muggle born Luna au, dean/luna for gift giving extravaganza 2014, for the awesome Amber (cheeky slytherin lass). sorry the story's more platonic then romantic and past the deadline, hope you enjoy (:

nina xx

(also for quidditch league, finals round 2)

"Don't let them in, don't let them see be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know. Well, now they know."

I. The year Luna was nine, her mother died.

She had been trying to find a cure for ailing giraffes or a portal into another world, Luna was never quite sure which. The little girl would crawl under the table of her mother's lab and peer out silently, blue eyes wide in wonder at the vats of bubbling medicines, instruments that she thought looked like weapons for fairies, and a white carpet of papers with hasty notes scribbled every which way across them.

Cheerfully, her mother would hold up the vial occupying her attention at the moment and pretend to explain to thin air about the scientific concepts that created the concoctions. Knowing that her mother knew she was under the table but pretending that she was a spy, the only one to come this far into the lab and remain alive, delighted Luna. She would listen intently to the little science lessons, without saying a word to reveal her presence to her mother.

Being under the table, hiding, but secure in the knowledge that her mother could still find her, comforted Luna because sometimes, in the crowd of rowdy primary school children that she went to school with, she felt lost. She couldn't understand why they shut her out but as long as she still had her mother, her best friend, she was okay.

Then one day, she wasn't okay, or her mother wasn't and to Luna that was the same thing. At first, she couldn't why the science lesson had gone awry and her mother was frozen in shocked silence. Then the vat went from boiling over to exploding, there was scalding liqiud everywhere, gentle hands pushing her under the table, her mother still standing tall in front of Luna, and words, you're special, baby, don't let anyone take that from you. Then her mother collapsed.

Luna didn't go for her father. All she wanted really was a shoulder to cry on but she soldiered on persistently, pushing all her small weight into the body. Toes slid under the table and centimeter by centimeter, feet followed. She closed her eyes and gave another last shove. There, now Mummy was under the table, a safe place to be, and they could pretend nothing had happened. This was, Daddy wouldn't be mad at her, just like everyone at school always seemed to be. Except that her whole mother wasn't under the table, only her feet and Luna didn't have the strength to put her there. Biting her lip to keep from crying, she sat down next to the limp body. Would daddy think that she had killed Mummy? Had she killed Mummy? She couldn't have killed Mummy if she wasn't dead, so Mummy must not be dead. Even this reassuring logic couldn't stop Luna from crying and the tears fell down her pale cheeks now, slowly at first and then gathering in intensity.

A surge of power rushed through her hands. She wondered absent-mindedly if her hands were crying, which wouldn't have been any stranger then the previous events of the morning. But she was wrong, what was happening now was the strangest yet. Her mother was sliding, in little fits of motion, right under the table! She looked around to see if anyone was there but no one was. Then Luna sighed with relief. Her mother must be moving herself! Her mother was fine, not dead. She had to be okay because if she wasn't...

Xenophilius came into his wife's lab late at night, in search of the other two thirds of his family. He couldn't find them at first but, oh there they were, under the table, curled up against each other and sleeping peacefully. He neared quietly, trying not to wake Luna up so he could carry her, sleeping, to bed. Then his heart stopped. There was only one steady rise and fall of breath coming from under the table. His daughter, dried tear tracks streaking her face and thumb in her mouth, was resting her head against her mother's dead body.

II. After that, strange things continued happening around Luna but she tried her best not to think about them. She barely ever saw her father but she still didn't want him to stop loving her, as she was convinced would happen if he found out.

Since her mother's funeral, he had retreated into his room, on his desktop computer until late hours of the night trying to edit his magazine, the Quibbler. Luna sat outside of the study when she didn't have school, hoping to be invited in, to sit under the desk and be taught about printing presses and magical worlds. She never was. If she was lucky, the door would catch on the hem of her frayed dress and her father would look down and ask why she was there, tell her to go run off and play. She never did. There was no one to play with because after the incident with the necklace, even those who had talked to her out of sympathy because of her mother stopped.

"Loony, Loony Lovegood," the boy had called as he snatched Luna's necklace from around her neck and then took off across the playground, running.

