Luna(tic) (Marauders Era)

23. On Pipsqueak's Side

Luna was pleased to find that not a single soul seemed to have noticed Severus's comment about her speaking to thin air. Or at least, no one brought it up again. It was a mercy Luna was more than happy to take, as she supposed she was with most mercies, with the notable exception of the other mercy she found in those days following the return from the holiday break.

It wasn't that Luna didn't take this other mercy, it was simply that it gave her several more sleepless hours because, quite simply, she couldn't figure it out for all that it seemed such a simple thing. And this simple thing was Remus's utter silence on the strangeness of her behavior that first afternoon after break.

Other than his single comment to Pandora - which, from what little Luna had gathered the only time it had been mentioned, had been a rather general thing - he hadn't seemed to have said anything to anyone at all. And though Luna was more than happy with such a mercy, she also couldn't deny that she found it... confusing.

By her estimation, she and Remus were at best, acquaintances. Perhaps potential friends with the beginnings of what might become a tentative sort of trust. But they were not... close. They were in different houses and had different circles and they rarely spoke and yet... And yet Remus had been kinder to her than most of the people Luna had known in her entire life. Including ones she'd once called friends. And she couldn't for the life of her understand why.

It took her a miserably long time to simply give up trying to figure this out and even when she'd managed that, there were moments when it nagged at her, a question pulsing in the back of her mind, asking why why why. Why was he kind to the mad girl? Why was he keeping secrets for her? Why hadn't even told his friends? Why?

Luna didn't have answers to these question. Neither did Sam, though he had gotten sick of her asking them. And Luna wasn't foolish enough to ask anyone else because of course, no one else was supposed to know that Remus had witnessed anything that had required his kindness. Which was perhaps why, on the whole, Luna did her best to ignore those questions. She did her best to shove them aside when they bubbled to the surface, pressing and ever so slightly painful. Really, she did her best to forget everything to do with the day that had sparked them. She didn't want to think about why she'd been spiraling, why she'd unravelled, or if she'd really managed to tuck in all the stray threads that had been left by the incident.

It was a feat rather easier said than done.

Actually, Severus's part was almost easy to ignore. Because of course, he was easy to avoid. She saw him only in class and besides that, he seemed to prefer to hide in corners and lurk Merlin knew where. And Luna didn't care where because wherever it was, it was far from the library or the Ravenclaw common room or those various classrooms Luna sometimes vanished to to steal some private time with Sam. And when Luna didn't see Severus, it was easy to pretend to forget what he said. Because those were words Luna had been pretending to forget for half her life.

Much harder to avoid, and consequently, much harder to forget, was James, though Luna made what she considered to be a valiant effort for all of about a month. Really, she had to admit that the whole endeavor was helped along rather wonderfully by the fact that Pandora seemed to also be taking steps to avoid having her in the same room as her other friends, at least for those first days and weeks after the incident.

It was like a dance. And Luna was good at dancing. She was, however, unused to having a partner. Which was perhaps why the dance came to a sudden and rather startling end one day the early spring months towards the middle of term.

Really, Luna supposed it was an inevitable end. All performances had to stop. The curtain had to be drawn. The audience had to go home. And there were only so many encores a single dancer could do. Besides, at the end of the day, Pandora was still friends with James and his little crew of Gryffindor boys, whether Luna liked it or not. And since Luna was friends with Pandora, she supposed it was inevitable that they would sometimes meet, no matter how careful her steps always were.