Chapter 2
When Harry woke up the following day, he hadn’t expected much. His godfather was notorious for either waking up too early or too late—never within a reasonable wake-up hour. Breakfast would either be on the table by the time Harry got down, or he would be enjoying a lovely bowl of cereal. Sirius never let Harry use the kitchen unless the two were making late lunch/dinner (on the off occasions that Harry has worked late enough) or unless there was genuinely a meal the boy wanted to make. Harry figured it was something to do with the Dursleys—most of Sirius’s weird rules for Harry could be traced back to the Dursleys—but nevertheless, he didn’t mind.
Figuring he’d earned a shower, Harry decided to step into the water. At his godfather’s house, there were the nice shampoos and conditioners that Harry loved. If it were a choice, the raven-haired would stay in the shower all day, lathering the apple and citrus scents into his scalp. He’d also enjoy a new loofa every few weeks, which was always a welcome gift. Harry’s skin wasn’t particularly delicate (both figuratively and physically). However, he wouldn’t complain about the soft yet cleansing lather of the soaps. After sadly wrapping it up, Harry stepped out of the shower feeling like a new person as he wrapped a towel around his waist. After cleaning his glasses and replacing them on his face, he brushed his teeth. He combed his fingers through his unruly black hair before deciding (as always) that there wasn’t anything he could do with it.
He threw on casual attire before heading down the steps, pleasantly surprised to see his godfather already awake. While he wasn’t a chef, Sirius could make some mean cheesy breakfast potatoes, and they were one of Harry’s favorite things in the world. Harry nearly ran to the kitchen countertop to get the juice and ready the toast. He wanted to be helpful, but he also wanted the potatoes on his plate as soon as humanly possible. Harry set the table, filled the glasses, arranged the plates, and even began to unload the dishwasher as he waited—until Sirius, in good faith, yelled at the boy to calm down and act like a teenager instead of a waiter. Reluctantly, Harry sat back down at the table and waited for Sirius to bring over the goods.
While the two were digging in, Sirius found himself laughing, “I have a kid who’s not on his phone and willing to help, and I’m complaining about it. What alternate reality have I fallen out of?”
Upon that sentiment, Harry decided to check his phone. It had been discarded into his sweatshirt pouch when he’d run downstairs. Now, Harry hadn’t expected much of a response from the mysterious blonde. Maybe one or two messages—he’d even entertained the thought of receiving none at all. What the raven-haired had not expected were nine messages. Three from last night, another bidding goodnight, and the other five had been in incrementing hours of the morning starting at four o’clock. It had been seven when Harry woke up, and now edging on eight after the shower.
Well, obviously, now that there’s an invitation
When do you work?
Tomorrow?
Goodnight.
Good Morning
Morning
G’morning
Harry couldn’t tell if he found it endearing or sketchy but decided to text the poor guy back before nine became ten: Good morning, sorry, I don’t really check my phone often.
Harry put his phone down to finish his potatoes before they cooled off. The guy had waited an entire night; he could wait a bit longer. It was too early for the teen to be thinking about this guy—who still hadn’t shared his name (Harry couldn’t be sure if the name on the card was real)—when he had other things to take care of first. Such as enjoying his day before work. Surely the blonde could understand that, right? It wasn’t like they’d done any more than talk anyways, no real commitment. Harry had always been one to get his head twisted in a knot over nothing, but the only thing he wanted to do today was to relax.
After finishing up breakfast, Harry, before Sirius could say anything, took the dishes to clean them. After setting the tableware away, Harry flopped onto the couch and turned on the tv. Sirius had gone outside to grab the mail while Harry flipped through the channels, letting himself turn off his brain for a little while. After a few minutes, Harry found a movie that he and his godfather had always enjoyed and let that play. He got himself a mug of the hot coffee that his godfather had prepped and then raised the volume on the television. A tired part of himself wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket; however, that urge was ignored in the process of waking up.
