FIC: Dancing on the Ceiling (Ron/Luna)
To: FloraHart
From: Your Secret Santa

Title: Dancing on the Ceiling
Author: antoshevu
Pairing(s): Luna/Ron, implied Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny
Summary: What appeared to be a fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends... friends... friends...
Rating: NC-17
Author's notes: Florahart asked for "dealing fairly with the epilogue if post-war, and I like when Luna's cracked out way of looking at the world turns out to make sense." This takes a while to get to the smutty bits, but covers the other bases pretty well, I think. I hope you enjoy it! In any case, Luna always makes for a fun trip. ;-) Thanks to A. for looking it over!



She told the first during the summer holidays between first and second year.

Ginny had come back from Egypt with her family, and Luna had wanted to know if her friend had seen any Aten Apes among the columns of Karnack. Ginny had shaken her head, but then lowered her face down into Luna’s comforter and sighed.

This perplexed Luna. Ginny was usually so full of laughter and energy; it seemed wrong to see her still and silent.

“Is Harry Potter coming down to the Burrow again this summer?” Luna asked, because talking about Harry could usually be counted on to cheer Ginny up, even if it was only set her giggling and blushing and laughing about some way or other that she’d made herself look silly in front of him. Luna herself didn’t know Harry Potter, though she’d heard of him of course, and she’d seen him cast quite a lovely Patronus at that awful Malfoy boy during a Quidditch match, but she truly did love hearing Ginny talk about him, and all it usually took to set her off was mentioning his name.

Not this time, however. This time, Ginny looked up at Luna, her eyes wide and moist, and she gave a strangled choke like a drowning Mudguppy before throwing her head back down on the bed and starting to cry.

Luna watched in silence for a time, at a loss as she so rarely was.

At last, Ginny stopped sobbing. “Doesn’t matter. What happened… What I’ve done… How could he ever..? How could anyone ever love me?”

Luna blinked, and pulled her friend closer, so that each rested her head on the other’s shoulder. After a moment, she said, “I love you.”

Ginny began to cry again, burying her face now in Luna’s neck. Her bony arms squeezed tightly around Luna’s ribs, but Luna could not help but smile.

::

The second she told during that long night when Professor Dumbledore died. They watched Professor Snape sweeping out of the dungeons, and began their vigil over Professor Flitwick’s inert form.

“Harry told us to watch Professor Snape,” said Hermione, frowning. “But I feel as if it was right to let him go.”

“It’s the Felix Felicis,” said Luna, nodding. “I feel the same compulsion.”

“Hmmm.” Hermione blinked, and they stood there in silence for a good five minutes or more. “Do you know, Luna,” Hermione murmured, still looking down at the diminutive Charms professor, “perhaps it’s the Felix again--”

“Which would be perfectly all right, of course,” Luna interjected.

“Yes, of course.” Hermione nodded again. “In any case, there’s something that I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

“Oh?” Luna asked, considering whether Hermione might have discovered some information concerning the Scandinavian herd of Crumple-horned Snorkacks. Hermione was very well informed about so many things, though she often didn’t give credence to anything that she hadn’t found reference to in at least two books.

“Yes.” Looking up, Hermione peered at Luna, as if she were looking at a newly discovered copy of a volume long thought lost. “You see, I’ve never felt comfortable saying this, but Luna, I’ve always admired you.”

This shouldn’t have surprised Luna--especially under the affects of the Felix Felicis--but it did. “You… You have?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, eyes still grave but bright. “I’ve always admired your ability to believe with such conviction in things that other people simply don’t. You don’t seem to have any doubt, and I struggle with doubt constantly.”

“Do you really?”

Hermione’s eyebrows bunched under her curly fringe like a pair of Natterfillars stalking their prey. “Of course.”

“How interesting,” mused Luna. “I wouldn’t have thought that of you. You always seem to state your opinions with such emphasis.”

“Well,” said Hermione with a smile, “I would, wouldn’t I?”

“I suppose,” agreed Luna. It seemed the thing to do. So did leaning forward and kissing Hermione on the cheek. “I love you.”

“Oh.” Hermione blinked several times and then smiled. “Yes.”

They stood through another short silence before Hermione gave a rather energetic “Hmmmmm,” and then nodded. “Felix Felicis is very interesting, but it does make one feel rather queer, don’t you find?”

“Perhaps,” Luna said, though it was mostly to be polite. “In all honesty I don’t feel terribly different from my usual state.”

“Oh.”

There was a faint grunt at their feet.

“Oh, how nice,” said Luna. “Professor Flitwick is waking.”

:::

She told the third just before Christmas during sixth year. He had just stepped between Amycus Carrow and an unfortunate Slytherin second-year who happened to have made a rather witty but ill-advised remark about the Carrows’ own parentage. The young boy had managed to escape relatively unscathed to the dungeons and Professor Slughorn’s protection.

Neville, however, was whimpering on a hospital bed in the Room of Requirement, quite painful looking blisters covering his neck and chest.

