"A Marvelous Thing"
Love in Four Parts
V
Luna was entangled in Ronald's sheets, Ronald's head was on her shoulder, Ronald's leg was across her own, and Ronald's arm was wrapped around her waist.
The smell in the room was kind of spicy, like cinnamon, and she found she enjoyed it immensely. The sun was a golden red and pierced her with its coy grin. Ron murmured something, shifting closer to her, his lips brushing across her neck.
Everything was very much Ronald and very much right.
He stirred and his eyes, his gorgeous blue eyes, opened. Last night came rushing back to him like a hangover, only he didn't feel pain; he felt something that was decidedly like happiness. Nothing much had happened, he remembered. Just some snuggling and some kissing, which was something Ron was not used to. Snuggling. He just wasn't the snuggling type. More often than not, Ron only dated because he knew he would get a good shag afterwards. Surprisingly, Ron never had a very long relationship with members of the opposite sex (nor with members of the same sex, for Ron just didn't "swing" that way). The longest relationship he'd had was with Luna, and that clocked in at a surprising seven months so far. It was getting longer by the seconds.
"Hello," she said.
"Hello," he replied.
She smiled.
He smiled back.
And then he noticed the clock and felt that he should probably get up and go to work, although nothing ever sounded so horrid to him as that notion.
Luna insisted in making him watch the sun rise fully into the sky before he was allowed to get out of the bed. And then she made him breakfast, standing at the stove, her orange skirt wrinkled and touching her toes, her hair tangled and in desperate need of a haircut.
He fingered a strand of her hair. "You need a hair cut," he whispered against her neck.
She merely shrugged and said, "I don't want a haircut."
He drank his morning tea, reading The Daily Prophet, as she stared off into space thinking about something . . . .
She was thinking of him. Ronald. She felt that she was . . . well, that she loved him.
There, she'd said it, well . . . she'd thought it.
The word had been floating around her head, across her glassy eyes, and in the tangles of her hair for quite some time, unwillingly to be formed into something solid. It was wispy and foggy, but now it was a rock, as large as the moon. It was screaming at her.
Luna Lovegood was in love.
She was a person who based most of her opinions and philosophies on love towards other creatures. However, she'd never had a romantic love, just an overwhelming platonic love for life in general. Even if she had, when she was younger, possessed some type of true romantic love, she wasn't sure she would have bestowed it upon anyone, for she found that act to be something that commanded a lot of responsibility; she wasn't sure she would have had the necessary amount of responsibility it required.
She had felt a fondness towards Ronald when she first met him; he seemed like the type of person, who could see what she saw if he tried hard enough. His ignorance was but a small, trivial matter that could be pushed aside; it was merely the result of his upbringing and insecurity.
She had pushed it aside and found the man she loved. The man she could only ever love. And it was a marvelous thing.
He cleared his throat, and stood up from the table. "I'll see you later, Luna," he said, kissing her on her cheek. She held onto his shirt, and kissed him again, fiercer than she had ever done before, the knowledge of her feelings pressing heavily on her courage.
"Maybe," he said, "I'll stay home today."
And he did stay home. With the girl that laughed at his jokes and told him stories of creatures that may or may not exist and told him to be quiet so that she could hear the flowers on the windowsill singing. She told him to listen.
He didn't. He was too distracted by her hair shining in the sun.
****
They were sitting outside, underneath a tree Luna had found while she was taking a walk one day. The sun was hot and Ron didn't feel like sitting outside, in the scratchy grass. He was forgetting why he had agreed to come here, but then she kissed him again and he remembered.
Her head was in his lap, but presently it rose. Without a word, she reached up to the tree and disappeared in its leaves. She sat on a branch and surveyed the area around her, her legs swinging happily in the air.
"Luna, you're going to get yourself hurt," he said, standing up.
"No I'm not." She swung backwards and Ron stepped forward to catch her, should she fall. She didn't fall, but remained in the tree, hanging upside down.
There was a ground of blue at her feet and a sky of green at her head. Her blood pounded through her body, protesting at the sudden change in direction of flow. She heard Ron sigh.
"Come on," she said, motioning for him to climb up as well.
"I'm not hanging upside down from the tree branch, Luna, so just get down here." His tone was clearly irritated. The sun was beating down on him even harder now and sweat began to appear on his face.
