Hide and Seek.



Luna Lovegood's dirty blonde hair flew behind her as she ran softly on the snow around the courtyard and behind an old tree somewhere on the grounds.


Harry would never be able to find her here; the last time she had seen him, he had his eyes closed and was counting to one hundred, in the corner of the Room of Requirement.


Luna rested on the floor for a while; although it was cold, she was in no way worried about catching a fever. Her head lolled around for a while. Luna found it relaxing and helped her concentrate.


She needn't bother though. In the year or so that she had gotten to know Harry Potter, he would never find her here. He would eventually give up and Luna would burst out on him when he least expected it and scare him half to death.


Then there would be apologies, reminiscences, and a hug, if she was lucky. It had been hard enough for Luna to realise that she loved Harry. She had stared and admired him from a distance, but it wasn't until last June that she started to feel something for him.


The battle, the fight, the man Harry lost. Sirius Black, once was a convicted murderer, was now gone. Luna was shocked to learn, at first, that the man Sirius Black ever existed; she had believed that he was Stubby Boardman, lead singer of the Hobgoblins. Then again, Luna read The Quibbler.


She had dreamt of the night in the Department of Mysteries ever since and although her dreams weren't as frightening as Harry's, who had confided in her two weeks into term that he was waking up every night screaming, they still made her feel queasy.


She had reason to of course; her own mother had worked in the Department after all, although Luna hardly remembered. She had visions and pictures of a beautiful blonde witch with sparkly blues eyes, which of course was where Luna got her appearance from, although she didn't consider herself beautiful. She sat behind the tree for a further fifteen minutes. She was now getting very cold and her hope for Harry to come and find her broke through at last.


Luna had very little time to wait, Harry was creeping up on her that very moment, waiting to give her the shock of the year.



*


Harry crept behind a bench on a path leading up to the courtyard. He kept his head low and eyes open. He could hear a young woman singing somewhere off, perhaps it was Luna? But when had she learnt to sing?


Harry crept forward past three Slytherins girls who looked at him quickly then broke into silent giggles. He wished they would shut up; that was exactly the thing that would get him seen.


And up to the tree where he could see Luna's bright hair casting a thin shadow onto the ground and where the singing was loud yet light.


Harry breathed in, took a glance to the left and right and then stepped out from behind the tree.


Luna gasped; Harry forced back a laugh and said, 'I didn't know you could sing.'


Luna relaxed on noticing that it was he and threw a small snowball at his chest. Harry laughed.


'I didn't know you were sneaking up on me like that,' Luna said. She cleared some snow next to herself and motioned for Harry to sit down.


'Well we've both learnt something new then, haven't we?'


Luna collapsed into giggles, even though Harry could not understand what was so funny. He sighed and sat down next to her, and reached over and took her soft hands in his, only to discover that they were freezing cold. He wrapped his own hands around hers and started rubbing up and down to warm them up.


The last few people were leaving for the Great Hall and dinner; Harry supposed that he and Luna would go soon, but after their game was over. Luna began to blush. As the warmth spread around her body she began to gaze into the distant forest and almost let her eyeballs fall out when she saw something stir.


'Look!' she said, jumping to her feet and startling Harry. 'Look! A Heliopath!'


Harry looked up but didn't expect to see anything there; in the past month or two that he and Luna had been together she was convinced she saw a party of Nargles wandering around the corridors and claimed to have seen three hundred spotted Humtinks making their way north after a winter in the south.


He was, however, surprised to see a flame floating in the distance of the forest, bobbing up and down.


Luna, meanwhile, was fumbling through her pockets excitedly. 'I want to get a picture of it!' she cried. 'Oh, I left my camera in my dormitory.'


Harry stood and patted her shoulder. The flame was getting bigger and brighter. Luna was biting her upper lip and clenching Harry's hand tightly. After five tense minutes, the flame finally made an appearance, but it was not that good. Luna began to cry into Harry's shoulder and he patted her back sensuously.


Hagrid was carrying a great torch that seemed to melt the snow around him. He spotted Harry and Luna in the distance and Harry heard him yell, as he raised a hand in greeting, 'Alrigh' arry?'


Harry nodded and Luna raised her head, her eyes red and sore. Harry wiped away a tear, which was falling from her cheek.


'What do you say,' he said in an effort to cheer her up, 'that we carry on with Hide and Seek?'


Luna's eyes widened. She clasped Harry in a tight hug and then kissed him. 'I love you Harry Potter.'



*


Now it was Harry's turn to hide. He had to use his instincts, because Luna was extremely good at finding and she wouldn't give up. So Harry headed round to the Herbology greenhouses and made sure that he was low and well covered.


This separation from Luna was what made the game fun. They would hide for minutes, even hours sometimes until they were reunited and would embrace. Harry's opinion of Luna had altered dramatically since June and his perseverance with her had paid off: now they were together.


Sure, he got looks. Cho Chang would stare animatedly at him as he walked along the corridor with Luna in his arm. But some of it was bad. Malfoy once attempted to make fun of Harry as he made his way to Charms with Luna (she was going to Divination) but several hexes and a jinx from Harry, Luna, Ron and Hermione had taught Malfoy a very valuable lesson.


Yet Harry had considered her weird. Sure they had never found any proof of Heliopaths or whatever Luna believed in nowadays, but they had experienced something extremely rare and extremely sad. They had talked about death.


Harry's understanding, after talking with Luna, was that yes, Sirius was alive somewhere and it would take Harry his whole life to find him. Alive or dead, Harry knew he would see Sirius again. And this aptitude led him to fall in love with the one girl who believed him.


Hermione and Ron, so close nowadays, had not taken a shine to Luna at first, but then they realised, as he did, that Harry and Luna were perfect for each other.


Harry kept low as he headed out of the greenhouses and along the back wall, past Hagrid's cabin, and along to the edge of the forest by the lake.


He usually came here to sit and wonder. To imagine a life where Sirius was alive and where none of the things in the Department of Mysteries had happened. Of course, it was just across the lake that Harry had saved Sirius from a hoard of Dementors.


Harry lowered his head and let a few soft tears fall into his lap. He sat like that for a minute or two, until it became dark and chilling. Luna, meanwhile, saw him. 'Course, he wasn't making much of an effort to hide, but he was always easy to find.


She crept up behind him slowly, and then when she was a foot away from him poked him hard in the back of the head.


'Boo,' she said, and Harry looked up. He quickly wiped his tears away. Luna looked concerned, but Harry stood and embraced her in a deep hug.


'Your turn,' Luna said, stroking Harry's nose as she would a dog. Harry laughed. The wind was picking up by the minute.


They stood there for a moment or two, and then both laughed at each other. Luna pulled Harry's head into her own and they embraced.


Pulling away and smiling, with her nose and cheeks red from the cold, Luna whispered into Harry's ear. 'Okay, count to ten.'