black_hat

Here. Um. Have Fleur/Luna while I type on Tom/Luna, or Luna/Tom. However you prefer ;-)

This has not be beta-ed. And Fleur's accent is a harsh mistress. But eh, it's for fun. :-)

Hogwarts was as obtrusive as its name.

Quite fitting, Fleur sniffed. The English held no pleasure of open spaces. She escaped to the woods, seeking some beauty that could not be found in dull faces, heavy, brutish cloaks, thick scents, and rough, calloused hands. She could see with her sharp eyes dirt under finger nails and tangled hair and… Fleur flinched as the memories of these sensations washed over her. She rubbed her arms to get rid of the feeling and continued to walk briskly away from the noise of the Halloween celebration.

The harvest moon cleansed her almost immediately. Samhain was upon her at last.

Fleur traveled the length of the field, looking into the forest with longing. She didn’t notice the small body that was sprawled ungainly in the middle of her path. Fleur did not take to tripping well. Tripping was about as natural to her as spinning on one’s head was to the rest of them.

Her nose buried itself unbecomingly in a mound of dirt. Never had she had to endure such indignity.

A dirty blonde head was looming over the thick yellow grass.

“Oh, it’s the fall season, I suppose,” the girl whispered, gravely, her words mixing in with the wind. It sounded hollow, like a flute.

The girl’s eyes were what arrested Fleur’s angry words. They were salient, and grey like her mother’s robes at home, the one she had played dress up in as a child. Little roots hung from her ears like a beacon, or merely extensions it seemed. And her hair….her hair was a nest of twigs and feathers. It was as if a bird had laid eggs on top of her head.

“ What is ze meaning of ‘zis, little girl?” she asked, brushing away the dust on her shoulders angrily.

The silly girl tilted her head slightly, and smiled.

“You’re from Beaubaxtons. And you’re here for the Tournament. You’re the only girl competing, you know.”

“Oh, ‘ow astute. You find zis funny?” She motioned to her torn robes. “I will ‘ever understand ze children here. Dirty and ‘ery rude.”

Fleur flipped her hair behind her shoulders and scowled.

“You have dirt on your nose,” the girl pointed out. “Just there.”

The little waif stood. She put her thumb to her lips and brushed her it lightly across the bridge of Fleur’s nose. All the while, her lips were parted in interest. Fleur froze. Her hands were soft, she noticed.

“I was looking for the Widdles. They only come out on Halloween.”

Fleur stared.

“Ze Widdles? An English pest? ‘Orrid name for it.”

“Yes, that’s why they hide. There’s its little hole right near your toe.”

Fleur shrieked and quickly backed up. And the girl followed, her eyes never leaving Fleur’s face.

“They don’t eat toes. They eat noses. That’s why I was worried, you know. But it’s the only way to draw them out, I’m afraid. Why aren’t you at the Feast?”

Fleur was quite nervously checking her nose on her face to see if it was still whole. She didn’t think she could bare it to be nose-less and to have a foul creature running around underground making a meal of it. She was growing angry.

“You English ‘ave such ‘eavy food.”

“I know. It’s why we can’t levitate very well, Daddy said so. It’s to keep us all on the ground. But sometimes the moonlight can lift you up. Would you like to try?”

The girl pointed to the forest. The Headmaster of this…school had said that the forest was forbidden. Yet Fleur could not shake the idea that the Headmaster did not know much of anything. She was still upset about a little boy being able to compete against her. Two champions of all things. There was cold injustice that was still burning in her chest. She wouldn’t be scared away, though, not by his food stained beard. She wasn’t like other girls. And in a fit of rebellion (as well as the feeling of the girl’s hands), she agreed.

The girl cheerfully took her hand, and Fleur once again marveled at its softness and the way her fingers had a touch of innocence.

“What is your name, little girl?”

“Luna,” she said softly, looking over her shoulder, her eyes wide and endless. And Fleur knew why her eyes touched her so, and made her breathing quicken.

Fleur bit her lip, fighting back that part of her that was beginning to whisper in the voices of the old desires and memories of meadows.

“You’re Fleur. I remembered from the Goblet. Funny thing, wasn’t it. It’s hard to understand you, though, with your accent.”

“’Mph. You don’t listen very well, I would think!”

“No, Daddy says it’s because I hear too much…or it could be ear-wax.”

Fleur spent the rest of the time lecturing on good bathing until they reached the lake. The other lake. The lake that Luna had found in her first year while looking for the Heir of Slytherin. This lake held stories. There were legends surrounding it that called to even a girl with ear wax in her ears. She was sure if there had been an Heir, he would have been there.

Alas, he was not there, but the water let her know things.

“He unleashed a monster, you know. It was very terrible.”

“Dumble-dorr truly is an old man with an empty ‘ead,” Fleur muttered, and cursed the Age Line ten-fold.

“Harry killed it.”

Fleur curled her lip. “’Hat little boy isn’t big enough to hold a sword, or a wand.”

Luna shrugged. “I think he sung it to sleep myself. Beasts love lullabies, and Harry has a lovely singing voice. Do you want to bathe first?”

Fleur started, surprised. “I thought you wanted to show me,” Luna said, leaning closer. “How to wash behind my ears.”

Fleur gasped, drawing up to her full height, but the girl was wadding in the water, the moon draping over her body like a veil. In her robes.

Fleur had a distinct picture in her mind. Bathing in a sacred robe, eyes unnatural and wild…Fleur found herself in the water, her robes drifting around her in an aloof manner like discarded wings. She had just fallen, melted from the sun. She felt so heavy. About to be drug to the bottom to be lost to mere tales and yet…and yet she felt so light.

Luna poked her head out of the water.

“It’s raining tears, it’s raining tears. Wash away all my fears.”

The water droplets paused in the light. Fleur felt her heart stop. The droplets of water seemed to melt into the wolf light like daggers and old rust. She didn’t notice Luna near her, until she touched her shoulder.

Without a word, Fleur traced the moon girl’s ears lightly. They reminded her of her time at the sea, where she collected sea shells. Just after her father went away. Fleur felt her own lips traced and memorized by curious, lithe hands. The moon girl who washed away fear was so innocent and so old. Luna wasn’t like other girls.

She couldn’t be quite sure where she was either. When she closed her eyes, she was somewhere else. It could have been the nature of this particular lake. It could have been that she thought she saw simple, meaningless things with luminous eyes in the water. But all the sudden she could breathe through every part of her soul, and it was marvelous and terribly frightening.

And that girl, her face only inches away, whispering, “I love meeting new people.”

That night, Fleur told a secret. And Luna kept it.