Harry's eyes speared her in their intensity.
"Friends… I'm not sure I want to be considered your friend if how you treated Ginny is any indication of your care."
"And what would you know of friendship?"
If she hadn't been so focused on his face, on looking for a reaction, Luna would have missed the minute flare of his nostrils; the only indication her barb had hit its mark.
'You're good. I can't wait to unpeel your layers, Harry.' Luna thought. 'This year is shaping up better than I could have ever imagined!'
"What do you know?"
"About you, or about friendship in general."
If Luna didn't know better, she's assume Harry was trying to legillimize her. The thought was laughable, but something to ponder.
Later.
"Oh Potter—"
"Harry. Just Harry."
She inclined her head in deference.
"Harry. All I know of you is but rumor. But what I see, however, well, that's something else…"
He made to speak, but she continued.
"As to friendship… Well, that's a tangled web. It depends on the weaver and the layer of silk threads one decides to pluck."
They stood appraising the other, neither retreating in deference to the other.
"Is Ginny a friend?"
"She's a friend to many. At least she believes so."
"And to you?"
He was watching her, gaze still shuttered as before, but burning with an intensity Luna found exhilarating in its challenge.
"She's…"
Luna broke off, suddenly at a loss for words.
Something of a rarity.
She floundered to find how to encompass what Ginny, and by proxy, Mrs. Weasley meant to her… not willing to throw them out with the gilly water but also not willing to classify her, them, by that term.
Not to Harry at his most earnest.
"My esteem toward and by extension, my connection with Ginny is… un-webbed. But tethered nonetheless." She settled for referring to her previous spider analogy and hoping she wouldn't have to spell it out for Harry.
She needn't have worried.
He'd nodded, as if that fit with something he'd already assumedi or considered, before asking again, "What did you do to her?"
"Nothing time and some salve won't fix. Honestly, it's like she forgets she's a witch at times. Silly that. A bunch of nonsense for a moment of discomfort."
Luna threw a smirk Harry's way, delighted as the air of tension dissipated around him. All she saw now was curious amusement gleaming back at her as he started walking again.
"It was a bonus for me that you turned up when you did."
"Why's that?"
"You know…"
"Sorry, no." He'd stopped again, and the look of utter bafflement saturating his features made Luna's heart skip a beat.
How could one so… well, shadowed… as Harry, be as equally naive.
"You have…absolutely no idea."
Her words were as soft as if she'd whispered them in her head, but the subtle tightening of his eyes showed they'd been spoken aloud.
And heard.
A laugh the likes she hadn't let out in years rose from her chest to pour from between her lips.
"Oh this is the cherry on top of the sundae."
Luna threw herself down upon the grass that edged the shoreline. Looking up at him she rested back on her elbows, face turned towards the sunlight.
"Have you not noticed her glances? The way she freezes up when you're around? That she can't seem to say anything in your presence?"
"Ummm…" Harry ran a hand through his mop of hair, the ends standing randomly at odd angles as he dropped down to sit beside her. "I thought she was just shy. Is there another reason? Did I offend her?"
"Offend?!"
Now Luna was howling, air coming in gasps as tears streamed down her face.
"Enough."
Harry's voice was low, and the fatigue drenching every syllable caused the laugh to catch in her throat. Guilt, unexpected and foreign, tingled along her concience. He looked… almost broken.
"Harry—"
"Why is the thought of me being ignorant of something so funny to you? I thought you were different. That you wouldn't laugh at the boy who'd been raised by muggles… who'd been raised… well, how I was. Who hadn't been raised around magic and all it's traditions."
"It's not—"
"I thought you were serious when you offered me a place to be myself."
He hauled himself up and swept his hands down the rear of his robes, shaking off any loose debris and dirt from the autumn kissed grass.
"Harry—" Luna tried again, her heart beating fast, blood roaring in her ears. She didn't like being wrongfooted, and knew as she looked into his eyes the precipice she danced along.
One misstep and she'd lose her chance with him.
"I'm—I apologize."
Luna beseeched him with an open gaze and reached tentatively with her hand toward him.
Slowly she extended until her fingers touched gently upon the sleeve of his robes, unwilling to let the boy in front of her leave without making up for her mistake.
If she hadn't been so intent on watching him, she'd have missed the subtle fleeting flinch as her hand had approached. Missed the slight flash in his eyes and the whisper of a quick inhale.
