At first, it seems so intuitive.

It looks like there must be so much of it.

It seems that the ship should attract the best of fanfiction writers.

But there isn't much of it at all!

There are exotic pairings - Fleur, Tonks, etc etc... but this isn't even exotic. It's not even peripheral! Okay, maybe a little peripheral. But there should be so much more of it!

And we're going to change it! (Hopefully.)

Presented to you is the Harry/Luna Community

It's sort of my belief that most people have a Harry/Luna idea out there that doesn't suck balls, but the same people also have other ideas which they have a burning desire to work on. And all the Harry/Luna gets thrown to the wayside, and never written.

I think that's a bit of a problem that plagues this ship - since everyone has a vague idea of what good Harry/Luna would be, they'd just assume that someone has written it. And when they go looking for it, they realize that everyone, like them, has abandoned the idea for something that interests them a bit more...

So... fire away! Good existing works? Link us, please? Plot bunnies? Drop 'em down. Relationship analysis? Go ahead.

 

This should be here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3862145/1/Contemplating_Clouds

 

Recommendable Harry/Luna stories​

Completed:
Bungle in the jungle and Turn me loose by Jbern
-featuring a secretly normal Luna (read: totally OOC, so YMMV) that is mostly on the sidelines. Summer before and during 6th year.
Moksha by Portus
-post-DH oneshot, humor/romance.
Conlaodh's Song by Enembee
-AU 5th year. If you're on DLP and don't know this story, then kindly put a wand to your head, summon your hatred and say "Avada Kedavra" in a loud, clear voice.
Three Interviews by Owlwriter
-post-DH oneshot. Humor.
Voldemort, My Pet Inferius by Darklordmike
-AU DH, oneshot, humor.
Harry and the Hobgoblins by respitechristopher.
-3rd year oneshot. A canon-compliant Luna that works in a romantic pairing with Harry.
Blood Tipped Feather by Quazi Joe
-AU 6th year. Almost Recommendable, but the grammar is horrible. Oh and there'll be a Sequal (his word, not mine).
-I hope you see this, Quazi, because I do kinda want the Sequal. So that I can squeal. Or scream.
Lovegood Boobs Gooder by nonjon
-Summer after 5th year. Snorkack hunt with the Lovegoods. Crude, immature, adult humor (read: sex references and all).
Browncoat, Green eyes by nonjon
-HP/Firefly crossover set in the distant future. We see snippets of Harry/Luna but she is dead and gone in the "present" of the story.

Works in Progress:
Contemplating Clouds by Tehan
-Awesomesauce, 5th year. 5 chapters, last updated Jan 2010. If you don't know this story then see instruction re: Conlaodh's Song above.
-Everyone who loves this story, please give Tehan puppy eyes so that he may take pity upon us and actually resolve that cliffhanger. (And by that I mean real puppy eyes, not the puppy eyes look.)
Sight of spangled silver by Luminous Beginnings
-First person POV Luna, 6th year. 4 chapters, last updated Aug 2011.
The Pestle of the moon by Periti
-Canon rehash of 2nd year, but with Luna. 5 chapters, last updated Aug 2011.
Thoughts of Pudding by Brian64
-End of 5th year. 22 chapters. Warning: cliches, and haven't been updated since 2008. AND HP/LL/HG, which I utterly despise.

 

That's debatable.

 

Not exactly focused on the pairing, but it's there and humorous.

My Pet Inferius

 

The pitfalls of Luna

I volunteer to spout assertions that call for critical reply. I'm used to being wrong about writing (it's a habit, born of repetition). Feel free to explain why.

Luna can't be done right as a pairing. She can be done very wrong, but for a romantic lead during the time of the novels, she sucks. Why? Because when she's written in-character, sex with Luna seems more like pedophilia than with any other character. Harry screwing with Gabrielle Delacour seems more legitimate.

The girl is painfully shy and socially underdeveloped. She may be insightful, but always seems to exhibit a level of detachment usually associated with Autism (of the Asperger's syndrome variety) or sociopathy. If Harry gets hard for that, he's got more issues than I'd originally assumed.

In the fandom, there seem to be a few key 'variant' Lunas to work around this:

Var. A: Shag-ready hippie. Popularized in 'Lovegood, Boobs Gooder', 'Larceny,Lechery and Luna Lovegood', 'Sword of Gryffindor' and many others, this is the sexual free spirit that guarantees a rating bump. If Luna's involved, there will be shagging. Not making love, mind you- it will be sport-sex. It has its purpose, but this isn't Luna by a far stretch.

