Intervention
By FenrisWolf
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DISCLAIMER - Everything belongs to JK Rowling and her agents, nothing belongs to me - darn it!
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AUTHOR'S NOTE - Part One: I still am having a hard time believing the number of reviews this is generating. I may not answer every one, but they are all appreciated, especially those that offer helpful critiques, or that catch mistakes and glitches for me. (thanks especially to Excalibur and Seamus on that front!)
This is the promised scene between Ron and Luna that takes place in the afternoon before Harry's proposal to Hermione. Enjoy!
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Chapter Eleven - We Love Good when we Love Well
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Ron's thoughts as he led the way through the woods were chaotic, to say the least. So much had changed in such a short time; if any one had told him at the beginning of the summer that he would even fancy, let alone become involved with, Loony - a sudden wince of pain from his jaw made him pause - Luna Lovegood, he would told them they were barking. Now, he could hardly imagine his life without her in it…and that was the problem.
He was afraid. He'd reached the point where he could admit that to himself, even if he couldn't find the words to tell anyone else. He was afraid that if he tried to tell her how he felt, he'd put his foot in it like he always seemed to whenever he talked about his feelings, and that she'd finally realize she was wasting her time with him. He'd managed to say some of that in his chat with Harry, and while he was sure his best mate didn't understand all the insecurities that plagued Ron, Harry had enough of his own issues that any advice he gave on the topic would be as good as any Ron had access to. If Harry thought he should talk to her, Ron was going to try.
After a somewhat unsatisfactory lunch where Ron's nerves had him eating a fraction of his normal caloric intake (which meant he only ate half again as much as the average wizard), he'd stammered an invitation to Luna to go for a walk to settle their food. She'd gazed at him calmly, though her eyes were oddly shiny, and had quietly taken his hand and followed along submissively as he led her towards the familiar path.
They'd walked in silence, each lost in thought as they enjoyed warmth of late summer, though a bit of briskness remained in the air once they entered the shadow of the trees. Ron was glad he'd thought to bring their cloaks along; the small clearing that had become 'their place' had many things to recommend it, but a roaring fireplace or even an area warming charm were not among them. Even if things only progressed as far as they had in the past, the cloaks would be welcome later in the day.
Arriving in their clearing, Ron led Luna over to the fallen log that had been charmed and transfigured until it was almost as comfortable as one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room. Once they were seated he drew his wand from its pocket in his cloak and with a few muttered phrases activated the modifications he'd placed in the wards around the clearing (managed with Luna's clever help), and insured their privacy. Sliding his wand back into its sheath, he turned to speak to the person who triggered the butterflies in his stomach, only to have her pounce on him and fasten her mouth hungrily to his.
By the time they broke the kiss they were both light-headed from lack of oxygen, though Ron was a bit worse off due to the sudden rush of blood leaving his brain for other regions. "Wow," he gasped, struggling to bring his surroundings back into focus as the girl who completely occupied his thoughts snuggled against him. "What brought that on?"
"Well, it has been almost twelve hours since we properly kissed," Luna replied, and then made him jump by nipping at his neck. "I do believe I was beginning to experience the first symptoms of withdrawal. It was very distracting." She then proceeded to try and show him just how distracted she'd felt, her hands sliding up inside of his shirt and jumper as her nails left little trails of fire across his chest.
For a moment Ron allowed himself to get lost in the sensations she was arousing in him, but the nagging voice of his conscience (which oddly sounded like his two best friends talking to him in tandem) reminded him of the real reason he'd brought her out to their place. 'Get a grip, Weasley,' he thought to himself. 'The bloody Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor for a reason, now prove it!' Steeling himself, he put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. "Luna, I think…we need to have a talk," he said a little shakily.
He felt her tense briefly under his touch, and then she seemed to sag a little as she nodded. "Very well, Ronald, we'll talk if that is what you want."
Ron choked back a nervous laugh. "I can't say as I want to talk, but we do need to, what with school starting in two days." Gathering all his courage, he continued, "Just…try and be patient with me, okay? I'm not very good at this, and I don't want you to get mad and storm off .if I say the wrong thing."
"I don't think I could ever be mad with you, Ronald," Luna replied. "And besides, I've been expecting this for a while."
