Luna(tic) (Marauders Era)

7. Four and Two and None

Luna's momentary blip of faith didn't last long. Then again, it did last longer than she'd expected it to, especially considering that she hadn't expected it to exist at all so she supposed it was still a victory when it all came down to it. Really, she felt better about the whole trip than she'd anticipated right up until they were standing in front of a set of big wooden doors being told how they would enter for the sorting. And then all the okay feelings popped like balloons in Luna's chest and left her with just their sad little remains in her stomach.

She had known, from the moment her mother had told her what the sorting looked like, that she wasn't going to like it. Luna had spent the last several years making an art out of hiding, out of being the girl no one even remembered was there. The girl they all looked past and over and around until she was nearly as invisible to them as Sam was. It would have been a lie to say she liked it that way, but it was safer that way. So Luna pretended she didn't notice the loneliness that came with it.

And now, of course, she was being asked to walk up in front of a whole hall of people and be... normal. She would be standing in front of a crowd whose eyes would be searching. A crowd who would notice if she looked at Sam. Or spoke to him.

And true, in some ways, Luna had plenty of experience with that, but never with so many people or such direct scrutiny. And besides, even in the smaller situations, it never seemed to get easier. Partly, she knew, this was because Sam never made it easier. He hated that she didn't speak to him. Hated when she ignored him. Hated when she pretended. And he always made it known. Really, Luna couldn't blame him, but it certainly did nothing to ease her way through those long public days when his very existence had to be kept a secret.

Today would be another of those days. And today, he would hate more than just her silence and her refusal to even hint at his presence. Today, he would hate that he didn't get the chance to be sorted too. And he wouldn't. Because if Luna dared to ask anyone, then everyone there would call her crazy. They would say he wasn't real. He didn't exist. She was mad to think he was there. Mad to talk to the space beside her like it could hear her. Mad mad mad.

Unless, came that stupid, hopeful whisper, unless someone else could see him too. Unless she really wasn't the only one. Unless she wasn't really as crazy as everyone seemed.

It was a fool's dream, really, and perhaps that made Luna a fool as well as a mad girl because she couldn't quite get it out of her head. Afterall, she'd never met other magical children before today. Who was to say that Sam wasn't just some sort of magic too?

Of course, none of the first years huddled behind these doors could see him. If they could, they wouldn't be walking through him. They would be making space for him, looking at him and around him, not through him. But still, that didn't mean some of the older students, or maybe even the teachers, who knew more magic, wouldn't be able to spot him.

It was the only spark of joy Luna could find as she stood there trying to fight back all the butterflies swarming in her stomach. And there were so many of them. She wished she could make them disappear like the visitor had last week. Or maybe just turn them into caterpillars so at least the fluttering of their wings would stop making her feel so sick.

"Breathe," Sam whispered from beside her and she risked a glance over to see him watching her with a worried sort of frown. "You look like you're about to vomit. And as fun as that would be, I don't think it would make a great first impression," he added, his expression morphing into a teasing little smile.

Luna choked on a laugh she wouldn't have known how to explain and Sam grinned. Luna turned her smile down at the ground, wishing she could have kept it facing him. Wishing she could have said thank you. But she couldn't. So she sufficed with that smile at the ground and a careful, momentary twist of her fingers into his that she hoped would be enough.