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Not A Tame Lion
It would almost – only almost, mind – have been easier to use magic. But Luna Lovegood had a strong aversion to illusions, and taking on a lion’s physical shape (even if she could obtain and use the proper spell or potion) would certainly interfere with her ability to communicate. And I have trouble enough with that as it is.
So she spent a solid week collecting materials, cutting and stitching and gluing and sewing them together, and otherwise wrestling the costume into something resembling wearable shape. And then she watched, and waited, and found the right moment to climb up the considerable number of stairs to the Upperclass Girls’ Lounge in Gryffindor Tower. On the one hand, this was no small effort considering the sheer weight and unwieldy size of the headpiece she’d built. On the other, she reflected, there was enough insulation between its inside and the outside that no one else who might be on the stairs could possibly hear her panting for breath as she trudged steadily upward.
She paused at the entrance to the Lounge just long enough to take note of the room’s current occupants. She couldn’t immediately identify the two girls curled together in one overstuffed chair, though it was easy enough to tell what they were doing in it. The two girls on the opposite sofa were another matter; even with their heads behind magazines that they clearly weren’t actually reading, it was easy to pick out Hermione Granger’s posture and Ginny Weasley’s slender frame. Satisfied with what she had seen, Luna crossed the chamber, settled herself in front of Godric Gryffindor’s bust…
…and waited. I am the lion.
The silence lasted about as long as Luna had expected, then was broken by a burst of giggles from one of the snogging couple – Parvati Patil, by the sound. Luna didn’t allow the laughter or the ensuing conversation to distract her.
I am the lion.
Even when Hermione spoke up in her defense, Luna kept to her vigil.
I am the lion.
But then came the padding of footsteps, and the settling of their owner next to her, and abruptly Hermione’s voice – quiet, patient, and familiar in a way that had nothing to do with sound – uttered a single word.
“Luna?”
I am the lion...
The lion that was Luna turned its head – slow, deliberate, thoughtful – and regarded the girl crouching beside her.
“MrrroOWW??”
Hermione tumbled over in an awkward not-quite-reverse-somersault that left her sprawled on the floor on her back. Luna blinked. I am a noisy lion. That won’t do.
“She is all right!” Luna said at once in her own voice, without otherwise moving. Then she edged to Hermione’s side and whispered, “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Hermione said, her gaze flicking first toward her fellow Gryffindors and then back to Luna. Then she began levering herself upright, Luna offered her a hand up, and the two found themselves sitting on the floor facing one another, Hermione’s legs crossed and Luna’s tucked under her. “We were wondering, though – what brings you over here?”
I should think that was obvious. Aloud, she said – her own gaze directed firmly at Godric Gryffindor’s plaster countenance – “I am being the lion.”
“Oh.”
The expression on Hermione’s face was utterly lost. She doesn’t understand. But then the other girl’s eyes met Luna’s, and something behind them came abruptly alive.
“Do you think I could be the lion with you?”
Or maybe.... Luna leaned forward, set one hand on Hermione’s shoulder, and said softly into her ear, “You already are.”
There was a round of giggles from the overstuffed chair, which stopped abruptly at Ginny Weasley’s sharp “Hush!”
Meanwhile, Hermione was talking. “I think you have me confused with Harry.”
Luna turned her gaze fully on Hermione, rose up on her knees, and put her left hand on Hermione’s other shoulder. I am the lion, and what the lion sees must be true. “You are already the lion,” she said again, “and a lion does as it chooses.” She glanced at Godric’s bust, then back at Hermione. “If you wish to stay, we can be lions together. And I would like that.” More than you can imagine.
Hermione blinked, stuttered – Hermione never stutters! How very– and nodded. “So would I.” She watched carefully as Luna arranged herself back into lion-posture, then carefully assumed the same position just to Luna’s left.
I am the lion. Hermione is the lion. We are the lion.