“Luna,” Ginny said, “I need to make sure the DA know not to try anything tonight; the Carrows will be out for blood, and even after that whole thing with the sword, I don’t trust Snape to stop them. Can you take care of him?”

“Of course,” Luna said. She took the bowl of Murtlap essence from Ginny and began gently swabbing at the seeping, raw wounds. As Ginny left, Luna said, “It’s a good thing Professor Sprout had you extract so much of this, Neville. It has come in quite handy.”

“Yeah,” said Neville; he gave a quick laugh and then a hiss of pain. “Hurts.”

“I should imagine that it would,” Luna assented. “I have some dittany as well; perhaps--”

“No,” grunted Neville. “Save it. Too valuable.”

She nodded, though she was not at all certain that Neville’s need didn’t qualify as urgent.

“Stupid,” Neville said, wincing.

“Dittany?” asked Luna. “Oh. I should have thought--”

“No,” said Neville, teeth gritted, “what happened downstairs. Stupid.”

“Ah. Actually I thought the Farris boy’s comment was rather apt. It seems to me that if you crossbred an orangutan and a potato it should indeed look quite like--”

Neville gave a sound like steam leaking from a kettle that it took Luna a moment to recognize as repressed laughter. Once he could speak again, he said, “Yeah. Yeah. True. Not that. That was brilliant. Me stepping in, that was stupid.”

“I thought it was terribly brave.” Luna dabbed the last untreated blister gently, and Neville visibly relaxed. “There.”

“Was stupid,” Neville said, but he was smiling--possibly merely in relief.

“Neville,” Luna said, looking him--at his wounded chest, at his face, which even in this moment of relative repose had taken on a hardness in the past two years that rather astonished her, “I love you.”

His face, which had looked almost asleep, suddenly took on a mask of apprehension. “Er…”

“I don’t mean romantically or sexually, if that’s what’s concerned you. Well, I have had thoughts from time to time, I will admit, and should you ever wish to experiment sexually in any way, I should be more than happy to explore with you, because you have become rather nice looking and I trust you so, you see.”

Neville’s lips and eyes formed perfect Os.

“It’s that, more than anything,” Luna continued, taking his silence for encouragement. “There are only seven people that I’ve ever loved. My mummy’s dead, though Daddy’s obviously rather more available. The other five shared my train compartment two years ago, and took me along with them to the DA and to the Ministry. You are all quite wonderful, and I am very lucky to know you. And you, Neville, are selfless and kind and brave, the best friend anyone could ever have. I love you.”

Neville maintained his silence, but Luna had nothing further to add. His whole face and chest were turning the color of prickleberries when they’re very ripe.

“Are you having a reaction to the Murtlap, Neville? Your skin is getting quite red.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head minutely. “No, it’s fine. Thanks.”

Reassured, Luna began applying a second layer of the essence, just in case.

::::

Luna sat, staring up at the shamble that had been her home.

The dirigible plums were ruined--trampled and then left to rot. The front door was off its hinges and the inside…

The inside looked as if a giant had been playing dolls, none to gently. Furniture overturned. What looked to be most of the first floor was collapsed atop the kitchen. White powder and paper everywhere…

And no sign of Daddy.

After the battle, Luna had rushed here, hoping to find him. Harry, Ron and Hermione had told her about how they had escaped from the Death Eaters here, of course, but Luna had thought that Hermione’s stratagem had been quite inspired. Surely if they had seen that her father truly had tried to bring them Harry--however wicked it had been for him to do so--they wouldn’t have…?

The only sign of hope that Luna could find was that the Fawcetts, who lived down in the valley, hadn’t seen the Dark Mark go up over the Tower; it wasn’t much to hold onto, but Luna was capable of finding hope wherever it might be hidden. It was one of the gifts that her mother had passed along--an abiding faith that all would be well.

She was about to start the long process of restoring the dirigible plums to something like health--her house could wait--when she heard a loud pop from behind her.

There, just beyond the gate, stood a pair of figures: one young, with wild black hair, the other much older and somewhat stooped, with wisps of fine white hair standing out at odd angles around his face.

“DADDY!” Luna screamed, finding herself bounding down the hill. She threw her arms around her father, who seemed a bit crumpled but more or less whole. “You’re alive!”

“Evidently!” said her father with a cough. “The blackguards who came after Mr. Potter here decided they couldn’t just let me go--threw me into Azkaban, don’t you know. But it was quite a fascinating place! Do you know, Luna, my love, there’s Selkie-like species that lives in the ocean there--I believe that I was quite close to learning their language before Mr. Potter here so kindly came to release me.”

Luna blinked at her father, who was smiling his usual beneficent smile, and then looked at Harry, who was grinning at them. “Kingsley sent some of us--me, Ginny, Neville and a few others--with some of the Aurors up to release the political prisoners. The rest of the team’s still there, but as soon as we got your dad cleared by the Healer, we thought--”

Luna let go of her father and flung herself at her friend. “Thank you, Harry. Oh, thank you so much.”

