Chapter 9: Try to Move On
Never in her entire life had Luna Lovegood been the type who wished for bad things to happen to good people. And she didn't - not now. At least, she didn't think she actively wished for anything of the sort. But Nifflers were funny, very receptive creatures who could hear even the most private, darkest yearnings and sometimes work to grant them.
One bad thing that happened to a good person was that Ginevra broke up with Dean Thomas soon after the Christmas holidays. While that seemed objectively horrible to Luna's mind insomuchas she was trying to be comforting towards her friend, Ginny herself seemed far less bothered by it. In any event, the fiery ginger now appeared free to take active steps towards winning the man she had loved ever since she was 10.
Another bad thing that happened to a good person occurred later that spring. And it happened on the worst possible day too.
It happened on the birthday of the man Luna had loved since she was 11.
Once more, she had considered gifting Ron a present for his birthday this year. And this time, she had taken active steps to go through with it - something more understated. Luna knew Ronald had always been partial to Chocolate Frogs, so she had bought a box while visiting Hogsmeade. At least it seemed to make more sense as a present than her lion's mane hood, which she still had and wore devotedly whenever Gryffindor was playing Quidditch.
Saturday, March 8th, found Luna in the Ravenclaw Common Room, clutching the box of chocolates to her chest and trying to work up the nerve to cross the castle to the opposing Tower and give Ron the chocolates. Andrenaline fueled her enough that she was just stepping out of the portrait hole when she caught sight of Ginny, red hair peeling behind her like a banner as she dashed up, in tears.
"Lu! Lu, you've gotta come quick!"
"Gin? What's... what's happened?" Luna warbled as Ginny hugged her fiercely around the neck.
"It's... it's Ron!"
Luna went ashen, and with her free hand that wasn't holding the chocolates, clasped Ginny's palm. "Take me to him! Right now."
The two girls sprinted strickenly for the Hospital Wing. They both hurtled, white-faced, down the ward and skittered to a stop just outside a sickbed with the curtains drawn. No less than four Professors, including Dumbledore, were huddled outside the entrance. Behind them, Luna could hear raised, feminine voices.
"... to be his girlfriend!"
"I happen to be his... friend." There was a noticeable hitch in Hermione's voice.
"Don't make me laugh! You haven't spoken in weeks! I suppose you're hanging all over him again now that he's all interesting..."
"Those are powers of perception I never thought the skank had, I must say..." Ginny muttered low under her breath to Luna. "Always thought Lavender wouldn't notice if a bowtruckle landed on her head..." Luna actually had to stifle laughter. The pair of best mates slowly nudged their way to the front, through the professors, emerging in time for the crescendo of what had all the makings of a catfight.
"... POISONED, you daft bimbo!" Hermione was gasping. There was a slight pause before she added indignantly. "And for the record, I've always found him interesting!" Caught in the middle of this petty female politics, Harry's cringe was nearly breaking his face. He glanced up and nodded to Ginny and Luna almost gratefully.
Luna stared down at Ron in the bed. He looked pale and was lying too still, the covers pulled up to his chin. What could have brought down such a broad, vivacious specimen of a man, Luna had no idea.
"What... happened?" she asked, struggling mightily to keep a hitch from invading her own generally mild timbre herself.
Lavender tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and sent Luna a scathing look. "As if you'd even notice!"
Ginny opened her mouth hotly, no doubt to rejoined with something truly cutting about how Lavender almost hadn't noticed how her boyfriend had at the very least been lusting after someone else, but Harry waved her down with a look. At Luna's inquisitive blinking, the Boy Who Lived answered her:
"He was poisoned: first by chocolates, and then we think there was something tainted in the antidote Slughorn tried to give him."
Turning pink and then ashen, Luna surreptitiously let the box of chocolates hang limp at her side and she slipped them behind her back. Ginny still noticed
and raised an eyebrow. 'Birthday present,' Luna mouthed, nodding to Ron. Ginny nodded back.
They were all lifted out of their vigil by Ron finally stirring for the first time.
"There! See? He senses my presence. Don't worry, Won-Won: I'm here..."
Luna had to bite her lip to keep from giggling at the truly horrendous pet name, if only because laughter wasn't the best reaction in present circumstance and company.
"Mione... Er-my-knee... Hermione..."
Hermione's pretty little mouth fell agape, sucking in a breath. She staggered into a chair at Ron's side and her hand found his. Glancing between them, Lavender burst into tears and fled the ward. Luna was more subdued, bowing her head in something that seemed to resemble defeat, though it was far more gracious than the kind Ron's hopefully now-ex-girlfriend had shown.
"Oh, to be young, and to feel love's keen sting! Well, come along everyone: Mr. Weasley's well tended," Dumbledore chirped, seemingly unbothered by the heartache that was happening around him.
As the group filed out, Ginny murmured something low to Harry that Luna didn't quite catch. But when the girls' eyes met, Ginny quickly looked askance.
