-Flowers for a Ghost-

For what should have happened and what did. /Luna has a ghost she favors more than the others. He has no eyes./

Luna is particularly fond of the ghosts roaming the halls. They are not quite silent, not in most aspects at least, but they have a certain sense of politeness about them, except for a select few, and even if they find her odd they offer nods and curtseys and nothing at all. She quirks her head and smiles.

But mostly, they don't belong. They're dead and there's no time for the dead but she thinks she'd positively loathe being stuck in a world where everything's too fresh and real and- oh she lost her train of thought. No matter. She favors ghosts as they do her.

She meets her favorite in her second year. She is dancing with no shoes, hair spinning like a pinwheel. The sunlight filters through the grand bare windows and she laughs, does not allow her thoughts to linger on the rocks digging underneath her feet. She is spinningspinningspinning with the world and her vision dances along until everything's a blur and thoughts of Nargles and sneers that could be smiles are not so vivid.

Eventually the sunlight dulls, as does her dance, and she stops in front of a man with no eyes. A man is staring at her with no eyes and she blinks. He is a solid form, real like her classmates, but then the light strikes just right and she is staring into the eyes of a man with no eyes, transparent and pale. A splash of red spinningspinningspinning like her dance, and she wonders if he'd like to dance with her but she changes her mind. It'd be awfully imprudent.

"Hello," she ventures slowly and he stares. She does not stir, merely tilts her head.

"Hello," he answers finally, loops an arm over his knee. There is a lilt to his voice that screams foreigner, stranger, not supposed to be here, but she shakes the thoughts away (it'd be hypocritical of her, no?) She thinks he isn't speaking English but she understands him just as easily because there are no barriers for the dead, and what does that make her?

"Luna Lovegood," she says, "Or Looney, as some prefer." He does not reply. It's alright, she didn't expect him to. He looks away into the dying sun and she follows his vision but has to turn away from the burn. Staring is rude but Luna's never been one for manners so she appraises the stranger with a small frown.

He has ancient stories sketched into his lips and a stitch of sins torn down his shirt. He does not wear blood like the Bloody Baron but he might as well have. A coat of red would not look unfamiliar on this man with no eyes, she's certain. This should be enough to throw her off, make her run away from strangers with invisible blood on their hands, but the world sharpens and she decides she will befriend this man (or boy, it depends on the lighting).

For now, she bids farewell. Then, she comes the next day and the next until all those untold stories held in his body are replaced with her words. Until a slight tilt of his lips are not all uncommon and slowly, this pale sketch of some figure from long long ago starts to color. Black hair as dark as night and lips red as roses and skin pale as the snow, and there she goes again, mumbling Muggle fairytales into the night when all she needs is a "Killer. He looks like a killer."

From his lips, "Shinobi," but she ascertains they are one and the same. He does not refute her statement so she settles for Snow White instead. Being friends with a killer does not sound as nice.

One day, she finally musters the courage to ask about his eyes. He is tight-lipped for a moment, old lines creasing in his skin, but then he answers.

"My eyes," he drawls, "are my life." She blinks, mulls over the statement.

"Was your life taken away?" Luna asks, not for the answer but for the question. She never really liked metaphors.

"My brother," he answers listlessly, and she'd find his empty sockets unsettling if it weren't for the fond smile that graced his face.

"Your brother?" Luna repeats, doubtful, because Luna does not have siblings but she doubts it very much that a brother would spill blood of his own, and try to steal their eyes too! Eyes are windows to the soul, as they say and Luna believes in blood just as much as she believes in Harry and considering that blood saved Harry she'd like to think she's pretty perceptive.

"I don't think your brother would do that to you," she answers (there is a tear in his stitch of sins that indicate otherwise). "Brothers love each other." She wouldn't know, but she believes and faith is what has driven her so long. Nargles and Wracklespurts are real because she believes they're real (she's seen them!) and the only world she should worry about is her own.

The only thing he says is, "Perhaps."

She nods and settles beside him on the ledge, telling him of creatures that he's never seen and he listens and believes because she sees him too even when she shouldn't so does that make him real or just another tick to delusion? Sometimes, people ask questions for the sake of questions. No one really wants the answer. (If it's rhetorical, honey, I think you're mad.)

Their legs dangle and when there comes a point when Luna can't see through his legs anymore, well that's just interesting.

She misses him over summer and everyone knows you can't catch ghosts with cameras so she'll settle with her brush. She will only need red black and white from the canvas for this painting so she draws long streaks for his hair, and short dabs for his lips. When she's finished, she settles back on her feet and lets it dry. Her father calls her down for lunch and she lets it dry in the sun.

She thinks she'll show him the painting. She's nothing near an artist but she tried and that's enough, she likes to think. His reaction comes as a disappointment.

"It doesn't move because I used a Muggle brush," she elaborates, though there is still an ethereal style to it when the sun hits it. He straightens himself, leans closer.

"I have no eyes," he intones quietly, fingers tracing his painted counterpart.

"But you can still see can you not?" She queries, bemused. He seemed perfectly fine before. His fingers still.

