Moonlight

Moonlight

Luna Lovegood sat alone on the Hogwarts Express and smiled to herself. This year, her fifth year, would be different. This year she had a secret and she would get what she wanted.

***

It was late. Ron Weasley was out of bed and wandering the halls. Usually, he slept soundly but lately he had had a lot on his mind. He felt like he was stuck in a place he would never get out of, frozen into a mold that he did not want to fill. Ron had always wanted to be someone, anyone that wasn't an extension of someone else. He wanted people to know him for something he was good at instead of who he knew - to be seen differently than his brothers. They all were well-known for their talents and achievements: Bill for being a popular head boy, Charlie for quidditch, Fred and George for their pranks, and Percy for becoming one of the most uptight head boys Hogwarts had ever seen. Ron didn't know what he could ever do to set himself apart from his brothers.

Ron had been excited to go to Hogwarts. He had imagined that he would find something he could do well, that he would meet good friends who would think he was interesting and maybe even look up to him for his talents. But no. He had had the luck, either good or bad, to become best friends with the Harry Potter, a boy who had been famous ever since he was a child barely over the age of one. Now Ron was known as the Weasley who was friends with Harry Potter and Ron yearned to share some of the spotlight. Ron knew in the back of his mind that Harry was not responsible for his fame and that he didn't try or want to be talented or popular, but he often resented Harry for being who he unavoidably was. He would never be able to beat Harry at anything more than chess, which, incidentally, Harry was getting better at with every game.

It might have helped if their other best friend, Hermione Granger, wasn't such an overachiever herself. Ron and Hermione were both prefects, but Ron had to admit that she was much better suited for the job than he was. He felt like he was only holding the job for Harry who, as Dumbledore had said, had more than enough responsibility at the moment. Ron had been upset for days, although he hid it well, when Harry had finally told Ron the conversation he had had with the Headmaster.

So now Ron was sulking, stalking through the hallways without attempting stealth. He was to a point where he wouldn't care if Filch or any of the other teachers found him out of bed after hours. Not even prefects were allowed to be out at this hour. He almost felt like he was challenging someone to catch him and punish him, just to break the monotony of his life.

With that thought he turned a corner and was surprised to see Luna Lovegood sitting on a bench looking out the nearby window. He stopped dead in his tracks and hoped that he could sneak away before she noticed him. Ron felt uncomfortable around the girl. She always seemed to pay an unusual amount of attention to him and laughed a little too enthusiastically at his jokes. Seamus teased him about this every time she was caught staring at him from the Ravenclaw table. As Ron started to slowly back up, Luna raised her head and he saw that her face was wet with tears.

"What's wrong, Luna?" he said as he moved forward to sit next to her on the bench.

Luna wiped the tears off of her face, sniffled and shrugged her shoulders. Ron never knew how to comfort crying girls. He felt, once again, the urge to get away from Luna, but he couldn't leave now. Tentatively, he put his hand on her shoulder. Luna took this as an invitation for more physical contact as she wrapped her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder and cried some more. Ron sat there for a few awkward moments before lightly putting his arms around Luna's trembling body.

They sat together in this position for a few minutes, when Luna raised her head so her forehead rested on Ron's cheek. Very slowly Luna slid closer to him, pressing her body to his. He could feel the moisture from her tears on his chin.

'This is a little too close for comfort,' Ron thought, his eyes darting around into the thick shadows of the castle. His chance to escape this moment had long since past, he knew.

Suddenly, it was all too much to bear. He had to get out of there. He could feel Luna's lips on his throat. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but his words, now forgotten, were halted by the sharp pain of something piercing his neck. It took him a brief moment to regain some semblance of coherent thought before he realized that two of Luna's teeth were imbedded in the skin of his throat and felt his blood being tugged out of him and into Luna's mouth. He tried to pull away and was surprised to find that Luna's hold on him was tighter than he could have ever imagined. He began to feel lightheaded and had a vague sense of Luna pulling back from him. His final memory before the world turned black was the sensation of warm liquid being pressed to his open mouth.

***

When Ron Weasley opened his eyes, he didn't recognize where he was. He got to his feet and glanced around him. This world looked different to him than the world he had known, yet he knew that, somehow, it was still the same world. The hallway was still the familiar one he had sat in with a crying girl, but now it had changed. The hallway looked almost alive. Ron could see the detail of the tapestries on the wall - each individual thread - and minute shadows of the wall, which was illuminated by the light of the moon and the stars. With that thought he looked out of the window. The sight made his breath catch. He'd never seen anything so beautiful before. The moon shone with perfect clarity onto to Hogwarts Grounds. The moonlight reflected on the lake so brightly that it was almost blinding. Movement caught his eye and he watched as Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, darted across the open lawn and into the dark shelter of the Forbidden Forest.

He closed his eyes. He felt different, as if something within him had changed. He realized that he could hear the students sleeping in their dormitories and the busy shuffling of the castle's nocturnal occupants. He could smell the essence of the food that had been cooked and eaten hours ago at supper coming from both the Great Hall and the kitchen below it. He felt like he was soaring, high from his heightened senses and the exhilarating knowledge that he now held power over others. Ron ran his tongue along his teeth and tasted blood as it grazed the sharp points of his canines. He knew what he was now. Someone powerful, someone special, someone who would not be forgotten. The person he'd always wanted to be.

"How do you feel, Ronald?" a voice behind him asked. A voice he knew belonged to Luna Lovegood.

He turned slowly and took a few steps closer to Luna. Looking into her eyes, he smirked and chuckled.

The End