Flaming Nargles

Flaming Nargles

December 25, 2005

Luna carefully lifted the mistletoe by the loop of tinsel with which she had lassoed it and hung it from the headboard.

She liked Christmas at the Burrow. The holiday itself meant nothing at all to her, and she knew that the Weasleys (and her husband) felt the absence of Arthur and Molly deeply. But there was something festive and fierce about the way that Ronald and Ginny's family celebrated the day. And it made her heart go all bubbly to see how Harry loved to be made to feel as if he were actually part of a family.

Raising her wand, Luna levitated from her overnight bag the two framed photos that always stayed by their bedside: Harry's parents at their wedding and her own just after her birth. So happy. The two couples waved giddily at her as she floated them next to a photo of the elder Weasleys on the nightstand. There.

The holidays for Luna had always been about marking the solstice with her father, as she had with Harry, and lighting the menorah with her mum, as she had done herself tonight. Very quiet. And no great pressure to be happy. Sunreturn was lovely whether you were happy or not--the sun certainly didn't care.

Luna loved Christmas at the Burrow. Truly. But this year was a bit more noisy than usual.

The Weasleys looked to Christmas as a time for renewing joy, and they were badly in need of renewal just now--so many things to digest. Of course, Mr. Weasley's death had been blessedly sudden, yet Luna was amazed that he had managed to survive his wife for so long. Come to that, she was amazed that her own father had soldiered on for so long without Mum. He had looked almost relieved when the opportunity to rejoin her overtook him.

It occurred to Luna--not for the first time--that a quick and painless death had much to recommend it, but it was rather a difficult challenge for the living even without the usual unusual hurdles of divorce, miscarriage and heartache.

Luna was in a happy mood--joyous, even--and wished the Weasleys the same. But after almost a full day of being dazzled by all of the brightness that they were generating in trying to sail past all of the shadows, Luna needed some time to her self.

There was a quiet knock on the door.

Well, surprises were always good too. Luna liked surprises. "Ckklazxchi!" she called.

After a moment's pause, the door cracked open and Ginny's face poked through. "Did you just say 'I'm pregnant' in Gobbledygook?"

"No. That was 'come in' in Yeti. Also 'come here.' Since Yetis spend almost all of their time in caves, the two phrases are identical."

"Oh," Ginny said, stepping through the door. She looked as if she were trying to suppress a sneeze. "You do that on purpose, don't you. Say random things just to make me laugh."

Luna thought about this for a moment. "No, Ginny, I can't say that I do. However, if it gets you to smile, then perhaps I should. I haven't seen you smile enough lately. You might get out of practice."

With a heavy sigh, Ginny stared at the tiny, lit menorah in the window. "Can't have that, now, can we?"

"No, Ginny, I don't believe that we can." Luna patted the bedspread in front of her. Ginny meandered over, her gaze still out the window that had once been Ronald's. "Though I can understand that you wouldn't be feeling terribly caught up in the holiday spirit."

"Well, neither are you, when it comes to that."

"Hanukkah isn't a particularly spirited holiday, though I find the lights cheerful--don't you? And the solstice is past. So I'm mostly enjoying the season through Harry and your family." Luna picked up her wand and Summoned a brush from her trunk.

"Yeah," Ginny muttered, her eyes following the brush's path before flicking back to the menorah, and then out to where snowflakes were battering like moths against the window, "we're a jolly lot, aren't we? Luna, you're really not pregnant, right?"

"Oh, I don't believe so, no."

"Well, that's a relief. I don't think I could deal with Hermione and Ron just now if you and Harry announced that you were expecting."

"Yes," Luna mused. They had lost their most recent just three weeks ago. "That would rather dampen the pleasure of the thing, wouldn't it?"

Ginny nodded, her face still glumly peering out the window. Candlelight glowed on the undersurfaces of her face.

For the second time, Luna patted the comforter. "Ckklazxchi, Ginny."

Favoring Luna with a half-hearted smile, Ginny plopped herself down on the bed. She didn't usually follow suggestions so easily; generally it took at least three attempts to get Ginny to follow along.

This simply wouldn't do. "Well, I'm so glad you've come up," Luna said. "I feel as if I've hardly seen you."

The smile tipped up, involving Ginny's eyes a bit more--a beginning, at least. "Luna, silly, you've been right next to me all day."

"Oh, but that wasn't you. You were pretending all day, just like Ronald and Hermione and Percy." Luna ran her fingers through Ginny's pot-bottom-bright locks. "This is really you, and I'm always happiest when you're really here."

