Vegetables and the Weather (The Radish Remix)
Remix Author: Starrysummer
Original Story: Denial by Mockingbird
Summary: Truth be told, Luna Lovegood hated radishes.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Truth be told, Luna Lovegood hated radishes.
It wasn't right to hate things, though, especially not just because they were a little bit spicy-bitter. Especially not when her mother grew them in her garden and washed them off fresh to feed to her six-year-old girl.
When her mother died, Luna pulled up the last crop from the garden and asked her father to charm them never to rot.
If she kept them close, dangling from her ears (where she didn't have to taste them), maybe the bitterness wouldn't be so bad. And if other children laughed and thought of her as That Radish Girl, well there were worse things in the world to be, weren't there?
*
Most of the first-years around her were whispering nervously. Some wanted to be in the same house as their older siblings; others wanted to be as far from brothers and sisters as possible.
Luna didn't have any brothers or sisters.
And she felt that it didn't much matter what house she was in anyway. After all, it was just a place to sleep. With their hushed tones and shuffling feet, the other didn't seem that different anyway.
When a deep-set voice, the all-knowing sort, kind of like her father, spoke to her from within the hat (a talking hat! Luna only wished she had one of her own. Perhaps by seventh year she'd know how to charm one.), Luna sat back and listened. There was a nice cadence to the hat, a quiet knowingness as if whichever answer it gave would be just where she should be.
It wasn't until she sat down at the Ravenclaw table that she noticed the differences between the houses. The Gryffindors seemed loud and gregarious, shouting, cheering, screaming at each first-year they acquired as if it were some sort of a contest and not wisdom and placement. The Hufflepuffs grinned eagerly at each new student, as if enveloping each awkward eleven-year-old into some sort of massive embrace.
It seemed like a nice place to be, but it might be awfully warm inside such a big hug.
Then there were the Slytherins, who seemed to be assessing, judging, and finally either rejecting or claiming each new student.
Luna fingered her earrings gingerly and watched them back.
*
It was a cool day in October with the rain just barely misting down, imperceptible until it wet the skin. Luna didn't mind as she sat watching the lake, wondering if maybe she'd finally meet the squid. The Ravenclaws whispered about him having been there since the Founding and while Luna didn't so much believe that she'd be able to communicate with him, there was something wonderful about being around such history, being a part of it.
It was perhaps the best thing about Hogwarts.
She could feel someone's eyes upon her before she looked up. There was a heat to being watched, a sense of knowing (or perhaps just the reflection in the rain-speckled lake water) that prompted her to turn around.
"You can come over."
"I know I can," the boy said. He was older than her, she knew, since he wasn't in any of her classes. And a Slytherin, by the look on his face (and the serpent on his badge).
"Hello," Luna said, flustered for a moment when she realized she'd forgotten her manners.
"Hello," the boy replied, his hand outstretched but his gaze elsewhere, as if he were glancing at a spot just above her head.
"You must like radishes," she said. She didn't know why she said it (though she couldn't think of anything else to say), and besides, Ginny Weasley told her that the Slytherins referred to her as That Radish Girl when they thought no one was listening (Ginny wouldn't tell Luna what they called her, but she had a feeling it was worse than radishes).
"I… I do," said the boy, his glassy demeanour broken somehow as he looked down at her, then down at the lake, then back up at her face again.
"My mother used to grow them," Luna said, giving no mention of how she'd tried to spit them out in her mum's face many a time before she was taught proper table manners.
"I'm Luna Lovegood," Luna said.
"I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy." It was as if his own name broke the boy out of his distant state. "What are you doing out here in the rain?"
"It's not so bad," Luna said, placing her hand out and counting raindrops in a whisper as they landed in her palm.
Draco just stared at her. Luna whispered "radishes" under her breath, staring out at the water, hoping her visitor had not scared the squid away. When she looked up again, Draco was gone.
Slowly, deliberately, she picked up her rucksack and went back inside.
*
"You shouldn't talk to him," Ginny said in Double Charms through the noise of the classroom as they worked in pairs on levitation charms.
"Why not?"
"He's a Slytherin, Luna. That's the house of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
"It's also the house of Frederick Falrymple, inventor of the sneakoscope and Theobrama Rana whose idea it was to put cards into packages of Chocolate Frogs."