"You have?" Ron replied, surprised and a little relieved. 'Maybe this won't be as hard as I thought.'
"Of course I expected it; I always knew you wouldn't want things to continue the way they have once we returned to school," she answered softly, her face turned away so he couldn't se the tears that were forming.
"Huh?" he said intelligently. "What are you talking about? Wait…you think I don't want to keep seeing you when we're back at Hogwarts?"
"Well, obviously, Ronald. Why else would you be breaking up with me?" Luna asked, her calm words hiding her inner turmoil.
Ron felt himself floundering for understanding as their conversation hared off in a direction he'd never intended. "Bloody hell, Luna, what makes you think I want to break up with you?" he asked in turn, one hand running nervously through his hair as the other sought out and grasped her hand.
"Isn't that why you brought me out here to talk? So you could tell me in private in case I made a scene, not that I would?" she replied in that same calm, maddeningly rational tone as she finally met his eyes. He was stunned by the tears that were shining in hers as she gently laid her free hand on his cheek. "You don't have to worry, Ronald, I understand that this was just a summer fling on your part. The others don't realize that, but I do. I helped you get Hermione out of your system, and I will always be grateful I was the one to do that for you. But now you're ready to move on. I won't hold you back, I promise."
Ron stared at her for a minute, and for once the gods cut him a break as the meaning of her words sunk in, and he somehow understood the thoughts behind them. Perhaps it was because her insecurities were so close to his own, but whatever the reason, he knew what she was feeling, and a knot that had been slowly tightening around his heart for days finally loosened. Harry's words from the other evening echoed in his head: 'If you've found the right one, you'll never convince yourself that you're good enough for her, and crazy as it may sound, they probably feel the same way.'
Smiling, Ron lifted both his hands and cupped her face, his thumbs brushing away her tears before he leaned forward and gently kissed her on the lips. When he leaned back and saw the wide-eyed surprise on her face, his smile became even broader. "For a Ravenclaw, you're not very bright, Love," he said quietly, his gentle expression taking any sting out of the words. "Don't you know that I'm completely nutters over you? That breaking up with you is the last thing I want to do?"
Luna's expression grew doubtful. "Then why did you want to talk? You were so serious when you asked me, and you're never serious about anything…"
"That's not true, I'm serious lots of times!" he objected. Luna merely raised an eyebrow and he relented. "All right, so maybe I'm not; doesn't mean I don't know there's a time and place for it."
Easing slightly away from him, she crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly. "Very well, Ronald, if you weren't planning on breaking up with me, why did you want to talk?"
Now that he had to actually say the words, he felt himself blushing. "You see, it's like this," he began awkwardly, his eyes now refusing to meet hers. "I thought if we were alone, it would make it easier on both of us…when you broke up with me."
Glancing up, he saw the stunned expression appear just before she broke into peals of laughter. "Ronald!" she finally gasped. "You thought…would want…and I thought…" she couldn't get the words out past her giggles, and he found himself laughing as well.
When they both finally stopped laughing, an odd expression crossed Luna's face. Over the weeks they'd been something more than friends, Ron had learned to see past her façade of dreaminess to the feelings underneath, and this wasn't one he'd seen before. It looked like…hope? "Ronald," she asked, "is that the reason you've held back from being intimate with me? That you thought I wasn't serious, about us that is?" He could see that she was hurt by the thought, and he hastened to explain his doubts.
"It wasn't that, Love," he said quickly. "It's kind of hard to put into words…that first day, the day Harry and Hermione got together and you told me how you felt, I was so surprised-well, I didn't want to rush things, you know? And afterwards I started thinking about it, and I guess I thought too much or something. Ginny's always on about me not thinking before acting, and this was so important, that I stopped thinking about all the things that felt right about it, and started worrying about what could go wrong."
"Im not sure I understand what you mean," Luna said, frowning. Ron sighed, rubbing his hands nervously over his knees as he continued.
"Well, it was after Harry and Hermione got back and Mum blew up over them being Bonded," he said. ""I knew I fancied you, a lot, but I'm not ready for that kind of commitment yet, not with anyone. I'm not saying I want to sleep around, either, but a Bonding's a really big step. So yeah, at first I had cold feet because I thought you might want that, too.
