5. Mistletoe
Harry, Ludwig, Lovino, and Feliciano went down to the forest just to hike and they had nothing better to do when they saw Luna with the winged skeleton horse things. The odd thing was that she was barefoot. "Hello Harry Potter and friends." she sighed without even turning around.
"Aren't your feet cold?" Harry asked as Luna nodded.
"What happened to your shoes?" Ludwig asked.
"All my shoes miraculously disappeared." she answered. "I suspect Nargals are behind it."
"What the fuck are Nargals?" Lovino asked, but was never answered.
"What are these things?" Feliciano asked.
Luna turned to the creature the Italian was gesturing to and smiled. "They're called Thestrals. People try to avoid them because they're..."
"Different." Harry finished for her.
"Why can't anyone else see them?" Lovi questioned. "Are you rubbing your cra-OW! STOP HITTING MY FUCKING HEAD YOU FUCKING POTATO BASTARD!"
"It's alright." she sighed. "I know what you were going to say, and they can only be seen by people who've seen death. Who've you seen die?" she asked, turning to the German and Italians.
Ludwig looked grim. "...Let's just say...I've seen a lot more death in my life than I could count."
After looking closely at him, eyeing something invisible to her right, she nodded in understanding. "I know. It must be lonely being alive for about a thousand years. You must've been forced to go to war countless times."
They stared at her in shock. "How did you-"
"Breaty Bats can smell age. The older they are, the more vague the answer is. Kinya tells me everyone's true age, especially boys. My father bought Kinya for me so I wouldn't gave to guess someone's age and start dating an adult that looks younger than they are." she answered.
"Well, what about you?" Lovino asked, crossing his arms. "You must've seen death!"
"I have." Luna stated. "My mum. She was an extraordinary witch, but she liked the experiment a lot, and one of her spells went terribly wrong. I was nine." She then turned to Harry. "My father and I fully support you by the way, how You Know Who's back, and you fought him, and the Ministry is conspiring against you and Dumbledore."
"Thanks Luna." Harry sighed. "You're probably one of the few who do."
"That's probably how he wants you to feel." she stated.
Ludwig eyed her. "What do you mean?"
"If I were You Know Who, I would want you to feel cut off from everyone else." she explained. "If it's just you alone, you're not as much of a threat."
Soon, Christmas Break was just around the corner, and they were having their last meeting of the semester. "Let me just say that you all improved wonderfully over the past weeks. Although we won't meet again until after the Holidays, just keep practicing on your own time, and well done everyone!" Everyone applauded and defused as Lovino and Ludwig went over to Sallin and Jane.
The two boys looked at the only Slytherin in the club. "Are you okay Bella?" Lovino asked as Ludwig and Jane looked at her in concern. "I heard Umbridge gave you those stupid lines to write, and you were in there for a long time."
"I'm fine Curly." she huffed, pulling down her sleeve.
"Come on Jane," Ludwig sighed. "I think they want to be left alone."
They did as Lovino looked down at his girlfriend. "Do you have any plans for the Holidays?" he asked.
"Just going to that rat's nest of a home." she answered.
"Do you want to come home...with me?" he asked.
Sallin looked at him with those narrow lime green eyes. "Don't you live in Spain or something like that?"
"Actually, I live in South Italy." he stated.
"Same difference." she huffed, crossing her arms.
They heard something above them and looked up. Directly above them, a vine was magically growing and little white and pink flowers were blooming on it. "Mistletoe." Lovi whispered as he looked back down at the girl in front of him. "Nargals probably made that grow there."
She furrowed her brows. "What are Nargals?"
"...No idea..." he huffed before pulling her in and kissing her softly. In turn, she ran her slender fingers through his brown hair and pulled his head closer to hers as she kissed back with full force. They continued to kiss like that as the mistletoe only grew more and blossomed.
Lovino went back to the common room after walking Sallin to the dungeons to her portrait. There, he found out that something very similar to what just happened to him happened to Harry and Cho. "So, you and Cho, Hu?" Lovino questioned.
"You're dating a Slytherin!" Harry reminded.
"And proud of it! She kisses like nothing I've ever experienced before, and seven and a half centuries of kisses, I know what I'm talking about." he stated.
The three fifth years looked at him before giggling and hitting themselves on the head. "Right, because you're under an age spell, and you and Feliciano make up Italy." Hermione reminded herself.
"So, I told you about my kiss, what about yours?" Lovi asked.
Harry thought for a moment before answering. "...Wet." he answered. "She was sort of crying."
"I would be surprised if she wasn't." Hermione stated. "Cho spends half her time crying these days." When everyone looked at her, she continued to display her thoughts. "Well, she obviously sad about Cedric, unsure how she feels about Harry, therefore guilty for kissing him, worried about failing OWLs because she's so busy worrying about everything else!"
"If one person can feel all that, they'd explode." Ron chuckled.
Hermione looked at him offended. "Just because you have the emotional range of a tea spoon," She stopped there because everyone burst into a small laughing fit, causing her to lose her train of thought. It felt nice to them to know they can just hang out and have positive relationships despite what was going on in the real world.