Disclaimer: Not JK…

A/n: Written for the I never challenge. The given pair was Oliver/Luna.

Oliver Wood walked past the various stores in Diagon Alley, barely registering the admiring glances shot his way. He had gotten over the spotlight his Quidditch career had given him within a few weeks of starting his training with the team.

It had been his first lesson. "People will stare, peek and be nosy. Get used to it," his coach had told him in a no nonsense manner which had sounded more like a command than a suggestion.

But it was that one instruction that had got him through all those grueling days following the break up. It had been a big mistake. He realized that now. But he had been too dazzled by the almost sinful beauty of the half veela he had dated.

But it had been apparent to him, a few months later, that she had a single minded attraction towards his fame. He could only thank Merlin that he hadn't been in too far when he had understood.

A messy affair had followed, on her part. He had tried to keep it as contained as possible, but the outside world had pounced at the news.

Trouble in Wood's Paradise?

He remembered the headlines quite well, as if they were burned into his mind. A reminder of the mistake he had committed. A siren of warning.

He had stayed off any kind of relationship since then, concentrating entirely on his game and strategies. Those had won him the position of Captain and all the privileges that came with it.

What he wished for most was someone to share it with. He wished more than anything that he could have his parents back.

Seeing his parents' cold faces amongst the dead had been his worst memory. Only then had he understood why Neville had insisted on taking care of bringing in the last of the victims. He must have seen his parents among them.

He shook off the horror and despair that surrounded him at the memory. No use mourning. They were gone. Those were the words he had been telling himself these three years. The only consolation he could give his grieving heart.

He remembered with vivid clarity the day he had been accepted in the Puddlemere United team. His parents had been beaming for an entire week. The memory brought on a fresh wave of misery, and an errand thought of how they'd have reacted if they had been there to see him now. Would they have been the same proud parents of a prodigal Quidditch star? Or would they have been unhappy with him for wasting away his life? He was torn in the middle, wanting to please his parents somehow, knowing it didn't matter anyway.

He was almost sure he was lost when he saw a head of golden blond coming towards him. He stopped to greet her, since it would be rude to turn his face away from an acquaintance.

"Hello Luna!" Luna smiled her serene untouched smile, her face transparently displaying her joy and surprise. Her eyes were the same, translucent blue, piercing right through his soul, making him uneasy. It felt as if she was using Legilimency, looking into him so that he couldn't hide anything from her.

"Hi, Oliver! You seem a bit disturbed. Must be the Nargles." She was spot on. And dead wrong. About the same thing, nonetheless.

"I see you haven't changed much," he chuckled, wondering what she'd make of it. May be another creature that tickled his throat?

"Oh! I don't see any need to change. Do you?" Her shocking honesty was still intact, too.

"No, no. I didn't mean anything by that. Not in that sense." She seemed to accept his babble of an explanation, commenting on his appearance in public.

"You seem quite at ease with all the staring. I thought you wouldn't venture out of your house."

"Well…It tends to get boring being within four walls all the time." That was a true, though insignificant reason.

"Do you like flying?" The question was disconcerting and random, to say the least.

"I'm a Quidditch player, remember?" he reminded her with incredulity. She couldn't possibly have forgotten!

"No, no. Do you really like it? Like, would you fly if Quidditch did not require flying?"

Her question put amusing images in his head, images of people, his former Gryffindor Quidditch team infact, trying to play a match against Slytherin, without flying. He laughed at the picture, looking back at her with an amused expression.

"Sure I would. Curious?" She nodded her head in affirmation as if he had given her some sort of explanation for something he had done.

"I was wondering why you tolerated all these nuisances."

"Nuisances?"

"You know, fans, lack of privacy, and the gossips." She had very nearly defined his life, excepting the obsession towards Quidditch.

"But I suppose your obsession over Quidditch balances it out, huh?" He wondered if there was any polite way to ask her if she was a Legilimens.

"More or less," he agreed with her, before she could ask him anymore questions.

"It's not good for you, you know?"

"Huh?"

"This sort of addiction you have to Quidditch. It's going to make you a very boring person." He laughed quietly, wondering how 'boring' a person he had become already and nodded his head silently. There wasn't anything he could say that could be relevant.

"Were you going somewhere particular?"

"No. Just thought I'd visit Fr…George."

"The WWW? I was headed there too. But why are you going in the opposite direction?"

He was? He vaguely remembered someone calling him. A familiar voice. He had dismissed it as another of his fans.

"I hadn't noticed."

"Wrackspurts. Better walk fast then. They are rather slow, you know? That's their only weakness." He accented, walking with her in long strides. They must have made a queer sight. The brooding Quidditch player with the quiet gait and the bubbly girl with her skipping steps.

