Modern golden trio aesthetics 

I’m going back. And I’m going to say yes.

it’s not that he doesn’t expect it. It’s not even that he doesn’t want it. It’s more so the fact that after months of constructing this immunity, it takes nothing more than ACCEPTANCE to destroy it brick by brick. because he’d been the one to run. he’d been the one to hide. he’d been the one to swear off this rancid hallucination they’d call happiness and debunk this theory they called survival. because he HADN’T survived, not all of him. love had saved him. love had killed all those that he loved. and then love had destroyed him. what was left in the void his adversary once filled? that gaping hole that allowed him some semblance of CONTROL? now, all he had now was his riotous heart, such a fragile and reckless creature always so eager to put him in harm’s way, one he didn’t even own anymore. he’d left and thought he’d left it behind, there in her hands to be cared for in the way that house elves were cared for when left to hermione granger’s devices. and yet here she is now throwing it back at his feet, or rather standing before him as it falls out of her pocket, as if she had no clue she’d been in custody of it all this time. 

“ you should.” it doesn’t sound all that convincing. “he deserves that. for you to say yes. he deserves to be happy. he deserves to have something i don’t.”

and that sounds more bitter than it should, more spiteful than it should, colder than it should. that sounds a lot like harry with a horcrux around his neck when it’s really nothing more than harry with an albatross around his neck, and he doesn’t like when he sounds like that with her because then she looks at him like that, and he can’t take it. he misses the days when it was okay to love her from a distance. he misses the days when he was being raised for slaughter, when survival wasn’t a problem he had to worry about, when love was not a consequence that would last forever. now, it’s lasting forever. now? it never stops aching. 

“and i should let you. i should - stick to my promise about - about staying out of the way, but i-” he can’t look her in the eye. HE CAN’T EVEN LOOK HER IN THE EYE !!! coward !!! what a coward you are, harry potter !!! “ but i know that - that if i do that, if i - if i let  you go, it’s only because i’m afraid to admit that i’m selfish. me, all by myself, and it has nothing to do with a piece of a dark wizard’s soul in me. it’s just - just me. just harry, and i’m selfish. i’m a selfish bastard, and the one thing i’m not willing to give up for my best friend is you because - because i’m selfish. even when he deserves it.“ 

she means well. this is a refined and predominant argument that has evolved from compassionate pity to passionate prominence in the past few years. she does mean well. she’s always meant well. in so many ways unseen by the untrained eye ( much like those nargles and wrackspurts and whatever else she liked pointing out in their school years ), she meant the utter best, whether it be for him or herself or some other poor soul too mundane to see the awe-inspiring. and she means well now, right now. yes, right now, more than ever perhaps, she means so well. unfortunately, harry is NOT well. harry isn’t sure he is capable of being something as simplistic as WELL. thing is, she means it anyway.

and what she says is exactly what she means although it’s the way in which she says it that takes some getting used to. he gets it now, or he tries to, and his trying always seems to be enough for her. she is more than enough and then some for him, but that’s beside the point. the point is that there is not a person, place, or thing in this world that deserves her. he only wishes he could see the world from her point of view every once in awhile. because even covered in blood and soot and ash, she’d been the brightest thing in the burning castle they had almost called their resting place. impressive really. 

“i don’t think it’s that simple, luna.” but he doesn’t want to be bitter. he’s bitter, and she’s soft, and she lets it be when she shouldn’t. in those rare times when she speaks a bit louder, stomps a bit harder, PUTS HER FOOT DOWN, harry finds himself beside himself. it’s an amazing thing in any capacity, and sometimes, he wonders if he GOADS it out of her. he wonders if he provokes her on purpose, if only to hear her say his whole name and demand something from him that isn’t saving the world or dying. pure things. she is full of pure things. 

               "  i don’t think you just - choose happiness. i don’t think that’s my place.“ 

but for a moment, his fingers twitch as though he wants to reach out for it, or her. one or the other, or both. “both” sounds reasonable. she makes it sound reasonable. 

“ and if i wanted to? how would i - where would i even begin? where do i - after everything? after everyone? nothing - nothing feels the same anymore. nothing makes any sense, and the - the things i wanted two years ago or three years ago or - or… bloody hell, yesterday? they’re different now. everything’s different, and i don’t - i don’t know what happiness means." 

at first, it sounds cliche, unsound, weak. but then he turns the thought over on his tongue, and it feels something more like INSURMOUNTABLE. he has no clue what it means. the happiness he found in the mirror of erised and on his first broomstick ride and in his first quidditch match and after the first triwizard tournament task… well, those instances of happiness all felt bland now, irrelevant,i n e f f e c t u a l. and he looks up at her and smiles anyway because she’s sitting there smiling at him as though they aren’t still covered in the blood of their friends and the sins of their foes, as if she didn’t survive the dungeons of malfoy manor and he hadn’t risen from the dead. that happiness there, in her smile, makes him shiver because it is so surreal, so celestial. and he wants it. for a moment, he WANTS it, needs it, aches for it, yearns. but still, HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

“ say something! ”

he’d been at it for days… or was it weeks? months? they went through this routine for days…or was it weeks? months?