And for the next twenty-one minutes and eleven seconds, that was all that mattered.
#
A Lion Among Women
Luna might have come to Professor Slughorn’s party with Harry Potter, but they both knew that the word “date” applied to their attendance in only the slenderest of ways. Thus Luna understood completely when Harry went off on his own very soon after their arrival, and felt no compunctions about turning her own attentions to other matters – such as inquiring of their host as to his belief in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
Once that question had been answered in the negative, she went looking for refreshments. What she found instead was a classmate she didn’t immediately recognize, having never before seen Hermione Granger in Muggle evening wear. Unlike loose-fitting wizarding robes, the dress clung to Hermione almost like a second skin, and would have been nearly impossible to walk in – especially in the improbably high-heeled shoes the Gryffindor girl was wearing – if not for slits on each side that reached to Hermione’s knees. The V-shaped bodice displayed modest but unmistakable cleavage, and the sleeveless design left Hermione’s arms and shoulders exposed, not to mention a fair bit of upper back.
Oh, my.
That was Luna’s inward reaction. Only years of experience in learning not to entirely embarrass herself allowed her to tamp it down without so much as a blush. Aloud, she said, ”Professor Slughorn doesn’t believe in snorkacks –though mostly because that’s what the Prophet says about them. Since he’s new this year, I had to ask. Hello, Hermione. That’s a very pretty dress.”
Hermione’s smile looked a little forced. “Thank you. Yours is –” she paused, studying it thoughtfully, “amazing. You look like a fairy princess.”
Ohhh, my.
For an instant, Luna actually felt like one, and if the party had been less crowded, she might not have held back a smile of delight. Instead, she simply said, “You’re very perceptive. One of my Aunt Genevieve’s classmates at Hogwarts was a fairy princess; she gave me this dress for my birthday. I added some of the trimmings myself,” she went on, smoothing some of the fairy-wing feathers along her waistline. That motion accomplished, her hand quested outward, seemingly of its own volition, and she found herself extending a single fingertip to rest against the fabric of Hermione’s dress, the warmth of its wearer’s back all too discernible beneath it.
“Soft,” she said, less surprised at the silk’s texture than at her own daring, and quickly drew her hand back.
Hermione was silent for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she took a breath, and said, “If you wanted to – learn more about Muggle fashion, there are some magazines Mother sent me in my study carrel. You’re more than welcome to them.”
For a moment, Luna’s thoughts were too complicated to unravel, as visions of improbably dressed Hermiones danced across her mind while the practical part of her brain considered the possible applications of Muggle page-design techniques to the Quibbler. “I’d be—” she began, but before she could finish the sentence Hermione had hold of her arm and was tugging her around a corner.
“Snorkacks?” Luna asked breathlessly. Unless – no, it couldn’t possibly be, could it? “Did you see—?”
She hadn’t. “Just my date,” said Hermione, as Luna scanned their surroundings and spotted Cormac McLaggen nearby. “Really, it’s ridiculous,” she added, “all the effort we put into trying to impress boys and then hiding from them. It’s just – I mean, I’m glad you could come with Harry.”
I wish I could hear what you’re not saying. “So am I,” Luna told her. “He’s a good friend. Harry takes me seriously.”
“He’s good at that,” said Hermione.
And then, entirely without warning, the something that had come over her in the Girls’ Lounge weeks earlier woke up behind Hermione’s eyes, and Luna found herself on the receiving end of a brief, disconcertingly intense hug. “I take you seriously, too,” Hermione said. Except for the part about snorkacks.
That’s all right, nobody else does ei—wait, you didn’t say that out loud!
Luna blinked, but evidently the moment had passed, and Hermione’s thoughts were safely back in the privacy of her own head. Memories were another matter.
“Yes, you do,” Luna told Hermione. “You were the lion with me.”
“So I was. That was – a nice day. But if I were the lion for real, would I be worrying over a dress and hiding from a boy?”
