Wearing Each Others Clothes
“Luna…” Cho Chang sighed at the ditzy blonde girl sitting down the table from her. “You are a Ravenclaw.”
Somehow.
Luna looked up from the book she had been reading and cocked her head at her housemate.
“You know, I’ve always felt like a Slytherin at heart,” Luna said seriously. She shrugged and looked back down at her book. “I think the hat makes mistakes all the time, it’s probably infested with wrackspurts.”
Marietta, who didn’t have as much patience for Luna’s weirdnessunique personality, rolled her eyes. “Then why are you wearing a Gryffindor tie?”
“What?” Luna looked up and blinked at the girls, now drawing the other nearby students’ attention to her red and gold tie. Luna looked down at her chest and seemed mildly surprised at first before breaking out in a wide smile.
“Oh! This!” Luna looked up at Marietta with perfectly earnest wide silver eyes. “This is my boyfriend’s tie. I must have grabbed it by mistake this morning.” She giggled quietly and her eyes flicked over toward the Gryffindor table. “Maybe he’s wearing mine. He would be a terrible Ravenclaw though. He’s very intelligent, but he doesn’t value knowledge, does he?”
Apparently Luna thought that quite closed the matter, and in her mind it probably did, but Cho’s interest had been caught, along with several of their housemate’s.
“Who would date you?” Terry Boot, an unpleasant student a year older than Luna, snickered rudely.
Luna wasn’t bothered though, as she rarely was by any taunts. “My boyfriend, I suppose,” she hummed absently as she continued reading.
“Who is it?” Marietta asked, her eyes gleaming as she looked for gossip to spread.
Cho’s eyes roamed over to the Gryffindor table as she tried to divine which student there might be Luna’s supposed boyfriend.
It wasn’t that Cho didn’t believe her, necessarily, it was just that Luna was just as likely to refer to a male friend as her boyfriend. It was also a little shocking that Luna must have stayed overnight with her ‘boyfriend’ in order to mix their ties up before breakfast.
Cho didn’t know many of the younger Gryffindor boys, but she looked over the ones she did know…
Identical red heads bent conspiratorially with a head of black braids… Cho doubted if either Weasley twin or Lee Jordan were dating Luna. Aside from the age gap, she thought that the twins were sweet on a couple of their quidditch teammates and she’d heard rumors that Lee was gay.
Neville Longbottom’s thick blonde hair… hmm… Neville was a real possibility. He was in the DA with them, and he was rather kind… he’d even filled out a bit this year and was becoming quite a looker… Cho disqualified him from her list of suspects on that criteria alone.
Finnigan’s rich brown hair across from a head of close cropped black curls… maybe Finnigan or Thomas?
Oh.
Cho giggled and ducked her head for a moment as the two of them bent forward and caught each other by the lips.
Not them.
Beside Finnigan sat Ron Weasley and his shaggy shock of red hair. He was laughing uproariously at whatever the black-haired boy across from him was saying…
Cho looked from Luna, who either ignored or didn’t hear Marietta’s question, to Ron. Cho personally thought that Ron seemed half in love with the brunette witch beside him, Hermione, but…
“Is it Ron?” Cho whispered to Luna.
Luna looked up from her book and blinked at Cho. “Is what Ron?”
“Your boyfriend,” Cho sighed. “Is Ron your boyfriend?”
“Not in this lifetime,” Luna said airily. It would have sounded like an insult coming from anyone else, but Cho assumed that Luna meant it literally.
It figured that Luna Lovegood believed in reincarnation.
Cho rolled her eyes and went back to checking out the possible Gryffindor wizards that could have spent the night with Luna.
She skipped over Harry Potter, the head of perpetually messy black hair across from Ron, based on common sense, and went back to looking.
“Will you tell me?” Cho asked Luna pleadingly after conceding that she couldn’t really guess based solely on their hair or faces.
Their housemates had already gone back to their own conversations, easily ignoring Loony Lovegood as they always did, but Cho was dying to know who Luna’s mystery boyfriend was.
She didn’t even know Luna was seeing someone and suddenly they were swapping ties on accident? That seemed like either they had been seeing each other for a while, or someone was taking advantage of Luna’s naive and trusting nature and the fact that she was probably a bit desperate. And, since Cho never saw Luna hang out with anyone beside the DA members, she was betting on the latter.
Luna sighed and put her book away, apparently resigned to not getting to read while Cho was whispering to her. “Tell you what?” she asked, a bit impatiently now.
Cho very carefully did not roll her eyes. She should have known better than to ask Luna an open-ended question. “Will you tell me your boyfriend’s name?” she asked her quietly, keeping their nosy housemates from overhearing.
Luna nibbled on her lower lip for a moment while she blinked those unnerving silver eyes at Cho. “Yes,” she finally said. “I will tell you.”
