Comfort by Caina Rating: PG13 Ship: Ron & Luna Canon: Books 1 - 5 Genre: Romance Status: Complete Length: 2,378 words in 1 chapter Published: 1 Jul 2004 Last updated: 1 Jul 2004 Set after my story 'Leave The Lights On'. Ron and Luna come to realize just how much they mean to one another. From the Unofficial Portkey Archive: https://portkey-archive.org/story/2443/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Comfort Comfort By Caina Q. Fuller Sequel to “Leave The Lights On” Luna watched the sun setting from the main doors of the castle. Actually, she was watching the crimson clouds for any signs of Fudge’s army of Heliopaths. Her father had reason to believe they’d taken to living in the clouds and could be seen when the sky was aglow from the setting sun or when the sun rose in the morning. A hand came to rest on her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. She looked over to see Cho Chang smiling at her. “Hi Luna. What are you looking at?” “I’m searching the clouds for Heliopaths,” she replied airily. “Ah,” Cho said, nodding as if this were a completely normal thing to do, but her eyes gave a slight roll, belying her skepticism. Luna didn’t mind. She was used to people thinking her a crackpot. “So, are you coming to dinner?” “Of course. I’m only going to eat a little though.” “Why?” “Because if I’m too full Ron won’t be able to get me where I want to go tonight.” Cho frowned. “Get you where you’re trying to go? Where are you trying to go?” “Paradise. For a little while at least,” Luna said in a near sing-song voice. With that she turned and strode toward the Great Hall, Cho following behind with a look of amused confusion on her face. Luna passed Ron as she entered the Great Hall. He blushed deeply and looked away, but she saw him licking his lips. That was one of their private signals that he wanted to taste her. She licked her lips back, and he grinned widely before looking down at his dinner plate. Ron caught Harry staring at him with a look of the deepest confusion upon his face. He dared a quick look back to see who Ron had been slathering his mouth over and thought he’d spotted Luna sitting down, but so had Cho. Ron had told him of being in love. Was he seeing Cho now? And why didn’t the idea of that happening bother him? “What is going on with you lately?” “What do you mean?” Ron asked, a look of the purest innocence on his face. “For the past month you’ve done nothing but go around grinning. And you disappear for hours at a time when you’re not practicing for Quidditch. I catch you staring off into space. I know you’ve got a girlfriend. Who is it?” “It’s…” Ron began, but before he could speak Hermione appeared, a deep scowl on her face. “Ronald Weasley!” Ron looked up at her with wide eyes. He was in trouble. “What?” “You didn’t come on patrol last night! I had to do the Slytherin quarter all alone!” Harry was now glowering at Ron. “You made Hermione walk around the Slytherin quarter alone?” “Hermione is a powerful witch,” Ron sulked. “She can handle herself.” “That’s not the point,” Harry said, looking upset. “Patrol is your responsibility as a prefect and you should-“ “Oh!” Ron laughed mirthfully. “Harry Potter is going to lecture me on responsibility. Someone get me a quick quotes quill. I want to take in every word of this!” Harry’s face had turned the deepest shade of scarlet. Not just from anger but embarrassment. “Well…” “Harry’s right,” Hermione said, “and so are you,” Hermione said, looking between them. “Harry’s hardly the one to give anyone a lecture on responsibility when he could learn some himself.” “Hey!” Harry said, looking petulant. “I was sticking up for you Hermione.” “I can fight my own battles, thank you,” she said primly, her nose going almost snobbishly into the air. “But Harry made an excellent point Ron. Patrol is one of our duties as prefects. We’re supposed to patrol the lake tonight. I suppose you’re going to disappear with your mystery girl and leave that to me, are you?” “No…” Ron said. It was time to tell them instead of keeping it a secret. Let them laugh. He no longer cared. “Luna will come with me.” Hermione’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “LUNA! You’re dating Loony Lovegood?” “Hermione, don’t you ever call her that again,” Ron said coolly. He looked to the next table to see if Luna had heard Hermione’s sneer. “She’s not loony. She’s…different.” Hermione looked, for a brief