December 2002

November slipped into December and the damp coldness of late autumn fell on the Burrow. Ron floo-ed to Diagon Alley most days to help out at the shop. He soon learned he had a talent for research and development: George would come up with ideas, Ron would make them work, and Angelina would find creative ways to market them. Soon, the couple decided that Ron would be part-owner come New Years. Ron had argued at first. He didn't have the galleons to buy them out of part of the business, and felt as if it were disloyal to Fred's memory to take his place. But George and Angelina insisted that his help was essential. He finally relented just before Christmas.

Ron sat at the kitchen table that night, sipping tea and reading the Prophet. There were still evenings he wasn't used to the burrow being so quiet. His parents had already gone to bed. Ron was startled in the silence by an owl tapping at the window.

Badius offered his leg. Luna wrote quite often, but rarely late at night, so Ron unrolled the parchment with a furrowed brow.

Ronald,

I was wondering if you'd be willing to come sit with me for a bit. Home is quite loud with emptiness this evening.

Luna Lovegood

Her handwriting was less steady than normal. The quiet emptiness of his own home was sometimes oppressive; he couldn't imagine what Luna was experiencing with her father on the continent. But the request was odd (well, odd even for Luna). She never asked him over and certainly not at night. So he fed Badius a treat and bid him on his way. Then (remembering the Horcrux hunt and their visit to Xenophilius), Ron imagined the front stoop of rook-like house as clearly as possible and turned on the spot.

He appeared on Luna's doorstep with a crack, shook his head a bit (Ron had always hated apparition), and raised the eagle-shaped knocker. From inside, there were rustling sounds and a few crashes. When the door flew open, Luna's wand was in her hand, and her hair was a staticky halo around her head. Ron took in the rest of her. Her eyes were protuberant as usual, but also red-rimmed and framed by dark circles. Her wand hand shook a bit as she held it at the ready. Luna, who was usually unruffled and slightly detached, dropped her wand to the floor and threw her arms around Ron's waist, burying her face in his chest.

Feeling awkward (he'd never been good with female emotions), Ron gingerly patted Luna's back. He glanced around the kitchen, looking for a threat. The colorful cabinets had been destroyed in the war, and were replaced by a set of neutral ones. A few had been painted with various animals and plants, but it was much more normal than Ron anticipated.

Nothing looked out of place or dangerous. "What's the matter? Did something happen?" His auror senses heightened as he searched for something amiss, anything to explain her tears. In his arms, the witch was silent, her slight frame encircled by Ron's arms. He felt her take in a shaky breath and raise her head.

"Oh, I do apologize...I've lost my senses for a moment." She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and bent to pick up her wand. "Please do come in, Ronald Weasley. Would you like a cup of tea?" Then she walked toward the stove, as if the previous few moments hadn't happened.

Ron blinked a few times and muttered "barking" under his breath.

She shuffled around the cabinets, preparing tea and biscuits. "Luna," He called to her, still standing just inside the door.

She didn't respond.

"Luna." Ron was more forceful this time. Her back was to him, and she'd stuck her wand through the bun in her hair. She stiffened at the harshness in his tone and spun around.

"Ronald." She mimicked his tone, more intense than he'd seen her. But her lip trembled a moment.

His tone softened, "what's wrong? You can't just send me a cryptic letter then totally lose it and then pretend nothing happened."

She looked at him with mild curiosity. "Whyever not?"

"Because...it's...that's just not what people do, Luna."

"And?"

Ron sat down at the table, forehead in his hands. In time, she handed him his teacup, and he added the milk and sugar. After she'd taken a few sips, Ron broke the silence. "Something's obviously wrong, or you wouldn't have invited me over. You wouldn't have greeted me like that..." He tried to keep his voice calm and sedate.

"It's the 21st," she finally said quietly, staring into her teacup.

"Yeah? And what happens on the 21st? Is it the nargles? Will they come steal your shoes again? People get Loser's Lurgy?" He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"No, you can't really predict the nargles." She nibbled on a biscuit thoughtfully. "I thought Ginny would have told you about the 21st."