Ginny's small mouth fell open, then closed. Such a lovely mouth. "Luna, I..."

"Come," Luna said, raising the brush, "I'll plait your hair."

Ginny's eyes questioned Luna darkly, but she meekly allowed Luna to begin brushing out the ends of her hair. "We haven't done this... Nobody's done my hair... in ages." A kind of feline contentment softened Ginny's face. "I feel ancient, Luna. I feel...."

"You're not ancient, you know. You're just twenty-four. I always thought twenty-four was a rather nice age."

"Really? What's so nice about twenty-four?"

Gingerly, Luna removed a clip from her friend's hair; it was in the shape of a Snitch. Harry had given it to her the year that he, Ron and Hermione had been chasing after Tom Riddle Jr. Luna placed it in Ginny's lap.

As Luna continued to brush, Ginny stared down at the pin. At last, she sighed, "Christmas is just so hard. Thinking of Dad last year. That Christmas of sixth year... Going to the, the Yule Ball with Blaise." The two of them blazing like hanukkiyot. She hung upon the night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear. Ginny lifted the Snitch. "Getting this the next day. And Boxing Day..."

The attack on the Burrow. None of the children there. Mr. Weasley at work. Mrs. Weasley defending her home--this home--against a band of Death Eaters. Taking down three of them before she died as had her brothers before her, wand in hand.

Luna ran the brush along the silken flame of Ginny's hair, smooth and gleaming from root to tip. "Twenty-four is nice because one has left adolescence behind, I think, but life is still all about open possibilities."

"Maybe that's why I feel so old." Ginny glanced back at Luna, her eyes dark. "Possibilities don't seem so open to me."

Luna nodded and began using her fingers and the brush to separate her hair into two bunches, one on either side. When Ginny said nothing, Luna began to plait one side of her hair, fingers threading through one thick length of flame and braiding: over and under, around and through. Ginny sat straight and still, shoulders square as if she were twelve again. Which was the last time that Luna had been able to do this.

"I feel like a rotten friend, Luna," Ginny sighed at last. Luna's fingers moved on. "I made my choice that winter, I went with Blaise to the ball, I kissed Blaise, I thought, Hell, Blaise is here. Blaise is lovely and beautiful and wants me, and Harry let me go. And I married him. And then it all fell apart. And I come here. And there's Harry, and you, and you're both so happy, and I don't want to change that, I love you both, I really do, but it hurts to see you so happy, you know?"

Luna thought about that. "Yes. I think I do." Her fingers paused in their weaving and touched Ginny on the cheek, just below the line of freckles, and smoothed away a single tear that was meandering down. "You never really forget your first love, I think."

Ginny laughed, which struck Luna as odd, but made her middle liquid nonetheless. "Do you still get pangs when you look at Ron?"

"Ronald?" Luna puzzled at her friend, and then shook her head. "Oh. No."

"I didn't think so." Ginny's smile faded a bit, and she stared down at the Snitch in her lap. "Blaise really was... lovely. Really. He tried so bloody hard. But he kept waiting for me to turn into his Mum, and after a while, I just couldn't..." She shrugged.

"Did she really use Skrewt venom to poison all seven of them?"

Again, a sad laugh. "No. No, I don't think she murdered any of them, Lucretia. I think she just likes the whole Black Widow mystique. Mostly, she married all of these ancient pureblood bachelor wizards for their money and Floo'd them off to the Caribbean where she danced them and slept them to death." Ginny twirled the clip between her fingers, the wings fluttering. "At the end, I got on with her rather better than I did with him."

"Oh," Luna murmured. Neither she nor Harry had parents. Neither of them had in-laws, either, which rather followed, Luna supposed. Banding off the second plait, she reached out and took the Snitch from Ginny's hand. Turning her friend toward her, Luna placed the clip back in Ginny's hair. "Ronald wasn't my first love, you know. I never loved Ronald. Well, not romantically, in any case."

Ginny blinked. "What are you on about? The whole of third and fourth year you found every chance you could to come and talk to me about... Oh." Bright brown eyes widened.

"Yes," Luna said. "What I actually told you that first day in Arithmancy was that I was in love with someone with red hair. I wanted to tell you, but Marietta and some of the other older Ravenclaws said some rather dreadful things about boys who loved boys and girls who loved girls, that they were evolutionary dead-ends and deviants. I didn't mind being thought of as deviant, but I couldn't stand the idea of you thinking I was, and so when you assumed that I was in love with your brother, I just... played along." Suddenly, Luna remembered how it felt to be thirteen years old. It really was a most peculiar feeling.

