Who: Luna Lovegood and Harry Potter Where: The Ministry, then Luna's place When: Friday the 14th, late in the day What: Branding, and recovery. Rating: R because this is kinda disturbing Status: First portion: complete. Second portion: incomplete.
One more. Just one more.
It was a chant, at this point. Every time one of his victims left, Harry went through the same routine. Routine, he had convinced himself, would be what kept him sane. More than ever, he needed that reassurance. This was madness. That he was doing this at all was madness. That he hadn’t found a way to prevent it. That he couldn’t talk to anyone about it to try to come up with a plan. So he just did it. It was incomprehensible, but he just did it.
Six down, just one more to go.
Harry cast a deodorising charm on the room, and then another, when he thought he could still smell the charred flesh. After a few cleaning and disinfectant charms on the branding iron, he checked his supplies of disinfectant potions and bandages before heading back to the door.
Just one more to go. Last of the day. Then he could go home.
Home. Merlin, he couldn’t imagine how Hermione was faring. Someone had to have done Hermione today. Unless... God, no. Not Hermione.
Harry closed his eyes, swallowed back the bile that had once again risen into his throat and braced himself before opening the door, praying he wouldn’t be staring at Hermione. Anyone but Hermione.
“Luna!”
“Hello, Harry,” she said. Tilting her head to the side, she mentioned, “You know, when you didn’t show up for tea, I had a hunch we’d be seeing each other this week anyway.” Peering past him, into the curiously sparse room, she asked, “Should I come in?”
No, she shouldn’t come in. The word hung on the tip of his tongue, but it was as though it clung to it; it just wouldn’t tumble out. He couldn’t do this. Not to Luna. It occurred to him that he might have had an easier time doing this to Hermione, but didn’t take the time to allow the thought to take root. Instead, Harry stepped aside.
Already, his mind was skipping ahead, showing him what he would be doing soon. To Luna. Searing a brand into her skin, permanently. Hurting her.
“Luna, don’t sit,” Harry warned quickly, grabbing her arm, once the door was shut. “Don’t. I.” He needed to think of something. How many people had he gone through today? Six? This one, he couldn’t do. Luna, he couldn’t do.
Panicked and pacing like a caged animal, Harry thought, tried to concoct some sort of plan. He had to think of something. Of course, they would find her, and they would find him, so they would have to flee the country, that much was clear. He didn’t really know where he could go, France maybe, he knew Amelia, Draco’s ex-girlfriend. Maybe she could help. All he knew for certain was that he could not - and would not - do this to Luna. He just couldn’t.
Well that was strange; Harry was normally quite polite. She ignored the way her heart thumped in her chest at being grabbed. Although she wished she could stop it, there didn’t seem to be much she could do to banish the sorts of memories the sensation conjured. But she looked at Harry, who she trusted. Who wasn’t a Death Eater or Fenrir. And her pulse seemed to steady once more, and she felt herself relax in his grasp.
Her eyes drifted to the chair that was not for sitting, and she had to admit it didn’t look so terribly inviting. Peering back to Harry, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in that head of his. She couldn’t recall Harry ever having gotten alarmed over something that wasn’t serious, but there it was, painted all over him. Luna began to get the sense that this was going to be more unfamiliar than she’d originally expected.
“This isn’t a room for examining my wand,” she decided. She knew why she was there. The Ministry had required her to be there. And Harry was here because he worked for the Ministry. But no combination of those two fact shed much light on the situation, which was either very good or very bad. Probably bad, given Harry’s alarm. Her voice was a little softer when she asked, “Why are we here? Am I being arrested?”
“Arrested? No, of course not, why? No.” Harry shook his head, practically waving it off as he continued to pace. That was silly. Or rather, it seemed silly in comparison with the permanent damage he would soon be causing if he couldn’t find a way to avoid it. So far, he was still coming up empty; fleeing the country was all very well and good, but they couldn’t apparate out of the building and they wouldn’t be able to just walk out of here without doing precisely what the Ministry wanted. Precisely what he wanted to avoid doing. They were trapped. It was too late, now, to try to come up with an escape plan.
