These Accidents of Faith, Part 3 of 3 - fic for the clever_claws Community
Author: dark_branwen
Recipient: The clever_claws Community
Title: These Accidents of Faith, Part 3 of 3
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through Manor confrontation in Deathly Hallows. However, I change canon a wee bit so that Draco does not return to Hogwarts after Christmas break. Also, rather than have the Malfoys keep their prisoners in the cellar, I gave the manor a dungeon cause that’s just more badass.
Characters/Ships: Luna/Draco with a side of Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Fenrir.
Genre: Flangst
Summary: While home for Christmas break, Draco gets charged with overseeing the prisoners, including the new addition of Luna Lovegood.
Length: 21,000
Notes: Meditation in particular plays a huge part, and I hope the dialogue is sufficiently humorous. Another thank you goes to my lovely beta reader with putting up with me and my uncharacteristically het pairings. And finally, a thank you to the mods of clever_claws! Thank you so much for organizing this fest! I had a blast!
Title from "Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol. Any other lyrics and the excerpts taken directly from Deathly Hallows used within the fic are obviously not mine.
February 21, 1998
Nothing much changed over the next few weeks. Draco continued to stay as far away from the various and sundry Death Eaters as he could manage. The Dark Lord continued to be conspicuously absent from the assembled patronage, and both Narcissa and Draco prayed that their luck held out in that regard. His father also rarely came home, and when he did, he seemed to be advancing closer and closer to demise. And Draco also continued to make an average of thrice daily trips down to the dungeon, which left him enduring Bellatrix’s knowing looks across the dining room table.
That morning, when he ventured down with his usual tray, he had already come up with no less than three separate ways to deflect her continuous mentioning of the yoga catastrophe. He thought them very clever and particularly biting, and he could perceive no way that she could possibly combat them (as she had done all times previous).
But when he finished his journey down, he saw that now was not the time. She was curled up on the ground in the fetal position, holding her knees to her chest, with her hair hiding her face. His mind instantly leapt to Christmas night nearly two months before, and he panicked. He dropped the tray as he had not done in ages and rushed forward, convinced that Bellatrix or someone else had come when he’d dared to turn his back. "Luna!"
She flipped her hair away when she heard the crash. He immediately skidded to a stop. The swiftness of her movement and the lack of bruises disproved his assumption. Unfortunately, it still left him with this very odd display.
"You really ought to be more careful," she admonished in an oddly sour tone. "You might have woken Mr. Ollivander."
One day, surely, he would be able to tell when she was joking.
"Sorry," he said, ignoring that he wasn’t at all. "I only thought…."
She glanced down at her own position. "Ah." Luna then pushed herself upright, though it seemed to take her considerably more time and effort than he remembered.
He raised an eyebrow and very nearly asked her what the matter was. Then he remembered she’d been stuck in a room for two months with little light, no heat, and minimal nourishment, and he realized how idiotic such a query would have been. He turned to see what he could salvage of the food.
As he gathered up the spilt items, he gave it a bit more consideration. In those two months, Luna had been nothing short of remarkable. He knew if he were being held captive in Potter’s camp, he’d be a wreck. Actually, it was more than likely that he’d be dead at the hands of those horrible twins, but Luna had been downright friendly with him despite her situation. She didn’t blame him for her imprisonment, nor for his inability or unwillingness to end it. She took everything in stride, and treated him almost as a friend.
He looked over his shoulder and did his best to read her face. Even though the size of her eyes left her looking permanently startled, he could see now that there was something different about her. Something in the slope of her shoulders or the curve of her mouth that was not as he remembered from the day before.
"You’re sad," he murmured, borrowing her penchant for directness.
She merely nodded in agreement.
"Do you want to… meditate about it?"
Luna shook her head. "It won’t help."
"Oh." He frowned. "Would talking?"
She sat there for a full minute, simply breathing. He could almost believe that she’d fallen asleep. Finally, she said, "It’s my birthday."
Just like Christmas, the usual sentiment seemed wildly inappropriate. "How old?"
"Seventeen. Same as you."
"Ah," he concluded, wanting to kill himself over the awkwardness of this situation. It had been ages since this particular brand of uncomfortable had existed between them. He felt regressed and continued to flounder around the breakfast mess.
Then he had a brilliant idea.
"This is useless," he concluded, vanishing the items with a flick of his wand. "I’ll try to bring some more."
He didn’t wait for her to answer before ascending the stairs. He made a bee-line for the kitchen and immediately happened upon who - or more accurately, what - he wanted to find.
Only one of the house elves had been mistakenly blamed for the little luxuries that had found their way down to the prisoners. Draco had been more careful after that, not out of pity but because it would have made no sense for the creature to continue in its sympathies following Bellatrix’s treatment. However, she had made an error in leaving the little slave alive. Ever since then, Draco had noticed something a little off about that particular house elf. It had taken him the better part of a month to figure it out, but when he had, he’d filed it away as a bit of useful information.
For this house elf had begun to remind him very much of Dobby.
Draco strode over to the house elf in question and commanded in a very loud voice. "I need more food for the prisoners. We had something of an incident."
Anyone listening could draw their own dark conclusions from that and be satisfied.
"Yes, Master Malfoy," the house elf answered with less deference and a little more attitude than Draco would have normally cared for. He leaned forward, snarling, making it seem as though he was about to deliver a threat or a blow.
Instead, he said, "How would you like to do something my Aunt Bella wouldn’t like?"
The smile the little elf gave him was all the answer he needed.
-----
Draco had delivered lunch to Luna and Ollivander as usual, but he had not spoken with the Ravenclaw as he normally would have. She didn’t seem to mind or even notice, lost in her own little world in a way that differed from her norm. When it came time to deliver their dinner, Draco met up with the duplicitous house elf at their agreed location, offered it payment in the form of one of Pettigrew’s socks, and watched it Disapparate to freedom. Draco prided himself on this little bit of espionage, and of a little mini-revenge against the resident Animagus. True, he had no proof Pettigrew had been spying on him, but if he could turn into a rat at will, he certainly would have done.
He took the normally prepared tray, hiding the shrunken addition courtesy of the AWOL house elf underneath an overturned tea cup, and departed. When he reached the dungeons, he took extra care to cast a Shield Charm over the door of the dungeons. It was a precaution he normally would not have dared to take for fear of alerting anyone to the presence of unexpected magic, which would lead to a number of questions he didn’t care to answer. However, he was quite certain everyone would be too distracted after sensing the departure of the house elf. His alarm ward would go unnoticed in the following pandemonium.
Luna didn’t even look up when he entered, just as before. Draco had tried to think of something to say before performing his gesture, something that might soften her to it, but ultimately decided that for once, actions should speak louder than words. He tossed the tea cup away, and with a bit of wandless magic, unshrunk the concealed item.
A birthday cake decorated in blue icing sprang upwards, seventeen candles blazing on the top of the third tier. It was probably more extravagant than what was called for, but he was a Malfoy. He never did anything halfway, even now.
Luna gasped at the sudden appearance of the cake and for the first time all day, as far as he knew anyway, rose to her feet. She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh my."
He rolled his eyes. "Of course. I give you sugar delivered through a particularly impressive bit of double-dealing, and you offer me a monosyllabic response in return. Typical."
"I would ask how you managed this, but I think I can guess, and I’d prefer not to have the confirmation since you could have very well gotten yourself killed over a cake." She was flustered, visibly flustered, and Draco positively beamed because of it. He’d never managed to ruffle her in the slightest during all this time, and now he’d absolutely floored her. He was the king.
"It was nothing," he shrugged, puffing his lacking chest out. "Besides, it’s your birthday. I know I can’t stand it when people don’t acknowledge it. So… voila."
She stared at him, then at the cake, and then back at him again. Finally, she smiled, her pale lips curving into a look he’d found himself missing the entire day. A knot of tension in his chest that he hadn’t consciously noticed relaxed. "You’re very sweet."
"I do what I can."
She leaned against her cell, pushing her too-long bangs out of her eyes. "You did this all because you knew I was depressed."
He shrugged. "And my methods gave me a chance to piss Bellatrix off. I expect we’ll hear her bellowing any time now."
Luna plucked at her empty earlobe nervously. "You shouldn’t have done this."
"Really, I’m exaggerating the danger here. It was all the house elf."
"No," she maintained. "You don’t understand…. You see, I wasn’t really depressed because it was my birthday."
Draco’s cheeks suddenly began to ache. "What?"
"Well, that’s part of it," she continued, tapping her finger on her chin. "Of course I’d prefer not to be here, but I don’t attach the same sentiment to birthdays as other people. I understand why it’s a milestone for some people, but I haven’t felt that way in years."
"Ah. So, I… profoundly misread this situation… how?"