"It's a raven," he says. She takes a closer look, and how funny, it is! The raven has bright red eyes and a coat of black feathers, staring back at her.

"It's oddly fitting, isn't it?" She asks carefully, afraid she has offended him.

"Thank you," he murmurs, running a hand over the thick dried paint.

For some reason, Luna knows those aren't the words he wanted to say. She smiles anyways.

In her fourth year, she tries to avoid the dark hallways. She tries to avoid talk of dark hallways and dark times because it's rather scary business and there's a reason she wears her wand behind her ear. The man with no eyes (at this point she might have given him a nickname, but she thinks no name is better than a nickname that doesn't quite fit) looks tired and old, not like the wrinkled skin of the other ghosts, but the man with no eyes has a certain different type of age to him.

"Are you leaving soon?" Luna asks. He almost looks surprised.

"Back to your own world," she elaborates. He looks slightly perturbed but he schools his features quickly.

"I know you're not from here," she sighs, shakes the dying leaves from her hair. Winter is coming. He is quiet.

She has the certain urge to dance suddenly, heart in her throat, so she starts spinning like when they first met, weaving through labyrinths in her mind, and when she stops he is staring at her. Carefully, she extends her hand. He straightens and for a moment, she thinks he'll slap her hand away. But he only curls her hand into a fist and leans in.

"Would you like to learn a new type of dance?" He drawls, not unkindly, but she almost shivers.

"Well, alright," she answers finally, hesitant but smiling. He returns her smile.

If anyone had deigned to look, they would have seen Looney Lovegood striking the air harshly, a laugh caught in her lips and a smile in her eyes. If anyone had bothered to, they would have seen Looney Lovegood battling someone who wasn't there in a strange style, no not with wands but fists and skin and direct contact, how lovely.

Luna realizes belatedly, it was the first time they touched.

It is her sixth year and the trio she was so fond of is gone. It is her sixth year and she's not at Hogwarts, instead spending her time in a basement with an elf and sometimes, Draco Malfoy, when he bothers to come down.

There is a commotion and screaming from upstairs as Draco comes down, looking uneasy but noticing her stare, scowled.

"And what do you think you're staring at, Lovegood?" A scared little boy.

"At this age, you'd have killed or died yourself. In my world."

She doesn't answer and he shoves her tray of food with his foot to her, as if she contained some disease. Now Luna's never been much for manners, but that was downright rude.

"Where's the elf?" He starts, eyes wide. She points to the corner, where bright eyes watch them. Draco frowns again.

"Enjoy the food, Looney," Draco spits, and moves to leave. Luna is in sixth year, and she is awfully lonely without red lips and black hair for company. She'll settle for gray eyes.

"Can't you stay and chat, Draco?" Luna asks softly and watches when he freezes, turning around with a glare.

"Don't speak to me informally," he hisses and scoffs when she only tilts her head. He moves to leave when there is unceremonious shouting from upstairs again, quite nasty too. He stays.

"You have some of the prettiest eyes Draco," she murmurs, brushing the dust off her apple to eat. He stills and blinks at her slowly. She wonders how his eyes would look if she plucked it and gave them to the man with no eyes. She decides gray would not suit him, no matter how pretty.

Draco stays and listens to her talk until it is quiet upstairs.

When Harry comes, she takes a moment to examine his eyes. They are green and pretty but green wouldn't suit either, she decides. Until she makes it back to Hogwarts, she categorizes every pair of eyes she meets. None of them fit.

How disappointing. She tells the man with no eyes so when she is back.

"I doubt you will ever find them," he answers and she sighs.

"Perhaps," she says, "but I won't stop trying."

Silently, he offers her his hand. She stretches her muscles, curls her hand and aims for his head. He disappears and she straightens with a giggle, and spins around. He has a slight smile and she thinks she can dance forever.

This is what should have happened: Luna doesn't die. Luna doesn't die and later she will hug her friends and family over cries and a beating heart and there will be new ghosts but it wouldn't be her. She would marry and have children and be happy but never forget. Luna doesn't die.

This is what happens: Luna falls. She falls and falls until she never hits the floor and there is only darkness and something red burning against her temple. She will never stop falling so she starts spinning and spinning to ease the pain away. She spins until she stops in front of the man with no eyes and there is nothing but their breaths and the sound of chirping birds.

She is breathless, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

"Hello," she ventures.

She looks around but the rest of the surroundings do not stay in her mind, only her feet and his empty sockets. She thinks she sees something beyond the ink and she tells him so.

"I think," she says carefully, "if I looked hard enough, I'd find your eyes. Beyond, of course."

The man with no eyes tilts his head curiously, like a bird.

"Itachi," he says. "That's my name."

"Itachi," she repeats, though the word sounds foreign on her tongue. "Well, Itachi would you like to join me on my quest for eyes?" He is quiet, but she understands his silence like she would a brother.

Then, she spins the world away.

A/N: pshhh, cheesy ending is alright with me so don't laugh. and yeah, it wasn't supposed to make sense, really, so if you hate it because of that you're gonna need another reason. reviews would be adored. :)