Disclaimer: Harry Potter's not mine; it's J.K. Rowling's and other related companies'. Only the fic is mine.
Author's Note: Er, odd. Very nonsensical and odd. That's all I'm going to say.
Luna was thinking.
About what? Anything, really. Anything in the universe; anything you could imagine. All in the world, she was thinking of at that moment. She thought about humanity. About the world. About how and why everything was what it was. How everything had come into being. About everything, really.
What she was thinking most of at that moment was none other than Ron Weasley. Of course. Why would she be thinking of him? Why not someone else? No reason. She just thought about him.
Until that year he hadn't known she had existed, much less who she was. So why did he take notice of her now? He didn't acknowledge her most of the time, but when he did, he certainly took notice. She was hard to miss in a crowd: odd attire that no one would want to wear, quirky habits, a bit of an airhead, always fantasizing, off in her own dreamland. She remembered that when she was little, she had always gone off and created worlds of her own, imaginary worlds. She no longer did that; instead, she created creatures that only she imagined and planted them in the real world. The world that she lived in.
Now, she wasn't so sure. Real or imaginary, she was starting to feel a little odd. Maybe 'odd' wasn't the exact word; she just wasn't feeling herself. She was feeling something that she had often dreamt about, but never felt. Something foreign that made her bounce and feel light-headed; something that made her feel free. What was this she felt? Was it infatuation? A crush? Love? Luna herself did not know; only that she liked it. A lot. She liked feeling it, a heady rush to her head and a funny flip in her stomach. A too fast beat of the heart and a sense of happiness. She had a feeling what this was that she was feeling; but she couldn't define it. Nor could she pretend that it didn't exist; it was too hard to ignore. Whatever she was feeling, it made her feel odd and not Luna.
She supposed that this was because of him; he who thought of her as an air headed freak. Someone not normal. She didn't care about what he thought about her; she only knew that this feeling was not going away anytime soon. It was going to stay there with her, quite possibly the rest of her life, unless she found a solution, or stopped feeling this way about him.
So Luna thought about this. What was she going to do? Telling him how she felt was a thought; so what if he got freaked out by it? Yet what else could she do? Acknowledge him of her feelings? Acknowledge him of her? She pondered this for a while with an inexplicable look on her face. It wasn't serious; nor was it jovial. It was something in between.
Finally, she decided to tell him. How? A card? Something odd? Then her eyes lit up. She knew exactly what to do.
"Why do we have to get up so early?" Ron grumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes. "Thankfully, it's Friday. Then the weekend. Two days of nothing but sleep and relaxation." He sighed deeply.
His friend grinned at him. "That, and no double Potions today!"
"That's something to cheer for."
Then he started to hear murmurs around him.
"Hey! Whose owl is that?" The murmurs started to become fervent and excited. "Wonder who the package is for . . ."
Ron wondered himself too. That is, until the owl, who was brown and white colored, dropped the package in front of him and flew away. "Wha - ?" He hadn't expected to get any mail. Obviously it wasn't from his mum; otherwise he would've recognized the owl. He went down a mental list of who could have sent him this.
"What are you waiting for?" Harry and Hermione raised their eyebrows. "Go on and open it!"
Merlin, every day they started to act like twins more and more.
He took the package, examined it for a second, and then opened it. "What's this?" he took out a hat that was shaped like a -
He swallowed. Now he knew who had sent him this.
It wasn't very gigantic; not like the one she had worn. And it didn't roar, either. Now it was starting to make a sound -
It was singing. Loudly.
His eyes went wide and he flushed red; now eyes were on him, all glittered with curiosity and mirth. Mouths twitched from the urge to laugh and bodies shook from trying to suppress the laughter.
Oddly, though, he didn't care. His attention focused on the lion shaped hat singing to him, and very distinctly he heard:
A fly for a flower,
A wind for a tree,
A bee for an umbrella -
And so it went on, singing nonsensical stuff. He had a strange feeling that it was telling him something, so he listened closely. A Snorkack for you. That was the last line.
He looked over to the Ravenclaw table, and saw her gazing at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Now he understood. He stood up and gathering up all the bravery that he had, walked over to her, never taking his eyes off of her, not even for a second. Laughter echoed in his ears, but he only ignored and went on. Finally, he reached her, grabbed her arm and walked out of the Great Hall, taking her with him.
When they were a safe distance away from everyone, he let go of her arm and turned to face her. He noticed then that he had the hat with him (which was still singing).
She only stood quietly, watching him. Then after a while she said "Nice present, eh?"
He looked at her, unfazed. "What's the meaning of this, Luna? What are you trying to tell me? If it's what I think it is, then . . ."
"If you're telling me that I have feelings for you, then you're right," she said in her airy voice.
Out of the blue. Just like that.
Still oddly enough, he didn't feel shocked. Nor disgusted. He just felt . . unfazed by it all. So she had feelings for him. What of that? He gazed at her with an unreadable look on his face. "And this is your way of telling me?"
"Couldn't think of a better way." She grinned, her eyes bright. "Don't you think so?"
If that wasn't oddly enough, her confession to him, he now felt an urge to do something - something which must not be mentioned here.
Instead, he only nodded. "You know I don't feel the same about you, right." It wasn't a question.
"I know, but I don't care," Luna answered loftily.
This was enough to shock him, if a little bit. "Why?" he asked after a moment.
"You feel the same way toward me, even if you don't know it yet," She said. "Or realized it."
Ron didn't know what to say. She was right, he knew; but the question was, would he deny it? Or would he accept it? He didn't know what to do then. So he did the only thing he could think of: he kissed her.
Which shocked him. But not her. If this wasn't all the strangeness that he needed in his life, he didn't feel bothered about it at all. This didn't bother him at all. It, strangely enough, felt right. To be locking lips with Luna Lovegood was right. He was going nuts.
And if that wasn't enough, she kissed him back.
But he didn't care. Maybe this was what he needed; maybe it wasn't. He had a feeling that he needed this, that he needed her.
When he managed to pull away from her, he didn't feel any regret at all. Nor was he horrified at what he had done. Actually, he was glad that he had done it. That he had done it. Why? Was this all that took to get him to finally realize who was right for him? Who had been right in front of his stubborn eyes? Or was it something else - which he felt pretty sure of. Was it that he felt the same about her?
He left that question unanswered. He looked up to notice her then. (All this while he had been looking at the floor and thinking.)
She was staring at him. Not a creepy sort of stare, just a stare.
He wasn't sure what to say to her. What do you say to someone after you've just kissed them? "Goodbye"? "See you later"? "Okay"? "That was nice"? So he just settled for something else and blurted out, "I like you too."
That was not what he was about to say. Yet he didn't deny it, for that was what he felt. And there's no use denying what you feel.
She wasn't affected by it. She knew. All along she knew.
And yet this didn't bother him. Not one little bit.
"I know," she said, smiling an odd smile at him.
It struck him then. Oh, he was, he was -
"I'm not your fantasy," he said.
"I know you're not." She didn't say anything else. She just left the rest to him to figure out.
He understood then.
"I'm your real fantasy."