A/N: This kind of relies upon pieces of my headcanon, so here's a bit of a justification-explanation combo. Given how interconnected pureblood wizarding society is and how alike Luna and Draco look (and the fact that their similarities are recessive genetically), the chance that they are closely related is fairly high. Given their involvement in the war, Lucius should at least have his political power restricted and I think they should be wary of having the Malfoy lordship go to Draco. However, I also think the rather medieval and patriarchal wizarding world would only accept a woman as the head of a noble house in interim, at least until massive social change had been effected (here's hoping).
Also, I decided to experiment with flashbacks so as to explore a broader timeframe and see whether or not it works for me. If you have any thoughts regarding how it turned out (or about anything else), please let me know.
"Luna!" Her father's voice called up the stairs. "You have a visitor!"
The young witch tightened her arms around her pillow before sitting up and wiping the sleep from her eyes. After she had finished chronicling the morning, she had decided to lay down and daydream and had eventually dozed off. After stifling a yawn and glancing reflexively at her mirror, she made her way out of the room, running her fingers along the picture frames as she did so. With everybody caught up in rebuilding efforts or politics or work, she hadn't been seeing as much of her friends as she'd have liked. She made a mental note to suggest a get-together in her next letter to Harry. Perhaps they could all go on a picnic.
"Oh, hello Dean," she said, not feeling even the faintest hint of surprise, when she saw the wizard sitting at the table with her father. Dean was the one friend who she was seeing more regularly rather than less. She had noted with mild interest how peculiarly frequently he visited, just to chat with her. Luna supposed that that was what it felt like to have a best friend, someone whom you could talk to and trust above anyone else and who always made you feel lighter and bouncier.
"Hello Luna. Have a nice morning?"
"It was wonderful. You should tell me about yours first though or else we may never get around to it."
Luna listened with rapt attention as Dean recounted his day at Auror training and the escapades that some of his fellow trainees had gotten up to on an obstacle course that Moody used to run recruits through. They were paired up and had to make their way through the course and had a number of objectives to achieve, such as getting passed all creatures they found, remaining undetected by the spectres that were charmed to go to any disturbance, entering and exiting the course within a set timeframe, and reaching the colourful stones that were meant to represent vital information or some other desirable object. It had been the first time in a long time that they had done a practical session and Ron and Seamus had, a little too eager to prove their ability to blast through anything they came across, run straight through the course without trying to keep hidden and had been ambushed and overwhelmed by a pack of hyenas. Having failed their mission, a doorless enclosure sprung up around them to keep them there. Of course, being Gryffindors, they had decided to blast through the enclosure and finish the mission anyway. Their trainer, Stacey Warwick, hadn't been quite sure what to do with them and so had decided to take a large number of points off them for failing but give them extra points for creatively soldiering on anyway.
-ll-
He picked up a fallen leaf and pulled apart the frail leaves absently, trying to pick the stem clean. "I think I'd like to be a professor or work on education reform. Not decrees, of course; we've had enough of those to last a lifetime."
"I could see you teaching DADA or Transfiguration." Luna put the rubbish inside the basket before moving it away from the blanket. Lifting her hair above her head, she lay down before letting the long blonde tendrils spread out behind her, their tips resting among the blades of grass.
"I'm not sure if I could go back to Hogwarts, though. Too many memories, too many people lost. I know there have always been ghosts there, but it's felt haunted ever since the battle."
"What will you do, then?"
He sighed before laying down beside her, a new leaf in his hand to mangle. "I haven't studied much this past year. There's no way I'd be able to test out of the subjects I'd need. I was thinking of taking up the Minister's offer and then using that experience to get into a professors' college. That'd be two years. So I could be a professor in three. The only thing is that it'd be a much longer path to reform than if I just suck it up and finished the year. So I guess it depends on what I want to do."
"Longer paths can be more enjoyable; there's more to see. We want change as soon as possible, but sometimes it's better to cook your rice slowly."
Dean grinned. "And what are you going to do with your brilliance?"
"Nobody except Daddy and Professor Flitwick have ever called me brilliant before," Luna answered, smiling shyly. It was strange to hear that kind of casual, genuine compliment from someone her age. "I'm returning. None of the overtly nastiest people will be there and I like learning. Besides, Professor Slughorn warned us that the courts were considering giving me lady regentship if Lucius Malfoy goes to prison, depending upon what they think of Draco. I suppose I should take it if they suggest it and it would probably shame the House or something if I hadn't finished school."