Var. B: Oracle-Sue. Found in any number of H/Hr/Luna arrangements, most Super!Harry epics (think Sunset/Sunrise over Britain) and the occasional Hermione-bashfest. This version has a thumb on Fate's pulse and arranges for Harry's particular brand of heroic blunder to somehow land on all the bonus squares.

Var. C: 'Hiding beneath the weird' version of Hermione. This was JBern's take for his Second-person Cursebreaker!Harry duo, though I've seen it used before and since. It demotes Luna to a second-rate Daphne or Pansy. "I'm only faking it because I'm so damned smart. Let me show you how to own the Ministry."

Var. D: Hermione's femme-slash foil. A variant you won't find unless you look for lesbian erotica, it plays up the contrast between the two as a much more soft-light 'discovering herself' story, usually post-victory. Always, Luna is the initiator and Hermione becomes her adept.

Var. E: Yandere!Luna. This is really variant 'A' with a psycho killer backup plan. Found in a few DarkHarry fics (as well as the Spiral Path, but there isn't a good idea I haven't mishandled in that story).

Var. F: Canon + 3 oz. of courage. A few have tasted this rarefied concoction. I think I came close with 'Retroactive', and the gold standard is 'Contemplating Clouds'. Luna is mostly Luna, but not so damaged- she's confident enough to open Harry's heart and her own. I don't think this works within the context of Harry's fight with Voldemort. She's suited for healing him after, but would distract him from focusing on his unfortunate reality even more than Ron does already.

As before, I could easily be wrong and I'm willing to be proven such. It's not that the pairing isn't workable; I just haven't seen it played out... (responsibly?).

YMMV

 

A few other things of note regarding Luna.

Also, from Potter Laws:

 

I'm leaving off "Luna-flakes" stories, which seem all too common--basically take any pairing, canon or otherwise, sprinkle in Luna as a fucktoy for Harry and his primary lover, and voila. Additional Harry/Luna stories:

Harry and the Hobgoblins by respitechristopher. A canon-compliant Luna that works in a romantic pairing with Harry. Harry is somewhat more credulous than his canon self, but not so much that it doesn't work.

Lovegood Boobs Gooder by nonjon. It's been years since I read it, but I recall that it was decent.

Browncoat, Green Eyes, also by nonjon. The Harry/Luna happens in the distant past, but enough is seen of their lifetime together that it deserves mention here.

The Search for Nirvana by Jeconais. Not his best work, unfortunately, and Luna only makes a cameo at the end.

Edit: Lovegood Boobs Gooder was mentioned by wordhammer.

 

I don't know - I think you've got a point there. Harry/Luna is damn hard to write (damn harder than most other pairings)... because people want to have something going for Luna.

I agree with the Taure quote and Potter Law in this - A Harry/Luna relationship need not be extraordinary and magically snorkackful. She's a girl with wild imagination. Who says she has to bring anything ubersignificant to the plot? Unfortunately, that's what drives people to that Harry/Hermione/Luna crap, because they want a female lead to do something.

In a sense, Luna is more like Harry than many of the other characters, they've just taken the opposite route in confronting their traumas. Luna tries to get away from them, and Harry confronts them in a style befitting that of his House. Perhaps a fic that downplays the Hurt/Comfort rolleyes aspect of a more normal relationship between them could work?

Another angle: If there's Dark!Harry, I think Luna would be the most open to his... life choices. She is, in a sense, an enabler when it comes to relationships. She has so precious few friends that if Harry decided that he lurved Luna, Luna would hang onto him... forever. Everyone has a super-emotionally-unstable Luna for this reason or that, but... I don't think Luna's psyche is of the schizophrenic variety, but rather, the psychotic variety... I can see strains of obsession in canon - the way her room looks, her insistence upon Snorkacks, etc...

So here's a little character profile for a story that might happen (or that someone might write?). Luna, as she is in canon, but also as a girl and not a seeress or something crazy like that. Someone who doesn't care what Harry does, because she loves him for loving her... Of course, this would be played against a Dark!Harry and a less tolerant group of friends, I suppose?

 

Luna is spiritual and willing to take a leap of faith. She is almost a completely magical being; can you imagine her without magic? (Recall the story Ambient, with the loss of magic in Wizarding Britain her character practically withered and died before she was actually murdered.)

Also, as I said in the Pet Peeves thread...
LUNA DOES NOT SHARE.

Whil I'm not exactly shaping it up for a Harry/Luna story, I try to protray her as semi-normal in her interactions with Harry in my ongoing fic, simply because Harry partners with her in one class (Runes) or while doing homework, i.e. not instances where her strangeness manifest.

