Le Lune et La Dragon
She was the moon, soaring high into the night sky. He was her dragon, lifting her higher and higher.
…
She's no longer who she had once been.
She wears her dead mother's old battered combat boots like armor, and wears blood red lipstick like a mask.
She likes to imagine that she's all grown up now, not dead because she is very much alive instead. She's no longer pretending the world's a good place now, because it isn't. It's rotting to the core with war and hate and death. She feels smarter now, because her body isn't frigid with death, buried deep in the cold ground. It's not decomposing into nothing, because she is living and breathing and hurting with an ache that will never disappear.
Never.
Life is different now, but she isn't too surprised. War changes a lot of things.
She's no longer the strange little lunatic living in a world that she created, but instead she's distinguished herself as a brave war hero, because now her ears will never hear again, because she had taken the curse that had been directed to the Boy Who Lived.
His life was too important. She had been too expendable.
Though now, none of that ever matters. Not anymore.
Deep inside her, there still is a scared little girl too afraid to leave the shadows to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. Until then she'll watch the dark night skies, picking out the grouping of stars that create Draco and mourn every night in harsh silence
Some nights she screams her throat raw and bloody, but mostly she just cries.
No matter what she acts like now, she still is a little girl waiting for her hero to save her. He just never comes.
…
She loved him, once.
He was the hero in every story, with bright green eyes like poison and a wide lethal innocent grin.
She had sought him out so many times, when the loneliness had grown far too much for her to tolerate. Every time she had found him, he had been ever so silent, standing rigid. She never noticed, of course. She had thought that just maybe he could see beneath the insecurities and fears-the real her.
Hidden away so deep within, she felt like she was dying.
She should have known, of course. She had been nothing more than a foolish little girl that believed in princes and dragons and happy ever afters.
But now she knows the truth.
Even heroes can lie and pretend and break hearts like they are nothing at all.
The sad truth of it all had been that was all her heart had been.
Nothing.
He had smiled weakly at her, once. Right after his Godfather's death. (The same Godfather she had watched die as well, with nothing more than a wand jabbed at her throat, and several bloody cuts curtsy of well-aimed slicing hexes. Harry had said nothing about them afterwards, having ignored them.)
She had been wandering through the silent halls in search of her belongings. Her shoes, her books, her Ravenclaw tie and her only picture of her mother. They had spoken softly-or rather she had spoken and he had ignored.
He broke her heart oh so easily when he left numbly, never looking back. She had, of course. She looked back several times because everyone knew seven was the lucky number. She loved him.
He had just never loved her back.
Tragic, maybe. But life through and through.
…
When she had been younger, she had always wanted to spiral high in the sky, climbing higher and higher into the glorious shining sky, with the moon she had been named for gliding beneath her finger tips, and stars dancing around her.
She had never been allowed to ride a broom though, of course. Her father had forbidden it. After all, if she had hurt herself after her mother's untimely death, he would and could never forgive her. (Everyone knew Luna's mother died of suicide. Even her daughter knew.)
(After all, she had watched it happened.)
It was after the horribleawfulunfortunate accident, she remained grounded. Rooted firmly on the ground, buried so deep within nightmares and misery she was suffocating. Some days she felt as if she was buried alive within a coffin, trapped and no longer able to breathe because she was dying.
Once she goes to Hogwarts like every other eleven year old, she treks up to one of the towers, and suspends herself above everything, with one hand gripping the railing, as she leans as far out over the edge as possible. Watching and waiting in silence. Sometimes, she wishes her hand would slip.
Maybe then she could greet the sky with open arms before greeting the ground in an endless embrace.
…
She had met him in the girl's loo, of all places. Everyone knew it was her hiding place, after all.
Moaning Myrtle had been lurking nearby him, her face beaming as he whispered his turmoil. His eyes had turned red from never ending tears and his hands trembled from pain and misery. His tears had scorched their way down his face, like her own had so many times.
She had stood in silent surprise, watching him. Like a pale statue, melting into nothing, before she spoke. It had been soft, yet it never failed to create a ghost of an echo. "Are you alright?" She had briefly wondered, listening to the sounds bounce off the walls, if it was true the chamber of secrets had been hidden away behind these very walls.
He had whirled around at her, face twisted in rage. Whipping out his wand, she had caught sight of the dark ink staining his arm. "Get out of here, Lovegood!" He had screamed at her, voice hoarse from pain and misery and life.
So she had left, leaving behind an entire box of tissues. Horribly Muggle, but he had appreciated them.
She held nothing against him. She just felt bad for him, of course.
…
She now spends her lonely days gazing up at the cracked and worn ceiling, and watching the ghosts in the walls. Her Father spirit lurks in the house, after being executed in public for his crime. Her mother still hides in the walls, darting from shadow to shadow, still waiting for the fateful explosion that stole away her life.
Even in afterlife, her mother does not smile.
A small bouquet withers away onto the floor from where she threw it, red rose petals fading to a sickly grey. Her mother's smiles had been the same way. Bright and everlasting, before they became more frail and rare. The redredred roses had been a gift from Harry, of course. He had unsurprisingly finally came to his guilt and given her thanks, in remorse of her loss of hearing. No one dares to mention her father.
She doesn't mind though, being deaf. She no longer hears the school girls mock her, because most are dead. Those who scream at her that her father deserved death fade to nothing. Her mother killed herself. In her nightmares, she no longer can hear the deadly explosion because she can no longer hear because she is deaf.
She can still see evil and pain, of course. But it isn't so bad.
She can just no longer hear it. It's better that way.
…
Draco is a convict now.
They want him dead, because he was forced to take the mark by his father. He had never killed anyone ever. (Dumbledore was Snape's doing, after all). He is wanted for death, no matter the past that everyone hides from, and no matter the future that everyone fears.
