The wind was light enough that it didn't make any noise at all, but only engaged the treetops of the Forbidden Forest in a sort of slow, majestic dance. The dark branches swayed swiftly and elegantly across the star-strewn sky, like a shadow within an almost-shadow.
With a sigh, Luna gazed up at the early summer's various constellations. Ophiuchus had just courted Bootes over the lip of the south-eastern horizon, and the bright, full moon was playing a game of tag with Leo; all were easily visible from the top of the Astronomy Tower, and that was where Luna now stood, leaning against one of the parapets.
Exams had ended for the year just that afternoon; being Luna's fifth year, that meant that she had just finished her O.W.L.s. Strangely, she wasn't very optimistic or as interested about the results as she might have been a year ago; in fact, she wasn't very optimistic about anything anymore. The year had passed in a sort of haze, a curtain of unawareness, and over time, Luna had just stopped caring. Not for herself, not for her grades, not for her friends...who she thought were her friends, anyway. But now she wasn't so sure about them, either; only the previous year had they fought side-by-side in the Department of Mysteries, and yet there was very little difference in Harry's, Ron's, or Hermione's attitude toward Luna...to them, she was still and would always be Loony Lovegood.
The castle of Hogwarts was old, indeed, it was over a thousand years old, but Luna still managed to find a nice foothold. With her right foot resting against the space between parapets, she hoisted herself up onto the wall. She tottered there on the thin ledge, hundreds of feet above the ground. Looking down at the inky lawns below, she realized something rather surprising to her: there was a curious fluttering like butterfly wings in her stomach that told her that she was afraid...afraid of heights, she supposed. True, this was very different from riding upon a thestral, the ghostly, skeletal horses living in the Forbidden Forest, but still, Luna hadn't any idea beforehand that heights bothered her at all.
Balanced as she was between the safety of the tower behind her and the fathoms-long fall before her, Luna drifted dreamily into a state of absolute nonchalance, a state quite different from the non-caring attitude of the day. Wisps of memories floated before her closed eyes, memories of early childhood, of her father, of her mother, of her first day at school and seeing the thestrals for the first time...it all melded together into a bright, flashing light that roared beneath her eyelids... There were bad memories among the replay, of course, but the good cancelled out the bad, and Luna felt balanced, peaceful.
...Luna began to feel herself sway with the wind, like the trees of the forest...slightly forward to the drop...then slightly backward to safety... She felt utterly relaxed, like she hadn't done for so long.
The moon was shining brightly on her face, making the back of her eyelids glow bluish-orange. Slowly, so slowly, she opened her silvery eyes and gazed up at the moon, tilting her head in such a way that it did not throw off her balance. The moon glimmered gold tonight. She stared at it, entranced. Already she thought it looked small... Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy professor, had said in class that the moon was slowly spinning away from the earth by the force of its own weight and gravity, and that eventually, it would leave altogether. Professor Sinistra said that this would take a great deal of time, millions of years, but Luna was positive that it was smaller now than it had been when she was younger. She didn't want the moon to leave...it was like a friend, dependent, always there in some form, whether visible or not...it made her very sad to think that the moon would leave one day.
It was just like her friends...they had left her alone. She was very alone now, except for the moon, but now that too would leave...
"Open your wings," she whispered to the breeze. The wind picked up a little, howling slightly. "Open your wings," Luna whispered again. "And fly like the raven."
She opened her arms wide. And she flew.