Summer Ghosts

The next day, you and Luna walk down to the village to go shopping. There's still plenty of food in the Burrow, but you feel as though you need to be reminded that there is life somewhere out there, even if it's old Mrs. Warner, the Muggle woman who runs the corner shop.

Luna stares at the array of Muggle sweets as though dazzled, even though you're sure she must have seen such things before, given her knowledge of Muggle money. You hover by the newspapers, scanning headlines, and then drop to your knees to pick one up and flick through it. Mrs Warner frowns at you, and her eyes flit to the sign above your head, the one that reads 'Please do not read the magazines and newspapers in the shop', and Luna notices and places three coins and a tube full of colourful round sweets on the counter, and says, "And the newspaper too."

On the way back, you attempt to search through it further, and the only thing that possibly means anything to you is a story about odd weather in the Arctic, and something that sounds very much to you like a Muggle Protection Charm. Luna pushes a purple coloured sweet into your mouth, comfortingly.

"Purple's the best kind," she says.

When you get home, you dig out all the gloves from the cupboard, all nine pairs, and wrap them up in brown paper. You gaze doubtfully at Errol, but Luna appears and offers to lend you her owl, Periwinkle, a grey wide-eyed bird that holds out her foot obediently.

She returns three days later, cooing softly at you, empty-footed. You don't know if this is a good sign or not.

---

The first week of August is fruit picking week. Your mother would produce big wicker baskets and you and all your brothers would walk up into the orchards. Bill would always end up carrying your basket, because you liked to be able to skip about in the long grass, eating more fruit than you'd save. Charlie would fly up to the tops of the trees for the best apples, whilst Fred and George would soon tire of just picking and eating and end up throwing apples and each other and everyone else. Ron would eat the most, telltale red stains around his mouth, and Percy would "tut" disapprovingly, but you still saw him slip the odd strawberry into his mouth.

Today, you dig around in the cupboard under the stairs and produce two wicker baskets, and dust them off with a quick charm. Luna wanders over with interest.

"Fruit picking?" she asks.

"Yes."

Up in the orchard grow strawberries and apples, plums and pears, blackberries and raspberries. Luna likes the blackberries; not only are there stains around her mouth, but all over her fingers too, and down the front of George's t-shirt that you've lent her.

You like the apples, which leave no mess at all.

---

In the evening, you stand on a stool and reach for the cookery books on the high up shelves in the kitchen. Summer isn't summer without fruit tarts and salads and pastries. Luna helps, still excited by the summer games.

Most summers it was just you and your mother who would do this. Ron would start off interested but soon tire, while the rest of your brothers barely ventured near the kitchen at all until it was all over and the finished products were there for the eating.

Luna's mouth is still smudged with purple-red. Luna kissed you with that mouth, three days ago, in a moment when you were in between thoughts and actions, in a summer when you are in between worlds. Loony Luna Lovegood has become a friend, this summer, certainly, but she has also become something else. She seems more real than ever, less dream-like.

When you lean over the fruit bowl to pick up the wooden spoon and knock noses with Luna who is reaching forward for more berries, it seems to be a moment waiting to happen. Luna doesn't look surprised, at least, no more than usual. You kiss Luna, in case she doesn't take the chance to kiss you, sticky lips moving together clumsily. Loony Luna Lovegood, of all people.

---

Sharing a bed with Luna has been many things: surprising, uncomfortable, cramped, comforting - and now it is something entirely different. The two of you have been sleeping in Ron's room since yesterday, because you feel that all the rooms should have their fair share of haunting - it might make the house feel more alive.

You slip into bed first, while Luna is in the bathroom. You are wearing nothing but a t-shirt (Charlie's) over your cotton knickers. Luna always wears long heavy night-gowns, lavishly decorated with flowers, and somehow they always tangle up in her legs. You'd think she'd be too hot at night, but she always feels pleasantly cool against you in the stuffy night air.

Luna turns off the light as she stands in the bedroom doorway. Before she does so, you see that she still hasn't stopped smiling. Familiar floorboards squeak, the sound of breathing gets louder, and you feel her climb clumsily into bed beside you. She kisses you straight away, as you're reaching out to pull her in. She doesn't taste of sticky fruit anymore, but of something else, strange, that you don't recognise but you assume must be her odd green toothpaste.

You slide over one another like ghosts, gentle and searching as lips meet again and again and fingers grasp at each other firmly. You have thought Loony Luna Lovegood to be many things: odd, well meaning, misunderstood, unpredictable, but words don't quite cover her anymore.