I Never Saw Blue Like That

Hermione was with Ron, and Ginny was with Dean, and Harry was walking past the lake toward Hogsmead by himself, with the weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders. And he didn't like it.

It was every bit as much a burden as Albus Dumbledore had warned him it would be.

Harry looked out over the hills, and choked out, "I can't take it anymore. I don't want to be alone."

He was then suddenly aware of a familiar step behind him, of a familiar hand sliding into his.

"You don't have to be," said Luna Lovegood calmly.

Today we took a walk up the street

And picked a flower and climbed the hill above the lake

And secret thoughts were said aloud

We watched the faces in the clouds

Until the clouds had blown away

And were we ever somewhere else

You, know it's hard to say

She listened when he talked and talked when he needed to listen. He had never told anyone what happened in Dumbledore's office before, and it was like drawing poison from a wound. This sunny morning was in many ways very much like the dark night he had told Sirius and Dumbledore about Cedric, and Voldemort. And Harry instinctively knew that once again, he would feel better for the telling.

And he was telling Luna, had known about thestrals, who had heard the voices beyond the veil, who had seen her mother die. He knew that nothing he could say would shock her, or change the way she thought about anything. Especially him. Because Luna didn't care about anything but the truth as she saw it. And for some reason she had accepted Harry as her truth.

Harry didn't even know where he was walking anymore. He didn't question why he was saying some of the things he was saying. He just knew there was nothing he couldn't tell her, nothing that had ever happened; nothing that ever would happen. No matter what he said, it wouldn't change things with Luna at all. She was the one fixed point in his universe. Why hadn't he seen it before?

But she was changing him. With Luna, he wasn't the boy who lived, or the means to an end. He was just Harry. Which was all he had ever wanted to be, but he hadn't really known until that moment who he really was. He had been a burden to his aunt and uncle, an annoyance to his cousin, an object of awe and curiosity to his fellow students, and the secret weapon against Voldemort for everyone in the Order. Now he was just himself, and for the first time in his life he was comfortable with that. He was comfortable in his own skin, and in his own mind.

And lying finally on a cloak, looking up at the sky, he was comfortable with Luna curled up at his side. And it was but the work of a moment to brush his lips against her fine hair. She looked up at him, and he saw cornflower blue eyes, almost as blue as the sky above but not quite. Harry had never seen such a sky.

And I never saw blue like that before

Across the sky

Around the world

You're giving me all you have and more

And no one else has ever shown me how

To see the world the way I see it now

Oh I never saw blue like that before

If anyone had ever told him he'd wind up doing what he was starting to do, Harry would have thought them mad. But now that this moment was here, Harry realized he had never wanted anything so much. The intensity of these feelings frightened him enough, however, that he had to pause.

"Are you all right?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Luna smiled serenely.

"I don't really know what I'm doing," Harry confessed.

"Well, you're doing fine."

"Really?"

"Really, really. It's all right, Harry. It's all right."

And suddenly everything WAS all right, everything in the world. The past had passed, and Harry knew it would never return. The future was so far away that it seemed like an incomprehensible nuisance at a time like this. Nothing mattered but the present.

Harry knew that nothing else would ever matter as much again. He was alive now. No ghost from the past or specter of the future could change that unless he allowed it, and he was never going to let it again.

I can't believe a month ago I was alone, I didn't know you

I hadn't seen or heard your name

And even now, I'm so amazed

It's like a dream, It's like a rainbow, It's like the rain

And some things are the way they are and words just can't explain

And it feels like now

And it feels always

And it feels like coming home.

"Harry/"

"What?"

"Can you do that again?'

"Oh, yeah. I'm sure I can."

"I love you, Harry Potter."

"I love you, too."

I never saw blue like that before

Across the sky

Around the world

You've given me all you have and more

And no one else has ever shown me how

To see the world the way I see it now

Oh, I never saw blue like that before

Oh, I never saw blue like that

The End.