Post by Daisy Miller on Oct 15, 2005 12:04:10 GMT -5
"Living Upside Down"
Luna Lovegood always got made fun of. She was a strange little girl who liked to wear socks that didn’t match, and it seemed that other just couldn’t cope with this. It seemed that they couldn’t cope with the way her protuberant eyes stared at you. It made them feel like there weren’t there; like they didn’t matter; like they were nothing but a thin sheet of skin. It was these characteristics, as well as others, that eventually added up into the apt, but unfortunate, nickname “Loony.”
The Weasley twins were strange as well, yet it wasn’t the same strangeness one found while observing Luna. It was a strangeness that oozed mystery. It was strange how they always seemed to be in the midst of trouble, yet they never were in trouble. It was strange how they always finished each other’s sentences, but that was usually explained by the fact that they were twins.
What was mostly strange about the Weasley twins, though, was the fact that they, too, found Luna to be strange. They often partook in the name calling, most times not even realizing they were doing it (which often led to many bruises on the side of their heads, complements of Ginny Weasley, and–a happenstance becoming more common as the school year went on–complements of Harry Potter).
However, the Weasley twins did not think of Luna much; their minds were mostly focused on pranks and revenge (generally aimed at the Slytherins). They did not notice her staring at them on the morning of April Ninth, and they most definitely did not notice her as they walked through the forest, which was probably why they ended up running into her.
*
Orange is a strange color, thought Luna, peering down at the head of hair on her chest. She supposed you would normally call the color of the hair “red,” but she found it to be more orange.
Orange is a strange color, she thought again, peering down at a second, but identical, head.
The heads were, invariably, attached to a body, which is why they rose up a second later, and brushed themselves off.
“What are you doing out here?” asked one of the heads. It was still attached to the body, but Luna wasn’t paying much attention to the body at the present moment, nor was she really paying much attention to the head.
“Hello,” she said, looking behind them.
They looked behind them as well, but there was nothing except a tree and the setting sun. She looked behind them for a few seconds longer, and then, as if whatever she was looking at had disappeared, she turned her gaze to the twins standing in front of her.
“I didn’t expect to see you two out here tonight. Have you come to look for the Gargle too?”
“No,” said one of them. She assumed it was George. She didn’t know why she assumed this; she didn’t like to ask her brain any unnecessary questions. “We were just taking a walk.”
“Yeah,” said the other one. If the first one was George, then this one must be Fred, she thought. “Just walking.”
To prove their point, they started to walk around her.
She asked, “Why did you run into me?”
“We didn’t mean to,” said George.
“We’re terribly sorry about that,” said Fred. “I trust we didn’t hurt you?”
She looked down at her body (the one her head was attached to). Her feet were okay; she could tell because she could wiggle her toes. Her legs were long and gangly, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with them. Her torso was slightly sore from where one of them fell on top of her, but she would be fine. Her elbow was scratched, though. She pointed to it. “It seems I have scratched my elbow, but maybe that was already there and I just didn’t notice it.”
Fred looked at her elbow. “I don’t think so. It seems to be bleeding.” He looked up at Luna, but her attention was now on a particularly shiny rock.
“Do you think maybe she hit her head when she fell?” whispered George, watching as Luna peered down at the rock and began to mumble something, apparently to the rock itself.
“Actually, she’s pretty much always like, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Luna wandered over to the tree she had been staring at earlier. She looked up at it, at the branches reaching for the sky. Fred and George watched her stare at the tree, her straggly blond hair tickling her back, her shoulder blades moving closer together as she leaned her shoulders backward, trying to catch a glimpse of the sky through the thick leaves of the tree. And then she was gone, climbing up the tree, her bare hands grasping the wood even as it clipped into her skin.
“What are you doing?” asked George.
“You’re going to fall and break your neck.”
Luna looked down at them, from her seat on one of the branches. “No, I’m not.” She laughed and fell backwards, making both Fred and George take a step forward to catch her if she fell.
She didn’t fall to the ground, but instead held onto the branch with her legs, hanging upside down. She laughed again, like a child discovering the joys of being out of reach of an adult.
