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Sorry about the wait between updates. Real life took precedence.

May

The expression of dull shock on Anders's face when Luna limps into their dormitory for the first time a week after Cormac attacked her (Luna spent that week hiding from everyone, especially Cormac – in broom cupboards, in bathrooms, and in a room that appeared out of nowhere) suggests she knows exactly what happened at the end of April. Luna watches her struggle, like she can't figure out if she wants to say something or not, but in the end Anders doesn't have to decide because Rebecca Tanneth tells her to shut up before she can even open her mouth.

"I heard you're a professional whore now, Loony," Rebecca says later that night, when they're all in bed and Luna is staring blankly at the ceiling (not making her FRIENDS paper chains anymore) and Anders is crying behind her curtains. She snickers when Luna flinches.

"I know some boys who'd love to fuck you like Cormac fucked you," she adds in a faux-seductive voice. "Interested?"

"No," Luna mumbles. "Please don't talk to me anymore."

"Suit yourself, whore."

The feeling of shame Luna experienced when handing out condoms at the Gryffindor table is nothing compared to the way she feels every moment after that night. It's an awful, awful feeling – she's so filthy and dirty and yet she can't even stand the thought of putting her own hands on her body to wash herself.

Someone changed the lock on her trunk during the week she spent away from the tower, and she can't get to her other clothes. Somehow, it doesn't matter; one should always show one's feelings, and Luna feels more disgusting and wretched than she ever has in her life. Even when she finally opens her trunk again, she just stares at the hundreds of FRIENDS paper chains inside for a long time and then leaves without changing.

Her week-old clothes are more than appropriate for her now, she thinks sadly.

Luna thinks once or twice or ten thousand times about telling Ginevra what happened to her, but never does. Even if she could get close to her ex-pseudo-friend, which she can't because Ginevra has people looking out for her now, she's sure Ginevra would say something that would hurt terribly, because after all they never really were friends, were they, and so Ginevra never really meant any of the promises she made about not hurting Luna, did she... A couple of times, she also wonders if, maybe, Anders would talk to her if she asked, because they're both very unhappy and no one seems to like Anders very much anymore either. But Anders seems too ashamed to even look at Luna after the first time she returned, and Luna doesn't really know what she'd say to Anders if they did talk, anyway.

Each day, Luna walks and walks and walks around, and each night, Luna walks and walks and walks around some more. She doesn't even know when she's tired anymore because she's tired all the time, even after she sleeps for almost an entire day in a broom cupboard.

Beady little eyes stare at her from the walls when she wanders through the hallways. Sometimes, her schoolmates' heads explode for no reason, and when Luna screams in terror, they look at her and say what are you doing, Loony? because all of a sudden they have heads again and there's no blood or brains to be seen splattered everywhere like there were (plural) just moments before. Strange things follow her through the corridors – weird, skeletal, Thestral-like things; but instead of smelling like the forest, as the Thestrals do, they reek of burnt flesh and shit, and whenever Luna sees them she experiences a terrible feeling of dread and has to run from them. If she looks for too long at one spot, no matter where, it begins to bend and distort, like it's melting away, and she starts to get very nauseous and has to stop looking before she throws up.

Sometimes, Luna's schoolmates talk to her now, about things like friendship and Ginevra Weasley and Cormac McLaggen and the tears Anders cries and burning death and pain and everyone hates you and you're a whore and die and no one will ever miss you and other such topics. It's a novel experience because Luna hasn't talked to anyone so much in ages, but somehow it's so very unpleasant because there's just something so off about it all. They only come and talk to her when she's alone, nauseous, dizzy, and confused – and they tend to look very strange and squiggly like bad drawings. They also tend to not know what she's referring to when she tries to talk to them later, and tell her they never talked to her, which makes Luna cry more because it's so confusing and it scares her that she's talking to people who don't remember talking to her later on and she's so afraid and everything's so sad and she can't sleep and she feels disgusting and dirty and ruined and bad and wrong and nothing makes sense anymore at all!

In fact, the only things left in Luna's rancid mess of a life that she can count on to remain consistent are her endless detentions with the pink toad lady, which she clings to like a life preserver. She giggles hysterically while writing her lines now, as tears roll down her cheeks, grinning her ever-more retarded fake grin. Spending so much time cutting her hand to pieces has finally started to take its toll on her body as well as everything else: Luna can't close her fist all the way anymore, and it hurts just to move her fingers. The wounds in her skin are inflamed and disgusting; they don't stop bleeding for hours and hours after she leaves detention; the flesh around that area is spotted with hundreds of tiny red dots which she's sure are from an infection of some sort.

