Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings, or worlds within this work, outside of a few OC's. Any recognizable characters are not mine; I'm just playing with them. Harry Potter and its associated works belongs to J.K. Rowling. X-men and Marvel belongs to... er... Disney, I suppose? I am not making any money off of this fan work, nor do I wish to.

Chapter 1

Luna

Some of the older bloodlines had distant mutant ancestors in the family with an earlier,
less-dominant form of the x-gene, whose mutations combined with
their magic to give them what was at the time believed to be a special "magical ability."
One variety of "semi-mutant" with such an ability is the metamorphmagus, which passed
down this recessive form of the x-gene to various of their descendants, giving many of
them the same mutation. However, this form of the x-gene is slowly giving way to the newer,
stronger x-gene found in modern mutations, which also tends to come with stronger,
more visibly "not-actually-magical" abilities.

-excerpt from a treatise titled "Wizarding Mutants Throughout History: Why didn't we know about all this before now?"

Luna stood staring at all the little magical creatures flitting about the garden, remembering a conversation that took place a year ago.

"Mum?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Why does everybody always laugh at Dad when he talks about all the magical creatures like... like nargles, and all the others? He shows them to me and I don't laugh at him, and I learn all sorts of useful things! Everybody could learn useful things too, if they'd just listen, so why do they laugh?"

Pandora turned from her work desk to look at her daughter. "Well... sweetheart, you must understand. You and your father have a special magic, and that magic lets you notice things that nobody else does. Your eyes are special, and you can see the creatures your father shows you because you both have the same eyes. But those other witches and wizards? They don't have the same special magic that you do, so when he talks about the creatures, they don't believe what he says, because they can't see it for themselves."

Luna blinked. "Oh."

She pondered that for a moment, then- "But what about you? You believe what Dad says. Do you have the special eyes, too, then?"

Her mother laughed. "No, Luna, I don't. I can't see them any more than the average witch or wizard. But I've listened to your father, and the things he has to say make too much sense for me to just dismiss them offhand like that. It would do those silly wixen good if they were to actually sit and pay attention to someone besides themselves for once. I think the world would be a much more interesting place if more people just took the time to listen to each other, don't you? And you know what?"

Luna leaned in closer. "What?"

Pandora grinned. "When your father goes on about all the different creatures he sees in the house or in the garden, well... Sometimes, I could swear that I can feel them there, and even hear some of them buzzing around me. It's not much, to be sure, but it's enough for me to believe that the things he talks about really are there and he's not just making them up. And he knows that I believe him, and that I'll stand by him if he needs it." She stood up straight. "So don't you worry about those naysayers of his. Your father's doing just fine without the approval of every single wizard that crosses his path."

Luna nodded to her mother. "Of course he is. He runs the Quibbler, after all."

With that, Pandora seemed satisfied that her message was received, and she resumed working at her desk.

"I can feel them too, mum," thought Luna as she settled down in the grass. "I couldn't before. I could see the creatures, but I didn't feel them. But now..." Now, she could see things everywhere, even things that her father himself was blind to. Now, she could feel... everything, really. The magic of her home swelled around her, strong and bright and there, even when she closed her eyes. And all the little creatures buzzed around her, noisy and insistent and present in a way they had never been before. She could hear them, hear their little voices, and they could hear her in turn.

"I wonder what you would say, Mum. If you knew that... that I can hear the creatures, and they can hear me, and... they listen to me, Mum. They listen to what I have to say. It's very strange. They don't listen to anybody else, you know. What would you think of that, Mum?"

"...Would you believe me?"

But she would never know, would she?

Luna curled into herself. The little creatures settled around her as if to offer comfort. "She'll never know how different I am. I wasn't- I wasn't... I wasn't like this before!" Tears began to form in her eyes, and she whispered to herself, "I wonder why that is?"

Luna studied the people around her as she walked through the streets with her father. It had been several months since her mother's death, and she had begun to notice more and more odd things which were plain to her eyes, but invisible to everyone else- even her father!