"My mother died today."
Draco was intensely reminded of his inaugural meeting with Potter at Madame Malkin’s when he’d informed little Draco that his parents were dead. Astonishingly, Draco was unable to come up with any pithy responses now in spite of having previous experiences with people dropping this exact type of bombshell on him. "Oh."
"It was ten years ago," Luna clarified. "Of course I don’t know anything about who’s alive or dead right now."
"I for one would like to go curl up in a corner and die right about now," Draco muttered.
"Please don’t," Luna said smoothly. "My point is, the reason I’m depressed is because normally, my father and I spend this day together. While I’ve been in school, he always comes up to Hogsmeade and I skip my classes so I can be with him. We talk about her, look at old photographs.... I was just sad that I couldn’t be with him today." She frowned. "He still hasn’t really moved on from losing her. I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s going through today."
Draco frowned. "So you are… over it?"
He struggled to imagine a world in which Lucius Malfoy was not there, a world that was rapidly becoming a reality. All he could see was his parents’ bedroom turned into a tomb, cobwebs hanging in the corners and darkness seeping in the windows. He tasted ash and tried to swallow it away.
"More so than he is," Luna explained. "I saw it, you see."
He felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. Part of him wished it was out of sympathy, but most of him was preoccupied by the image of his emaciated father, fallingfallingfalling into a black pit forever. He stood at the edge of the pit watching. He did nothing.
He shook the vision away, surprised to find she was still speaking. "We were having a birthday party. I was turning seven. It was mostly my family, but I remember the Diggorys came as well. We lived next door to one another, and Cedric never made fun of me like the other children who lived nearby. My mother was working on translating a book of spells that had been uncovered in a recent archaeological dig and determining their applications. She was having particular trouble with one spell, and I went to tell her to stop and come up to the party. She said she just wanted to try one more thing. She rushed the incantation, and there was an explosion."
He saw his father vanishing in a storm of fire and smoke.
"I’m sorry," Draco murmured, closing his eyes, unsure if he was offering sympathy or apologizing for his selfishness.
"I’m fine," she insisted. "My mother died, and when I was younger, I thought that meant the world would end. But it didn’t." She paused. "Do you suppose the world is ending now?"
He couldn’t answer her.
"I’d better be getting back," he said, staring at the food awkwardly. "Should I just get rid of this then?"
She shook her head. "You risked yourself for it, and I am grateful. Besides, it’ll be nice to have something else to eat for a change."
"Yeah. I guess." He transported the food into the cell after casting a Disillusionment Charm over the cake. "No one will be down here with all this ruckus, but just in case."
"I can still make out the edges," she assured him, blowing out the candles that could barely be seen.
"I’ll be back tomorrow," he assured her.
She smiled. "I know you will."
February 28, 1998
He doesn’t have feelings for her. It’s idiotic of her to intimate otherwise.
How could he possibly? She may technically be Pureblood, but she’s not from an old family. She’s not Slytherin, and while Ravenclaw may be the most acceptable of the other houses, it does not wholly excuse the differences. She may be clever, but she’s insane, may be insightful, but she’s infuriating as well. And she may have faith and strength in her convictions, but they’re the wrong ones, not the ones he was brought up in. Even if he has doubts now, even if he’s forced to admit what he really believes about the side he’s on, there are too many things he can’t agree with her on.
And the people she associates with. Granger, Weasley, other Weasley, Longbottom. Potter. She counts these as her friends, speaks of them with pride and admiration they don’t deserve, crediting them with achievements that cannot possibly be true. He won’t allow them to be true, because after all they’ve done to him, after all the wrongs and all the slights, perceived or intended, he cannot forgive them. And then how could he forgive her for loving them?
She says things that make no sense. She makes up creatures and refuses to admit they aren’t real. She doesn’t understand the art of the white lie, much less any other sort. She’s supposed to be intelligent, but how can she survive in the real world if she’ll look a person in the face and lay them bare? How can anyone stand to be around her and her unyielding honesty?
There’s so much wrong with her. Too much wrong with her. In another time, another place, it wouldn’t even be a question or a possibility. He’d be sitting at his table like a king on a throne, laughing at the latest in a long string of tales of one Loony Lovegood. She’d be sitting at her table, with both radish earrings in. And she’d be alone.
He doesn’t have feelings for her. It’s idiotic of her to intimate otherwise.
He can’t have feelings for her.
He refuses to have feelings for her.
(But she has the softest eyes he’s ever seen and a laugh like silver bells. Her voice speaks to him like a distant dream. She smiles at him like he’s worth something.
She held on when he broke down. She didn’t mock his tears. She didn’t patronize him by saying that his sins did not matter.
She’s kept him sane in this house of madmen.)
He watches her sleep underneath the firelight, thinks of how she might look underneath a moon and stars, and whispers, "I don’t love you" over and over again while she dreams.
It has become his mantra.
March 3, 1998
As it went with nearly all of his brilliant plans, in one aspect, Draco miscalculated.
He’d supposed that people would be so focused on the disappearance of the house elf, the one who had all but turned traitor on them, and that it would be enough to completely throw any lingering suspicion off him. He’d guessed that no one would question his late arrival to the gathering that followed this exit, that the Death Eaters in house would accept his explanation that he had gone to see if the prisoners knew anything of the incident. He’d hoped that his participation in torturing Peter Pettigrew, which Draco hated even if he couldn’t stand the filthy rat, would solidify their trust, not damage of it.
He had put his faith in false assumptions, and that night, he paid for it.
He had been unwilling to risk using a Shield Charm, save Luna’s birthday. Even if he had been more daring, what good would it have done? Protego was ultimately just a word, even if it was a spell, and a word would not hold back the Death Eaters in all their fury forever. And there was no way to escape- no way for a wizard to Apparate, no Portkeys, no chimneys connected to the Floo Network, no brooms nearby, and no windows to escape through. Even if there had been, it would have only delayed the inevitable. But at least it would have delayed it.
Bellatrix swept into the dungeons with the fury of a demon god. Draco immediately leapt to his feet and pulled out his wand, turning it not on his aunt but on Luna, hoping the ruse would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Because of yet another supposition, Bellatrix was able to turn her wand on Luna as well. She cast the Cruciatus, spitting out the incantation with more than her usual venom. Lacking any distraction, she was able to pour all of her effort into the spell. This time, Luna began to scream, but she sank her teeth clean through her lip to choke it down, and blood spurted down her chin.
A moment later, she’d turned the wand against his throat.
"Foolish boy!" she snarled. "You dare number yourselves among our kind? You dare to proclaim your love and fealty to our lord and then sneak down here to pander to one of Potter’s allies?"
He gulped, wincing as she drove the wand in harder. He was not surprised to discover it came to a point. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," he hissed, denying her, hoping she would not hate him for it. "I don’t care what happens to her."
"Silence!" she screeched, casting a silent Cruciatus on him. He cried out in pain and started to fall, but Bellatrix grasped him by the hair and held him so that he knelt before her while his body shook with pain.
"I taught you Occulumency to use against that Half-blood Snape," she spat. "If I had known you would use it to conceal your own weakness, your own sympathies for the Muggles and Mudbloods, I never would have taught you its secrets. I never would have thought you were my sister’s only hope to return her precious Malfoy name to some measure of glory."
He finally stopped shaking and looked her directly in the eye. "I am not a blood traitor."
"Crucio!"
He howled again, and this time she cast him to the ground, leaving him squirming and tearing at his own flesh.
"You think I don’t know how well you lie, boy?" she snapped. "You’re a Malfoy and a Black. It’s what you were raised for. But never were you supposed to lie to me!" She curled her lips horribly, showing her teeth. "I never thought this family would be sullied with another Sirius Black, but there you are. Do you know what I do to people like him? People who sully my family name? Do you think it was an accident that I drove Sirius before that veil? That it was an accident that he fell through it? One man died that day, and he died at my hand so that he could pay for what he did to us!"
She hit him with the curse again. He was in so much pain he thought he would die from it. He wished he would.
"Please," he whimpered, knowing it was weak and not giving a damn. "I’m not him. I’m nothing like him."
Her black eyes narrowed, gaping holes in a skull face. "I don’t believe you." She stepped forward, aiming her wand directly at his face. "Avada-"
"NO!" Luna shrieked, throwing herself forward and spraying blood across the dungeon floor.
"Ked-"
"Obliviate."
And just like that, Bellatrix crumpled to the floor, her eyes rolled back up in her head. Draco stared at the fallen body for a moment, his mind refusing to grasp the situation. Then he looked up and saw nothing but pale blue and white.
There stood Narcissa, the avenging angel to the demon god.