You are the lion – but you don’t yet believe that you are. “I think you are very brave.”
“You’re the brave one, Luna.” Hermione reached out again, drawing Luna closer. “You don’t care what anyone thinks.”
Those are a lion’s words – but they are not entirely true. Luna reached for her own lion, and spoke three words of her own. “I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
Yes. That much, Luna was sure of. But how well?
Without disturbing the arm Hermione had draped over her shoulder, Luna tilted her head upward and very lightly brushed her lips across the taller girl’s chin. Then she stepped deliberately back.
Hermione laughed lightly – a cheery, unexpectedly girlish giggle – and rubbed for a moment at the spot Luna had half-kissed. Then her gaze shifted, noting something or someone outside Luna’s field of view.
“There’s Harry,” she said. “I need to ask him something about Slughorn, all right? I’ll be back.”
Luna had just time to hear Harry Potter’s voice, raised in a tone that was half amused, half accusatory, before the flow of partygoers in the office separated them.
“Did my date just snog you?”
Why, yes. I do believe I did.
It was enough to keep her in an unreasonably good mood for the entire evening, even though she and Hermione never did rejoin one another that night.
#
Lions & Amazons
There were times, Luna reflected as she dressed, when it was useful to be a publisher’s daughter. In particular, Xenophilus Lovegood had made sure that part of Luna’s upbringing was to educate her in the ways of the Muggle world. “We all live on the same planet,” he had told her often enough, “and at the end of the day, there are a lot more of them than there are of us. Also,” he had added, “Muggles believe in all sorts of things that are even stranger and less likely than wizardry. For instance, there’s this bloke called Sherlock Holmes….”
Luna had therefore been prepared for the more curious aspects of Vogue and Seventeen and marie-claire, and was faintly surprised that Hermione’s mother hadn’t sent along any issues of Cosmopolitan. (She had found several issues of that magazine among her mother’s things, and regarded it as far more practical-minded on certain subjects.)
She had also been surprised when she ran across Hermione’s small collection of comic books. The very last thing one might expect of Hermione Granger was that she might read something purely for recreation. But when Luna looked a little more closely at Wonder Woman and Huntress and New Titans, she thought she understood a little better. They are all lions in their own way – Princess Diana and Helena and the others – and so they speak to her.
Diana in particular, whose character sprung from tales with roots in both Muggle and wizardly folklore, resonated with Luna. She was also the one whose comic Hermione seemed to have followed most closely.
Diana is the lion. Hermione sees that, I think – yet she does not see the lion in herself. Perhaps I can make it clearer to her.
It had taken a good deal of research – both in the Hogwarts library and on the Muggle Internet – and some help from George Weasley with the magic she had needed to replicate certain parts of the outfit. But as Luna studied herself in the restroom mirror, she decided that it had been worth the effort. Diana is the lion. I am the lion. Hermione is the lion – if only she will accept it.
She took a deep breath, straightened her tiara, and made her way as quickly as she could to the Great Hall for breakfast.
#
She was only a third of the way across the Hall to where Hermione sat when the room went completely silent. Then the whispering started, followed by the stage whispering.
“You knew this would happen when they put in plain-dress Fridays.”
As attempts at scathing remarks went, this rated scarcely more than a two out of ten in Luna’s long experience of such, so she simply ignored it and proceeded to collect a plate and settle into the conveniently vacant seat next to Hermione.
“Hello.” Luna attempted – successfully, she thought – to speak as calmly as she usually did.
Hermione turned her head slowly, her gaze clearly taking in the bustier, the short skirt, and the various accessories. “Hi, Luna.”
“Do you like my costume? I saw it in one of your magazines.”
Hermione’s gaze flicked from Luna to Ron to Harry – lingering for a moment on Harry –and back to Luna. “You look...nice.”
Harry was smiling. “What was the name of the magazine?”
