Clarity

Clarity

Luna had always been alone with her thoughts and dreams.

When she closed her eyes and sank into the soft covers of her bed, she would think of stars. She dreamt of a bright light where no darkness ventured and there was her mother, bright and shining.

She remembered drinking tea with her mother in their sun-drenched kitchen. The sunlight that dappled the wood of the table made her mother look wispy and ghost-like so that she almost seemed to disappear, to melt in the light.

"Come dance with me, Luna," she said. Her voice was smooth, like honey. She took Luna by the hand and they danced, round and round, twirling in a circle until Luna was dizzy from spinning, dizzy with laughter and joy.

They would make the beds together. No magic for Mother. It wasn't that Mother didn't like magic. She had been raised by Muggles but she never spoke of it, except once to tell Luna, "You know Luna, I grew up with Muggles. Muggles aren't bad. Just different. Like you and me. We're different from other people."

There was a deep sadness within Mother, some hidden room that Luna could not enter. Something untouchable about her.

Mother liked the physical action of laying out the sheets, of turning the corners. She liked the feeling of accomplishment, that everything was all neat and tidy in the end.

"Ah," she used to say. "Don't you love it? The smell, the touch of fresh clean sheets?"

Luna would take one of the corners and Mother would take another. They opened it up until it flew and sailed in the air, upon it suspended their hopes, and dreams, their joys.

After a while, she didn't get up anymore. She sat in bed, growing paler and paler with each passing day. And then one day, she died. Luna had been sitting by her side, holding her hand when she noticed that Mother's eyes were clouded over and her hand was limp. When she let it go, it fell to the bed. She had put her ear to Mother's chest to try and hear the soft thumping of her heart but she was quiet inside.

Father came back from work and found them like this. Luna, head bowed, holding Mother's hand which had grown stiff and cold.

"She's not going to come back. She's gone. Gone," Father said, over and over, clutching Luna as if she was the only thing keeping him anchored, as though if he said it enough times, he would start to believe, to accept. To accept that she truly was dead, that she wouldn't open her eyes and breathe or talk or yawn.

Luna was nine, nearly ten when it had happened.

But Luna knew. She knew her Mother was here. Everywhere. Alive. Her spirit dancing in every nook and cranny of her house. She used to touch the walls, feel the house sigh. When Mother died, she could feel it give a shudder. But maybe, it was merely the trembling of her hands.

Luna didn't go to the funeral but afterwards, her relatives came over and drank tea and talked of Mother. Her aunt said, "She was always weak. The doctor said she just faded away." Luna was so angry, she couldn't speak. "You're wrong, you're wrong," she wanted to scream but she felt like she was looking at them from behind a wall of glass.

It was Mother who taught her how to read, and write, and who made up stories and braided Luna's long blond hair. When she was gone, Luna forgot to brush it. She forgot everything, and she suspected for quite a long time that she forgot how to breathe, and her spirit was still, so still. And how could they both-her father and her-exist in the same house, day after day, ghosts carrying out the rhythm of life?

When it was time to go to Hogwarts, she had cried. She felt like she was leaving Mother, far, far behind. Father had hugged her at the train station. "You're strong aren't you, Luna? You're my little girl," he had said.

She sat alone in the carriage and thought of everything Mother had told her. She thought that the other students were strange, but really it was them that thought her strange. And she wasn't afraid when she saw the hideous black beasts that pulled the carriages to school. But they didn't need to go in it that first day after all. Instead, they sat in little boats that were pulled across the river, twinkling lights that glittered like stars against the darkening sky. She noticed then, a forlorn-looking girl with long red hair. Luna wanted red hair like that, not pale hair like hers. She didn't want to fade, not like her mother. She didn't want...to disappear.

"You're a smart one," the Sorting Hat declared. "You see things that others do not. How about Ravenclaw?" It then proclaimed "RAVENCLAW," to the cheers from the Ravenclaw table.

The next morning at breakfast she saw Harry Potter. She had heard about him- The-Boy-Who-Lived. Who hadn't? Her eyes searched out the scar on his forehead and all through breakfast, she watched the way he talked with his friends. She saw his strength. He's stronger than he thinks. He's someone special, she thought.

She didn't notice the girl with the red hair again until sometime later that year. She'd bumped right into her one day, on the way to Transfigurations. Her freckles stood out and she was pale, unusually so.

Luna frowned at her, but her eyes were wide and round. She said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" and she pushed onwards through the crowd. Luna felt like she had somehow been jolted from a dream-like state, if only for a moment. Luna even remembered her name. Ginny Weasley.