"Mum," he whispered, using a word he’d given up when he first went to Hogwarts. "Mum, she-"
"I know what she has done," Narcissa ground out. She did not look at her son, keeping her eyes and her wand trained at her sister. It trembled in her grip. "And I know what you have done."
Draco glanced back at Luna, bleeding and still shaking from the aftereffects of Bellatrix’s curse. There was no use denying it now. Not to his mother. "I won’t apologize."
"Of course you won’t," Narcissa countered coldly. "Stubbornness runs in the family."
He did not delude himself into thinking that she said this with any pride. "Mum-Mother, I-"
"Do not waste your breath with me, Draco," Narcissa strained. "I care little for your reasons and less for forgiving you right now. You put your father and I in danger for this girl, something you risked your life a year ago to prevent, and she’s not even in your house. She isn’t even your friend. You could have killed us all for her. What could you possibly have to say to explain yourself?"
He exhaled roughly, trying to ignore the physical pain and this emotional burden. She was right. What did he have to say for it?
"Maybe I wanted to be a different man."
Narcissa’s gaze at last snapped from her sister to her son. Her eyes blazed with ice-blue fire. "Then you are more of a disappointment than I thought."
Draco bent his head but said nothing in response.
"It was Pettigrew who gave you up," Narcissa explained. "After all, he certainly knew that he had not released the house elf. He followed you and then went to Bellatrix." She narrowed her eyes. "It was petty and foolish to include him in your ruse. You ought to have known he would retaliate."
"I didn’t know who else they’d believe it of," Draco muttered. "Besides, he’s an idiot."
The soft line of her jaw continued to sharpen as she clenched her jaw. "You underestimated him. Like so many others before you. When will the world learn that even for a fool, Pettigrew is a dangerous man to cross?"
"Then he isn’t dead." Draco was a little sorry.
"Of course not," Narcissa snapped. "Should anyone die at the Manor, we would fall under immediate suspicion. I have erased their memories of your little transgression. Bellatrix’s Occulmency will keep the Dark Lord from discovering it, and he too does not give Pettigrew proper credit. He rarely ventures into his mind."
The fact that Narcissa did not seem concerned about her own mind betraying her confirmed Draco’s long-held suspicion that Bellatrix and he were not the only Occlumens in the family.
She bent to her knees and grasped his face, holding it tightly. "Now you will listen to me, Draco Abraxas Malfoy, and you will do exactly as I say. You will go to your room, and you will stay there. I will say you are sick, and you will not emerge until I give you an indication that you can emerge. In case it is not clear from these instructions, you are not to come near these dungeons or this girl ever again. The ghosts of memory remain even after a Memory Charm is cast. There is no telling what could cause them to remember, and I think the results of such a recollection should be painfully obvious."
Draco surprised himself by immediately launching into a protest. "You can’t do that! Who else will take care of them if not for me? They’ll die down here!" He took care to include Ollivander in this proclamation, deceiving even now.
"What on Earth makes you think I care about her life?" Narcissa shouted back at him, not falling for his ruse. "Have you not learned by now what I would do for your sake? If I had the power to end this world to save you, I would do it, and I would have no regrets." Suddenly, her face relaxed, but a creeping chill settled over his skin. He half-expected to find that the dungeon was being covered in a thin layer of ice, such was the strength of her cold fury.
"Of course, if you do not feel that you have the strength to keep your distance, I will be more than happy to remedy the situation." She swung her wand arm from Bellatrix to the cell, the pale tip at the level of her eye. "No one will bother to question her demise. It was preferable that she live to keep her father in line, but we can be rid of her easily. It will be only a small cost. Of course, it would require that her own father be disposed of in a similar fashion, which we had hoped to avoid. But the plots of the Dark Lord do not rest on the death or survival of Xenophilius Lovegood or his daughter."
Draco froze, more unsure now than ever. No matter what he did, he placed her in danger. He found himself longing for someone to tell him what to do, someone who was not Narcissa Malfoy.
"Do as she says, Draco."
He turned back to Luna, gaping. "What?"
Luna gazed evenly at her mother, and Draco saw even from his angle that the dreamy look in her eyes had vanished completely. She was present more in this moment than he had ever seen her. She no longer seemed like a distant dream. She was solid and real and Draco knew now, just as formidable and as feeling as his mother.
"I don’t care whether I live or die," she said, and he knew this was no falsehood told in rash bravery, "but I can’t let anything happen to my dad. I love him very much, you know."
He continued to look at her, unable to tear his eyes away. Finally, he could no longer hold his head up, and so he let it fall. This was his surrender.
"Not afraid to die," his mother scoffed quietly, arching an eyebrow at Luna as she finally lowered her wand. "The sentiments of the thoughtless youth never cease to amaze."
"I assure you, Mrs. Malfoy," Luna said, her voice hardening to steel, "there never was a Ravenclaw who proved thoughtless."
After a few more seconds, Narcissa finally turned away from Luna. She helped Draco to her feet, levitated her sister’s prone body, and together, they left the dungeons. He wanted to cast a look over his shoulder, wanted to say something to help mend the mess he’d made, but he was too weak to turn his head.
Luna said nothing as he shut the door for what could be the last time.
March 21, 1998
For three weeks, Draco barely emerged from his room. Narcissa visited him often, but Draco found it difficult to say much to her. Upon hearing of his son’s illness, Lucius Malfoy found an excuse to finally return home. He was not told of what really happened, and Draco supposed it was just as well. Bellatrix came to visit on occasion, but as Narcissa had promised, she showed no indication of remembering that she had nearly killed her own nephew.
For those three weeks, Draco bided his time, playing the part of the perfect son insofar as he could manage. He knew better than to attempt to trick his mother by saying that he had seen the light and that she had been completely correct. She was too smart to be duped into believing such an obvious ploy. But he made no attempts to skirt her firmly given rules and never once did anything directly confrontational. He remained firmly in the realm of the passive aggressive.
Doing this irritated her, but it helped to build up her trust in him somewhat. She hardly allowed him free reign of the manor, but he noticed that the tension in her shoulders was no longer as pronounced as it had once been. She was softening to him again, and it was then and only then that he allowed himself to take a risk.
Long after midnight had passed, Draco stole from his room, cloaking himself in Disillusionment and Silencing Charms. Then he slipped quickly and quietly from his room on the third floor to the subterranean level he hoped Luna still occupied. When he reached the dank quarters that made a home for her and Ollivander, he did not see her at first and began to panic. Then she moved further into the firelight, red reflecting off her white-gold hair.
"Draco," she said, holding out her hands. It was not a question.
He erred on the side of caution and did not throw off the Disillusionment Charm but lifted the other. He practically ran forward, grasping her outstretched palms. "You’re all right," he breathed in relief. "I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t dare ask my mother or anyone else." His hands slipped down to circle her wrists. They were smaller than he remembered. "They haven’t been feeding you."
"Not as much," she confirmed.
He swore. "I didn’t think. I ought to have brought something."
"No, Draco," she interrupted. "Listen to me. You need to get out of here. It isn’t safe for you or my father."
"Don’t you care about yourself at all?" Draco hissed. "Have you been suicidal all this time and forgot to mention?"
Luna shook her head, her limp hair swinging at her shoulders. "I said I didn’t mind dying, not that I wanted to."
"It’s the same," he insisted.
She smiled at him ruefully. "There’s so much you don’t understand. I’m sorry."
If he’d had time for a philosophical debate, he wouldn’t have had the patience for it. "Don’t apologize to me," he snapped, falling until his forehead hit the bars. "It’s all my fault. I’m the one who couldn’t stand being on my own and nearly got you killed."
He felt something cool brush against his brow and knew that she mirrored his posture. "Is that the only reason why you came down here?"
Draco felt as if she’d poured sand down his throat. "I don’t love you."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed.
"I mean that I can’t," he snarled, squeezing her hands. "If I loved you, would I leave you down here? Would I have let anything my mother said matter? Wouldn’t I have risked everything just to save you?
"I wish I did love you. I’d be a better man if I did, strong enough to get you out of here. But you were right about what you said so long ago: I’m not brave. I’ll never be brave. Maybe you don’t mind dying, but I do. It scares me so much, and I’ll do anything to live. Even if it means leaving you down here, I’m not good enough to save you. And if I loved you, I’d have to be good enough."
She sighed. "You’re so much like Hermione."
He nearly gagged at the thought and recoiled. "What?"
"You both follow logic to reach the conclusions you think have to make sense. Good men save the damsels in distress with swords and fire based on the empirical evidence, so if you don’t do it that way, you’re not a good man. But I don’t see it that way. Maybe that’s how a Gryffindor would do it, but you’re nothing like a Gryffindor."
Draco felt irrationally pleased by this, as always. "So then who do you think I am?"
