I want a meaning.
Those words were all her traitorous mind had whispered to her as she glanced at the sleeping form of her father for the last time. She loved her father, but she could no longer live as the laughing stock of her school. She could no longer continue acting like it didn't hurt as she heard the whispers of both their insanity, their strangeness even among the Wizarding World.
She didn't want to be that strange blonde girl with her head in the clouds, not paying attention to anything. She didn't want to live in the clouds any longer. She wanted to be a part of the reality her father had never accepted since her mother's death.
She knew she was being selfish but she couldn't stay any longer. She knew that her disappearance would destroy her father but for once she wanted to think about herself and not him. She wanted to be put first for once. She wanted to be happy for once. She wanted to have friends, and be able to walk down a street without people giggling behind their hands.
She had tried to get her father to change, but he didn't want to. He couldn't change for her. He didn't want to lose what her mother had loved about him for the sake of his daughter, his daughter who still lived.
She spared him one last glance before leaving the house.
It hurt her to leave him behind like that. He was the only family she had left but she had to find the meaning she had lost so very long ago.
She needed to find the reason for all of this.
She needed to find herself and not the shadow of her mother whenever she glanced at the mirror.
She wanted to see the blonde-haired, grey-eyed girl who was both her mother and father.
I want a meaning.
The words were softer now than they had been weeks ago when she had first left her father. They were slowly fading as the days grew harsher. The rapidly chilling weather was not kind to a child without a home. The brittle wind grew sharper and sharper as the days passed until she could never step onto the street without almost every piece of clothing she owned on her person.
She had never experienced cold this extreme before this. Her father had always made sure to cast a warming charm on all her clothing before she left the house, ensuring she felt only the slightest of chills no matter what she wore.
She knew the reality now, but there was no going back. She still needed to find everything she had sought in the beginning of her journey. The answers still hung in the air just beyond her reach.
Her head tilted curiously as the words to the heating charm swam into her head. She didn't have a wand to cast the spell with, but she had been fairly prone to accidental magic. Perhaps she could use that? She could only hope it worked.
For many days, she tried muttering the incantation to herself. Somewhere near the third day after she had started someone had found her and dragged her to a building that held many other children. The fact that she was slightly warmer didn't deter her. She may still need the spell.
So she continued to try.
A month passed with little success. She could feel only the light warmth brushing her palm, but it was progress. She just needed it to get warmer, and she would never need to face weather as cold as she had faced ever again
She had once again been singled out as an oddity among the children. None of them held magic within their blood like she did and that isolated her among them.
It had taken her months to recognise the distance between the other children and her for what it was. It hadn't mattered by then though. She had already found her magic and had begun to control it.
She had found that life-long partner that would never leave her side and would protect her whenever necessary. She had found that one thing that would never give up on her, or shun her because of her differences.
I want a meaning.
The phrase still clung to her mind like a mantra that should have been long forgotten.
She sometimes wondered if her father had ever thought to search for her or if he had seen her disappearance as he had seen the disappearance of their cat years ago: some lost animal who would find their way home after some time.
Somewhere deep inside her she hoped that it was the case and he had missed her enough to look. She knew her father though. He would have thought her out on some errand or the other and would return after a few hours. She wondered what he had done when those hours turned into days, then weeks, then months, until over a year had passed.
She wondered if he had forgotten her already as he remained engrossed within animals she could no longer remember the names of. She wondered if the pages of old tales still managed to engross him as they did, or if flickers of worry for his only child ever crossed his mind once in a blue moon.
She shook her head in an attempt to erase the ghosts of her past.
The Matron had given her a new surname when she was introduced to the orphanage after she had been unwilling to allow her old one to pass her lips.
She had only told them her first name: Luna. That was the only thing she had carried from the past. The only memory she was willing to keep of the woman who bore her, and the man who was supposed to care for her but had lost himself in his sorrow.
They had named her for what they saw and she had recreated herself. She had created a person that she could be proud of. Someone who was completely her, everything she was meant to be and everything she had ever hoped to be.
Now she could enter the world she was born into with a fresh start and a meaning that was entirely her own.
Dear Luna Winter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…
AN:
Written for Take a Lyric Competition ["I want a meaning."] and 85 Shades of AU Competition [Runaway AU]