The scars you can't see are the hardest to heal.

[spaced_luna]

Date: August 27, 2001
Time: Early Evening
Location: Forbidden Forest - Thestral Grove
Characters Involved: Luna Lovegood and any of the people that want to wander her way…Hogwarts staff, whatever.
Rating: PG

Comments

[spaced_luna]

The thestrals had alerted her that she was no longer alone by retreating out of the clearing and out of sight. She knew that they were still there, but they were guaging whether this new person was a threat or not. They really were smart creatures. She didn't even look up to see who it was until she heard Draco's voice. She watched him for a long moment as he settled down onto his cloak.

Draco Malfoy was no Voldemort, but he was his own brand of thorn in your side. She remembered him from school. He and his cronies had made her life hell and strived to put her in her place, not that she had cared. What they had thought of her and her family and their publication didn't matter. It had just shown that they were snobs and ignorant. She remembered how much of a snob he had been specifically.

He had been the typical rich kid, with an I'm better then you are complex and a case of permanent nose admiration. He still wasn't the most pleasent specimen to be around, but the war had changed him. He wasn't the same kid that had given them up to brutal detentions and helped hold them hostage for information. Just as she wasn't the same little dreamy kid she had been. It was true what they said, war changed people. It stripped them of every innocense and left raw shells behind. She didn't know what horrors he had endured, but it seemed to have humbled him, though not cured him of his case of nose admiration.

"Malfoy." she replied with a small nod, she didn't move or give off any indication that she was uncomfortable with his presence.

[dmalfoy_purbld]

He knew she was watching him, and he pointedly ignored her. Not that the action was all that difficult, he'd been practicing it for years. Though it had fallen into disuse in the recent past.

He'd seen the thestrals before they left, and their presence reminded him of everything that had changed him. The first death he'd truly witnessed had been on the grounds of the castle. Dumbledore. His death, and Draco's impotence regarding it had caused Draco's world to shatter, spiralling out of control.

She seemed to be fine with his presence, or at least was able to appear so.

He waited for a bit longer, watching the growing darkness. "Don't mind me, I'm not here to interrupt whatever you were doing." He closed his eyes for a moment. No, he wasn't here for that, but he was here to work on his own thoughts. The article had bothered him greatly, more than he wanted to admit.

[spaced_luna]

She didn't reply to him, she just went off into her own little world. She wasn't bothered that he was there. It was a public place. She didn't have the right to be bothered, not that it ever would. A part of her wondered he'd wandered off in solitude, but a part of her already knew, the same reason she had come, to wonder about the direction of their lives. Seeing the thestrals was just a bonus.

She didn't ignore him, she was very aware that he was there. She was very aware of things around her, even if she didn't seem to be. She could watch a scene and be seemingly not paying attention at all. It had bothered her professors when she was younger. She could do the work and seemingly pay no attention to the class. She believed what she wanted, came and went as she pleased, acknowledged what she wished, and remembered everything. There wasn't much to say.

Draco and Luna were both pureblooded, but they were so entirely different. They came from different families, though theirs was no doubt mingled somewhere. They all were, but that didn't mean that the families had anything in common. Draco was raised as a subject under a pressure cooker of expected perfection. Luna was left to her own devices. She didn't relate to him, in the same way that he could never relate to her. Pureblood was the only thing that they had in common and what an awkward conversation that would be. 'Does your blood really run blue?' It wasn't anything she wanted to know, so she just sat there, watching the clearing.