Luna was curled up in a corner. Waiting for nightfall. Waiting for salvation. Waiting for that figure out of a fairytale who would swoop in and save her. Waiting for the moon.

Luna didn't remember much about the character Madam Moon. She couldn't even pinpoint a story it had come from or a memory of her mother reading it to her. But she remembered that it existed. She remembered that Madam Moon was kind and good and helped the maiden on her way. She remembered that in the moment of greatest peril, when the hero was lying on the ground, bleeding out, when all seemed lost, the moon whispered hush. Hush darling. It's going to be alright. I'll make it better. I'll make it all better.

Of course, Luna wasn't a maiden in a story. She wasn't a hero. She was a half mad girl scattered across the surface of real life, but every time the moon was full, she still found herself hoping. Believing. Believing there was some benevolent force up there in the silvery light. Hoping this time she would show herself. This time she would help.

She never did, but it didn't stop Luna from watching. From waiting. Because somehow, though she had no idea how, she knew the moon was there. Watching and waiting. Just like she was. And maybe it sounded foolish. Maybe it was another madness, but somehow, Luna knew with utter certainty that the moon had helped her once before. Long ago. At a time she was too young to remember properly. But she did remember that she'd been at that crossroads, that moment. That bleeding out, this-is-how-it-ends moment. And she had seen the sweet silver light of the moon and heard her whisper hush. It'll be alright. I'll make it better.

And right now, Luna wanted nothing more than to hear those words. That promise. She didn't even care if it was true. She just wanted someone to say it and the only person who would, who ever had, was the moon.

But right now, the moon wasn't shining. Right now, the sun was still up and Luna had never hated the sunshine more. Because right now, there were tear tracks on Luna's face and a shaking in her limbs and her heart and she felt like she stood on the very edge of the sort of falling apart that was permanent.

She felt like this was how it ended. Because surely, surely, this was how something ended.

The question was what.

On the one hand, there was Sam, who Luna loved. Sam, who had to come back. Sam, who had always and would always deserve better than Luna could give.

And on the other hand, there was her life, which was fragile. Which was hanging by a thread, threatened by a whisper that sounded like Lunatic. That sounded like don't tell me he's dead. That sounded like the breaking of all the quiet denials Luna had held onto for as long as she could remember.

And there was no balance between the two. There was never balance between these two kinds of sanity. There couldn't be. Luna had learned that the hard way.

She had been young, young enough not to have learned yet. But old enough that imaginary friends had fallen out of style. Old enough to have become familiar with the rolling eyes of her peers, the sighs and the jabs and the whispers and sometimes shouts of he's not real. Old enough to have already started ignoring them. Or pretending to, anyway.

What she hadn't been old enough for yet, what that day had brought, was the response of the adults she had somehow never considered. Her friends, the children she spent her time with, they were her life. Her world. And it had never occurred to her that the teachers were paying attention to the words said at recess. To the imaginary friends that should have disappeared. It had never occurred to her that hiding Sam might serve some purpose more than just the silence of her peers.

Until that day.

Luna had been brought to an office after school and greeted by a man in a suit with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. A smile that said something more like I'm sorry than it did the intended you're safe here. A smile, in short, that Luna had known even then, not to trust.

And maybe that smile was why she had listened in when they'd asked her to sit outside and wait. Maybe that smile was why she had inched to the edge of her seat and tipped her head towards the door and done what she never did: eavesdrop.

Luna's mother had always said eavesdropping was rude. That it wasn't just a question of being polite, it was a question of trust. And just as Luna must trust her mother not to eavesdrop on her private conversations with Sam, so must her mother be able to trust her not to eavesdrop of private conversations of her own.

That conversation had happened exactly once. And Luna had never eavesdropped since. Private conversations with Sam were too precious to risk by violating her mother's trust. But that day, that smile, had left Luna with little trust for the man in the suit. And she had told herself it wasn't really her mother's conversation. So it wasn't really her mother's trust she was breaking.

She almost wished, looking back, that she hadn't justified herself. That she hadn't listened. That she had trusted. Because she wished she hadn't heard.

It had started simply, innocently, almost. With greetings. With a, "Hello Mrs. Everleigh. I hope you are well." And an answering, "Thank you Mr. Baxter. I am. May I ask what this is about? I hate to rush, but I have errands that need running."

That should have been the first clue. Luna's mother did errands before picking her up. It usually made her late to picking Luna up but it was easier than bringing Luna along. Not that Luna minded. Errands were no fun when her mother insisted on hushing her when she spoke to Sam. It was more fun to wander the playground and wait.

So Luna should have known something was off. Because her mother was lying. And her mother rarely lied. Not never, Luna knew that. But rarely.

But Luna hadn't noticed in the moment. And neither, it seemed, had the man in the suit who had disappeared behind the door with her mother.