Luna smiled back. “Wonder Woman. I am Diana of the Amazons. And these,” she added, raising one leg high enough so that she could plant the foot squarely on the nearest empty chair, “are my boots!”
The boots had been the most difficult part of the costume. She had started with a much more ordinary pair of boots, then ‘borrowed’ the leather binding from several decades-old bound volumes of old Quibblers and spelled it to the necessary bright red, adding gold trim and painstakingly assembling all the components to create Princess Diana’s striking thigh-high footwear.
“Those are amazing.” That was Ginny Weasley, and Luna smiled inwardly. She of all people probably knows how much work went into them.
Parvati Patil sounded less impressed. “If you’re from the Amazon, why is there an American flag on your knickers?”
It was clear from her tone that she didn’t expect a serious answer, so Luna saw no reason to give her one. “What’s an American flag?”
“STOP IT!!!”
Hermione’s voice steamrolled over everyone else’s, and she banged her fist on the table as if to make sure she’d been heard. “Just – just – stop it!!” Her gaze made a rapid circuit of the entire hall, but by the time she had finished the sentence, she was on her feet, staring straight down at Luna.
“Stop this, Luna Lovegood! Stop this stupid game where you act like you’re just off the last slow boat from Mars so you can say anything and get away with it. Wonder Woman is a comic book, not a fashion magazine – yes, Harry, I read dumb stupid comic books, and you can laugh at me about it some other time, but right now? Luna, use some common sense! Look around you. Pay attention to what other people expect. Just – for God’s sake, make an effort!”
The Hall had gone totally silent again as Hermione’s tirade ramped up to full strength, but when she stopped – or at least paused for breath – there was a light round of applause from the Slytherin boys’ table. Hermione turned toward them, made what was clearly a sarcastic curtsy, and then swung back around to Luna.
Oh, dear.
For all that a part of Luna wanted very badly to burst into tears, her mind was working too furiously to let it.
My plan worked too well. I have awakened Hermione’s lion – and it is roaring at me. She is the lion. And I? In her eyes, I am the mouse. She won’t listen now. Perhaps she never will.
“I’m sorry, Hermione,” she said aloud, hearing the mouse take over her voice. “I thought – no, never mind. I’ll think about what you’ve said – but whatever you do? Don’t go away. Stay and finish your breakfast. Please.”
Hermione stared at Luna for a long moment, her expression unreadable. And then the aura of lion around her seemed to fade. “I – I will,” she said, stammering again. “I – I shouldn’t have yelled like that. I’m – sorry.”
How very odd. Surely Hermione isn’t the mouse, too....
Before Luna could follow that thought anywhere, Ginny banged her glass on the table. “That’s IT??” she demanded. “You’re sorry you yelled?”
Her brother Ron eyed her curiously. “Don’t make it worse,” he muttered. In response, Ginny snorted, jumped up, and stalked off.
Curiouser and curiouser. Perhaps Ginny is the lion among us after all.
Luna sat and ate quietly for several minutes, as did Hermione, although Ron and Harry eventually got into a spirited discussion about someone called Spider-Man – evidently another comic book character. Not long after that, Professor McGonagall strolled past, pausing as she reached the Gryffindors’ table.
Hermione sighed dramatically. “Points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw?”
The professor regarded the little group mildly. “Five from Gryffindor – and two pages from you, Miss Patil, on the difference between Amazons and the Amazon. Miss Lovegood clearly used the plural, not the singular, referring to the legendary warrior women rather than the South American river. As to the other matter – that’s clearly a personal issue which I trust you will work out between yourselves. Although I shall be having a long talk with the other Heads of House about clarifications to the casual dress policy.”
Then she turned her attention to Luna. “In the meantime, Miss Lovegood, you are not in violation of any school rules. In fact,” she said suddenly, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, “if I may ask, is the lasso a prop only, or has it been enchanted to match its fictional counterpart in function?”