Cho waited… and waited… “Luna,” she sighed and did finally roll her eyes, “will you tell me your boyfriend’s name, like, now?”
“Oh.” Luna smiled and Cho had to admit that she had a pretty smile even if her eyes were still super creepy. “Yes, it’s Harry Potter.”
Cho was shocked for a moment and Luna took the opportunity to get to her feet and waltz gracefully out the doors and onward to her first class.
If Luna didn’t want to tell Cho her boyfriend’s name, she didn’t have to. No need to make up ridiculous lies.
***
“Harry,” Hermione sighed and shook her head at her best friend. “You’ve got the wrong tie on.”
Harry looked down at his chest and felt his neck heating up with a horrible blush at the blue and bronze striped tie he’d hastily put on that morning.
“Er… uh…” Harry stammered and tried to think of an excuse to get Hermione to quit looking at him like that while Ron laughed his dumb head off. Harry finally just gave Hermione a sheepish look. “Oops?”
Ginny, who was sitting beside Harry, patted him on the head rather condescendingly. “You’ve got to learn that you keep the ties as trophies, don’t go flaunting them after your conquest.”
“I didn’t— it isn’t— bloody hell, Ginny!“ Harry sputtered while Ron’s laughter increased. “We didn’t do that,” he hissed. “We just… er… we did a bit…” he said lamely with what felt like a face full of fire. “And then we fell asleep.”
He hadn’t seen Luna naked, but he did see her in a bra and he was pretty sure that it was the greatest possible moment of his life so far.
Better than winning a quidditch match.
Better than being a wizard.
Harry didn’t know it until Luna took her shirt off and brazenly straddled his lap in only a bra and her uniform skirt, but the light pink shade of her bra was actually his favorite color.
Right after the silver shade of her eyes.
“We didn’t even know you were seeing anyone,” Hermione said suspiciously.
“I did,” Ron said proudly as he puffed his chest out. “Figured it out when Harry kept sneaking out late at night, didn’t I?”
“Harry always sneaks out,” Ginny laughed.
“Does he always put on cologne before he goes?” Ron grinned.
Harry groaned and nearly thunked his head on the table, he only stopped himself to keep from drawing even more attention to himself.
He knew the cologne was overkill.
“Harry!” Hermione was beaming as she leaned over to swat Harry’s arm. “Who is it? Why didn’t you tell us? Can she sit with us? Is she nice? Is she a she?”
“What?” Harry yelped and interrupted Hermione’s rambled questions. “Yes she’s a she,” he said hotly. He glanced over at Seamus and Dean and lowered his voice in case he offended them, “I’m not gay,” he whispered apologetically.
“Well it isn’t a crime to be straight,” Hermione said with a playful grin.
Ron and Harry shared a knowing look.
“It is when you share a dorm with those two,” Ron said, jerking his thumb at their housemates. “Trust us, don’t ask,” he said with his hands held up as both girls gave them confused looks.
Harry nodded in agreement.
Seamus and Dean seemed personally offended when Harry and Ron refused their offers to ‘set them up’ with some other blokes. Unknowingly to them, Harry had already been seeing someone since before Christmas break, and Ron…
Harry guessed Ron just wasn’t interested in blokes.
Poor Neville got suckered into it though, he said his date hadn’t gone badly, but he was pretty sure he was straight too.
Dean and Seamus still weren’t talking to the three of them.
“Well?” Hermione was beaming at Harry. “Who is it then?”
“No, wait!” Ginny spun around in her seat and looked over at the Ravenclaw table. “Don’t tell us, let me guess!”
Harry shook his head, bemused, and let Ginny give it a shot.
“Hmm… Turpen?” she murmured quietly. “No, no, she’s boring. Edgecomb? No, she’s crap in the DA…”
“Harry would never date someone unintelligent,” Hermione said with a sniff.
Harry nodded absently in agreement.
Luna was brilliant. It wasn’t the type of memorization brilliance that Hermione was so adept at, but Luna was still a genius.
And pretty, god, Luna was pretty. Pretty wasn’t even a good enough word. Luna was… was like nobody else Harry ever met. She shined in a way that made every other person look dull in comparison.
And she was patient too. Patient enough to help Harry with his occlumency. Even if she didn’t know legilimency, she was still able to help Harry clear his mind. A feat that even Snape had to remark on and something that made his lessons with Snape go a little smoother. There were a lot more insults about Harry’s love life when he did spot a stray memory that Harry didn’t hide away quick enough, but much less insults about Harry’s lack of effort. Shockingly though, Harry thought Snape would out him to everyone (not that he was hiding it, it was just nice to not have everyone in his business for the first time in his life), but Snape had kept mum so far in class.