She frowned. "But I . . . I . . . thought . . . ."
Her voice was dreamy, as usual, but it held an air of confusion that broke through what would normally be her indifferent composure. It made him feel dumb.
"Spit it out, Luna!"
His words hung in the air like a bleeding wound. They stung her face.
Slowly, she climbed down, her knee getting scratched in the process. The wood was quiet; birds no longer chirped happily and the wind had stopped. Standing across from him, she said, her voice flat, "Let's go home."
He kissed her forehead, his touch holding the promise of an apology. No words crossed his lips to bring it forth and the promise remained less than full.
The air between them the rest of the day was awkward, but it was trivial: Luna still felt an overwhelming emotion of love, and Ron was still completely stuck on her.
He wasn't sure if it was love yet. It looked like love and it felt like love. But Ron's insecurities slashed through this feeling. Was he really in love with her? Was she in love with him? Why?
Luna's feelings were hard to discern; she hid them often. However, he was sure she wouldn't be with him this long if she didn't love him. Luna was too free spirited to hang around with a guy she didn't like. She was a being completely untouched by obligation and social restraints. This was because she simply didn't care. That is, she didn't care what other people thought of her; she'd love them either way, but she wouldn't change simply because they wanted her to.
That was one reason why he loved her so much . . . .
Yes, he did loved her.
She turned to him and smiled. "Father says someone wrote in the other day, telling him about a sighting of the crumpled-horned snorkack . . . . Isn't that nice Ronald? Maybe we'll be able to get some proper pictures."
"Pictures? Oh, yeah. That'd be nice." He wasn't sure what the pictures were supposed to be of (he hadn't really been listening to her words; he'd been preoccupied by her moving lips), but they would obviously be nice, judging by the excited look on her face. "Very nice."
He leaned in and kissed her, mumbling, "I'm sorry I got mad, earlier."
Her smile was serene and knowledgeable, as if she knew he would say that sooner or later. "That's alright Ronald. People get upset all the time. It's unavoidable."
He kissed her again, harder, and he wanted to gobble her up, like a chocolate bar. She allowed him a small taste and then pulled back, saying, "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," he said.
She left.
He watched her go.
***
The air was surprisingly crisp. Then again, it was September and summer was coming to an end, while fall was settling in quite nicely. Ronald assumed he really shouldn't feel all that surprised by the cool air. It's just, Luna had been laying next to him and now she had gotten up.
His body felt naked, bare, alone.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
"Waiting."
"For what?"
"The moon."
Her breath fogged the window in front of her. She impatiently wiped it away with the sleeve of the maroon jumper she was wearing. The jumper had a large golden "R" on the front and it was much too large for her. It fit her perfectly.
"The moon isn't going anywhere once it's gotten to where it's going. Come back. The moon can wait."
She turned to him slowly, as if he were an intruder she had just noticed. "The moon can never wait. It always has something to be doing. Someplace to be visiting."
He sighed.
"Don't you want to smile at it?"
He sighed even louder. "No. I want to go to sleep. I have to work in the morning."
"But . . . ." Her voice was flat. Again.
He felt small and childish and he was irritated. He just wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep. His lack of sleep only escalated his irritated state into a very angry state, and her glassy eyes were making his own eyes sting.
"Luna." His voice was tired. Very tired. Physically tired. Tired of her nonsense.
The moon didn't smile. Flowers didn't laugh. The sun did not wear robes of gold. The stars most certainly did not have funny jokes to tell you. "The moon isn't smiling," he said. "It's just a rock. A large rock." He turned on his side and pulled the covers up roughly.
She was quiet for many seconds, and then, slowly, she began to move, gathering her things. She left the room and Ron let her go, finding his body was too tired to run after her, too tired to care.
He just wanted to sleep.
But sleep didn't come. In fact, it refused to be seen for two days, and Ron, himself, stayed in his bed, staring vaguely at the ceiling, for that time. He knew he should move. Find her. Apologize or something.
Pride is a dreadful curse at time like these, and he thought to himself, she'll come back. Any day now, she'll come back.
She didn't come back for three days. For four days. For five days.
Ronald began to think that she might not come back at all.