To Fish or Not to Fish

Ronald Weasley was not a happy man.

Oh, Merlin knows he had plenty of reasons to be enjoying himself presently; here he was, in a small wooden boat in the middle of a nice, unspoiled river, with nothing but wild, lush green forest on either side with nary a cottage in sight, armed with nothing more than an old fishing rod. And he was in the company of his best friend.

Indeed, he'd been looking forward to the trip all winter. And northern Sweden had provided terrific fishing opportunities, just as Luna Lovegood had mentioned.

Problem was, she was currently sitting on the boat's centre bench, and Ron had quickly discovered she hadn't let go of her disconcerting habit of staring at people for no good reason.

He'd been frankly shocked when Harry had brought her along - she'd never accompanied them on a fishing trip before. Couldn't she understand that guys needed bonding time to themselves every once in a while? Even Hermione understood that!

But no, here she was under that oversized straw hat, perched on the bench and staring at him unblinkingly, the fishing pole in her hands held so loosely that if ever a fish did bite it would likely take the whole apparatus down with it.

Not that it was much of an apparatus; Luna's fishing pole was little more than a stick with a string attached. Why did she even bother?

Ron felt a slight tug on his line. He jerked his rod back firmly, anticipating the resistance that the hooked fish would provide.

Nothing.

His line lay limply on the surface of the water before the lure slowly sank back down.

Same as all the other nibbles. He couldn't understand it; setting the hook was a hit-or-miss affair, he knew, but still! He'd not hooked so much as a minnow all morning!

At least he wasn't losing out to Harry; he watched his longtime friend at the front of the boat letting out some line. Harry hadn't bagged anything either. That Luna was a jinx!

As though sensing his thoughts, Luna started pulling in her line, or rather, her string, which Ron noted had no lure attached whatsoever. She carefully placed her stick in the bottom of the boat. Ron's hopes grew; maybe she'd tired of the inactivity and was getting ready to dissaparate!

No such luck, he thought gloomily as Luna instead leaned over the side of the boat. For an instant Ron thought she was going to be sick, but then, as if to further confound him, she began to sing to the river! Harry looked back at her in bemusement but said nothing.

What she was singing, Ron had no clue; the words were entirely gibberish to his ears. It sounded vaguely akin to an old medieval lullaby, but Ron was in no mood for impromptu recitals.

"Hey, can you knock it off, please?" he asked impatiently. "You're spooking the fish!"

Harry glanced over at him.

"Well, they're bloody well hard enough to catch as it is!" protested Ron. Harry smiled and shrugged.

"Singing soothes the fish, actually," breathed Luna, dipping her outstretched hand in the water. "Here, fishie, fishie..."

Ron rolled his eyes as Harry tried without much success to suppress a grin.

"I can't believe this," muttered Ron under his breath, "how are we supposed to fish with - "

Luna lunged, very nearly falling out of the boat in the process. There was a wild splash as her hands struck the water, the prevailing breeze directing much of the spray onto Ron.

"Hey!" he blurted, wiping his face. "What are you doing??"

Luna's feet kicked wildly in the air before she managed to pull herself back over to the dry side of the boat; somehow she'd managed to hold onto her hat, though she looked disappointed as she sat down.

"I missed," she said wistfully. "It was such a lovely colour, too."

Ron gnashed his teeth. "You're not going to catch a bloody fish with your bare hands! What, think you're Tarzan or something?"

For some reason Harry turned his gaze to look downstream rather than echo this most sensible of observations.

Luna, on the other hand, turned her attention to Ron, who immediately wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

"I don't think I'd make a very good Tarzan," she remarked thoughtfully. "I can't yell like he does. And anyway, he'd have likely used a spear, wouldn't he? Impaling the poor little fishes..."

Harry's shoulders quivered slightly.

"They're bleedin' fish!" exclaimed Ron in exasperation.

"That they are," agreed Luna, nodding. "And quite rightly, too, otherwise they'd have long since drowned, wouldn't they?."

Ron opened his mouth, more in stupefaction than in retort. He looked to Harry desperately for any small measure of salvation, though he currently seemed preoccupied in with his lure; Ron noticed his shoulders were shaking.

"Fine, have it your way," grumbled Ron, reeling in his line.

Luna tilted her head.

Don't say anything, thought Ron to himself as he lifted the end of his line into the boat. Just be quiet, you can do it, Ron old boy...she's just waitin' for another excuse to spit out some more of that nonsensical rubbish...

He fished for a while longer in silence. Luna continued to try bare handed fishing, with predictable results. Once or twice she actually managed to catch one, only to have it flap and squirm frantically out of her grasp and fall back into the water with a splash.

"They're quite slippery, aren't they?" she remarked as she wiped her face.

