Let's fight, let's feel alive [Luna]

Two weeks, three days. That’s how long it had been since Ginny left, but who was counting? Harry certainly wasn’t. That wasn’t true. He was counting, but he wasn’t doing anything about it. In the past, Harry had been so full of life, so full of optimism. He would have chased after her like he was certain that she wanted him to. Now, he wasn’t sure that this wasn’t just for the best. He didn’t deserve a girl like her, and she deserved someone better than a has-been who didn’t know what to do with his life. She deserved something better. He didn’t want anyone but her, but he knew when he ought to bow out gracefully, and now was the time—wasn’t it? She had so much going for her. She was on trajectory to become captain of her quidditch team. She was famous in her own right, independently wealthy. She needed someone stronger than him, someone with his life together, someone…
 
…but it hurt to let her go. He woke up to a cold bed and missed her body there. He missed the companionship, the dinners together, even the fighting he missed. She never was one to lay down and stick to the status quo, she was always moving and so they were always fighting and so he always felt alive with her. He felt more alive with Ginny than he had felt in years. Now, though, it was over. Two weeks, three days.
 
He had been invited over to Luna’s place for dinner tonight, and he was looking forward to the company, though he knew he was going to be chastised. He always was, every time they got into a fight and every time they broke up. Ginny would go to Luna first, and she didn’t put up with his self-depreciation. It was a good thing, though. He needed someone to kick him into gear, and Luna did it in such a… subtle way. It was gentle as much as it was firm, but it usually made him realize he was being ridiculous.
 
In a way, even he knew he was being ridiculous. He knew what needed to be done. He needed to chase her. If he had any hope of being happy again, he needed to find her, kiss her, and propose to her on the spot. He needed to man up before it was too late, and she really did move on for good. She’d never been gone this long before. Two weeks, three days. his mind offered helpfully.  He needed a good kick in the tush, and hoped that Luna would provide it.
 
He knocked on her familiar door. He’d been there many times before, and it always made him feel strangely at home. He felt like he could tell Luna things that he didn’t tell his other friends, even Ron and Hermione. She always listened, even if her advice was somewhat nonsensical. He always felt heard, and he knew she wouldn’t repeat anything he said. He trusted Luna. She was a good friend and he loved her. He hoped that she’d be able to awaken his spirit tonight.

@Luna Lovegood

The muffled banging sounds from the back garden hardly phased the Lovegoods anymore. If anything, it brought them a sense of nostalgia; Pandora Lovegood loved her garden and conducted most of her experiments just to the side of the Thinking Stump, the little patch of land that got sunlight all day long. These noises were proving to be just as unpredictable, but Geoffrey -- that’s what they were calling him now -- was just part of the normal routine now. She still hadn’t come up with a name for his species -- she needed the perfect name for her first discovery and ‘001’ just wasn’t it -- so for now, he was simply Geoffrey. He was about five times larger now than when Luna had discovered him in January, and he had, at long last, stopped trying to eat her.

It had taken Luna a month or two (or five) to figure out what else she could feed him that didn’t require a body part as sacrifice. It had taken a couple interviews with actual vampires to figure out the best approach; it was clear she couldn’t start feeding him house elves, which seemed to be the most common suggestion, so it had taken some time to develop a suitable substitute. She had sought help from different people, not wanting to give away too much of why she was asking. The end result was a potion that she was able to soak rice in, and serve with a nice side of Edam cheese. Luna hadn’t figured out why it had to be Edam, but that seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

She hadn’t -- not quite yet -- reported his existence to the Ministry. The situation with Snuggles was still fresh in Luna’s mind, and she wasn’t about to get herself involved in their practices, so for now, the garden would have to do.

Luna smiled crookedly as she tapped away at various kitchen appliances with her wand, turning on burners, stirring the mashed cauliflower. This was going to be her dinner -- well, hers and Harry’s -- though she was certainly going to rule out that Geoffrey didn’t want any leftovers after Harry was gone. It wasn’t the first time she had made a meal for him, though it was the first time she was attempting this particular dish: snargaluff pods stuffed with brown rice and cranberries. Her dad had liked the sound of it, and it seemed ambitious enough for a more-important-than-usual dinner. Ginny had come and gone as she usually did in this sort of situation, and as Luna usually did, she wrote to Harry as soon as her friend had left. It was hard, seeing her friends unhappy. All she wanted to do was inject a bit of cheer into their lives.