moment, as if Ron had insulted her. Perhaps he had. After all, she was the girl Ron was supposed to have a crush on, but now it seemed some mad girl had come and stole him from her. Ron didn’t care. He had accepted that Harry had become Hermione’s number one priority in life, and that he would most likely never have her love the way Harry did. But now he did have someone that loved him with all her being, as Hermione obviously loved Harry (even if she didn’t realize it yet), and that person was Luna. Now all of his passions had moved to her, because he knew she’d return them in kind. Now Hermione looked contrite. “I’m sorry. That was a mean thing to call Luna.” “Yes it was. She’s naïve about some things, and she’s eccentric, but she’s also smart and sweet and she has a pure heart. I…I…love her.” “Have you told her that?” Harry asked, finishing off a greasy drumstick. “No, but maybe its time I did. Excuse me. I’ll see you at the lake tonight,” Ron said, getting up from the table. He went over to the Ravenclaw table and leaned over Luna. A few moments later, they were gone. ~~~~~ “All done with patrol,” Ron said later, meeting Hermione under the tree by the lake. “Yes, I suppose we are,” Hermione sighed. “You go off and meet with Luna then. I’ll do the head counts in the common room. Where is she anyway?” “Waiting down there,” Ron said, pointing to a small dock in the distance where there was a rowboat bobbing gently in the black water. Luna’s blond hair was the only thing that stood out on this unusually dark, starless and moonless night. Hermione scowled. “Ron! You left her down there for two hours? Alone? That’s no way to treat your girlfriend!” Ron smiled. He loved hearing someone say ‘your girlfriend’. “Relax. Don’t get you knickers in a twist. She wanted to wait there. Said she had some night sketching she wanted to get done of the squid.” “Why?” Hermione asked, frowning. Ron shrugged. “See you later.” He set off toward the dock while Hermione made her way back up to the castle. He reached Luna, who had a sketch pad on her lap, and a very detailed drawing of the lake with the moonlight shining on its surface. The snake-like arms of the giant squid seemed to almost writhe in the water. “I had no idea you could draw like this,” Ron said. He loved this new relationship. He and Luna were learning so much about each other. It was fun and exciting. “One more piece of my puzzle. Do you like the picture that’s forming?” she asked, her head tilted to the side. Luna was very insecure. She dropped little hints, asked little questions nearly every day to confirm if he really did like her, or if he was only with her for what she could do to his dick. The truth was he loved her. Not just for what she could do to him in bed, but because of the leap that his heart gave whenever he heard her name, or the pleasant buzz that he got in his stomach and chest whenever she smiled at him, or spoke to him, or touched him in even the most innocent of ways. “I love the picture that’s forming. You’re beautiful to me Luna.” She smiled, looking almost as happy as Ron imagined his mother would if Fred and George were to come to her one day and denounce the joke shop for careers as bankers at Gringotts. “You’re beautiful too. Look Ronald,” she said, pulling something out of the pockets of her robes. “I brought you some chocolate. I know you like to pour it on my…well…” She blushed, handing him the chocolate. It was amazing. Luna could say some of the dirtiest things in the heat of passion, but otherwise she was so shy. After all the things they had done together, he couldn’t believe she even remembered how to blush. He took the small container of chocolate as she stood and pulled off her outer robes. She was wearing his favorite Muggle style knickers, something called thongs. He thought they were considerably sexier than the large, ugly knickers he’d spotted in the girl’s laundry in the underbelly of the castle on one of his many patrols. He enjoyed the swell of her voluptuous breasts, her flat belly, the long curve of her muscular legs, all covered in flawless porcelain skin. Most people, and he had been guilty of this himself at first, had been unable to appreciate what a pretty girl Luna was. Sure, her face wasn’t that of a raving beauty, but she made up for that with other qualities, like a pure heart and completely open eyes that freely shared everything she had inside, if you only dared to