“Luna,” said Fred, pretending that he wasn’t afraid she would fall, “it’s getting late. Don’t you think we should head back to the castle?”
She shook her head. “It’s not too late. Don’t you want to join me?”
“Why?”
Luna, herself, didn’t know why. She knew that she wanted to show them what she saw, to make them understand. She didn’t know why it had to be them, or why she had to show them now; she was conscious of only a strong pain in her chest and a beating in her throat telling her that tonight would be her last chance to be understood; that tonight she could slowly float away and no one would understand why. She wanted these boys (Although, thought Luna, observing their strong bodies and how they seemed to fit in the forest, like tall wood fairies whose true shape was that of a tree, she supposed they weren’t really boys, but more like men) to understand. This want was more of a desire, but she didn’t think she could say that word to herself, unless it was in connection to a lover.
“Because it’s fun,” she said breathlessly; breathlessly because she was having a hard time getting oxygen to her head.
“I’m sure it’s fun, but it’s getting late.”
“I’ll get down after you join me,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, like a child. Her eyes no longer looked glossy; they had a certain twinkle that denoted a youthfulness as opposed to her usual dream-like stare. Fred and George knew she was strange; they had of course called her by her nickname, Loony, very often. However, this seemed even stranger behavior for her. It was as if she was commonly in a stupor, yet for some reason she had shaken herself out of it for these few minutes to show them something, perhaps a secret that had been kept locked up inside of her for far too long. Fred and George shared a look: she may be off her rocker, but maybe they could indulge her for a few minutes, after all it was getting late, and contrary to popular belief Fred and George did have a conscience; they couldn’t just leave her here, in a dark forest, all by herself.
It must have been the “big brother” thing that made them do it; that “protectiveness” that seemed to make one do anything, even the stupidest of things to make a little kid happy. With simultaneous sighs, Fred and George climbed up the tree and began to hang upside down.
It was disorienting to say the least. The sky had now become the ground with leaves of clouds at their feet, while the ground now served as the sky with clouds of leaves floating across the dirt. The trees no longer rose to the sky, but shrunk to the ground. The blood rushed to their head, making Fred and George feel drunk. Although what they were drunk on, neither bothered to think about it, because they were now looking at Luna, thinking that maybe she wasn’t loony. Maybe she was the sane one, while everyone else were the loonies. That smile on her face: it was one of joy, of laughter. She was happy living upside down, and happiness was what one was supposed to live for. If it makes you happy, they thought, then do it.
She looked at them, saying, “It’s late.”
The three of them flew to the ground landing in a heap. They did not laugh. The sun had set, leaving a quiet tranquility about the forest, and to laugh would have been to disturb it. Laughing should not exist in a place of calm, but rather in a place of rejoicing. The place they were in, body and spirit, was that of calm, of knowing that the world exists and that all it needed to do was exist.
“Thank you,” said Luna. “I always imagined you two to be quite insensible, but maybe you aren’t.”
She smiled, her glossy look returning. It seemed that the forest was where she belonged, a place she understood: the leaves were leaves, the trees were trees, the dirt was dirt. Nothing in a forest was pretending to be something else; in essence, A was A in the forest. The castle was merely a confusing puzzle to ignore; a place where no one seemed to be who they really were, a place where A was A only if it was convenient. She walked down the hallway to the Ravenclaw common room, her hair bouncing against her back, her hair with leaves and tangles in it.
“So, uh, George . . .”
“Yeah, Fred?”
“Do you think that maybe . . .?” He was afraid to say what both of them were thinking: that Luna wasn’t crazy; people were crazy, and she was the only sane person around.
“No,” said George. “She’s just living upside down for a while; she’ll come around when she needs too.”
They made their way towards the Gryffindor common room, each knowing that they were lying to themselves, and each knowing that the world was really upside down, while Luna was the only one right side up.
*
Luna smiled a secret little smile–the smile that made many assume she was crazy–feeling their gaze on her back; she could float away now, if she so pleased She felt that she wouldn’t mind hanging around for a while, though.
fin.