"I understand, Mrs. Everleigh," he said, and his voice made the words sound true. "I know you're a busy woman, but I think you'll agree that this is important. It's about Luna, you see."

And that moment, when she heard her name, was the moment when Luna had been certain, utterly certain, that she should stop listening. But it had also been the moment she was utterly certain that she wouldn't.

"What about Luna?" her mother had asked and her tones, even muffled by the door as they'd been, had been careful, the sort that would have made Luna tread carefully. The sort that said she wasn't happy, but in ways Luna had never managed to pinpoint.

"Well, a few of the faculty have brought to our attention that she has an imaginary friend," the man in the suit had said and Luna's eyes had snapped to Sam, who had looked strangely scared, perhaps already realizing the direction of this conversation that Luna had still been merely suspicious of.

"Yes," her mother had said. And now the tones were tight. Almost harsh. "She does. She's a child."

"She's nearly eight," the man in the suit had said. And somehow, Luna had known that her age meant something here. Something more than a count of her years on this earth. "And according to her teachers," the man had continued, "this imaginary friend of hers is getting in the way of normal socialization."

There had been a beat of silence then. Luna had imagined her mother's lips pursing, her jaw tightening, the bob of her throat as she swallowed her words and her worry and waited. Luna's mother was good at waiting. Luna had learned the skill from her and Luna had spent a lifetime waiting.

"Now," the man said, more gently this time. "I'm sure you're doing your best. No one is trying to say this is in any way your fault. Abnormal attachment to imaginary friends can happen for many reasons. It's possible Luna experienced some traumatic event, one you may not even be aware of, and she is simply using this imaginary friend to cope. Or, it's possible it's nothing and she's just a touch more shy than most and needs a bit of a nudge towards growing up. These things happen. It's important, however, that it gets addressed. She needs to learn to spend time with her peers and make real friends." He had paused here, the silence feeling to Luna like it was weighted. And then he'd said, so quietly Luna almost didn't here, "And, in the event that it is indicative of something more serious, the sooner it gets addressed, the sooner it can be brought under control."

And again, that heavy silence, the kind that sounded less like the absence of sound and more like the presence of a buzzing in the ears that wouldn't go away. The kind that sounded like shock. Like fear. And Luna was full fear as she sat there, staring at Sam, his understanding finally catching up to her as she realized what the man in the suit meant. He meant that Sam wasn't real. That Sam was supposed to go away. That they wanted to make Sam go away. They wanted to address him.

The idea was terrifying. Soul crushing. Utterly impossible.

But no one on the other side of the door seemed to know that. Instead, all Luna heard was the trailing end of what might have been a sigh before her mother said, "What do you suggest?"

Like she agreed. It was the only thought Luna had time to register before the man replied and she was glad. Because that one thought was enough. Was too much. Was a clenching fist on her chest that needed to let go before she could breathe again.

"We want her to sit down with a child psychologist," the man said. "Someone who can get to the bottom of it. Begin understanding it. Who can help... fix this. Get her back to normal before it becomes a bigger problem."

And Luna hadn't heard a word after this. She hadn't heard her mother's response. Didn't know if her first instinct had been to fight for her daughter. All she had known was that someone wanted to fix her. Which meant someone thought she was broken. Thought Sam made her broken. Thought Sam made her... abnormal.

Luna had thought many things about herself, but never that. Never once, even after all the poking and prodding and teasing of her friends, even after realizing that she was the only one left with an imaginary companion, she had never thought of herself as abnormal. Much less broken.

It should have been easy to dismiss, she supposed. She'd spent her whole life thinking otherwise, why should one sentence throw her off? And yet the sentence, the sentiment, had stuck. Had burrowed into her skull until she hadn't known what to do with it. Until she'd had no choice but to ask because her tongue couldn't form any other words.

"Momma? Am I... broken?"

The look on her mother's face at that wasn't one Luna had ever forgotten. And it had been that look, more than anything, that had convinced her that a choice would have to be made. That she would have to start hiding, at least from the adults. And maybe also from the other children. Because it was a look that said yes without meaning to. A look that spoke of the kind of heartbreak Luna had known, deep in her little bones, could only come if the honest answer was the one neither of them wanted to hear.

It was the first time Luna had been certain that her mother was lying to her. But she hadn't said so. She hadn't said anything. She had accepted the no of course not, darling with a nod and an attempt at a smile she wasn't sure had succeeded. But she'd known the truth. And the truth was yes. Yes and I'm sorry.

It wasn't the first kind of crazy Luna had been called but in so many ways, it had been the worst. Because it hadn't been cruel. No one had been trying to hurt her. But no one had been pretending to joke either. It had been serious. And well intentioned. And somehow, that it had come with guilt and with supposed solutions had made it that much harder to ignore. That much harder to hear. Because it had sounded less like laughing or cruelty and more like a confession. Like the delivery of bad news. Like an offer of salvation. One Luna had known she could never take.