Fifteen more minutes of this and Ron was almost ready to call it a day. He hadn't experienced so much as a nibble, and he was gradually becoming wet from Luna's antics to boot. Problem was, he couldn't very well ask her to stop without having to engage her in further conversation!

He decided instead to change his lure. He pulled out his tackle box from under his seat and opened it on the bench between him and Luna, which, he noted, drew her curious stare; she dropped back from the edge of the boat to watch.

Ron rummaged through the compartments and found a slim, yellow and orange double-jointed troller. Yes, that should do the trick.

He proceeded to replace his lure, the boat continuing its lazy drift downstream. He still couldn't understand why Harry wasn't complaining about the utter lack of any catch; It was as though the river itself was barren!

And yet, one quick glance into the water as he threw his lure overboard showed fish galore, practically taunting him to just scoop them up with a net as they passed. He had to get at least one fish before the day was out, otherwise he'd never live it down.

Then again, Harry wasn't having any better luck.

He was letting his line out when a sound caught his ear; Luna was rummaging interestedly through his tackle box. Finally! At least she'll be using a bloody proper lure!

"What do you call that Muggle thingy again?" he called back to Harry as he raised his fishing rod into the set position. "Y'know, the gadget they use to see how deep the water is?"

"The fish finder?" replied Harry. "I don't think it's a question of finding them, though, Ron..."

Ron jerked his line again slightly. Still nothing.

"I was just thinking it might be worth gettin'," he said back, letting his line settle. "You know, just to know how much line to let out."

"We'd need a battery to make it work," countered Harry, jigging his line back and forth.

"That's no trouble," replied Ron, watching the thickly wooded shore slowly drift past. Somewhere behind the boat he heard a fish jump clear of the water. He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice as he pressed on. "Dad's got loads of those Muggle batteries saved up, I'm sure if...we ask..."

He looked over to Luna. She had a bunch of lures arranged by colour splayed out on the bench next to his tackle box. She was presently fishing out more.

"Hey, what're you - "

Luna raised her gaze to his.

Ron stopped in mid sentence and hurriedly turned his attention back to his line.

"Um...so, like I was saying, I'm sure Dad would give us a few," he continued, deciding that a reorganized tackle box was a small price to pay for keeping Luna's attention diverted. "He's got loads of 'em stashed around."

"Yeah but do they still hold a charge?" asked Harry.

Ron thought. "Um...well, now, I dunno..."

He felt a tug on his line. He jerked it back firmly.

"Cripes," he muttered under his breath.

"Got something?" called Harry from the front of the boat.

"Nope, nuttin'," answered Ron as he felt the line slide smoothly through the water. He reeled it in anyway just to check his lure, which, as it turned out, was intact. "What gives, anyway? We can practically walk on the bloody fish today and all we get are nibbles."

"You're likely hooking on the bottom," intoned Luna dreamily.

"You're daft," said Ron, letting his line out once more. "We've got plenty of water under us."

But Luna was unperturbed. "No, we've been in shallow water for a while," she voiced serenely.

Harry looked over the side of the boat. "She's right," he confirmed. "I can see the bottom...probably not much more than five or six feet or so."

Ron wondered how Luna could possibly have kept track of the water's depth while reorganizing his tackle box -- it was almost as if they had a glass-bottomed boat...

"Well, I still say I'm not hook--"

A violent tug on his line ripped the rod from his hands. He made a wild stab at it but was unable to catch it before it splashed into the water.

"Bloody hell!" he complained, jumping to his feet and looking back towards his receding rod. At least it floated!

"What happened?" asked Harry, raising his rod up over his head.

"Dunno," replied Ron, whipping out his wand. "I hooked the bottom, I guess..."

Harry leaned his fishing pole up against the side of the boat and whipped out his wand. "Accio fishing rod!"

The rod gave a violent tug but settled back in the water.

"Blast it," said Ron. "It's that bloody unbreakable Muggle line you put in there."

"I guess that would be one of the cons," agreed Harry.

"Well there it goes," lamented Ron, hands on his hips. "Scratch one perfectly good fishing pole."

"Can't we turn around?" asked Harry.

"Not against the current," said Ron, scanning the river and shielding his eyes from the rising sun. "We'd row ourselves silly trying. Dad said we should've taken one of those electric motor thingies...oh well..."

No sooner had Ron spoken than he started to become faintly aware that he was slowly rotating; in short order he found himself facing the riverbank. He turned around. Luna was happily engaged in charming the oars into paddling on their own.

"Hey, that's pretty neat," said Harry, putting away his wand. "Where'd you get that from?"

"It's a rowing charm, I looked it up in The Wizarding Angler's Guide," breathed Luna airily, waving her wand lightly back and forth a few times before stashing it away behind her ear. "I thought it might be useful."

The boat wobbled slightly as it straightened out. Ron dropped down to one knee as they began making headway against the mild current; within a minute or so they'd reached within arm's length of the bobbing rod.

