let her eyes rove over Luna's pale face. "Don't think I didn't notice you going quiet back there, Luna."
Luna's gaze fell to Ginny's chin. "Things are…different now. It's not the six of us—you, me, Neville, Harry, Hermione, Ron. Circumstances made us accept each other, and the same could be said of the D.A. But, post-war, the D.A.—those circumstances are gone."
Ginny pursed her lips. "You're still part of the D.A., Luna. You have friends here."
Perhaps, she thought. "Perhaps," she chose not to say aloud.
"Then again…" Ginny sighed and ran a head through her hair once more. "…not everyone's a good friend."
Luna's chest ached, but she smiled at the acknowledgment. "No, but I don't need everyone."
Ginny's smile was small and sad. She pecked Luna's forehead and then her nose before finally capturing her lips, lingering there before they broke apart and walked the rest of the way arm-in-arm. "I know you don't need everyone, but I do hope you don't go quiet again like that, luv," Ginny piped up when they reached the mouth of the station.
They descended the stairs, and Luna shrugged.
"No, Luna, no shrugging this off. If you wonder something, then share it—with me." Ginny squeezed Luna's arm against her side. "Even if we hadn't made it through the Carrows and survived Hogwarts under Snape and all the rest, I'd still want you to share." Twin blossoms of pink bloomed on the apples of her cheeks. Her eyes darted to the clock and they passed through the magical barrier well ahead of their departure time for their ride back. "I like hearing your thoughts."
When they'd gotten Hermione's owl last month with today's date—Six-Month Anniversary of the Final Battle, D.A. Reunion, All Welcome (Leaky Cauldron)—Luna had mused who'd show up and how the others had weathered these first few months since May. She'd also:
Replayed the last battle in her mind.
Thought again of rebelling in sixth year with Ginny and of almost breaking at Malfoy Manor.
Traced over her hands and arms where no scars of any of those horrors remained.
But not once had she doubted this freckled hand in hers, this hand with its also long-gone visible scars, this hand that kept reaching for her in fourth and fifth year and lunged for her when she was stolen from the Hogwarts Express last Christmas.
This hand that would rather eschew the merriment of the reunion inside the Leaky Cauldron today, no matter how much or how little Ginny liked their fellow D.A. members, than see Luna draw in on herself.
Luna's lips slowly curved up, and her eyes felt oddly wet and itchy while she rested her head on Ginny's shoulder. She lifted their linked hands and kissed the back of Ginny's glove, giggling at the scratchy knit when it tickled her skin, and…she hoped. Not wondered, but hoped that Ginny didn't mind this one instance of silence.
After all, this wasn't Luna drawing in on herself, not this time. This was simply Ginny leaving Luna at a loss for words, her sentiments having swept her off her feet.
(But, she knew, at least Ginny's hand would always be there, at the ready to catch her.)
- ^-^3
Done for the If You Dare Challenge (for prompt #997: wondering) in the HPFC forum on FFN, as well as for minifemslashfeb 2023 (scenario 3: "I like hearing your thoughts") on tumblr. SO! I immediately thought of Linny when I saw the scenario prompt, but I chose to make it extra challenging, personally, and write from Luna's POV. :'D I…don't write her often, bc I struggle with her, but I do think Luna's somewhat aware of how she's perceived and I can see her going quiet like this; in terms of "forced silence," that's a feeling I understand, so I chose to emphasize that. At the same time, Ginny's contrasting personality works well here (gf or even just friend). She wouldn't put up with Luna's treatment, but I also think she might be cautious of making a further scene. (Altho, I am a Marietta fan, so I just feel for Cho, being asked about her in a time when Mari's still a sensitive topic. X'D) Let's see… I did enjoy the bits of skinship in this, but also: Ginny with the bisexual bob. B3c Amirite? ;D
Thanks for reading, and please review! Available to reblog on my tumblr (camelliacats), too~
-mew-tsubaki :')