Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter franchise.

You paint your fingernails rose red, working hard to get a perfect finish. The fumes go to your head and it hurts to breathe them, but it's another avoidance tactic. You can't eat with wet nails, you shouldn't try to pick anything up for an hour at least to keep them free of smudges. At least that's what you tell people. They're starting to notice, girls that hadn't noticed you before stop you in corridors to comment on your weight, gather around you and fuss around you, treatment you've never received before, growing up in a house full of brothers. These girls, they make you feel better about yourself, make you feel as though you are superior. They sit around the dormitories in groups, stuffing their faces with chocolate and complaining about their figures, completely unable to control themselves while you run around the castle with her, everything feeling so much more real. Feeling 'bubbly', as Luna called it. It's the most interesting sensation, your body seems to focus completely, your brain is free of unsure thoughts and your body is almost shuddering every time you move. Your eyes open wide and you long for something to do, something to touch and feel, all of your senses buzzing.

You stay outside for as long as possible, legs turning blue in the bitter cold and your bodies becoming still. You light a cigarette and you wish that you hadn't, Luna hates it, smoking makes her hungry, but you need the warmth and the gentle rush of nicotine entering your brain. Your mother found your cigarettes at Christmas and threatened to charm your mouth into a permanent pucker if she ever caught you smoking. It's easy to get away with things in a family of nine, one of your brothers always does something worse and your mother forgets about you. After all, you're the daughter they wished for. You couldn't possibly be anything less than perfect.

It began as an experiment, you and Luna testing yourselves, trying to see if you could survive hardship. Trying to toughen yourselves up. It didn't take much to persuade her to continue beyond the weekly schedule you had agreed on. Sometimes you wonder why she was so quick to follow you, why she goes out of her way to please you, when she is so defiant of convention, so much her own person most of the time. Secretly you wonder if maybe she likes you in another way, if she thinks you're wonderful and beautiful, if you're not reading too much into your shared smiles. It's sick really, how much of a narcissist you are, you just assume that she's in love with you. That you're funny and brave and interesting. You can't understand why someone would stick around with you if you didn't have all of those qualities. So you put on a show, exaggerating all of your movements, waggling you eyebrows and cracking jokes at every possible moment.

(As if someone would really want to watch you.)

Performing like this, you can ignore serious thoughts for the most part. You just have to focus on the task at hand, the role that you're playing. And try not to be alone, you should never be alone. Sometimes, when you are in the dormitory late at night you play a game in your head, pretending you're being interviewed for a magazine. You perfect your answers to questions that you don't work very hard on. If it was a real interview, the journalist would have to be trying to stroke your ego asking such easy questions. You silently recite anecdotes, working on your facial expressions and slight quirks that would make you more interesting to watch. It sounds mad when you think about it, so you try not to. You just continue your stories until morning comes and you have something to distract you.

It's funny how people think you should be weak. That they imagine anyone fasting would be bedridden and walk slowly, slouching as though their body is too heavy for them to carry. But you're strong. You can now talk yourself into anything. You can stand bare-legged in the snow without noticing the cold. Really, food only weighs you down. People are tricked into believing they need it, so they get hungry. You haven't felt hungry in a long time, or at least that's what you tell yourself. No, you feel great, better than great, you feel like you've become something else. Something better than everyone else. You aren't weak anymore and it feels wonderful.

Luna falls ill a lot. You wonder if she's got something wrong with her. Well, something other than the obvious. She tries to pretend that she's okay, she doesn't want her father to find out about what she's been doing so she doesn't want to go to the Hospital Wing. You play the selfless nurse, brewing her potions and giving her enough pepper-up that she can make it through classes. You wish you were intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw, but the Hat didn't even consider it. You don't have any friends in your own house. It's your personality, you're too intimidating for most people. That's what you tell yourself, at least. You're secretly pleased when you notice someone talking about you, though you pretend to ignore it.

You wonder if anything but that bubbly feeling is real, if you're a real person anymore. But those thoughts are quickly shaken off when the next act of your show begins.

Author's note: This is my first time using a second person narrative, so would love feedback. I might turn this into a multi-chapter, without the second person narrative, if anyone is interested in reading more.