Harry was notorious for working late shifts, so he wasn’t in too much of a rush to wake up, although he did have some plans for the day. His friend Luna worked in a crafts shop, and she had texted him earlier in the week, telling him that she had something to show him. In typical Luna Lovegood fashion, she hadn’t told him what it was, just that there was something he needed to see. He’d told her a couple of days ago that he’d show up during her shift today, as most Sundays of his were fairly free, and he wasn’t very keen on forgetting about it. Disappointing the blonde was like a war crime, and her shift was over at twelve in the afternoon (she liked being able to go out with her friends for lunch right after), so he had to get himself up well before then. At some point, Sirius had made his way back into the house and got himself a cup of caffeine before realizing what movie was on. The elder sat on the couch—opposite Harry—before relaxing into his seat and tuning in. Harry downed the last swallow of his coffee and stretched one last time before immersing himself in the climax. He had about an hour and a half he had to kill before he really needed to go, and the movie only had around twenty-five minutes left anyways.
As he always did at the finale, Harry smiled like a madman in a toothy, ear-to-ear grin. It was one of those feel-good movies that could always get the green-eyed boy’s adrenaline pumping. He didn’t know why it still had this effect on him—albeit it was a classic, so why wouldn’t it?—but nevertheless, he was perfectly awake now. He tossed the remote to his uncle, knowing the man wanted to check the news real quick before he inevitably had to leave for work. Harry started on his way back up the stairs, and it was here that he finally got the inclination to check his phone again.
Ah, I see
Do you work again today?
The message was sent right around when Harry had finally texted the man back, around an hour and a half ago. Just how much time does this guy have to talk to me? Harry didn’t know why he felt bad—the guy was literally an attempted felon in his eyes, as he had to keep reminding himself—but there was something about thinking of the blonde man sitting at his phone like a lost puppy waiting for Harry to respond that just hit an emotional chord inside of him. As quickly as he could without falling up the stairs, Harry replied.
Yeah, I do, at around 6.
My shift ends at 10
Sorry for all the late responses.
Harry flopped on his bed, not surprised when the reply was immediate. The two chatted for a little while, eventually moving on to more mundane topics to get to know each other—a strange oversight that Harry hadn’t had before. Although a more typical conversation, it wasn’t as awkward as Harry thought it would be; the other was surprisingly—in a good way—polite. The raven-haired man told the blonde that he had plans for early in the afternoon but that his actual plan for the rest of the day, before work, was just to stay home and chill. With this information, the blonde popped a question that left Harry dumbfounded before he finally responded with a simple, “yeah, sure, why not?”
The conversation ended there with the other sending off with a “see you then,” and Harry ran his fingers down his face. He still had around an hour to fritter away—he couldn’t believe he’d chatted up the blonde for a full thirty minutes—and he texted Luna, saying that he’d get there at around 11:30 in the morning before pocketing his phone. His godfather had left approximately fifteen minutes ago; Harry yelled down a quick “See you, have a good day at work!” when he’d called up the stairs, so the green-eyed was practically just left up to his own devices for another hour. The first thing Harry decided to do was to pull his bike out of the garage just to make sure the tyres were full and that it was still usable, which it was. Sirius had talked about getting him a car before he went off to college—he had his license, Harry just didn’t care for the responsibility of a car—but for now, all he had was the bike he’d received for his birthday two years ago. Luna’s craft shop wasn’t too far away, and Harry was sort of in need of the exercise after a complete lack of it since school had ended.
The rest of the time flew by pretty quickly, and Harry made sure that his backpack was filled with, at the very least, the bare necessities. He texted Luna that he was on his way, and then Harry set off. It was a pretty average, late morning, with nothing really defining about the day. It looked like it might rain later, but that was usually the case. Harry waved to a few walkers on his ride and was almost run over when he hadn’t been paying attention to the road, but other than that, his cycling was fairly uneventful. It wasn’t too long before he arrived at the awaited crafts shop, only around 15-20 minutes or so. He parked his bike at a lamppost, locking it to the pole. Harry had always been good about making sure to mix up the numbers so that his combination wasn’t extremely obvious. With that secured, the raven-haired slung his backpack over his shoulder and made his way into the shop to finally find out just what it was Luna had been making him anticipate.
