For the Song Fic Boot Camp with the song "Breathing" by Jason Derulo and the prompt "apples."

For Camp Potter, archery, week 8: write about someone's first love.

For the Create a Smile Competition with the pairing Luna/Rolf, the song "Breathing" by Jason Derulo," the event of a reunion, the word "saving," and the quote "Kiss me slowly so that the world fades fast."

Especially for Rozzy0, in the Gift-Giving Extravaganza, with the prompts struggle, yellow, not a mindreader, owl, bridge, and flavor.

Word Count: 2,031

Rating: T

Warnings: None

No Ordinary Feeling

Rolf was studying a strange tropical plant when someone bumped his shoulder. His quill moved and a line of the drawing on his parchment got smeared. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were working here. I'll just go somewhere else."

He wasn't sure what he expected to see when he looked up, but her voice was so ethereal he couldn't help but look. A young woman, maybe twenty to his thirty-five, with long blonde hair that reached to her waist. Her eyes were wide-set and wide open. "No, please don't go. I'm Rolf Scamander," he said, setting down his quill and extending a hand.

"I'm Luna Lovegood. I'm here with my father, but he's in the forest chasing away a cluster of Nargles that he found distracting."

"You believe in Nargles?"

"Of course I do," she replied, with genuine confusion in her tone.

"Wrackspurts?"

"Who doesn't?"

"It is so, so nice to meet you, Miss Lovegood." To find a woman who believed in the same creatures he did - who studied them with the same fervor - was beyond his wildest dreams.

"Please, call me Luna." She knelt beside him and held the plant still in the breeze while he sketched, but he was having a hard time concentrating. The woman beside him was too interesting.

"How long are you visiting?"

"Oh, I don't know. Daddy and I left England two years ago, after I finished school." She dug beside him for awhile in silence and he gave her space to think. "I'm not sure I want to go back. I saw so many people die there."

"You were there? At Hogwarts?"

She nodded, and some of the life that brightened her eyes just moments before was gone. "Except when I was a prisoner, of course. But I came back for the battle."

Luna spoke so nonchalantly that it took Rolf a moment to wrap his mind around her words. "You were a prisoner? And you fought? But you must've been-"

"Seventeen," she finished. "But it wasn't the first time I fought Death Eaters. Don't worry about me, though. I'm all right now. Did you see that Blibbering Humdinger earlier? It's my favorite creature."

Rolf wished he could pry the information from behind her glass-like eyes, but if eyes were the windows to the soul, she had the shades drawn.

Every day he came back and worked at her side and they explored this strange, exotic world together. "Luna?" he said one day after what might have been months. "I know I am too old for you, but..."

"What are you saying, Rolf?"

"I'm in love with you. At least, I think I am. I can't get enough of being around you, and you make me want to be a better person. I lose track of time because it all passes too quickly around you and yet it's so slow because I feel like I've known you forever. I don't think I can go back to living in a world without you."

Luna was silent for too long. Then she cocked her head sideways, her hair falling around her shoulders. "I've never been in love before," she said. "But I think it would be a wonderful adventure."

He smiled and took her hand, and they leaned back against a tree, her head on his shoulder. They stayed out nearly all night, watching the stars and the creatures that come out to play in the moonlight. The morning star was rising before he took her back to the campsite she shared with her father.

When Rolf woke up the next afternoon, their tent was gone.

An entire year passed, and Rolf found himself missing the strange girl from the tropics with every breath. He wandered aimlessly, his research forgotten and his mind completely preoccupied. If only he had a picture, some kind of memento to remember the strange, wonderful woman by. Instead, he only had her name. Luna Lovegood.

In a state of near-delirium, he convinced himself his research would best be conducted in the south of England, and he wandered about the familiar, Muggle creatures of the rain, hoping for the chance to see her, double-taking at the sight of every blonde girl who passed. But none of them had her grace, or her spirit.

Without her around, he lost his faith in the creatures he'd been studying. He once believed in everything, but now he only believed in her. He needed her back - he could do nothing without her except breathe and miss her. A year of wandering had made his hair long and unkempt, and a beard grew on his face. Would she even recognize him if she saw him?

He crossed a stone bridge over a stream in the English countryside. There was an orchard in the distance, and he was hungry. Maybe there was something in season he could eat. He stumbled into it and was pleased to see ripe apples on the trees surrounding him. He picked one, then leaned up against the stump of the tree to eat it.

The flavor was richer than he expected, although it might have been his hunger. He finished one and greedily picked another, but as he went to sit down, he saw a yellow dress further down the row, worn by a woman in blonde. He could only barely make it out, but he believed she was singing.

Rolf dropped the apple as he began to run. "Luna!" he shouted. "Luna, is that you?"