"Oh, Luna," Ginny said, her pale lashes fluttering most lovelily. Suddenly her face darkened. "Bloody Marietta. I always hated that bint."

"Hmm," Luna said, willing to wait for Ginny to get past her sense of injustice and loyalty to find out what she actually thought of Luna's revelation. When in doubt, Ginny always got angry with someone first. It could be quite endearing, even when the person she was angry with was you. Though then it was also a little frightening. "I thought you hated her at first because she was always telling Cho how cute Harry was."

Ginny's hawk eyes focused on Luna. "That's true. But she's still a bint. Luna. Do you really? Like girls?"

"I love you."

Ginny's face suddenly dropped. "Luna." Her hand fluttered up to where Luna had touched her cheek earlier.

"Oh," Luna said. "I'm terribly sorry. It really isn't something I can do anything about, you know, and--"

"I don't want you to do anything, Luna, it's not a problem, really, I just... I mean, what about Harry?"

"Oh," Luna said, pondering her friend; Ginny didn't usually ask such silly questions. "I love him too, of course."

Given her open-mouthed stare, Luna would have assumed that a Wrackspurt had floated suddenly through Ginny's ear if years of friendship hadn't taught her that this was Ginny's reaction when Luna had said something unexpected.

"Well," Luna said, trying to clarify things, "he is my husband, after all. And he's quite a wonderful, lovely man."

That brought Ginny's eyes back to their usual sharp focus. "Yes, he is."

"And he's still quite in love with you, you know. We laugh about it quite a bit, that if we hadn't found each other, we would have been terribly lonely. Pining after you."

"Yeah," Ginny answered, fine fingers passing across her forehead. "Very funny. But... Look, Luna, I know you're trying to be sweet, but don't say that Harry--"

"He does love you. Of course, he was rather angry with you after the war, but he knew he'd given you your freedom and knew you too well to think you wouldn't use it." When Ginny's face fell, Luna leaned forward and continued in a whisper, for no particularly good reason that she could ascertain, "When Neville wrote him after that Christmas to tell him that you were with Blaise, he was relieved, Ginny. It made him happy to think that you'd find happiness even if he died."

"Bloody git." Ginny's eyes were glistening.

"Well, it was a braver choice than mine. I never even told you."

A blink flicked a tear from Ginny's eye to Luna's cheek. "Hold on, Luna. You're the bravest person I've ever known. Don't you dare say that. I'd never let anyone else."

Luna's middle warmed again. "Be that as it may, it seems to me that we have an opportunity to give everyone what they want." Luna placed a hand in Ginny's and noticed with some curiosity that it was trembling.

Ginny's dark eyes flitted down to their hands and up to Luna's face. "Luna? Do you...? Are you saying you want to share him with me?"

"How interesting. I think, from my point of view, it works out more to sharing you with him. But I suppose it works out about the same. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about this sort of arrangement."

Ginny glanced away, her face darkening, but her hand stayed in Luna's. "No. Neither am I."

"Ginny?" The redhead stared up, eyes wide again. "Does it make you feel terribly uncomfortable that I told you that I love you?"

"I..." Ginny closed her mouth, then opened it again. "No, Luna. I just... It's a lot to think about. I've never thought of you as anything but a wonderful friend... I've never even kissed another girl."

"I've never kissed anyone but Harry. But I'd like to kiss you. Would you like to kiss me? Just to try?" Luna could feel both of their hands shaking now, could feel Ginny's uneven breath on her chin. She felt cold. Pointing behind her to the headboard, she said. "Look. Mistletoe."

Ginny began to lean forward, and then laughed nervously. "Um. Aren't you afraid of, um, you know..."

"Nargles? Oh, no. It's past the solstice. They're past their mating season. In fact, kissing beneath the mistletoe is essential to their life cycle. It causes them to combust spontaneously, thus quickening the fertilized eggs. Let me show you. Ckklazxchi."

Luna closed the last gap between their faces--it wasn't terribly far, actually--and pressed her lips to Ginny's as she had wanted to do since they were both twelve. Since the last time that she had asked Ginny to let her braid her hair. Luna knew she wasn't terribly worldly when it came to kissing, her only previous partner being a man who himself had had far too little practice before their wedding. But the feeling of Ginny's warm lips against hers, the lightning strike of Ginny's tongue into her mouth--she knew enough to know that these things were very good indeed. Luna felt that liquid feeling, that happiness she knew could not be pursued, only arrived at, and she found her fingers gripping tight around Ginny's new plaits. She only hoped that Ginny, who had kissed far more people, many of them reputedly quite good at kissing and such, would not be too disappointed.

