The halls of Hogwarts are haunted.
Oh, there are school ghosts, those will never change, it seems. The Fat Friar, bobbing his way along to the kitchens. The Bloody Baron, melting through a wall, silver blood shining. Nearly Headless Nick, with his irrepressible longing for the Hunt. The Grey Ghost, mournful and silent.
And Peeves, in stark contrast to them all.
Everyone can see those sorts of ghosts. It's hard to miss when a very plump silvery friar tries to take a bite out of your chicken at dinner.
Lily Luna sees everything else.
The halls echo with screams, with silvery-green flashes and crumpled spectres. When she blinks the wrong way, the walls crumble around her, battle-scarred and smoking. The crimson and verdigris wreathing the courtyard, locked in eternal battle. She knows her "Uncle George," but she doesn't understand why sometimes she can see him lying on the floor of the Great Hall, a laugh stamped across his face, with his missing ear firmly reattached. She tries to bring it up once, but George tells her she's just seeing things, in a tone so brittle, she dare not disagree.
When she wanders out into the grounds, it's worse. Ghostly figures jostling for space, misty spells flying left and right. They can't hurt her, but she can't help but duck when a particularly nasty flash comes her way. She starts to get the reputation of being just as dotty as her namesake and it hurts at first, but she starts not to mind anymore. Does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things?
Her brothers take her aside, tell her to act normal. To uphold the family name. She tells them, in a moment of weakness, the things that she sees, cluttering every square inch of Hogwarts, and it's only a few minutes of very quick talking that get her out of seeing Madam Pomfrey. She's not sick. She's just...different.
It's Luna who understands, as perhaps Lily always knew. She nods solemnly, silvery-blonde hair spilling across her shoulders, and tells Lily to plant poppies.
"What do you mean?" Lily asks, brow crinkling.
"For remembrance," Luna replies in an airy whisper. "People like to be remembered. And places, too."
It's silly, perhaps, but what can it hurt? Luna helps her get the poppies, Hagrid finds her a place to plant them, and so she does, working tirelessly for an entire weekend. The other students snicker at her, but they don't dare upset the fragile seedlings (not with Hagrid's glare).
It's hard to remember, Lily thinks as she stands and stretches, feeling her back pop and crackle. Dirt smudges her hands, but she's never felt so unburdened. But it's harder to forget.
When she stumbles up to her dormitory this time, the only one in it is her.