What if…?

Up in the lakes there's a lovely, peaceful riverbank, away from the youth hostel and the trials of my peers' company. I escaped there, and while I was there I thought of this. The first bit is me-come-Luna ranting, the second bit is definitely just her.

All characters do of course belong to JKR.

Luna lowered herself onto a mossy boulder and let the river's song wash over her. It was peaceful here, deep in the forest; that was why she had come. She wasn't worried by the idea of being alone in the forest – she had her wand after all – and anyway, she wanted to be alone. No one would come here.

She sat and gazed at the endlessly-flowing water for while, and let her thoughts flow freely. She had had a strange emotion burning inside her back up at the school – a kind of bitter loneliness – so she had come here to be alone and to think.

She still had friends, she knew that. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny had all come back to Hogwarts for another year, but they had less time for her than they used to. They were, Luna decided, far too preoccupied. Not that she would deny them their happiness, but still…

The last year hadn't changed much for Luna. She was slightly more respected than she used to be but she was still the school's misfit and, deep inside, she knew it. Not that she let anyone know she knew it. The other students didn't understand her and she didn't understand them. They were interested in things she couldn't understand – boys, magazines, fashions – and she was interested in things they could never accept. Things they pored ridicule and scorn over. But she wouldn't let them crush her; Luna would be herself no matter what others thought, but sometimes, sometimes, she needed to get away from them all so that she could be herself without being persecuted for it.

So what if she didn't know the Weird Sisters' new single? So what if she didn't know what robes were in fashion? Did it matter that her hair wasn't neatly trimmed and layered, or that she drew nargles in the corners of her books? Luna wasn't sure if it did or not. Most of the time she enjoyed being different, but sometimes she just wanted to be accepted by the rest of the school. Sometimes she wanted more than sniggers and whispered comments and laughing groups passing. Sometimes she wanted more than voices full of scorn and more than just a few people who would let her join their groups. Sometimes she wanted people who wouldn't walk away if she sat down at a table with them.

But, she knew, if she changed herself to be like them then she wouldn't be herself any more. And she knew that, if she did that, she would have lost everything. It was a price she couldn't pay.

She reached down and plucked a pebble from the waters, rolling it round and round her hands. Besides, she thought, she knew she was better than them. She had seen more than they would ever see; she knew things they would never know. She reached under her robes and rubbed the scars on her upper arms softly. She'd thought it through a thousand times or more; what might have happened, what could have been. A few words, she knew, could have shattered all this peace forever. The students up at the school wouldn't be laughing and chatting, content with their petty rivalries and alliances - she didn't know what they would be doing, but she was sure it wouldn't be good.

What would have happened, she wondered, if she had told them? The others didn't know; they would never even dream of it. But if she had spoken, to stop the pain, and had used Ginny's name, where would they be now? She had seen her and Harry together; se was sure Harry would have done anything, anything, whatever the cost…

Luna stood up and skimmed the pebble out across the beck. It bounced; once, twice, three times, then sank to the bottom. She smiled and hummed a little under her breath, then tucked a strand of hair back behind her ears. She knew it would stay there, along with all her hopes and fears and wild ramblings. Then she turned and made her way back up to the castle and the rest of her ignorant peers.