Title: Looking Glass (Wonderland)
Characters: Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter
Rating: G/PG
Summary: You wonder what he sees when he sees you.
Author's Notes: Written between HBP and TDH. A slightly different take from "The Trouble With Boys" on Luna's feelings about Harry - this one was actually written first. This is the last-uploaded of my completed H/L fics for now; I have another one I'm trying to finish up fairly soon.
Disclaimer: It's all Jo's. Just knocking down the sandcastles.

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It shouldn't hurt this much, not seeing him.

You wonder why it does.

He's quite fascinating in a number of ways, many of which you've spent rather a lot of time pondering recently. Moreso than even the transparent six-armed Trunculuses Dad keeps receiving sightings of.

You don't think you've ever seen the exact shade of green in his eyes anywhere else; it's probably why you spend as much time looking at them as you do. You wonder why after nearly a decade in the wizarding world the man who was powerful enough to defeat Voldemort chooses to keep those obsolete spectacles when only one spell could fix his vision forever - not that you truly mind, you actually rather like them on him - and you wonder if maybe he worries that if he took them off, he wouldn't recognize the world without them.

Or maybe it was a way of being blind to the pain that this world's heaped on him so much at times. You couldn't blame him, really.

You wonder what that green sees from behind those pieces of Muggle glass.

You find yourself spending a lot of time pondering that, too. Just what he does see. You wonder if trying on his glasses would answer your question.

You wonder what he sees when he sees you.

You seem to wonder about a lot of things when it comes to him.

You look in the mirror, turning your head this way and that, trying to imagine what you might look like to a boy half a head taller than you and who wears glass in front of his eyes. You've always had a brilliant imagination, your father says, so it shouldn't be hard.

All you see is yourself. Pale skin, round face framed by waist-length dark blonde hair you haven't combed since last night. (It's struck you as odd that hairstyling matters to so many, when in the end the hair will simply do what it wants to no matter how you charm or Sleekeazy it. Harry came to that realization long ago too, apparently. His hair is probably worse than yours. Yet you think it suits him very well, and wonder what it might feel like between your fingers.) Orange radish earrings, bottlecork necklace. The wide silver eyes that made Dad start calling you his little moon-faery. The eyes that were Mom's, though Harry doesn't know that.

You wonder what he sees.

You wonder why you haven't asked him.

You do know he treats you more normally than anyone except Dad. When you talk about your theories, he doesn't always understand them, but at least he listens. He'll never mock you, and when he does laugh, somehow you know it's not because he's making fun of you. Like maybe he thinks what you're saying is crazy - but that it's fine, he doesn't care. He likes you.

Besides, seeing him laugh means getting to see him smile.

You've seen plenty of other people smile before, but his is different. Maybe it's because even with the war long over it's still such a rare thing. Precious, you might even say, like the dust from Dad's moon-faeries. Happiness was always such a short-lived thing during the war that he knew could and probably would be taken from him (often sooner rather than later), but now he's starting to smile again. Like his hair, it suits him very well.

Part of you thinks maybe he smiles just a little more around you than everyone else.

Twice a week, he comes by your place - usually after swinging by Ronald's, just on the other side of the Muggle village - to give you defense lessons. The war itself is over, but isolated pockets of Voldemort's followers still remain, and Harry worries about his friends. He was a good teacher back in your fourth year, and he still is. He is patient with you, and will sometimes even stand right behind your shoulder and place his hand on yours to guide it in making the proper wand motions - like he sometimes did when teaching Cho Chang, you remember. Sometimes his hand seems to linger a bit longer than necessary (probably just tired) but you don't mind it at all. It's quite nice, actually. It's warm, and soft - it fascinates you how the same hand that brought death to the most powerful dark wizard in modern history can still be like that. It's one of those things that makes Harry Harry.

His face also turns this rather nice shade of pink whenever you kiss him good-bye on the cheek.

One day you wonder how pink it would turn if you kissed him on the lips instead.

And then you finally realize why you've been wondering about him so much.

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[end]