She did not really need a glass of water, but felt like she could do with stretching her legs. She did not need sleep anymore and was always more active when the moon was out. Purely out of habit she rubbed non-existent sleep from her eyes. Sitting up she surveyed the room, to which most others would be dark, but to her it was a clear as day, from the childhood sketches of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks to the swirling cloud-like pattern splashed across the blue walls. Sliding her bare slender legs over the side of her bed, she pushed herself up with a pale hand. The oversized ‘Weird Sisters’ t-shirt she was wearing fell back into place, brushing the tops of her thighs. Self-consciously tugging it down, she padded silently across the plush bronze carpet. Glancing sideways at the vanity set on her dressing table, she paused. The reflection of an empty room glared back at her, taunting her. A single crystal tear hovered on the rim of her eye lid, before tumbling over the edge and landing with a small plop on the carpet at her feet. The sudden noise seemed to pull her out of her reverie; giving a slight shake of her head she brushed a tendril of hair out of her wide unblinking eyes. With a small sigh she continued across the room towards the door, covered in the same pattern that adorned the walls. Reaching out for the door handle, she paused, for just a fraction of a second, before pulling the door open on silent hinges. She crept down the hall way, purposely diverting her eyes from the partially open doorway just to her left.



The sudden noise of someone groaning and rolling over in their sleep caused her head to swing round. Long blond hair swishing through the still night air.
A beam of moon light shone through a gap in the curtains onto the sleeping figure of a man. He was sprawled on his back across a rickety bed, his head thrown away from her, exposing the smooth run of white skin from his stubble covered jaw line to his protruding collar bone. It was this that the girl in the door way was focusing on, a subtle change came over her, clear blue eyes narrowed into dark slits and two white points appeared over the edge of her full bottom lip.



How she got across the room and next to the bed she barely noticed, the draw of that smooth expanse of neck, the skin so white she could see the dark blue pulsing of the vein beneath it, was too great. As her lips drew back in a silent snarl, her canines visibly lengthened. Her head drew closer and closer to his neck, long hair fell over her shoulder and gently brushed the mans face.



He gave a start, his eyes shot open and immediately the fogginess of sleep in them was replaced by shock, and fear.


“L… Luna?” he whispered.
Luna’s eyes widened with realisation, turning back to their natural blue. She stumbled backwards away from the bed, her hand clamped over her mouth.


“N…no, no” she murmured. That was it, the final straw, she could not stay around normal people any more; she was a risk to every one around her. With one bound she cleared the bed landing nimbly on the window ledge. The man drew back, the fear still evident in his tired eyes. Luna turned away; she couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her.
“I’m sorry, dad.” The words were left hanging in the cold night air as Luna threw herself out of the window.

Stop the Memories



Hurtling through the cold night air, the tears stayed buried. It was only when the dark mouth of a cave loomed ahead and the small black bat morphed, mid flight, and bare pale feet touched the rough stone floor, that the tears came. Darting to the back of the cave, Luna furiously beat her delicate looking fists against the jagged back wall, but no cut or bruise marred her smooth white skin, smooth apart from a long slender scar running down the underside of her left forearm. The tears streaming silently down her face turned to sobs that racked her small frame as she sunk down onto the cold stone floor. The cold hard fact of what she was and the memory of how she had become it had pursued her in her flight, and now with only the empty night air to comfort her, the full force of the terror of that fateful night flooded her mind.


~*********~


It had been on a trip that summer with her father. They were searching for proof of the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks existence, and perhaps even a glimpse of one. Luna had, understandably, been overly excited and eager to set off. She and her father had left the day after Luna returned from Hogwarts for the summer holidays, leaving their house to look after itself.

It was the seventh night of their stay. There had been no sign of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack but Xenophilius had not been discouraged and Luna had stayed hopeful due largely to her father’s child like enthusiasm. She couldn’t sleep that night and decided to go for a moonlit walk. She had often done so at home and at Hogwarts, when either sleep evaded her or her dorm mates had ‘accidentally’ locked her out. She had never minded, the castle was always so much more peaceful and… free, her vivid imagination had been free to soar unhindered in the darkened corridors. Filch and Ms Norris had been easy enough to outwit; she was a Ravenclaw after all.

Luna crept silently away from the tent and her sleeping father. Once she was a safe distance away she began skipping gaily through the forest from one patch of moonlight to another. She suddenly came to an abrupt halt and tilted her face up towards the velvet black sky. The moon beams struck her face so that her wide eyes appeared even more protruding than usual. Sinking down gracefully onto her knees, her eye lids fluttered shut, long pale lashes gently brushing together.
She had always preferred the moon over the sun. Maybe because it was her name in Latin or maybe because she had always found the suns-rays too harsh, too blinding, too… revealing. The moon gave you light enough to see by, and shadows enough to let your mind make of them what it wished. Slowly opening her eyes and lying back in the long cool grass, her waist length hair spread out beneath her and fluttered gently in the warm summer’s breeze. Staring dazedly at the pin pricks of light in the sky, but not really seeing them, a particle of dust caught the moon light and twisted and twirled its way towards her. Luna let out a small contented sigh that sent the dust skipping off behind her head. Rolling her petite frame over onto her belly she continued gazing at the dust that was making its unsystematic journey towards earth.