Ron reached out and retrieved it, waiting until the boat had gone past so he could pull the hook in the opposite direction from which it had snagged.

"Ah, crap," he grumbled, pulling hard on the rod as it very slowly and reluctantly rose from the water, obviously dragging something heavy along with it. "I'm still snagged - Merlin it's heavy, must be a log or..."

Harry and Luna were both leaned over the side to scan the water.

"What is it?" asked Harry. "It looks like a...like a..."

Luna dropped down as though dodging an enraged duck, so that only her eyes and hat were above the side, her pale hands clamped tightly along the edge of the boat.

"It's a corpse," she pronounced breathlessly.

Ron dropped his rod, which clattered against the side of the boat before plunging into the water once more.

Luna erupted in a fit of laughter and fell back onto her pew, clutching her sides as she rocked back and forth before toppling back off the bench. She landed on her back at the bottom of the boat; her laughter never wavered.

Ron grimaced. If there's one thing he absolutely hated, it was being laughed at. He could feel his ears turning red.

"It wasn't a corpse, was it?" he asked darkly.

"I...fibbed..." said Luna in between spurts of laughter, staring up at the sky, her silver eyes swimming in tears.

"Pretty good one, Lu," said Harry in inexplicable encouragement. "Too bad Fred and George aren't here, they'd have loved it."

"Yeah, a real riot, it was," muttered Ron, looking over the side for his fishing pole. Thankfully Harry had noticed its drift and plucked it from the water.

"I think it's just snagged on a log," said Harry, taking out his pocket knife and cutting the line. "Can you imagine if it had been a corpse? Try explain that one to your folks...Dad, we need a battery...we'll trade you a corpse for it..."

"Aw, stuff it!"

"You dropped it...so fast!" giggled Luna.

Harry handed the rod back to Ron.

"Yeah, well you would've too if you thought there was a bleedin' corpse at the end!" he snapped. He threw his rod down at his feet.

"I'm done fishing," he declared. "At least for today, anyway."

"Quitter," joked Harry.

"I'm not quitting!" explained Ron in exasperation, flailing his arms about madly. "I'm just - it's not - aarrrgghhh!"

Luna sat bolt upright, regarding Ron with her huge, silvery eyes.

"He's come down with the Fishing Madness," she said in a hushed voice. "They say it can afflict people who - "

"I don't have bloody fishing madness!" protested Ron, his hands on his forehead. How much worse could this day get??

"Are you sure? You have all the symptoms," continued Luna confidently. "Once you start foaming then we'll - "

"I'm not foaming!" barked Ron. "I'm not gonna bloody foam, all right? I just...oh blast it, anyway..."

"Well come on," prodded Harry, looking at him expectantly. "Out with it."

Ron shuddered. It was eerie how Harry had picked up some of Luna's mannerisms. But then, living under one roof with that strangest of souls would be liable to tinker with anyone's sanity!

"Yes, Ronald," echoed Luna, strangely serious. "You mustn't suppress, you know. It's not good for one's faculties."

Ron gaped at them both. "Suppress? What're you talking about?"

"Well, Hermione thought it would be a good idea for us to spend some quality time together," explained Luna. She looked thoughtful. "She said it would help you...'get over it', I think was the term she used."

"What??" blurted Ron, all thoughts of fishing now forgotten. "Has she completely cracked?? Get over what, exactly??"

Harry stood up. "Well, this is my cue, I guess. See you guys later."

Ron's eyes widened.

"Hey mate, don't you even think about - "

Crack!

Harry was gone.

Ron stood horrified. I'm alone in a boat with Loony Lovegood.

"Where'd he go?"

Luna had by now clambered back to the center bench. "Back to the campsite, I imagine," she said serenely as she dusted off her hat.

Ron reached for his wand; he felt around his back pocket - it was gone!

"Bloody Hell, I've lost my - "

Luna held up his missing wand. A strange half smile drew across her face. Ron felt trapped; how she'd managed to get his wand without his noticing was beyond him.

"I would ask you something, Ronald Weasley," she said quietly.

Ron silently cursed Harry for leaving him like this. What were they up to?? He felt the transom press uncomfortably into the small of his back as he instinctively edged away.

"Er...you want to...ask me something?" he muttered nervously.

"Yes," replied Luna.

He waited with unconcealed apprehension. He had no idea what was coming, but whatever it was, he knew it couldn't be good.

Luna tilted her head slightly.

"What's your favourite colour?"

It was only several moments later when Ron realized his mouth was hanging open.

"What??" he managed to blurt out.

"Favourite colour," repeated Luna.

Ron waited. Surely this was some sort of joke at his expense.

Two minutes of awkward staring finally convinced him she was fully expecting an answer, though for reasons why, he had no idea.

