ferretface_git | (no subject)

(no subject)

From here

He took in a deep breath of the cooler night air and felt immediately better for it. Lighter, even with her there at his side, when normally, he would insist that her very presence was murder on his tightly coiled nerves.

Snatching the mask from her hands, he tossed it into the bushes with a flick of his wrist, then after a moment of hesitation, he closed his hand around he wrist and led her toward the path. He wasn't the type to hold hands, even with someone other than Loony Lovegood, and if anyone suggested that holding her wrist was a close substitute, he'd be sure to gouge their eyes out with his otherwise useless wand.

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Luna's a bit surprised by the gesture, but a bit thrilled, too. She knows when someone's disdain for her is a true and deep thing; she's certainly felt it enough. And not only does she not feel it, there's warmth, and relief. She doesn't speak about it, knowing better.

"Where are we going?" she asks instead.

"Away from here," he said, turning to look at her in the growing dark, one pale brow arched, "If you've got a problem with it, you're welcome to stay."

Still, he hadn't let go of her wrist.

"No," Luna tells him, "I want to go with you." She aims her smile at the ground, doesn't want to frighten him off from whatever this is.

He marched along in silence for a good while, glaring ahead stubbornly and putting one foot in front of the other. Finally, he scoffed and said, "Why would it have choice him to make you fall in love with? It could have certainly picked someone a bit more believable."

"I think it's all luck," Luna says. "I was looking at a flower, and I turned, and our eyes met. And then that was that." She hides her smile again. "Who would be more believable, then?"

"Oh, how should I know?" he muttered moodily, dropping his grip on her wrist but sticking close all the same.

There was no way he'd ever suggest himself.

She bumps up against his arm, encouraged nonetheless. Hopeful, even, that this might not be over. "I don't suppose anyone would believe any of it of me, really. Loony girls don't get to have this sort of fun."

"What sort of fun?" he asked with a frown, not following her train of thought, though that wasn't unusual.

Luna stops, turning bright pink. Has she miscalculated after all?

"I mean--" She folds her arms across herself protectively. "This. If there's still a this. Are you really going to make me say that I like you? I know you'd hate that."

He stiffened, stonily silent and looking past her, burning a hole in a leaf over her shoulder with his glare. This wasn't something he'd ever be good at. These kinds of feelings, whether they existed or not, weren't easy to acknowledge.

"You're a fool," he muttered finally, brushing past her but continuing ahead, away from the party, and for a moment, away from her.

"Of course I am," she murmurs, taking a few steps after him. It's not sarcasm, but her lot in life. She could never quite decide whether to throw something at Professor Trelawney or not for saying it.

She still follows him.

He knew she was there. Even if he couldn't have heard her footsteps, he would have been positive that she was still there, following like a lost little lamb.

"This is insanity!" he shouted finally, throwing his hands up in defeat and spinning on his heel to face her.

"You like me? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

Luna's not sure how to answer that. "I suppose it doesn't sound that ridiculous to me at all," she says. She's not really sorry for having said it, either, as she lifts her chin and meets his eyes. "But the truth is so often ridiculous."

She was too good. Too good for him. For this. He knew it, deep down. There were a lot of things he knew, so deep down that he could hardly admit to them, even to himself.

In that same buried place inside himself, he didn't want to hurt her. He'd done too many things in his life -- duties to a family and a dark lord who wasn't worth serving -- that he wasn't proud of.

"This can't end well. You do realize that, don't you?"

"Not everything has to end well to be worth the time," she answers. "Besides, I really don't think things have gone that well for me in general, so I'm not sure if it would be a big change." She takes a brave step forward.

What a pathetic admission that was. But instead of disgust, he felt an unfamiliar and inexplicable pang of sadness. He never thought he'd ever feel anything close to kinship with someone like Luna Lovegood, but no matter how different their circumstances might have been, they were both irreparably twisted by their lots in life.

How poetic.

"Well, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it is a rather large change for me."

Luna smiles, her real smile and not the kind that's so easily used as a disguise. "I've noticed," she says simply, and stays there, just inside his space, waiting to see what he'll do.

"I like how things were," she says. "I'd like to do that again. Before this stupid-- thing that happened."

"I'd be perfectly happy to obliviate that from my memory," he agreed stiffly, "We'll never speak of it again. How's that?"

What a relief that would be. He didn't even have any desire to use it against her. How strange.

"That would be wonderful," Luna says, relieved. She tucks her hair behind one of her ears, and rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet. Looking up, she says, "A lovely night," and then continues past him on the path.

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