A/N: submission for the Monthly challenge ending October 31, Challenge #6 - Romance submitted by Ravensgryff of Gryffindor House.
It has been a pretty strange year and I thought I should explain exactly how things have changed since Harry defeated Voldemort. Actually, Luna suggested that I write this. She usually has good ideas if you pay attention; she kind of understands me better than anyone does. I needed to do this.
Don’t think that I just woke up one day and suddenly decided that Luna Lovegood was a genius. It has taken the better part of the year for me to really appreciate her. She is persistent and she has more patience than almost anyone around me.
The story started about a month after the battle at the Riddle House. There were so many…losses and I just couldn’t cope. I was back at the Burrow, still recovering from the battle. The Healers at St. Mungo’s couldn’t do any more for me and sent me home; I would probably never regain proper use of my right leg, but otherwise I was “fine”.
But, I wasn’t fine. I stayed up in my room for weeks, alone. Harry and my family tried to visit every day, but I refused to talk or even look at anyone. I took my potions and played chess against myself. I always lost the game. That was about as much as I felt I deserved “ to always lose. My life somehow seemed to be moving in that direction. Then one day there was a knock at the door…
Ron heard the knock and as usual; he hoped that whoever it was would just give up and go away. This was not one of his better days; his leg ached horribly and the potion wasn’t doing much good. The Healers had warned him about rainy days and it had been raining for several days straight. Each day, the pain worsened. He moved a pawn forward two spaces and continued to study the board even when the door opened.
“Ginny said that if you didn’t answer I should probably just leave, but I think that in some instances, silence can be taken as assent. So, here I am. Hello, Ron.”
He knew of only one person with that dreamy quality of voice. Ron finally looked up surprised to see Luna Lovegood standing at the threshold of his room. He almost spoke, then frowned and returned to his pointless game. He wondered why she was here, but then remembered that the Lovegoods lived quite close to the Burrow. After the war ended, Luna had become a fairly regular visitor. She usually came to visit Ginny, so he wasn’t quite sure why this strange young woman was in his room.
After several moments of silence, she entered the room and sat on the bed opposite Ron’s where Harry used to sleep. Ron’s curiosity outweighed his grumpiness and he looked over at her again. “Why are you here, Luna?”
She clucked her tongue at him. “Still not so polite, I see. I just came to say hello. I heard that you’ve taken to hiding up here. You might want to consider the Air Freshening Charm if you’re going to insist on never leaving your room again.”
He was astonished. Who does she think she is, he wondered before replying, “If the smell bothers you, then you can close the door on your way out.” He was becoming quite annoyed; but annoying Ron was pretty easy to do these days.
“It won’t help, you know.”
He had no patience for her weirdness. “What on earth are you on about? As a matter of fact, I don’t want to know. Get out!”
“Hiding won’t get rid of the guilt. It’s called survivor’s guilt. You feel like it should have been you who died instead of her. I felt the same way when my mother died. Avoiding people will only make it worse.”
He could feel his blood beginning to boil now. She had no right to talk about…well, anything; he hadn’t even invited her in. He picked up a knight and hurled it across the room, but not close enough to actually hit her. “Get out! You don’t know anything about how I feel! You hardly even know me! Get the bloody hell out of my room and go look for a Crumple Toed Snickerack!” He flung the chessboard to the floor and roughly turned to face the wall. This of course sent a chorus of screaming pains into his leg again.
“It’s Crumple-Horned Snorkack. I’ll go, Ron. But, it still wasn’t your fault that she died and I thought someone should tell you. I’ll stop by again. Good-bye.” Her tone of her voice did not change, she didn’t even sound remotely offended. She simply left calmly and softly closed the door.
She came back all right. At first she would show up once a week for a few minutes, just long enough to make me angry and to start yelling. Then I guess I got used to her visits and even started to look forward to them. I got a bit more tolerant of my family, too. Harry started to pop in more often, for a game of chess or exploding snap. I still wasn’t much fun to be around, I’m sure, but I wasn’t hurling objects anymore.
Luna began to visit a few times each week; she asked me to teach her to play chess. She was really awful, but a good sport. We rarely talked, but then eventually we talked quite a bit. She liked to push my buttons, but she always got me to think about things that I had chosen to ignore. I had long stopped telling her to leave. What was the point? She would just be back again.
I made sure to “Scourgify” my room at least once a week so that the smell wouldn’t bother her. In truth, the odor of stinking socks had gotten to me as well. The one thing I wouldn’t do was get out of my bed.
Mum was kind enough to do my laundry and I took my meals upstairs. The constant pain in my leg when I was off of it, made me afraid to even think about putting weight on it. The Healers had never said that I couldn’t walk, but I didn’t see how I could with the amount of pain I was in.