"Then, when I realized you weren't looking for that any more than I was…somehow I got it in my head that if we went all the way, you'd regret it; you know as well as I do that even without a Bonding the first time for a wizard or witch releases a lot of magic. I was afraid that when you moved on to someone who suited you better, you'd regret having done that with me instead of them," he finished lamely.
Luna stared at him for a minute, her expression blank. Finally she spoke. "That was rather silly of you, Ronald," she said quietly. "Not that it really surprises me, I suppose."
Ron's ears turned red as he muttered, "Well, I told you I wasn't too smart; that's why Hermione's always on me about studying harder…"
"She doesn't scold you because you're stupid, Ronald, she does it because she knows you aren't. I thought you understood that."
"Huh?"
She sighed, a touch of asperity showing in her tone. "Ronald, Hermione fusses at you because she knows you are smart enough to get much better grades if only you applied yourself. Do you know why her marks are so much higher than everyone else's, including everyone in Ravenclaw I might add?"
"Well, yeah, it's because she's a genius," Ron replied, but Luna shook her head.
She is very, very bright, but being smart isn't enough to succeed. She gets the marks she does because she has the discipline to maintain the study habits she learned before she came to Hogwarts. She's even tutored a few of my housemates in her methods. Believe me, if she thought you were stupid, she wouldn't waste her time trying to make you do better."
"Wow," Ron said, somewhat stunned by the revelation. He raised his eyes to meet Luna's. "So, does that mean you don't think I'm stupid, either?"
"Of course not," she replied. "I could never fall in love with someone who was stupid; silly, yes, but then all boys are a bit silly where girls are concerned, but not stupid."
A slow smile lit up his face. "So, does that mean you want to keep seeing me, even back at school?"
By way of answer she wrapped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him, her lips covering his as her tongue demanded entrance to his mouth. Her legs shifted and she was wrapped around him, her pelvis grinding against his obvious arousal. "And if that isn't clear enough," she breathed when they separated for air, "I want you, and no one else but you, Ronald, Bilius Weasley. Is that clear enough for you?"
Ron swallowed and nodded, his gaze moving hungrily down her body and back to her face. He smiled, and then groaned as she rolled her hips against him again. "Luna, if you keep that up, I won't be able to do what I want to do right now," he warned.
"And what is that, Ronald?" she asked before trailing little kisses down his neck.
"I want to…make love to you," he said, blushing. "You know, really make love to you."
Smiling , she sniffed a little. "Are you sure, Ronald?"
"I've never been surer of anything in my life," he said, trying to put as much feeling into the words as he could. Apparently it was enough, as Luna's response was to grab the bottom of her shirt and pull it over her head, leaving her bare from the waist up except for a pink satin bra that quickly joined her shirt.
He reached out and cupped her small breasts, delighted as always by the perfect way they filled his hands. He squeezed them, ever so lightly, feeling her nipples stirring and stiffening against his palms. His hands shifted, eliciting a moan as the slightly callused pads of his thumbs grazed over the sensitive flesh, and then leaned forward and drew her left nipple into his mouth, his tongue swirling around and flicking the hardened nub at its tip before he began to suckle gently at her heated flesh. His other hand instinctively continued its caresses, and shortly he felt her start to shiver all over and utter the little humming sounds of pleasure that drove him wild.
Luna felt the first waves of pleasure begin to radiate through her at the feel of the hardness of him pressing against her stomach; she'd felt it before, was in fact intimately familiar with Ronald's broomstick in every way but one, and now that last mystery was to be revealed. The very thought of it was enough to send swarms of tremors echoing along her nerves, the sort that, were she a volcano hooked up to a seismograph, would be predicting a cataclysmic event. Each pull of his mouth on her sensitized nipple sent a fresh wave cascading through her, driving her closer to the edge. Without realizing it she began to hum, the overstimulation of her nervous system spilling over into her vocal chords.
Ron finally ceased his ministrations to her breast, allowing her nipple to slip from between his lips with a soft pop as the suction broke. The sudden exposure of moist skin to the cool air of the glade sent shivers up and down her spine as he recaptured her mouth with his, their lips melding together as their tongues resumed their dance. Her felt her legs slide from around his hips and a moment later they were standing, Ron leaning forward slightly to keep in contact with Luna's mouth. He felt her hands tugging at his jumper, and they broke apart briefly as his clothing began to join hers on the clearing floor.