Hermione glanced up, caught her friends staring at her, and huffed, "Oh, shut up!" Though her smile was positively beaming.
Luna hung back at a trudge as she left the Hospital Wing. Out in the corridor, she dropped the box of chocolates into the trash. Ginny turned back, a silent question in her orbs, but Luna shook her head, waving her on. Her friend smiled with something that may have been sympathy before dashing to catch up to Harry.
Luna ran the rest of the way to Ravenclaw Tower, face buried in her palms so no one could hear her sobs.
In all honesty, Luna should have been better prepared for this eventuality: when Ron and Lavender had first gotten together, Hermione had told Luna, "May the best woman win."
Well, it would appear the best woman had won. In a three-way tussle between Hermione, Luna and Lavender Brown, the victor was always going to be the strikingly attractive star student of Gryffindor.
And, as nice as it was to dream, Luna figured she didn't have a hope of a relationship between Ron and Hermione falling apart the way it had with Lavender.
Still, it was hard to watch the pair of best mates ease slowly into something more than friendship - a transformation that, by all accounts at least amidst the Gryffindors, had been a long time coming. It was agonizing to watch Ron with his arm slung around Hermione, murmuring something into her bushy, chestnut curls and watching those same curls bounce with laughter over the amusing thing he had said.
It was excruciating to round the corner of an empty corridor one evening on Prefect rounds, only to walk in on Gryffindor's two Prefects leaning in for a head-spinning, searing kiss of passion. There was something almost deja vu about it, as Luna melted back into the shadowy corners, and she was reminded of how it had felt to watch Hermione snogging Viktor Krum a few years ago - wanting to avert her gaze from an intensely private moment, yet not bearing to look away.
As Luna watched with anguish, Ron and Hermione's kiss deepened. Mouths parted and fell open as tongues pushed through. Hermione squirmed happily as Ron's calloused and strong palms dropped to feel up her bum through her skirts. She twisted away slightly, giggling, only for the giggle to turn into a gasp as Ron's lips claimed hers once more and his fingers gripped the inside of her thigh, hiking it up. The couple embraced fiercely and Ron lifted Hermione off her feet, bracing her against the wall. Her legs spread. It didn't take long for Ron to mount her and mate with her.
Moans were torn from the lovers' throats as, by the light of the torch sconces, Ron and Hermione had sex. The firelight cast their copulating shadows on the stone walls, casting their lovemaking in sharp bas relief. Hermione buried her face into her paramour's neck, kissing the hollow of his throat.
"Hmmmmm... Huhhhhh... Ron-Ronald..."
Ron grunted into where his mouth was suctioned to her aching nipple through her blouse; Luna could see the pebbled bud straining from even this distance. "Fuck, Hermione... I love you..."
The beautiful brunette arched her back, pushing her slim hips into him with a cry. "Ohhhhhh, I love you too... but... but we mustn't. Not here. We mustn't! We mu-Mmmmmmm..." Her weak protestations were silenced by another bruising kiss, into which she melted.
No more. Luna couldn't watch any more. She turned the corner to flee in tears... and crashed right into Ginny. Luna actually gasped, startled.
Ginny said nothing, simply took Luna by the arms, murmuring low, "Come with me."
Ignoring the shouts of her brother and his new girlfriend in coital heat, Ginny hustled Luna a little ways through the castle, roughly in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower. When they were a decent distance away from the carnal act of intimacy occurring within these walls, Ginny turned back to her lovelorn best mate.
"I'm going to tell you something that Hermione told me: when Harry wasn't noticing me, she told me to get on with life, try to go out with other people, and that Harry might notice me if I was a bit more... myself."
Luna sniffled and wiped at her eyes. It was bitter to be hearing advice delivered second-hand by someone who had bested her - even more bitter to internalize how, once again, Hermione was right.
"All well and good, but at least you got the man you wanted in the end. I won't," Luna sniffled.
Ginny winced guiltily. "Maybe not, but there are other fish in the sea, Lu. And you, my clever little Ravenclaw, are quite the catch. You'll find someone. Someone who is just as worthy of you as my brother would have been!" Her smile was encouraging, yet also held a weakness to it.
"But what if I don't?" Luna wiped at her eyes. "What if I can't? Move on? You may have tried to move on, from Harry, but it didn't work!"
"No. Not in the long run," Ginny conceded. "I guess..." She shrugged helplessly. "Trying to move on is all you can do. If you really love my brother, you'll be happy that he's found happiness. I suppose that's all you can do." She patted Luna on the shoulder. "Give it time..."
Ginny left Luna at the Ravenclaw portrait hole, the normally sunny and tranquil turkey of a girl adrift in a sea of heartbreak and torment.
Perhaps it was for the best, Luna had to suppose, as she dragged herself past Sam the Eagle: Hermione was a wonderful young woman. Certainly more worthy of the man than Lavender Brown had ever been.
And at least Ron would have somebody who could love him closely, whereas she - no matter what advice Ginny imparted - would be doomed to love him from afar.