She missed nothing, however.
Her stomach tightened and her blood boiled for the wizard in front of her.
"I meant only to tease, but forgot myself in the dance. I meant it when I suggested we become friends. Friends in the full sense of the word. We are kindred, you and I. I truly am sorry I made you distrust me, for laughing. For making you doubt my intentions."
She felt as if the earth had spun a million times in the time it took for Harry's walls to crumble. Just slightly, but enough for her to see an inkling of what lay beyond, hidden by shifting shadows.
"Apology accepted." He said. "Though why you believe us kindred…" he trailed off, eyebrow raised.
"Let's just say, Harry, that there's a reason I feel drawn to you. That I recognized the way you hide in plain sight. Like calls to like. Your two… friends—" the word sliced from between her lips, cutting the air as a scythe parting the veil— "tell me, have they looked below surface expectations? Have they noticed the flickers?"
"Flickers?" He dropped down beside Luna in the grass, a surprisingly graceful collapse of angled limbs wrapped in the folds of his robe.
"The flickers." She shrugged. "It's what made me look twice, made me want to see past the name and the scar that hold most at arms length in awe."
She glanced toward Harry, his calculation eyes shadowed.
"I'd given up hoping…" he broke off, his hair falling in haphazardly chopped curtains across his brow as he shook his head. A ghost of a smile flit across his lips.
"Want to play a game?"
Harry's eyes rose to meet hers as he spoke, and Luna was delighted by the amusement she saw dancing amidst the emeralds.
She clapped her hands together. "A game! How delicious. Terms?"
"A game of equals… of, what was it you said? Kindreds?"
His lips twisted, and suddenly amusement shifted to a bitterness so heavy she wondered how those close to him on the daily weren't suffocating… how they could remain so ignorant to the wizard they had claimed as a friend.
'People are blind to what lays past their own bias and expectations. Nothing hides truth faster than a potential slight to one's ego highlighting their own deficiencies.'
Pandora had bestowed these droplets of wisdom and enlightenment upon Luna, spinning them into her consciousness as she spun her honey touched tresses into plaits.
Binding them as tightly to her psyche as she bound Luna's hair.
In front of her was the perfect embodiment of the damage naive assumptions created.
Of public pedestals and distant adoration.
"A game of equals…" she trailed off, fingers tapping an errant rhythm upon her lips as she gazed at her newest friend.
No.
Not friend.
That was too trite a word.
Before her sat potential.
Potential for balance.
Potential for the sharing of magic. Thoughts. Plans.
Harry presented the possibility of the type of kinship her mother had spoken of in her nocturne tales.
A kinship that over the years of magical dilution and cultural erosion had faded from fashion, from the peerages gaze and conscious.
Luna could taste the potency of this potential on her tongue. The sweetness of the vitality and strength their kinship could lend to mother magic if it was properly tended, properly nurtured and harnessed.
She nodded and resettled herself on the grass to face Harry directly—a position of equals.
Upon her nod, a sudden breeze wound around them, carrying the scent of mallowsweet and hawthorn berries, pleasant sweetness mixing with the musk of autumn's withering tang teasing their senses.
She saw Harry sniff the air, an eyebrow lifting as he took in their surroundings. She saw him blink before turning to her in confusion.
Despite the sudden breeze that swiftly and abruptly encircled them, around them, the grass remained still. Trees and the leaves they clung to with desperate futility were as stationary as if captured by a muggle photograph.
Goosebumps broke out upon Luna's arms, under her school robes, and she shivered in humbled awe of the elemental blessing.
This wasn't any breeze.
This was acceptance.
Anticipated acceptance of untapped possibilities.
Of intent.
Mother magic was listening.
"First question to you." She bowed her head slightly toward Harry, the smile gracing her lips melting Harry's look of confusion into one of purpose.
"What was that?" He lifted a hand and waved to encompass the air.
"An elemental blessing." Luna smiled with genuine delight. "An extremely rare event, considering the extent magic has been diluted."
"What do you—"
"Uh uh." Luna gently cut Harry off. "My turn."
Harry gave her a mimicking nod to hers at the games commencement. pursing her lips, Luna took a moment to consider how she wanted to steer this unveiling of truths.
"Why did you choose Gryffindor, not the house of your true sorting?"
Harry frowned and his mouth opened, either to protest or from shock. Instead of more questions or posturing, however, a laugh erupted, taking Luna by surprise.