He reached out and slowly unbuttoned her jeans, his eyes never leaving hers as she bit her lip in anticipation. They'd been naked together before, more than once, but all those previous times there'd been a line drawn they knew would not be passed, a line that was now eradicated. Luna had already kicked off her trainers while they were wrapped up together before, so once the jeans were unbuttoned it took little effort on Ron's part to slide them down her long, slender legs and pull them off over her mismatched socks. All she was wearing now were the pink silk knickers that matched her discarded bra.
Her own hands moved to his belt, unbuckling it at much the same rate as he had unbuttoned her jeans. The snap and zipper combination of the Muggle-made garment (a gift from Hermione the previous Christmas) frustrated her for a moment, but she quickly got the hang of it. Ron's trainers had joined hers while they were seated, along with his socks, leaving him standing before her in just his boxers, the fabric visibly tented by his straining erection. With the enigmatic smile that he'd come to love so much playing about her lips, she slowly knelt before him, her hands sliding down his chest as she dropped lower and lower, her fingers finally catching in his waistband and tugging the red and gold material down until his manhood sprang free.
"I see you Firebolt is fully serviced and ready to fly," Luna chuckled throatily, her hand sliding over the firm, velvety length of him, eliciting a groan in response. With a wicked smile she rolled his foreskin back and delivered a feathery light kiss to his crown, licking away the white bead that wept from the eye.
Unable to withstand her teasing any longer, Ron sunk to his knees as well, reclaiming her mouth for another heated kiss, the hard length of him pressing against her stomach sending little shivers throughout her body. She felt the heat and moisture building within her sex and she moaned into his mouth, her hands seeking out and squeezing his buttocks. Separating a little, she managed to pant, "Don't forget the charm; neither of us are ready for any surprises…"
Nodding, Ron groped in their discarded cloaks until he came up with their wands, passing Luna's to her so that they could both cast the protection charm for added safety. "Conceptus Averto," they murmured, causing a blue glow to envelop the relevant portions of their anatomy before fading from sight. Unlike Muggle contraceptives, the charm would last for six months unless countered, but tradition called for sexually active couples to renew the charm every three months, on the solstices and equinoxes, just to be sure. Both Luna and Ginny had cast the charm on Hermione before she went off to Harry that first time, in order to help allay her nervousness. To the young pureblooded witches' knowledge, the charm never failed unless it was deliberately tampered with.
The last technical preliminaries now covered, the young witch and wizard began the final steps in the slow dance they had started weeks before. Ron spread their cloaks out and cast a cushioning charm upon them before pressing Luna down into them, his hands returning to their explorations. A little tug of encouragement caused her to raise her hips, allowing him to slide her now damp knickers off her legs and toss them aside. Unconsciously her knees drifted apart, giving him a clear view of the golden curls between her legs and the delicate, shell-pink folds of her sex nestled within.
Slowly he worked his way forward, trailing kisses along her inner thigh until he reached his goal. Every time he reached this point in the past a look of wonder would appear on his face, and this time was no exception. If anything he looked even more gobsmacked than in the past; he'd explored her mysteries with his fingers and his tongue, learning the special places that gave her the most pleasure, but this time a new threshold was about to be crossed, one that thrilled and terrified him at the same time. He looked up at her from his position between her legs, his eyes travelling the smooth expanse of her belly, past the little silver charm that decorated her navel, past the perfect mounds of her breasts and their delectable nipples, up the long column of the throat to reach her face, to the open expression of desire that was evident there. "Love, are you sure?" he asked, giving her a last chance to change her mind before they both lost control.
"Make love to me, Ronald," she replied, her voice quivering slightly at the tremors the breath of his words on her sex had aroused. "Make me, make us, complete."
Needing no further encouragement, he moved forward, bracing his weight above her as he positioned himself at her entrance. Luna had told him early on, in one of her painfully blunt conversations, that her barrier had been ruptured years before when the broom she was riding was caught in a thunderstorm, so that particular concern was absent, but he knew that it would still take her a bit of time to adjust to him. He took it slow, first easing the crown of his penis within her, eliciting a gasp of surprise as she felt the pleasurable pressure mounting.
