He made his way through the corridors, lit only by the hand of glory he carried.
Everything around him was pitch black.
If he ever stopped to think about it, which he tried very hard not to but the thoughts just creeped in at the most inconvenient times, he felt pitch black inside too.
He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this. He just wanted to go home to the Manor with just his parents and for the Dark Lord and all of that rot to be a nightmare.
But it wasn't.
He walked back and forth across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy three times, and waited for the magical doors to appear. He dragged himself through them, as he did most nights.
This time, instead of finding himself in a cavernous cemetery of rubbish, he stood in a small kitchen, with a sitting room visible through an open doorway.
Luna Lovegood stood over the stove.
"What are you doing, Loony?" He roared.
"Hello, Draco." She smiled. "I'm making cocoa. Would you like some?"
"No, I would not like cocoa!" He shouted. "I would like you … "
He stopped himself mid-rant before he could reveal too much of the real reason he was there.
"Fine." He huffed. "I'll take some cocoa."
She gestured toward the sitting room. "It's almost ready. You can go in there and wait and I'll bring it to you."
He stomped through the doorway and flung himself down on the nearest end of the sofa hoping she would hurry up with whatever she was doing and leave.
A few minutes later, Lovegood placed a tray with two steaming mugs on the low table. There was also a plate of something round and burnt on the edges.
"I tried to make chocolate chip biscuits like my mum used to make." She shrugged. "I ended up making them like my daddy makes. He's not a very good cook, you see."
Draco picked one up, tried to brush off the worst of the black, and took a bite.
It was awful. The cocoa, however, was divine.
"I make it the old fashioned way, melting chocolate into milk." Luna told him from the other end of the couch. "Not the powdered mix and water."
"It's wonderful." He answered honestly.
"It helps me when my mind is racing and I can't sleep." She told him, peering into her cup. "That is why you're here, isn't it? You couldn't sleep, so you came here looking for something interesting since you were already awake?"
"Yeah, something like that." He agreed, not able to tell her the real reason he came to the room.
"I don't blame you, you know." She continued. "For being part of the Inquisitorial Squad. You think you're doing something to make your family proud. You think you're serving the school administration. Sometimes people do the the wrong things for the right reasons, just like sometimes they do the right things for the wrong reasons."
He frowned at her thoughtfully, but she didn't continue the thought.
"Cooking is very much like potions. You have to follow the recipe. Sometimes making little changes can make the end result much, much better, or much, much worse. Like with cocoa. At home, I put a spoonful of Nutella into each cup. I forgot to wish for that when I was walking past the door, so I don't have any here."
"What's Nutella?" He asked.
"It's fantastic." She smiled. "It's like peanut butter, except it's made with chocolate and hazelnuts. You'll have to try it sometime."
"Sounds pretty good." He nodded.
He wasn't sure if it was the cocoa or what, but the anxious tension in his neck and shoulders was beginning to ease.
"I like to experiment with cooking. My father makes plimpy soup. He thinks it's wonderful. It's actually ghastly, but I sneak into the kitchen and add lemon, garlic, and vermouth when he's not looking. It masks the fishy taste. I wonder if he ever cooks it while I'm not there and wonders why it doesn't taste the same."
She prattled on, telling him about the stream near her house where they caught the plimpies, the field where the wildflowers grew in the summer, and the hills she sledded down as a child. He closed his eyes and saw the countryside she described in his mind.
It must have been a combination of the warm milk and her soothing voice, because the next thing he knew, she was gently shaking him.
His eyes fluttered open to find that he was laying on the sofa, with his head in her lap.
"You'd better head back to your dorm now." She smiled. "It's just dawn."
"How can you tell?" He frowned, sitting up. "There aren't any windows in here."
"I just know." She shrugged. "I like this time of the morning. The light and the dark come together to make something beautiful. Like the cocoa. You mix the white milk and the dark chocolate, and it tastes better than either of them alone. I think people are like that too. It takes a combination of light and dark to make them what they should be."
She picked up her bag and walked toward the door. "Goodbye Draco." She called without looking back.
He waited several minutes, so that if anyone were watching, hopefully he wouldn't be seen leaving with her.
He paused on the fifth floor to look out the window, where the sun was just peeking above the horizon. The very edge of the earth was golden, with shades of orange and red extending up into the still violet night sky.
Maybe that's what color his soul was.
Violet.