warning: disordered thoughts. possibly triggering.

Luna is loneliest at lunch. She repeats this to herself like a theme song, even puts a quiet tune to it when there's no one else in the common room. Loony Luna is loneliest at lunch.

Only because food is not her friend-

but she doesn't have friends, does she? It's not something that bothers her; it's just another fact to file away in the back of her head, next to the watering schedule for the dirigible plums and her sneaking suspicion that Stubby Boardman might not actually be Sirius Black.

No. It's never been about the food

(Though she does remember her mother's attempts at cooking. things swimming in oil or sauce, things that tasted good enough to eat-

good enough to eat! Can you imagine?

-but after The Spell That Went Horribly Awry, nothing tasted quite as good)

despite what the other Ravenclaw girls say. And they seem to all have opinions of her and her food (or lack thereof), which honestly she thinks is a bit unfair, because goodness knows they make enough fun of her already

-normally she just puts these things on the back burner and it's not an issue because there are important things to think about-

but she assumes the snide remarks (Like a little bird! And she's got the bug eyes, too. Legs like toothpicks- though the last one actually cheered her up a bit) will continue on as always. She'll go on pretending to ignore them and her classmates will go on thinking she's rather odd.

Ginny stopped giving her funny looks after the sixth or seventh time they had lunch together.

(Ginny had pumpkin pie. Luna had a plate full of air.)

And it's not like it matters, really. It's just food, and it all tastes the same

-a little like defeat, she thinks,

so she avoids it. And days will go by without her having any proper meals, but honestly, she can't say it bothers her. Every bite tastes a little like the last dish her mum made

(Some sort of eggplant casserole. She remembers her mother's experimentation with spices- everything always tasted just a little bit off. Mum always did tend to confuse the paprika with the chili powder).

She doesn't eat.

She doesn't need it. It's just food, it's not like it's magic. She needs magic. On the days when she doesn't even mutter a simple spell, she feels as though her heart is caving in.

She can run her hands up and down her ribs and count most of them, on the days she forgets to eat. They feel like the keys of a xylophone.

She imagines the music her bones must make, and smiles.