Ginny looked at Luna, who was busy trying to levitate her feather.
"It's a bad house," she said.
"It's just a different house."
When Flitwick sighed and announced that time was flying by (and hopefully their feathers, too, by the lesson next Tuesday) and another class had gone, Ginny tried to continue the conversation in the hallway, but when she looked up, Luna was gone.
*
Luna was waiting on the rock by the lake the next time Draco ventured out behind the castle.
"You don't mind if I sit here," he said, as if it weren't a question.
Luna didn't need to respond, so she didn't, just continued staring just below the surface.
He started talking and she started listening. Luna made a mental note (which she later forgot about) to tell Ginny that Slytherins weren't so bad after all. It wasn't like he was trying to find out about other Ravenclaws or anyone or anything else, really.
Mostly, they just talked about vegetables and the weather. Luna told him that summer fruits were her favourites and Draco told her about his mother's roast squash and how she banned the house elves from the kitchen wing when she made it.
Luna thought it was kind of funny to have house elves if you were going to command them not to cook for you, but she didn't say anything.
It was nice to talk about fruits and vegetables when you didn't feel as if there was anything else that needed saying.
*
Luna was not used to receiving anything by owl post, and so was quite surprised when a regal-looking owl knocked on the window while her father was off at work.
She opened the window, letting in a rush of humid summer air, and went into the kitchen to look for something to feed the owl.
When she returned, the owl had pecked partway through the silver wrapping, revealing a basket of fresh summer peaches. She wiped one off on her robes and bit into it, letting the juices run down her chin as she rifled through the pantry.
She bundled the radishes tightly in last month's issue of The Quibbler and some of her father's twine before sending the owl back.
*
When Luna returned to school in September, she still talked to Ginny sometimes, but never about Draco and never about anything but homework and Charms. Luna had heard about what happened and wanted desperately to be able to say something, something calm and simple that would make her feel better.
But every time she opened her mouth, she found herself asking what it felt like to be possessed, and she didn't think Ginny would like to talk about it.
So she talked about vegetables instead.
Sometimes, Ginny looked at her like she had a hole in her head. Besides the appropriate ones in her ears from which the charmed fresh radishes hung.
*
There was something about the way Draco looked at her that Luna didn't like. He never said anything, never did anything but sit and watch the lake with her, sit and feel the rain.
It wasn't the simple evenings or the letters over holiday trading packages that bothered her. No, it was something else, the way she felt heat on her back when she wasn't with him. He was watching her from across the courtyard while she was only talking to Ginny about Charms and the weather.
Which was never very interesting.
*
Years moved slowly, like the gentle summer breezes making waves on the pond in the backyard while she tended the garden. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it didn't.
In fourth year, Ginny introduced her to Harry.
He was nothing like she'd read in the papers (not that she believed them anyway) or heard in the common room (fuzzy voices which always grew fuzzier as she got closer anyway).
He was sweet. Angry-sweet and simple-sweet. With Harry, she could feel things. Feel his anger that no one would believe him (though she didn't understand why anyone wouldn't – believing people had never seemed like a hard thing to do), the nerves as he sat before the group of them, talking about defence. Most of all, she could feel the passion in his voice, the way the intensity picked up as he got to what he cared about.
And he cared.
*
Maybe he cared too much, the thought crossed her mind, as she sat with him by the lake, physically feeling his pain in the ache of her joints, the pull of her hair from her scalp, the earth pushing her downwards onto the rock that had never before seemed so rough against her knees.
Maybe the feeling was overmuch, too sweet, too sour, too harsh when it was over, as his eyes grew teary looking over the lake without realizing the history, the story of the place where he sat.
Luna didn't tell him that. She told him about her mother, about the spell gone wrong, how she'd wanted to charm her garden to be a perfect summer day all year long, how her father had come home to find her fallen, still and silent, on the topsoil which guarded her prized root vegetables.
Somewhere behind her she could feel the white-hot glare of grey eyes on the back of her neck. But the heat was growing cooler, second by second, step by step.
She shivered once and scooted a bit closer to Harry. She looked up at him and smiled.
end
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