Just One Kiss

This story was red-moused by Jilliane. Any remaining mistakes are my own. I don't follow directions well.

Just One Kiss

It was just one kiss that sealed Luna's fate. One kiss, given during the heat of battle, in a moment of her heroine's greatest weakness and also her greatest strength. To be sure, given the events of later that night and the intervening months and years, the kiss had not meant as much, if anything, to Hermione. After all, she had married Ronald Weasley, bore him two children and settled into the dreamed of life of upper-middle class bourgeois comfort. It was expected of Hermione, and even though the girl had the greatest mind of her age, the woman she became had been programmed from birth, if not before.

So, Luna married her Rolf, and they went on their magio-cryptozoological quests and they settled into their lives. If Luna were honest with herself, her fate had been pre-ordained also. How could it not be with Xenophilus Lovegood for a father? Luna lived her life accordingly, only trotting out the memory of the kiss when she was particularly dissatisfied with her life as she led it. She brought it out more often when she knew for certain that Rolf Scamander was involved in more than just research with his student assistant.

Just one little kiss, seared into Luna's sense memory; the taste of bitter almonds and Muggle toothpaste, the silken feel of her skin against Luna's, the odour of blood and violence perfuming Hermione...

So in the twentieth year after that final battle (and the kiss,) Luna returned to England with her shiny new divorce, having lost 18 ugly stone (Rolf.) She had accepted the position of Care of Magical Creatures Professor from the ailing Hagrid, and looked forward to years of sterile celibacy, surrounded by the might have been children she had been denied by Rolf's insistence that they not clutter their lives with them. Yes, her uterus would dry up and blow away, especially if the only sustenance it received was from that long ago kiss and Luna's own questing fingers..

She moved mistily through her days, bestowing her years of experience on young minds that couldn't care less about how to care for a Crup or the mating practices of Thestrals. It all seemed such a waste.

Until...

In the section of the Daily Prophet reserved for legal announcements, births, and deaths, Luna saw it. The petition of divorce, one Hermione Granger-Weasley versus one Ronald Weasley, on the grounds of incompatibility. Luna knew it was wicked to dance in the little room afforded her as a teacher after she read the announcement. She knew it was mad to go over that kiss once again in her mind, to touch her fevered and aching breasts, to run her hands down her body to her hidden core. She knew, and yet she did it unashamedly. She ached for Hermione's touch and hoped that she would feel the same after all this time..

During Yule break she contacted Hermione, just a casual lunch during office hours, nothing special. Luna had never been the pursuer before, and she stumbled awkwardly over her greeting as Hermione met her in the Ministry's atrium. Hermione smiled, a little sadly, but allowed Luna to take her hand into the crook of her arm.

Hermione had changed; softened around the middle from childbirth, hardened around the mouth from life. Luna gazed at her as they walked to a cafe just down the street, and she catalogued the changes, good and bad in Hermione. All in all, it was a pleasing whole that Luna saw. Hermione had grown from a blandly pretty girl into an interesting woman. Luna stroked her fingers over Hermione's hand and said "Let's eat here."

They sat in the small cafe, reading of daily specials and inconsequentials on the signboard over the counter. Luna darted glances at Hermione from under her silver-grey lashes, noting the pace of Hermione's breath and the pulse at the base of her throat as she unwound a thick scarf from around her neck. They each ordered sensible meals and a glass of wine, and they both sat in charged silence until the waitress left them.

It was Hermione who spoke first. She had always been the bold one. Wasn't it she who had kissed Luna?

"Did you ever wake up and realise you had made a terrible mistake?" Hermione asked as she turned from Luna's half-cast gaze. "I don't mean a morally repugnant mistake, just one that can't be rectified easily."

"Yes," Luna answered smoothly, then said no more. How could she tell Hermione of her secret? The kiss held so long to her breast that it became a secret sigil, a clandestine banner that made her life livable. Luna was used to being perceived as foolish, but she could not expose her heart so readily.

Hermione sighed and picked up her fork. "I remember, you know."

It was then that Luna's heart skittered and stopped, and then lurched painfully against her ribs, sticking to the sides of them before it sped up again. "You remember?"

Both women looked at each other, as if they had just gained the gift of sight. Hermione's hard mouth softened. Luna's misty vision cleared. And the memory of the kiss, held so long to each of their breasts passed between them.

Hermione smiled first. "I'm not exactly sure what to do next. It's been so long since... I was interested in... someone who might be... interested back."

And then...

Luna took her hand, splaying her fingers between Hermione's, hot skin to hot skin. She knew, and she would show the brightest witch of their age how...to live, to laugh, to love, without fear of reprisal, without overthinking it.

Luna knew all the way back to Hermione's flat, and when they fell into each other's arms there was no fight for supremacy, no chest beating, no ego to assuage. Luna looked on Hermione's stretch marks and flabby skin with love, not revulsion. Conversely, Hermione admired Luna's round arse, running her fingers over the dimpled surface with a sense of awe. They fell into bed and consummated their long-ago promise that began with two girls in the heat of battle, and ended with two female warriors in the intervening years of peace.



CHALLENGE: The challenge was "Well I Never..." on ffn in the Sober Universe forum. The prompt was to write a story on the pairing of the issuer's choice. Mine was Luna/Hermione with the narrative from Luna's perspective.

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