Luna was beautiful, patient, kind, and thoughtful… and she just seemed to understand him in a way Harry didn’t expect other people to do.
Harry thought he might already be in love with her, honestly.
“Oh!” Ginny turned and gave Harry a smile. “Is it Cho? Did you finally ask her out?”
Harry grimaced a little. He was still rather traumatized from when Cho had tried to kiss him after their last DA meeting back in December. He’d tried being polite, but then he’d resorted to ducking and running to get away from her. Luna, of course, found the whole thing hilarious, but Harry had been rather creeped out.
“Not Cho,” Harry said shortly.
“Is it… oh!” Ginny started giggling and Harry peeked over at the Ravenclaw table in time to see Luna get up and dance so gracefully toward the doors. Ginny turned back around and gave Harry a pleased look. “You sly dog, if you hurt her, I’ll kill you,” she smiled wickedly at the end, giving weight to her words.
“Who is it?” Ron asked.
Harry didn’t hear him as he hastily grabbed his bag and took off after Luna.
He really needed his tie back before classes.
***
“Luna, you’re a Ravenclaw, you’re supposed to support our team,” Cho scowled a bit as she unfairly took her nerves out on Luna.
Any other game? Sure, Luna could show up in a maroon quidditch jersey. But during the final match? No.
Where was her sense of house pride?
“I’m supporting Harry,” Luna said with a little hum. “He’s going to be embarrassed, but he gave me the shirt,” she shrugged. “So I think I’m supposed to wear it today.”
Cho and Michael Corner rolled their eyes at each other.
Ever since February when Luna said she was dating Harry Potter, Cho had watched the two carefully.
Yeah, they were friends, obviously. Luna seemed friendly with all of Harry’s friends, in fact. And there was that incident last week where Harry yanked Luna out of the library in the middle of his OWLS. His eyes had been frantic and his scar looked inflamed, but Luna came back a couple of hours later and hummed something about ‘false visions’ and that had been that.
Cho had wondered if that had been related to the story her mum told her about You-Know-Who and Peter Pettigrew, who was apparently not dead like everyone thought, showing up in the ministry and exposing themselves, but it didn’t say anything about Harry and Luna supposedly dating.
And everyone swore that Umbridge had last been seen with Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood outside Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom before the hateful woman disappeared, but that was just hearsay as far as Cho was concerned.
Luna always went to Hogsmeade with Harry, but so did Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Ginny Weasley.
She never saw them kissing, which settled the matter in her mind.
Luna had a crush on Harry and Harry was just a kind person to everyone and took pity on her.
Stealing his quidditch jersey was a bit far though, especially since this was Harry’s first match since Umbridge disappeared and McGonagall took over as Headmistress and reinstated Harry and the Weasley twins to the Gryffindor team.
“Whatever,” Cho told Luna. “Just so you know though, I don’t think Harry knows you’re dating.”
Luna laughed and gave Cho what seemed to be a pitying smile that had the older girl bristling.
“Of course Harry knows we’re dating,” she said with a nonchalant flip of her hand. “Even with the wrackspurts in his forehead, Harry would have to be blind to not notice the hickey on his neck.”
Luna grinned a little impishly as she leaned toward Cho in a conspiratorial manner. “And he has his glasses on,” she said in a solemn whisper with a nod of her head.
Cho tried, she really did try, but Luna was absolutely loony.
***
Harry held the snitch up victoriously, his ears whooshing as he flew around the pitch with the cheers of the crowd and the screams of his team.
This was the best part of Hogwarts, in his opinion.
Or, second best, he corrected himself, as he spotted his girlfriend next to Hermione wearing his practice jersey with a beaming smile on her face as she clapped enthusiastically for him.
Harry didn’t even question himself. While Lee was announcing Gryffindor’s victory and Angelina was accepting the Quidditch Cup, Harry flew straight toward the Gryffindor stands and jumped off his broom next to Luna.
“You won!” she yelled.
“You told me I would,” he grinned. He grabbed Luna gently by the waist and pulled her toward him until she was close enough that Harry could relocate all his joy, all his excitement, all his overwhelming sense of happiness, to her through a fierce kiss.
The stands went wild- perhaps by Harry’s first ever very public kiss or perhaps the stands caught on fire, he didn’t know and he didn’t care.
“I think I love you,” he whispered to Luna when they broke apart. Her eyes were shining and she’d never looked so blessedly grounded to reality as she did then.
“You do,” she assured him. She leaned up and pecked Harry on the lips. “And I love you.”
Harry didn’t even notice that he let go of the snitch at some point. He was rather caught up in the moment.
He also didn’t hear when Lee announced that the Ravenclaw Captain, Cho Chang, had broken her broom in what Lee dubbed ‘a jealous fit’.
Luna heard though, and her eyes twinkled all the more happily for it.