The little bell chimed as he opened the door, and Luna was quick to spot him from across the small shop. Her long dirty blonde hair was tied back into a thick ponytail that ran down her back like a tamed lion’s mane. She ran over from stocking shelves with her bright eyes and unreadable excitement. In other words, a typical Luna Lovegood was making her way over. Harry waved as she came to a halt before she motioned at him to follow her. He noticed Luna’s camera bag around her torso, lightly bumping against her hip as she walked. Luna was always the photographer of the group, wanting to capture every moment like it might be their last. It seemed like she’d just decorated a new bag—a habit she tended to repeat every few months. She liked to think of it as giving her camera a “new personality,” and the friend group kept ongoing bets for the next themes. Sometimes they were sure Luna found out about them, and deliberately avoided their expectations, but no matter what design Luna undertook, it was always undeniably Luna. This time, the theme was a bit more eccentric than times passed. This time, all over the little black satchel were painted purplish-pink plums—in all different shapes and sizes—decorating the margins. Harry thought it must’ve taken hours to paint them on with all of the detail the blonde had put into them. He also took note that a few of the plums, in no particular order or arrangement, were spruced with rhinestones, either on the plumbs themselves, or their little leaves at the top. Harry supposed the change made somewhat of sense, as plums had just gotten in season, but it wasn’t as if Luna had ever had a penchant for them. In the end tho, Harry let the thought fizzle, as most of the time, Luna’s style decisions weren’t something you could understand, just something to appreciate and find endearing.
Before he knew it, Harry had been guided back to the breakroom, where the workers spent most of their time (the store was never very crowded). The room was empty, Sundays themselves tended to be slow days, and Luna was the only one running the shop this morning. They pretty much had the store to themselves until two people would be coming to relieve Luna in thirty minutes, only because the store closed at two and the owner preferred having multiple people on the closing shift. Even so, Harry still felt a little bit uneasy as he was technically a customer infringing on employee grounds.
“Not to be one of those people, Lune, but are you sure I’m allowed to be back here?” Harry asked.
“No,” she responded, “but I won’t tell.”
“Well, doesn’t that make me feel all better?” Harry sarcastically grumbled to himself before begrudgingly following the blonde. While Harry had never appreciated the nickname grade school bullies had given to Luna, he had to admit that he understood where it came from—especially in moments like these. Luna had never minded the name, as she didn’t take it as mocking. The word “loony” had come from the word “lunatic”, which was derived from the Latin root of “luna” as back before modern psychology, people had believed insanity was incumbent on phases of the moon. Now, Harry knew that this had nothing to do with the nickname and that eleven-year-olds had just thought themselves to be clever; however, Luna liked to think of it in a more positive light.
Upon entering the breakroom, Harry found it to be very different from how he’d imagined. You’d think working in an arts and crafts store would make you not want anything to do with arts and crafts during your break time. However, the raven-haired thought there was more glitter on these floors than they were selling in the store. Hot glue stick nubs were strewn about the room, and there were construction paper clippings stuck around like confetti. Acrylic paint decorated the walls and table, and somehow there were even stars and celestial-themed stickers placed upon the ceiling. The only thing in the room that had been saved from artists’ wrath was the mini fridge in the corner (which looked fairly new, so Harry assumed there just hadn’t been time to corrupt it yet). In the best way possible, it looked quite reminiscent of how Harry had imagined Luna’s bedroom would look, save for the furniture.
On the table, however, looked to be a strangely large book of sorts, its cover collaged with different swatches of patterns—which were quite similar to some of Luna’s past camera case designs. The blonde walked over to the said book and opened it, flipping through the pages. It seemed like certain sections were color coded with neon tabs; however, Luna flipped to a section that was separate from all the rest. While most of the book—some sort of art or scrapbook, Harry presumed—had the semblance of being organized (only a few misplaced papers sticking out here or there), the section that Luna was heading for was the messiest of the bunch. Harry noticed the blonde’s eyes brighten once she reached a certain page before she plopped the book, now open, on the table. She was now mostly turned away from Harry, body maneuvered more towards the table, but the raven-haired could still see the ghost of a smile emanating from her cheek. His friend wove him over, not in a particularly commanding way, although there was still a sense of urgency in her beckoning. Harry didn’t waste any time before traipsing over to her side, looking over her shoulder to see what she had been so adamant about getting him over to see.
“I didn’t finish them until this morning,” Luna began, without taking her eyes off of the page. “There’s six, one for each of us.”