He stopped pacing. It was taking up too much of his concentration just to remember not to walk into a wall. Instead, he stood frowning at Luna.
Right, Luna. She was brilliant.
“They want me to do something. I have to do something and I don’t-. I can’t.” He shook his head, unsure if, if he decided to speak about it, it would come out as gibberish, like when he’d tried speaking to Ron and Hermione about it. “I can’t hurt you like that, I couldn’t-” He couldn’t live with himself. He already couldn’t, for the others, but her? No. “We need to get out of here. Help me.”
Luna hadn’t exactly expected to be arrested the first time it had happened. But perhaps that was something at which one got better with practice. Maybe the next time it happened, she’d be able to correctly identify the signs in advance. The actual arresting wasn’t so daunting, but the idea of being locked in a cell made something very deep inside her feel cold and too still.
The way Harry spoke was a good deal more revealing than the things he said. It was a common enough occurrence with boys. Well, men, she supposed she ought to correct. But that was neither here nor there, and here, she felt she could guess at a few more things. Ministry business, and he didn’t want to do it. Because it would hurt her, and he found the idea distasteful. It was difficult to imagine that the Ministry had taken to using its citizens, even the registered ones, for Unforgiveable practice, or something. Well. Perhaps not, but at any rate, Harry surely had already been through that part of his training. So it probably wasn’t that.
He didn’t want to do it, and seemed to be having an even harder time explaining what it was. And he was making things up at he went, he was trying to come up with some solution. It was all there, in his pacing and the fact that he was looking to her for help. Getting into a Ministry was one thing. Getting out, when it was full, when whatever he was doing - or rather, not doing - might be considered aiding a suspected terrorist seemed a good deal more challenging.
Half hoping to buy a little time with which to think, and supposing she would better find some answer if she knew what was going on, she let her eyes settle on the curious object on the other end of the room. It had to be involved, because it was the only other thing in the room besides the chair that ought not be sat upon. There was something a little ominous about rooms devoted to a single purpose. She had to wonder how long Harry had been in this one.
“What’s that for, Harry?” she asked.
Harry heard her question, but it was a moment before he truly made sense of it, of what she was referring to. The that in question, he eventually found out, was the… the instrument.
It had been different, with the others. Somehow, he had managed to stop thinking of them as people. Though they had screamed and bucked and told him to go to hell, that he should die, that they hoped he died for allowing this to happen to them, that they had believed in him, that they thought he was better than this, that he should have put an end to this and that if no one else got to him first, they were going to kill him themselves, or else cried and screamed and didn’t say another word… it had become like background noise under the deafening thud of his own heart and then, eventually, it had seemed to slide off. None of their comments really reached him, like he was surrounded by a Teflon bubble, through which he looked at what he was doing, counting down the victims until he could finally shrug it off for the day and go home.
But this was Luna. This was Luna Lovegood, the girl who has lost her shoes, the girl who had made him feel understood while even Hermione hadn’t known how to react to him. This was the woman he went out for tea with every week because he cared about her and now he was supposed to-
Harry couldn’t dehumanise her. This was Luna.
This was Luna.
“It’s-“ Harry tried to tell her, but the words died halfway out his throat. He tried again, to no avail. Finally, with a sigh, Harry managed to say, “They want to brand you. A serial number. In your arm.” He shook his head, his vision already blurring as began to panic. They needed to get out of here. He couldn’t do this, not to her. Not again. He couldn’t bear to hear her scream. “We have to get out of here.”
Oh. Luna glanced down at her arm, to pale skin. They, the Ministry of course, wanted to burn a number into her skin. Some animal preserves did similar things. Some magical beasts had migratory patterns that needed to be tracked. Some populations were endangered and had to be carefully monitored. But why the Ministry thought it necessary to do this, Luna scarcely wanted to understand. She let the matter fade from her mind. Why’s were interesting, but they weren’t always the most important pieces to puzzles.
Here, the what and the where mattered the most. Even though Luna took a couple of slow steps toward the pedestal, her eyes were trained on Harry. It broke a tiny piece of her heart, in the sweetest of ways, to see him so upset. She’d never really grasped why he’d gone into the Auror program after everything during school. Perhaps it was just a part of his personality that was too well ingrained, to put himself in harm’s way for others. That had to make this worse for him.