Sitting here, beneath spring sunshine, without Sam by her side and with James's words echoing in her ears, Luna couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if she had taken it. If she hadn't asked that question. If she hadn't screamed and fought and kicked and run when the inevitable appointment with that child psychologist had come. If she hadn't cried and shouted at every attempt afterwards. If she hadn't carefully catalogued all the other moments she'd spent sitting outside of those office doors, listening to conversations about getting worse and may require medication and indicative of psychosis. If she hadn't looked up the word and realized that when people said psychosis they meant mad. Really mad. The kind of mad they locked you up for. In short, she wondered what would have happened if she hadn't made her mother give in. If she herself hadn't given in to the panic and the paranoia. If she had let herself be fixed.

Because sitting here, no matter how much she loved Sam, no matter what she had and was willing to give up for him, it was difficult to think of herself as anything but broken. And it was difficult not to wonder what it might take to fix her. Or if anything could.

Sighing, Luna pulled her knees up to her chest. She didn't want to think about this. She didn't want to think about any of it. She didn't want to think at all. Not that it was that easy. Her head was stuffed full of thoughts and every attempt at distraction just seemed to spark a new one, adding to pile instead of substituting like it was supposed to.

She tried to think about the stone under her fingers, the wall against her back and ended up thinking about the scars that seemed to itch more than usual, about the ache that seemed to beat an insistent pulse beneath that itching.

She tried to look out the window at the sunshine and think of the grass that would just be starting to sprout through the grey winter ground but all she could think of was the way Sam always took those first sprouts of the season between his fingers, the way his touch was delicate, his smile gentle and absent. The way he always marveled at how predictably and beautifully and stubbornly life came back, even after the hardest of winters. The way he said it every year. Like a lesson. Like a prayer.

She tried to admire the sunset as the hour drew late, but all she managed was the craning of her neck, the hope for the moon, the desperation for something this time. For words she'd been waiting for since the first time she'd heard them. For hush darling. I'll make it better.

Because that was all she wanted. For someone to make it better. To fix it. And she knew it was childish. Knew she was old enough to know that wishing on stars and praying for fairytale endings was a waste of time. But Luna didn't know how to fix it herself. At least, not in any acceptable way. And she would have given away the world for someone to just wave a wand and... make it all better. Not even perfect. Just better. Just... acceptable. Just not this tearing and falling and breaking apart.

She was almost glad when she heard the door open. Or, rather, she might have been glad had she not known that the only people who would find her here would be people who were looking. And people who were looking were people who would stay. And though Luna might have survived a glance and an apology and a disappearance, might even have welcomed the distraction, she didn't think she could survive someone staying. Someone caring. Someone sitting by her side and watching while she tried to stop falling apart because they couldn't see her fall apart. They might start whispering things like she'd heard on the other side of office doors. Things like get it under control and getting worse and psychosis.

So she didn't look around. She didn't take her eyes from the window or move her head from its resting place against the stone. She just spoke.

"I don't want to talk to you."

There was a beat of silence. A pause, like a blink or a breath. And then, "That's rude. But then, I don't want to talk to you either so I guess fair's fair."

Luna turned. That was not the voice she'd been expecting. It wasn't even a voice she properly recognized until she saw the person it belonged to. And the person it belonged to was standing in the doorway, permanent frown on his face, greasy hair tucked behind his ears with the hasty air of someone annoyed by its very existence.

"You're not who I expected," she found herself saying. Which was stupid. True, but stupid to say. She should have said nothing. She should have let him leave. She should have hoped he forgot he'd ever seen her here.

But now she'd said it and Severus Snape was raising a brow in response. "If that means you do want to talk to me, I'm afraid I'm not interested," he informed her baldly.

Luna nodded vaguely, turning back away. "I thought you were Dora," she said, again unsure why she spoke it except to know that thoughts were hard not to say right now. Hard to stuff down when she was busy stuffing the breaking down. Busy stuffing the memories down. "Or maybe James."

"Well," Severus sniffed. "Who would want to talk to him?"

Luna hummed, still looking out the window, hoping she could substitute these thoughts for thoughts on the weather that would make him lose interest. Make him walk away. Or maybe just make her stop speaking.

She was not successful.

"His friends," she found herself saying. "But I don't know why."

And she didn't know why. Some of his friends were good people. Pandora was his friend. Remus was his friend. She liked them both. She loved Pandora, but... but they were still his friends. And she could not find an explanation for why that didn't make them worse than she wanted them to be.

Severus snorted. "Well that's easy," he muttered derisively. "They're just as bad as he is."

