There was a relief, Luna knew, in letting go of secrets. She could see it in Remus after March. There was a lack of tension, of tightening, when full moons were mentioned, when he stumbled across his "illness". His "furry little problem" as James, Sirius, and Peter all called it.

It was a strange thing to see. A good thing to see. A wonderful thing to see. And yet, every time she saw it, something aching coated Luna's throat. Something that, when she bothered to consider it, tasted like jealousy. Like envy, bitter and green.

Because Luna was jealous, even as she was happy. Happy to see her friend with less weight on his shoulders. Happy to see the way he laughed about things more freely. Talked about things more freely. Happy to see the way lifting the secrecy lifted some of the shadow.

And yet envy was a beast on Luna's shoulder. A creature lurking in her chest. Envy tasted like words Luna wanted to say. Risks she wanted to take. Fears that would always make sure she choked on her own secrets. On her own hopes.

It felt, in the months that passed before the end of the term, like those fears stalked her even more than Sam did. They haunted her. Because the truth was, there was a tiny whisper in Luna's head, a little voice that asked what if? What if she dared? What if she spoke? What if she did what Sam had always wanted her to do?

And the voice wasn't new. It was as old as Sam was. As old Luna was, probably. It had been hissing in her ear for as long as she could remember.

It was just louder now.

Because watching Remus, seeing the way the weight lifted, that voice wondered if her weight could lift too. And perhaps the worst part was that Luna knew it could. That if she simply spoke her secrets, breathed them to life like Remus had, the weight would vanish. The pretending could stop.

But other things might stop too. And other weights would crash down with the walls of her life's fortress.

It was, Luna decided, a terrible time to have to go home. To, after three months of wondering, of wishing, of hearing whispers mixed in with even her moonlit vigils, arrive in a bedroom laced with memories. A house haunted by more ghosts than just Sam. A life steeped in this secret. In the reality of what happened when it got out.

It was silly, Luna knew, to let it get to her so much. It had been one conversation. It had been a friend trusting her, offering her a secret. Only it had barely been a secret to Luna. And watching the aftermath, the easing, the loosening, the relaxing of a tension she hadn't even known to look for... it had made it feel like that secret, for all the weight it had put on her friend, had been nothing, really.

It had made it feel like Luna's secrets could be nothing, really.

Only they couldn't be. Wouldn't be. Weren't.

Because Luna knew her secrets. Knew too what people thought of her secrets. And it wasn't nothing.

In case she needed reminders of how not nothing it was, she still saw her old friends sometimes, when she dared to go out in the town. They were still friends with each other, some of them, and old enough now to wander around without parents. Which meant wandering around without anyone to stop them from saying cruel things when they saw her.

Luna went into town only once that summer, trailing behind her mother as she ran errands on an otherwise boring Saturday afternoon. Luna had opted to wait outside while her mother went into the supermarket. It was busy in there and Luna didn't want to watch the crowds run through Sam. Didn't want to watch her mother do the mental math always involved in grocery shopping. Didn't want to see the little frown that came with an item put back on the shelf that always ached a little more than even the reminder of Sam's non-existence in the world.

So she'd sat on the bench in the park across the road with Sam and waited, watching nothing and everything. Watching the world pass her by, and content with it.

Except Jeffrey and Estelle and Teddy hadn't passed her by. They had laughed as they passed her. Laughed in that behind-their-hands way that meant they knew it was mean but didn't care enough to wait for her to be out of earshot before Jeffrey said "Thank God that mad girl doesn't go to school with us anymore. I wonder if they have classes in the mental institutions."

It was one stupid comment, really. One reminder why she never went into town. One reminder why she had slipped away from this life with nothing even resembling regret. And yet, instead of brushing it off, as she had more times than she cared to count before, all Luna could think was how it would feel if Remus said those words. Or Pandora. Or James, who really would say them. Sirius, who would answer them. Peter, who would pile on because it was the only thing he knew how to do.

It made that silly little voice go quieter. And it made envy run claws down her insides. It made it that much harder to smile the next time she saw her friend. The next time she ran into his secrets and the nothing that they now were.

But she did smile. Of course she smiled. She always smiled. It was rule number 1. Play along. And no normal girl would have a smile stick to her insides over this. No normal girl would be burning alive with secrets she wanted nothing more than to give up. To spit out. To breathe like fire across the landscape of her life without caring what ashes it might leave.

So Luna smiled.

It wasn't such a terribly difficult thing most of the time. Nor was it really today, at least at first. They were simply playing games, there in Remus's parents' home, James and Remus on the couch and Sirius and Pandora on chairs pulled over from the table and Luna and Peter cross legged on the floor, all arranged around the coffee table like normal people. Like normal friends. The thought alone made the smiles easier.

Or at least, it made it easier until the topic came up. Because when the topic came up, the ease was palpable. Was as thick in the air as the tension had once been.

"You know," James mused, looking down at the cards in his hand with a frown. "I've always wondered, what does it feel like? The transition, I mean?" he added, glancing over at Remus.

Pandora gasped slightly. "James!" she admonished, even as James played a card and looked expectantly at Sirius. "That's a terrible thing to ask."

Luna didn't know when Pandora had found out about Remus, and she hadn't asked. Who he told and when and why was his business. Luna was simply glad not to have to keep another secret from her friend.

"No, it's fine," Remus said, waving away Pandora's concern and frowning at his own hand. "It's hard to describe, really..." he mused, staring down at the card Sirius had just played.

"It's like... Well..." He trailed off again, staring at the cards.