“This is your job today,” she surmised. There was something lightly inquisitive to her tone, as if to make certain she had it all correct. “They want you to brand people, suspected terrorists.” Her gaze was drawn back to the pedestal, to the brand. “And you don’t want to do it to me. Because it hurts.” It wouldn’t have seemed so daunting, if it weren’t for the idea of it hurting quite a bit. Luna cooked. She knew burns hurt. And she knew she’d never burned herself like this would burn. But what options did they really have? Run away? Hide forever? She couldn’t leave her father to be interrogated for her whereabouts. They couldn’t just abandon everything. Even if they did, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t stop anything.
“Where would we go?” she asked, the question almost innocent. “They would find me, eventually. And then it would be worse, and I’d still probably be branded-- probably by someone who didn’t care if it hurt, because they’d have sacked you, of course.” She looked down to her arm again, and after a moment’s hesitation, she pushed the sleeve of her sweater above her elbow, getting it well out of the way. She looked back up to him to say, “I’d rather it be done by someone who cared.”
Why was she okay with this? Where was the outrage? The pleas not to hurt her? Where was the support for his plant to get out of here? Harry searched her face, confusion etched into his. She didn’t want this! She couldn’t! He knew she didn’t. Luna simply seemed to accept the situation for what it was, that there was no other possible outcome than being-
“No,” he murmured, shaking his head. Harry could do many things, had done many things, to many people now, but not to her. He couldn’t do this to her. There was another way, there had to be another way. She may have accepted the situation, but he could not. He would not.
“No,” he said again, louder this time, panic taking a firmer grip. Harry shook his head, because no, he would not do this. He would not! Why wasn’t she helping? Why wasn’t she thinking up Luna ways to get out of here? There had to be another way! Couldn’t she see that?! Couldn’t she see that he couldn’t do this? “Luna, I- I can’t do that to you. Don’t ask me to do that to you, I can’t.” Harry had never looked more distraught, his face crumbling in on itself like a balled up piece of paper. Still, he searched her face with his watery gaze, occasionally shaking his head, willing her to see, to help him think of another way.
Please, Luna. You can’t make me do this, he thought, but simply continued to shake his head, desperately clinging to that feeble hope that all was not lost. That he could stop being a monster now. That he could be himself again. His chin quivered, face constricting as a tear slipped free, and still he shook his head. Please, Luna. Please, no.
She wondered how other people responded; if, in situations like this, someone had to protest. And since it wasn’t in Luna to rail against what she felt she couldn’t change, she supposed that burden fell to Harry. For someone so weighed down, he really did have remarkable posture.
The idea of it being someone else, though, it gnawed at her. She didn’t doubt it would be uncomfortably familiar. Rough, indifferent hands pushing at her, even after she’d stopped struggling. People who thought she was dangerous, or deserved to be hurt. For a moment, as he looked at her, she just looked right back at him. He would feel worse, she thought, later-- if they hurt her and he got it into his head that he could have done something to stop it, to make it any easier.
She’d seen the difference personal regard could make. A callous magizoologist sometimes hurt the creatures they tagged. But when done with hands averse to causing pain, some creatures barely experienced any distress at all. This would hurt, Luna knew, but it didn’t fill her with terror. The pain, for her, would be the worst of it. She doubted that much would be true for others.
Reaching out a little, she took hold of the side of his hand. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” It had to be difficult enough for him without having to worry over her. “And if you don’t do it, they’ll just hunt me down.” And perhaps her hand squeezed his a little tighter. “I don’t want to be hunted.” It was her most common nightmare, being chased, being hunted down and grabbed. Restrained. Locked away. Her voice was little more than a whisper when she said, “Please, Harry.”
Luna was always hard to read; her expression almost always calm, she never gave much of anything away. She just always seemed to take everything in stride. But this time, Harry thought he might have detected something when she took his hand, and when she squeezed it. She was scared. Wouldn’t he be? Harry didn’t want her hunted down. But why couldn’t they run? He so wanted to. He didn’t want to do this.