This was a girl, she knew, who everyone ignored, who would disappear. She realized then that having brilliant, flaming red hair did not make you stand out more.

Luna considered reaching out her hand but then she decided against it. She didn't really like people. She preferred to exist within her dream-like world.

Luna noted that Ginny knew Harry Potter, that she had liked him in first-year. She had seen them talking once, near the passage that led to Gryffindor Tower and the longing in Ginny was almost electric. Didn't he see? She wondered. Ginny clearly liked him for the way everything about him screamed 'hero', liked him for the way he answered that desire deep within her for someone to hold you and take the pain away-but no one boy could do that.

When the air was thick with tension because of the Chamber of Secrets, the news came that Ginny Weasley was missing. Luna was surprised then, that she felt something for this girl that she didn't know, yet somehow felt like she did. She was relieved when Ginny was brought back alive. Perhaps Harry had done it after all. Perhaps Harry had taken the pain away.

Afterwards, she would look out for Ginny sometimes, in the midst of a crowd. The year after that and the year after that, she noticed that she grew stronger and began to stand up tall.

In fourth year, she was surprised when Ginny came into the carriage that she was sitting in, with Harry Potter half a step behind. They'd talked and it seemed like Luna was being dragged out of the dream-world that she had existed in so long after her mother had died and out into the real one. She began to see the darkness and the light, to feel it once again. To care.

At the end of fourth year, she had gone to the Department of Mysteries with them all. It seemed like something from an adventure novel: a quest, danger, the Dark Lord. How epic, she thought. It was somehow unreal.

When it was all over, she wanted to reach out, but this time to Harry Potter, to carry some of his burdens, to give him wings but she felt...somehow unworthy. It was a moment, just a moment. Someone so bright, so bold could not possibly want her, Luna. His eyes are brightest green, she noted.

She told him about her mother, the words escaping from her lips. How could she say though that she had just disappeared, faded away? She felt the words twisting the truth into something else, until her mother was different altogether. Someone brilliant and bold, who had messed up a spell one day.

She kissed Harry,then, whisper-soft on his cheek on impulse and walked away. When she turned the corner she paused and looked back to see him still standing there, holding up a hand to that spot on his cheek. There was a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. Something softer, gentler. Something stiller.

Like some part of him was rested, quietly content among the turmoil of death and duty and pain that he was caught up in.

She was glad that she had helped even for such small an instant.

The next summer, she decided to dye her hair. Father had brought her to the Muggle world once. "I want to show you things, Luna," he had said. And he'd never said the words: Just like your mother did.

She'd bought some magazines and she thought it was funny how the pictures didn't move, and how strange the Muggle clothes looked. She pictured Mother wearing them and she said to Father, "Did Mother use to wear these too? What did she look like?"

Father looked shocked at this and he swallowed nervously. "She was pretty as a picture," he finally said. "She was different. But hasn't she always been that way?" Luna knew he wasn't talking only about the way she dressed. Were all Muggles that way? Luna wondered.

She saw in the magazine that there was a Muggle thing to make your hair change colour. She went out and bought it. Luna didn't know why she didn't just use her wand, but there was something satisfying about rinsing her hair with the black, black dye. She liked the way it contrasted with the paleness of her skin.

"There," she said and she smiled back at herself in their mirror.

"Look at you," Father had exclaimed when they sat down for eggs and toast. "All grown-up."

Luna wondered vaguely if that was the line one was meant to use for girls out for their first ball.

She'd certainly turned heads when she walked into Hogwarts. Then again, she always did. She could hear them whispering about her but she didn't care. What were they to her?

Ginny Weasley caught her by the arm as she walked up to the train. "I like your hair," she said. "Come sit with me?" She indicated a carriage and Luna followed. The place where Ginny touched her was burning, a warm tingling that spread to her fingers and toes. Luna had never felt like that before. Like her whole body was humming. It took her breath away.

The atmosphere back at school was tense, sizzling, crackling like an electric storm where there was lightning in the sky but no rain or thunder. Waiting, waiting like they were all holding their breaths for the storm to hit.

She found Ginny, shaking and shivering outside the Charms classroom, one afternoon a week later.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing," Ginny said but her lips were trembling. "Just nerves. Fear," she said.

"Yes, I know," Luna said. "Everyone is scared as well."

"Are you?" Ginny said and they were so close that Luna could see the pupils of Ginny's eyes, the smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Luna thought they were cute.

"Of course. I'm not invincible," she said, laughing.

Ginny caught up the strands of Luna's hair and twirled it round her finger. "Why did you change it?" she asked.