She tapped the egg timer with her wand as soon as she had closed the oven door, setting her snargaluff pods to bake for fifteen or twenty minutes. She wasn’t sure. Her finger was halfway to the bowl of cauliflower when the knock came at the door; she paused for a second before continuing her taste test, her finger in her mouth as she turned back to the door. Needs salt, she noted as she wiped her finger on her pants, just before opening the door.

“Oh, hello Harry,” she said, as if she had forgotten that she had just been in the process of making dinner for the pair of them. She stood there, effectively blocking him from entering her home, for a few seconds before taking a step back to let him inside. “Would you like some tea?” Luna closed the door behind him and moved back across the circular kitchen, setting the kettle to boil without waiting for an answer. “It’s not actually tea, not really. There are leaves in it, but every leaf you eat is supposed to bring you a moment of clarity.” There was some tree bark in there, too, but why spoil the fun with boring details?

Harry took a moment to take in the sight of Luna. Just seeing her had cheered him up a little bit. It was so rare that he got to spend time with friends anymore, especially since Ron had left the Aurors. He was always working, always working, and had little time for anything else. He smiled at her the best he could muster, the back of his mind still chanting two weeks, three days over and over like a mantra, as though it was his new religion. Two weeks. Three Days. He sighed a little as she stepped aside and let him in, and he  took off his coat by the doorway. Harry had conveniently not looked in the garden on his way in, unsure of what he might find there. He knew that Luna did some things the ministry didn’t like, but as she wasn’t really hurting anyone at this point, he was happy to simply be ignorant of the matter.

“Nice to see you, Luna.” Harry smiled as he sniffed the air. Something smelled… interesting. Not bad, necessarily, just different. He always enjoyed Luna’s cooking, though, as eccentric as it sometimes was. “Err….” He began, about the tea. He had wanted to say yes, until she continued. He really ought to say no. In fact, every part of him knew he should say no. Even so, the idea of a moment of clarity seemed almost indispensable. “Maybe later.” He decided, finally. It wasn’t a hard no, more of a soft no. Harry tended to stay away from things that seemed to be drug-like, more out of self-preservation than a moral objection to it. He knew he would rely on those things if he let himself, and he didn’t want to walk down that road. Some of his friends had tried to get him to smoke not that long ago, and he had passed on that as well. She was already boiling the kettle, how great. Well, maybe he needed this, anyway.

“How have you been?” He asked, eyeing her up. “Something smells interesting. Are you trying something new?”

“Yes.” Luna smiled and tilted her head, closing the door after Harry had stepped inside. She didn’t return with a ‘nice to see you, too’ but she assumed he knew it as fact. She lifted two teacups from the cupboard with her wand, taking his ‘maybe later’ as a promise that he would, in fact, join her later. “That’s alright,” she said with a nod, her gaze slipping to the tea kettle that was now pouring out her tea. “It gets better with time.” Better might have been the wrong word for it; maybe more potent would have been more accurate.

She took a seat at the kitchen table, which was also curved to fit in the room, her hands wrapped around the one filled tea cup. “I’m well,” she said with a nod. “I’m planning another trip to Iceland.” Another, because she had made so many already, all in the name of finding the crumple-horned snorkack, all unsuccessful. But she was getting there, getting closer; after all, she had made a real discovery now, even if it wasn’t the snorkack. She was getting better at these things.

“Stuffed snargaluff pods.” Luna tilted her head toward the oven, then back to Harry. She didn’t specify what they were stuffed with; he’d figure it out all in due time. She nodded; it was new. “I think you’ll like it.” And if he didn’t, he could have some of that tea and figure out why he didn’t like it. Or, more likely, she’d just make him something else.

Luna took a sip of her tea and set the cup down carefully, glancing back up at her friend. “I saw Ginny,” she said simply, rather than asking how Harry was doing, too.