“Ta,” Harry laughed.

Then Luna did something that she had never done before. She took Harry’s face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. She did not think that Ginny would mind, under the circumstances. It was rather pleasant. But then, Ginny had always told her so. When her father cleared his throat, Luna backed up and said, “Have I ever told you, Harry, how very much I love you?”

Like Neville--like most of them--Harry had nothing to say to that. Like Neville, his face turned quite red and his green eyes grew quite round.

But as he hugged her back, he grinned a grin so broad that Luna was happy to take it for an answer.

:::::

She told the fifth on a very happy day--or rather, a very happy night.

In point of fact it had not started as a happy night--or rather, it had started as a happy night, but had gone through a rather rough patch.

In any case, the ending was altogether unanticipated.

Luna had hoped that she and the other bridesmaids would be able to wear yellow--such a cheerful, sunny color--but it was an evening wedding, and so Ginny and Harry had decided that the attendants, male and female, would all wear formal black robes, while bride and groom wore white.

Watching them twirl around the dance floor, it was hard not to agree. They looked quite lovely--so lovely that Luna’s chest hurt to watch them, though it was a rather pleasant hurt.

Everyone applauded as Mister Weasley cut in and began to dance with Ginny, who was blazing so brightly it was almost blinding. Harry started to dance with Mrs. Weasley, who laughed, though Harry seemed his usual serious self.

Weddings. Such a funny feeling to go to weddings when it was your friends getting married--knowing that these were your peers doing something so grown up and distant. Think about yourself, and how different your own situation was, even in its similarities. Knowing too that you felt jealous of each of them--not that Luna had ever truly considered it likely that either Harry or Ginny would be a romantic or sexual partner, but, if she were completely honest, she had thought about it, and yet, at the same time, she loved them both so completely that beyond the envy and jealousy that she might feel, she was so tremendously happy for them both…

She was happy. And yet... She had been thinking of marriage and of weddings quite a bit of late. Which was not at all surprising, given the circumstances. As her large eyes (The better to see with, Luna-love) moistened, it occurred to her for the first time why people cry at weddings. She had always considered it rather silly, but now, confronted with the swirling soup of emotions inside, she thought perhaps that it was not such an odd response to such a pleasant if complicated event.

Most of the ushers were standing, and the bridesmaids as well. Neville, Luna’s official escort, whispered into her ear, “Want to dance?”

“Oh,” Luna sighed, “I suppose that would be lovely. Only, I don’t particularly like to dance, you know.”

Smiling, Neville squeezed her hand. Such a handsome man he had become in the years that she had known him. Such a wonderful friend. “I remember. D’you mind if I cut a rug with Hannah then?”

“Cut a…?” Luna puzzled at just what he could mean. “Is that a sexual euphemism?”

“Er, no,” Neville answered, looking suddenly rather more like the boy she had met all those years ago on the Hogwarts Express. “No, it just means, you know, to dance.”

“Oh!” Luna said. That did make rather more sense. “Of course, Neville. That would be lovely. I am certain that Hannah would enjoy that. And if you do decide to have sex, I would recommend staying off the rugs. One gets the worst abrasions that way.” Luna had discovered this fact during one of her last liaisons with Dean. Essence of Murtlap had helped then too.

“I’ll keep that in mind!” Neville laughed. He kissed her cheek and whispered into her ear, “Love you.”

Before she could answer, he strode over to Hannah Abbot, and pulled her from behind the bar (she really shouldn’t be playing the caterer still when she was a guest) and dragged her giggling onto the dance floor.

Luna was about to turn and sip some of the wonderful aged mead that Hannah had procured for the occasion, when Luna’s trailing arm was yanked hard, and she found herself propelled upwards between two very bright-faced individuals in white. “Hello, Harry. Hello, Ginny.”

“Hello to you too!” crowed Ginny while Harry laughed. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

“Oh,” Luna said, “you know, I don’t--”

“Oh, silly!” giggled Ginny, squeezing her hard as Harry hugged both of them from the other. “Join us! Celebrate!”

“I am, you know,” Luna said kissing first Ginny and then Harry on the cheek. There was some tradition about kissing the bride, but Luna didn’t think there was one about kissing the groom, and things tended to get very muddled when she got that sort of thing wrong.

“Thank you, Luna,” said Harry, still holding both women.

“It’s so wonderful that you could be here,” Ginny laughed.

Before Luna could ask them where else she could have been--really, the Amazon wasn't so terribly far away--Harry said, “We do love you, you know.”

“You do?”

“Of course!” said Ginny.

“Oh.”

“I think we should let her loose, don’t you, Mrs. Potter?”

“Probably, Mr. Potter. We’ve reduced her to monosyllables.” Ginny squeezed Luna once again and then looked around. “But we’re not letting you off the dance floor. George! Catch!”