“Luna,” he whispered, wanting to refuse, but he had already lost. She had said it. ’Please, Harry’. His hands hadn’t started shaking yet, but Harry knew it was coming. Already, his breaths were coming in quicker, already his vision was blurring. He had to do it. Luna was right. He didn’t have a choice. He was the lesser of two evils.
Unable to trust himself to speak, Harry gave a short nod, but then wrapped his arms around her tightly. I’m sorry, he wanted to say. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. She wouldn’t want to hear it afterwards. She wouldn’t want anything to do with him. She would be afraid of him. His head fell forward, his mouth pressed to her shoulder as he held her tighter still. This wasn’t for her; Harry needed this, something, some positive human contact after having caused so much pain. It was selfish and though he knew it, though he moved to release her once or twice, he just couldn’t do it. Not yet.
When he opened his eyes, they fell on the chair, and a thought occurred to him. “When you get in the chair,” he murmured against her shoulder, “don’t move. Not even a little. Not until it’s done. If you do, the chair will think you’re trying to get away and. There are straps to hold you down. Okay?”
Luna was a little surprised at the way his arms encircled her. She was half-expecting that reflexive little fear to well up inside her - the frequent but usually ignorable reminder that sometimes bad things happen when people were too close, when she was held too tightly - but none came. It was a heartening sort of absence. Her hands rose, pressing cautiously at first against his back. A moment later, with greater certainty, she twined her arms around his chest. She tipped her head to rest against his, her body relaxing a little more. She felt safe like this.
“Okay,” she agreed, glad he hadn’t let her sit down before. She made no move to pull away from him, supposing that he would let go when he was ready. For her own part, Luna was starting to think they ought to do this more often. Preferably under more pleasant circumstances. She understood that he didn’t want to do this; he wouldn’t have been Harry if he did.
“I’ll be okay,” she added, smoothing her hand along the middle of his back. It was something that had made the world feel a little more steady when her mother had done it to her.
Harry hadn’t really cared that Luna wasn’t returning his embrace, just as long as he could take what human contact he could while it could last. But eventually that changed, and Harry’s already cracking tough exterior gave out completely. Luna’s hand on his back, soothing him, along with her reassuring words, a subjective truth he should have been trying to convince her of, effectively peeled away what was left of his shell, leaving him bare. The knowledge that he didn’t deserve her kindness and that she would never offer it again tore at him, and Harry couldn’t help but cling to her even tighter as tear after tear slipped from from behind closed eyelids. Why was she doing this for him? Why did she care enough not to push him away, knowing what he was about to do? Why did she accept it so gracefully? Where did she get her strength? Had it been possible, Harry might have liked to borrow some of hers, which seemed boundless while his, completely depleted.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her shoulder, and flexed his jaw as he attempted to stop the flow of tears and to regain his composure before finally releasing her. As soon as he stepped back, Harry turned away, towards the pedestal, to take the time to wipe the tears from his face and to at least try to recover a semblance of self-control. If Luna could somehow face the likes of this bravely, he owed it to her to do the same.
Harry hesitated a moment before reaching for the branding iron. Even the sight of it made Harry feel ill. He wiped his hands on his trousers absently, told himself to breathe and finally picked it up. As soon as his fingers curled around the handle, whatever he had managed to repair of his broken demeanor cracked again under the weight of his actions, of what he was about to do. Again. His shoulders shook with silent tears as his hands began to tremble once more.
“Are you ready?” he asked quietly from across the small room, without looking behind him at her, as though, without seeing her, he could lie to himself that none of this was really happening.
“It’s all right, Harry,” she said softly, hoping to assuage his guilt. She didn’t really understand why he was apologising. This wasn’t his fault. It surely hadn’t been his idea. It was a simple fact of life that people sometimes had to do things they did not want to do.
When space filled up between them again, Luna’s nerves began to prickle lightly. It was a natural sort of response, she supposed; no one wanted pain. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She’d read about people who did, but she wasn’t one of them. No, this was simply something that needed doing. And really, when broken into its smallest parts, it wasn’t so very daunting. Sit down. Hold still. Two simple steps-- though the simplest of things could often be quite difficult.
