No Regrets

A Harry / Luna Oneshot

I disclaim everything. Absolutely Everything.

The bug is subtle. The bug is careful.

As you may have guessed, the bug is a reporter.

Currently, she's hunting for rumours in a club, and having seen a favourite target of hers sitting below and quite obviously getting smashed,
she stops and waits.

And listens.

"To Cedric," he shouts, slinging his arm around the tall redhead with him, and downing a shot of something strong looking.

"To Fredric," the other agrees.

"And all the other poor bastards," shouts the first boy. The bug corrects herself. Really the boy is a man now, but she can't help but think of
him as the scrawny little kid who featured in hundreds of her articles.

"To Bastards!" the redhead agrees.

The two slump in contemplation until a waitress brings them more glasses. The challenge seems to wake them up again.

"Wherry," the redhead slurs, "Do… you… have… any… regrets?" He enunciates carefully to get the sentence out.

"Not the dead people sort of regrets," he continues, "you know what I mean?"

"Nope," says the other, nodding his head definitely.

"Well, like for me, I regret not snogging Hermy the first time I saw her," he nods in a daze. "Best way to shut her up. Woghorts would have
been 2560 percent quieter."

"Woghorts," snorts the other, and almost sprays drink out of his mouth.

"Wonder if it woulda worked with Malfoy," wonders the redhead.

The reporter, sensing easy blood remembers this horrifying point for use later.

When the redhead's mind catches up with his mouth, it mercifully renders him unconscious to avoid having to deal with that terrible, terrible
thought.

The other one doesn't notice.

"I regret," he says, after a long period of thinking, "I regret not having snogged Luna Lovegood senseless under the mistletoe in sixth year. That's
what I regret."

He looks over at his friend and sighs.

"Bloody hell, Ron," he mutters, "Hermy is never going to let me take you out ever again if you puke on the rug again."

The reporter looks at The-Boy-Who-Doesn't-Stay-Drunk in something like awe. She'd had it explained to her once. Something about magical cores,
metabolism, and a potion gone wrong.

Harry Potter shook his head.

"Dammit, 80 quid worth of booze and it was good for about 20 minutes of being drunk. Oh well, I suppose it's once a year."

"Common, you big lug."

Ron Weasley groaned unhappily. He hadn't drunk the potion gone wrong.

"And no puking on me either," Harry muttered. I've seen what you've been eating, Weasley, and I'm not interested in seeing it again."

Rita managed a small bug-like smirk as Ron Weasley turned a shade of green that absolutely, totally clashed with his orange Chudley Cannons sweater.

If bugs could laugh evilly, she would be doing it. The whole idea of a horribly hung-over Ron Weasley confronting the headline next morning that he
wished he had snogged Draco Malfoy when they were at Hogwarts had an evil that almost transcended Voldemortian levels. That freak had only killed
and tortured people, not outed them to the world when they were hungover.

She scuttled off to file her story.

Luckily for Ron, her editor required some more proof of something as totally outlandish as what she'd claimed.

"I mean seriously, Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy? You must have been inhaling alcohol fumes, Rita. That's just daft."

Hundreds of miles away, a long, pointy nose twitched and sneezed.

Draco Malfoy would never know how close he had come to terrible peril.

Unfortunately, this just left Rita feeling pissed, vengeful, and 110 ready to make whatever mileage she could of what Harry had said.

It was a shame he wasn't married.

It was because of this breaking story that when one Luna Lovegood stepped out of her apartment door that morning, she found herself surrounded by
the collected wizarding press of England.

Luna Lovegood doesn't deal especially well with being confronted unexpectedly early in the morning by ten screaming reporters. Normally she's doing
the reporting.

Of course she avoids screaming. Normally she asks people about snorkaks, heliotropes, and nargles until they're ready to tell her absolutely anything
in the interests of having something approaching a normal conversation.

More than a little stunned and puzzled, she found her copies of the various newspapers and sat down on the kitchen table with her legs crossed to figure
out what was going on.

Ministerial Brouhaha. Nope.

Happy Hufflepuffs Help Hundreds. Nope.

Bat-Boy Sighted in Delaware! Nope.

Secret Passion of Boy-Who-Lived!

….

….

Golly.

Well, it took three reads though the story (normal, left to right, and upside-down) for her to find the bits that were actually Harry, and which bits were
that sleaze Rita.

But it seemed like he had said that he regretted not kissing her. This was ok, because Luna Lovegood also regretted not being kissed. It did, however,
call for decisive action.

