Asher flew in to Harry's open window as the heat of the afternoon began to dissipate. Harry looked up from his copy of Waffling's Magical Theory.
"Asher! Hello, sir. You're a welcome sight."
He smiled warmly, and welcomed the raven onto his right forearm, tickled his beak with this left forefinger. He frowned.
"But you haven't brought me a letter. Is everything okay?"
Just then, through his window, toward the front picket fence of Number 4 Privet Drive.
"Harry?"
His heart leapt.
Luna Lovegood stood just beyond the picket gate in a bright white summer dress, curiously watching the window into which her raven flew, with butterflies in her stomach.
She listened, and smiled as she heard Harry warmly welcomed Asher. That was a good sign.
"Harry?" she cried, hopefully.
A moment later, Harry leaned out of his second-floor window, a pleasantly stunned expression. "Luna!?"
He wasn't wearing a shirt.
And time slowed, and Luna's jaw dropped, and with wide eyes and expressionless face she drank him in. Harry's training for the tournament must have been... comprehensive. Her eyes traced his firm chest, his defined abdomen, his strong arms. And she slowly, gently exhaled.
God, he was beautiful.
It was just then that Harry realized he was topless. And Luna flushed. And Harry flushed. And he darted out of the window and after a quick beat called out, "I'm so sorry, I'll be down in just a moment."
Harry couldn't be more thrilled, and couldn't contain his sense of panic. He tore through his room, shoving as much clutter as possible into his trunk, and the rest in his small, beaten wardrobe.
He grabbed the least oversized tee that was remotely clean and threw it on. Sniffed beneath his arms and grimaced, found a stick of deodorant and applied it generously.
After a final glance around his room for anything that might be remotely embarrassing, he opened his door and took the stairs three at a time. He stopped at the front door, caught his breath, and turned the knob.
Luna Lovegood — a very real, very here Luna Lovegood — was standing just outside the front door of Number 4 Privet Drive. She was wearing a white sun dress with delicate floral stitching on the hem, the white straps loosely fitted to her pale shoulders and chest. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Her toes wiggled nervously in her sandals and she wore a shy expression. She was stunning.
"Hi Luna."
"Hello, Harry Potter."
Luna was equal parts elated and terrified. She hadn't known what to expect. And she hadn't known quite what to think. If she were honest with herself, she was driven at this moment by an unshakable desire to see him, to hear his voice, to know Harry Potter and to be near to him. Right now, nothing else mattered.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Harry. If this isn't a welcome visit. I just —"
"No — I'm so glad, Luna. I really couldn't be happier. Um, I guess come in. Sorry, I've never had a visitor before. The Dursley's are out of town for the weekend. That's good news — they're not terribly fond of people like us."
He led her from the entryway through the hall, past the kitchen.
"This is, uh, well I wouldn't say it's my home. This is where I grew up."
Luna glanced around, noticed a small cupboard underneath the stairs. It was bolted from the outside.
The townhome wasn't what she'd expected. The couches, which might have been comfortable otherwise, were wrapped in plastic sofa covers. The common areas had the feel of a sales catalogue; stale, distinctly not lived in. Dustless photo frames covered the mantle, the side tables, featuring a couple she'd never seen and their son. No photos of Harry at all.
The kitchen was spotless, as was the dining room. More photos of that boy and his parents.
The dining room opened to a back yard patio. The fence behind the home was surrounded by a low hedge, meticulously trimmed.
Every step she took further into the home left her with the distinct impression that there was no warmth here, no familial affection. No love.
"Could I invite you to my room? I don't really spend much time in the rest of the house." Harry seemed uncomfortable.
"Thank you. I'd love to see your room."
As she followed him up the stairs, Luna was accosted by yet another gallery of family photos, most of which featured tight portraits of that boy. In the second floor hallway, she noted a bedroom to her right — furnished nicely with a television and gaming console in the far corner.
But Harry led her to the second, smaller bedroom on the left.
Luna halted. The room was tangibly hotter than the rest of the house. And it was bare of furnishings, aside from a thin mattress on a beaten, second-hand bed, a small wardrobe with cracked and loose paneling, and a trunk. Hedwig's perch stood atop a pile of old textbooks. The paint and carpet were thinning in the far corner toward the floor, beside a pile of textbooks and a torn copy of the Quibbler. He must sit here, she thought, because there isn't a chair.
There were holes worn in his sheets and the blanket had frayed on at least two edges.
"Oh, Harry."
She cleared the distance between them in two paces, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and threw her body against his.
"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry."
She burrowed her face further into his neck and cried. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry."
Harry held Luna, feeling at once hope and shame, fear and love — each as intensely as he could remember.
He knew his situation with the Dursley's bordered on abuse, but he also didn't have anything else to compare it to. And the few who had seen his situation, or who were familiar with this abuse, didn't seem to care all that much. Dumbledore sent him back to the Dursleys, every year, without question or concern. Ron and Hermione knew enough — they'd heard the stories of his tireless chore schedule, his ill-fitting hand-me-downs, his nights without a meal. But they didn't often comment on it, and sometimes it seemed to make them visibly uncomfortable when Harry brought it up.
On his dark days, he felt that nobody cared — or worse, that the silence of his friends represented a tacit approval of his situation. Maybe he really was worthless, as Vernon had always told him he was.
But Luna saw it, and she knew immediately. He didn't say a word, he didn't have to explain anything. She understood without a second's delay. And she felt what he felt. She felt that for him, and he adored her for it.