"Hey Ron!" she greeted, quite used to being in the place while Oliver stood at the door, not knowing what to do.

"Hey, Wood! Its great seeing you again. Did she drag you here?" he asked the last part in a whisper as she moved around the room.

"We were sort of headed this way and met."

"Oh! It's just that she has been trying so hard now a days."

"For what?"

"She wants to help the people who have been affected by the war. It was Dennis the last week, and Seamus before that. You remember Seamus Finnigan?"

"Yeah, sure. He was in your year, right? Gryffindor too, if I remember correctly," he replied mechanically, though his mind was else where. Ron's words explained Luna's behavior, but why was she so interested in making everyone cheerful?

"Hey Oliver! Fancy seeing you here!"

George had entered the store by the back door, and it was clear from the soot on his robes that he had just flooed.

"Hello George! Good to see you again too," he said as he gave him a one armed hug. "I just wanted to meet you all. It's been too long."

"That's great! Harry was asking about you the other day. He'd be glad to know you came by."

Luna was back now, skipping as she placed flowers in random places of the store, humming quietly to herself.

"Hiya Luna! Couldn't stay away from trouble for too long?" George grinned at her, and Luna smiled back at him.

"Your shop is just so infested, George. I'm sure there are a bunch of bumbling bigwings in your back room. Do you mind if I have a look?"

"Sure! You know you are welcome here anytime, Luna."

"Thanks George!" With that she pranced out of the room leaving a faint scent of primroses in her wake.

Oliver saw Ron and George look at her with a tenderness in their eyes that was part gratitude and part affection. Though he did not know the specifics, he saw enough to understand that Luna was a major cause for their happiness.

"We owe Luna a lot, you know," George began in a low voice thick with emotion.

"After the war, you know very well…Mum was devastated. And Ginny was worse. I was…I wasn't living at all."

"We didn't know what to do to make them better. Anything we did, we said, reminded them of Fr…Fred and Mum, at one point refused to look at George because he looked too much like Fred," Ron continued, looking grave now.

"She was that bad?"

"Yeah! She was hopeless and we were thinking of taking her to St Mungo's. That was when Luna visited the Burrow one day. I don't know what it was that made Mum open up to her but it was a great relief for us when she was able to atleast look at us without flinching."

Oliver heard the pain in George's voice as plain as the sunny day outside.

"Within a month Mum was back to herself, and Luna was a natural addition to our family."

"I was there only for your Mum's cooking, you know," Luna's dreadfully honest voice interrupted them, and the mood lightened considerably.

"Really? I really though it was my immense wit that brought you there so frequently!" George replied, acting affronted.

"You are funny, George. A far cry from witty," Luna replied, turning to Wood.

"You on the other hand, have been humoring me about all that 'change' you spoke about, haven't you?"

So that hadn't escaped her notice then. Oliver merely shrugged in response, seeing no way to explain himself out of it.

"Are you quite done for the day? I don't see anymore visitors," Luna asked George as she looked out the window.

"Yeah! I'd actually closed up the other shop and was just coming to get Ronald here. Come with us Luna. Mum wanted to see you. You too Oliver. Mum would be delighted."

George dragged Oliver half way to the fireplace before he had uttered even half of his denials. He only smiled and said, "You'll be thanking me when you've eaten my Mum's food."

Before he could decline once more, he was pushed into the fireplace by a grinning George who seemed to be having entirely too much fun.

"You're enjoying pushing him way too much George," Luna said chidingly as she hit him playfully on the shoulder.

"Well, it's payback time for all the insanely long practice hours we had. Trust me, you'd be much worse on him if you were me."

"Hey! I only wanted the team to win!" Oliver complained, finding a way to procrastinate going to the Burrow alone.

"You can whine all you want at the other end of the floo network, Captain," George said as he pushed Oliver into the fireplace once again.

Seeing no way out of this, he hesitantly muttered "The Burow" before the world began spinning. He landed gracefully on the carpet of the Burrow but was trampled to the ground by George who fell on him screaming "Ambush!"

"George!" The piercing voice of Mrs Weasley was heard before she appeared at the doorway to the room.

"Oliver Wood! So nice to see you dear! Do they ever feed you at the training camp? You look absolutely skinny! Come in and have some soup," she said as she led him into the kitchen and made him sit at the table, a bowl of hot, wonderful soup before him. He took a tentative sip.

None of the Weasleys had done justice to Mrs Weasley's cooking. It was surely hoards better than they claimed. Oliver choked, remembering his own mother's cooking which had been as wonderful as Mrs Weasley's. And she too had always been complaining that they never fed him at Hogwarts. Blinking to dissolve the sudden tears, he looked up to thank Mrs Weasley who was busy stirring something at the stove.