She smiled and gently tugged him towards her. Then she leaned in and kissed him through the bars. Her lips were dry and cracking, and she moved slowly, as if this caused some pain. It should have left him uneasy, but instead, he felt overwhelmed. Like he was drinking moonbeams.
She pulled away, and he felt the loss.
"I think you’re a man I can have faith in," she whispered.
He reached for her, awkwardly cupping her cheek. "How can you say that?"
"Because if you were as bad as you seem to think you are, I don’t think you’d have the sense to feel guilty about it."
He didn’t know it then, but this was the last time she would leave him speechless under his roof.
"If you really want to, don’t save me like a Gryffindor," she said, retreating into the darkness of her cell. "Save me like a Slytherin."
March 22, 1998
Draco had contemplated his encounter with Luna for many hours. He thought of nothing else until there was some commotion from outside the manor, and he dared to venture from his room. He went down to the main room, waited on an armchair like a spectator waiting for a show to begin. And then he saw them.
Granger. Weasley. And an incredibly bloated Harry Potter.
Draco thought it was supremely unfair that he could find no joy in this moment of seeing Potter blown up to three times his size.
"They say they’ve got Potter. Draco, come here," his mother instructed in her cold, formal tone.
He rose from the armchair slowly, refusing to look directly at Potter. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by him or his two friends. Somehow, he could twist this into some kind of opportunity. He knew it. He just had to figure out how.
Greyback forced the prisoners to turn, presumably so Draco could get a better look. Draco held back a shudder as the werewolf asked in a gravelly voice, "Well, boy?"
Draco still refused to look directly at any of them, his mind working as faster than ever. Ever since seeing Luna the night before, he had struggled with her words. She wanted him to save her like a Slytherin, but at the time, he hadn’t understood her. Slytherins didn’t save anyone. Slytherins stayed home while others did the saving. That’s what Gryffindors were for. What could she possibly expect him to do that would help her now?
Things had been different then. Had she somehow known that something would change? Was there something to the so-called art of divination, and did Luna possess some sort of talent for it? Or had she counted on him to figure something out completely unaware of how the next twenty-four hours would progress?
Either way, Draco thought he now knew what he had to do. It was true that Slytherins didn’t save anyone. Slytherins stayed home while others did the saving.
That’s what Gryffindors were for.
"Well, Draco?" his father asked in a desperate voice. "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"
It was of course. Who else would be with Granger and Weasley? And even if he’d been alone, Draco would never mistake Harry.
But if he revealed Potter, the Dark Lord would be summoned immediately. Potter would never leave this room alive. He’d be cut down, the war would be lost, and he knew that Luna would not survive it.
"I can’t-I can’t be sure," Draco muttered, keeping his distance from Greyback.
"But look at him carefully, look!" Lucius demanded. "Come closer! Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv-"
Greyback interrupted his father before he could continue, and Draco was glad of it. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he was giving up. Being responsible for Harry Potter would indeed launch the Malfoy family back into the echelon of Death Eaters. Lucius would get his wand back, his mother would no longer be disgraced, and perhaps, even in a world of blood and fire, they could be happy. Their future all fell to Draco.
But, Draco reasoned, there was no guarantee that their family would prevail. They could just as easily fall again. The Dark Lord was notorious for his shifting loyalties. Even Bellatrix, who had once been favored above all, was no longer as highly valued simply because of her association with the Malfoys.
"Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"
Draco and Potter now stood face-to-face for the first time in months. Being this close to the Boy-Who-Lived brought back all the rage hidden underneath the nearly crippling fear he felt being face with this decision. He didn’t know if he wanted Potter to live, though he also couldn’t say for sure that he wanted him to die, particularly if Voldemort was the alternative. But Draco could also not forget his past with one Harry Potter, which for Draco, began with a bond denied and a friendship forsaken before it began.
But as much as he hated Potter, as much as he wanted to get back at him, Potter could do the one thing Draco couldn’t: he could save her. Perhaps, he could even save them all.
"I don’t know."
This became his second and final mantra, repeated over and over again in his mind. He disavowed Harry Potter until he could almost believe that he really didn’t know that he stood there, just a few feet away. He maintained denial of Potter even when he couldn’t do the same with Granger and Weasley, who he knew his parents would eventually recognize. He continued when Bellatrix came into the room, and when she sent down everyone but Granger to the dungeons to join Luna.
And in the end, Potter didn’t let him down.
May 3, 1998
Once the Battle of Hogwarts had ended and Draco had finished clinging to his parents for a few hours, he knew there was one more person he had to find. He hung back in the shadows of the Great Hall, praying no one would notice him, searching for a pair of dreamy eyes and a dazed soprano voice lifting above the din. He stopped at every flash of blond and blue, his heart lifting at the possibility and them plummeting with disappointment.
Shaking all the while, he forced himself to look at the rows of tables covered with the bodies of the dead. He saw Professor Lupin, the werewolf he should have never feared, Nymphadora Tonks, the cousin he had denied, and one of the Weasley twins. And, relegated to the Slytherin tables, of course, were the bodies of Fenrir Greyback, Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Dark Lord - Voldemort. He searched every frozen face for hers and found nothing.
He wanted to be happy or relieved, but he had seen too much of the battle. He knew that there were bodies that would never be recovered. Wizards and witches eaten or crushed or… burned.
He choked on a sob and swiped at his eyes with a soot-covered fist. He scanned the room again, her name rising in his throat, threatening to become a scream. He bit his tongue hard. He half-suspected the Malfoys were being left alone because people were willing to forget their presence in favor of celebrating. Drawing attention to himself could lead to being arrested. Or worse, his father being arrested.
Doing his best not to be seen, Draco sprang forward, running out of the Great Hall and into the crumbling corridor. He saw scorch marks on the walls and blood on the floor. He knew this was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. How many more had been hurt? Had been killed? How long would it take for them to recover all the bodies in all of Hogwarts’ secret places? How many bodies would never be found?
A part of him, using a voice that had once been his own - one he could no longer abide - told him to be grateful. He was alive. His parents were alive. His most dangerous enemies were dead. Why should he care about a girl he’d only known for three short months, a girl he almost always saw with the shadow of bars falling on her pale, round face?
He’d said he didn’t love her, after all.
But it would be his fault. He’d helped her escape, however indirectly. Twisted as it sounded, in his dungeon, he might have been able to keep her safe. By letting her out, he’d left her up to her own devices, and she was just stupid enough not to flee to Switzerland like a sensible person but to join back up with Potter and his bloody army. He’d even sent her along with Potter!
He hadn’t been able to save Crabbe. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to study the dead faces of any students in Slytherin robes, so who knows how many other friends he’d lost? And he might have lost her as well.
Draco couldn’t stop shaking. The tears he’d restrained for Crabbe, he could not hold back for this uncertainty. He was flying apart, and he knew if he let himself break, nothing would be able to put him back together again. He started to fall to his knees, opening his mouth to let out a scream he had to release.
Arms encircled him from behind, holding him up. Two fingers brushed against his lips. A familiar shushing sound filled his ears.
He threw himself upright and whirled. And there Luna stood, filthy and the end of her hair burnt, but beautifully, miraculously alive.
She smiled at him, and finally, she looked at him. Not around, behind, or through, but at him. And even then, she still had the softest eyes he’d ever seen.
He didn’t bother to say anything. He just threw his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her with the desperation they were both so familiar with and the relief of finding her alive. Her hands brushed his face, encircled his neck, and when they parted, drifted down to hold his hands. She swung them back and forth to emphasize the lack of bars.
"I missed you," she said. "I don’t miss your house though."
"I thought you were dead," he blurted. "I couldn’t find you, and I was so afraid that I’d… that you were gone."
She gave his hands an extra squeeze. "I heard about Vincent. I’m so sorry, Draco."
He shifted their position, pressing her hands between his palms and holding them next to his heart. "I couldn’t bear it if you were gone too. I wouldn’t have made it."
"Does this mean that you love me?"
He let out a loud bark of laughter, and then found he couldn’t stop. His stomach ached he laughed so hard, and he was gratified to find that she laughed right along with him.
"I suppose I must." He grinned smugly. "I did save you after all."
"Harry would disagree with you there."
"Potter is an idiot. I don’t care if he saved the world, he’s still an idiot. And certainly Potter helped, but I most definitely saved you first."
He realized a moment later this may have been the wrong thing to say, but she didn’t stop smiling. "I know you did. I always had faith in you."
He paused, licking his lips. "And what about you?"
"Hm?"
She would make this unbearably awkward. "Do you… I mean… Well, I just admitted it, and you were very insistent about it, so it really only seems fair that-"
She stood on tiptoe and stole another kiss. He felt like he could taste the stars.