She swept her hair more neatly over her shoulders so that she wouldn’t be tempted to lift her hand to brush it aside once she sat down. That, more than anything, alarmed her at the moment. More than pain, she feared restraints. She let herself focus on that to avoid focusing on that would come after she sat. With the utmost care she placed herself in the chair, making sure to move as little as possible. Both her forearms were upturned, not sure if it had to be one or the other. A slow breath moved into and out of her.
“I’m ready,” she said. A moment passed before she said, “Try not to think about it too much. I’ll be fine.”
Right. Try not to think about it too much. Harry nodded his understanding and closed his eyes. He needed to relax, to stop shaking, or else, he was sure, it would hurt Luna even more. Harry wiped his eyes again, and peered down at the tip of the rod, still grey and innocuous. Not for long.
“Luna Lovegood,” he murmured, more tears rolling free and his throat tightening against the words he really didn’t want to be uttering. “Born-...” When was she born? “Born January 21st 1981. Graduated Hogwarts June 2000.”
Harry sobbed once, twice, as the tip of the rod changed and began to glow orangey-red like the others had done. He could smell it already, the heat of the metal, and he had to physically shake himself out of thinking about them. About this. Don’t think about it too much. Right. He nodded to the thought, as though telling it that he had heard it, and turned back to Luna. The sight of her, so small on that chair, choked him, and Harry needed another moment to compose himself. Right. Don’t think about it too much. He nodded again and approached.
He refused to look up at her face, his gaze focused instead on her arm. Don’t think about it too much. Don’t think about it too much. Don’t think- Harry caught a few tears from his chin with his sleeve. Don’t think- He pressed the brand to her arm and counted.
She didn’t pay much active attention to what he was saying. It was hard to focus on much else besides Harry. It moved her, how much some people could care, how much compassion and empathy people could have for each other. It was horrible and beautiful and she wanted to hug him again. She wanted to pull the brand from his hand, and set him aside, and tell him he didn’t have to. But she didn’t want to lie to him, either. So she kept quiet. And still.
Except her breath came a little quicker when he got closer, when she could feel the heat coming off the brand. There wasn’t anything for it; she fear tear through her. Fear of that pain. Fear of moving and provoking the chair. And the surprising fear that he might not want to see her again after this.
She only just managed to take a deep breath before searing pain bloomed in her arm, and then she was choking that breath back out again. And she couldn’t quite get her lungs to inhale again. She was too afraid to move, and unable to think of anything but the white-hot pain that seemed to be burrowing into her bones. A whine of pain hiccuped into a sharp cry. She wasn’t sure if she screamed. She tried not to, tried to let it just wash through her and brim up her eyes and spill down her cheeks. And even when she felt as though she were going to pass out, when the perimeter of her vision seemed to darken, she knew for certain what she hadn’t done: she’d barely moved, and she didn’t once ask him to stop.
She had screamed, but she thankfully hadn’t moved, and neither had Harry. He had grit his teeth, his eyes closed and counted. Counted over her screams. Counted for it to be over, two heartbeats per count, just waiting until he could open his eyes and stop this.
When finally the time came, Harry pulled it back and threw it across the room where it hit the wall and clattered to the ground. Tempted though he was to take out his wand and blast it to pieces, Harry had enough presence of mind to get the disinfectant potion (even if it would make the mark unhealable) and the bandages. He hurried back, skidding to a halt on his knees in front of Luna and the chair, unstoppered the bottle and poured its contents over the wound. His hands were still shaking, but this time, Seamus wasn’t there to do it. He had done this to her and he had to see it through to the end. Teeth clenched in an effort to keep his trembling body as still as possible, Harry applied the bandage, careful to keep his gaze locked to her arm, and caught more tears from his chin with his sleeve. He didn’t have the breath to apologise, though he knew he had to. He didn’t have the heart to hear her ‘save it’, to hear her dismiss him as the others had.
The relief wasn’t immediate. It took a few moments to dawn across her awareness. In the wake of such a singular sensation, one whose clarity had dominated so many of her senses, the rest of the world seemed a little dull. A little flat. She slowly realised she was trembling, that her cheeks were damp, and that her throat felt sore.