"You never told me Oliver here was coming to dinner. I'd have made something special. Harry would be here any minute now," she berated her sons as she continued to add several ingredients to the already mouth watering dish.

"Mrs. Weasley, I'm sorry but I have to leave. I have a bit of work to do."

"Nonsense! You won't leave the house before I see you have the color back in your cheeks," she dismissed his pitiful excuses with the wave of a hand, concentrating on the pot before her. She then turned to Luna, asking her about her day, how her work was, how her father was, and so on. Luna answered them calmly, accepting the dinner invitation without the childish protests he had made.

"Hey Luna! Wood! Good seeing you here!" Harry greeted as he entered the kitchen. He had clearly just returned from work, with his cloak hanging on his arm.

"Good evening Mrs Weasley!" he greeted as he sat at the table.

"Can I look around the garden?"

"Sure. Make yourself at home dear," Molly turned to her newest victim now.

"I'll go with him Molly," was all Luna said before she jumped out of the footstool she had been sitting on and followed him out the back door.

"You call her Molly?" Oliver asked as they passed the bushes in the backyard. Curious gnomes were peeking out from their hide outs and Luna suddenly skipped to one of them. Oliver, seeing no way to avoid it, followed. He stood a few feet behind Luna, wary of the creatures. He was not very trusting of the puny creatures ever since one had bit his finger years ago.

"She threatened to skin me alive if I called her anything else. She thinks of me as a part of her family," Luna said as she tried to convince the creatures to come out from behind the bushes. It hadn't worked so far.

"You don't think so?"

"No, its not that. She is just like the mother I never had. That's what drew me to her in the first place. I just don't think she should rely so much on me. I've helped her as much as I could. She needs to take it from here," one of the gnomes was peeking slightly and Luna smiled at it. Standing there, seeing Luna entertain the gnome, Oliver thought he understood her. He now saw why no one ever doubted Luna or her sincerity.

The gnomes were now surrounding her, doing a merry little dance with Luna at the centre. She was beaming at them. Now that he paid attention, that particular little gnome did seem kind of cute. But it was apparent that she had completely won over those suspicious beings just like she had enchanted Mrs Weasley, George, Ron and so many others. It was her utmost naturalness that drew people to her. She looked up and smiled at him then and he couldn't help but think that he was fast becoming a victim to Luna Lovegood's magic too.

She beckoned to him to join the little party and he took a reluctant step forward. The gnomes scattered away to hide behind the bushes once again. He smiled apologetically at her.

"Don't worry. They're just a little shy and frightened. Just like humans," she said as she smiled encouragingly at him. He took a few more steps forward to stand beside her. The little gnome he had spotted before peeked from its hiding place. He might have just gone off the deep end, but he thought it smiled at him. Could gnomes smile? He did not know. But he knew what he wanted to ask the girl beside him very well. The question had been eating him ever since George and Ron had told him about it.

"Why do you do it?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do you help people? I mean, not that I don't think you're doing something fantastic but, I'm sure there are other people out there who could do it too, but they don't."

"I don't see what's wrong with that Oliver. I like to help people. Make them smile. That's just the way I am. Even if its me that makes them laugh, that's fine with me," she said casually, looking him in the eye. Her eyes were brighter than ever and he couldn't face the ring of honesty in her voice.

This wasn't the answer he had been expecting. He had foreseen an emotional outburst and a confession because life had taught him that women could be emotional roller coasters. But this woman before him was so different, it made him scared. She was also intriguing. She was…unique.

"Oh! I never thought you felt so intensely about it," he answered, hoping not to hurt her. Wounding Luna was the last thing he wished to do now, when he wanted to know more about her.

"Oh, I know that. Loony Lovegood and deep thoughts don't go together." He spun his head to look at her but her face was veiled by her golden locks. He pushed them away to take a better look but she stepped away.

"We should get going. Molly's going to be worried," she said hurriedly and not waiting for his answer, began walking. He wanted to call her back, know what was troubling her. She had been hurt by those tauntings. He realized that now. She hid it well but he had seen through it for a second. And he wanted to tell her it was okay. He wanted to console her. But he didn't know how and so he stood unmoving, staring at her. Hearing a squeak behind him, he found the little gnome looking at her retreating figure sadly.

"I wish she had stayed for a bit longer too," he told the gnome before he shook his head and walked back. He'd go insane if he just stood there talking to gnomes anymore.

A/n:Review!

And thanks to Everyshiningstar (Essie!) for her awesome beta work!