"Some Houses deserve to be shamed."
"Some members, perhaps, but my mother was born a Malfoy and I rather think I should do it for her. She'd like for someone neutral-light to take over the House and change things."
"Lady Regent Malfoy. You're going to become one of those pompous court-goers, aren't you? Like Ernie Macmillan or Theodore Nott?"
Hidden from his sight, her hand raked up some nearby leaves and threw them at him.
-ll-
"What about you?" Dean asked.
Luna smiled with such earnestness that her two companions smiled back without even knowing what she was happy about. "I had the most amazing morning. I saw some gillards at a distance and embarked on a quest to find them."
"That is excellent news, dear! Gillards are most peculiar creatures. Did you succeed with your expedition?" her father interjected eagerly. He had come across gillards once over the summer when he was a boy and had always hoped that Luna might one day have that joy too.
"I did. They let me play with them for hours."
"What are gillards?" Dean asked.
"They're small, leaping half-bird, half-possum beings who love to be mischievous and play."
"They sound fascinating," Dean said.
-ll-
Luna hummed as she explored the garden. She could have sworn that she had seen a pair of gillards leaping around earlier and she was determined to find them. They were rather friendly creatures but dwelled in areas far removed from wizarding civilisation in order to retain their privacy. Lolloping around human areas usually meant that they were more adventurous or in the mood to play. She hoped it were the latter; she could learn so much about them if that were the case.
The young witch finally spotted their fluffy maroon fur set against the lush grass. Resisting the urge to laugh and run to them, she lightly tread across the green expanse until she reached where the little flying creatures lay on the ground.
"Hello? My name is Luna."
The creatures' eyes slowly opened, both evidently too confident in their ability to ward off predators to be concerned with her presence. "I am Glor*n. This is my sister J*lyn." He spoke in lilting Avish, making the click sound that was often used in gillardic names, and Luna could see the hint of a challenge in his eyes.
She hadn't spoken Avish in a while, so she considered pronunciation carefully before saying in the language of the birds, "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Luna Lovegood, Lady Regent of House Malfoy. Welcome to my home. Our skies are yours to roam."
Both creatures perked up. Her Avish was rusty and sounded a little laboured, but it was infinitely better than the nothing that most humans had learned. The fact that she also knew customary avian formal welcomes was even more intriguing. They had come to play with an interesting-looking human and had felt led to this country household, but had never expected this. "We thank you," J*lyn said. "Our excrement shall be directed elsewhere. May your land be plentiful." She glanced at her brother before turning back to Luna. A grin slowly spread across her face before she said with discernable excitement, "Do you want to play?"
-ll-
Luna skipped back to her house after parting company with the delightful little ground-birds. Their games were a refreshing mixture of childlike innocence and adult complexity and she wanted to record them all before she could forget any detail. She supposed that she could ask Professor Flitwick to lend her his Pensieve so that she could take more detailed notes, but she didn't want to have to wait until he had returned from his trip to visit family to be able to start dissecting their behaviour.
Calling out a quick greeting to her father and a promise to tell him about her morning later, Luna made her way to their potions kit and found an empty vial. Pointing her wand at her temple, she replicated the memory of the sunny morning before nonverbally casting the Collection Charm and drawing the silvery wisps of memory solidified out of her temple and into the vial. She stoppered it before going to her room to put it away safely and start to record her immediate feelings and memories. It would be good to be able to compare her current and future perceptions, at least.
-ll-
Dean was polite and as engaged an audience as one could want as he listened to her explain another of her creatures. However, that was precisely the only problem she had when talking to him. They were always just that: her creatures, not his or theirs. She wished that he could have the same belief in them that she did, if not the same enthusiasm. It was a small enough gripe when one considered that he was one of the few people who did not only humour her but enjoyed doing so for good-natured reasons, but knowing that he thought she was clever and sane but incorrect still irked her. Still, she told him about it, because it was nicer to be talking with Dean than it was to not be talking with him. It was all a game of relatives; relative to the other conversations they could be having about which they were equally passionate, she found it rather lacklustre, but relative to silence or her spending the afternoon managing the Malfoy estate, she preferred to tell him about things he didn't quite believe in. She didn't know what he thought gillards actually were if he believed her sane enough to be able to distinguish seen reality from fiction but incorrect enough to not know that they did not exist. Honestly, she didn't like to spend too much time wondering whether he thought she was mistaking a magically enchanted animal for a sentient being or was delusional.