And when they finally parted, she had only one thing to say.
"I love you."
Recipient: The clever_claws Community
Title: These Accidents of Faith, Part 3 of 3
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through Manor confrontation in Deathly Hallows. However, I change canon a wee bit so that Draco does not return to Hogwarts after Christmas break. Also, rather than have the Malfoys keep their prisoners in the cellar, I gave the manor a dungeon cause that’s just more badass.
Characters/Ships: Luna/Draco with a side of Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Fenrir.
Genre: Flangst
Summary: While home for Christmas break, Draco gets charged with overseeing the prisoners, including the new addition of Luna Lovegood.
Length: 21,000
Notes: Meditation in particular plays a huge part, and I hope the dialogue is sufficiently humorous. Another thank you goes to my lovely beta reader with putting up with me and my uncharacteristically het pairings. And finally, a thank you to the mods of clever_claws! Thank you so much for organizing this fest! I had a blast!
Title from "Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol. Any other lyrics and the excerpts taken directly from Deathly Hallows used within the fic are obviously not mine.
February 21, 1998
Nothing much changed over the next few weeks. Draco continued to stay as far away from the various and sundry Death Eaters as he could manage. The Dark Lord continued to be conspicuously absent from the assembled patronage, and both Narcissa and Draco prayed that their luck held out in that regard. His father also rarely came home, and when he did, he seemed to be advancing closer and closer to demise. And Draco also continued to make an average of thrice daily trips down to the dungeon, which left him enduring Bellatrix’s knowing looks across the dining room table.
That morning, when he ventured down with his usual tray, he had already come up with no less than three separate ways to deflect her continuous mentioning of the yoga catastrophe. He thought them very clever and particularly biting, and he could perceive no way that she could possibly combat them (as she had done all times previous).
But when he finished his journey down, he saw that now was not the time. She was curled up on the ground in the fetal position, holding her knees to her chest, with her hair hiding her face. His mind instantly leapt to Christmas night nearly two months before, and he panicked. He dropped the tray as he had not done in ages and rushed forward, convinced that Bellatrix or someone else had come when he’d dared to turn his back. "Luna!"
She flipped her hair away when she heard the crash. He immediately skidded to a stop. The swiftness of her movement and the lack of bruises disproved his assumption. Unfortunately, it still left him with this very odd display.
"You really ought to be more careful," she admonished in an oddly sour tone. "You might have woken Mr. Ollivander."
One day, surely, he would be able to tell when she was joking.
"Sorry," he said, ignoring that he wasn’t at all. "I only thought…."
She glanced down at her own position. "Ah." Luna then pushed herself upright, though it seemed to take her considerably more time and effort than he remembered.
He raised an eyebrow and very nearly asked her what the matter was. Then he remembered she’d been stuck in a room for two months with little light, no heat, and minimal nourishment, and he realized how idiotic such a query would have been. He turned to see what he could salvage of the food.
As he gathered up the spilt items, he gave it a bit more consideration. In those two months, Luna had been nothing short of remarkable. He knew if he were being held captive in Potter’s camp, he’d be a wreck. Actually, it was more than likely that he’d be dead at the hands of those horrible twins, but Luna had been downright friendly with him despite her situation. She didn’t blame him for her imprisonment, nor for his inability or unwillingness to end it. She took everything in stride, and treated him almost as a friend.
He looked over his shoulder and did his best to read her face. Even though the size of her eyes left her looking permanently startled, he could see now that there was something different about her. Something in the slope of her shoulders or the curve of her mouth that was not as he remembered from the day before.
"You’re sad," he murmured, borrowing her penchant for directness.
She merely nodded in agreement.
"Do you want to… meditate about it?"
Luna shook her head. "It won’t help."
"Oh." He frowned. "Would talking?"
She sat there for a full minute, simply breathing. He could almost believe that she’d fallen asleep. Finally, she said, "It’s my birthday."
Just like Christmas, the usual sentiment seemed wildly inappropriate. "How old?"
"Seventeen. Same as you."
"Ah," he concluded, wanting to kill himself over the awkwardness of this situation. It had been ages since this particular brand of uncomfortable had existed between them. He felt regressed and continued to flounder around the breakfast mess.
Then he had a brilliant idea.
"This is useless," he concluded, vanishing the items with a flick of his wand. "I’ll try to bring some more."
He didn’t wait for her to answer before ascending the stairs. He made a bee-line for the kitchen and immediately happened upon who - or more accurately, what - he wanted to find.
Only one of the house elves had been mistakenly blamed for the little luxuries that had found their way down to the prisoners. Draco had been more careful after that, not out of pity but because it would have made no sense for the creature to continue in its sympathies following Bellatrix’s treatment. However, she had made an error in leaving the little slave alive. Ever since then, Draco had noticed something a little off about that particular house elf. It had taken him the better part of a month to figure it out, but when he had, he’d filed it away as a bit of useful information.
For this house elf had begun to remind him very much of Dobby.
Draco strode over to the house elf in question and commanded in a very loud voice. "I need more food for the prisoners. We had something of an incident."
Anyone listening could draw their own dark conclusions from that and be satisfied.
"Yes, Master Malfoy," the house elf answered with less deference and a little more attitude than Draco would have normally cared for. He leaned forward, snarling, making it seem as though he was about to deliver a threat or a blow.
Instead, he said, "How would you like to do something my Aunt Bella wouldn’t like?"
The smile the little elf gave him was all the answer he needed.
-----
Draco had delivered lunch to Luna and Ollivander as usual, but he had not spoken with the Ravenclaw as he normally would have. She didn’t seem to mind or even notice, lost in her own little world in a way that differed from her norm. When it came time to deliver their dinner, Draco met up with the duplicitous house elf at their agreed location, offered it payment in the form of one of Pettigrew’s socks, and watched it Disapparate to freedom. Draco prided himself on this little bit of espionage, and of a little mini-revenge against the resident Animagus. True, he had no proof Pettigrew had been spying on him, but if he could turn into a rat at will, he certainly would have done.
He took the normally prepared tray, hiding the shrunken addition courtesy of the AWOL house elf underneath an overturned tea cup, and departed. When he reached the dungeons, he took extra care to cast a Shield Charm over the door of the dungeons. It was a precaution he normally would not have dared to take for fear of alerting anyone to the presence of unexpected magic, which would lead to a number of questions he didn’t care to answer. However, he was quite certain everyone would be too distracted after sensing the departure of the house elf. His alarm ward would go unnoticed in the following pandemonium.
Luna didn’t even look up when he entered, just as before. Draco had tried to think of something to say before performing his gesture, something that might soften her to it, but ultimately decided that for once, actions should speak louder than words. He tossed the tea cup away, and with a bit of wandless magic, unshrunk the concealed item.
A birthday cake decorated in blue icing sprang upwards, seventeen candles blazing on the top of the third tier. It was probably more extravagant than what was called for, but he was a Malfoy. He never did anything halfway, even now.
Luna gasped at the sudden appearance of the cake and for the first time all day, as far as he knew anyway, rose to her feet. She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh my."
He rolled his eyes. "Of course. I give you sugar delivered through a particularly impressive bit of double-dealing, and you offer me a monosyllabic response in return. Typical."
"I would ask how you managed this, but I think I can guess, and I’d prefer not to have the confirmation since you could have very well gotten yourself killed over a cake." She was flustered, visibly flustered, and Draco positively beamed because of it. He’d never managed to ruffle her in the slightest during all this time, and now he’d absolutely floored her. He was the king.
"It was nothing," he shrugged, puffing his lacking chest out. "Besides, it’s your birthday. I know I can’t stand it when people don’t acknowledge it. So… voila."
She stared at him, then at the cake, and then back at him again. Finally, she smiled, her pale lips curving into a look he’d found himself missing the entire day. A knot of tension in his chest that he hadn’t consciously noticed relaxed. "You’re very sweet."
"I do what I can."
She leaned against her cell, pushing her too-long bangs out of her eyes. "You did this all because you knew I was depressed."
He shrugged. "And my methods gave me a chance to piss Bellatrix off. I expect we’ll hear her bellowing any time now."
Luna plucked at her empty earlobe nervously. "You shouldn’t have done this."
"Really, I’m exaggerating the danger here. It was all the house elf."
"No," she maintained. "You don’t understand…. You see, I wasn’t really depressed because it was my birthday."
Draco’s cheeks suddenly began to ache. "What?"
"Well, that’s part of it," she continued, tapping her finger on her chin. "Of course I’d prefer not to be here, but I don’t attach the same sentiment to birthdays as other people. I understand why it’s a milestone for some people, but I haven’t felt that way in years."
"Ah. So, I… profoundly misread this situation… how?"
"My mother died today."
