Selfish

Drip. Drip. Water fell in slow, fat droplets, beating a steady tempo against the bottom of the shower. A figure huddled in the far corner of the somewhat dingy tub, long pale hair dark from saturation, hanging in limp clumps over shoulders and breasts. Long nimble fingers idly picked and plucked and worried at a red bead bracelet, the snap of the elastic releasing smaller water droplets, silently scattering across pale creamy knees.

The December air refused to be kept out, not that there was a sing heating spell put on the room. The warm steam had long since cooled, going unnoticed by the shower occupant drowning in her own thoughts.

Luna Anastasia Lovegood, Order of Merlin First Class, Member of the Order of the Phoenix, Soldier of the Second Dark War, and Head Professor of the Wizarding Naturalist Department of the University of Wizarding Dublin, was lonely. Truly lonely. Fucking lonely. True, she had her friends, Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley, but since they both still resided in England with their husbands and families and she was in Dublin (single, with only parchment to share her bed every night), it was hard for them to get together on a regular basis. They had the Floo network and Apparition, of course, but both got touchy over longer, unknown distances; besides, Luna was neck-high in research and grading and trainings, she didn’t have as much time as she used to for social calls and tea. Both women were well settled into their married lives, beginning their own families and leading very fulfilling lives. Like her, they had less time for girl days shopping in Diagon Alley or clubbing in Muggle London.

A shivering tremor racked Luna’s small frame briefly, reminding her that she still sat in the bottom of her tub-shower, wet and cold in the winter in Ireland. She released the elastic bracelet one last time, listening to the snap with little satisfaction before rising slowly. She grabbed a thick lavender towel, wrapping it around herself before leaving the small bathroom, wishing it was something, anything else being wrapped around her lovingly.

What was it about her life that left her so unsatisfied? At twenty-eight, she was young, smart, fairly well-off financially, busy researching and teaching her passion for magical creatures and their environments, and living in beautiful Ireland. Her father had passed away two years ago, but he had been taken with illness about three years after the war ended, so she’d had ample time to come to terms with his death. She still felt the loss, but if she learned anything in life, it was that people died, and no amount of magic or crying could change it. Xenophilius was now with his wife, and Luna couldn’t be happier for her parents. He had never truly recovered from the accident that took her mother, and Luna knew if not for having to take care of their daughter, Xenophilius more likely than not would have followed shortly after his wife.

She pursed her lips in musing, pulling on her plain pink panties and a large Chudley Cannon Quidditch jersey she’d bought just for sleeping in. What was missing? What made all of the success in her life so empty, her research meaningless? Why they hell was being lonely bothering her so much when before it brought her clarity and relief? Why now?
Luna glanced at her desk, letting out a sharp sigh at the piece of parchment on top of her other scattered papers and books. There it was, like a sign from some deity or another, the source of her recent melancholy and depression. The letter had arrived just the week before, catching her completely off guard, as Ginny was wont to do.

Luna,
Great news! Ron broke off his engagement with that money-grubbing trollop Deborah, caught her with her ex-boyfriend when she was supposed to be sick! He threw her out yesterday and now he’s staying with Draco, Vane, and I until he “clears his head”, as he says. You know I liked Deborah about as much as I liked Umbridge as Dark Arts professor, but more importantly, maybe now the two of you can finally get together!

Send me an owl as soon as you can, I know you’re drowning in papers and reports. Hope to see you for Christmas, and don’t you dare say no! You can’t stay cooped up in your flat and classroom forever, Luna, and Vane keeps asking after his aunt, you know you’re his favorite.

All my love,
Ginny

These were the days Luna could cheerfully kill Ginny.

Luna had changed much since the war, when she was a starry-eyed child of fantastical creatures and innocence. Bloodshed and death, much more violent than her mother’s, opened her eyes; the world was not the puzzle she once imagined. You couldn’t simply believe in something and expect it to be real, for it to reveal itself simply from wishing. No, the world was harsh, cruel, and no one ever made out of it alive. Such was the new cynical turn the war had given her outlook on everything, much to the dismay of her girlfriends.

Even while she had to harden up and lose some of those stars in her eyes, one thing had never changed, and that was her hopeless affections for a certain Ron Weasley, now Auror Weasley. Every year until her father’s death they had gone to the Weasley’s for Christmas, practically smothered in a huge throng of children and grandchildren and anyone else Molly could convince to attend for a free artery-clogging meal. And every year, Ron Weasley only grew more attractive to her, with his shagging red hair and great height, solid build and laughing blue eyes. He was everything she was not: warm, tall, outgoing, passionate, brave. He had never looked at her, no matter how much she hoped, in any other way than as a fellow fighter or one of his kid sister’s friends.

Luna had tried many times to take a lover, to see if someone could just get her mind off of him, even for a little while. It never worked. She had learned that if she was too tired to think, then she couldn’t think about Ron. And so she threw herself into her work, writing three books, teaching, traveling to other universities for lectures or conferences. For the most part, she only had the energy to think about Ron maybe once every week or two, which was just fine by her.

However, six months ago she received an owl from Ginny, ranting about some whore who had obviously Imperiused her brother into an engagement. Luna had to write her back a calming note to assuage her friend, concealing how hurt she actually was. Ginny didn’t fall for it, of course.

Was that it? Was she starting to hope again? She did care for Ron, as a friend and as something else that she tried to hide, but now was not the time to try her hand at winning him. He had just found the woman he loved in bed with her old boyfriend, a humiliating and painful event that was no doubt eating him up. She wished she could be there, to offer him comfort of some kind. Not carnally, but someone to talk to who wasn’t biased Ginny or his overbearing mother.

Luna paused in combing her hair, forehead scrunched slightly. Maybe she should leave early for the holidays, maybe even stay late. Or possibly take the whole next semester off. The Dean of the department had been hounding her to take her vacation time she had racked up over the years, never indulging but rather tirelessly continuing her work. There were no special classes that she taught personally, just the basics that her advanced students would be eager (and possibly shedding blood) to take over. She was just beginning a new project on magical herbivores in southeast Asia, nothing that had a time constraint on it. In a year the project would mean another book and multiple presentations, but for now it was all beginning legwork of studying local myths and sightings.

But how desperate was she to just drop her life’s work to go comfort the man she’d been harboring a secret crush on for thirteen years? She was twenty-eight, way past the point where she drops everything just to make him feel better. Luna Lovegood was no child, but a highly successful, intelligent woman who didn’t have the time to chase after some silly six foot childhood dream. Now was the time for her moment in the spotlight, not to be content watching from the sidelines. No, she wasn’t going to leave what she’d worked so hard to build.

But she was so exhausted, mind numb from the heavy workload day after day, craving a night without grading papers or cracking open six or seven books. Maybe see a Muggle movie or get a pet from Diagon Ally. Or just relaxing in her childhood home, taking a nice long breather to bring back the passion for her work she’d had when she started at the University four years prior.

Yes, a six-month vacation back in her small cottage near the Burrow sounded lovely now, the peace and quiet more inviting the more she allowed herself to think about it. She could bring some research with her, some mythological journals, but she would spend most of the days walking through the woods, picking flowers and berries in the meadows; and while it was still cold, enjoying rose tea in front of her fireplace.

The picture in her mind made her whole body ache for the freshness and familiarity of it all. She would spend some time with Ginny and her little nephew Vane, but mostly would try to fill the hollow void that she knew wouldn’t be filled by eager term papers or articles on Nargles.