Luna was still staring at the weeds with her head stuffed full of unpleasant thoughts when the visitor, whose name, Luna realized with a jolt, she didn't know, came out the back door. Why he came out this way, Luna wasn't sure. But he did, and in the process, stepped right through Sam, who cursed rather foully for no one but Luna to hear.
"Hello Miss Everleigh," the visitor greeted with a small, pleasant sort of smile Luna wasn't sure she trusted. "Would you mind if I joined you?"
Luna frowned, glancing back into the house. She couldn't see her mother in there, but she didn't suppose the man would be here if her mother hadn't allowed it, so... "Okay," she agreed, scooching over to make enough space for all three of them to fit on the steps. Sam might not be solid, but he still didn't like being sat on.
Smiling graciously at the acceptance, the man sat down next to Luna on the steps, a position that was rather at odds with his put together appearance. Scowling at the man for taking his spot, Sam sat huffily on Luna's other side, crossing his arms and glaring out at the unkempt garden. Luna pulled her gaze away from him to focus back on the visitor.
"Your mother," the man said after a moment of adjusting his robes, "says you don't like to use your magic in front of people."
Well. That was an odd way to start a conversation. Odd enough that Luna bit her lip, frowning at the man for a moment before she nodded, because he seemed to expect a response.
"Understatement," Sam pitched in and Luna could practically hear the eye roll in his voice for all that she didn't dare look his way to confirm it. "She hates it."
This was true, of course, but at the moment, Luna was very glad the man couldn't hear Sam. She didn't think the visitor needed to know that. And frankly, she didn't want him to either.
"Why is that?" the old man asked gently. Gently enough that it tugged on Luna's mind. Gently enough that it made her wonder what he might be hiding.
Really, even without that tingle of suspicion, she wasn't sure if she should answer that, and with it.... Well. It seemed an odd thing for a stranger to ask. But when Luna looked up at the man, his eyes were kind and understanding and she remembered that this man had magic too. That maybe he knew things that would help. And at the very least, he was unlikely to be like those children who hated her for it.
"Because people are mean to me when they see it," she told him, her voice small and fragile as she held her hands in her lap, twisting them as though she could wring the fear from her skin.
"Also an understatement," Sam muttered, but his words were softer this time.
And of course, this was also true. They weren't just mean. Mean was when they called her crazy. When they saw the magic, they were straight up cruel. Her mother always said it was because ordinary people were bound to be jealous and fearful of those extraordinary things they could neither have nor understand. But Luna didn't believe her. She believed a different truth. She believed that they were cruel because she was different. Not because she was extraordinary. She was just... off. And off made people uncomfortable. It made them angry. It made them cruel.
"I see," the old man said now, pulling Luna from her usual wandering thoughts. She looked at him, trying to make herself focus on the visitor as he watched her for a long moment with those soft, kind eyes that suddenly seemed to have something else behind them. Something darker. Something... hurt. But he blinked and it was gone, replaced by a placid sort of expression.
"Well," he said, "I come from a place called Hogwarts. It's a school for people with magic. People like you," he added with a little smile. "I came to offer you a place at that school," he continued. "I gave your mother a letter that says so, but I wanted to tell you myself. We'd like to have you there."
The words were kind, but Luna didn't trust them. They set her skin cold and crawling, a feeling not at all helped by the fact that Sam's tone was dead serious and strained as he said quietly, "I told you he was coming to take you away."
And he was right. This man was going to take her away. Away from this house that was the only home she'd ever known. Away from her mother, who was the only one who'd ever called her sane. Away from Sam, who was the only friend she'd ever had.
"Do I have to?" she whispered.
It wasn't what she wanted to ask. What she wanted to ask was "can Sam come?" But that went against Rule Number Three: Keep Sam secret. And though she had showed her magic to this man, it was because he too had magic. But Sam wasn't magic. He was madness. And Luna had no reason at all to believe that this stranger could be trusted with that.