There were several sharp pops; Ginny and Luna both looked up to see red sparks flying from the mistletoe above Luna's head.

"Wow," Ginny said breathlessly.

"Yes, they're quite lovely, aren't they?"

"I wasn't talking about the flaming bloody Nargles, Luna. That was..."

Luna found herself staring at her friend's wet mouth. Perhaps a Wrackspurt had wandered into her ear? Luna didn't usually have trouble thinking. "Um. Yes. Lovely. Oh. I've undone your plaits."

"Bugger the plaits," Ginny said, climbing into Luna's lap and kissing her in a way that made Luna forget all about Nargles or Wrackspurts.

When--some five minutes later--a creaking step reminded Luna that she did have a husband whom both she and her new lover (How did you define a lover if it wasn't a boy, since the dividing line wasn't so clean? Though Ginny and Luna had, in five minutes or so, covered several of the more obvious points quite efficiently) both loved quite dearly. Luna leaned up from where she seemed to have pinned Ginny to the bed and was about to try to start a conversation with Ginny when the door opened.

Harry stood there, his face pulled between sadness and shock.

"How are Ron and Hermione?" Luna found herself asking breathily.

"Terrible," Harry muttered. He didn't move. He was staring at Ginny, whose fingers were clutching at Luna's arms.

"Oh, dear, Harry," Luna said. "I thought to make sure that the two of us didn't mind sharing you with each other, and I let Ginny know that I didn't mind sharing her with you. But I didn't think to ask you if you minded sharing me with Ginny. I'm so sorry. I just assumed, I'm afraid."

Sadness fell away; shock had won the battle for Harry's face.

"Harry," said Ginny, her voice husky and keen, "I was horribly stupid eight years ago. I chose Blaise and I chose wrong, and it was my choice, but I regret it more... I don't want to intrude, and I don't want to mess up what the two of you have. But I do want--"

"I know what you want, Ginny." Sealing the door wandlessly behind him, Harry gave a deep sigh, and Luna's tongue tightened; she hadn't heard that particular sad sigh from the man she loved in a long time, and it suddenly occurred to her to question what had seemed like such a good idea just a few minutes earlier.

"I'm sorry, Harry," both women said.

Harry's mouth stayed downturned, but his eyes brightened, and the dread in Luna's throat lightened. "Sorry? Don't be sorry. I just walked into a bloody fantasy. But I can't..." He frowned and walked slowly towards them. "Ginny, you and Blaise got married the same summer we did, right? And you've been divorced, what? Three months? Four?"

Her hands still tight on Luna's biceps, Ginny answered, "Four. And separated for six months before that."

"Did you love Blaise, Ginny?" Harry's tone was cold, but Luna knew he was trying to be kind.

So did Ginny evidently; she took a slow breath and said, "Yes, Harry. I loved him very much. He was a beautiful, fascinating man." Ginny turned beneath her, and Luna sat back. "Do you know why I divorced him, Harry?"

Harry probably shook his head; Luna kept looking at Ginny, however, fascinated by the flow of red and white across her cheeks.

"He was terrified of me. All of the things that had made him ask me out in the first place--my passion, my loyalty--were things we both discovered he couldn't take. Well, my hair and my face and my body he could take just fine, but not me. He's terrified of his mother, the poor boy, and she never raised her voice. If you got her hacked off, she might not say anything in the moment, but you'd pay for whatever you'd done for years. He never understood that what he saw when I got angry was it; there wasn't any fury in reserve. Once I was calm again, it was over. I wouldn't curse him in his sleep or poison him at supper. I spent the last three years trying to quiet down, trying to be the understated pureblood wife, trying to be someone I'm not, and I couldn't do it. Not for Blaise, not for anybody. Harry," she said, a challenge flaring in her eye, "are you frightened of me? Luna?" Bright eyes flashed from one of them to the other.

Harry shook his head. "No," Luna said. "I'm fond of you just the way you are. Even when you're angry."

