The Alchemist and the Moon (Luna/Theo -Harry Potter)

Theodore Nott had dealt with many uncomfortable, unfortunate, and outright mortifying moments in his relatively short life. He had endured excruciating small talk with Ministry officials who only saw him as his father's shadow, sat through painfully long dinners where purebloods reminisced about a world that no longer existed, and suffered through countless interactions where he had to pretend he wasn't just as uncomfortable as the person standing in front of him.

But this—this moment right here—was a level of awkward that surpassed all previous experiences.

Because here he stood, utterly and completely lost, trapped in the suffocating silence of his own inadequacy, staring at Luna Lovegood like some lovesick idiot, as if he had never seen another human being before in his life, as if she were some divine vision that had graced him with her presence and he simply did not have the mental faculties required to process it.

She was just standing there, perfectly composed, perfectly serene, looking at him with her ever-patient, ever-knowing expression, while he—who prided himself on having a sharp wit and a cold, calculating mind—stood frozen in place, fumbling, like some idiotic schoolboy who had just discovered that girls exist.

Merlin's bloody beard, he was pathetic.

"Would you like to investigate the artifact further?" Luna asked after a beat, her voice calm, as if she were completely unaware of the sheer catastrophe currently unfolding inside his brain.

"Yes… uhm…" He swallowed thickly, running a hand through his already disheveled hair before, for some reason, his mouth continued speaking before his brain could properly intervene. "Would you like to… maybe… have lunch? I—I apologise for dragging you away."

What was that?

What the bloody hell was that?

Why had he said that? Why had his voice done that? Why had he invited her to lunch when the entire point of this was dealing with an artifact that could potentially be cursed?

Luna, however, didn't seem fazed in the slightest.

"Oh, it's fine," she replied breezily, offering him a small, amused smile. "I'm vegan, anyway, so I'll have lunch later on."

There was no reason—no logical reason—for him to react the way he did, but something about that statement—about her casually dismissing his offer, about the finality of it—set off some ridiculous, primal alarm in his brain, some absurd part of him that absolutely refused to let her simply leave and go off to eat lunch alone at some undetermined later time.

"NO!"

The word came out far too loud, far too abrupt, a sharp, borderline aggressive response to what had been an utterly neutral statement, and he immediately regretted it when Luna simply blinked at him, her expression giving nothing away.

He swallowed thickly, mentally kicking himself, hard, before hastily fumbling for damage control.

"Sorry—Merlin—that was harsh. I just—I meant—I'll ask the elf that's here to make us something."

Luna tilted her head slightly at that, something unreadable flickering in her gaze, and for a split second, he thought—no, knew—that she was about to say something that would utterly unravel him.

"So, you still have elves?" she mused, her tone light, but the words sharp enough to make his stomach twist.

His throat went dry.

He had never liked this conversation. Never liked the looks, the assumptions, the weight of his own history thrown at him like an accusation he had no defense against. But this was Luna. She wasn't accusing him of anything—she was simply asking.

And yet, somehow, that made it worse.

"She doesn't want to leave me," he said quietly, his voice softer now, stripped of its earlier awkwardness. "She raised me. And she doesn't want to go without me."

There. That was the truth.

And Luna, with all her strange, knowing wisdom, simply nodded—offering neither judgment nor approval, only quiet understanding, the kind that lingered in the space between them, settling like an invisible weight in the air, heavier than any silence had been before. It was not the kind of silence that demanded to be filled, nor the awkward, expectant kind that pressed uncomfortably against the edges of a conversation, but rather the rare and elusive kind that meant something—a quiet acknowledgement, an unspoken acceptance, the sort of pause that allowed words unspoken to rest peacefully in the stillness between them.

And for once, Theodore did not feel the need to explain himself further.

Without another word, they moved towards the kitchen, their pace unhurried, the distant hum of the manor's silence stretching around them. There was something strangely comforting about the way Luna walked beside him, neither intruding nor following, simply existing within his space as though she had always belonged there, her presence as effortless as the way sunlight filtered through high arched windows, as natural as the soft creak of the old floorboards beneath their steps.

"I came here a day ago," he admitted after a moment, glancing at the dust that had settled along the bannisters, at the shadows stretching too far into corners that had not been lit in years. "So the manor looks like a mess."

Luna glanced around as though she hadn't noticed the peeling wallpaper, the tarnished chandeliers, or the faint layer of dust clinging stubbornly to the once-polished wood of the grand staircase.

"It's gorgeous either way," she said simply, her voice as light as ever. "I don't judge books by their covers."