Luna found herself being spun across the floor into the waiting arms of George Weasley, who swept her up and led her into some sort of swaying, off-balanced step that seemed better suited to three-footed creatures than to humans. George seemed to be managing well enough; Luna tried to keep up. “You’re laughing,” she panted.

“I am,” laughed George.

“It’s nice to see. You don’t laugh as much as you used to.”

“Well,” said George, smiling sadly, “been waiting for the proper inspiration.”

“I see.” That made sense. “I suppose inspiration is difficult to summon at need. Though you were properly inspired to shag that boy with the lovely mop of hair like a sea anemone in the back of the shop.”

George’s freckles seemed to darken--or perhaps the skin behind them lightened. “How on earth…?”

They had come to a full stop in the middle of the dance floor; Luna did not think that this was part of the dance, but welcomed the opportunity to catch her breath. “Ginny said,” she answered.

That caused George to laugh again. “If Ginny weren’t such a scary little bint, I think I’d have to make her pay for that.”

“Well,” Luna said, considering, “perhaps it’s just as well that you don’t, since Harry can be rather frightening in his own way, and I’m afraid you’d have to face them both.”

“True enough,” George said, and with a smile that seemed to reach all the way to his missing ear, he swept Luna back into dancing.

“Doesn’t your friend like to dance?” Luna asked, not because she wanted to stop, precisely, but because she truly was interested. Though if she could have got off of the floor, she wouldn’t have minded it.

“What, Lee?” George answered. “Loves to. He’s over with the band. His sister’s playing bass.”

Luna spotted Lee Jordan, grinning like a madman, shaking his locks as he kept some wildly intricate rhythm on what looked like a Snorkack bell. She mused for a moment about how lovely it would be to have those locks bouncing above you, or perhaps beneath you…. “Why aren’t you dancing with him tonight?” Luna asked. “He looks in a terribly good mood. Are you and he not having sex any more?”

“Uh, yeah,” George said with a cough. “Yeah. But we aren’t exactly letting everyone know yet.”

“Oh. Is it a surprise?”

“Yeah. Sort of. Look, Luna,” George looked very un-George-like--quite serious--and spoke in a very low voice, “Lee and me, we’re not telling many people about us. Not many people are as open-minded as you.”

“No,” Luna agreed. Few had access to dirigible plums, and even fewer understood their properties. “Are you afraid they’ll think you’ve joined the Rotfang Conspiracy?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh, what a shame. You shouldn’t have to hide in this day and age. Everyone knows that Scrimgeour’s downfall, combined with Voldemort’s defeat, shattered the Conspiracy quite irreparably.”

Inexplicably--given the seriousness of the topic--George snorted in amusement. “Ron always said you gave good value.”

Ron. “How nice of him.” Luna scanned the dance floor; many heads of red hair were bouncing and swaying about, but none of them seemed to be that of the youngest Weasley but one. She was about to ask George where Ronald was when--

“’Zvinite!”

“SO sorry, Luna, GEORGE!”

--they were cannoned into by a whirling collection of robes, arms and legs. George was knocked flat, and Luna only missed landing beside him because an olive-skinned hand shot out from the green-and-red part of the swirl and righted her. She was confronted by a vaguely familiar set of black brows and a hawk-like beak of a nose.

“So sorry,” repeated Hermione, who was standing beside the scowling man, “Viktor was just teaching me the Kopanitsa--”

“You’re Viktor Krum,” she said, in something like wonder. “You thought my father was a supporter of Grindelwald.”

The black brows crashed together momentarily before relaxing. “Ah. Was Deadly Hollows. Hermony explained.”

“Yes, Viktor,” Hermione said, her voice sounding much higher than Luna was used to hearing it. She looked quite flushed.

Krum stood straighter. “I must apologize to father. I have wronged his honor.”

“Oh, no need,” said Luna. “He is off in Vienna seeking for evidence of advanced caries among Austrian vampires. In any case, he gets insulted all of the time because of the things he writes, so I am sure that he didn’t much mind.”

“Well, we don’t think any less of him,” laughed Hermione, who seemed to be in rare good spirits, “or of you, Luna.”

“Oh,” said Luna, feeling once again a tad surprised, but also more than a little pleased, “well, Hermione, you know what I think of you.”

Hermione’s smile became somehow sadder and brighter at the same time. She leaned forward and kissed Luna’s cheek and whispered, “I love you too, you know.”

And then, before Luna could respond, Krum pulled Hermione back to him, and they galloped once again out into the fray.

A bit dazed by it all, Luna looked around for her dance partner, but George had found his partner; they were both whacking enthusiastically on the same Snorkack bell, managing a remarkable polyrhythmic pattern that Luna thought might be some sort of code. Relieved and disappointed, she drifted back to the table, which was occupied by one sole, tall, glum best man. “Hello, Ronald.”

Ron’s eyes flicked up to her. “Hey, Luna.”

She placed herself beside him. And picked up his full glass. “Don’t you like mead?” she asked.