At least here, in a muggle area, she had the excuse of being a magical girl in a place where the only other magical person was her father. Although- she paused to note a bright glimmer of light shining within a little boy who was walking alongside his parents- well, that wasn't quite the case, was it?
"He's a muggleborn magical child if ever I saw one," she thought. "And a talented young potioneer, at that," she added to herself, as a picture flashed through her mind of a young man standing before an audience of potions masters, presenting his most recent brew for inspection. "I wonder what his parents will say when they find out?"

Luna returned her attention to her surroundings just in time for her father to turn towards a small library and move to head inside. She followed him. A young man standing behind the check-out desk looked up as they came through the door.

"Good afternoon," greeted the librarian, "May I be of service?"

"I'd like to have a look through your mythology section, if you don't mind," replied her father.

"Very well sir, this way." The librarian turned to Luna. "You're welcome to have a look through our children's fiction if you like. The kids books are over in that direction." He pointed. Luna thanked him, as it was the polite thing to do, and the librarian set off for the mythology section with her father close behind.

As Luna approached the children's section, she took note of various muggles browsing the shelves. "Muggles certainly wear such strange outfits," she thought. She reached the aisle she had been directed to, and began to peruse the shelves, brushing her fingers curiously over such titles as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Mary Poppins." From what she could glean off the residual impressions left behind on the books, it seemed like they might be interesting. She paused on one. "Mr. Popper's Penguins" the title read.

"I wonder what he was popping?"

Luna pulled the book off the shelf for a better look, and smiled at the drawing of a man in a funny suit surrounded by several large birds that seemed to be dressed just like him. "Strange that they don't move," she thought, "but then, I suppose muggles have lots of funny things that seem strange to us. I'll have to ask one sometime."

Having decided on a book to read, she turned to find a suitable chair, when a sudden odd feeling made her pause. She glanced around for the source of the feeling, and came to a stop upon a girl of about fourteen who was apparently coloring on a piece of paper at the teens' table. Now, this in and of itself was not altogether odd- lots of libraries have coloring pages, and lots of kids like to color. No, what stood out to Luna as strange was that the crayons and pencils usually used to color with were all still within their packages upon the table. Yet, as the girl ran her fingers over the paper, color appeared beneath her fingers, brightening the blank paper with pictures far more real than any crayon will give you- even the magical ones.

Luna blinked. Such an action would be less conspicuous if it were performed with magic, but... She could neither see nor feel any magic being used. Instead, there was an oddly familiar, nonmagical source of energy humming through the girl's body, concentrated in her fingertips.

It felt like...

It felt like the energy that had mixed into her own magic after her mother had died. It felt like the energy she could feel concentrated in her father's eyes. Like a stronger, more potent form of the odd energy she felt sometimes in magical persons who had a little something extra in their magic.

Luna had always assumed that it was a special magic passed down through family lines, or some such thing... but this person was, quite definitely, a muggle. There wasn't a magical bone in her body.

"So what is it?" Luna asked herself. "What makes us-me, my father, this girl- what makes us different?"

The question continued to plague her throughout the day, even as she settled into a chair with her book. Even as her father came to collect her, and they headed for home, she found herself thinking about it.

"What makes us so different?"

Author's Note: If anyone wants a specific detailed description of a character's mutant ability, I will be posting such descriptions in my profile under "Those Who Dwell Among Us: Background Info" as needed after each chapter.

For now, just be aware that in this AU Luna did, in fact, get her mutation from her father... But her father's mutation is from a weaker form of the x-gene that I came up with for this AU, a decent explanation of which can be found in the "excerpt" at the top of the page. Her mother was a latent mutant whose potential ability never fully awakened, but who passed her more dominant X-gene on to her daughter. So it's her father's mutation, but taken to a much higher level.

I'm using the "Epsilon, Beta, Alpha, Omega" class system for mutants in this story, because all the other classification systems are a headache and a half to figure out what the heck they're talking about and the EBAO classification at least gives me something reasonable to work with. If you don't know what the Epsilon, Beta, Alpha, Omega system is, you can either look it up, or I will post an explanation on my profile under the same location as I post characters' mutant abilities.

Last note this chapter, I promise:
I am writing chapters for this fanfic in the order that each character's mutations awaken. Since Luna's mother died when she was nine, and that's the point in time I chose for her "activation," Luna's chapter came first.