Of course she didn't.

She would be the sort to see past crumbling stone and faded paint, to look at a house steeped in too many shadows and see something more than its past. Where most people would see neglect, ruin, something barely held together by time and memory, Luna saw beauty.

Typical.

By the time they reached the kitchen, lunch had already been prepared—Theo barely had time to step inside before Bobsy, his personal elf, was rushing forward, beaming up at Luna with wide, sparkling eyes as though she had just laid eyes upon a creature of legend.

And, really, in a way, she had.

Luna, with the effortless grace of someone who was genuinely delighted to be meeting someone new, turned her full attention to the elf and smiled.

"My name is Luna," she said, her voice warm, unguarded, entirely genuine. "It's a pleasure to meet you. What is yours?"

Bobsy, who had spent years in this house serving the Nott family, who had seen its former masters conduct themselves with cold, restrained detachment, who had never once been asked for her name in such a manner, went violently red.

Her large ears twitched, her wrinkled hands wrung together in what could only be described as nervous excitement, and for the first time since Theodore had returned, she looked positively starstruck.

"Master never brought home a missus," Bobsy blurted out, her voice high-pitched with what heaven forbid might actually be glee.

Theodore, who had been casually reaching for a chair, froze.

Luna, unbothered as ever, simply tilted her head slightly, as if considering the statement before responding.

"Oh, we are not married," she corrected, entirely unruffled. "I'm here for work."

But it was too late.

Bobsy's large, round eyes twinkled, her expression shifting into something that could only be described as utterly delighted, her entire tiny frame practically vibrating with the intensity of her new favourite misunderstanding.

"Bobsy will be at your service any time, missus," she assured with a fervent nod. "Anything that Luna wants, Bobsy will get!"

Luna, entirely undeterred by the elf's enthusiasm, simply smiled and gave her a gentle nod.

"Thank you, darling."

Theo nearly choked.

Darling?

He had no idea what was more baffling—the fact that Luna had managed to win over Bobsy within seconds of meeting her, or the fact that Bobsy had decided, with no hesitation, that Luna was now Missus Nott.

The mere thought of it made his brain short-circuit.

Married?

As if.

He wasn't bloody Malfoy. He didn't go around developing ridiculous, inevitable fated attachments to people who suddenly walked into his life, nor did he allow himself to get swept up in whatever inexplicable force seemed to have tethered Luna Lovegood to him today.

Except—Bobsy clearly had other ideas.

And as Theodore sat there, still reeling, still mentally unpacking the absurdity of why the word married had left him so utterly paralysed, he came to a truly horrifying realisation—one that sent a slow, creeping dread curling around his spine, one that he had no way of escaping.

Bobsy, his long-time, devoted, but wildly overenthusiastic elf, was already planning the wedding.

The way she was practically buzzing with delight, her hands clasped together as though she had just witnessed some grand, fated event unfold before her very eyes, was nothing short of terrifying. Theodore could see the wheels turning in her head, could feel the way she had latched onto this new and dangerous assumption with the kind of unwavering commitment that no amount of logical reasoning would ever be able to undo.

And, Merlin help him, he could not deal with this right now.

"Sorry," he muttered quickly, shooting Luna a glance as if to silently beg her to ignore the madness unfolding in front of them. "She's just… excited to see someone beside me."

Luna, to his surprise, merely smiled.

"She is lovely."

Of course she bloody would think that. Of course she would look at the manic glint in Bobsy's eyes, the way the tiny creature was one misstep away from attempting to embroider their initials onto the napkins, and call her lovely.

Before he could even begin to formulate a response, Luna continued, her tone as soft and serene as ever.

"You know that you don't have to talk to me, right?" she said, tilting her head slightly, the way she always did when she was about to say something that completely threw him off balance. "We can have lunch in silence if you prefer."

Theodore frowned.

"Why wouldn't I talk to you?" he asked, genuinely confused.

And then—then—Luna blinked at him with that same unreadable expression, calm as ever, and without hesitation, dropped an absolute bombshell of a sentence into the air between them.

"You were the one who started calling me Loony."

His stomach dropped.

His heart stopped.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Oh, fuck me," he blurted out, the words escaping before he could stop them, before he could think, before his entire body was set alight with shame, before every single mistake he had ever made in his childhood came crashing down upon him like an avalanche of absolute regret.

His mind raced, scrambling to fix what had already been said, scrambling to make up for years of something he could not take back, scrambling to apologise in a way that wasn't just pathetic.