Luna flinched. She felt it. Felt the words like a blow. Felt the reaction like he'd thrown more than just a thought at her. But the real problem was that it was a thought she had had before. One of the many that kept turning over in her head and it wasn't a thought that she liked. It was a thought she wanted to drown. She just couldn't figure out how to do it without drowning herself too.

"They aren't," Luna found herself whispering. "That's what's strange. That's what I can't figure out. They aren't all awful.

Severus was quiet for a moment, then, "Black certainly is," he countered. "And at the very least, the rest of them never stand up to Potter."

Luna blinked and the sunshine sparked, bursting in flares across her vision. He was right. He was right and she hated it. He was right and she had just seen it. Because they had protested. Had said his name. Had said how dare you. But they hadn't stopped him. They hadn't stood up. They hadn't done anything. They had let him keep on saying those things. Saying Lulu. Saying don't tell me he's dead. Saying lunatic.

"They don't," she whispered, turning to look at Severus again, her voice shaky, the world blurry, her cheeks wet. "Do they?"

Severus raised a brow again. "That's what I just..." He trailed off, haughty expression morphing into a frown. "Are you crying?"

The question wasn't kind. It wasn't understanding. It didn't promise comfort. So Luna answered with what he wanted to hear.

"No," she whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek and turning away, giving him the chance to pretend she was telling the truth. Pretend he hadn't seen.

"You're..." He trailed off, huffing. "Great. Okay. Look," he continued, "I don't do crying, so I'm going to leave now." Luna glanced at him, saw him turning away. Saw him taking the chance she had given. And it shouldn't have hurt. He had only ever been grudgingly kind to her and only then in spurts, but somehow, seeing anyone turn away when there were tears in her eyes was hard to bear.

But then he paused, hand on the knob, door pulled partially closed. "You know, Everleigh," he said, turning back to her, "If... this-" he waved a hand vaguely at Luna's face and she felt herself flinch back from it. He didn't seem to notice. "-Is because of Potter, then it's not worth it. He's not worth it. He's an arse by nature and anything out of his mouth is pure drivel." He paused for a moment, as though thinking, then added, "Trust me, I'd know."

Luna blinked, then sniffled, wiping her face again, trying to make the lights stop bursting so she could look at him properly. So she could figure out why he was saying that. Why he was bothering. Why he'd turned back.

But even with her vision a touch less blurry, she could read nothing in his determined frown. So she just nodded. "Thank you," she whispered.

Severus sniffed slightly. "Sure, whatever," he muttered. Then, after another pause, another beat, another breath, he added, "Are you... going to be okay?"

Luna didn't bother wiping her eyes this time. She just stared at him, confused. It took her a moment in which Severus seemed to come to regret the question he hadn't sounded very confident in to begin with, before she remembered to nod, hardly knowing if the answer was true.

"Don't..." She stopped herself. Swallowed. Tried again, hating the words she wanted to say. Hating how desperate she knew they would seem. Hating that despite her hating, she was going to say them anyway.

"Don't tell anyone okay?" she whispered. And the words sounded as fragile and desperate as she'd known they would. But at least she'd gotten them out.

Severus nodded slowly, frowning at her. "Wasn't going to," he said quietly.

Luna nodded vaguely, glancing back at the window, at the last sliver of the falling sun. "Thank you," she whispered, glancing back.

Severus nodded again. "Yeah. Sure. I... Good night I guess."

Luna forced a little smile that didn't take quite as much effort as she'd expected. "Good night," she whispered and if Severus noticed that the words sounded expectant, sounded like finally, sounded like she'd been waiting for the sky to get dark enough for anyone to call it night, he didn't say anything. He just turned around and, whether he knew it or not, offered her the small mercy of closing the door behind him.

A/N: Hello again! I had a shockingly productive day. By which I mean I went to Ikea, decided I want all the things, and then spent about 2 hours bouncing between the showrooms before I successfully narrowed myself down to what I actually needed. I love Ikea. Anyway, then I had a super fun time getting all the stuff from the warehouse part (fun being slightly sarcastic here bc I'm small and the things are big and oof) and then a very nice man helped me load it into my car and I realized I might be slightly screwed when I inevitably have to take it back out and somehow get it up to the fifth floor. I'm praying for luggage carriers of some form because I truly don't know what I'm going to do. On the plus side, I now own a bed and had an existential crisis about that. I mean I've had a bed. I've never not had a bed, but now it's my bed, that I paid for, like, with my money (major oof on the bank account btw beds ain't cheap) and that's by far the most adult thing about me I think so... yeah. Having a great time lol. 

As for updates, I'm... very busy the next two weeks. I move in and then drive cross country and then spend time with family. So. Yeah. Next update is going to be in about 2.5 weeks on August 3. Sorry it's so late out and trust me, I'd love to have it earlier but ya girl is in mild chaos mode rn so... yeah. Thanks for understanding!

Anyway, as usual, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'll be back again soon!