"I wanted to be... stronger," Luna said.

Ginny looked surprised at this. Then her lips quirked into a smile that reached her eyes. "You don't see it, do you? You already are."

After that, they spent more time together, then more and more that the days seemed to blend into each other, that Luna looking back, could not remember a time when Ginny was not in her life.

One rainy day, Ginny came over to Luna's room. They sat on Luna's bed and they talked. It was one of Luna's favorite times- hearing the rain drumming steadily on the roof while they were warm and cozy inside.

Luna found herself telling Ginny about her mother. "Whenever I think of her," she said, "I feel all light and floaty. Like I'm so far away from the here and now."

Ginny took Luna's hand and squeezed it, and Luna felt all warm inside.

Then Ginny leant in closer and her eyes grew slightly wider, like she was about to tell Luna something important. She told Luna about Tom, the power and the darkness and how it still haunted her, how she still saw him in her dreams. How Harry Potter had saved her from Tom, but he could not save her from this.

Luna grew angry then, that Tom had hurt Ginny. She wanted to hug her and take the pain away just like she had done to Harry. It was then, sitting on the bed, so close she could feel Ginny's breath on her cheek that she realized she loved Ginny because she had not shattered.

With each passing day, Luna's hair grew lighter and so did her soul. She felt like she was dancing, spinning once again.

When the disappearances began, people walked around with thin, pale faces, letters came more frequently and breakfast was a silent, anxious affair where every owl was a godsend. Ginny looked especially worried then. Luna thought it was because of her father in the Ministry.

When Luna said softly, "What's the matter?" as they were walking to Charms, Ginny grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to an empty toilet. "I-I'm afraid," she said and she was shaking so much that she could barely speak. "It's my fault, Luna. I let Tom out, didn't I? I fed him. I was weak and that made him strong. And he's strong, he's so strong now Luna."

"It isn't true," Luna said gently and she wrapped her arms around Ginny's thin frame as she shook with the force of emotions that went through her.

When they walked out of there, a while later, Ginny caught Luna's eye and whispered, "Thank you."

Luna smiled at her. She didn't say anything though she wanted to about how she felt like she would do anything for Ginny, for that part still scared her.

They sat out by the lake, as Christmas drew nearer and Luna was thinking of what she should get Ginny. She'd never had a friend to give presents to before.

They were lying, bellies down on the ground, hands tangled in the grass. Ginny was trying to study but Luna was dreaming as she usually did, that month's edition of The Quibbler in front of her. "Awake dreams are so much better than sleep ones," Luna said suddenly.

Ginny giggled. "You always say the funniest things, Luna. But they're all true. That's what I love about you."

"Do you really?" she said and suddenly the light was so bright it hurt.

"Hmm? Of course I do. Have you done your Divination homework yet?"

"Just make it up. Professor Trelawney says I have something special. She wants me to take Divination next year," Luna snorted.

Ginny laughed. "Ugh. Let's go back to your dorm. It's quieter back there."

"And here it isn't?"

They walked back and Ginny linked her arm with Luna's and said wistfully, "I wish we'll always have days like this."

Luna smiled at Ginny and her 'sunniness.'

At the dorm, Ginny sat down on Luna's bed and played with her comforter, hands tracing over the intricately woven patterns. "Did your Mum make this?"

"Yes," she said softly. "She says if you look hard enough, you can see the story of my life."

"Really? You know what I see?" And she caught Luna's eye. "I see love."

And Luna felt like her heart was bursting. There was something about the light and the way it highlighted Ginny's hair that made her lean in and kiss Ginny. Her lips brushed softly against Ginny's and it was tender and sweet. When she pulled away, Luna wondered if it was all too fast, if Ginny thought she was strange, if maybe she shouldn't have done that.

She wanted to say something but nothing came out. Ginny said softly, her breath coming out in a whoosh, breaking the silence between them. "I-I've never done that before. But it felt right, you know?"

"Yes," Luna said. "Yes."

Afterwards, it fell into the rhythm of their lives, these moments that were just theirs.

Her fingers would wind around the braid in Ginny's hair, Ginny tasted like strawberries from the lolly she was sucking, and Ginny's fingers and lips were finding their way to the smooth, tender skin at the hollow of Luna's throat, the sharpness of her collarbone.

"Your eyes look so old sometimes," Ginny said, one day. "Like you see things that others don't."

And Luna saw that with each passing day, Ginny's darkness was lifting and Luna herself grew less paper-thin.

She wouldn't disappear, not like her mother. They were different, after all.

~Finis