Luna blinked. That was possibly the very last question she’d expected anyone to ask, let alone Professor McGonagall. “I couldn’t get all the ingredients for Veritaserum, but I did weave a Legilimens charm into it.”
“May I?” asked the professor, holding out a hand. Luna unclipped her Lasso of Truth and gave it to her. McGonagall ran the golden cord through her hands for several moments, studying it, then handed it back.
“Fifteen points to Ravenclaw,” she said. “That’s excellent independent spellwork. And just between us, speaking purely for myself – that is also quite an impressive Wonder Woman costume. Wouldn’t you say so, Miss Granger?”
Now Hermione looked flustered, and under McGonagall’s eyes, gave Luna and her outfit a deliberate visual once-over. “It looks nice,” she said, then shook her head abruptly, her gaze resting on the costume’s chest-piece. “No. It’s – beautiful.”
Thank you, Professor, Luna said silently. But I fear the beauty is mostly Diana’s.
#
Between the Lions
Luna had gone from breakfast straight back to Ravenclaw Tower, retreating all the way past the common room and the Girls’ Lounge to sprawl on her bed, in the very back corner of the upper-class girls’ sleeping area. The morning was far enough advanced that she had the room more or less to herself, and there was enough time before her first class of the day to have a really good cry if she wanted one.
Somewhat to her own surprise, she found that she didn’t. Somewhere between the Great Hall and the top of the Ravenclaw entry stairs, the feeling that the world was collapsing around her had been tempered by the conviction that even if it was, most of the damage was on Hermione’s account, and Hermione was probably just as miserable right now as she was, if for different reasons. I shall be very sad if Hermione never speaks to me again. That is a high price for being twenty points up on Gryffindor…but I am not sorry at all to have earned them.
She had just sat up and begun the challenging task of pulling off Wonder Woman’s thigh-high boots when Ginny Weasley strode briskly into the room and straight back to Luna’s corner. “That looks difficult. Need some help?”
Luna swallowed, more in surprise than anything else. “Please. Putting them on was easier.” With Ginny’s aid, removing the boots was quickly accomplished, but before Luna could start changing out of the rest of the outfit, Ginny held up a hand.
“Hold a moment; I want a proper look.” She reached for the tiara, which Luna had cast off before flopping down onto the coverlet, and settled it back on the blonde girl’s head. “McGonagall was right, that’s amazing work.”
“Maybe,” Luna said. “Hermione didn’t like it.”
Ginny made a snorting noise. “Hermione was an ass. And other things,” she added quickly, “but just then, mostly she was an ass.”
“And a lion. A loud and angry lion, who – well, all right, she probably doesn’t hate me. Quite,” said Luna, catching herself before the cliché could slip out.
“Oh, no,” Ginny said at once. “Just the opposite, I should think.”
Luna stared at her. “But she said –”
“A lot of things she shouldn’t have. But it’s not what she said that matters, it’s how she feels about it. And her problem is, she doesn’t know. Not up here,” Ginny said, tapping her head.
“I don’t think I understand,” Luna said, slowly. She can’t mean what I think she does. Can she?
“Look,” said Ginny. “If Hermione went off like that at Draco or, oh, Crabbe, it would be because they deserved it, and it would be blindingly obvious that they did. If she did it at Harry – he wouldn’t deserve it, but because he’s her best friend, she’d apologize right off and they’d make up. Now she likes you – she’s said so out loud. So she ought to have apologized to you right off, too, but she didn’t.”
Luna’s nose wrinkled. “And that means, what?”
“That she doesn’t realize just how well she likes you. Hermione steamrolls over problems with logic,” Ginny said, tapping her head again, “and most of the time it works. You solve them with instinct and intuition – and for you, most of the time, that works. But now you’re trying to sort things out with one another....”
“And it’s all going horribly wrong.”
“Not entirely,” Ginny said. “Think back to Professor Slughorn’s party. You kissed her there, didn’t you?”