Draco was intensely reminded of his inaugural meeting with Potter at Madame Malkin’s when he’d informed little Draco that his parents were dead. Astonishingly, Draco was unable to come up with any pithy responses now in spite of having previous experiences with people dropping this exact type of bombshell on him. "Oh."
"It was ten years ago," Luna clarified. "Of course I don’t know anything about who’s alive or dead right now."
"I for one would like to go curl up in a corner and die right about now," Draco muttered.
"Please don’t," Luna said smoothly. "My point is, the reason I’m depressed is because normally, my father and I spend this day together. While I’ve been in school, he always comes up to Hogsmeade and I skip my classes so I can be with him. We talk about her, look at old photographs.... I was just sad that I couldn’t be with him today." She frowned. "He still hasn’t really moved on from losing her. I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s going through today."
Draco frowned. "So you are… over it?"
He struggled to imagine a world in which Lucius Malfoy was not there, a world that was rapidly becoming a reality. All he could see was his parents’ bedroom turned into a tomb, cobwebs hanging in the corners and darkness seeping in the windows. He tasted ash and tried to swallow it away.
"More so than he is," Luna explained. "I saw it, you see."
He felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. Part of him wished it was out of sympathy, but most of him was preoccupied by the image of his emaciated father, fallingfallingfalling into a black pit forever. He stood at the edge of the pit watching. He did nothing.
He shook the vision away, surprised to find she was still speaking. "We were having a birthday party. I was turning seven. It was mostly my family, but I remember the Diggorys came as well. We lived next door to one another, and Cedric never made fun of me like the other children who lived nearby. My mother was working on translating a book of spells that had been uncovered in a recent archaeological dig and determining their applications. She was having particular trouble with one spell, and I went to tell her to stop and come up to the party. She said she just wanted to try one more thing. She rushed the incantation, and there was an explosion."
He saw his father vanishing in a storm of fire and smoke.
"I’m sorry," Draco murmured, closing his eyes, unsure if he was offering sympathy or apologizing for his selfishness.
"I’m fine," she insisted. "My mother died, and when I was younger, I thought that meant the world would end. But it didn’t." She paused. "Do you suppose the world is ending now?"
He couldn’t answer her.
"I’d better be getting back," he said, staring at the food awkwardly. "Should I just get rid of this then?"
She shook her head. "You risked yourself for it, and I am grateful. Besides, it’ll be nice to have something else to eat for a change."
"Yeah. I guess." He transported the food into the cell after casting a Disillusionment Charm over the cake. "No one will be down here with all this ruckus, but just in case."
"I can still make out the edges," she assured him, blowing out the candles that could barely be seen.
"I’ll be back tomorrow," he assured her.
She smiled. "I know you will."
February 28, 1998
He doesn’t have feelings for her. It’s idiotic of her to intimate otherwise.
How could he possibly? She may technically be Pureblood, but she’s not from an old family. She’s not Slytherin, and while Ravenclaw may be the most acceptable of the other houses, it does not wholly excuse the differences. She may be clever, but she’s insane, may be insightful, but she’s infuriating as well. And she may have faith and strength in her convictions, but they’re the wrong ones, not the ones he was brought up in. Even if he has doubts now, even if he’s forced to admit what he really believes about the side he’s on, there are too many things he can’t agree with her on.
And the people she associates with. Granger, Weasley, other Weasley, Longbottom. Potter. She counts these as her friends, speaks of them with pride and admiration they don’t deserve, crediting them with achievements that cannot possibly be true. He won’t allow them to be true, because after all they’ve done to him, after all the wrongs and all the slights, perceived or intended, he cannot forgive them. And then how could he forgive her for loving them?
She says things that make no sense. She makes up creatures and refuses to admit they aren’t real. She doesn’t understand the art of the white lie, much less any other sort. She’s supposed to be intelligent, but how can she survive in the real world if she’ll look a person in the face and lay them bare? How can anyone stand to be around her and her unyielding honesty?
There’s so much wrong with her. Too much wrong with her. In another time, another place, it wouldn’t even be a question or a possibility. He’d be sitting at his table like a king on a throne, laughing at the latest in a long string of tales of one Loony Lovegood. She’d be sitting at her table, with both radish earrings in. And she’d be alone.
He doesn’t have feelings for her. It’s idiotic of her to intimate otherwise.
He can’t have feelings for her.
He refuses to have feelings for her.
(But she has the softest eyes he’s ever seen and a laugh like silver bells. Her voice speaks to him like a distant dream. She smiles at him like he’s worth something.
She held on when he broke down. She didn’t mock his tears. She didn’t patronize him by saying that his sins did not matter.
She’s kept him sane in this house of madmen.)
He watches her sleep underneath the firelight, thinks of how she might look underneath a moon and stars, and whispers, "I don’t love you" over and over again while she dreams.
It has become his mantra.
March 3, 1998
As it went with nearly all of his brilliant plans, in one aspect, Draco miscalculated.
He’d supposed that people would be so focused on the disappearance of the house elf, the one who had all but turned traitor on them, and that it would be enough to completely throw any lingering suspicion off him. He’d guessed that no one would question his late arrival to the gathering that followed this exit, that the Death Eaters in house would accept his explanation that he had gone to see if the prisoners knew anything of the incident. He’d hoped that his participation in torturing Peter Pettigrew, which Draco hated even if he couldn’t stand the filthy rat, would solidify their trust, not damage of it.
He had put his faith in false assumptions, and that night, he paid for it.
He had been unwilling to risk using a Shield Charm, save Luna’s birthday. Even if he had been more daring, what good would it have done? Protego was ultimately just a word, even if it was a spell, and a word would not hold back the Death Eaters in all their fury forever. And there was no way to escape- no way for a wizard to Apparate, no Portkeys, no chimneys connected to the Floo Network, no brooms nearby, and no windows to escape through. Even if there had been, it would have only delayed the inevitable. But at least it would have delayed it.
Bellatrix swept into the dungeons with the fury of a demon god. Draco immediately leapt to his feet and pulled out his wand, turning it not on his aunt but on Luna, hoping the ruse would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Because of yet another supposition, Bellatrix was able to turn her wand on Luna as well. She cast the Cruciatus, spitting out the incantation with more than her usual venom. Lacking any distraction, she was able to pour all of her effort into the spell. This time, Luna began to scream, but she sank her teeth clean through her lip to choke it down, and blood spurted down her chin.
A moment later, she’d turned the wand against his throat.
"Foolish boy!" she snarled. "You dare number yourselves among our kind? You dare to proclaim your love and fealty to our lord and then sneak down here to pander to one of Potter’s allies?"
He gulped, wincing as she drove the wand in harder. He was not surprised to discover it came to a point. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," he hissed, denying her, hoping she would not hate him for it. "I don’t care what happens to her."
"Silence!" she screeched, casting a silent Cruciatus on him. He cried out in pain and started to fall, but Bellatrix grasped him by the hair and held him so that he knelt before her while his body shook with pain.
"I taught you Occulumency to use against that Half-blood Snape," she spat. "If I had known you would use it to conceal your own weakness, your own sympathies for the Muggles and Mudbloods, I never would have taught you its secrets. I never would have thought you were my sister’s only hope to return her precious Malfoy name to some measure of glory."
He finally stopped shaking and looked her directly in the eye. "I am not a blood traitor."
"Crucio!"
He howled again, and this time she cast him to the ground, leaving him squirming and tearing at his own flesh.
"You think I don’t know how well you lie, boy?" she snapped. "You’re a Malfoy and a Black. It’s what you were raised for. But never were you supposed to lie to me!" She curled her lips horribly, showing her teeth. "I never thought this family would be sullied with another Sirius Black, but there you are. Do you know what I do to people like him? People who sully my family name? Do you think it was an accident that I drove Sirius before that veil? That it was an accident that he fell through it? One man died that day, and he died at my hand so that he could pay for what he did to us!"
She hit him with the curse again. He was in so much pain he thought he would die from it. He wished he would.
"Please," he whimpered, knowing it was weak and not giving a damn. "I’m not him. I’m nothing like him."
Her black eyes narrowed, gaping holes in a skull face. "I don’t believe you." She stepped forward, aiming her wand directly at his face. "Avada-"
"NO!" Luna shrieked, throwing herself forward and spraying blood across the dungeon floor.
"Ked-"
"Obliviate."
And just like that, Bellatrix crumpled to the floor, her eyes rolled back up in her head. Draco stared at the fallen body for a moment, his mind refusing to grasp the situation. Then he looked up and saw nothing but pale blue and white.
There stood Narcissa, the avenging angel to the demon god.
