Author's Notes: Written for my wife, because Luna/Hermione is her OTP.

Luna's never been afraid before.

When she was nine, she saw her mum explode, and bits of potion steamed and hissed on her bare toes, and the grief that filled her mind was too deep for words, and the tears that dripped down her cheeks stung on the raw bits, but she wasn't afraid. Not even when her father ran in and grabbed her up, heedless of the potion trying to eat its way through his boots, or the blood that stained the bottom of her nightgown. She had nightmares for a solid week and couldn't bear to tell her father when the first thestral picked his way up to her in the snow-shrouded forest, and she could see him.

When she was eleven, her Hogwarts letter came, addressed to the bedroom on the left, and she showed her father at breakfast. He blinked at her, grunted, and said he'd have to take time off his work at the Quibbler to take her to Diagon Alley for her school supplies. Excitement fizzed in her veins until September 1, and when she got her wand, silver streamers shot out of the end, and she felt like she'd drunk a whole case of butterbeer. No fear cringed in the line of her shoulders, or the dreamy tilt of her head as she curled in the corner of the last compartment on the train, or sat cross-legged in her own boat, bobbing across the lake.

When she was twelve, she became friends with Ginny Weasley. She had a talent for Potions, and Ginny was well-accomplished with hexes. Her dorm mates stopped throwing all her belongings in the rafters, and she smiled a little easier, the gloom that had started to settle in her eyes brightening just that bit more. It was glorious, having a friend, more than Luna could have ever dreamed, and she painted Ginny's name in gold threads on the ceiling of her room at Christmas time.

When she was fourteen, she discovered the talents that coursed through her slightly barmy frame. She stood at Harry Potter's side in the Department of Mysteries, and despite that feeling that she should be fearful of the Death Eaters coming from all sides, masks shining silver in the prophecy-lit darkness, she simply...couldn't. Perhaps it was too deep for fear as she ran, blood coursing down the side of her face.

When Luna is fifteen, everything changes.

Her stomach fizzes when Hermione Granger steps into a room, and for the first time, her cheeks flush, and she can't string words together. When Hermione looks at her with that slightly puzzled look Hermione always has around Luna, she can't breathe properly, and her fingertips are tingly with the ache of how much she wants to press them to Hermione's cheekbones, to guide the bushy-haired girl's lips to her own. She wonders if they taste as soft as they look and blurts out something about the Nargles hiding in the mistletoe.

She's afraid, she's never been more afraid, and it takes six agonising months before Luna tiptoes barefoot across the Great Hall to drape a necklace strung together from periwinkle blossoms and parchment butterflies across Hermione's neck and asks her, her heart beating like a hummingbird's, if she'd like to go to Hogsmeade with Luna.

It feels like an eternity before Hermione says yes.