Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 14

"It's not that I don't want to," he began honestly. "Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more right this moment than a glass of old Ogden's. I even poured it."

"But - ?" she prodded gently. Her shoulders had relaxed slightly. He took her hands in his, and led her to the sofa, where they both perched, knees toward each other, nearly touching.

"You need me." The simple words dropped into the room and hung suspended there. Luna said nothing for a moment, and Ron began to fear that he'd offended her somehow. "You - for five years, you've been there for me and - and Harry. Without questions, without judging... I don't know how you've stood either of us - especially me - this long. How can I abandon the one I love - you - when I have a chance to return the favor?" He laid one hand alongside her jaw, so that his fingertips trailed into her hair. "And if that weren't enough, I - I promised Harry... and I owe him this."

"Ron..." The last syllable of his name blurred into a sigh. He tilted her chin up, and laid a light kiss on her lips. It was apology; it was hope; a chaste rebirth and a promise of a future all commingled with the tears that he could taste on her mouth.

"Now," he said presently, leaning back into the sofa, with Luna tucked into the crook of his shoulder. "What's wrong? Is it just Harry's being gone, or - ?"

"It feels different," she blurted nonsensically.

"You're just worried," he said. "It's probably better to keep ourselves busy, focused on something else so - so we don't - " think about what might happen.

"You don't understand! I felt - I felt him leave. He's - he's really gone, and - and it - it doesn't feel like it did before." She appeared irritated by the inadequacy of her words. "What if I've made a mistake?" Ron was shaking his head, his eyes narrowed as he tried to glean the gist of what she'd said from its inarticulate expression. "It feels like - like the rest of the world is out of focus, or - or too sharply focused, so that it gives you a headache... like wearing glasses not meant for you."

Ron wondered absently how often Luna wore other people's spectacles.

"Or like a picture frame that seems to be hung crookedly, but really it's the ceiling that slants..." She trailed off, and put her head in her hands, in an uncharacteristic gesture of despair. Her dirty blond hair hung like a curtain, spilling over her arms and knees.

"The universe was out of balance," Ron said slowly, staring into middle distance, as if outside forces were impelling him to speak.

"I told Harry that," Luna said suddenly, looking up at him, brushing tears away from her sticky face.

"On more than one occasion, if I recall correctly."

"He needed a lot of reminding."

"As, apparently, do you," Ron smiled fondly at her, and kissed her softly again. "What if the feeling you have of something being different isn't really wrong. Maybe - maybe it's the universe starting to - to realign itself correctly, and it feels a bit off because you're so used to it being out of balance?"

Luna grew very still, as if she'd been Petrified. Her eyes were wide and staring.

"Equilibrium..." she whispered, almost to herself.

When she turned to Ron, there was ethereal and rapturous smile on her face.

Harry wasn't sure how long he would be waiting, after the crystal holding him to this particular universe was deactivated. He hoped it wouldn't be long, and he tried to shake off the long, chill fingers of dread that tickled at him, as he thought of himself as a murderer, as a hater of the Muggle-born, as a violent despot, as Dark Lord.