"Mum," he whispered, using a word he’d given up when he first went to Hogwarts. "Mum, she-"
"I know what she has done," Narcissa ground out. She did not look at her son, keeping her eyes and her wand trained at her sister. It trembled in her grip. "And I know what you have done."
Draco glanced back at Luna, bleeding and still shaking from the aftereffects of Bellatrix’s curse. There was no use denying it now. Not to his mother. "I won’t apologize."
"Of course you won’t," Narcissa countered coldly. "Stubbornness runs in the family."
He did not delude himself into thinking that she said this with any pride. "Mum-Mother, I-"
"Do not waste your breath with me, Draco," Narcissa strained. "I care little for your reasons and less for forgiving you right now. You put your father and I in danger for this girl, something you risked your life a year ago to prevent, and she’s not even in your house. She isn’t even your friend. You could have killed us all for her. What could you possibly have to say to explain yourself?"
He exhaled roughly, trying to ignore the physical pain and this emotional burden. She was right. What did he have to say for it?
"Maybe I wanted to be a different man."
Narcissa’s gaze at last snapped from her sister to her son. Her eyes blazed with ice-blue fire. "Then you are more of a disappointment than I thought."
Draco bent his head but said nothing in response.
"It was Pettigrew who gave you up," Narcissa explained. "After all, he certainly knew that he had not released the house elf. He followed you and then went to Bellatrix." She narrowed her eyes. "It was petty and foolish to include him in your ruse. You ought to have known he would retaliate."
"I didn’t know who else they’d believe it of," Draco muttered. "Besides, he’s an idiot."
The soft line of her jaw continued to sharpen as she clenched her jaw. "You underestimated him. Like so many others before you. When will the world learn that even for a fool, Pettigrew is a dangerous man to cross?"
"Then he isn’t dead." Draco was a little sorry.
"Of course not," Narcissa snapped. "Should anyone die at the Manor, we would fall under immediate suspicion. I have erased their memories of your little transgression. Bellatrix’s Occulmency will keep the Dark Lord from discovering it, and he too does not give Pettigrew proper credit. He rarely ventures into his mind."
The fact that Narcissa did not seem concerned about her own mind betraying her confirmed Draco’s long-held suspicion that Bellatrix and he were not the only Occlumens in the family.
She bent to her knees and grasped his face, holding it tightly. "Now you will listen to me, Draco Abraxas Malfoy, and you will do exactly as I say. You will go to your room, and you will stay there. I will say you are sick, and you will not emerge until I give you an indication that you can emerge. In case it is not clear from these instructions, you are not to come near these dungeons or this girl ever again. The ghosts of memory remain even after a Memory Charm is cast. There is no telling what could cause them to remember, and I think the results of such a recollection should be painfully obvious."
Draco surprised himself by immediately launching into a protest. "You can’t do that! Who else will take care of them if not for me? They’ll die down here!" He took care to include Ollivander in this proclamation, deceiving even now.
"What on Earth makes you think I care about her life?" Narcissa shouted back at him, not falling for his ruse. "Have you not learned by now what I would do for your sake? If I had the power to end this world to save you, I would do it, and I would have no regrets." Suddenly, her face relaxed, but a creeping chill settled over his skin. He half-expected to find that the dungeon was being covered in a thin layer of ice, such was the strength of her cold fury.
"Of course, if you do not feel that you have the strength to keep your distance, I will be more than happy to remedy the situation." She swung her wand arm from Bellatrix to the cell, the pale tip at the level of her eye. "No one will bother to question her demise. It was preferable that she live to keep her father in line, but we can be rid of her easily. It will be only a small cost. Of course, it would require that her own father be disposed of in a similar fashion, which we had hoped to avoid. But the plots of the Dark Lord do not rest on the death or survival of Xenophilius Lovegood or his daughter."
Draco froze, more unsure now than ever. No matter what he did, he placed her in danger. He found himself longing for someone to tell him what to do, someone who was not Narcissa Malfoy.
"Do as she says, Draco."
He turned back to Luna, gaping. "What?"
Luna gazed evenly at her mother, and Draco saw even from his angle that the dreamy look in her eyes had vanished completely. She was present more in this moment than he had ever seen her. She no longer seemed like a distant dream. She was solid and real and Draco knew now, just as formidable and as feeling as his mother.
"I don’t care whether I live or die," she said, and he knew this was no falsehood told in rash bravery, "but I can’t let anything happen to my dad. I love him very much, you know."
He continued to look at her, unable to tear his eyes away. Finally, he could no longer hold his head up, and so he let it fall. This was his surrender.
"Not afraid to die," his mother scoffed quietly, arching an eyebrow at Luna as she finally lowered her wand. "The sentiments of the thoughtless youth never cease to amaze."
"I assure you, Mrs. Malfoy," Luna said, her voice hardening to steel, "there never was a Ravenclaw who proved thoughtless."
After a few more seconds, Narcissa finally turned away from Luna. She helped Draco to her feet, levitated her sister’s prone body, and together, they left the dungeons. He wanted to cast a look over his shoulder, wanted to say something to help mend the mess he’d made, but he was too weak to turn his head.
Luna said nothing as he shut the door for what could be the last time.
March 21, 1998
For three weeks, Draco barely emerged from his room. Narcissa visited him often, but Draco found it difficult to say much to her. Upon hearing of his son’s illness, Lucius Malfoy found an excuse to finally return home. He was not told of what really happened, and Draco supposed it was just as well. Bellatrix came to visit on occasion, but as Narcissa had promised, she showed no indication of remembering that she had nearly killed her own nephew.
For those three weeks, Draco bided his time, playing the part of the perfect son insofar as he could manage. He knew better than to attempt to trick his mother by saying that he had seen the light and that she had been completely correct. She was too smart to be duped into believing such an obvious ploy. But he made no attempts to skirt her firmly given rules and never once did anything directly confrontational. He remained firmly in the realm of the passive aggressive.
Doing this irritated her, but it helped to build up her trust in him somewhat. She hardly allowed him free reign of the manor, but he noticed that the tension in her shoulders was no longer as pronounced as it had once been. She was softening to him again, and it was then and only then that he allowed himself to take a risk.
Long after midnight had passed, Draco stole from his room, cloaking himself in Disillusionment and Silencing Charms. Then he slipped quickly and quietly from his room on the third floor to the subterranean level he hoped Luna still occupied. When he reached the dank quarters that made a home for her and Ollivander, he did not see her at first and began to panic. Then she moved further into the firelight, red reflecting off her white-gold hair.
"Draco," she said, holding out her hands. It was not a question.
He erred on the side of caution and did not throw off the Disillusionment Charm but lifted the other. He practically ran forward, grasping her outstretched palms. "You’re all right," he breathed in relief. "I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t dare ask my mother or anyone else." His hands slipped down to circle her wrists. They were smaller than he remembered. "They haven’t been feeding you."
"Not as much," she confirmed.
He swore. "I didn’t think. I ought to have brought something."
"No, Draco," she interrupted. "Listen to me. You need to get out of here. It isn’t safe for you or my father."
"Don’t you care about yourself at all?" Draco hissed. "Have you been suicidal all this time and forgot to mention?"
Luna shook her head, her limp hair swinging at her shoulders. "I said I didn’t mind dying, not that I wanted to."
"It’s the same," he insisted.
She smiled at him ruefully. "There’s so much you don’t understand. I’m sorry."
If he’d had time for a philosophical debate, he wouldn’t have had the patience for it. "Don’t apologize to me," he snapped, falling until his forehead hit the bars. "It’s all my fault. I’m the one who couldn’t stand being on my own and nearly got you killed."
He felt something cool brush against his brow and knew that she mirrored his posture. "Is that the only reason why you came down here?"
Draco felt as if she’d poured sand down his throat. "I don’t love you."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed.
"I mean that I can’t," he snarled, squeezing her hands. "If I loved you, would I leave you down here? Would I have let anything my mother said matter? Wouldn’t I have risked everything just to save you?
"I wish I did love you. I’d be a better man if I did, strong enough to get you out of here. But you were right about what you said so long ago: I’m not brave. I’ll never be brave. Maybe you don’t mind dying, but I do. It scares me so much, and I’ll do anything to live. Even if it means leaving you down here, I’m not good enough to save you. And if I loved you, I’d have to be good enough."
She sighed. "You’re so much like Hermione."
He nearly gagged at the thought and recoiled. "What?"
"You both follow logic to reach the conclusions you think have to make sense. Good men save the damsels in distress with swords and fire based on the empirical evidence, so if you don’t do it that way, you’re not a good man. But I don’t see it that way. Maybe that’s how a Gryffindor would do it, but you’re nothing like a Gryffindor."
Draco felt irrationally pleased by this, as always. "So then who do you think I am?"
