A/N: Written for the Duct Tape Competition.
Prompt: Skulls.
Warning: Suicidal ideation.
When you think about it, most people are petrified of death. They shove the idea as far away from them as they possibly can, they down suspiciously noisome potions and rub obnoxious-smelling unguents on themselves to keep themselves young, and they surround themselves with reminders of youth, whether they consciously realise they're doing it or not.
And then there's Luna, currently walking on the edge of the wall that surrounds Hogwarts in only her nightgown and bare feet and calmly ignoring the rather strong wind that buffets her from side to side.
"Luna, get down!" Ginny calls from the ground, her voice snatched away by an errant gust, but Luna calmly ignores her. Her hair blows about her face, straggling across her cheeks in wispy strands. Finally, when Ginny has resorted to using Sonorus on her own voice (and discovering in the process how squeaky she sounds when her voice is magnified that loudly), Luna looks down at her, blinking in a mild sort of way.
"Why?" she asks. Ginny reads her lips and stomps her foot, looking more frustrated than Luna has ever seen her.
"You're going to fall!" Ginny yells back, her voice booming against her own ears until she winces. Definitely needs to work on the squeakiness.
"So?" Luna regards her friend quite placidly, stopping for a moment as she holds both arms out to either side. Her feet are firmly planted on the rough granite, but Ginny finds herself wincing every time the wind gusts, certain that her friend is about to plummet to her death at any second.
"What do you mean so?!" Ginny squawks in anger. "If you turn into Luna pudding when you hit the ground, I don't really want to pick up the gooshy bits, thanks!"
"I'm not that high up," Luna counters, a smile hovering about her lips. "I'm sure I could die from this height, but it's far more likely that I'd simply break a few bones. And anyway, I'm sure the blibbering humdingers would break my fall. And if they don't, why does it matter? We all die sooner or later, don't we?"
"I'd much rather it be later," Ginny snaps, casting an anxious look back up at the fourth-year Ravenclaw as she begins to walk across the edge again. "Come on, Luna, get down. And not," she adds with a warning glare, "by jumping."
"Suit yourself," Luna sighs, pulling out her wand and flicking it at a nearby curve in the wall. It sprouts a rather uncomfortable-looking rope ladder and she slips down the unsteady steps with relative ease, although Ginny winces when the girl's knee bangs hard into the stone. Blood trickles down her leg, but she says nothing until she steps off the ladder and into the still dew-chilled grass.
"There," Luna says, a bit airily. "I'm off the wall, as you requested. Could you kindly remove that sonorus spell? It's beginning to hurt my ears."
"You aren't the only one," Ginny mutters in an accidental booming of her voice as she hastily waves her wand to remove the spell. "Why were you up there in the first place?"
"I told you," Luna regards her with surprise. "I like to speak to death, but it's difficult from down here. Up there, it's much easier." Luna smiles and not for the first time, Ginny wonders uneasily if her friend is more than half mad.
"O...kay," Ginny says slowly. "Let's just go have breakfast, okay?"
Luna agrees willingly enough and if Ginny sees her gazing almost in longing at the top of the wall again, she decides to say nothing.
It's easier that way.