The visitor, however, just watched her contemplatively for a long long moment, as though searching for some hidden meaning in her question. As though he knew it wasn't what she'd wanted to say. But eventually, he simply said, "No. I don't suppose you do." Then, after a beat, "But Miss Everleigh, I would urge you to come. Hiding magic without learning proper control has consequences."
"The itching," Luna supplied without thinking.
The man's gaze sharpened, but his tone was as calm and patient as ever when he spoke. "The itching?" he pressed, tipping his head slightly in a gesture of polite interest.
Luna nodded, now wondering if perhaps she shouldn't have mentioned it. But like before, his gaze when she dared look right at him was nothing but kind, if perhaps a little more focussed than before. And either way, he was like them. Her mother had wanted her to show him her magic. So maybe her mother would want her to say this too.
"The itching happens when I don't do it for too long," she told him carefully, softly, still unconvinced that she should be making this admission. "That was why I started making caterpillars."
For just a moment, Luna could have sworn that same something dark from before flashed across the man's features, but she still didn't know what it was and by the time she looked harder, it was gone. "Do you make caterpillars often, then?" he asked her, his tone politely interested as though this were a remotely normal topic of conversation.
Luna nodded. "I like them," she told him simply. Which was true. Caterpillars were cute with their slow, scooching movement and their bright, intriguing colors. But they were also hard. Or rather, they required focus. Luna never struggled to make them, but she had to pause to do so. She had to concentrate. She had to silence the thoughts in her head and ignore the itching under her skin and drown out Sam and forget that the sun and the moon and the whole damn world existed.
And though she'd never told anyone, not Sam or her mother or the moon, Luna loved the silence of those moments. She loved that for that moment when the magic rushed out of her, she was just... normal. Or as normal as any magic bearing child could be. Which was a hell of a lot more normal than she usually was.
Now, the man sitting next to her smiled. "They are lovely," he agreed with all the gravity of a man affirming some great truth of the world. "Can you do anything else?" he asked after a pause.
Luna shrugged. "I haven't really tried," she admitted. Which was also true. The caterpillars worked. And since the singular time she had tried something new, it had resulted in some very uncontrolled magic that had brought the muggle neighbors knocking and asking questions, Luna had decided it was safer to just... stick to what she knew.
"I see," the visitor murmured again. "Well. We can teach you how to do many things at Hogwarts. Things that will stop the itching," he added with a little smile that Luna didn't think was quite real. Indeed, it slipped all too fast, replaced instead by a look of almost concerned contemplation that made her squirm slightly. "I do hope you will come to Hogwarts," the stranger said quietly. "It is a place where all young witches and wizards, regardless of their preexisting talents," he added with a little inclination of his head, "May learn how to control their magic and channel it into known, safe, spells. It is essential to learn that control," he continued, his eyes once again that kind of soft that was hiding things as they seemed to scan over her. "Making caterpillars may not be enough to stop the itching one day. And it would be dangerous to ignore it."
"It's just itching," Sam muttered, sounding rather displeased and annoyed, as he usually was when a conversation proceeded without him. As they often did.. "How dangerous could it really be?"
Luna didn't answer him. For all his annoyance, she could hear the uncertainty and knew that he said it only because he didn't want her to leave and go off to some new school. Sam didn't like school. He didn't like being surrounded by people who kept walking through him. People who couldn't see him. People who kept even Luna from talking to him. People who kept her following her rules. And Sam despised those rules.
"What happens?" Luna asked carefully, pulling her uncooperative brain back to the moment. The old man, who had been in the process of standing up, paused, looking down at her. "If I ignore the itching," she clarified.
The man just watched her for a moment, a frown creasing his brow as he seemed to consider the question, his face oddly sad. "It consumes you," he told her gravely. Then with a sigh and another smile Luna definitely didn't believe, he bid her goodbye and stepped off the concrete stairs to the weedy grass where he turned and with a crack like a whip, vanished.