"Ginny tells things to Hermione and Harry. And you. I'm just her annoying older brother." Ron helped himself to a second biscuit. "So what's up with the 21st?"

Luna's voice was almost inaudible. "That's the day they took me off the train." The tears welled up in her eyes again. "This is the first time...I've never been alone on December 21st." The words began to spill out, almost against Luna's will. "Seventh year, the first year after the war, I was at school, and I couldn't go home for the holidays, but Dean let me sleep in the Gryffindor dorms so I wasn't alone. Then I was travelling with father until he met Celia, so he would sit with me on those days and he'd tell me I was safe. And I thought I'd be OK by myself this year." Luna sighed and took a sip of tea before she continued, looking down at her saucer, "but I'm not."

"Oh, Luna..." Ron found himself fighting the urge to run and embrace her again. In the flurry of flashbacks and nightmares after the battle, he'd always seen Luna as unflappable. Even when they found her in the Malfoys' cellar, she'd shown poise and strength. He'd never considered the ramifications of Luna's kidnapping and imprisonment.

"So Ginny was there?" Ron kicked himself internally...would she really want to talk about this now?

But Luna was unperturbed, "oh yes. I can't imagine why she wouldn't have told you. It must have been quite startling to her."

Ron tried not to think about how he coped with the aftermath of the war and losing Fred. He left Ginny and Harry to help each other grieve and recover, unable to handle their particular brand of brooding and self-blame. Instead he and Hermione stumbled through their trauma and turmoil with hardly a thought for anyone else. He'd overheard snatches of Ginny's 6th year, but he'd never asked.

"What happened?" he finally prodded. "If you want to talk about it..."

"Would you be more comfortable discussing Quidditch? I don't pay much attention, but I'm sure I can find a Prophet in here somewhere..."

"We don't have to talk about what happened if you don't want to." Ron frantically tried to think of another topic to discuss...but the list of what he and Luna had in common was uncomfortably short, and largely focused on the war.

She stared at him, lost in thought. Ron was almost ready to bring up Ginny's Quidditch stats when Luna began talking.

"We were on the express. Me and Ginny and Neville and Seamus. We squished into one of the smaller compartments because it felt safer." Her eyes held their usual faraway look, but they clouded a bit with emotion. "Ginny and Neville fell asleep...the Carrows had them in detention the whole night before. Seamus was talking about how his mum wanted him to come to Canada with her, get away from everything, but he didn't want to leave us alone, and didn't know where Dean was. He felt it was cowardly to run away when his best friend was in danger like that."

Ron nodded. In auror school, he'd developed a great deal of respect for Seamus, despite his rough edges. That bloke would never run away from a righteous fight, and would never leave his friends while they were in danger.

"So we were only about 2 hours away from London," she continued, "when it happened." Luna took a shaky breath and a sip of her tea. "The train ground to a halt and these men got on..."

"Snatchers." Ron said under his breath, mentally filing through all the reports he'd read at the ministry.

Luna kept looking at her cup. "Mmm Hmm. There were four of them. We heard them yelling in the other cars. They crucio'd a few people, and we overheard my name. One of the Slytherins told them where we were..."

"Pansy?"

"Yep." Luna's eyes became less clouded for a second. "I suppose she was scared and thought she was in the right. She was never taught properly, you know. Not like we were."

Ron thought briefly about the Quibbler and what Luna had been taught growing up. He didn't snort, just bobbed his head vaguely.

Luna re-focused herself, almost forcing the words to come in her high pitched, dreamy voice. "Ginny woke up and said she wished we had Harry's invisibility cloak, as it had been useful when she and Harry were sneaking off the year before –"

"Don't need to know about that..." Ron muttered.

"-And Neville locked the door and tried to put up some enchantments, and Seamus tried to hide me under his cloak and shield me. And Ginny was ready to fight. But Ron, I could never let them get hurt for me. They're my friends, and they'd been through so much..."

Ron wished for some firewhiskey. He knew how this story ended, and that the worst part of it was coming.