"Orange," he finally said in the faint hope she'd give hand his wand back. "Yeah, it's...orange."

Luna looked pensive. "A noble colour," she said, nodding slightly. "It just happens to be the colouration of the Scissor-Beaked Whirlybird's summer plumage, too...good choice, Ronald!"

"Um...it's the Canon's colours," amended Ron. "That's why I -- what's this all about, anyway?"

"I'm expecting," said Luna serenely.

"Uh, expecting what, exactly?"

Luna smiled.

"Let me rephrase," she said. "I'm with child."

"You're..."

Ron was thunderstruck. She didn't look remotely pregnant. And despite Harry's obvious love for Luna, Ron had never given much thought to the possibility that there might one day be a family of mini-loons. But why was she telling him here, like this...and in Harry's absence?

His eyes widened and his heart rate took a jump. No it couldn't be - he'd never so much as laid a finger on her, much less -

"IT'S WASN'T ME!!" he blurted frantically. He half scrambled atop the transom - wand or no wand, he was getting off this boat!

Luna tilted her head again slightly. "That would be quite the trick if it were," she said, smiling. "Actually, I wanted to know if you'd consent to being the godfather."

Ron froze.

"The...godfather?" he repeated hesitantly.

"That's right," affirmed Luna.

For once, he was the one staring at Luna without blinking. "You...want me...to be the godfather?"

Luna seemed to hesitate. "Only if you want to," she said after a few moments. She was strangely earnest; indeed, in this state, she sounded almost like Hermione.

"I...but...why didn't Harry ask me? No offence - "

"None taken," replied Luna musically, just as quickly reverting to the airy countenance which he recognized so well, and still couldn't get used to. "I thought you might feel a bit pressured were Harry present, so I asked him if we could have the afternoon together."

Ron sat down heavily onto the bench. This was so much to absorb in one day; not in his wildest dreams did he expect his fishing trip would include the prospect of becoming a godfather!

But Luna had asked him, and for once had spoken to him, and lucidly to boot, without deviating into one of her myriad disconnected realities.

"A godfather," he muttered more to himself than to Luna. "I never really...I mean, I didn't...blimey..."

"Well, I think you'd make a wonderful godfather," said Luna encouragingly.

Ron looked at her questioningly. "You think?"

"Yes, I think so," she stated positively and nodding. "We're both very fond of you, and I don't think I could ask for a better choice, really...though I'll certainly understand if it's not to your liking."

They sat there for several moments, neither one speaking. Ron looked at Luna as the years of discomfort and awkwardness melted away ever so slightly.

"No, no, that...that's fine," he finally managed to stammer. "That'd be great, I mean, I'd be honoured...godfather...whoa..."

"You will?" asked Luna, clasping her hands together in unconcealed delight. "Oh Ronald, that's very wonderful of you! I can't wait to tell Harry!"

Ron put up his hand. "Whoa, hang on," he interrupted. "On one condition."

Luna tilted her head and eyed him expectantly.

"Yes?"

He took a deep breath. "You stop calling me 'Ronald'."

Luna blinked.

"I rather thought Ronald was a distinguished name," she returned. "Don't you like it?"

"I like it fine," he countered. "But it sounds...well, kinda stuffy the way you say it. Everybody else calls me Ron, why can't you?"

At that, Luna's silver eyes lit up.

"Well, I think I can manage that..." she said eagerly, "...Ron."

Finally!

"It's a deal."

"Well, I'd say that calls for a toast," said Luna enthusiastically, picking out a couple of juices from the small cooler behind her seat. "Orange, I believe?"

Ron took the proffered juice. "Thanks," he said as he looked back upstream. "Well, so long as the oars don't quit on us, we'll be back at the camp in a couple of hours I figure...Harry's left his rod, want to try some real fishing?"

"No, I don't think so," said Luna in between sips of cherry juice. "I'm not really keen on fishing. I keep imagining what it must be like for the little fishies..."

Ron shrugged. "Up to you," he said, reaching for his line. "But I'm not giving up until I bag one of the little buggers. They can't dodge me forever!"

Luna gave him a sly look that stopped him in his tracks.

"Not forever," said Luna knowingly, "but for today, anyway. I hexed your lures, you see."

Ron gaped at her.

"You look just like your prey like that," she said mirthfully.

"You hexed my - I've been fishin' for nothing!" he exclaimed.

"Well, It wasn't entirely unproductive," countered Luna. "It was quite enjoyable. Besides, you're a godfather-to-be and I've found some lovely new jewelry."

"Come again??"

Luna pointed to her ears and smiled. There, dangling from her lobes, were a pair of small, bright orange rubber frogs - both properly dehooked, of course.

For a moment Ron didn't know whether to fuss, go blind or wind his watch.

Then, for reasons not entirely clear even to himself, he began to laugh.