“Hi Luna! I’ve thought of a new strategy to teach you today.”
“Hello Ron,” she said airily. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you seem almost cheerful today.”
“Yeah, well you’re a nutter, aren’t you? So much for that theory.” He made the statement with a grin and she seemed to take it in the way he intended, as a joke. Ron had found Luna to have quite a relaxed sense of humor during their time together. He also discovered that once in a while he was able to allow himself to smile with her, something he’d only been able to do when Harry was there, and not always even then.
“I have an idea; fancy a little adventure?” She had a mysterious smirk curling the corner of her mouth and gave him a sidelong glance.
As quickly as the grin came, it was gone. “I think I’ve had enough adventure for this lifetime. Thanks.”
“I was just thinking that it’s a lovely day. The sun is out and the wind is blowing the clouds all around. Maybe you should get outside and get some sun before the winter comes. You’re looking rather pale. I could almost confuse you with a vampire, but they don’t have red hair as a rule.”
He didn’t respond to her going off on that kind of tangent, he’d gotten quite accustomed to it. He could even admit that he’d grown fond of her quirky ways. He’d come to value her friendship, but sometimes she went too far.
“Luna, I already told you last week that I can’t walk, remember? I tried already, and it was too painful. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Alright, then just listen. Have you ever considered that the longer you don’t use your leg the more it will hurt? I read an article that said if you don’t use your muscles, they turn to jelly and dissolve. Terrible way to lose a limb.” Luna plopped down on the edge of Ron’s bed and started to rummage through her bag.
“That’s rubbish, Luna,” Ron said shaking his head and straightening his blankets.
“Do you know what I think? I think it’s rubbish for you to insist on punishing yourself. You have to start living your life again sometime.” She paused and fixed her eyes on his. When he set his mouth into a straight line, she seemed to get the hint that the subject was closed. “Fine then. I’m going outside. I find the cloud formations today just too fascinating to pass up.” Luna left the room without a backward glance, but instead of closing it gently as she always did, she left it open.
For some odd reason, Ron’s wand was across the room. He’d never practiced wandless magic, so he either had to leave to door open or get up to close it. He somehow felt like he’d been set up and was not overly thrilled about it. Feeling mulish, he decided that it would just have to remain the way it was until the next person visited.
He set the chessboard that he’d gotten ready for Luna on the floor and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He looked out the window and it was rather nice out: clear skies with a spattering of fluffy clouds rolling through at a brisk pace. The wind appeared to be on the brisk side and it was probably great weather for flying. Nice of Luna to throw it in his face when she knew he couldn’t enjoy it, he thought bitterly.
He could hear voices at the bottom of the stairs; it sounded like Harry, Ginny, the twins and Luna had started to degnome the garden. They were keeping score of who could toss the gnomes the farthest. It seemed that Harry was winning. Ron suddenly felt very angry. Why were they carrying on like everything was just back to normal? How could they be happy and playful after everything that had happened?
He couldn’t stand it any longer so he did what he hadn’t done in three months: he swung his left leg and then his right leg over the edge of the bed. The pain was incredible, but the torment of hearing so much mirth against the backdrop of his devastating loss was what ultimately motivated him. Ron braced himself with his hands and pushed himself up onto his left leg. He immediately toppled over and howled in agony. Now he was fuming and blaming any and everyone in the universe for his pain. He grabbed anything in reach and hurled it furiously. When he ran out of objects he kicked at Harry’s old bed with his left leg, which responded with searing pain in the vicinity of his little toe. Finally he lay in a panting heap on the floor. The sounds of happiness still streamed in through the doorway.
With immense difficulty, he clawed and crawled his way into a standing position, and balanced on his left leg again. His good leg had become weak from the lack of use, but he managed to stay up this time. He hobbled over to the door, and dragged the injured leg behind him; with a sense of great satisfaction and triumph, he slammed the door shut. The walls shook from the force. Ron hoped they had heard the noise from downstairs.
He took just as long to get back into his bed and the process hurt him just as much. Eventually, he resettled himself and fell asleep exhausted.
Ron had stopped being angry with Luna by the second day after his foray out of bed, but she didn’t show up for about another week and he found that he really missed her presence. When she finally knocked on the door again, she came in as if nothing had ever gone amiss.
“Hello. How are you feeling today?”
“Er, hi Luna. I’m doing all right. I reckon I should apologize for being a bit of a grump last time you were here.”
“Yes, you were, weren’t you?” She smiled serenely. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to show me the other day? She moved to sit on the bed, but he stopped her.
