In the Light of Things

The Way That We Are

"No," Ginny releases something between a snort and a scoff. "Flick your wrist, gently. More like a swinging motion. Smoothly."

"Like this?"

She gives up all pretense and just cackles when the learner practically attacks the air in front of her. "For someone who kicks ass in battle, you sure suck at simple lighting spells."

"The spells used in battle and the spells used in Charms class are quite a ways from being the same, I reckon."

Ginny sighs, but she's smiling. She accommodates her chin in her palm, sets her elbow on her knee and just watches Luna wave her wand about.

They were supposed to be practicing the spell work and wand movements of the current chapter in Charms, which happened to be illumination and lighting spells. And where Luna usually transgressed in class, she was having a particularly difficult time casting for this specific subject.

"Maybe you need Professor Flitwick's instruction," Ginny pipes up suddenly, after watching Luna's wand fizzle out, yet again. She flushes. "I'm quite rubbish at teaching."

"Your teaching is splendid," Luna answers airily, always with that aura of wonder she seems to carry with her. "My learning is delayed. I always tended to respond a little slower to casual charms," she drawls softly. "I appear to be hardwired for violence, I suppose."

Her implications seem to dim the lighting of the room, and Ginny is once again reminded of the ever-present juxtapose that Luna Lovegood is.

All soft features, pastels and flowers, tender touches and gentle words; all barricading the violent outbreaks her magic holds. Ginny remembers asking her to accompany her to a Ministry gala--leave it to the wizarding community to vote a student a necessary war hero--sometime after the first year after the war. Harry was up at the podium, spewing the same words he reads off the same index card Hermione had written for him for his first Ministry gala speech.

He was droning on about how unity would break the stereotype of blood status superiority, and she remembers looking over to Luna--Luna in her periwinkle gown, ruffles flowing down her legs and tendrils of tule cascading off her shoulders, her collarbones gleaming from the candlelight spelled above them. She remembers her smile dropping off her face at seeing Luna's eye twitching, and then her face morphing, as if half of it was cracking and giving way to something dark way below the surface.

She had escorted her out to the balcony at once. Luna was trembling, Ginny remembers taking her hands and feeling the vibrations.

"Luna?" She left her hands and moved closer to take Luna's face, to angle it towards her. She gasped when she found one of Luna's eyes pulsing between a dreamy blue and a murky black. "Luna, talk to me. What can I do to help?"

"Just," her voice had sounded deep, so different from her hazy drawl. "Just hold me. Please."

It turned out Luna had been keeping a very dark part of her at bay, usually with the help of magical suppressants, which she had forgotten to take that evening. The way she explained it, is she seldom had her thoughts to herself, that there was always a second input--darker, more violent, which was the input she had used during the war.

After learning about that, Ginny always made it her goal to appreciate the kindness in her heart, how Luna always seemed to forgive and forget--never without a good lesson about wrackspurts, of course.

Ginny surges forward and claims her lips, resisting the urge to melt when Luna hums in delight at the assault. She takes her hands and cards them through the silky strands of Luna's braid, undoing it at the end.