An unnatural rustle sounded in the undergrowth directly in front of her. Pulling back and drawing her legs up under her, she slowly and cautiously stood up. The rustle had ceased, but an icy chill ran its finger tips down her spine causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise up. Suddenly, instead of moonlit leaves in front of her, there was the imposing silhouette of a man. Before she had a chance to gather her wits and run, he had flitted across the distance between them.

Cold, hungry eyes were mere centimetres away from hers. Her waist was caught in a vice-like grip and she became aware of a marble-like face containing the dark narrowed eyes boring into her own wide pales ones. His black fathomless eyes gave a stark contrast to his deathly pale, almost translucent skin. She would have screamed, but her breath would not come; it had been stolen away by the ruthless beauty of his defined features. The high, prominent cheek bones, the straight line of his nose and the angular line of his clenched jaw were all painfully perfect. His hand twisted its way into her hair and used it to pull her head back with a strength so powerful she would have had no chance of resisting even if she had tried. His eyes flickered down to her now exposed neck as his lips pulled back over his teeth. A tongue darted out and ran its way along the long and snowy white canines. As he lowered his cold marble lips to her smooth, pulsing throat, her eyes misted over and she knew no more. Her pale throat and his marble lips became crimson with her blood.

Darkness, that was all she could see, feel. It pressed down painfully on her, smothering and sufforcating. A sudden sharp pain seared down the soft underside of her left forearm, and she blacked out again.

When she had woken after being found by her terrified father, her life was no more.


~*********~


Drawing up her knees, Luna shook her head as if trying to shake out the memory. Her hair fluttered in the shafts of moon light that had snuck their way to the back of the cave. She was ashamed of herself, of her weakness. How could she have had made no effort to throw him off, or to call for help? She had just stood there, defenceless, and let Him, for she did not know the creatures name that had done this to her, draw out her blood and along with it her life, her laughter, her humanity, in fact her very essence. The hate that seethed and boiled up inside her at the very thought of Him, Luna had unknowingly and unwittingly turned on herself.
She had to try not to - no - she must not dwell on that night any longer. Angrily wiping away the tears that had streamed relentlessly down her face, Luna pulled back her thin shoulders and straightened her back. Standing elegantly, she began pacing back and forth across the cave, trying to make sense of her jumbled thoughts and emotions.

How long she could last without …blood she did not know. She had already been without it for just under a week, but her last feed had only been a small hare. Just remembering the poor creature shuddering and convulsing whilst she had mercilessly sucked the life blood from it, made her want to flee from that part of herself. But intermingled with the distress of that memory was the pure ecstasy of the still warm blood filling her mouth, her mind and her senses. That aspect of the memory was what she most feared of herself. She had given way to complete instinct, an instinct which she did not know nor understand to its full extent. She hated her seemingly total dependence on blood. She hated that in just under a week without it, she was desperate enough to attempt to attack her own father. No. She had to stop dwelling on that too; it would get her nowhere. Practical thinking she had never been the best at it, nor needed to be, and now she was forcing herself to do so and not to let her mind wander. Why didn’t she just stay here, in the cave? It seemed sufficiently isolated so as to avoid temptation.

Pausing and leaning her back against the jagged cave wall, Luna blew out what would have been a breath of air. The lock of hair that had drifted across her face made no move, not even a flutter. Of course, how could she forget? She had no breath. Angrily sweeping the offending lock behind her ear with a pale hand, the shafts of moon light gave her marble skin a translucent, almost ghost like appearance. A sudden gust of wind whistled its way into the cave, flapping Luna’s over-sized t-shirt around her bare thighs. The chill of wind did not bother her, she could no longer feel the cold, but it reminded her of something practical she needed. Clothes! There - she knew she could think practically if she tried. She supposed she could steal some, but that would put her near humans, and in the state she was at the moment she did not want to risk it. And she had never stolen anything in her life before, not that she had a life any more, but she still did not want to steal. She would have to risk going home.

Her wand! She would need her wand, and that was another problem and reason to go home. She did not know if she could go back and face her father. She had almost fed on him; how could he want to ever see her again? And even if he did, she would never put him in danger again and if keeping him safe meant staying away, then she would. She would stay away from him and everyone else. To collect her wand and some clothes, then, she would have to sneak in.

The first tender light of dawn fell in shafts through the half-open window-blind; the pale sunlight highlighted the gaunt figure of a man who sat with his head in his hands at a worn wooden table. His clothing, bright and garish, threw a stark contrast to the worry lines creasing his once youthful countenance and to his anguish-filled eyes, staring blankly at the rough wooden surface in front of them. The broken figure of a man, one who had lost everything he loved and cared for.