As for Dark!Harry and Dark!Luna, I recall three segments in Rorschach's Blot's Odd ideas: The meaning of fear (87), I am the terror (91), In terrorem (92).

edit: added a few of the recommended stories to the list.
------
edit 2: a few other, HP/LL stories, not added yet because IMO while they are good/decent they aren't up to scratch for recommendable. Let me know if you think they ARE good enough.

All the Dementors of Azkaban by Lifewriter
-AU 3rd year, Luna is sent to Azkaban for opening the Chamber and Harry goes there in protest. No romance, just humor. One shot.
Friendship and Secrets by The Breeze
-AU after 5th year, POV Susan Bones. An older story that is average, but I like for some of the lines ("Date with a Ravenclaw" etc). Oneshot.
HP and the Distaff Side by Clell65619
-Pretty average, though, at least as of now. Harry thrown in a gender-flipped universe where somehow Luna isn't gender-flipped. WIP, last updated Sep 2010, 15 chapters.
HP and the Loathsome Lobster of Leeds by Lucy May.
-AU 6th year. Family Day at Hogwarts. Again, mostly average, but has a pretty sweet passage in the middle of ch 5. Completed, 5 chapters.
King who lived by cap red
-AU 5th year with Triwizard. Patchy, lots of cliches (probably WBWL, ignored by parents, etc.) but have potential. WIP, 23 chapters, last updated Jul 2011.
Luna's Hubby by Meteoricshipyards
-AU since pre-Hogwarts. Harry taken in by the Lovegoods. Featuring MageSight!andSeer!Luna (who is, frankly, very Sue-ish here). Mostly humor and fluff, it's a softer-and-lighter kind of story. Completed, 21 chapters.
Red String by SelDear
-Post-Hogwarts. Fluffy oneshot.
The Man in the Moon by Cloneserpents
-AU, post-Hogwarts. Luna POV. Harry did not actually appear in the "present". Dark twist at the end. Oh, and Lemon. Oneshot.
To Children Ardent For Some Desperate Glory by Agravaine
-AU, post-Hogwarts, Harry/Luna a secondary focus. You should probably know about this story already. Completed, 3 chapters.

Will add more almost nearly recommendable later.

 

Which was mine?

Also, I heartily approve of this thread.

 

I disagree entirely. We see in canon that Luna would rather live as a tortured pariah than conform to her classmates' standards of normalcy. And Luna is fundamentally a good person. In general, her intrinsic sense of universalism should temper Harry's darker impulses, or at least provide a foil for them. In a straight-up Dark!Harry, she should be trying to turn Harry from that path, not enabling it. (The only time I've ever been convinced by a darker Luna is Pathetic by A-Kubrick-Spent, which I posted in For Review some time ago to an overwhelming chorus of derision. Fair enough.)

A Harry/Luna relationship makes so much sense because Luna is a symbol of innocence -- but moreover, a self-aware one, vis-à-vis the death of her mother, so that she can still relate to Harry. Harry craves a normal life, but experience has repeatedly demonstrated to him that such a thing is beyond his reach. Luna's kooky tranquility provides a substitute normalcy that he can latch on to.

That said, it's fucking difficult to depict their relationship so that it's not unhealthily codependent.

 

Can't believe no one has mentioned Luna's Year, yet. It has its foibles but is a great read for those in need of a Luna/Harry fix. Plus, its completed.

Personally, I always saw Luna has someone who idolized her father, more so since her Mom's death, latching onto him. The same could be seen with the pictures in her room, she latches onto Harry and company. But the thing is, I don't think she hides her emotions behind some merry facade.

She's very intelligent, and I think self-aware of her own emotions. She knows why people do things to her, because she is odd. She's not an airhead, oblivious to how others are feeling around her. This can be seen at the end of OotP when she helps Harry. (Always liked that moment in the book.)

I think she is fully aware that how she acts causes people to think she is strange, and she perfectly okay with it. She doesn't conform to the social standards of everyone else, and doesn't let their perceptions of her affect her behavior. This is where most authors get her free-spirit from.

Rowling even said she was meant to be the anti-Hermione, and I took that to mean where Hermione believes with proof; Luna believes without proof.

This is also contrasted by how strong she feels for her father, given her fierce reaction to his paper in OotP. She knows how he acts and doesn't care, but I think she realizes her father does not have her insight, and is defensive to something that threatens his belief. At least to some degree, given she is still a teenager and idolizes her father.

