Note: I have not published anything in a long time and have decided to go through my old works. I have re-read, and with the help of someone to beta for me, I have touched it up. I hope you will enjoy.
Thank you genevieveyoung for being my Beta. You have been a great help to me.
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am just enjoying her magical world.
Luna's Friends
Luna was sitting on some moss in the Forbidden Forest, thinking about how much she missed home. It had been a few months since she arrived at Hogwarts. She had thought school would be a place where she would not only enhance her knowledge and skill, but also find like-minded people. She assumed that her house mates would welcome her with open arms because the Sorting Hat placed similar individuals together. She had looked forward to bonding and forging life-long friendships with them.
In the past, she had only had a few friends. One of them was Ginny Weasley, but Luna suspected that the friendship developed merely because they were neighbors. She tried putting herself out there to make friends, but her attempts only made it worse. No one knew what to think of her. It was impossible for her to be "normal". She would always make some sort of mistake. She would talk about things like the color of a person's aura, or fantastical creatures like the Crumple-Horned Snorkack or the Blibbering Humdingers and people would tune her out.
Occasionally, Ginny would talk to her between classes or at meal times, but she stuck mostly with her house. Unlike the redhead, Luna had a hard time relating to her housemates. Luna's other friends were her kneazle, Socrates, and her father, Xeno. Luna often heard her housemates complaining about their parents. Her close relationship with her father was something else that set her further apart from her peers. Most people weren't friends with their parents. This made communication with her age group difficult. Most children her age were distant from their parents. They didn't understand that their parents had once been children and teenagers like themselves.
Luna and her father had spent many adventures traveling the world. They liked to look for creatures nobody believed existed. Luna and her father had always seen the world differently. They could sense a person's aura and magical strength. They also saw creatures nobody else could. People thought she and her father made them up.
Ravenclaws took great pride in their wisdom, wit, and learning, which meant they typically sneered at Luna when she would discuss such creatures in the common room. That was where the problem lay; how could one prove the "impossible" to those who only believed in the "possible". This was something that had always been hard for Luna. What was real to her wasn't real to others. Whenever she would try to tell others her perspective on the world, people would give her strange looks and ignore her. Sometimes they would just change the subject.
One of the creatures most couldn't see were thestrals. One had to see death in order to see these fantastical animals. Not actually "Death," but the act of someone dying.
Luna and her father had watched Luna's mother, Pandora, die. It had been from a spell gone wrong. Her job had been to create new spells, and this particular one had gotten out of control. Pandora had died slowly and painfully in her and Xeno's bedroom. She had held both of their hands, told them how much she loved them, and left the world they knew. She had always been the one person who'd understood them. She couldn't always see what they saw but wished she could. She was always interested in what they had to say. Life wasn't the same without Pandora. This was one of the reasons why Luna and her father were so close.
They got Socrates after her mother's death. Pandora loved cats, but they had never had one because of all of their constant travels. Luna and her father took a leave of absence from traveling after Luna's mother left the land of the living.
Luna's father had always told her that cats could see into the spirit world, so she enjoyed talking to her kneazle in the hopes that he would relay her words to her mother. It helped her deal with her loss.
Luna watched the thestrals in their search for food. They typically ate the bugs and rodents they caught, but they never turned away the sugar cubes Luna brought with her. They were always happy to see her because she would give them treats. At least they were her friends. Life would get better. She knew it would. She just had to wait for enough time to pass. But sometimes, Time hurt.