“Bad memories,” he grumbled.

“Oh.” She tried to imagine what kind of bad memories could possibly go with oak-aged mead. She sipped the effervescent honeywine; it was light and sweet and tasted of the oak casks that it had been stored in. Luna’s father preferred mead that had been stored in casks made of Hesperian applewood, but Luna thought this was quite lovely.

“Didn’t think you liked to dance,” muttered Ron. Luna cocked her head and peered at him. “Well, you looked like you were having a good time just now.”

“Oh,” said Luna. “I suppose I was.” She peered at him again. She rather liked peering at Ronald Weasley--she always had. She liked the way that his freckles seemed to bunch at the bridge of his long nose, and the way that he always looked a bit comical, even when he was serious or sad, which seemed to be the case just now. And of course she had thought him terribly handsome when they were children. She still did. “Do you not like to dance? I rather thought that you did.”

“I guess,” answered Ron, loosing a long sigh. “Don’t feel like it tonight.”

Continuing to consider him--his freckles, his eyes, his exaggerated pout--she asked what seemed the most logical question, “Doesn’t Hermione want to dance with you?”

“No, she doesn’t.” His lips tightened in annoyance and then relaxed. “Didn’t you know?”

“Know?”

He heaved another, noisier sigh and stared out towards the dance floor, where the entire party were cavorting. “Not seeing each other any more.”

“Oh,” Luna said. It wasn’t the first time Ron and Hermione had broken up since the war. “And you’re not pleased?”

Ron gave a sad laugh. “You could say that.” Shaking his head, he added, “What’s really funny is, what started it was me asking her to marry me.”

“I see. And that’s funny?”

“Hysterical.”

“Ah.” This didn’t seem to make any sense, but Luna trusted Ron; he wasn’t terribly logical, but it wasn’t like him to descend into total taradiddle. “I take it that she declined your proposal?”

Again he laughed. “Never even got that far. She said I was only asking because I was jealous of Harry and Ginny. And then we just sort of… Well. We never did get back to talking about getting married, and then there didn’t seem to be any point.”

“I see,” said Luna, though she didn’t, truly. She watched Ron’s blue eyes follow Hermione and Viktor Krum careening through the crowd. Taking another sip of the very lovely mead, she stood. “Come along, Ronald.”

He goggled up at her.

“We’re going to dance,” said Luna, with utter conviction. She grabbed Ron’s rather large, warm hand and pulled him up.

“I thought you--”

“Not particularly,” she said, taking his other hand and maneuvering him away from the table. “But you do.”

“Er…”

He started to back away, but she pulled him close. “I do know that you are feeling rather sorry for yourself, but honestly, Ronald, you don’t want to mope at a wedding. Not only would it make Ginny and Harry sad, but several of the nastier strains of Nargles are attracted to gatherings such as these, and they rather feed on negative emotion, you know.”

“Yeah?” He was pulling that odd, bemused expression again, but rather than pull away again, he began to step from one foot to another.

“There,” Luna said, following his lead. She was relieved that the dance in which he was leading her was a simpler one than George had put her through. “Isn’t that pleasant?”

Ron gave a somewhat firmer smile. “Sure.” But his eyes still followed a cackling Hermione as she spun past with Viktor Krum.

Luna whispered up to Ron. “I know I’m not Hermione, but we’re not all that dissimilar, you know. Our hair’s much alike, in a photonegative sort of manner. And we’re both rather heady. You can pretend, if you’d like.”

His eyes stopped following the other couple and snapped back down onto her. “Okay,” he said. “Come on.”

Then, with a flick of a wrist, he spun Luna first away from him and then back, tight to his body, and their simple sway-and-step seemed to double not only in speed but intensity. It was still not quite as bewildering as it had been George, but Luna quickly found herself out of breath.

Part of it was the dance, of course. Part of it too was the way that the music and Ron’s body seemed to be moving through her and against her. Ron’s body had been a subject of close study for Luna all through their teens; she had always been rather amazed at how it could go from lank and gawky to lean and graceful and articulated in so little time. Dean’s had been somewhat the same, though to nowhere near the extreme. Neville, for all his virtues, could hardly be called graceful. Ginny and Harry certainly could, both of them--always in a state of readiness, like raptors--but never with Ron’s ability to flop down in utterly abandoned ease. Hermione, like Luna herself, could scarcely be said to inhabit her body full…

Well, she seemed to be inhabiting it now. Hermione was engaged in some roiling, serpentine dance that required her to keep her body very close to her partner as their legs flickered past and between each other.

But Ron’s body…

Yes, indeed. Ron’s body. So well articulated. So articulate.

When Ron began to pull her back off of the floor some timeless time later, she was glad to stop dancing--it was a rather exhausting and unsettling exercise, after all--but she was also disappointed. She hadn’t had a body move against hers in far too long, and it was a very pleasant feeling, even if she knew that he wasn’t think--

He didn’t stop at the table. An arm tight around her waist, Ron pulled her out into the dark beyond the marquee.