No one seems to miss her at all, in her endless wanderings. Every so often Luna passes her classrooms – where she should be learning with friends, where she should be with her friends, and she knows everyone else is inside, and she's not – and everyone seems to have given up on making her join them by now because they've realized it just won't work. They don't want to be her friends because she just isn't like them, because she's stupid and weird and retarded and a whore and a thousand other things that are so wrong wrong wrong.

Oh, if only she were just a little bit more right instead of all wrong... If only she weren't so terribly her...

If only, if only, if only.

Of course, Luna is truly beginning to doubt that even a kind, caring friend would be able to help her anymore. It's terrifying to think about – but perhaps she's just beyond help. Still, she thinks, it would be ever so nice to have a friend to hold her and let her cry into their shoulder and make her feel a little bit better about everything, even if it wouldn't stop the horror... But none of Luna's friends can help her, because she has no friends. She can't cry into their shoulders because there are no shoulders to cry into. They can't tell her it will be all right because there are no mouths with which they might speak. They can't wipe her tears away because there are no hands they can do it with.

Maybe she really just doesn't get to have friends, she thinks as she sits in the girls' bathroom in the Charms wing, crying – and also giggling uncontrollably, because she does that a lot now. Perhaps she's in hell. There are no friends in hell, are there? Maybe she doesn't deserve friends because she's just so horrible her mother killed herself to get away from her. Maybe her mother knew how insane she was and named her Loony Lovegood becauNO NO NO NO MY NAME IS–

MY NAME IS–

MY–

NAME–

IS–

...

With growing horror, Luna realizes she can't remember anymore if her name is Luna Lovegood or Loony Lovegood.

And then all of a sudden, Cho is there to help her remember. Cho, except it's not Cho – it's more of a Squiggle-Cho, like a very bad drawing (Luna made a drawing of Ginevra in I-can't-remember-when-anymore, and it was a very good drawing and not squiggly at all, but then her housemates burnt it to cinders and it's all gone – everything's all gone). Squiggle-Cho hmms for a moment, and then she reaches out and takes hold of Luna's right wrist so she can examine her hand.

"Oh," she exclaims in a bright voice, "it says it right here. 'My name is Loony Lovegood'. Your name is Loony." She twists Luna's arm a bit to show her the writing on the back of her hand.

But – no. That can't be right. She can't be Loony Lovegood. That can't be her name. She knows it's not. It can't be. She doesn't want it to be. Her mother wouldn't call her that awful, horrible name – would she?

"It says it right on your hand, Loony," Squiggle-Cho tells her earnestly.

"But – Mummy wouldn't! She loved me!" Luna yells, her voice echoing around the bathroom. "Mummy loved me... Please... My name can't be Loony Lovegood... It can't be... It just can't be..."

"But it's right on your hand. It's probably there in case you forget – you know, because you're retarded, and all," says Squiggle-Cho. She pats Luna on the shoulder. "It's not your fault you're dumber than everyone else, Loony. Don't cry."

Luna just trembles and shivers and cries harder.

How could her name be Loony Lovegood? How could her mother be so cruel as to give her that name? That name for someone no one could ever, ever like... Unless she deserved it... Unless she really is Loony Lovegood.

Suddenly, it all begins to make sense.

She has been impersonating Luna Lovegood. No wonder she doesn't have any friends – she should never have existed. Luna is just her fake name. It's just what she calls herself. She's really Loony Lovegood pretending to be Luna Lovegood. Yes – that's it. But now she knows who she really is, because she's stopped lying.

She's a whore named Loony Lovegood. No one will ever like her. Loony Lovegood will never have any friends.

Silence. A long, empty silence.

"Cho?" Loony rasps.

"Yes, Loony? What is it?" asks Squiggle-Cho.

"W-will you b-be my friend?"

"No," Squiggle-Cho replies immediately. Loony just nods resignedly.

"If – If – If I went away–" the younger girl mumbles after a long time, "–w-would anybody m-miss me?"

Squiggle-Cho ponders this question for a moment, then favors Loony with her sweetest smile, which is a smile worthy of the real Cho Chang.

"No, Loony," she says. "No one would ever miss you at all."

Sitting alone all by herself, which is really how it should be, Loony Lovegood cries like never before as she finally accepts that she'll never have a single friend – not even Ginevra, whom she's lost forever – no matter how badly she wishes for someone to come and save her. No one will ever comfort her; no one will ever tell her she's worth anything; no one will ever let her cry into their shoulder or dry her tears; no one will ever just hold her when she feels lost and alone...

Because she's Loony Lovegood, and Loony Lovegood doesn't get to have friends.

I wanted to have Cho be the one to tell her those things, but it's much more interesting if the person saying them is what Luna thinks Cho is like, even if the real Cho (while extremely cruel to her) really wouldn't say something as terrible as that.

This chapter could have been better, but my beta and I have a lot going on, so you'll suffer for it. I'll probably come back and clean it up another time.