He held her, and he didn't want it to stop — because he'd never felt this cared for, and because it just physically felt amazing.
Her body was pressed firmly against his. She smelled like lavender. He felt her eyelashes, her breath, on his neck. He felt her thighs, her waist tightly pressed against his own. And he felt her breasts pressed against his chest. His heart raced, and his blood stirred. It suddenly occurred to him that if he pursued this train of thought for a second longer, she'd feel that excitement.
Harry stepped back, allowing his hands to trace her arms, hands, fingers as he left her embrace.
"Thank you, Luna. It's okay. Really, it's much better than it was. And I've got Hogwarts." He hesitated for a moment. "And I've got you."
Just then both Luna Lovegood and Harry Potter turned away, flushed.
All of the abstract intimacy of their distant correspondence that summer had crashed full speed into the raw fact of this bedroom, this empty house, and that very long, very nice hug.
Luna sat with him for hours, cross-legged on the floor of Harry's bedroom. She refused to mention the heat, because she didn't want Harry to feel ashamed or embarrassed.
Luna watched him think, watched him wrestle with fears. She asked him questions about his past, and he asked questions about hers. She loved the way he smirked bashfully when he was happy. She loved the way he looked in that shirt.
He was here, and this was real. She could still feel his body pressed against hers, hours later after the conversation had taken twenty turns. She listened to him and laughed with him, and watched the way his lips moved and thought about what they might feel like on her own.
Harry sat with her for hours, leaning against the corner on the floor of his bedroom. He couldn't help but feel embarrassed about the house, about the heat. But he'd never felt so comfortable in his room than when she was in it.
He watched her imagine, listened to her reflect on the nature of the world, of friendship and pain. He loved her wisdom, her kindness. She was so much stronger, so much more mature than he was. As she spoke, he smiled and traced the shape of her lips with his eyes.
He resisted the compulsion to imagine the contour of her hips in that dress, to watch the hem of her skirt as she shifted. He could still feel her body pressed against his, hours ago. He wondered what kissing her might be like.
It was dusk, and everything in her told Luna to stay. Whatever this was, she didn't want it to end. Yet that was the most compelling reason to go.
"Harry, I don't want to go. But it's late." She frowned, her eyes downcast.
Harry stumbled over himself to comfort her. "Of course, I'm so sorry. I hadn't even thought about the time."
Harry was disappointed, but they'd been together, in one way or another, since dawn. They were both tired. And Harry wanted to do whatever it took to protect this, whatever this was.
"Can I..."
She hesitated.
"Can I leave Asher here, for now? If you... I thought if you might want to write me once more tonight."
Harry smiled. "I'd truly love for Asher to stay a while longer."
Luna looked at him with wide, piercing silver eyes. She tapped the floor with the tip of her left toe, drawing circles in the carpet.
"Would you mind walking me home, Harry Potter?"
Harry grinned at first, then looked a bit confused. "I'd love to. But — uh, you know it's just occurred to me that I don't have the faintest idea how you arrived here in the first place."
"Ah. I traveled the Emergency Evacuation Network. Come with me, I'll explain it to you on the way."
She cautiously threaded her fingers between Harry's. Blushing, she looked up with a shy expression and asked, "Harry Potter, is it okay if I hold your hand?"
"Yes." Pausing a beat. "Yes, as often as you'd like, Luna Lovegood."
He was blissfully happy.
Luna led him down the stairs, out of the house, and beyond the picket fence.
"My grandfather ran the Quibbler during the Grindelwald crisis," she explained as they walked together. "The publication has always been favorable to muggle and mixed communities, so naturally Grindelwald's sympathizers became openly hostile. That hostility terminated violently on my family. So my grandfather spent the better part of a year constructing a network of something like portkeys. They're planted throughout Britain."
"That's brilliant! I've never heard of the, er, Emergency Extraction Network? Was this publicly available?"
"Emergency Evacuation Network. And no, actually. Use of the network has always been quite... exclusive, actually. It's protected by a powerful ward, invisible to all others."
She stopped, two blocks from privet drive, at the far hedge of a primary school grounds.
"Okay." She said. She took a deep breath. Paused. Looked for a moment distressed. "Okay. We're here."
Her expression adopted a gravity that Harry had never seen. Looking away for a moment, she exhaled slowly, bit her lip, and flushed.
She pointed, and turned her face away.
"Harry Potter. I want you to look there and tell me what you see."
She held her breath.
Confused, Harry kindly smiled. "You mean just at the foot of the hedge? I see an open tin can, punctured on one end, with a string of loose thread attached."
Just then, she pulled his hand hard, twisting him into a tight embrace. She dug her face into his neck and whispered, "Oh, Harry Potter, that's perfect."
Harry's confusion hadn't dissipated at all, but holding Luna was better (is that even possible?) the second time. He relaxed into her embrace and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.
"Luna? By what criteria is someone admitted into this 'exclusive' group that's permitted to use the Emergency Evacuation Network?"
"I can't tell you, Harry. But I will, someday."
She held him for nearly three minutes, breathing slowly. Letting him go reluctantly, she picked up the tin can.
"Okay, so here's how it works. I'm going to say, "Home" into this tin can, and it will take me home. Tomorrow morning, you're going to say, "Luna Lovegood" into this tin can, and it will take you to me."
Harry grinned — a big, toothy, ridiculous grin, because this was the first time he felt with absolute conviction that this wonderful day was only the beginning.
"Deal. I'll see you tomorrow, Luna Lovegood."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Harry Potter."
"Home."