Nor was that the only pressure that was mounting. The young lovers were too wrapped up in each other to notice, but the family wards were far less subject to distraction. Already sensitized to them by their earlier activities, the spells and charms that for centuries had protected and sheltered the Weasley line recognized that another one of their charges was coming of age. The simple privacy charms that Ron and Luna had erected proved no barrier to the ancient energies of the wards, connected as they were to one of the two by Blood. A shimmering, pearlescent dome of cool blue light formed around the lovers, both drawing from and adding to the primal magic being raised by their intimacy.
Luna's breath hissed out between her teeth as Ron finally rested completely within her. All her dreams, all her fantasies were as nothing compared to the awareness of his hard masculinity sheathed inside her passage, completing the mystery. Her nails dug into his back as slowly, so slowly, he began to slide in and out of her, building the pace gradually as her muscles relaxed and accepted the length and breadth of him.
Her teeth clenched painfully on her lower lip as she stifled back a moan, and then his voice was whispering in her ear, "Let it out, Love, let it go, let me hear you…" His soft words shattered her restraint and she cried out his name, not in pain but in triumph as she finally became a woman in the arms of the young man she'd loved for so long.
Ron felt her stiffening beneath him, felt her body clenching about his manhood as her climax washed over her. The look of exaltation on her face transfixed him, and the little portion of his mind that remained rational at such a moment wondered why he'd feared this. Then her eyes opened and locked onto his, and the love radiating from them pushed him over the edge. He buried himself within her one last time and felt the hot warmth of his seed flooding within her, completing the act. So lost was he in the depths of her cornflower blue eyes, he didn't notice the other flare of blue as the bubble that had formed in the wards swelled and burst, transferring the magic released by their act of love.
He didn't notice it, but of the four other people currently residing at the Burrow, two did. Hermione was too new to her connection to the wards to recognize the source of the shiver that had just run through them, and Harry was too busy creating the perfect setting at the Heart Circle to pay attention when the magical energy flickered and surged.
Up in her room, with nothing distracting her beyond the diary in which she was writing, Ginny definitely noticed the tingle as the magical energies connecting her to her family changed. "Way to go, bro," she murmured to herself, a wicked grin flickering across her face as she thought about the opportunities this would provide for teasing her favorite brother (though she would never tell him that).
In the kitchen, Molly Weasley looked up from the recipe book she was double-checking before preparing the night's meal, a novelty minced-meat pie that she'd remembered had been a special favorite of James Potter's. She closed her eyes as the wards fluctuated, and having experienced it five times before, recognized it for what it was. A single tear rolled down her cheek as the last of her sons crossed the next hurdle into adulthood. Now there was only her baby left, and who knew how long it would be in these troubled times before she chose to seize the moment?
Back in the glade, Luna and Ron relaxed in each other's arms, their energies momentarily spent. Ron was idly toying with a lock of her hair, twirling it around his fingers and admiring its shimmer in the stray beams of sunlight that managed to make it through the leaves. "One thing puzzles me, Love," he said quietly, with a smile on his face that could only be called sated. "I don't understand why you were so worried about us staying together. Didn't your Sight show you that?" He stiffened slightly as an alarming thought occurred to him. "It didn't show us…breaking up, did it? Because if it did, you know, divination's not all that precise-"
Her fingers covered his lips, silencing him. "Please don't panic, Ronald; my Sight won't show me anything about us in the future any more. Hermione told me she'd read in a book on Seers that for some of us, strong emotions interfere with our abilities, so the closer we became, the harder it was to See."
Ron thought about that for a minute, and then brightened. "Hey, that's pretty good then!" At her puzzled look he elaborated, "See, if we broke up down the line, our emotions would stop blocking things and you'd be able to See us. Since you can't, we must stay together!"
Luna frowned for a moment, and then smiled back at Ron. She was fairly certain there was something wrong with his logic, but seeing him so happy at the prospect disabused her of the notion of correcting him. For the moment she was content to settle back down into his embrace, and enjoy the gentle, post-coital buzz that trembled along her nerves. Now was good, tomorrow could take care of itself…
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AUTHOR'S NOTE - Part Two: I know this is a lot shorter than my previous chapters, but I decided to restrict it to just the scene between Ron and Luna, a little vignette for those who love the Red Moon. More to come, I promise!
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