“ dammit, luna, please! say something! ”

and she’s still tender, watching him PETRIFY from the inside out, sweeping in to save him from his nightmares, from his insecurities, from himself. and she knows him better than he knows himself, so she’s patient. she doesn’t raise her voice. she doesn’t fight back. she waits. and harry could once last hours at it, shouting and screaming and throwing things, destroying rooms which she would mend just hours later. he lasts less and less with each passing day. he lasts long enough for his throat to go hoarse, which doesn’t matter considering the kettle’s already on, and he exhausts himself just enough to earn the right to rest his head in her lap when he’s done. and she sits there, waiting, patience, tender. 

“ tell me i should go back! tell me i’m a coward! for bloody once, be honest with me! be honest with yourself! this isn’t some fairy tale! we need to go home! i need to go back! tell me!” she won’t. “tell me the truth!” she already has.

and he lasts exactly seven minutes less than he did last time, but the scene doesn’t change. she sits on the window sill, gazing at him as though he’s one of her magical creatures, a pillow laid in her lap as she listens to the kettle begin to sing. he opens his mouth to scream once more and feels the strain of his throat, to which he responds by slumping against the adjacent wall with sweat trickling down his brow and salt streaming down his cheek. then there’s silence, the calm which follows the storm, where he can’t look at her and she can’t look away. 

“you’re mental, you know that?”

but like many things which come from harry potter’s mouth, he doesn’t mean it the way others have meant it. and like many things which appear in luna lovegood’s line of sight, she sees it differently than any others would have seen it. she sees MORE. and she smiles and says, “i’m just as sane as you are.” he smiles too. 

and crawls across the room. CRAWLS, like some sort of punishment, some semblance of penance for his crimes. he crawls across the room and onto the sill and into her gravity, and he rests his head on the pillow she’s held for him, and the lightest touch of her fingers to his temple feel a lot like the tip of his wand these past few nights, a gentle siphoning of the thoughts which set out to harm him. 

“ we don’t have to, do we?” he asks, and it’s the first time he asks, and maybe that means progress or maybe that means defeat, but either way, he asks because he has to ask. he can’t last any longer without asking. “go back. we don’t have to. we can just - stay here, or - or keep going, and… you’re - you didn’t come to bring me back.” it’s the first time he’s said this because the past few months have been a chorus of “you only came with me so you could drag me back” and other cries of cahoots with his other friends. he reckons he’s been wrong again. about her, about everything. for the first time, he likes being wrong. he CHERISHES being wrong. “you’ll come with me. you’ll stay, won’t you? even when - even when i’m an arse.” a firm nod and a soft hum do more for him than he can imagine. 

her silence had always been a deafening thing, an entity in itself that proved to be a devastating adversary, one he feared more than any he’d ever faced. he’d like to think that was saying something what with their history and all. then again, her saying nothing was saying something, and it was something he never found himself prepared to hear.

“ i can’t stay.” 

this is what? the third time he’s repeated it now in the past hour? it’s this hollow sound that fills the room, reverberates off of stone and marble, comes back to slap him across the face. she hasn’t looked at him. he doesn’t want her to. and yet he feels as though the sooner he can see her eyes, the sooner he can see her claws, the sooner they can be done with it. she’s disappointed. he’s decided. he probably loves her. maybe she loves him. so he looks back and remembers the question that has haunted him since the last time he saw sirius on this side of the veil. 

                                 when has love ever been enough ??? 

“ i can’t stay here.” she knows. he knows that she knows. and it isn’t because he isn’t wanted. it isn’t because he isn’t celebrated. it isn’t because he doesn’t want to. IT WILL NEVER BE BECAUSE HE ISN’T LOVED. it is because he can’t be brave anymore. it is because they fought a war, and the war won. 

“ but i - i’m only leaving because… well, i mean - i’m only able to let myself leave because i - i know you’ve got - well, you and ron have each other.” 

and it’s factor, but he won’t call it a factor because he can’t admit this is a factor, but it IS a factor. it has always been a factor. or rather, it always had the potential to become a factor, and it became a factor when they stood on those steps just hours ago, when she vowed to go with him, when he left her behind the first time. he hadn’t intended on coming back. he hadn’t wanted to say goodbye again. and yet. 

“ you’ve got each other, and you two have got - you’ve got - something. and that’s - that’s enough, right? for you? that’s what you want, and that’s - and ron’s great, you know. ron will be - ron will take care of things, and so i- i can leave. i’ve got to leave. i can’t stay.”