It's very lonely here, Luna thinks as she stares out of the window, upon the grassy, lively hills beyond it. Her empty hands rest on the table set just out of reach of the bed, the cold morning air tickling her skin under her thin nightgown. She breathes in, just another breath in a huge empty space, but still stealing away far too much air from the room, she thinks. She wills herself to stand, to dress, but she cannot, the press of a lacking space beside her too much for her to fight against.
She watches as the sun begins it's slow, tedious journey against the brightness that is the moon and the darkness that accompanies it. The birds wake and flutter about, wavering in the way a heart does when it most needs to be steady. They are so full of life, she thinks, so full of hopes and beginnings that she cannot begin to grasp. They reek of things that she does not know and cannot ever have, of her wishes, sitting heavily in the vacant air beside her, crushing her breath out of her chest.
For one moment, just one, she cannot breath and her throat tightens, the blank canvas of her mind is scrawled across by unworthy hands, with things she does not want to see, and her heart stutters. Then she is calm again, breath comes easily, and she doesn't hurt. She doesn't hurt any more, she swears. There is no ache in her throat or mind or heart, and there is no catch in her breath just as there are no tears on her face. There are no tears on her face, her sore mind whispers to her, and she ignores the droplet of liquid that comes to rest on her open palm.
She sits in the silence and sorrow, listening to her own breathing echoing in the chasm about her, and her mind rests and is calm. She sits in the room as the sun rises and the birds slow, until the air is warm and the other animals begin to stir. She stays, with her palms lying on the table open and empty of her tears(they are empty, her mind insists), and only tasks herself with breathing.
She starts when a sudden cry escapes from the other room, the one across the hall, and she finally finds it in her to stand, to toss on a robe, to walk over as a second voice echoes the first. In her heart she knows, deeply, truly, that this is her purpose, and she cradles her two infant sons in her hands. A short time later, they are settled again. She kisses them both, and retires to her room once more. As she steps into the hall, she catches sight of the portrait on the wall, of the man with the strong jaw and steady voice that settled her mind, filled with infinite possibilities. The man who made her feel so safe and secure, and who held her when she could not stand. The father of her two precious babies in the other room.
She couldn't stand to look at his face any longer, and took the photo from the frame and hid it away. She dared not look at his picture, fearing that it would invoke the memory of blood against a broken body and a muggle with panicked eyes and his horrid transportation device. Afraid of the day when her children were born and their father killed.
She shut it away in the closet, buried it under the boxes. Boxed filled with his things and apologetic letters. She wanted none of it. None of it would ever bring him back. None of it would give her boys a father.
She breathes deeply and settles in her room. She will stay until the children cry once more, and only then shall she stand, only then will she allow herself to think and care and love again. Maybe one day she will be able to do so without her two boys needing her to, but for now she sits with the lonely space where a man should be standing.