by Luna_Puella » Thursday 10 October 2002 9:22:11pm
Luna swooped down towards the ground, and the air whipped her golden hair back like a furious tidal wave. She couldn't think about how Louis or Adrian would factor--she had to concentrate on her own Feint.
As the green ground came up to meet her face, Luna took a deep breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Louis screech down like a bullet. With his Firebolt he was deadly.
She watched the ground climb up, and all her attention fell to it as well. Her heart skipped a beat, and just as she thought she'd hit, she pulled up the broomstick with a furious grip.
Straight backed and even, after hours of summer evenings in the horse pen, (lots of field space there to practice) she was doing it. She was really doing it, and perfectly!
All of the next second came as a blur--Nate's wand let out the shriek that signified that all three of them had finished, and she tumbled off the whizzing Moonbeam and onto the green grass.
Dazed and dizzy, she lifted up her head to see Louis standing up and looking at her in worried anxiety. Adrian hadn't even bothered off her broom--she was whizzing in a circle back up into the sky, and twirled herself straight.
"Luna, are you alright?" Louis knelt beside her, and through her headache from connecting with the ground, she didn't even blush.
"I...think so...." She held onto her head and gave a little moan. Louis went to pick up her broomstick lying a few feet away with no damage other than a few flyaway bristles, and she dazedly heard clapping and whistling coming from above her.
"You go, Louis! You're the Hurricane!" Nate did a celebratory flip, and she could see his braces flash above her head, a little glimmer of orange in the blue sky.
Louis had won.
She frowned down at her hands, willing herself to stop being a baby and pushing away the urge to cry. Maybe if she'd ony beaten Louis somehow, he'd think something more of her than just a nice person...but no. How could she have ever beaten the Gryffindor captain?
Louis pulled out the rumpled bristles and handed it gently to her. He took her hand and helped her up, and, though she stumbled a little, she could stand.
"You don't look so good--blast!" He exclaimed and Luna looked at him in surprise. "I shouldn't have even suggested the bloody contest. I didn't mean for you to get hurt at all."
She looked at him, searching for something that explained the tone of his voice. His dark eyes stared at her with...something. Something in them that she'd never realy seen when he looked at her before.
"Oh, I'm alright." Luna smiled at him as best she could. "Thank you--for caring."
He smiled at her disarmingly, and shook his head "You were so close to beating me--inches away. I'm not joking--" He said to her disbelieving face. "You were close."
Adrian swooped down and grinned. "What a close one! Wow, you two were like twin tornadoes--couldn't even see you. I got left behind." She winked at Luna and swooped back off with her club to smash at the ball that Heather had pointed her way. "Won't be that way on the match tomorrow though!" They heard her crystalline laugh echo over the stadium.
Louis winked at Luna again, making her knees weak.
"Hey--" He said, as she mounted again. "I heard from McGonagall that there's a Hogsmeade trip next week--would you...uh..." he was silent for a moment. "Would you like to go with me?"
Luna couldn't do anything but nod.