Tentatively, she began to flex her hand a little. It hurt, but that level of pain, that dull throb, felt practically soothing after the acuteness of the brand. And her gaze fell to her arm. She’d been branded. Stamped into her skin was a scar that would never fade. All in all, it was not the worst thing that had ever happened to her. And it could have been far worse. Even if she did regret that Harry had had to do it.
“Can I move now?” she asked carefully, the quietness of her voice concealing any of hoarseness. She wanted to move, to shift, to help him wrap her arm, to wipe her cheeks dry, but she wasn’t sure the chair would permit her to do so.
“Hang on.” Harry hadn’t meant to whisper, but his words were barely audible. Even his voice had fled, just as the rest of him had wanted to do. There was no distancing himself from this; he had caused this. On Malfoy, on Pucey, it had been bad enough. But on Luna... On Luna, it was something else entirely: evidence of his failure. His failure as a friend, to be sure... But more than that, Harry had wanted to protect her. She was Luna! He cared about her. And now she would bear the mark of his failure to prove it forever.
He finished wrapping her arm and shifted aside to give her room to rise. He nodded, sitting back on his heels, his gaze averted, and then whispered, “Yeah. We’re done.”
Luna didn’t nod, remaining still while he finished. After a brief, cautious hesitation, she lifted her hands. When nothing terribly happened, she brought her bandaged arm in front of her. They used to brand centaurs. She wondered if it would look anything like that when it had healed.
Her fingertips brushed away the moisture clinging to her cheeks and chin, chasing away the chill that had clung. As she stood, she pushed down her sleeves and turned to face Harry. It was a little odd; she was expecting him to stand. Maybe she shouldn’t have, given how defeated he looked. That wouldn’t do. She reached out a hand, curling it lightly at the nape of his neck to pull him closer, to hug his head against her stomach.
As her other hand pressed between his shoulder blades, she said, “Thank you, Harry; I know you didn’t want to.”
Harry hadn’t known what to expect. To be struck, he would have expected from any and everyone else he had done this two over the past week. He wouldn’t have expected it from her. But to be pulled close and held, he would never even have dared hope for. His throat constricted so tight that it hurt, and for a brief moment, he couldn’t even breathe. It was at the last of Luna’s words that the dam finally broke. He wept, his arms wrapping tight around Luna’s waist, his hands grabbing fistfuls of her shirt as he clung to her like a drowning man. Anguish ripped through him; so many times in his life, Harry had needed to be comforted and been alone, and now, when he needed it most and deserved it the least, Luna provided it.
“Please,” he tried to say, but the word broke, and all that was heard were the vowels as his shoulders shook with great wracking sobs, and he shifted his grip to cling to her that much tighter. Please. Forgive me. I’m sorry. But none of those words made it out either, the vowels of that first word a continuous lament as he cried out his guilt, his pain, the loss of an innocence he hadn’t even known he’d had left.
It had to have been going on for a while. Others, more before her. There was something altogether worn down about Harry. As much as Luna knew that the world was rarely fair, and what should have been wasn’t often what was, Harry’s stars seemed set in direct opposition to his happiness. It seemed a poor repayment for everything Harry had done in his short life.
She couldn’t unmake his past, and she couldn’t dictate his future. But she could do this. And it seemed to help, she thought. It tugged at something in her, how lonely he seemed sometimes. Perhaps it was simply easier to recognise in others what she saw in herself. Her fingers slipped into his hair, though the more she smoothed through it, the more mussed it seemed to become.
He thought he’d done something horrible to her, that much felt obvious. That wasn’t, of course, how she saw it. He’d spared her from something far worse, and it didn’t seem right to let him bury himself over it.
“It’s okay,” she said. And it was, and she was, just as she’d promised. Just as that giant squid off the coast had been, after it had been tagged and released back into the wild. “I’ve been through much worse. When I was nine a garden gnome bit off my littlest toe. That was much more awful.” Sometimes these things were simply a matter of perspective.