The blonde allowed Harry to flip through the pages, and Harry was astonished. The six pages Luna was talking about were all held together by a binder ring that was fastened to the spine of the book through what looked to be a circle made by a hole puncher. Displayed on the double-sided pages were memories in time—centered around specific people Harry guessed each page was made for. Each page (covered in glitters, paints, beads, colored paper, handwriting samples, pressed flower petals, buttons, and other tiny knickknacks) was themed around each person’s favorite colors, things, questionable choices, and inside jokes that only those in the group would ever understand. Luna had even made herself a page, and all of them were so unique to the person that Harry couldn’t believe that the blonde had undertaken and done all of this herself without anyone else finding out. On Ginny’s page, there were zoomed-in images of the ginger making the winning shot in her games, and on Neville’s, there was a specific memory of the boy after they’d caught him and Ron trying to sneak into the kitchen during lights-off. In the latter situation, only Luna and Hermione had found the two (they hadn’t actually been looking for the boys, they’d been studying in the back of the library and had lost track of time), and technically the four had all broken school policy, but Luna’s photo was the only evidence they’d had of the occurrence. Harry appreciated that while Hermione’s page consisted of her academic achievements, there were also many of those times when she’d let loose—something a lot of people at school didn’t know she did (although the group would always stand by the fact that Hermione could be fun when she wanted to be). There were numerous photos of gatherings at Ron and Ginny’s house, across all of the pages, as, for some reason, they’d all made the Weasley household the designated headquarters, and things just tended to happen there.
Harry’s own collage had a mish-mash of everything that had happened since he was fourteen (the year Luna had wheedled her way into the friend group—although the group itself liked to call it a unanimous adoption). Harry had never thought of anything he did as “special,” but when there were images of all the things that made Harry himself (in the blonde’s eyes) laid out right in front of him, he couldn’t help but to smile to himself. In his opinion, there was no way anyone wouldn’t feel important looking at the way they were portrayed in something like this. The only thing Harry didn’t understand was why Luna had made them. Harry’s birthday wasn’t coming up until after they’d gotten out of school in around two months, and she’d made them for everyone, including herself. It was a sweet sentiment, but there was no calling for it, at least to Harry.
As if reading his mind, Luna finally said, “a lot of friends never see each other again after they graduate. I wanted to give everyone something to remember us all by. I don’t want us all to be ‘a lot of friends’ after the three of you head off to college.”
Luna unhooked the binder clip and flipped Harry’s to the front of the mass, grasping the edges lightly.
“I’m planning to give them all out at graduation, but I think I’d much rather get each of your reactions more genuinely first. Don’t tell the others, alright?”
Luna finally looked to Harry as she finished her statement, and the elder fought the urge to get mushy. Luna Lovegood, you really are a gem among people. Instead of words, as right now he didn’t trust them, he gave the girl an awkward shoulder hug of appreciation before mumbling a quiet “thanks.” The sentimental platonic-ism was interrupted by the chiming of the doorbell, meaning someone had entered the store. Harry all but ran out of the break room, not wishing to be caught breaking store policy—even if he rarely shopped there. Luna was slower to exit, and Harry guessed that she was tidying up her art book. There were only around ten to fifteen minutes left on her shift, and he figured that the blonde was slow-walking it until her coworkers got there.
Harry pretended to be a customer by browsing the selections until he got genuinely intrigued by the jars of animal-shaped beads. Some of them were just so detailed for being so small that Harry was occupied with inspecting them until Luna came over and tapped him on the shoulder. He’d missed the second two chimes of the door, which had signaled the employees taking over for the blonde. He apologized before asking Luna to wait for another quick moment. Unable to not buy them, Harry seized a jar full of owl-shaped beads that he knew he had no use for. I’ll find one later, he thought to himself. It’s not every day you find beads that look like snowy owls. They weren’t too expensive either, so Harry wasn’t all that upset by his spontaneous purchase.
“Sorry, Luna,” he said as he made his way back over to his friend, “sometimes I can’t help myself.”
Luna shrugged, “Why do you think I work here? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a snowy owl person, though.”
They started making their way out of the store as Harry slipped them into his bag. Luna waved a quick goodbye to her coworkers before the two finally exited the store. As luck would have it, Harry saw his bicycle right where he’d left it, and he made his way over to open the lock.
“Yeah, I don’t know why I wanted them myself, to be honest. They are cool, though. Do you have a ride home?”
She shook her head, “Ginny’s picking me up so we can go grab a bite to eat. We haven’t decided where yet if you’d like to come.”
“I’d love to Luna, really—tell Ginny I said hi, by the way—but shockingly enough, I’ve got a date.”