"I'm so sorry," he said hurriedly, his words tumbling over themselves as he ran a hand through his hair, completely and utterly mortified. "I was a kid, I was an idiot, I just—I just wanted to fit in, and I never—"

Luna, as always, was unbothered.

"Theodore," she interrupted gently, raising a hand as if to calm him, as if to soothe whatever frantic disaster was currently unravelling inside his head. "I know. I'm not mad at you. I'm telling you facts."

It was, somehow, worse.

If she had been angry, if she had snapped, if she had yelled, he would have deserved it. But instead, she simply accepted it, as though it was just something that had happened, as though it was a truth that had already settled into the past, and she had no interest in unearthing it again.

Theodore had no idea what to do with that.

So, in true utterly doomed fashion, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"I like Seline better," he admitted, voice softer now, hesitant. "It suits you."

Luna blinked, a flicker of something unreadable passing through her pale blue eyes before she spoke.

"Only Hermione calls me that."

For some reason, that bothered him.

For some reason, the idea that only Granger got to use that name sent something curling deep in his chest—something far too close to irritation, something dangerous, something he absolutely did not want to examine right now.

"What should I call you, then?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, watching her carefully, waiting for something, though he wasn't quite sure what.

Luna, in typical Luna fashion, simply shrugged.

"Anything you prefer."

Oh.

Oh, that was a problem.

Because his mind—his stupid, utterly disastrous mind—immediately went to very inappropriate places.

To names that would most certainly earn him a slap.

Good girl.

He swallowed hard.

No. Absolutely not. NO.

His brain was not going to sabotage him like this.

Absolutely not.

"Okay, my moon," he blurted out instead, half out of panic, half because it was the first thing that came to mind that wasn't entirely indecent.

Luna's lips twitched.

"That's a reach," she mused, amusement dancing behind her eyes.

Theodore exhaled heavily, shaking his head, half mortified, half resigned to his own idiocy.

"It is," he admitted. "Absolutely."

By the time they finally returned to the library, the air between them had settled back into something quieter, something resembling focus—or at least, it should have. It should have been simple. They had a purpose, an artifact to study, a task that required undivided attention, and yet, despite every rational attempt to force his mind back to the matter at hand, Theodore Nott found himself completely incapable of concentrating on anything other than her.

It was absurd.

It was beyond absurd.

He had spent years—years—training his mind to be sharp, analytical, unshaken by distractions, and yet here he was, standing amidst rows of ancient tomes and cursed artifacts, utterly fucking useless because Luna Lovegood existed in the same room as him.

His eyes betrayed him first.

They refused to do what they were supposed to—refused to remain on the stone tablet spread across the heavy wooden desk before them, refused to examine the intricate carvings that required his attention, refused to do anything except track her every movement, drawn to her with a helpless inevitability that was beginning to feel less like fleeting attraction and more like some cruel, otherworldly punishment.

Her face—Merlin's fucking beard, her face.

It was infuriating how soft it was, how effortlessly delicate she appeared despite the impossible depth behind those pale blue eyes. And her mouth—the way she bit her lip in quiet concentration, the way she pressed a finger against her chin while thinking, the way she tilted her head ever so slightly when reading as though the words on the page whispered to her in ways they did not whisper to anyone else.

And her hair.

Merlin, her hair.

It was wild, unrestrained, cascading down in loose, moonlit waves, soft strands catching the dim candlelight in ways that made his fingers itch with the reckless, utterly foolish urge to touch it, to see if it felt as impossibly soft as it looked, to wrap a strand around his finger and—

He needed to stop.

Immediately.

This was getting dangerous.

But then she moved—just slightly, just enough to reach for one of the books beside her—and it was as if his entire nervous system short-circuited, because suddenly, suddenly, he was noticing things he had absolutely no business noticing.

The slope of her neck.

The way her robes shifted when she leaned forward.

The subtle, maddening outline of her form beneath the loose layers of fabric.

Fuck.

He needed an exorcism.

He needed divine intervention.

He needed something far stronger than rational thought, because whatever this was, it was quickly evolving into a problem.

His jaw clenched, his fingers curled into tight fists at his sides as he willed himself to think—to focus, to read, to do anything other than stare at Luna Lovegood like some desperate, starved creature who had just discovered fire.

And then, as if sensing his utter descent into madness, she turned to look at him, her expression serene, head tilting ever so slightly as if she knew, as if she could see straight through him, as if she was utterly unaffected while he was barely holding himself together.

He swallowed hard.

He needed a wank.

Immediately.