I always saw her growing up and slowly realizing that her father is kind of off his rocker, and accepting that maybe a lot of the stuff he was spouting did not make sense, but she loved him all the more for it.

That's my take anyway.

And this thread is wanting me to include some H/L in the current competition.

 

Hmm, I suppose that's another take on it. I think it hinges on whether she likes Harry more or if she's willing to not let go of... *thinks* well, the situation is sort of different - Harry Potter is someone that she respects and trusts, and (could possibly) love easily - but her classmates have been pretty mean since day one... It's difficult to get a feel for the relationship dynamic, as it's never been really written often, honestly... I'm not entirely convinced that Luna would go ahead and alienate the person she loves - she holds everyone close to her heart, well, close to her heart... :X

 

My take on Luna is that she completely lacks an internal bullshit detector, and her father's a magical cryptozoologist stroke conspiracy theorist stroke tabloid owner-operator. So she grows up hearing about the most ridiculous critters and scams and bullshit and believes them all entirely so she just repeats them like it ain't no thang, and everyone that didn't grow up being indoctrinated to fear the Rotfang Conspiracy just edges away instead of presenting a dissenting opinion, so things go on. And since all these stories come with footnotes like 'and the ministry hushed it up', the history lessons at Hogwarts only reinforce her beliefs. Wow, she thinks, they really don't know anything about the Rotfangs, daddy was right! And as for animals, Hagrid strikes me as the sort that, when asked about snorcacks, would say something like "well, I ain't heard of nothin' like tha', but no reason why it couldn' be out there" instead of just saying to her face that she's wrong. And honestly, considering how ridiculous the background of the Harry Potter series gets sometimes, none of the stuff she mentions is that far out there. Read some of the odder entries in Fantastic Beasts and tell me that Snorkacks are that far-fetched - especially since JK mentions she went on to discover quite a few new species after the series.

But at some point, she's going to hit a crisis of faith - that point where she finally realizes that gee, sometimes people speak bullshit, and daddy dearest isn't automatically exempt from that category. I had hopes that it would happen on-screen after Xenophilius became Voldemort's bitch, but no dice. Apparently it did happen off-screen after the series. But still, she did seem to get more here-and-now instead of drifting as the series went on, which I'd say is due to actual real-world facts overtaking the backlog of Xenophilius' bullshit.

But despite the fact she's keeping a bunch of bullshit misfiled as facts, she's not dim. She's a Ravenclaw, not a Hufflepuff. She's clever and insightful, if a little isolated and unpracticed in social interaction, which has given her a bit of an I-don't-give-a-fuck vibe. Not out of contrariness, just because she doesn't realize that fucks should be given in some situations.

Or maybe her brain just produces a shitton of DMT naturally and she's constantly tripping balls.

Onto the shipping-related bit: her take on the world could be oh so seductive to someone like, to take an example completely at random with absolutely no relation to any story I may have written, Harry Potter. It's a world where the bad guys are clearly separate from the good guys and laughable besides, serious mental conditions can be cured by new earrings, Fudge is still a douchebag but now he's mustache-twirlingly amusing instead of a threat to everyone he knows and loves, and best of all in the mind of a 15-year-old boy, the entire monologue is delivered by a cute blonde. That and Luna has a naturally sunny, friendly and light-hearted disposition. Clouds is built on this assumption, wherein Harry finds solace from the rather shitty fifth year (Occlumency lessons and Umbridge) in the relatively cheerful world of Luna Lovegood and things develop from there.

Luna's influence would make Harry more reflective, more empathic. He went from a deprived upbringing living in a cupboard to a stagnant society, so going on an in-depth guided tour of Luna's way of looking at the world could very well completely shift his mental status quo. To pick out an example: Why is Snape a twat? Because he's a twat, says Ron. You shouldn't say that about a teacher, says Hermione. Something incredibly mysterious and vague, says Dumbledore. Then an anvil on the tracks ahead of that train of thought: nargles, says Luna. Well, it's probably not nargles, but in the process of applying critical thought to the nargles theory in order to dismiss it as bullshit, some of it spills over onto the Because He Is theorum, and gee, that logic looks oddly circular. Not saying that in future chapters of Clouds Harry will be bestowing Snape with cuddles, but he will likely become more reflective and detached as he starts questioning things more. It's actually started happening, if you run an eye over chapter three - Luna's outsider's perspective of her roommate combined with Harry's newfound introspection completely derailed canon with the date with Cho.