He had to get her back. Losing a wife and then a daughter was just too much for one man to bear. Although as to getting her back, he knew not how. Not even how to start looking for her. It was this that had kept the welcoming arms of sleep from him since she had thrown herself from his window ledge. He had been so stricken with shock and despair, laced through with fear, that neither movement nor sound was possible. Once the initial shock had worn off, he had flung the thin bed sheet from his legs, pelted down the spiralling stairs and out into the wilderness they called a garden, crying out her name the entire way. Running to the end of the garden, in the direction he saw her silhouette fleeing, he had stopped, blocked by the high stone wall that encircled their garden. Then screamed himself hoarse, calling out after her for what may have been hours. When he could scream no longer he had collapsed, exhausted onto his knees and whispered to the velvet sky;


“Luna, come back to me”


He had sat there, his head bowed, until his tears dried up. The chill of the morning dew seeping through his thin pyjama bottoms, brought him back to him self. Kneeling there would not bring her back, that much he knew, but what would he had no idea. Pushing his weary body up, he walked in a daze back towards the black house, so much like how he saw his existence stretching out before him without Luna; a vast black void. It was all his fault; everything was. It had been his idea to go on the trip that summer to search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack; he should have been there to protect her, he should have been more understanding of her and not forced things upon her. He had captured a live hare and had made her take it; he could not bear to see her becoming weaker, paler and thinner with each passing day. The guilt of it had borne down on him. He had also, only the previous day, persisted in pursuing the topic of her return to Hogwarts, for when he had broached the subject before, she would only turn her back on him and walk away.


~*********~


“Luna, we really must discuss what is going to happen at Hogwarts when you return. We can’t put this off any longer. Term starts in a few weeks.” Xenophilius said soothingly, but with an underlying firmness which clearly said he would not allow her to sidestep the issue.


“You seem to have assumed that I am returning, daddy,” she retaliated in a quiet voice, devoid of emotion.


Xenophilius hardly knew how to respond. Luna’s temperament, since that night, was apt to suddenly change from the easy, dreamy way it had always been, to cold and hostile. Not knowing the reaction any reply he made would have, he forced out the first thing that came into his head: “But you must. You have to give yourself a chance at a life!”


“A life? I don’t have one; I don’t deserve a life.” Luna turned away from her father to stare aimlessly through the window. “How can someone like me ever be allowed near normal people?” She added quietly, almost to herself, “What possible chance can my kind have at a life?”


“Luna-” he started to reach out a comforting hand, but something in her cold demeanour made him stop, hand out stretched.


“How can you even ask me to?” Luna’s wide eyes swam with tears as she closed them, as though to block out the hazy reflection of her kitchen, with only the figure of a man in it. “How can you even think of allowing me to return, to roam Hogwarts; I’m a monster!”


With that last proclamation, she spun round and was gone; the only thing telling Xenophilius that Luna had simply run upstairs was the sound of her bedroom door slamming, barely a split second later. Lowering his still outstretched hand, Xenophilius turned and made his way up the winding staircase, contemplating the best way to get Luna to listen.


Reaching her door, he placed his hand against it and pushed, softly calling her name as he did so. But the door would not open. Knowing Luna must be leaning against the other side of the door, as it had no lock, he called out to her by a name neither of them had heard for years, the nickname her mum had for her. He knew it was the only way to get her to listen.


“Xana, please” he begged, his voice wrought with desperation and despair, his palm still flat against the door; he knew it was now or never. “Just listen �“ this doesn’t have to be the ending of your life, of your future. Others like you have jobs, a place in the wizarding world, just as you can if you continue with school. If you leave now, without even completing your OWL’s, then you have no chance, no hope of an independent life, one I know you want and one that I’m going to make sure you get!”


He paused and leaned his furrowed brow against the wooden frame of her door. With a sigh he continued, in almost a whisper.


“I’d let you stay here, you know I would. But I can’t let you throw away your life like that, Luna. I know you wanted to do something great with your life and whatever you choose to pursue, I know you will succeed. If I let you just stay here �“ in few years you’ll see all those you knew leaving school, going out in the world and pursuing their dreams. I �“ I” his voice hitched with barely concealed anguish, “I can’t sit by and watch you do that, Luna, I just can’t.”


The door then opened softly and Luna fell into his arms. He pulled her shaking form, tightly to him and whispered into her pale blond hair, so much like her mother’s.


“I can’t Luna, I just can’t. You’re all I’ve got.”


Sinking to the floor, still clasping Luna tightly to him and gently rocking back and forth, he said soothingly, “I’ve explained everything to Dumbledore; he’s arranging it at school to make it as easy as possible for you, to make everything alright. Everything will be alright.”


They had sat that like for a long while, father and daughter, wrapped in their own despair.


~*********~


He had been persuading himself as much as he had been persuading Luna. How could he have been so blind, so naïve? She had never actually said that she had changed her mind and would go back to Hogwarts. He had just assumed…


And now she was gone.


Suddenly his head shot up out of his hands and a spark of hope ignited in his eyes. Dumbledore! He would know what to do; he could find her! Summoning a sheet of parchment and pulling a quill from his mass of wild hair he hastily scribbled a note. Folding the parchment in half, he scrawled Dumbledore’s name across the front and attached the note to his rather ruffled-looking owl, which he then despatched out into the dew-soaked dawn. He stood at the open door, still staring at the horizon long after the owl had faded to a speck and disappeared from sight.