“Only just. It wasn’t what you’d call a proper snog,” said Luna.
“No, but after it happened you spent the rest of the party looking absurdly pleased with yourself. And Hermione? Whenever she wasn’t preoccupied with something in particular, she’d go all quiet and get this sort of distracted smile on her face that said I’m happy but I don’t know why.”
Luna stared at Ginny. “She did?”
“She did. Blaise and Dean both tried to call her on it, but she told them both they didn’t know what they were talking about.”
“But if that’s true—”
Ginny gave her a look that was half sympathetic, half severe. “Look, Professor McGonagall was right. This is a personal thing between you and Hermione – just between the two of you. And even if she was an ass about it, that’s why Hermione went off on you the way she did. You need to talk, really talk – just not in the Great Hall at mealtime in front of everybody and their uncles.”
That makes sense. Only how do I get her to listen?
Aloud, Luna said, “Yes, well, and the chances of that now...”
“I had an idea about that,” Ginny told her, a spark of amusement in her eye. “You just need the proper outfit, and it’ll be a lot easier to whip up than that one.”
#
Luna strode into the Gryffindor common room that evening as briskly as she could with the backpack full of books she was carrying, hoping that her nervousness didn’t show. I hope this works. I really hope this works.
Almost at once, though, she spotted Hermione – flanked, predictably, by Harry and Ron. Hermione at once lifted her hand and waved, while the boys gave her appraising looks and then glanced at one another.
I am…Hermione.
Luna arrived in front of the trio, took a breath, and spoke.
“Hello, Harry. Hello, Ron. I hope you boys will not be getting into any mischief this evening. I would be keeping you out of mischief, but I intend to memorize nine hundred pages of Potions homework this evening.”
The next three seconds seemed to take hours to pass.
Then Ron gave a short bark of laughter, though all Hermione managed was a sort of gasp.
“That’s brilliant, Lovegood!” Ron said. “Can you do my sister?” Harry thwacked him on the shoulder, but Ron just looked at him. “What? It is brilliant.”
Luna tucked a few strands of hair into the hood of the pink sweatshirt Ginny had loaned her. “I must go,” she told Harry and Ron. “My Evening Relaxation Period has almost expired. If you require conversation, I will be studying in the library. Alone.”
As she finished speaking, she allowed her eyes to meet the real Hermione’s for the briefest of moments. We are two lions, circling one another. And then, again emulating Hermione’s impossibly brisk pace, she turned neatly on one heel and strode out of the common room.
#
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Luna made another rapid detour back to Ravenclaw before settling herself in the library, to change into plain robes and collect a few things – though she did not take even twenty pages of Potions homework with her.
It took less than half an hour for Hermione to arrive. Luna didn’t acknowledge her at once, focusing instead on the nonverbal spell she was attempting to use on the wand balanced on her hand. They sat facing one another for perhaps five minutes before Luna decided she was finished.
“You came,” she said, sending the wand casually back into her pocket.
“You seemed to want my attention,” Hermione said wryly, stopping herself from pushing a stray twist of hair out of her eyes. “So?”
Where do I start? “I thought it might help,” she said, “to see what being you was like.” I don’t think that was quite what Ginny had in mind, though.
Unexpectedly, Hermione smiled. “And?”
“All those books are heavy. And you walk too fast.”
Hermione laughed a little. “The quicker I get somewhere, the sooner I can put down the books.”
True. Luna had, she realized, kept walking at Hermione-speed all the way back to Ravenclaw, long after she’d left her audience behind. In which case, I suppose I achieved one of my goals. Let’s try for another.
“Also – it isn’t a game, really it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just – there are so many things in my head, and they want to get out. Trying to keep them in is like trying not to sneeze.”
That earned another chuckle from Hermione. “I suppose it would be.”
“So the attention mostly just happens,” Luna said. “My dad says there’s no use worrying about it. You can’t make people change their minds about you, he says. Just tell the truth and be yourself; that’s what matters.”