"I'm not even going to ask how."
He shook his head and looked at her with what she could only describe as fond exasperation.
"I chose Gryffindor for all the right…," he sighed, grimacing as he shrugged. "And for all the wrong reasons."
Luna stared at him, patiently watching and waiting as he floundered with finding the words.
"Did you know I was raised with muggles?"
His emphasis on the word made her ears twitch, so unexpected was the condemnation that saturated the term. That the supposed savior of the Wizarding world held such apparent scorn for those the headmaster and his ilk chose to champion.
That he himself was supposed to be the savior of.
Her silent acceptance of his question, of his tone, urged him to continue.
"This summer I met a house elf, barmy creature that, but what did you say? Like recognizes like? I was my family's."
He spat the word then paused, looking by out over the landscape with unseeing eyes.
Luna waited, not wanting to spoil the moment with needless prodding. Though she was confused, as house elves were typically revered. Nothing about being compared to a house elf should generate the derision saturating his words.
Nor how it related to choosing Gryffindor.
Though House Elves were in service roles, they held the power in the relationship dynamic. A house without an elf was a fallen house, a house of ill repute.
Even though her family had fallen out of favor with their lot since her mothers passing, they still had a house elf, bonded through her mother's blood—her blood—rather than verbal oaths and trite rituals.
When Harry again spoke, it was soft as a breeze.
"There's so many of them Luna. Muggles. Like rats, they're everywhere. Scurrying about, taking what they can. Most completely unaware of this world. But those who are… that know our power, they fear it. Fear us."
He looked at her then, and she relished in the fire that lit his eyes.
"I want to be something that's feared. I'm tired of being treated like a house elf."
"Harry…" she began tentatively, lest he take it as her mocking him again. "House elves, they are cherished in our culture. Like children. Or they should be. Are you, are you saying your family didn't?"
She'd glimpsed flickers of layers beyond the placid boy-who-lived persona, but just maybe, she was discovering the why.
"Cherished?"
His laugh raised goosebumps on her arms. It was delicious in its bite. He shook his head but didn't continue pulling that thread.
"Cowards cherish nothing but chasing their own tails. Those that dole it out, and those that trade in being oblivious. No matter what's in front of their faces, silence is easier. Lest not make waves and all that."
He scoffed.
"I chose Gryffindor because for the first time, someone seemed to choose me, defended me, against a bully. A bully who thought he could use his obvious money and name to get his way. All I could think of was, I didn't want to be in that house with that bully."
"And the wrong reasons?" She didn't tell him that was a stupid reason to pick a house—friendship—nor did she give any inference of such lest he shut down again.
Shout her out.
She knew as well as any that given the choice, she'd have preferred a house apart from the main four.
A house dedicated to the elementals, to magic intrinsic; not to egotistical pedantic traits filled with petty children with watered down cores.
"The wrong reasons are that after a year stuck in the lion's den, I'm bored. Beyond bored, and so sick of the classmates who turn on a dime to vilify or cheer me on. I'm sick of a system just as corrupt as the muggle world, just this time it's weighed in my favor because of something I did that I can't even remember. At least in Slytherin I'd be challenged. The only thing that makes being here at Hogwarts worthwhile is being away from those muggles I live with, and quidditch."
"And magic."
He scoffed again.
"That goes without saying!"
He looked at her, his gaze piercing her soul.
"My turn."
She nodded, anticipating his next question based on his first. What came out surprised her.
"Why didn't you chose the house you were meant for? Why did you instead let yourself get trapped in a birdcage, high in the sky?"
She didn't even pretend to misunderstand or hide the fact he'd nailed a truth no one was the wiser to.
"I threatened the hat, I needed to be somewhere… unthreatening. But with ties to the other. Ravenclaw suited. It gets me access to knowledge without raised brows, and classmates who other than enjoying in torment of 'poor looney lovegood' leave me alone.
That wasn't an answer, that was the parchment in which the answer was written on, or the quill that recorded it.
If this game was to be played, and properly, they needed more than just the tools.
'Tools! Oh this is just perfection in triplicate.'
"Harry."
He looked up at her tone, and whatever he saw in her eyes had him sitting up straighter, his face tightening. He quirked an eyebrow, the only indication of his interest.
She reached for her bag.
"I have something I want to show you. Something that will make this game even more, interesting."