"Like your bones are made of glass," Luna provided quietly. Because he seemed stuck and they were staring at him and he needed to think about the game because Luna was about to win, if Remus played the right card. And... and because it was true. She didn't know how she knew it, but it was true. And perhaps, she thought later, perhaps just a little bit to test the waters. To guage what it might look like, if her secrets slipped.

Of course, as soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't. All eyes were on her, shocked, but truthfully, she barely felt it. Because Remus's stare was pinning her, the pale green a crystalline cage. Because suddenly, she wasn't so sure anymore why she'd said it. Why she believed it. Why she was so sure it was true. She just knew that it was. That it was like feeling fragile. Breakable.

"Yes," Remus murmured, oh so slowly, his eyes still on her even as his words made the others' gazes slip away. "That's... exactly... How...? Nevermind," he corrected quickly, looking away from her and back to the game. Like he knew the answer. Or at least knew the answer was complicated.

And it wasn't, Luna didn't think. Or... or maybe it was. She didn't know. She did know that the others had stared. And Remus had offered a kindness. And the voice was whispering again.

"Wait, she's right?" Sirius asked, attention fully back on Remus.

"I mean... yeah?" he agreed, finally playing a card. "In the days and especially hours before the full moon it feels... like everything is fragile. Like you'll just.... Break." He shuddered slightly, then shook his head. "And then," he sighed, "When the moon comes up... you do."

Luna blinked at him, then down at the cards. Not the right card.

"And after? Going... back?" James asked, at least having the decency to sound like he wasn't sure he should be asking the question.

Luna glanced at him. Then back down at the cards. It was still the wrong card. She drew off the top of the deck. Blinked. Played it.

And still the silence stretched. And still the voice whispered. And still, Luna didn't know why she said it.

"They put all the pieces back wrong," she whispered.

"Okay, how the hell-"

"James," Pandora admonished, smacking him lightly on the arm.

"What?" he asked, looking indignantly at her. "It's a valid question!"

"I..."

"We've talked about it," Remus interrupted and Luna's eyes jerked to his, her head emptier and darker than a starless sky. "She was curious. When I told her I was... and... well. You know Luna," he said with a smile that just barely hinted at strain. A smile that didn't quite reach eyes that didn't meet Luna's quiet stare. "She's easy to talk to."

James blinked, glancing between them. "Oh," he said simply. "Well. In that case, hurry up and play, Peter, I'm about to win this thing."

And he did win, and was as miserable about it as Luna knew he would have been if he'd lost and the whole conversation disappeared. The day disappeared, really, and soon the sun was setting and they were all going home. All except Luna. Who had to wait. Because as many times as Pandora's parents and James's parents and everyone's parents offered to take her home, Luna refused.

She didn't want a single one of them seeing where home was. Seeing the half falling apart tenements so crammed together it looked like they'd topple over on each other at any moment. Seeing the half dead front garden and the peeling paint on the front door and the street that always looked, at least to Luna's half hopeless eyes, like it might as well have been abandoned.

So she would wait. Wait for her mother to get off work. To go home and to change into the clothes without rips. The ones that were the least threadbare. Not because Luna asked her to, but because she always did. Like without saying it, she knew the quiet shame in her daughter's heart. Or perhaps, Luna sometimes thought, like that shame might also be in her heart. And then, in nice clothes, looking like any other parent in the world, Luna's mother would come get her.

And it didn't matter much except that it always meant she had to stay behind, just a little. Wait, just a little.

And were they anywhere else, Luna wouldn't have cared. But they were here. At Remus's house. Which meant she stayed back, alone with him. With his lie still hanging in the air between them. With claws on her insides and a jealousy and panic she couldn't shake trying to strangle her.

It would almost have been easier, Luna thought, if Remus wasn't as kind as he was. As polite as he was. But he was. And he didn't say a word. Didn't comment on what she'd said. Just quietly, calmly, easily, told her where to set the dishes she'd started cleaning up out of habit.

It would have been easier too, if Luna hadn't seen the new scar. But when he was reaching up to put a clean glass away so they could wash the dirty ones and put them on the rack, he stretched up, and his collar tipped, and it was there. And it hadn't been there before. Luna was certain of it.

Her hand reached out on impulse, a flutter-touch across his skin before his breath hitched in a half-gasp and she jerked away, a flush creeping up her cheeks and a fear sinking in her stomach because it was an awful thing to have done. A thing that she had no right to do. A thing that, like her words today, she hadn't meant to do. But just like those words, she had. And just like those words, the action was laced with a meaning Luna didn't want to unravel. Didn't want to discuss. Didn't want to bring into the light of that pale green stare that made her wonder if he would understand.

Even when she knew he couldn't. No one could.

After all, Remus wasn't mad. And who but the mad could ever understand a girl as mad as her.

A/N. Heeeyyyyy. So... I do still exist. It's been a time lately, friends. In the past 3 weeks I had to defend my thesis (terrifying) and write my final manuscript (boring and time consuming), take my comprehensive exams (also terrifying), and take a polygraph for a potential job (boring and time consuming and terrifying all in one). And all of those were things that if I fucked up, I either don't get the degree I've been working towards for the past 2 years or don't get the job that degree is basically designed to get me. So. Yeah. Writing kinda dropped off a little bc you know, priorities lol. 

The good news is I have like, most of the next chapter written so like.. shouldn't happen again? In theory? Idk y'all I get random spurts of writing inspiration in between the huge blocks of having no time to be a person so who knows. I'm doing my best lol.

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