Luna had looked after him, dismayed and hurt. The necklace was the only thing she had left of her mother, of a time when she felt okay being herself, a little bit different then everyone else. Luna needed that necklace back, needed to hear the root-beer caps clang comfortingly against each other.

"I bet her mother takes her to special weirdo classes after school," another boy on the other end of the playground had yelled as he caught the necklace thrown to him.

A pudgy boy sitting on a bench dismissed that in a tone of mock pity. "No, Loony over here doesn't have a mother, remember?"

That was when Luna had seen red and suddenly there was her necklace, speeding back across the playground to her. There was only one problem; the boy was still pulling at the chain and the necklace seemed to have no problem with taking him along for the ride.

Slowly, then faster and faster he had rushed towards her, his heels leaving two tracks in the mulch, his face paralyzed in fright until he had collapsed in a heap on the ground right in front of her. The boy was had stared up at her in confusion, his friend screaming for the yard monitor, voice full of incredulity and also anger.

"Come look, look what Loony did to Donald! Come quick, I think she's killed him."

Luna had tugged anxiously tugged on the necklace, trying to pry the clasp out of his hands. All that mattered had been was getting the necklace and figuring out why these things always happened around her, why she was different. How she could become like everyone else. The boy had relinquished the necklace but not before the confusion on his face had morphed into something worse. Hatred. Freak, he had spat at her.

III. "They think I'm strange, you know," she explained earnestly to Dean, the new boy in her class this term. If he really did want to be friends, he should be given a fair warning about Luna's imaginary friends and lack of a mother, although she couldn't tell him about the strange events that happened around her.

"This is Claudia, she plays with me when no one else will." Luna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to send the new boy a mental image of the little girl who was her favorite playmate, her blue wings and purple hair, who hummed quietly and whispered secrets into Luna's ear.

"Look, I- I just wanted to give you this drawing," the boy said, scuffing his feet on the floor and nervously fingering a stub of a pencil and a small scrap of paper.

"You don't have to talk to me, if you really don't want to. I guess you can go now," said Luna, trying to speak nicely to the boy even though he obviously wanted to get away from her. She should have known the coffee skinned little boy would have no interest in playing, just like the rest of them. The boy retreated, almost forgetting to give over the sketch. He turned back around quickly and held out the paper his grubby hand to her. Claudia held Luna's hand reassuringly but she just wasn't the same as a real child to play with.

"You don't like me either, right?" blurted out Luna, suddenly desperate to know. Dean looked up and met her eyes for the first time.

"I don't know," he paused. "I mean, you're different but I guess that can be a good thing. I'm sorry for running away."

"Really?" Luna asked gratefully.

"Yeah, really," answered Dean. He started turning away again but she tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, Dean, can I tell you something?"

After months of having no one to talk to, she found the idea that he really wanted to talk to her amazing and she wondered if he would still like her after she told him about the strange things that happened around her. She decided to risk telling Dean. Luna took a deep breath and began explaining.

"Dabberblimps, I call them, when strange things like that happen." she finished, looking up to see how he had taken all this.

He was staring at her, openmouthed and Luna thought that maybe telling him had been a mistake, after all.

"Never mind, just pretend that I said nothing. I try not to talk about the Dabberblimps, anyway." Luna amended quickly, her face falling. He wasn't backing away, though, he was looking up at her and, strangely enough, he was grinning.

"Like this?" he asked and then, with a look of great concentration, he pointed to a flower and the petals exploded. "You're not weird Luna, you're magical."

Magic. Magical. Magic. Luna tried the word out for size in her head. She liked it. She wasn't just a freak she was magical. Magic was probably a lot like science and after all, she knew a lot about that.

She started spinning around in dizzying circles, faster and then faster, head thrown back towards to blue sky, which was magical, just like her. "Spin with me, Dean," she called, pulling him into the circle and he did.

For the first time since her mother had died she let herself remember her last words.

"You're special, baby."

And this little boy with the crumpled sketches, chocolate eyes and exploding flowers, let her believe that maybe she was

Magical.

"Turn away and slam the door, I don't care what they're going to say. Let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway."

-frozen soundtrack