look. And what Luna had inside was pure beauty. That and a body any boy would kick an old man down a flight of stairs just to touch once they got an eyeful of it, like he was now. Her breasts alone…. “Shall we make love in the boat tonight?” Luna asked. She was gazing at the boat thoughtfully. She didn’t seem overly excited at the prospect of getting into it, but he knew she was always game to try something new. “How about some other time?” Ron asked, pulling her gently onto his lap. “Tonight, why don’t we do something different?” “Different?” she asked, looking surprised at the very idea that he wouldn’t want to do something adventurous. She almost looked afraid, and she gazed at him with wide eyes as he smoothed a lock of hair away from her forehead. He could imagine she feared he was losing interest in their relationship, but nothing could be further from the truth. “Yeah,” Ron said. “Let’s do something mundane. Let’s lie here and look at the-“ His eyes went to the sky. They were covered with rolling gray storm clouds. “Storm clouds.” he finished with a smile. He had meant to say stars, but they were gone. “That sounds nice Ronald,” Luna said. She was the only one he would allow to call him Ronald on a regular basis. He didn’t care for the name, which is why he went by Ron. Somehow, though, it was ok when Luna did it. It wasn’t quite so ugly coming from her lips. “I have a new song for us.” He and Luna liked to pick out Muggle songs with a theme to make love to. Their first time had been to make love with the lights on, as one of Luna’s favorite artists, Jewel, had sung of. Their second time had been to a particularly explicit song involving peaches and cream, which had led them to do the naughtiest things in the kitchens, after everyone had left. That was a recurring favorite of Ron’s. Though he didn’t really like the song, he loved the way the peaches and cream complimented Luna’s natural taste. “What’s it called?” “Rock the boat,” Luna said, “which is why I chose the dock, but we can do that another night. I’m already in paradise.” Ron briefly wondered what she meant by already being in paradise. He’d figure that out later. A fierce wind kicked up, coming in off the water. It had a decidedly sharp bite, and goose bumps rose on Luna’s exposed skin. Ron conjured a warm blanket and they lay down, rolling themselves inside it. He took in a deep breath, smelling the soap she’d bathed in. It smelled of wild flowers, fresh air, and pine. “Ronald,” she said, gazing at the clouds while he nuzzled her. “Do you ever think of me, when we’re not together?” “Of course I do. I think about you more than Quidditch. That’s really saying something.” She smiled happily. “And I think of you more than Heliopaths or anything else that might be roaming the world around us, mysterious and wonderful.” “I’m honored,” Ron said, and he genuinely meant it. He knew how important it was for her and her father to prove the existence of even the most bizarre mythological creature. God, he loved her. His heart was swelling with it, making it a bit difficult to breathe. She was looking at him with such innocence and honest love. He felt like the luckiest boy alive. “Do you know what I think of, when I think you Luna?” She shook her head. “Do tell me.” “I think of your eyes and how much of your soul that you share in them every time you look at me. I think of your lips, and how they comfort me when real life gets too hard. You can just kiss me, and everything that angers me, or scares me vanishes, like it was never there. You do that to me because you love me, and I love you.” Tears sprang up in Luna’s eyes, and she quickly sat up. Afraid that he’d ruined everything by confessing his deepest feelings to her, Ron sat up, wondering what to do, or what to say to rectify the situation. “Ronald?” “What did I say?” “Joy hurts sometimes, doesn’t it?” she asked, holding his hand to her chest. Her heart beat fast beneath his palm. “Love hurts.” “Yeah,” Ron said, relieved that he hadn’t scared her away. “But it’s a sweet pain, isn’t it?” He felt her put his hand down her stomach. It was quivering. He pulled her close, running his hands over her body, trying to warm her and comfort her, as she did for him whenever life became too much. “I love you too Ronald.” Ron held her close, letting time roll by. They didn’t need to grope one another and have sex, for they were already making love in their hearts.