Their conversation faltered at the sound of a knock at the door.
"Another guest!" Xenophilius exclaimed joyfully. "We don't get many other guests, do we, Luna? It's just you and sometimes Harry or Ginny, Dean. They're Luna's friends too, you know."
"They're his too, Daddy," Luna reminded him as she left the room. Her thoughts were still on her concern for her father's further deteriorating mental health when she opened the door to find Theodore Nott on the other side. "Oh, hello. We weren't expecting more company."
"Is your father home? I have come to speak with him on a private matter."
"Do come in." Luna idly noted that he didn't bother with formalities. She had neglected her share of them over the past few months in order to maintain her completely airy image, and certain members of the court, especially those who had gone to school with her, had started to do the same in response. It was entirely improper of Theodore but she supposed that everybody expected impropriety from and around her. "Daddy, Lord Theodore Nott is here to speak with you. Perhaps you'd like to take him to the study. Let us know if there is anything you need."
Luna registered both Dean and Theodore's surprise when they saw the other, the former looking awkward and the latter suspicious. It was short-lived, though, as Xenophilius took Luna's hint and escorted the newcomer to his study.
-ll-
They met outside Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. It was the third Hogsmeade weekend of the year and the first that he had managed to get off from Auror training, so they had agreed to spend the morning wandering the small village together and then join some other friends for lunch. Luna hugged him before sighing. "They chose me to be Head of House Malfoy."
"I heard about that. Congratulations. Hello to you too, by the way."
"Yes. Hello. I'm honestly not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. Things can conceal themselves so well sometimes, can't they? It's rather curious; I wonder how they got so good at it. Where was I? Oh yes, I'm not sure whether or not I like it. I think Draco is regretful and means well, but it's better me than him, I suppose. However, it means that I'll have to deal with social customs and niceties and petitions and all of those things that I've feigned ignorance of for the last six years."
"You'll do great."
"I'll manage. I just wish I could boycott everything but decision-making. At least Harry and Neville are lords too; it would be horrid without them."
-ll-
They had moved onto discussing some of the recent legal changes by the time that Xenophilius and Theodore emerged from the study. Luna looked to her father for some kind of indication of what had transpired before, then, noting that he was, rather unhelpfully, focused on watching Dean intensely, looked to Theodore, who looked completely perplexed. She hoped that her father hadn't been too overwhelming.
"Lady Regent Malfoy," Theodore said, apparently suddenly remembering decorum. "May I walk with you?"
Luna glanced back at her father before turning to face Dean as she stood. "Excuse me, Dean. Please don't forget that thought – write it down if you must – it was quite scintillating." She followed the ex-Slytherin outside with some trepidation that lingered until she sensed the familiar presence of nargles. She refrained from looking around for them due to her company but felt relieved by their presence nonetheless.
"You look lovely today."
"Thank you. I've been out looking for gillards."
"Indeed. Lady Regent Malfoy, I came here today for a reason."
"Most people generally do."
"I had a question for your father. I wanted his permission to court you." He paused, leaving her time to digest the information but appearing, in Luna's opinion, unsatisfied with her general lack of apparent surprise. "He said that it was your decision." A hint of a smirk briefly crossed his face before he schooled his expression into one of earnestness. "He also said that I had better impress the nargles if I wanted a chance. Is that true?"
"Nargles are very good at reading people," Luna allowed. Although she knew that he wanted and expected an answer, she refused to say any more without prompting. She knew what his real feelings were towards the nargles and her father and had too many bad memories of him to be eager to make this any easier for him.
"Er…" he said, finally breaking his verbal control and lowering himself to ask her directly. "May I court you?"