“Your dad sounds...” Hermione paused, evidently looking for the words she wanted. “Very wise,” she said at last.
Wise? Luna smiled slightly; it wasn’t a word people usually associated with her father. And yet he really is, in the ways that matter. She turned a thoughtful gaze on Hermione.
Hermione took a quick breath. “I’m sorry about this morning,” she said, speaking quickly. “I was an ass.”
You were an angry lion. “Don’t worry about it,” Luna told her. “People react like that all the time, without meaning anything. One just learns not to listen.” Which works well enough, most of the time.
“But I’m not people!” Hermione said, a note of urgency in her voice. “I’m your friend! I – I want you to be angry at me! I deserve to have you angry at me!
Luna turned that thought over in her head, studying it. If I were really angry with her, this would be where we’d make up, the same as she’d make up with Harry. Except – I’m not, really. Sad, and upset, and frustrated, but not angry. And that’s why we’re stuck. If I can only explain….
Aloud, she said, “If it comes to that, you should be angry with me, too. You said I could borrow your fashion magazines – and I borrowed some of your comic books instead.”
Hermione stared at her. “Oh. My. God,” she said, slowly enough for Luna to see the mental lights going off inside her head. “I thought – I said straight out – you’d gotten the two things mixed up. Only you didn’t, any more than Harry would have. And I made a complete ass of myself.” She paused, looking at Luna curiously. “By rights you should be unbelievably angry at me. But – you’re not, are you?”
“Not at you,” Luna said. “At myself, a little. I was actually trying to get your attention, after all, and it backfired rather dramatically. But I saw that comic book, and Diana – well, she looked as if she might be someone you fancied.”
There, I’ve said that out loud.
Hermione blinked. “And so you dressed like Diana – Wonder Woman – because of course she’s another lion.”
And she didn’t hear me. Oh, dear. “No! Or not exactly. Yes, Diana is a lion, and you’re a lion, and the lion is important. But I tried to be Wonder Woman to get you to look at me. Not at the lion, not at Diana, at me. And that was childish, and springing it on you at breakfast with everyone watching was stupid. So you got angry with me, and I deserved it. I’d rather have you angry at me than making up something you didn’t mean.”
“But that’s exactly what I did!” Hermione looked even more confused than she had before. “I made things up, I accused you of things you didn’t do, and I did it because I was afraid of being laughed at. I don’t – I don’t exactly want you to be angry at me, but I don’t deserve for you not to be.”
Luna shook her head, amused despite herself. “We’re well and truly stuck, aren’t we?”
“It seems so,” Hermione said, shaking her own head and sighing.
“I was afraid that might happen,” said Luna, reaching into a pocket. “A good thing I brought this along, then.”
She uncoiled the Lasso of Truth from her Wonder Woman costume, carefully looped it around her wrists, and held out the free end to Hermione. “You heard what I told Professor McGonagall this morning,” she said. “This has a Legilimens charm woven into it. Not quite the same as Diana’s in the comics – but maybe better for us. Look at me. Look into me. Then you’ll understand – I hope.”
Hermione stared at the rope twined around Luna’s wrists, silent for several eternally long moments, then let out a slow, very soft noise somewhere between a gasp and a whistle. Even more slowly, she stretched out a hand to take the lasso’s end…
…and then quickly drew it back.
There was a note of wonder in her tone when she spoke. “That may be the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do, not excluding Harry. It’s all right,” she added quickly. “It’s better this way, really. I don’t want to know how you feel by magic. Just making that offer tells me a lot. We’ll sort out the rest soon enough. I hope.”
The last two words drew a delighted laugh from Luna. Then she stretched impulsively forward and planted a firm kiss squarely on Hermione’s lips. Hermione’s arms went round her at once, and all their earlier confusion melted away as the two girls lost themselves in one another without any help from the wizardry in the air around them.
# # #