Okay, wanted to get this done a bit sooner, but this fic didn't come together as naturally as I'd like. Well Luz's fear of being made fun of in "Knock, Knock, Knocking on Hooty's Door" actually lined up well with a previous headcanon of mine, so writing a fic about the incident seemed like a good idea. Dana Terrace and Disney own The Owl House.


Luz Noceda is many things. A witch's apprentice, first human on the Boiling Isles since Philip Wittebane, a student of all tracks at Hexside, a good friend, and Amity Blight's girlfriend. But none of those where true right now. For this is Luz at 13 years old, roughly a year before her Good Witch Azure book would be taken by Owlbert. And right now, Luz was in a local park, standing among the branches of a tree, pulling an elastic bungee to latch it on a small branch.

"This is gonna be perfect!" Luz said aloud to no one in particular. "Okay, the first time was a misread situation, couple other times people thought I was nuts, but now I got it. The problem is that I just wasn't being sincere enough. Once he sees this, there's no way he'll turn me down."

Luz's plan was simple, at least in her mind. She rigged up a few makeshift catapults filled with glitter and confetti, combined with a banner she made herself. She just has to link them all to the trigger peg she planned, so when she kicked it out all would trigger at the same time. Of course some of the catapults could only be triggered by launching something to knock free the bungee holding it back, but the idea was to perfect for her to not use.

"Come on weak nerd arms…" Luz said to herself again, pulling the last bit for her system trigger into position. It wasn't easy, but she managed to set it up, the peg almost being pulled out of the ground by the tension. It would be easy to kick out. Now all she had to do now is hope the guest of honor would show up.

After a length of time Luz wasn't able to track accurately, he arrived. A blond kid the same age as Luz. "Hey, Luz right? I heard you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah, hey Greg." Luz said. "Okay, well, I know we haven't really hung out or anything but I was wondering…" The Latina kicked the peg she was standing near. The tensed up coils released with their anchor point now released. Numerous makeshift items sprang to life with their pent up tension hurling shredded bits of colored paper and sparkles of glitter filled the air. Luz took a dramatic pose as a small banner made by herself that read out 'will you go out with me'. After a moment of awkward silence, Luz barely squeaked out a "Well?"

Greg seemed to be holding in a laugh. "Okay, look, I get why you would ask." Greg said, his voice in full condescending mode. "But I really have no interest in going out with someone like you. I mean, look at all this. Where do you get the idea this is how you ask someone out?"

Luz looked down and away, ashamed and embarrassed of herself. From all her books, it seemed that a big gesture like this was always appreciated. "Oh…okay." She said, "Well, I got some cleaning up to do. Kind of hoping we would be doing that together but maybe it's best I do it alone."

"Yeah probably." Greg said as he turned around, "See ya!" Luz eventually got the clean up finished after about an hour. Or at least good enough. The teared down banner felt similar to her own heart at the moment. But she didn't tell her mom about it. She wasn't much in the mood to have her mom try to make her feel better. Besides, after her other attempts and failures, the poor barely teenager had gotten kind of use to the idea of rejection. She flopped down in her bed, sure the morning would improve the situation. Sadly, Luz couldn't have been more wrong.

While the morning did indeed give her a sense of hope as everything turning out okay. But as soon as she stepped foot into her school, she was hit in the face with some crudely made confetti made from notebook paper. A chorus of laughter echoed through the halls. "Hey Luz, guess this means we're going out now." The student who threw the paper said in a tone weighed down with sarcasm and mockery. "Or is confetti and glitter only for Greg?"

"Who told you about that?" Luz asked, her eyes widening and her pupils shrinking in fear and shock. "WHO TOLD YOU?" She asked in a shout grabbing the guy by his shirt.

"Greg did of course." He said working himself out of her grip. "I mean, come on, you really didn't expect something like that to just get swept under the rug did you? That was the single cheesiest thing I've ever heard. Greg even insisted we share the news with everyone we knew. Except you of course." Now Luz felt worse than she did when Greg said no. Everyone in school knew of her embarrassment, and all of them were laughing at her.

'This can't get any worse…' Luz thought walking away with all the laughing in the background. But much like her belief things would look better in the morning, Luz was wrong.

Throughout the entire day, never a moment between classes could pass where there wasn't at least one person pointing at her, laughing at her, snickering behind her back, making some stupid remark, or some cruel mix of them. And even in classes there was usually some kind of more subtle way to remind her that everyone knew what had happened. But some events really cut deep. When she went to her locker for the day, she found it somehow filled with glitter to spill out when she opened it. In art class just about everyone drew some form of her rejection. The worst of it all was at lunch. There she was given a lunch Greg brought from home. While at first it seemed like a small effort to apologize, the contents just destroyed her. A cheese sandwich, macaroni and cheese, string cheese, and cheese crackers.

"Now your lunch is as cheesy as last night." He had said. That was it. That was the part that fully destroyed her. She wanted to curl into a ball and disappear, she wanted to take a swing at Greg, she wanted to somehow conjure a magical staff to teleport away. But she couldn't do anything. She felt empty, like all the good in her life and positivity in her was sucked away. The hollow sorrow she felt allowed her to make it through the rest of the day, but she was unable to heal at all with the continued jeers of her classmates. When she got home, she collapsed into her bed, burying her face in her pillow, letting the tears flow freely and her wails to fill the empty house.

When Camila finally came home, she felt something wrong with the house. It was quite, something that it almost never was. And Luz certainly would have been home by now. The health care worker went to her daughter's room. She heard soft sobbing on the other side.

"Luz?" She asked opening the door slowly. It was clear her daughter was upset, she was curled up, crying in a way that sounded like she had been at it for hours. "Mija what's wrong?" She asked quickly going to her daughter's side, placing her hand on the younger girl's shoulder.

"I give up mami. I just give up."

"What are you talking about?" Luz looked at her mother. It was clear that she wanted to keep crying, but her body wouldn't let her produce any more tears.

"I-I tried to ask Greg out, I thought I was doing it right, but he told everyone. They where making fun of me all day. Like, all of them!" Luz said sobbing louder a bit, "I can't go through anything like this again. I just thought…I liked him so much. I can't go through this again! So I'm never asking anyone out ever again!" Luz slammed her face down into her pillow.

"Luz, Cariño, I'm so sorry that happened to you." Camila said wanting to comfort her daughter. "But you shouldn't give up like that. Love is an amazing feeling when it's with the right person."

"But how am I suppose to know if it's the right person?" Luz asked. "I can't even settle on if I like boys or girls. What if all this keeps happening because I'm some kind of freak?"

"Luz, don't talk like that. I told you, there's nothing wrong with that. You are a wonderful person with so much love you're just to over eager to share." Camila said. "But tomorrow I'm going to go to that school and try to figure out why this was allowed to happen. Why don't you stay home tomorrow? It seems like you need it."

Luz grabbed her mother in a hug. "Gracias mama."

"De nada mija" Camila responded. "Now, get some water, I have a feeling you need that too. I'll get started on supper."

Luz nodded, waiting for a bit while her mother left her room. She still felt bad, but just her mother trying to help however she could made her feel a bit better. And while Luz still had it in her mind it might be better to give up on love, in a little over a year, a mint haired, and then cotton candy haired, goddess would change her mind.