She smiled and gently tugged him towards her. Then she leaned in and kissed him through the bars. Her lips were dry and cracking, and she moved slowly, as if this caused some pain. It should have left him uneasy, but instead, he felt overwhelmed. Like he was drinking moonbeams.
She pulled away, and he felt the loss.
"I think you’re a man I can have faith in," she whispered.
He reached for her, awkwardly cupping her cheek. "How can you say that?"
"Because if you were as bad as you seem to think you are, I don’t think you’d have the sense to feel guilty about it."
He didn’t know it then, but this was the last time she would leave him speechless under his roof.
"If you really want to, don’t save me like a Gryffindor," she said, retreating into the darkness of her cell. "Save me like a Slytherin."
March 22, 1998
Draco had contemplated his encounter with Luna for many hours. He thought of nothing else until there was some commotion from outside the manor, and he dared to venture from his room. He went down to the main room, waited on an armchair like a spectator waiting for a show to begin. And then he saw them.
Granger. Weasley. And an incredibly bloated Harry Potter.
Draco thought it was supremely unfair that he could find no joy in this moment of seeing Potter blown up to three times his size.
"They say they’ve got Potter. Draco, come here," his mother instructed in her cold, formal tone.
He rose from the armchair slowly, refusing to look directly at Potter. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by him or his two friends. Somehow, he could twist this into some kind of opportunity. He knew it. He just had to figure out how.
Greyback forced the prisoners to turn, presumably so Draco could get a better look. Draco held back a shudder as the werewolf asked in a gravelly voice, "Well, boy?"
Draco still refused to look directly at any of them, his mind working as faster than ever. Ever since seeing Luna the night before, he had struggled with her words. She wanted him to save her like a Slytherin, but at the time, he hadn’t understood her. Slytherins didn’t save anyone. Slytherins stayed home while others did the saving. That’s what Gryffindors were for. What could she possibly expect him to do that would help her now?
Things had been different then. Had she somehow known that something would change? Was there something to the so-called art of divination, and did Luna possess some sort of talent for it? Or had she counted on him to figure something out completely unaware of how the next twenty-four hours would progress?
Either way, Draco thought he now knew what he had to do. It was true that Slytherins didn’t save anyone. Slytherins stayed home while others did the saving.
That’s what Gryffindors were for.
"Well, Draco?" his father asked in a desperate voice. "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"
It was of course. Who else would be with Granger and Weasley? And even if he’d been alone, Draco would never mistake Harry.
But if he revealed Potter, the Dark Lord would be summoned immediately. Potter would never leave this room alive. He’d be cut down, the war would be lost, and he knew that Luna would not survive it.
"I can’t-I can’t be sure," Draco muttered, keeping his distance from Greyback.
"But look at him carefully, look!" Lucius demanded. "Come closer! Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv-"
Greyback interrupted his father before he could continue, and Draco was glad of it. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he was giving up. Being responsible for Harry Potter would indeed launch the Malfoy family back into the echelon of Death Eaters. Lucius would get his wand back, his mother would no longer be disgraced, and perhaps, even in a world of blood and fire, they could be happy. Their future all fell to Draco.
But, Draco reasoned, there was no guarantee that their family would prevail. They could just as easily fall again. The Dark Lord was notorious for his shifting loyalties. Even Bellatrix, who had once been favored above all, was no longer as highly valued simply because of her association with the Malfoys.
"Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"
Draco and Potter now stood face-to-face for the first time in months. Being this close to the Boy-Who-Lived brought back all the rage hidden underneath the nearly crippling fear he felt being face with this decision. He didn’t know if he wanted Potter to live, though he also couldn’t say for sure that he wanted him to die, particularly if Voldemort was the alternative. But Draco could also not forget his past with one Harry Potter, which for Draco, began with a bond denied and a friendship forsaken before it began.
But as much as he hated Potter, as much as he wanted to get back at him, Potter could do the one thing Draco couldn’t: he could save her. Perhaps, he could even save them all.
"I don’t know."
This became his second and final mantra, repeated over and over again in his mind. He disavowed Harry Potter until he could almost believe that he really didn’t know that he stood there, just a few feet away. He maintained denial of Potter even when he couldn’t do the same with Granger and Weasley, who he knew his parents would eventually recognize. He continued when Bellatrix came into the room, and when she sent down everyone but Granger to the dungeons to join Luna.
And in the end, Potter didn’t let him down.
May 3, 1998
Once the Battle of Hogwarts had ended and Draco had finished clinging to his parents for a few hours, he knew there was one more person he had to find. He hung back in the shadows of the Great Hall, praying no one would notice him, searching for a pair of dreamy eyes and a dazed soprano voice lifting above the din. He stopped at every flash of blond and blue, his heart lifting at the possibility and them plummeting with disappointment.
Shaking all the while, he forced himself to look at the rows of tables covered with the bodies of the dead. He saw Professor Lupin, the werewolf he should have never feared, Nymphadora Tonks, the cousin he had denied, and one of the Weasley twins. And, relegated to the Slytherin tables, of course, were the bodies of Fenrir Greyback, Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Dark Lord - Voldemort. He searched every frozen face for hers and found nothing.
He wanted to be happy or relieved, but he had seen too much of the battle. He knew that there were bodies that would never be recovered. Wizards and witches eaten or crushed or… burned.
He choked on a sob and swiped at his eyes with a soot-covered fist. He scanned the room again, her name rising in his throat, threatening to become a scream. He bit his tongue hard. He half-suspected the Malfoys were being left alone because people were willing to forget their presence in favor of celebrating. Drawing attention to himself could lead to being arrested. Or worse, his father being arrested.
Doing his best not to be seen, Draco sprang forward, running out of the Great Hall and into the crumbling corridor. He saw scorch marks on the walls and blood on the floor. He knew this was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. How many more had been hurt? Had been killed? How long would it take for them to recover all the bodies in all of Hogwarts’ secret places? How many bodies would never be found?
A part of him, using a voice that had once been his own - one he could no longer abide - told him to be grateful. He was alive. His parents were alive. His most dangerous enemies were dead. Why should he care about a girl he’d only known for three short months, a girl he almost always saw with the shadow of bars falling on her pale, round face?
He’d said he didn’t love her, after all.
But it would be his fault. He’d helped her escape, however indirectly. Twisted as it sounded, in his dungeon, he might have been able to keep her safe. By letting her out, he’d left her up to her own devices, and she was just stupid enough not to flee to Switzerland like a sensible person but to join back up with Potter and his bloody army. He’d even sent her along with Potter!
He hadn’t been able to save Crabbe. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to study the dead faces of any students in Slytherin robes, so who knows how many other friends he’d lost? And he might have lost her as well.
Draco couldn’t stop shaking. The tears he’d restrained for Crabbe, he could not hold back for this uncertainty. He was flying apart, and he knew if he let himself break, nothing would be able to put him back together again. He started to fall to his knees, opening his mouth to let out a scream he had to release.
Arms encircled him from behind, holding him up. Two fingers brushed against his lips. A familiar shushing sound filled his ears.
He threw himself upright and whirled. And there Luna stood, filthy and the end of her hair burnt, but beautifully, miraculously alive.
She smiled at him, and finally, she looked at him. Not around, behind, or through, but at him. And even then, she still had the softest eyes he’d ever seen.
He didn’t bother to say anything. He just threw his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her with the desperation they were both so familiar with and the relief of finding her alive. Her hands brushed his face, encircled his neck, and when they parted, drifted down to hold his hands. She swung them back and forth to emphasize the lack of bars.
"I missed you," she said. "I don’t miss your house though."
"I thought you were dead," he blurted. "I couldn’t find you, and I was so afraid that I’d… that you were gone."
She gave his hands an extra squeeze. "I heard about Vincent. I’m so sorry, Draco."
He shifted their position, pressing her hands between his palms and holding them next to his heart. "I couldn’t bear it if you were gone too. I wouldn’t have made it."
"Does this mean that you love me?"
He let out a loud bark of laughter, and then found he couldn’t stop. His stomach ached he laughed so hard, and he was gratified to find that she laughed right along with him.
"I suppose I must." He grinned smugly. "I did save you after all."
"Harry would disagree with you there."
"Potter is an idiot. I don’t care if he saved the world, he’s still an idiot. And certainly Potter helped, but I most definitely saved you first."
He realized a moment later this may have been the wrong thing to say, but she didn’t stop smiling. "I know you did. I always had faith in you."
He paused, licking his lips. "And what about you?"
"Hm?"
She would make this unbearably awkward. "Do you… I mean… Well, I just admitted it, and you were very insistent about it, so it really only seems fair that-"
She stood on tiptoe and stole another kiss. He felt like he could taste the stars.
And when they finally parted, she had only one thing to say.
"I love you."