Post-script because these posts happened after I started writing this goddamn essay:

Re: Dark!Luna - this could very easily happened. I mentioned above the inevitable crisis of faith when she realizes that her pa is full of shit, but didn't touch on any wild outcomes because she's already got a foundation built on a Hogwarts education and friendships with the main cast to fall back on. If, however, she had nobody, or the people she did have were themselves Dark, then I can very easily see the baby of her moral compass being thrown out with the bathwater of Xenophilius' bullshit.

 

Taure's old post sums it up nicely, but I'll reiterate. People forget that even canon!Luna has her flaws; like all of Jo's characters, she has her flaws. She's human. Luna got offended and "colder" when Hermione made a blunt remark about the Quibbler on the Express, and Luna herself exhibited some fear at DoM. She's not some omnipotent Serene Seer in perpetua.

What makes Luna special is that she's considerate and fundamentally a nice person. Yes, she's peculiar, but she's mature and considerate enough to have an open mind, keeping a perspective on things. In an exemplary Ravenclaw manner, she doesn't allow extreme emotions to cloud her thoughts, although she is still vulnerable to ordinary teenage impulse. C'mon, she did get excited about Slughorn's Party and about her dress.

As Agravaine stated, canon!Luna is somebody who would try and rein in a Dark!Harry. In the books, she functions as a foil and check to Harry's angst. Her key appearances include the conversation after Sirius's death and raising Harry's feelings of hope at the Battle of Hogwarts to produce a Patronus.

Her key appeal is that she's essentially an anti-angst machine. However, don't forget that she's ultimately a teenage girl: human and prone to flaws like the rest of us. She wouldn't be constantly serene, and she wouldn't be some sexually activated minx either.

A good H/L story needs a plot to match it: something which involves the interplay between angst and Lunar enlivenment. I would personally utilise a Cos Divergence, where both Hermione and Ron get petrified. Luna would also be without a friend, since Ginny would be "enthralled" by Riddle. It's a good idea.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that there is a story which involves that last plot bunny. However, I don't think it's that well executed. Good premise, but it turned into a strange concoction of crazy!Luna.

 

Oh, also, a few (more) less notable facts from canon.
-She doesn't like Hagrid as a teacher (see her intro chapter in OotP).
-Even Ginny calls her Loony, and they do not hang out together often, if at all.
(this is open to intrepretation whether Ginny did it affectionately or otherwise)

btw, I'm hogging a few extra posts on this first page because if needed, they'll be used for the Rec/Almost Rec list of Harry Luna stories. Sorry for the inconvenience.

edit: I recall the story too, which in addition to that was dead/abandoned like 2 chapters from the end.

 

This is the story you're looking for: Great start, then crazy!Luna

Unequivocally Unusual

 

Considering that the last Luna story I read featured a disillusioned, pot-smoking, demystified girl with more issues than every other character combined, I wholeheartedly support this thread.

Unfortunately, I also have nothing to contribute as far as recommendations go.

 

Basically, I agree with everything Tehan said - considering he's probably one of the only authors to pull Luna convincingly in the slightest - although it would raise some interesting questions about exactly why Luna was shunned by students at Hogwarts before she and Harry met up in fourth year. Granted, social awkwardness might play into it, but students at Hogwarts both believe and do some pretty damn crazy things - why is Luna castigated for thinking outside the norm?

And for Harry/Luna shipping, I can certainly buy it can happen, but I believe that is very rarely written realistically. All of the tropes that wordhammer (with the exception of the last one) are the many reasons I completely lost faith in the ship - they paint Luna as such a caricature that I can't buy the relationship (granted, I have that problem with nearly every ship in the HP-verse, but this tends to be worst in Harry/Luna).

Now, granted, I can't entirely say I wrote Luna well either in any of my fics (which I won't mention here), but I guess the key thing I found when trying to write her was to juxtapose her normality with her weirdness. She can still be matter-of-fact when she's conveying something she believes or knows for 'certain', but when there's something she doesn't know (or isn't sure of), she utilizes her imagination or pieces of what her father told her to create her ideas. She can seem like she's in another world entirely or screwing with everyone just for its own sake (which can be pretty infuriating to certain paranoid characters...), but to her reasoning, it makes sense.

I think, however, one of the most key things when it comes to a Harry/Luna relationship is geniune, understated chemistry, and nearly every fic that has featured this ship has screwed this up, IMO (with the two exceptions of WTSMG and Clouds). And frankly, this romantic chemistry is extremely hard to write convincingly, but for me to buy this ship (along with Harry/Tonks), there has to be some actual relationship between the characters. Maybe it's conversational rapport, maybe it's little gestures of kindness... either way, if a fic can't sell me on this, I can't accept the ship.