Author's Note: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.
Written for Screaming Faeries, for the Monthly One Shot Exchange.
Pairing: Barty/Luna. Genre: romance, hurt/comfort. Prompts: (dialogue) "I was ready to go!", (word) Sunrise, (dialogue) "I am what I am.", (word) Wreck
Word count: 664 words
"I was ready to go!" Luna protests behind him, but Barty only shakes his head, blindly seizing her wrist and tugging her along. He ignores her protestations, ignores the steadily strident note her voice is hitting, before he finally pulls her into a room at the top of the Malfoy estate, with the biggest window he's ever seen, facing east.
"Now will you tell me what this is about?" Luna asks. He drops her arm guiltily, nausea roiling in his stomach when he sees the fingerprint-shaped bruise imprinted on the inner flesh of her wrist.
"I'm a wreck," he attempts to deflect with a watery smile, but she stares right back at him. It's her eyes that hold him. They always have, they are twin pools of serenity and he would gladly drown in their depths if it meant he never had to surface into the world again.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I just, I can't-" His words pile up, trapped beneath his tongue. He doesn't deserve her, and he knows he doesn't. He still doesn't know what she sees in him. He's still got his soul, but it's so tattered around the edges, and he can't stop waking up screaming. He knows what lies under a Dementor's hood, and he would give anything to erase it.
"Is it the party?" Luna asks, head slightly tilted, and he nods. Their own engagement party and instead of being down there, mingling with the rest of the guests, he's dragged his future bride away, isolating them both. As usual.
"There's just so many people," he explains, and Luna nods, wrapping her arms around his waist and letting her head drop against his chest, ear pressed to the unsteady thump of his heartbeat.
He's lost, so lost, and he knows that Lucius will be looking for them soon, grey eyes like chips of ice because if there is one thing Malfoy can't abide, it's discourtesy, it's looking rude, and he's done so much for Barty already. All the Malfoys have. They didn't have to take him in after his release from Azkaban, his supposed rehabilitation. They didn't have to call the Healers when he couldn't sleep for a week straight, they didn't have to let Luna, the Healer's assistant, in. He owes them so much, a debt he can never repay.
"You can go down if you like," he whispers into the straggly blonde cloud of Luna's hair, and tries to squash the relief when she shakes her head.
"I would miss you," Luna says. "You'll get better."
"You don't know that," Barty disagrees, head spinning. "I hurt you, Luna, I'm so sorry, I-"
"I know," Luna interrupts. "It was an accident. Trust me, if it wasn't, I would no longer be wearing this." The ring he placed on her finger last month winks back reflected fire. "A little bruise balm will fix it, Barty, I'm all right."
I don't deserve you, he thinks, but doesn't say. He knows the words on his medical file. Post-traumatic stress disorder. He doesn't know if he dreams of Azkaban or Voldemort more. He'd been so young, pressed into the Dark Lord's service- Had he ever been an idealist? Regulus had certainly thought so, but Regulus was long dead, and Luna is nothing like him.
"I am what I am," Luna says serenely, looking up into his face. "And you are what you are. And we're both content with that, aren't we?"
"Yes," Barty admits.
"Then that's all there is to it," Luna says, fingers intertwined with his. "Let's watch the sunrise."
She perches on the windowsill, letting him awkwardly join her, and they sit, watching the sun paint the horizon in watercolour washes of gold and pink and blue.