"So I just walked into the hallway and gave myself up. Ginny tried to fight me and Neville tried to turn himself in instead, and Seamus got a few good hexes on the snatchers. But they took me. And then a few months later you guys rescued me."

Luna had skipped over the important part, Ron knew. He'd been living with Hermione when she was prosecuting Death Eaters and Snatchers. He'd read the reports. Luna was a pureblood. They didn't kill her; they wouldn't have killed her. But there were so many other ways to break a person.

"Did they hurt you, Luna?" His voice was thick.

She paused and looked at him, as if determining whether to trust him. She met his eyes without fear. "Yes. "

Ron's jaw tightened and he gripped his wand.

"Not like...that..." she said quickly, seeing his anger. "But they groped me and cruicio'd me and threatened..."

Her eyes became watery again and she shook her head before looking up at Ron. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For rescuing us. For coming. For taking us to Bill and Fleur's."

"Luna, we never would have left you there. Not in a million years. You or Dean or Mr. Ollivander or Griphook..."

"I know. I just wish I were as brave as you three."

Her words swung in the air as Ron decided how to respond. He finally cleared his throat and grabbed Luna's hand tightly, looking in her eyes.

"Listen to me, Luna. In the past few years I've seen a lot of cowardice and a lot of bravery. And you, Luna Lovegood, are one of the bravest people I know. You survived 3 months in a school run by sociopaths. You gave yourself up to keep your friends and your father safe. You survived another 3 months of torture. And, when we needed you, you came back and fought with us anyway. You could have stayed at Shell Cottage. No one would have blamed you or judged you. But you didn't."

She smiled a little. "But here I am, 5 years after I was snatched, 4 years after the war...and I can't even spend an evening alone just because of the date on the calendar."

Ron looked at her evenly. "March 15th."

"The day we went to Shell Cottage?"

"Yes. Every year on March 15th, even after Hermione and I broke up, the 3 of us and Ginny have a sleepover. We get drunk on firewhiskey and talk about everything except that day. You wanna know what Harry and I did the year you girls were still at school?"

"What?"

"We got knock-down drunk at our flat, floo-ed over to Neville's, got him smashed, and then went to Hogsmeade. I'm amazed none of us lost an arm in the floo. Ginny and Hermione found us passed out behind the shrieking shack the next morning."

Luna got quiet. "Dean and I stayed up that night, too. We snuck down to the memorial and stayed up all night talking. March never held the same weight as December, but that first year it was so important."

They settled into a more comfortable silence at that point, each finishing their tea.

Luna was the first to speak. "Do you ever wish you could have that chance in May? I always felt badly they had you at all the speeches and memorials. You never get a chance to just grieve on May 2nd."

The thought had occurred to Ron, of course. That he would like a chance to mourn his losses privately on that day. But retreating from the spotlight would mean leaving Harry alone, and that wasn't an option. "Price of fame, I guess." He paused, nibbling on another biscuit. "But I guess my point is that there's nothing wrong with it. Not wanting to be alone. I think everyone has those moments."

"I think you're better at hiding them than most, Ronald."

"I've been told I have the emotional range of a teaspoon."

Luna let out a halfhearted laugh. "I think your emotional range is much larger than a teaspoon. You just don't always know what to do with it. The wrackspurts didn't help, but I can't help but wondering if you had a run-in with a blibbering humdinger at some point in your childhood. They're indigenous to the area, and of course make it difficult to express yourself." She blinked a few times, waiting for a response.

And we're back to barmy, Ron thought to himself.

"Why did you owl me tonight, Luna? Why not Ginny? Or Neville? Or Dean?"

Luna blinked. "You didn't want to be owled? Would you prefer that I floo-ed next time? I used to floo Ginny all the time, but one time I interrupted her and Harry-"

"Again, don't need to know."

"-so now I owl people."

"I'm fine with the owl, Luna...I was just wondering why you chose me out of all your friends."

