Worth The Wait

Harry looked up from his breakfast plate cautiously.

She was coming.

She was on her way over to the Ravenclaw table, looking, as she always did, like a fallen angel. Her hair fell in waves down upon her face like a waterfall of shimmering beauty. Her eyes shone with happiness, as they always did. She paused next to him, shaking him out of his trance.

"Hello, Harry," she said with a small smile.

"Hello," Harry said, trying to smile. He did not dare to allow her name to escape his lips - he was not quite sure what he would do.

She smiled again and walked on. Harry bit his lip.

Never before had he felt this way. Never before had thoughts of a girl kept him up at night. Never before had a girl like her haunted his dreams. Never had he felt so tongue-tied that he could not speak to a girl. Never had he wanted to hold a girl so close to him.

Everyone made fun of her - called her names. No one bothered to get to know her. He did. It had started out as pity for her, at the end of last year - yes, that was when it was started. The pity he had felt for her as she asked people to help her, to no avail.

Over the summer, it had grown worse. He started thinking about her, wondering where she was and how she was doing and whether or not he should owl her. He had decided against it. Gradually he thought about her more and more, and when he had returned to Hogwarts - he had crashed.

He had completely crashed.

He had fallen for her. Hard. He was swimming in love for her, he wanted to hold her and tell her it was okay, that those people who hated her didn't matter anyway, that he loved her and that was all that mattered.

But he didn't. He held himself back - he restrained himself from telling her, because - as a small part of his mind told him - that maybe she wouldn't, or couldn't feel that, maybe she was the freak people made her out to be.

He knew she wasn't.

But he thought that anyway.

Harry knew what people would think if they knew he liked her. Malfoy, for one, would laugh his head off, along with his other Slytherin goons. Ron would probably think it was some kind of joke. Hermione might understand, but... well, no one would really understand. No one would ever understand what he felt when she was around him because there was no power on earth that was possibly that strong. No power on earth could make him want her this badly.

No power in the universe could destroy him like this.

It was unearthly, this thing that broke him apart. This love that ate him from the inside. Maybe - just maybe - it was a dream. Maybe he would wake up. Maybe it would all be just a horrible nightmare.

But in his heart he knew it wasn't a dream. It was real - as real as it could possibly be. It was so real that, perhaps, it was worth the risk of complete humiliation and being an outcast for the rest of eternity. If she understood - if she felt the same way - yes, it would definitely be worth it.

But until that moment, that crucial moment when Harry would be brave enough to tell her that she was the single source of happiness in his life, until that moment, Luna Lovegood would look on Harry as only a friend.

It was most definitely worth the wait.

A/N: Possibly the world's first Harry/Luna fic... THEY WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!