“Wait, there’s something else you should see. Even better!” In the past week, he’d gotten out of bed every day and could now stand on his left leg for a few minutes and could crudely make his way around the small room, slowly though, and with a great deal of trouble. “No one else has seen this yet! Don’t laugh…” He got out of bed and limped to the door and back.
Luna appeared to be blasé. “I knew you’d get tired of being in that bed. Good timing, too. I heard that fire beetles can become attracted to the scent of bedsores and they’ve been known to swarm and chew off a limb or two.” As she spoke, she whipped her wand from behind her ear and conjured a pair of crutches.
Ron was surprised for a moment, by the oddity of her statements and by the crutches. He recovered, smiled and reached out for them. With Luna’s help, he left his room for the first time since he had come home.
I started off by going into the hall and then made it down the stairs. It was a miracle that I didn’t fall and break my neck, but after about three weeks of daily exercise, I surprised my family and showed up for dinner one evening.
You might be wondering where they had been all this time. My parents are still here, but Dad is always busy at the Ministry now - it’s going through so many internal reforms. Mum volunteers at St. Mungo’s a few days a week, partly because all of us kids are old enough to take care of ourselves and partly to get over losing Percy in the war. The twins have a second shop in Hogsmeade and Ginny works at the Daily Prophet. She and Harry are engaged, although they didn’t tell me right away. Harry said they didn’t want to make me feel any lonelier than I already was. Of course, I got mad and didn’t speak to them for a couple of days, but I got over it pretty quickly. I don’t get to see Harry much during the day because he has just started his Auror training. Luna, of course works at the Quibbler, which is why she’s here so often. She pretty much makes her own schedule.
So, back to the family dinner: they were all shocked to see me come down the stairs. Mum started to cry and Ginny bloody near bowled me over. It was nice to be part of my family again, and I realized for the first time that night how much of my life was slipping away from me. I learned that Bill and Fleur were expecting a baby and that Charlie would be moving to China for a year to study Chinese Fireballs. Yet, as much as I missed my family, they made me realize all the more what I had lost. I began to feel the familiar sadness again, but I smiled and tried to behave. After dinner, I Apparated back to my room. The tight, squeezing sensation against my leg was too painful; I decided not to try that again anytime soon. As I went to bed, I became tempted to start brooding again. I didn’t want to face anyone or reflect on my life, which looked pretty bleak from my standpoint. But Luna was back the next day; almost as if she knew that I had started to slip back into my dark place.
She came by every day and made me get up and go out, whether I wanted to or not. Soon I was taking short trips to Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and even to Hogwarts. I worked out, with Professor McGonagall, a way to finish my last year by doing home study. If I worked hard enough, she was sure I could sit for N.E.W.T.’s this year. I even ventured onto my old broomstick. Ginny and Harry helped me with that one, since Luna doesn’t fly much.
I started to give some thought to my relationship with Luna. To this point we’d only been friends, but I felt closer to her than anyone and that confused me. Did I have feelings beyond friendship for her and did she feel the same way? Did I have enough space in my heart for two women: the one that I had lost in my past and the one who could possibly be in my future? I know it seems like I was probably just confusing gratitude, because of all the ways she had helped me, with some other emotion, but the more I thought about it, the more I was certain of how I felt.
Luna showed up late one afternoon, as usual. The Burrow was empty; no one was expected back for several hours. Ron had offered to make dinner for Luna since she’d been working all day and he’d finished with his studies early. She wore a midnight blue dress that flowed when she moved, some very large flower earrings and her hair was up in a messy knot at the back of her head held in place by her wand. Ron chuckled to himself and thought that if Mad-Eye Moody could see her wand, his head would have spun faster than his eye ever did.
Ron prepared a simple meal of lamb chops, roasted potatoes and green beans. He wouldn’t pretend to be the chef that his mum was, but the meal was better than edible. They chatted companionably as they ate. Later Luna cleared the table while Ron made some tea and found some biscuits for dessert. He had noticed something “ Luna didn’t speak in that dreamy, spacey tone when she talked to him and the better he got to know her the less outlandish her statements became. She still held some beliefs that he considered as a tad unrealistic, but he accepted these as merely differences of opinion.
They sat down for dessert across from each other and there was a comfortable silence between them. He reluctantly broke it. “Luna, can I ask you a question?”
She turned her large moony eyes toward him with an expectant expression on her face.
Ron continued, “All those months ago, what made you start coming to visit? Why did you keep coming back even though I was so horrible to you that first day? I mean, I appreciate that you did; I never imagined we’d be as close as we’ve become, but I’m just curious. I mean we weren’t all that close at Hogwarts. I suppose I wasn’t always that nice to you...”
