Draco/Luna. Sort of. Don't ask, it just happened, and I honestly don't know why. Set during DH.

Disclaimer: Don't own. Title borrowed from Vampire Weekend's Exit Music to a Film. Great song.

Please review.

a spineless laugh

Sometimes, when he can't sleep at night, he wanders. And sometimes, when he doesn't pay attention, his feet take him strange places. And, on very rare and inexplicable occasions, he finds himself in the last place he wants to be, carried there by his traitorous legs in a moment of complete and utter detachment.

Nine times out of the ten he's found himself standing in that patch of moonlight, staring at that plain wood door and trying not to see what lies beyond the small, barred window, he walks away.

The tenth time, there are a pair of eyes staring out that small window at him.

"Hullo, Draco," says a dreamy voice and it's like his entire body has lost sensation.

There's only one thing he can do right now and even though he's taking a huge risk and if anyone finds out, he's going to be severely punished, he somehow just can't make himself care.

He approaches the bars and stares blankly at Luna Lovegood. He doesn't know why, but it kills him when she smiles weakly.

"You look worse than I do," she comments, leaning her nose precariously close to the bars, which he knows for a fact pack quite a punch. He gets the sudden, frightening urge to tell her to back away, but still, his mouth, and the rest of him for that matter, is refusing to cooperate with the signals his brain is frantically sending, "You should eat more or something might take up residence in your stomach."

"What sort of something?" he hears his voice ask. Something shifts in the shadows behind her and her smile grows.

"Any number of things," Luna closes those blue eyes and sighs; it's a mystifying and saddening noise, "Your house is very nice," she adds as almost an afterthought, "I only saw three rooms, but they were lovely."

Draco wants to disagree. He wants to tell her that this place—it's not his home, not anymore—is a hell hole. He wants to run away and never come back because he's a coward and he can finally accept that.

"Everything will be alright, Draco," she tells him softly. He looks up, fully aware that there are tears shining on his face, and grimaces.

"How can you say that?" he demands, pressing his hands against the wood on either side of the window and hoping, praying, that if he tries hard enough, he'll be able to reach her, "How can you look at where you are now and believe so blindly—?"

Luna cuts him off, her voice so firm he can barely believe it's her, "Because they can't take that from me."

Impulsively, wildly, he moves to grasp the bars, if only to give himself an anchor. Luna saves him then, letting loose a sharp, soft, "Don't!" and for the first time the feeling is real and now even he can't deny how far his life has spun out of his own control. Draco lifts his eyes to hers, breathing harshly, and he thinks that maybe; possibly, he could fall in love with her.

"Let's run away," he says, his voice hoarse, "Just…go somewhere. Somewhere else. And stay there."

Luna's smile is tragic and somehow, it's not falling into place, "We can't, Draco."

He's shaking so hard he can barely support himself and for a second, as he stares into those big blue eyes, he feels almost as if they're holding each other.

"They will need us," she continues, "before the end."

He collapses, heaping himself at the foot of the door, pressing himself against the wood, pretending he's closer to her than he actually is. But Luna's right and as hopeless as it seems, it's not the end. Not yet.

And until then, he supposes, this thing, this blind belief, will just have to do.

--

That ending sucked. Whatever.

Review, please.