InsaneJournal

A Bestiary of Sorts
Title: A Bestiary of Sorts
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ginny/Luna
Word Count: approx 640 words
Summary: Ginny & Luna talk about magical beasts. Which is just metaphor, isn't it?
Disclaimer: Not mine & not profiting
Notes: Written for fictitious_burn as part of the fanfics_express Ginny Weasley drabble exchange. Many thanks to jtav for beta-ing the fic.

Read the story at fanfics express or...

It is what Ginny would in other circumstances describe as a perfect fall day: crisp, clear and sunny. They are lying on the ground at the point where the Forbidden Forest meets the lake, and the only sounds are the whisper of fallen leaves and Luna's breath beside her. As Ginny watches, a crimson leaf drifts slowly down and settles onto the water, creating a small ripple on the glassy surface.

This isn't how Ginny would have expected things to be between them, not that she had expected it at all. She hadn't expected Death Eaters to invade Bill's wedding or take over the school either, but those things happened anyway. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps it's not so odd to find herself holding hands with Luna between lessons, or to curl up together like cats in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, now half empty. Perhaps it's not so odd that sometimes their lips touch.

Ginny suspects that these things are still odd, but that isn't necessarily a problem. She likes odd. Otherwise, this thing with Luna would have happened, would it?

"I think that cloud is a hippogriff, you know," Luna says dreamily, and Ginny turns to look at her.

Luna could almost be a mermaid, ethereally beautiful with the pale hair spread around her face as she stares at the sky. Her skin is so pale that Ginny can see the blue veins at her wrists and imagines the blood surging beneath the surface.

What's more visible are the angry red burn marks that the Carrows have given everyone connected with the resistance at Hogwarts, but neither of them wants to talk about that. The fact that they're relaxing at the edge of the forest is itself an indication that the school has become more dangerous than the centaurs or thestrals or Acromantulas, though Ginny's not sure that any of them would threaten someone accompanying Luna, who has a strange knack with magical beasts.

"I'd like to be a hippogriff," Ginny says lightly, pushing the more serious thoughts aside as she flops on her back on the grass.

Ginny shifts about until her head is nestled against Luna's stomach and Luna's hand drifts down to her neck, tracing gently over the skin.

"Oh no, you're not a hippogriff," Luna says thoughtfully. "Your brother Charlie might be one, but you're like a chimaera egg. Extremely valuable, yet, hard to find."

"Yeah? And what about when I hatch?"

"Then you'll be even more beautiful than you are now," Luna says calmly, her fingers brushing the hairs on the nape of Ginny's neck.

"I always thought Charlie was more of a dragon," Ginny muses, watching the clouds float past overhead.

"Dragons are rather cruel and they're reptiles, you see, but Gryffindors are all warm-blooded" Luna explains, as if it is only logical to visualise people as magical beasts. "Fred and George are pixies, and Hermione is an occamy. I haven't decided about Neville, yet."

"What about Harry?" Ginny asks, her heart beating just a little faster.

"It's obvious," Luna says in the same calm, certain tone, "Harry's a phoenix. Why else would Dumbledore name the Order after one?"

It seems so clear once Luna has said it and that Ginny finds a small part of herself easing, like releasing a muscle she didn't know had been tense.

"He'll come back," says Luna, answering the question that Ginny hadn't verbalised, the question that is weighing on everyone. "And I'm happy about that. It's not a competition between us, is it?"

Ginny reaches for Luna's hand and squeezes her fingers, blinking back the beginning of tears--which is ridiculous because she shouldn't be so emotional. Anyway, who cries at good news?

"No," Ginny says, watching the cloud pass overhead, dappling the autumn sunlight, "it's not."