She considered the question for a second. "I didn't really choose, you're just who I owled."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Okay." Luna stood up and cleared away the tea service. "You still don't give yourself enough credit. You're a very good friend."

"Thank you." He glanced at his watch, "uh, it's getting late, will you be okay here by yourself?"

She bit her lip and shook her head. "No, but I understand that you can't stay."

He thought for a moment. "Luna, I know you've seen a messenger patronus, but have you ever seen how to send one? They taught us in auror training."

"No..."

"Ok, watch this." Ron thought about Sunday dinners and his mum's cooking; the comfort of his family together, as whole as they could possibly be.

"Expecto Patronum!" Instead of running off, his Jack Russell sat waiting at his feet when Ron flicked his wand. "Mum, I'm going to sleep on Luna's couch. She's having a rough day." Another flick of his wand, and the terrier formed a ball of light, suspended in the air. "Molly Weasley, The Burrow." Ron commanded, and with another flick, the ball of light bounced through the wall.

Luna's eyes were larger than normal. "That seems much more efficient than an owl. Why don't more people use it?"

"It took me weeks to get it right. Hermione figured it out in one night. But it takes a lot of concentration, even more so than the normal patronus. McGonagall can do it without all the in-between steps, but I'm not that good."

"Could you teach me?"

And so Ron spent several hours teaching Luna to use her messenger patronus. By 2am, she could get her hare to wait patiently for a message rather than dash around the room in a flurry of silvery light. After Luna went to bed, Ron drifted off to sleep on the blinding pink couch. As his eyes closed, he briefly wondered if Luna had re-painted the "friends" mural he'd seen while asking about the Hallows...

Just before dawn the next morning, Ron returned to The Burrow for a few hours more sleep. He was awakened around noon to Badius tapping at the window.

The note simply read "Thank You."

Ron gave the parchment a smile and handed Badius an owl treat before dressing for Sunday dinner. This week was a small gathering; only Ginny and Percy and their families were attending. Everyone else was just coming on Christmas day.

And, of course, Luna. It wasn't until she apparated onto the garden path that Ron realized the shift in their relationship. For the past few months, they'd had a burgeoning friendship based on letters and Sunday dinners, but after the previous night he was seeing her in a new way. She wasn't just the odd, dotty girl he'd known for much of his life. She had a certain level of depth and strength that he hadn't considered before, and he realized that he looked forward to her company.

A vision of her laughing in the firelight as they chased their patronuses around the circular living room danced through Ron's head.

As soon as her soft "pop" was heard in the garden, Ginny dashed down the path, nearly knocking the slender witch over with a hug.

"Luna! I forgot what day it was yesterday, and by the time I remembered, Futterwacken had already taken some post up to Neville, and we were out of floo powder, and I feel like a terrible friend!" Ginny had thrown her arms around Luna in apology.

"Futterwacken?" Ron muttered to Harry from where they stood on the porch.

"I got her an owl. The name's from some muggle book." Harry looked amused in spite of himself.

"Harry, do us all a favor, mate. When you have kids, don't let my sister name them."

"Noted."

"-So Ronald came over and sat with me, and he's teaching me to make a messenger patronus," said Luna as Molly ushered the girls inside.

Harry raised an eyebrow in Ron's direction as the witches closed the door. "Sat with her all night? Your mom did mention that you had a bit of a lie-in today..." Harry had a bit of a grin in the corner of his mouth.

"She owled me some nonsense, so I went over to make sure she was OK. Yesterday was the date she was taken off the train."

"Ah. That's her March 15th?"

"Something like that." Ron looked down and cleared his throat. He and Harry rarely discussed this type of thing without the girls around to make them. They stood, hands in pockets, for some time each lost in their own thoughts. Eventually they grew chilled in spite of the late afternoon sun and went to join the rest of the family.

Even though today's crowd was smaller than usual, the kitchen at the Burrow was cramped. For once, however, Ron didn't mind. Luna confidently sandwiched herself between him and Ginny, chattering comfortably with the rest of the family. Ron was struck by how seamlessly she had settled into the group, as if she'd belonged there all along.