-ll-
Luna felt bombarded in the first few outings she made after accepting her title. It were as if she were honey that all the bees were clamouring for, although to say that would be entirely too lenient regarding their true intent with her. She was aware that the various young pureblood men from the ancient families that approached her all had a common goal that was not at all to do with her and entirely to do with her position. Witches weren't allowed to be the Head of a Noble House permanently; their role was either to be complementary to their lord husband or to act as regent until a male heir was produced. Everybody was well aware that Luna and Draco were the last of the House of Malfoy and expected her to be focusing on rectifying that issue immediately. Luna, however, wasn't interested. Being a young and well above average witch who was being heralded as a war hero, the only real threat posed to her was that one of her uncle's men might come after her so that the title would defunct to her cousin. However, she would be even more susceptible to that if she did hurriedly marry and have a child. Despite her sense of obligation to take the role for her mother, Luna would rather let the family name disappear entirely than marry someone whom she would have to continue casting her web of deception over. She didn't want to have to play delusional with her husband, nor did she want to complicate decision-making by adding in another uncontrollable element.
-ll-
He looked utterly taken aback at her answer. He had been the first one to actually inquire about courtship, but it wasn't very flattering to know that he obviously thought her desperate enough or power-hungry enough to need to say yes so quickly. "Thank you for the offer," she said in an attempt to lessen the blow; she didn't want to make a political enemy of him, after all, even if they would remain on different sides of debates. "However, I must listen to the nargles."
This time, he didn't bother to hide his look of disgust. Accordingly, she turned and flounced off towards the house without bothering with the proper courtesies. She could deal with that if he followed her, although she rather suspected he wouldn't.
-ll-
Theodore hadn't been happy when his mother suggested he ask permission to court Loony Lovegood. He had always expected an arranged political marriage and so was accustomed to the idea, but had at least expected his wife to be fully there mentally. The worst part was that he couldn't really argue against the idea because it made sense. She was a regent and needed a male heir. She was airy and went whichever way the wind took her and whoever married her would have a very good opportunity to both instil his values in their children and sway her decisions until a son came of age. He had been so focused on whether or not to accept her that he'd genuinely never considered the possibility of her not accepting him; after all, she was the one who desperately needed the heir.
-ll-
"What happened?" Dean asked as she entered the kitchen.
"He wanted to court me," she said offhandedly, not noticing that Dean suddenly seemed unable to find anywhere comfortable to put his hands. "I don't expect him to come back inside, Daddy; he didn't really appreciate that I said no. Or even respond to it, really."
"Was it the nargles?" her father asked.
"Partially. They didn't like him and I couldn't marry anybody who didn't have their approval; that'd just be inviting trouble. Also just because of how entitled and arrogant he was. I'd rather let the name run out than have him raise my children."
"What would make the nargles approve?" Dean asked, brow furrowed in concentration.
"It's hard to say. They're just like people, you know, in that you never know who they'll click with. It's really a combination of traits and motives and things." She paused, unsatisfied at her inability to provide a more definitive answer. However, nargles could be unpredictable; they liked their mischief too and might approve of somebody who you really wouldn't be good friends with just to see how long you tried to befriend that person or because they thought it would be funny. Still, they were awfully good at detecting hidden motives and deeply concealed strengths or flaws. She had spent many a day talking to them about people's personalities and what made them who they are. "Although they do tend to prefer people who talk to them rather than condescend the people who do. Not that surprising, really."
"But they're invisible. How can people talk to things they can't see, hear or even detect?"
"They're only invisible to those who don't believe in them. They do sometimes talk to people who don't in order to mess around with them or do something they feel is really important, but that's the general rule. Once you believe in them, you can see and hear them."
"And once you can see and hear them, you can get to know them and get them to know you and they're more likely to like you. It's just that it all comes down to believing. Kind of like with the fairies in Peter Pan."
"Peter Pan?"
"Muggle children's book. You might like it. It has a line where somebody says that every time a child says they don't believe in fairies a fairy dies."
"That's horrible!"
"Yeah. Yeah, it is. If you believe in them. So they're rather like nargles. Stuff happens depending upon whether or not you believe in them."
"Yes?" Luna asked, unsure where this was going.
"Will you help me, then?"
"Any time?"
"Make me believe. I wouldn't mind befriending these nargles."
Luna glanced at her father, still not sure what Dean meant and not liking her uncharacteristic inability to read the situation. Her frustration only increased when she saw her father smiling knowingly at Dean. "You can't just make somebody else believe in something…"
"I don't suppose it's easy. But I want to, don't I? And you're the Ravenclaw so you're the smart one, so I also know you're more likely to be right about this than I am. So I have to already be halfway there then, don't I? Make me believe in nargles, Luna Lovegood."