Harry gave a short breath of a laugh and adjusted his grip again. How he wished he hadn’t hurt her, that he had managed to convince her to run away with him. Luna may have gotten hurt in the past and considered it worse than what he had done to her, it didn’t take away from the fact that he had hurt her. That he hadn’t found a way to save her from it.
Still. He wanted to believe her. If she said that it had been worse, then it had, and though she remembered it to this day as an awful experience, she had survived, clearly. She had gotten past it. Could she get over this too? Could the others? Was this some day going to become a distant memory, faded with age?
He couldn’t be sure when, exactly, he had begun to calm down, but over the next several hundred heartbeats, Harry released Luna and stopped crying. His throat and his head ached, his glasses were crooked and his face damp. When he looked up at Luna’s shirt, he noticed that it bore a very large wet stain. Now that was attractive.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, this time because his voice felt a bit too hoarse to cooperate if he didn’t force the words out. “About... your shirt. And everything. And thank you.” Harry removed his glasses and wiped his face with his dry sleeve before cleaning his glasses on the bottom of his shirt.
Luna smiled a bit, even if it seemed a strange thing to laugh about. Then again, there had been that incident on the quidditch pitch, and Luna supposed regrowing an arm was probably far worse than regrowing a little toe. Or perhaps Madame Pomfrey had simply given Harry so many pain potions that he’d become completely inebriated and remembered the entire ordeal fondly. After all, Madame Pomfrey was a very good healer.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at her shirt. “That’s quite all right.” And she meant all of it, though her attention turned back to her shirt when she assured him, “It will dry.”
Harry looked much better, now that he wasn’t crying; but Luna thought that if it were her -- or rather, if she were Harry -- she wouldn’t really want very much to be alone just then. Her sense of time had gotten rather distorted, but she remembered her appointment having been rather later in the work day. Harry really did think too much sometimes, his thoughts buzzing around like wrackspurts.
“You know what makes me feel better? Pudding. I make a very good one, if you decide you’re hungry when you’re finished working.” And with that, she held out the hand of her unbranded arm to help him to his feet.
“Pudding?” he said stupidly, as though he had never heard the word before. Harry wasn’t the least bit hungry, and the idea of pudding settled uncomfortably. But still... It was stupid, and he knew that it was stupid, but Harry didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to go home, where Hermione had surely been made to endure the same torture, where Ron had had to do it to people (and Harry prayed he hadn’t had to do it to Hermione, because their tenuous relationship couldn’t handle that), and where both of them were going to be quite cross with him for not having told them, warned them - even though it wasn’t for lack of trying. He didn’t want to go back to the room in which he kept waking up, screaming and sometimes seeing the ghost of himself, standing over his bed with the branding iron and telling himself he should probably stay still, all the while paralysed with fear. He didn’t want to go back there, and he heard the invitation, saw it in the extension of Luna’s hand for his.
He took her hand and stood, a small smile trying to spread from the corner of his mouth but unable to take root completely. “Pudding would be very nice,” he lied, forcing the smile again. “You were my last for today.” It was rude to ask, but Harry really wanted to know if he could come along now rather than pop in later.
Luna smiled, though it didn’t entirely reach her eyes. His last, for today. Of course there would be more, she supposed. Probably everyone who was registered. Which would include her father. He would be here, somewhere. Would have been, at some point during the day. She resolved to try contacting him the next day. He’d want to put up a brave front, she knew, and things like that took time to built. She could way sixteen hours or so.
“I’ve gotten nearly everything moved in. And I’ve found a couch I very much enjoy,” she mentioned. From her pocket, she pulled a beaded cord, at whose end was a small pocket watch. “Do you have errands to run? I haven’t got any other plans for the day, if you’re free?”
For her own part, Luna found she didn’t much want to be alone, either. It was entirely different, living on her own. At her father’s, even when he wasn’t there, it never really felt empty. And Harry’s company had a way of lingering, even after he left.
He hadn’t let go of Luna’s hand, but he didn’t notice. “No, I’m-” free, he had been about to say, but nothing was further from the truth, was it? “I don’t have any errands. I can be there whenever you like.”
“Then we can go now,” she both asked and decided all at once. “You’ll be my first official guest, which I suppose is fitting, since you helped me find it.”