He was close enough to see her face as she dropped a full basket of apples and sent them tumbling around her. Usually, Luna was stoic. She neither walked nor ran; she meandered. But now, in this moment, she ran with purpose. "Rolf! I didn't think you would ever come for me."

"I'm not a mindreader, Luna," he said, pressing her fragile body against his bigger frame, pulling her close. "I still don't know why you left me. I told you that I loved you and you were just... gone. When you left, I left with you. My soul has been here. In your eyes and next to your heart."

She pressed her forehead hard into his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Daddy was upset with me for not coming in that night. He didn't know where I was. After the war... after I was kidnapped from the train, I mean, he doesn't like to lose sight of me. And so when I didn't come back until morning, well, I should have known better. He was up and waiting for me and we packed right then."

They stood in the orchard, holding each other, for countless minutes, saying nothing. Rolf still hadn't convinced himself that she was real. He'd woken up too many nights and dreamt he kissed her, dreamt his arms had been around her, keeping her safe. But they were only dreams, and the woman pressed against him now felt real. It was the first time anything had felt real since she left.

When he could stand it no longer, he said, "Luna Lovegood, please kiss me slowly so that the world fades fast."

She tilted her head up to reach his lips, and he leaned down to meet her, but he was inexperienced and nervous and their noses hit instead. Then as their lips touched it was their teeth. "Here," she said. "Let me show you."

"You've kissed before," he murmured against her as she guided him along her mouth.

She pulled away. "Not in many years, and I didn't love him. He didn't love me, either. Romance makes less sense during a war. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. I love you, Rolf." Luna's arms again wrapped around his neck, and she pressed herself tightly against him. He moved closer as well, hungry for more of her. His steps forced her backwards and he guided her to a tree, where he could kiss her with fervor. His mouth left her lips and found her jawbone, her neck, her shoulder, and her arms slipped gently underneath his shirt.

Everywhere she touched was like fire against him.

"Luna," he said finally when he could stand no more of her touch. "Tell me about the war, please."

"It's not something I like to talk about. It happened so long ago, it seems, but it's still fresh in my mind. Sometimes I wish the Nargles would come and take me over for a while so I could forget it all together. But it hasn't happened."

"Why were you so involved? You were a prisoner? You fought in the battle?" He held her hand tightly, and held her gaze, imploring her for more information. He wanted to get beneath the surface. There was still a woman full of hope and light, but underneath, he knew there was more to her than she had explained in their first months together.

"Harry Potter was my friend. Daddy supported him in his magazine, and they took me as ransom from the train home for Christmas." Her eyes glazed over, and though they stared thoughtfully at the top of the trees, he knew she was seeing something else entirely. "Harry hadn't come to school that year, so we tried to take his place, me and Ginny and Neville, I mean. It was almost more fun than the training we'd done for war in our free time. Although the beatings were painful.

"They held me prisoner for more than two months. I'm not sure how long, exactly. I met Mr. Ollivander, then, and we became friends. His last wand was made for me. This one," she said, pulling it out of her pocket. Rolf sat mesmerized. He knew the woman he met held depth. But to hear her speak of her struggles was more than he could have imagined. He had fallen in love with a war hero. Yet still, there was something about her that needed saving.

"You're back in England, though. Is it any better?"

Luna remained pensive, resting on his shoulder. She was in no hurry to formulate an answer and seemed to be waiting for the best one. "It's better than I thought it would be. But I can't go back to Scotland, to Hogwarts. There are more ghosts than there used to be, and some of them aren't real."

"Will you let me take care of you? We can wander the world together, you and me. You remember my research?"

"Of course I do."

"I can't continue without you. You've filled all the spaces in my brain and my heart where creatures used to be. I couldn't search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack when I didn't know where you were. I need you, Luna. Will you please join me again?"

She smiled. "I can't think of anything I would rather do. But this time, I think we should speak to Daddy."

Luna Scamander received an owl every week during their honeymoon, but Rolf didn't mind. Seeing his wife sit quietly by a window, sunlight turning her hair golden as she took quill to parchment to respond, made his heart soar. He hadn't expected a first love to be so beautiful or long-lasting, but to live without Luna seemed impossible from the beginning. Rolf just couldn't figure out how such a woman had agreed to marry him.

He went to join her, massaging her bent shoulders while she wrote, then playing with her golden hair. "Mrs. Scamander, you are the most wonderful woman in the world."

"And you, Mr. Scamander, are the most wonderful man," she said, setting down her quill and turning around to kiss him. "You've been even better than a fairy tale."

Their engagement hadn't been long, since both of them were eager to search for creatures again, to leave the country and satisfy their wanderlust. Their honeymoon, however, was nearing its fifth month, and Rolf was just fine with that. But it would have to end soon. They had already agreed to return to England. After all, in less than six months, Luna would be giving birth, and they needed a home where they could raise a family.