She stared at him intently for a long time before answering. He knew that she was considering her response because she always liked to be as truthful and as accurate as possible, so he didn’t feel anxious that her answer took a while.
“You weren’t terrible to me at Hogwarts. After all the things that we’d all experienced I felt like we, everyone involved, had formed a kind of bond. I was crushed when Neville died. We never dated or anything, but we had become good friends. Outcasts of a feather will flock together, you know…I heard from Ginny that you’d taken Hermione’s death very hard and that you blamed yourself for not being able to reach her in time…are you sure you’re ready to talk about this?”
Ron wasn’t at all sure that he was ready for this conversation, but it had already started and he didn’t want to disturb the moment. “Not really, but go on. I’m okay for now.”
Luna watched him for another few moments, and then continued, “I thought about the events of that night. I saw what happened, although I was immobilized and couldn’t do anything either. Lucius Malfoy had just levitated that huge statue and dropped it right on to of you. You were pinned and unconscious. Hermione went mad and started crying and throwing jinx after jinx at him. She was so upset that they went all over and he was able to dodge them or deflect them. Finally, he yelled out at her that she was a… “filthy Mudblood” and that he had vowed to make her pay for her part in landing him in Azkaban. Then, he cursed her. Ginny showed up and managed to stun him, but it was too late. When it was done, everyone thought that you’d been killed as well; you were barely alive. Your back was broken and your leg was completely crushed.”
“Luna, I know all this. They told me…”
“You don’t really know though, do you? You still managed to blame yourself, didn’t you? For months you wasted away, but you never figured out the truth. Hermione didn’t die because of you; she died because we were at war. The only person responsible for her death was Lucius Malfoy, the man who killed her.”
Ron didn’t know how to react to Luna’s cool pronouncements. Something in her words clicked in his mind. He finally understood what everyone had tried to tell him for the past nine months, but he’d never truly absorbed; he felt ashamed of all the time he’d wasted on self-pity, something that Hermione would have never condoned. It was time to move on.
“Luna, I still don’t understand why you…”
“You can be very dense sometimes, Ronald. Are you sure that a Blibbering Humdinger hasn’t effected your brain? I liked you from the first time I met you in your fifth year, but I had a feeling that you and Hermione had feelings for each other and I was right, wasn’t I? And you were pretty rude to me at times, so I didn’t think much on it. I guess that some part of me still liked you enough to feel sorry for you after she was gone and to try to at least be your friend. Why are you bringing this up?”
He hoped that he could get through this chat without blushing like an idiot. He grabbed her hand across the table, stood and led her over to a chair in front of the fireplace. He pulled over a footrest and with some awkwardness managed to settle himself on it. He noticed that the sun had set and the room was a bit too dim so he waved his wand and started a fire. The dancing flames created more of a romantic atmosphere than he’d intended, but he decided that it wouldn’t hurt.
“Luna, we’ve spent loads of time together for almost a year now and you’ve helped me more that I could ever thank you for. More than that, you’ve become a great friend. When I lost Hermione, I wanted to die and join her. Then you started harassing me,” he chortled and she grinned, “and I saw that it was okay to live. I saw that it was okay to let someone else in. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
“I believe I do, but I think you should say it anyway. It would be good for you.”
“I’m saying that I’ve come to care for you as more than a friend and I’d like to see if…if maybe we could have…if maybe there is more to…” He simply couldn’t phrase it right and so he did the next best thing. He drew her to him and kissed her softly on the mouth. When she didn’t resist, he dared to kiss her a little more deeply. Eventually, they separated and he saw something he never thought he’d see in a zillion years: Luna face was flushed a bright pink, accentuated by the golden firelight that created a kind of halo around her. He started to speak, but she cut him off.
“We only really have today. Let’s let tomorrow worry about itself.”
She shyly reached over and touched his hair and he thought, not for the first or the last time, that he really could let himself love her.
So, Hermione, I’m writing this to you to say the goodbye that I never got a chance to. I know that you wouldn’t want me to whittle away the rest of my life for something that could never be. A part of me will always love you, but I’m ready to make room in my heart for someone else as well. I believe that you will understand.
Luna seems to think that one day we will meet all of our loved ones again; that you’re not truly gone, just in another place. If she’s right then I hope you are at peace and I’ll look forward to the day we meet again.
With love,
Ron
Ron placed the letter on the underneath a bouquet of lilies that he had brought. He bowed his head for a moment and said his final farewell. He turned to see Luna right behind him, waiting patiently.
“Are you ready?” She gave no indication that she was hurrying him along.
“Yes, I finally think that I am.”
Disclaimer: All the characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling.