Sanity ~ A Luna Lovegood Fanfiction

The River

I excused myself from raking the garden plot with Daddy. It was a labourious task but a crucial step we had to take if we wanted the Eneron Harp flowers to bloom in January. It could only be done on Boxing Day - any other day would prove fruitless, all your hard work would be for nothing. We did it together every year, on this very day. 

But on this particular Boxing Day, my thoughts were dancing up high with the clouds, my feet itching to run free. And my hands were desperate to let go of the splintered wooden rake.

Daddy let me away, but before I set out, I ran up to my room and thrust the tip of my wand into the depths of my Hogwarts trunk, and the familiar leather-bound hardback landed in my upturned hands. I liked to think of it as my forbidden journal. It had been neglected for the past month - I couldn't make any entries now that I was confined inside of Hogwarts and watched dubiously by every professor, prefect, portrait and ghost that I passed. Now, however, that was about to change. I tucked it under my arm, skipped down our earthen garden path, and was finally free - freer than I'd been in such a long time - to run and leap and spring through the grass and over its humps and burrows. 

The hilly countryside lay ahead of me, open like a book vying to be read. My feet fell into familiar grooves in the soil, taking me exactly where I wanted to go. I heard the tinkling of the river before I saw it. As I rounded an embankment, the water came into view, a stream pouring downslope that gradually widened into a steady river, hopping over rocks and delving under the earth. In an instant, my shoes were off and my socks were thrown somewhere in the grass beside them. I lay my journal on the shore of the river and dipped my toes into the water. 

The water was clear and blue. But it was biting cold as I dropped my feet in, as if icy sparkles were tickling them. The stones were smooth under my feet, slipping and sliding as I shifted my weight to stand, letting the quiet roar overcome my thoughts and the cool liquid trace its fingers over my skin. 

My reverie was impregnably blissful. That is why, when the booming sound of a voice saying my name came to my ears, I was so startled that I didn't recognise the figure cloaked in his dark clothing. I scrambled for my wand, believing the stranger to be something cruel and wicked, greedy to carry out its unjust intentions on me, and I on the verge of sending them sprawling in the dirt. 

"Luna!" they said again, lightheartedly. And this time, when I heard it, I knew exactly who it was, and I was so delighted that I was suddenly weak in the knees.

Rolf pulled down his hood and his dark hair poked out, softly waving in the wind and caressing his forehead. The corner of his mouth pulled to the side and his eyes glowed as if the clear blue sky was shining right out of them. "It's been a while," he said as my mouth fell open.

"Rolf Scamander!" I yelped. At once, I tucked away my wand and bounded over the small, trickling portion of stream that divided us, grabbing him and pulling him against me into a vehement hug. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked, utterly bemused as I slowly let go and stood back to get another look at him.

"Your father said you were down here, I just followed the trail." As he spoke, his smile grew wider and wider until he was showing off all of his teeth. 

"Not here," I said, "here." I threw my arms into the air, gathering not just the stream and the quiet meadow but the whole country into my gesture. 

"To visit you, of course. I had to see you," he said.

"I'm so happy you're here." My cheeks felt rosy and my lips were twitching with the desire to grin.

"So am I," said Rolf. "I missed you." He gave me a look of pure sincerity before glancing away and, coltish, adding, "America's not the same after all the time I spent over here with your constant life observations playing in my ear."

"Well this is the perfect opportunity to show you what you're missing out on," I said giddily. "It's brilliant that you're here, you're going to see the whole countryside." My eyes drifted from his exhilarated face to the rolling hills and dips of the landscape, the faintly green fields, the barren bramble separating them and the naked trees, reaching their pointed fingers up into the pale grey sky. 

"Is that fun?" Rolf asked, disturbing me once again. 

"Sorry?" 

He tilted his head at the river and looked down at my white feet, still glistening and dripping from the water. 

"Oh. Of course it is." My mischievous smile travelled onto his face. "Come on, get your shoes off." 

I untied the laces of his left shoe as he attacked the right. Once he was ready, I pulled him by the hand and plunged my feet into the stream, manoeuvring over the smoothly eroded pebbles and feeling the cold run between my toes.

"Oof, it's cold," grunted Rolf as he delicately tiptoed in behind me.
 
"Of course it is, it's December," I scolded. 

His fingers lingered, loosely holding onto mine while I stepped deeper into the river, the water lapping at my calves. 

"Don't slip," I told him over my shoulder, the riverbed rocks shifting and wobbling under the soles of my feet. I was confident in the care I took as I walked in the water but Rolf - he was a liability. 

We succumbed to the gentle rustling of the river as we edged along in companionable silence and the racing water ran past us. My eyes were glued to the bed of the river. The water was as transparent as a pane of glass; I could see each shining stone and each piece of detrital tissue fallen from an overhanging tree. 

"By Merlin," I cried. "Rolf, look! A crayfish!" I hunkered down, paying no heed as my bottom dipped into the water, and examined the coppery-coloured creature creeping along the silty bed, its crab-like claws moving side to side in sluggish unison. 

I heard the light splashes of Rolf crouching beside me and he leaned in to get a better view. "Are they... magical?" he asked. 

"No," I replied. "They're widely known to Muggles. But they aren't very common. Endangered, actually. And they only live in very clean water." I smiled, proud that my humble, native river was an appropriate dwelling for the fastidious crayfish. I had never seen one in that river before. 

In the corner of my eye, I saw Rolf straighten, but my face was almost pressed against the water as I studiously watched the crayfish's crawling movements. 

A giant splash of water hit me in the face and I jumped back, stumbling and tripping backward. I was submerged: my back landed on the stony bed and bubbles gurgled from my mouth. Floundering, I resurfaced. Rolf was standing above me, doing his best to stifle an irrepressible laugh with the back of his hand as my waterlogged hair and clothes shed droplets that splished and splashed back into the water. 

"That was you!" I shrieked, jabbing a finger in his red face, from which he was no longer able to conceal his laughter. 

"And what are you going to do about it?" he prompted. 

"You'll see," I said, gathering as much water as I could into my hands and preparing to launch it at him, ready to see him wet and dripping just as I was.

"Just don't step on any crayfish!" I warned as the play-fighting commenced. Pushing and running and dipping and diving and throwing and splashing, until we were considerably more soaked than we could've imagined being when we first set foot in the river.