“Ron, are you lost? Why--?”

She never did get a chance to ask, however. That long, freckled nose that Luna had been admiring since they were quite young slid suddenly against hers, and without any warning, without any reason, without any comprehension, those wide, pale lips found her own and they were kissing.

And Luna found that there wasn’t a great deal to think about at that particular moment.

Her body, of course, had its own ideas, and acted on them quite efficiently. She found, for example, that if she allowed her lips to part just so, Ron’s rather remarkable tongue would fill the vacuum in a manner that Luna could not help but admire.

Ron’s body, too, seemed to have it’s own very definite opinions. As they stood, thigh to thigh and mouth to mouth, his erection made itself known rather emphatically against her stomach.

Her body had its own ideas about that development as well. Her belly swelled against the intrusion, and her hand--quite on its own--decided to explore.

When Luna’s fingers closed around the peninsula forming at the front of Ron’s trousers, he gasped and broke the kiss. He looked back towards the party, and she began to pull her hand away, fearing that she had done something wrong. Before she could work her fingers free, however, his own rather long ones closed around them. “Is… is anyone at your place?” he said, his voice sounding simultaneously higher and lower than usual.

“At the Tower?” she asked. “No. My father’s off in Vienna seeking--”

No was apparently enough of an answer. He looked back down at her and nodded. “Don’t want to… to take a chance in the Burrow. Someone might walk in.”

“Might they?” asked Luna, quite perplexed.

He merely laughed, kissed her again, and began pulling her further from the house.

Luna felt as if she must be drunk; she had never been truly drunk before, but she was fairly certain that this must be what it felt like--giddy and arroused, but rather bewildered and light-headed at the same time. She looked back towards the shrinking island of light that was the marquee. Music and laughter spilled out, and there, standing at the edge of the light, staring out at them as she swayed in Viktor Krum’s arms, was Hermione. She didn’t look angry or upset, but she did look rather bewildered. In point of fact, she wore precisely the same expression that she’d worn that night when they’d waited in the dungeons for Professor Flitwick to awaken.

It was at that moment that Luna felt that she understood what Ronald was doing, and really, if it worked, she wouldn’t mind in the slightest. She set her heels, pulling Ron up short; throwing her arms around his neck, she gave him a very energetic kiss.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured when they broke for air. She looked back again, and Hermione was still watching. Frowning.

She was about to point this out to Ron when his hand twisted in hers and she felt the intriguingly sexual constriction of Apparition swallow her. For a moment, the only thing in the universe aside from herself was Ronald Weasley’s warm, large hand, and she was content to follow it wherever it led.

When the night opened out again, it was cooler than it had been at the wedding, and the stars were brighter; Ron had Apparated them to the gate to Luna’s family home, which rose in dark silhouette against the night sky. Ron gazed down at her with eyes just as dark.

Luna smiled. “Well,” she said, “we can stop pretending now.”

“S-stop?” Ron stammered. “Pretending?”

“Well, it was quite nice, and I must admit that I’ve wanted to do that with you for a terribly long time, but Hermione can’t see us now, so you needn’t continue.”

His face twisted comically as he stared at her. “Continue?”

“Were they serving Echo Eels at the reception?” she asked, considering Ron. “I didn’t see any.”

“Echo--? No.” He took her other hand. “Do… Don’t you want to?”

Want to? She knew what her body wanted in that moment--it was being rather insistent in communicating its desires. But surely… Luna realized that spending as much time as she had done in the company of old men, while highly edifying, was imperfect preparation for a night of passion. “Well,” she said, trying to sort things out logically, “of course, what I should like to do is take our robes off right here and have sex with you for a very long time, but--”

His lips arrested her explanation, but she didn’t consider the interruption terribly rude. Then again, as before, she wasn’t thinking terribly deeply in the moment.

Just at the point when Luna thought perhaps that if he didn’t put her plan for having sex in the front garden into action, she would, he pulled back from her once again, grinning, and pulled her towards the front door. “C’mon,” he said. “No need to get bit by Nargles out here when you’ve a nice bed inside.”

“It’s the wrong side of hill for...” she began, though what she was really wondering was how he knew that her bed was nice, and whether, if he did know that, he also knew that she had spent a great deal of time on and off playing with herself in that bed while thinking of him. Of others as well, of course--sometimes more than one at a time--but certainly Ron’s spirit had kept her warm quite a few times.

When they reached the front door, he pulled her into his arms again and kissed her until she was once again lightheaded, and then swept her legs up and carried her into the Tower.

She remembered, as he carried her up the curving stairs, pausing from time to time to kiss a bit more, when he had been in her home before, and with whom. “Ron,” she mumbled past his quite wonderful lips, “I really would like to have quite a lot of sex with you, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather be with someone else?”

