Luna(tic) (Marauders Era)

14. The Sicknesses of Hearts and Boys and Ghosts

Luna was never sure if she hoped Sam's silence was forgiveness or if she wished she had spoken the words that settled on her tongue over breakfast. What she did know was that she didn't say them. She swallowed them with her porridge and pretended the bitter taste they left in her mouth was the product of oversteeped tea instead of apologies left to sit for too long.

But then, she reminded herself, he could have said something too. Their silence was, after all, theirs, as much his as it was hers. Of course, how the lines fell for laying blame was another question entirely, and not one Luna thought she wanted answered.

For the whole of breakfast the silence stretched, the only moment of anything like communication between Luna and Sam occurring when an older student sat right on top of Sam, chattering away with her friends, utterly oblivious to the simple movement that was as good as a blow to these two old friends.

The moment it happened, the moment Luna flinched without thinking, the moment she moved before she even considered anything else, Luna had been reminded rather sharply that even if this place was odd and the magic strange and the people new, Sam was none of those things. He was comfortable and known and familiar. It had been the two of them against the world for as long as Luna could remember. A new place and new people and new chances couldn't change that. The thought had left the apologies blooming on her tongue again, pressing against her lips, begging her to find an empty room where they could finally speak freely.

She might have done it too, might have damned her selfish heart and the future she was praying she might still find. She might have cast it aside because what was seven more years of insults echoing in her ears? What was seven more years of footsteps haunted by words she knew she'd never be able to refute? What was seven more years of hell as long as she had Sam? And the answer was simple: it was nothing. It was mild discomfort she could bear in a heartbeat as long as he was by her side. It was as familiar as he was and she could have managed it. Merlin knew she'd done it before.

So she might have spoken. She might have apologized. She might have shrunk back into her shell and built the walls up high around herself and Sam. She might have pretended that was enough.

But Sam didn't thank her when she moved. He barely even looked at her. He just pressed close and squeezed himself into the gap Luna made between herself and the rest of the world. Like he always did. Like he always would. Unless she stopped making that gap that had always kept her apart from everyone else. A gap she had loved and hated for as long as she could remember. A gap that had existed for so long, Luna had almost forgotten what it felt like when it didn't exist. But yesterday she had remembered. And it had felt like freedom.

So Luna bit back the words that would have opened it into the home Sam had known for so long. She turned back to her new friends and listened to them bemoan the amount of homework they had for just one week of classes. She ignored the silence she could feel like second heartbeat by her side. She pretended this was for the best.

And when they stood and Pandora looped her arm through Luna's and informed her that they were going exploring because if there were temperamental moving staircases in this castle, then there must be other interesting things as well, Luna only glanced behind her at Sam. She didn't call to him. She didn't slip away and make excuses and find that empty room she knew must be waiting for them somewhere. She didn't do anything at all except look once, wondering if he read her gaze as an apology or a challenge. Wondering which it was supposed to be.

It was with a terrible relief that Luna found herself leaving Sam behind in the Great Hall. She hated herself for the easing of something tight in her core that came when his footsteps didn't follow them out of the hall and up the grand staircase. But the farther away they went, the easier Luna found it to push back the guilt and the worry and the ache. And when those things eased, Luna could almost pretend that she was just like her friends. A new student in a new school, excited for new things. Standing in a world of beginnings instead of tangled up in all the endings she could feel clinging to her like cobwebs from an abandoned life.