The mottled pink-and-white of Ginny's skin flushed evenly. She reached up and ran her fingers through Luna's hair. "Thank you. Harry, I did love Blaise. I tried, and so did he. But we just couldn't make it work, and I think we both realized, by the end, that it was never going to work. And for the past year or more, since before we split up, it's been very hard for me not to think of you. Of you and Luna, and what you have. It's been very hard to think that I could have probably had that, if I hadn't been sixteen and proud and impatient and so pleased to be pursued by this gorgeous man. If I hadn't be so angry with you, Harry, for leaving me behind."

He sat upon the edge of the bed and nodded. Very quietly, Harry told Ginny what Luna had heard him say only once, very late at night, when his sobs had awakened her. "I regretted that... It nearly killed me when the three of you were attacked at Hogwarts and Neville died. I'd been telling myself you were better off without me, better at Hogwarts, better with Blaise--and then you were nearly killed anyway, and I felt like such a git... You are so amazing, Ginny. I did love you and do love you and Blaise Zabini is a bigger fool than I'll ever be to let you go without a fight." Taking Luna's hand, he turned towards her. "But Ginny, just as you made your choice, I made mine. I've been fortunate, however, more fortunate than I could have imagined or ever deserved. I love Luna deeply, and what we have does work, even if both of us do nurture an old flame for a beautiful redheaded friend. I won't risk that for anything."

"Harry--" Ginny said, but he pressed a finger gently to her lips.

"Ginny, I know a part of me--of you and me, I suppose--will always wonder if we could have made something together. I know that a part of Luna will always be curious to know if she could have found something with you. But if I weren't here--if I'd died or something--would you even consider Luna as a lover? Because she deserves to be given the same depth of love that she gives. I do my best, god knows. Do you think you could do that?"

Her eyes dark, Ginny looked from Harry to Luna. To where her fingers were still knotted in Luna's hair. "I don't know, Harry. I don't think it had ever occurred to me until a half an hour ago." Ginny's fingers gave Luna's lips a petal-light brush that made Luna shiver. "But I would like to try."

"Harry," Luna said, before her husband could find other reasons to say no, "when you walked in that door and saw us, what did you think?"

"I..." He gave her a small smile that told her everything. "But Luna, fantasy it may have been, but is fantasy any kind of basis for reality?"

"In my experience, most things worth having have a foot firmly planted in each." He closed his mouth again in a way that made her smile. "Harry, do you remember our wedding vows?"

He scrunched his brow. "Um, generally, yeah. 'To have and to hold from this day forth' and all of that."

"And you have loved me for better and--very rarely--for worse ever since." She kissed him, her tongue searching and finding his as Ginny's had found hers so recently, and she felt both Harry and Ginny catch their breaths; it was quite exciting. "Harry, we have each other. We hold each other. And if we choose together to have and to hold someone else that we both love, does that weaken what we have, or does that strengthen it?"

He rested his forehead against her temple. "It frightens me, Luna. I'm afraid I'd lose you both."

She nodded. "You were frightened of losing Ginny once before. Did listening to that fear help you? She didn't wait for you, but more to the point, Harry, did it keep her safe?" She felt the weight of his head roll against hers as he shook it. She kissed him again and felt the resistance melting away. She leaned back, smiled at him, and then bent down to kiss an astonished Ginny, who squeaked as Harry gasped. Most exciting. Truly. Once the taste of the two mouths had mixed thoroughly on her palate, she sat back. "Do you both trust me to say if this isn't working?"

They both nodded mutely, eyes locked on Luna.

With her hands, she forced them to look to each other. "And do you trust one another?"

After a moment, Harry nodded. Ginny broke into a bright, nervous smile. "Oh, yes," she said.

"Well, then," said Luna, and watched in wonder as the two people she loved most in the world leaned in to each other and exchanged their first kiss since before the late headmaster's death.

It occurred to Luna as she felt her husband pull her into the embrace with them that there really were some rather complicated issues to resolve: Who would sleep in the middle? Would Harry continue to do the cooking, or would he and Ginny take it in turns, and if they did, who would clean the dishes? Could a single human heart take the joy that two sets of arms, two mouths, two lovely souls were currently sparking in her?

A series of pops announced that several more Nargles had gone to their just reward, ensuring the continuation of the species. When Harry and Ginny glanced up toward the mistletoe, Luna looked over to the three pictures on the nightstand. All three couples were in the central frame: three heads of red hair, two blonds, and one of tousled black. They all seemed to be applauding.

Luna smiled and waved at them. Happy holidays, she mouthed, and leaned back to bury herself in Harry and Ginny's arms.