They had reached her old bedroom on the second floor, and she could see the faces that she had painted on the ceiling smiling down at them. “Yeah,” he said, his older, harder face just as bright as the one that Luna had painted. “I’m sure.” He placed her on her bed and began to undo his glossy black robes.

“Ah,” Luna said, surprised to feel a tremor passing through her. Cold? Fear? Desire, surely, but not purely. She found that she couldn’t move, either to undress herself, to help him--or to stop him.

“Luna,” Ron said, “This is where I want to be. And you’re the one I want to be with.”

“Ah,” said Luna again, and wondered if perhaps the Echo Eels had been part of one of the dishes at the supper since the both-- But that thought disappeared, as Ron dropped his shirt to the ground, revealing the broad expanse of freckles that Luna hadn’t seen since they were both quite young. There were more of them now, and the muscles rippling beneath them were quite hypnotic.

“Used to think about this,” Ron said, his smile still broad but somehow more serious. “Used to wonder what it would be like to make love to you.”

“Ah.” She would have said more--how nice; I thought about that quite a lot myself--but he happened to release the buttons on his trousers and drop them--together with his boxers--to the floor.

As she had already ascertained outside the party, Ron’s cock was what Luna thought of as the perfect size--just big enough for her to feel giddy at the prospect of taking the whole of it into herself, but not so large that that prospect frightened--not, for example, like Teddy Nott’s, which had been no fun at all, and had certainly not made up for Teddy’s taciturnity. In addition, Ron’s was freckled, just like the rest of him--subtly, because of course, his penis didn’t get anywhere nearly as much sun as the rest of him, and because the whole of it happened to be rather dark red at the moment. It approached her--most likely with the rest of him in train--and without considering the consequences, she reached out and circled her fingers around it.

Oh… Both of them moaned in that instant--his voice low and hers high--but before she could begin to play with her newfound toy, he climbed beside her and kissed her and truly, between the movement of his tongue between her lips and his cock between her fingers, she couldn’t have been happier.

“Want to see you,” Ron hissed, trembling fingers working at the buttons of her robes.

Perhaps she could be happier after all.

Luna didn’t believe in wearing undergarments--except while above the Arctic Circle, when it only made sense, and she had spent the past year in the tropics--and so it took only four twists of those amazing fingers for the silk of her robes to fall open and leave her feeling rather like a shucked oyster--quivering and naked, though pleased to be so.

“Fuck,” said Ron, a large hand running up the front of her and then down again. “So white.”

“H-haven’t been out in the sun much,” Luna mumbled as her own fingers traced the lines of his shoulders. “Been in the B-brazilian rainforest. Very dense.”

“Beautiful.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, because indeed it was one of her favorite places.

“’Snot what I meant,” Ron said reverently, and lowered his wide mouth to her breast.

Not all of Luna’s lovers had thought much of her breasts; they were rather small and undefined, and while no one had ever complained of them, precisely, they had mostly focused their efforts elsewhere. Perhaps that is why the feeling of Ron’s lips, teeth and tongue against her nipples was such a revelation. She realized that they were, indeed, just right. Just perfect. If only he had had two mouths like the Lesser Boolarong, she was sure that he would have brought her to an extremely satisfying orgasm without proceeding any further.

Proceed he did, however, his mouth leaving a wet trail of neural explosions trailing down her sternum, across her belly--dipping into her navel--and…

“Fuck!” Luna gasped when his mouth found her cunt. Again--this was not a new experience, precisely, but no one had ever lavished as much attention on her genitalia as she did herself. Ron was doing more than simply stimulating, he was… He was…

He was dancing with her. His lips against her lips. His tongue against her clit. Rhythm within rhythm and a building heat that approached, receded, and approached again. “FUCK!” Her fingers curled in his hair, hot breath from his nostrils thrilled through her curls, as he sucked her clitoris into his mouth and made the whole universe turn…

Dance.

The world, the bed, his freckles were still swirling, when he knelt up, an ankle on each shoulder. Her ankles.

“Luna?” He gazed down at her with such longing, such openness and all that she could think…

His cock pressed against her, against the wet heat of her cunt.

“PLEASE,” she howled, and he thrust in, that wonderful, just-right cock spreading the muscles that were still vibrating from her quite lovely orgasm and sparking new, smaller explosions. Her legs over his shoulders, she was open, wide, and he thrust to the very depth of her in one stroke; she could feel his belly against the back of her thighs, smooth against smooth, hot against hot, and even as he withdrew, sensation flowed along her legs--it was as if he was fucking her entire body--which of course he was. But as he surged into her, she found herself laughing--howling with the joy and pleasure of it all as he…

She couldn’t have said that he was about to come, but when he did, it was as right and as obvious and as natural as a lift or a dip. He bowed over her, face contorted and bellowed, and a flood of heat burst inside of her, and they collapsed together.

They lay there, side by side, panting. “Merlin,” Ron kept saying. “Merlin.”

Staring blindly up at the ceiling, Luna answered, “Hmmm.”