Luna watched the place where he'd disappeared, her thoughts all muddied up in her head.
It consumes you.
Well. That sounded bad. And, if she was honest, Luna was inclined to believe it. She couldn't really explain it, but the itching felt bad. It felt like if she ignored it for too long, then she wouldn't be able to think about anything else. Like it would become the only thing in her mind. Which perhaps would make it the only thing she was. And that most certainly didn't sound pleasant.
"You're going to go, aren't you?" Sam asked mulishly and Luna turned to see him sitting with his arms crossed over his knees, staring pointedly at the Moly patch with an expression that made guilt twist in her stomach.
"I have to, don't I?" she pointed out gently, her own arms wrapping around herself in some poor imitation of a hug.
"He said you didn't," Sam argued, still not looking at her.
"But if I don't, then the itching might get worse," she argued, her eyes wide on her friend's face and her voice something close to desperate. "And besides, if everyone else is magic there, then they won't be mean to me for it."
Which was a truth, or perhaps just a hope, that even Sam couldn't argue with, though he still didn't look at her. Luna sighed, feeling her chest go tight. She didn't want Sam to be mad at her, especially not for something like this that sounded... exciting. She wanted him to be excited too. Because wouldn't it be lovely not to have to hide it? Wouldn't it be lovely to be around other people who could do things like she could? Caterpillars were all well and good, but they weren't very practical. And maybe she could learn magic like her mother's. The practical kind. The useful kind. The kind that might let her help her mother and make some of that tiredness leave her eyes.
"You'd come with me, wouldn't you?" Luna asked after a moment, thinking that perhaps if Sam understood that he'd be coming too, then he would be a bit more excited about the whole thing.
But Sam just shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted, now resting his chin on his still folded arms. "Would I?"
"Of course you would," Luna argued, frowning. "If I'm magic, then you must be too." Which might not be right, of course, because Luna had no idea how magic was passed down. She would have to ask her mother to explain it, she supposed. But that was a problem for later.
"Then maybe," Sam agreed, shrugging even as he kept his gaze out on the garden and his arms crossed himself like armor.
"But if you're coming too then wouldn't it be exciting?" Luna pressed, leaning forward slightly and unable to contain the eagerness in her voice. "We could find out all sorts of things about magic. Learn how to do things more than make caterpillars. I bet they could teach you all about magical plants," she added, knowing that this was one thing Sam would be utterly unable to resist.
Indeed, he straightened up slightly at this, his expression turning from a scowl to something more contemplative. "I suppose they would," he admitted, the words coming out with poorly disguised enthusiasm.
Luna smiled, knowing she'd gotten through to him. "We could learn all sorts of things," she agreed, unwrapping her arms from around herself. "It would be an adventure we could go on together. Like always."
And now Sam looked at her, smiling at last, though Luna didn't miss that the expression was still hesitant and something like fearful. "Alright," he agreed. "It does sound fun."
Luna grinned at him, but stayed silent. She didn't want to speak the words that jumped into her head and onto her tongue. She didn't want to speak the stupid, secret hope that was blossoming in her chest. The hope that maybe, amongst all those other magical children, she might finally find someone else who could see Sam. She might finally find proof that she truly wasn't crazy.
A/N: Okay so I'm spoiling you all with another update this week, but unfortunately, that can't last lol. I get back to classes tomorrow (boooo) and then there's only like 2 weeks to finals so... we're going back to weekly. That might change during finals week, but idk how yet so we'll see.
In other news, I cracked my back just now and holy crap it felt good. I swear my joints think I'm already an old lady. I got out of bed this morning and crouched down to get stuff out of my bottom drawer and I kid you not, all of my major leg joints popped. Like, ankles, knees and hips. All with different tones too. Pretty sure you could make a song using just the sound of my joints popping. Which, tbh would be awesome and I will now be looking into this.
Anyway, as usual, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'll be back again soon!