Luna(tic) (Marauders Era)

45. A Spotlight on a Soloist

After that first day of term, things got better. Or perhaps, Luna thought sometimes, late at night, she and Sam simply got better at pretending. It was like a little dance they did. Luna was perfect, was normal, during the day, then slipped off in the evenings or on weekends pretending she needed time alone and she sat with Sam and they spoke like there hadn't been silence hanging between them all week.

And when Luna inevitably had to go, to return to being a normal, perfect, non-mad girl, Sam always sighed. Always made a comment about how he wished she had more time. How he missed the summer when the two of them had been normal. How he missed her. And Luna always gave him a soft smile and swore she felt the same. And then nothing at all came of it.

It was a far from perfect system, of course. Luna didn't mind it so very much, but Sam did. She could see it, the way it ground him down, the way he seemed to become less and less, watching her from corners instead of standing by her side, skulking at the back of classrooms instead of wandering as he once had, becoming more and more the ghost they had both spent so long pretending he wasn't.

Christmas was a welcome respite. It was an excuse to go home, to disappear into that house and haven and pretend for those few short weeks that things had never changed.

But then of course, they went right on back. Back to Hogwarts. Back to pretending. Back to dancing. And God, the two of them made for a fine pair. Any company would have been proud to have them. Because after that first day in the fall, they never missed a single step. They were perfect.

And on those days when the full moon lurked just beyond the setting of the sun, Luna danced solo. And she danced well. So well it had started feeling less like dancing and more like walking. Like standing. Like actually being normal. And perhaps the comfort, the relaxation, the distraction from a focus that should have been razor sharp, was what did it. Because it was on one of these days of dancing solo that the only misstep, the only stumble, occurred.

The problem, of course, was that everything was itchy. Or rather, not everything, but eight long, raised, angry red lines down Luna's chest were itchy and it was driving her spare. In some ways, Luna supposed that was her own fault. Even knowing they would itch today of all days, even knowing what to expect, she had worn a sweater. Because it was cold - somewhat surprisingly so given that it was April, but then, Scottish weather didn't seem to particularly cooperate with the idea of seasons, and instead felt the need to be rainy. And somewhere near freezing, despite the best attempts of the blazing fires in the castle's hearths.

So Luna had worn a sweater. And because it was Luna's sweater, it was an old sweater. A second hand thing bordering on threadbare and with enough rough edges on the worn wool to be just on the wrong side of well-loved. And as such, just on the wrong side of comfortable.

The end result was that Luna's chest felt like someone had rubbed old wool over it. Repeatedly. Because they had. And the someone was her. And the wool was an off white sweater whose fine knit was halfway to see through.

Suppressing a scowl she was reasonably sure would be out of place in the middle of a conversation she'd admittedly completely lost track of, Luna forced her hands away from the absent rubbing of her chest and attempted, not for the first time today, to refocus on her friends' conversation in the probably vain hope that this time, the distraction would stick.

They were talking about games now, specifically the magical sort, though, how they'd gotten on the topic, Luna had no idea. That last part of the conversation she remembered was James making a rather bitter remark about professors not understanding the meaning of the word "holiday" and everyone either quietly, or, in Sirius and Pandora's cases, more vocally agreeing with him as they stared down the stack of homework Kendra had insisted they at least attempt to make a start on.