“Luna?” He pressed up beside her, his pelvis curling beneath her bottom, his breathless voice in her ear.

“Mmmm?”

“I love you.”

Her middle, which was full, and wet, and still roiling with him, suddenly contracted, and she found herself staring at him, wordless.

"I mean, " he mumbled, "I know it sounds like crap, shagging and then saying that, but you're so amazing-- "

"Ron, " she said, and all of that heat and liquid in her middle seemed to be pressing everything up, so that she could hardly breathe, let alone speak. "Ron, you don't-- "

"No, " he agreed, "I don't. But I do. And it's not just because you just fucked my brains out, though bloody hell, I always wondered, like I said, and now I know, you're bloody amazing, and not just in bed. You're odd, and weird, and you, and you make me laugh, and you always tell the truth, even if it hurts, and you're bloody gorgeous and sexy, and when I'm with you, I feel like anything's possible. " He cupped one breast in one huge hand and leaned a long nose against her cheek. "I love you. "

"Ronald, " whispered Luna, "Hermione-- "

He coiled tighter around her like a constrictor. "Since I was twelve, I've wanted Hermione. But come on, all we've ever done is row, right? When have you and me ever rowed? Why would we? You never row with anyone, and I think you're bloody marvelous. "

She stopped him with a kiss, both because he was making her heart hurt and because her hands were stuck between them. They kissed for a while, but before the wild music could sweep them away again, Luna laid back and stared up at the ceiling--at the five faces that she had seen so clearly that summer after the Department of Mysteries. Those five faces that had that had stayed so deeply etched into her heart. Ron stared up too.

"I think it's very lovely of you to say, " she said, and she was being very, very honest--it was one of the loveliest things that anyone had ever said to her. "However, perhaps you should consider two things. "

He started to speak, but she placed her hand atop his not-quite-soft penis, which silenced him very efficiently.

"In the first place, I know that you are angry with Hermione just now and she with you, but I do not for a moment think that either of you is not in love with the other, even if each of you is currently in another's arms. Or legs. It seems to me that if you and Hermione had ever got to the end of that conversation about getting married, it would have been with an agreement to marry. It seems silly to let that slide because of one silly disagreement and a very pleasant but finally secondary evening of sex. "

"But-- " Ron began, but she squeezed him and he once again silenced himself.

"The other thing that I feel that I should point out to you is that I myself am engaged to be married. "

"What? "

"Did I not say? " Luna tried to remember. He was goggling at her, as he so often did, so she felt certain that in fact she hadn't. "I thought I had. "

"Engaged? "

"Yes. " She stared back up to the ceiling. "I met Rolf on the expedition up the Amazon. He's quite the wisest man I've ever met when it comes to magical creatures, and so sweet and loving, and he and I work wonderfully together. "

"But--? "

She squeezed his cock again, more gently this time. He groaned; it was only partially a sad sound. "He is also ninety-eight years old, and while we are perfect soul-mates, he is rather uninterested in sex. Our agreement is that I should not abstain on his account; we both are quite aware of the biological imperatives at work, and so he suggested that, so long as I never did anything that put me in danger, I should feel free to find erotic partners where I could. " His cock had lengthened in her hand; rather than squeeze again, she stroked. It still had the desired effect. "You are the first person with whom I have felt even the slightest urge to explore that freedom, Ron. You are my first lover in over a year and half. "

"Oh. "

"I have wanted you as a lover since we were quite young, you know. I had a terrible crush on you. "

"Yeah, " he sighed, a thumb circling the areola on her left breast. "Ginny said. "

"Hmmm. But I am glad that it has worked out as it has, Ron. You are one of my very closest friends, and now we have had the opportunity to become even closer, and I must say that this has been quite lovely. "

He stilled her hand with his own against his semi-erection; her breast complained of the loss, but she was content, on the whole. "Didn't really know you when we were kids, did I? And then... There were all these things that opened my eyes. You were brilliant at the Ministry--saved my life, and Ginny's. Like when you and Harry went to Slughorn's silly party, and I thought, Blimey, she's gorgeous... "

"Hermione was quite lovely that night, as I recall. "

"Hmmmph. "

"I think you were only sneaking down so that you could see her. "

"Yeah. Well. " He was staring up at the ceiling again--no doubt at the girl with the curly brown hair. "Then there was the time we came here, and Harry found this room, while your dad was off ratting us out. And I looked up at this ceiling and I just... " He turned towards her again. "I do love you, Loony. I really do. I mean, a family like mine, I know love, trust me. " His hand trailed up her belly, and she could feel that dance pulling her again...

"Yes. " She pulled him to her, corps-a-corps. "I love you too, Ron. "

"Mmmm. "

"And now, " she said, as their bodies began to sway against each other again, "I should rather like it if we fucked each other quite emphatically. "

"Okay, " he said, and proceeded to satisfy her desire at length and in depth through the long night, until at last the rising sun's rays began to cause the faces on her ceiling to glow, golden, above them.

~FIN~