Chapter 11: Drawn to Madness

Ron jerked awake in the bed with a start while lying on his side. For a moment, he thrashed under the covers, not remembering where he was. As his vision cleared, he recognized the contours of the guest bedroom in Bill and Fleur's Shell Cottage, and his heart rate began to slow in relief.

He rolled over: Hermione was in the bed beside him, her back to him. It was disconcerting that he could count the ridges in her spine. Small comfort, then, that she was sleeping soundly, judging from the easy rise and fall of her breathing.

Ron stole from the bed they had shared these past several nights since fleeing the Manor, so as not to wake her. The sun was shining brightly through the curtains, and he wondered how late in the morning it was.

He plodded down the stairs. The kitchen was empty, except for Luna Lovegood, who was just clearing away breakfast dishware and gathering a small valise.

Ron stood on the landing and watched her for a moment. How the dapple patterns of sunlight caught in her golden hair, almost making it shimmer. For a moment, he considered just standing there silently, rather than alerting her to his presence. It would be better for her, for them both, if he did. After all...

Luna suddenly spun about and sucked in a breath sharply. Too late. Ron awkwardly cleared his throat, his lips pursed.

"Good morning, Ronald."

He cleared his throat again. "Morning."

Luna drifted near him as he moved off the final stair landing. She was biting her lip, and were it not for the circumstances, Ron would have thought it adorable. "How's Hermione?"

"Sleeping, thank Godric. She's been regaining the strength in her legs."

For some reason, Luna oddly flushed at this, and Ron added, "She's been getting up and walking around the little guest room. I hope she might be able to come downstairs tomorrow or the next day."

"Terrific." There was a long silence in which the pair glanced at each other, then just as quickly looked away. Neither one of them was going to bring it up then unless the other brought it up first. For once in his life, Ron struggled to find the courage within himself to discuss hard issues, but the bravado he'd possessed in action at the Manor seemed to have abandoned him. He studied the valise Luna clutched in her hand.

"Hogwarts?" he rasped. She nodded, and he felt an irrational fear of letting her walk out that door. He was altogether and bizarrely terrified that he would never see her again. "It's... not the place you left, you know." At least, that's what he'd heard from the radio reports on Potterwatch. "It's not the same."

Luna straightened, throwing back her shoulders, her chin held high. "Neither am I." Giving him a lame, little wave, she started to turn for the door.

... Then she doubled back, and for one mad moment as she launched herself at him, Ron thought she was going to...

Luna hugged him tightly around the neck, her valise wallopping him a little in the back. Ron didn't mind, returning the embrace.

As the friends and former cellarmates held each other, neither one of them saw Hermione edge out onto the top of the stair landing. Neither Ron nor Luna was aware that she had seen and heard everything.

Including the hug, and how it seemed to linger for just a little too long.

The chaos of the Battle of Hogwarts had forced him and Hermione apart once they had emerged from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom with the mangled and destroyed Cup.

Ron ran through the castle, firing hexes as often as he was dodging them, weaving away from small explosions. A series of blasts drove him around one corner and into a corridor on the fourth floor.

Through the haze of smoke, he saw her: There was Luna, impressively dueling and holding off two Death Eaters at once. For a moment, Ron could only stand there and watch in admiration. It was almost as if time slowed down as he watched Luna spin and block and hex with the gracefulness of a dancer. Her long blonde plaits flew behind her like a banner, twirling around her ovate and serene face like yellow tongues of flame.

Sound roaring back to him, Ron leapt into the fray, taking one of Luna's adversaries by surprise and forcing him back. Manuevered into fighting back to back with Luna, the pair of former DA sparring partners nodded once to each other before going in on the attack.

It was like a synchronized dance, the way they blocked and fired, watching out for each other. Ron cast a Killing Curse for the first time in his life and his aim was true as it sailed past Luna and hit the Death Eater she was dueling. She responded in kind by whirling about and felling his opponent with a Stunner.

Their wands slashed the air with such ferocity, their eyes primed to scan for danger so constantly, that Ron and Luna both spun and crossed their wands, breathing and panting hard.

Everything seemed to freeze in that corridor. Ron gazed into Luna's fierce silver eyes, her flushed face and how her pert little breasts - the ones he had been tempted by in the Manor - heaved like a bellows for every breath. Absolutely insane thoughts were badgering him in his head, telling him to... and no doubt Luna would say it was some infernal magical creature -

Oh, sod it!

His wand hand closed around her forearm, and he yanked her close. Almost in the same fluid motion, Luna's arm slipped about Ron's waist as she crashed up against his chest. Their lips slammed together with damning finality in a bruising kiss of relief.

Instantly, the pair of them both melted with twin moans of pleasure and the kiss deepened. Throwing her free arm around his neck, her fingers twisting and tangling into his overgrown locks of auburn, Luna's silver orbs swooned shut and she furiously kissed Ronald back. The youngest Weasley son's mouth was hot and heavy against her own, working it open, and Luna felt her lips part pliantly for him, like the petals of a flower bursting into full bloom. His tongue squirmed to meet hers, and the pair of them grappled and danced, much like they had grappled and pattern-danced in their duel with those Death Eaters.

Ron's free hand at the small of Luna's back soon dared to dip lower. When his fingers brushed the curve of her smart little bum, Luna gasped, and then whimpered. His calloused and strong hands cupped the accentuated flesh there of one arse cheek; in galling response, Luna assertively hiked her leg up to Ron's waist, curling it about his torso at the back of the knee. A leg shoved in between her splayed thighs, her opened pelvis and she was started to grind against him, and her groans became louder.

"HMMMMMMM... MMMMMMMMM..." Ron's lips briefly left hers to pepper her face with kisses and Luna's dazedly felt her eyes rolling into the back of her head. She shivered with delight at the way Ron's mouth was now claiming the soft curve of her neck.

Somewhere far, far away, the sound of fireworks and flares piercing the skies above the castle with air-raid shrieks could be heard. The sound seemed to match the exultant display going off in Luna's mind as at last, at long last, she kissed and held the man she'd loved since she was a little girl.

But before she could give in and let Ronald take her, the way she'd wanted him to in that cellar...

An explosion ripped through the corridor, and Ron and Luna broke sharply apart, their arms still wound about each other. The embracing... were they lovers? Luna wasn't sure... all at once remembered where they were.

"We... we should probably..." Ron stuttered. He looked as though he had been hit in the back of the head with a Bludger.

"Yeah," Luna nodded. "Of course..." She held out her hand and clasped Ron's palm in hers. Smiling hesitantly, Ron nonetheless slipped his fingers through hers and squeezed.

And the pair ran hand-in-hand through the castle, neither one of them having any intention of letting go.