She hurried out of the room, and dressed down. Way down. Back to radish earrings, ill-fitting flowerchild blouse and dungarees, and some bright
green clogs.

That way if Harry turns and runs away, it can be because of the clothes, not because of her. She has found over the years that providing an excuse
can save on disappointment in the long run.

She grabs her old broom, clambers up a stairwell and onto the roof, wanders across a few buildings, and then toodles off on the broom towards auror
headquarters.

She suspects Harry will be there.

It takes a while to get there. She gets distracted by some pigeons for a while, and enjoys having her hair blown about in the wind. She doesn't fly as
much as she used to.

The headquarters is heavily warded of course, but she decides that she doesn't really want to go in the front door. She thinks hard about crumpled horns,
and slides sideways through the warding.

It tickles.

No self respecting ward is going to set itself off reporting something as strange as her, and she winks as the small wards as if to say "we know what's
important, don't we? Not like those big, fancy, stuck up wards who only worry about dark wizards and things."

It takes a bit of effort to slide a window open from the outside while she's sitting on her broom, but she manages it eventually and clambers in.

She looses a minute or two being intrigued by the urinals, but she's still making pretty good time, so it's fine.

Then she wanders out into the auror office, and looks for Harry.

He has had a rough start to his day.

He's more used to pressure from the media, but more short tempered about it. He's been dealing with it for what seems like all his life.

The others in the auror office are another story. They're used to seeing him linked to models, ambassador's daughters, and socialites. The picture of
Luna that Rita found for that rag of a paper makes it clear that she isn't any of those things.

She looks like a total loon.

He looks like… a pimp. That may be because four years ago for Halloween, that's what he dressed as.

He eyes his purple duds and serious bling with something bordering on amazement. He'd actually worn that out to a party? Had he been
smoking something?

In the office, he could feel the stifled laughter around him.

All it took was one snort from Tonks, and the whole bloody lot of them were practically rolling on the floor, laughing their heads off.

Sourly, Harry contemplated helping their heads along a bit, but then decided that he probably wouldn't be able to cover up mass murder inside
the auror headquarters.

With a sigh, he sits at his desk, and starts on paperwork. He's constantly being interrupted by people wandering past and muttering things to him
about his bad luck / good luck / stupidity / and what have you.

At about 9am or so, he hears a murmur spreading through the office, and looks up from his desk to see a familiar whisp of a blond girl drifting
between bulky grizzled aurors.

And he smiled.

She arrives, and looks at him. He's stood up, and he's leaning on his desk.

Most of the office is watching them, not the least because she shouldn't be there.

Now, in front of him, and all the others, she feels a bit nervous.

"Hi, Luna," he says with a smile.

"Hello, Harry Potter.," she says with satisfaction.

"You know, Harry, I'm a firm believer in not having regrets," she says. Even though she's regretted this for years.

And then she kisses him.

He is less surprised than she thinks he might have been.

But given the way that he's kissing her back, she's hesitant to regard this as any sort of drawback at all.

After a period of time that is quite highly enjoyable, Luna pulls back from him.

She blinks owlishly at him. They've both quite flushed.

He looks like he's just won the lottery.

"Harry, you did specify, 'snogged senseless', didn't you?" she asks.

"I did, didn't I," he says, looking her up and down with a grin.

"I may be a bit wobbly at the moment, but I'm hardly senseless, Harry Potter."

With a distinct look of satisfaction, he leans forward and makes the room tilt backwards and forwards around her again.

Her eyes closed, Luna Lovegood regrets precisely nothing at this moment in time.

As Harry starts to do something very interesting indeed with his tongue that Luna is eager to try out as well, she's struck with a sudden thought.

It seems unlikely to her that even had he been really, utterly smashed, Harry Potter would have been unaware of his old nemesis, Rita Skeeter.

In fact, it was a distinct possibility that he might have planned all of this from the very start.

"What a clever boy," she thinks with approval.

"If we have children, they won't be dull at all, I expect," she thinks. She is a bit self conscious about this thought, as she has heard that males
will run from commitment.

As a result, she is completely and utterly satisfied when she opens her eyes a bit only to decide that based on the vertiginous feeling she has
when she looks into his terribly green eyes, he is probably thinking almost the same thing.

So she relaxes, and gets on with the kissing.

No regrets.

Author's Notes:

Well, it depends on your perspective whether this is short and silly or short and sweet.

My perspective is that I finished this in about two hours this afternoon. I think that Luna is pretty good though.

Should I worry that she's becoming easier to write? For now I'll just blame it on the lack of sleep last night.

I hope someone finds it enjoyable.