This one was really hard to write! Hope you enjoy :)
Pairing: Luna Lovegood/Dean Thomas
You were in a dream I had
Doing dishes in a laundromat
Shell Cottage is clean. That is the first thing that comes to Luna’s mind when she is settled in her bed the first night she’s there. She wriggles her clean toes against her clean white sheets. Her clean spun-silver hair brushes across her clean face, and her clean hands rest beneath her clean cheek. It is all so very different to the filthy dungeons of Malfoy Manor.
Of course, Luna doesn’t mind the dirt. As a child (and even now) she reveled in it, made mud-pies and planted flowers. She rolled around in the fresh, rich earth of autumn, touched it, breathed it. Lived it.
And even as she thinks about it, life in the grimy underground prison of Malfoy Manor wasn’t so bad. She had company. She was alive. Luna is sure that other people are worse off than her. But even still, she doesn’t think she would be here if it weren’t for Mr. Ollivander. Kind, frail Mr. Ollivander. She hopes that he is okay downstairs. She is sure that Fleur Weasley will have patched him up. Luna thinks Fleur is a strange choice for a Weasley. She is beautiful, sure. But she is graceful, and dignified and perfect. But then, she supposes in their own strange way, so are the Weasleys.
Luna tosses and turns that night, breathing in the clean salty air of the velvety ocean right outside her window. There is far too much for her to comprehend. She spent months in that dank dungeon.
She had relied on her mind to count the hours, relied on her shaky voice to tell the hunger to go away. She had listened to threats and murderous spells, watched Draco Malfoy’s trembling lips tell his wand to torture Mr. Ollivander.
Twice, he’d even tortured her.
She had been forced to wonder what had happened to her father, to Ginny and Neville back at school.
And then suddenly, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Dean Thomas had turned up in her dungeon. In that moment, her heart had sunk. She had truly thought that this moment would never come, that her dear, brave friends would never be caught. She had believed that they’d win this thing.
And then before she knew it, she was holding the hand of a little house-elf. The dark depths of Malfoy Manor disappeared, and she had landed flat on her back beneath the stars. She hadn’t had the energy to sit up. She had lain there, staring up at the clear night sky, her jaw open in awe.
Someone was leaning over her, she could sense it. But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
“Hey, are you alright?” The voice was deep, warm. She knew whose voice it was immediately. She always remembered people’s voices.
“L-Luna? Are you okay?” He was shaking her shoulder, growing more desperate.
“This place is beautiful,” Luna had said, her voice rasping from lack of use. Slowly, she sat up. The clearly relieved face of Dean Thomas swam into view.
His face had been streaked with dirt, and his cheeks were sunken. Luna had stood up, and turned towards the little house in the distance.
“I think the little house-elf wanted us to go there,” she had said, pointing at it. Dean hadn’t said anything, so Luna took his grubby sleeve and gently pulled him upwards.
Together, they had mustered up every ounce of energy they had and ran towards calm, clean, beautiful Shell Cottage.
Dean Thomas sleeps in the living room downstairs, Luna knows. So do Ron and Harry. On the bed opposite hers lays Hermione Granger, bruised and horribly scarred. But it is kind, worrisome Dean she thinks of. Dean, who used to sit in the library drawing all Saturday long. Dean, whose best friend was loud, excitable Seamus Finnegan. Quiet, artistic Dean, who made beautiful posters and banners for Quidditch Matches, who used to date Ginny Weasley. It is Dean she dreams of that night.
And then you smiled at me
You said let’s hide and seek
Luna is not jealous as she watches Harry, Ron and Hermione talk at the breakfast table each morning. They don’t know she can see them from where she folds linen in the hallway. She is too far away to make out what they’re saying, but she can hear the buzz of their excited voices. She wishes she could help them, but she knows they need to do this alone.
She doesn’t feel lonely at Shell Cottage, even after Mr. Ollivander leaves. Ron, Harry and Hermione are lovely to her. When they’re not planning things in secret (which isn’t often) they talk to her, pretend like everything is normal.
Bill and Fleur are kind. They fix her meals and bring her clean clothes. Bill shows her the garden, and Fleur tells her about her home inFranceas they wash the dishes.
But it is Dean she spends the most time with. They sit together on the wet sand, little granules of crushed shell clinging to their pants and shoes. Dean watches the cold grey waves lap at the shore. Luna watches Dean.
“It’s almost like the waves are trying to drag us into the water,” he says thoughtfully, still staring out to sea.
“No, they’re not,” she replies. “The waves won’t hurt us, especially not as we’re sitting all the way over here. Anyway, I think they’re lovely. Almost… majestic. You’d have to be pretty stupid to let the waves catch you.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” says Dean. “I think they’re lovely, too. It’s just… there’s something about them that seems threatening. The waves hold so much, you know? We’ll never know how much they hold. That seems scary, don’t you think?”
“I think that seems beautiful.”
They fall silent as the sun begins to burn more and more orange, sinking lower in the sky. Eventually, Dean breaks his gaze and turns to look at Luna. He smiles, dimples puncturing his wind-whipped cheeks.
“You’re right, you know.”
And then you took my hand
In this beat of a marching band
Luna is not surprised when she feels her Dumbledore’s Army coin burn. She lifts it from her pocket, and turns it gently in her fingers. The message tells her to apparate directly into the Hogs Head, and to bring Dean.
She finds him in the kitchen, talking to Fleur. Luna can’t help but feel a strange twinge in her stomach at the sight.
She shows them the coin, and within five minutes Bill, Fleur, Dean and Luna, this strange little family they have become, are standing by the crowded bar of the Hogs Head. She follows the other three, trying to make sense of the panicked babbling of the people around her.
And then suddenly she is stepping behind a portrait of a young girl, Dean right beside her. They are standing in a passageway, and it seems to Luna that there is nothing to do but walk down it. They are silent as they walk, unsure of what to expect.
And as they arrive at the other end, Dean pushes open another portrait. She watches as he steps down from the passageway and is greeted by roars of surprise from Seamus Finnegan and a roomful of students. She follows Dean, stepping nimbly from the portrait. She runs to Harry, Hermione, Ron and Cho and Padma. But it is Dean that she watches, out of the corner of her eye.
In the terrified, exhilarating after moments of the realization that they are going to fight, Luna’s mind goes blank. In the sudden panic, her intelligent Ravenclaw mind cannot remember a single spell, a single incantation.
“Come on, Luna!” It is Dean, reaching for her hand and pulling her forwards. She squeezes his hand back, her legs and mind suddenly whirring into motion. And she follows him through the eerily empty corridors of Hogwarts, ready for anything this battle throws at her.
Lead me down the garden path
And I will follow
I will follow
YOU ARE READING
50 Song Challenge- Harry Potter
Fanfiction50 short stories about the characters of Harry Potter, all based on songs.