She remembers, though. She remembers the past. She cowers and embraces the misery it brings. She remembers the good, long evenings. She had felt so light, drifting in the sky like the smoke from the Muggle cigarettes Draco smoked in the unused towers. The soft melodies of Mozart and Bach mingled with the smoke. She had used her Muggle CD player she had used as a Rune project to create a Muggle Based object that would work effectively in a Magic Environment.
Draco had scoffed of course, but Luna would just point to the cigarettes and he would hush. Those moments were made for sweet silence, where nothing would be said and no one would say anything.
She had been twirling her hair from where she had been perched on a railing, Draco leaning against the stone wall. He had leaned over one evening, turning the dial down slowly, muting the music. The Golden Rule had been broken then, and silence had been shattered.
He had spoken roughly, but softly. "We are all born, owing a death. Some just pay for it sooner than later."
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He wordlessly turned the dial, allowing the rich sounds of classical music to flow free.
He had been right. He owes death, and she owes death. Everyone owes, but not everybody is paying.
Death has to wait, because Draco is running still for freedom and escape, and Luna is still living and breathing and hurting with an ache that will never disappear.
…
Harry visits her, of course. He uses sloppy sign language, communicating occasionally. Mostly, it's his chicken scratch against Muggle Paper. It reminds her of Draco's impeccable handwriting.
He asks her to leave this house of nightmares, because she's destroying herself. He is casting deliberate glances at the shadowy form of her father drifting out of sight. His hand signing is slow and deliberate, but her fingers race to speak for her. When she signs, it's a blinding display of emotion buried within.
She is living and grown, and is never going to die because she is not ready.
A small bloody lip stick smile like knives and Harry leaves. He does not understand what she says, because he simply cannot.
He had told her, weakly signing, that he loved her.
The thing was that she just didn't love him back.
…
She misses Draco.
It's eating her alive, as she wanders through the house. The silence smothers her, but it's alright. Her boot clad feet slip over old newspapers of her father's. Skirts around overturned chairs. Avoids blood stains. Her mother hides from her, a ghostly image of her twisted in fear.
She cannot stop thinking of him and them and everything in between.
She smokes like had, watching the smoke spiral higher and higher. It's a tragic and sad, and leaves her missing him even more than she had before. She longs to be like smoke, escaping through cracks and holes and into the sky so high above.
She wants to embrace the moon and break away free from restrictions and laws and chains and expectations and everything else that holds her down. She had been named for the moon and he for the stars.
She pretends that because of their namesakes, their lives will forever be intertwined for eternity. It's foolish, of course. Stupid as ever. But she cannot help it.
She cries livid tears because she is bound to the ground, and he is racing free.
Her name is Luna Lovegood. A mere ghost of a girl that once was, but now is a hollow shell. She was forgotten but now forsaken, and she was abandoned and now alone as ever. She loved a boy, but fell in a deeper more true love for a man. She can no longer hear.
It is a tragic story with a tragic beginning and what will soon be a tragic ending, which will be soon to end.
…
She drinks hot cranberry tea that warms her to the core. It burns her tongue and scorches her throat. Her hands burn from the mug's touch, but all that matters is that it makes her feel.
She thinks, in the hollow silences. She remembers, in the bitter moments. Poor Ginny Weasley, stabbing Lord Malfoy to death over and over and over, before someone blasts her head of her shoulders. She remembers Cho Chang, her main tormenter, guts ripped out of body and strewn out over the floor. Lavender Brown with one eyes gorged out, and her left leg ripped free.
Every death melts into a turns into a never ending memory, with bloody hands and wide eyes, lethal spells and deadly hexes.
She remembers, though. She remembers pale, clean hands casting shields. She remembers calculating grey eyes, seeking to get to her. But she had intersected the curse that rendered her deaf.
It had been the last time she had seen Draco, and she loathed it.
Deafness is not a horrible price to pay. You no longer hear regrets.
…
Hermione had visited her once. Her gaunt frame bent over a cane, maneuvering her way through the wreckage. The house had been falling down around her for weeks, she had just never noticed until an intruder entered the fortress she had made. Broken windows and shattered tea cups made her home.
Her fingers and hands and body had been weak, her sign language hard to decipher. Her fingers trembled as she managed to create her words, pleading with the girl.
You are a hero. Why do you hide?
Luna scoffs as Draco had done to her Muggle music. She sighs, and her fingers are burdened with the task of signing.
I wish to remain.
Hermione's eyes narrow, and shaking her head slowly she works on her reply.
Your eyes are sad.
Only for self-loathing.
Hermione leaves the way she came in, tormented by the past.
Luna knows there is a knife in the kitchen. She has been sharpening it carefully for days and weeks and months. A tragic ending for a tragic beginning.
…
Perhaps that tragic ending will never come. Or at least, not yet.
Her window had flown open, and Draco had been perched on a broom. He had been grinning like a he was the odd cat having caught the canary (a strange and confusing Muggle Term she had heard Hermione say to Ronald once, long ago. When Ronald had been still alive, of course.).
His fingers had serenaded her, whispering softly to her. She remembers the smoke and the tears and Mozart, and is given the careful spelled out words of come with me.
Comewithmecomewithmecomewith mecomewithme.
She grins, and everything fades. He is everything and she lost him once. She fell into a world of misery and tragedy (she hateshateshates the word tragedy.)
Take me to the moon, she signs.
She climbs behind him, hands locked around him safely. Her home is a ruin, roof partially caved in, a knife lying so innocently on her bed and dead rose petals at her dead parent's feet, and tears burning through the memories left behind.
This is her past.
The moon and the stars are her future.
She was the moon, soaring into the sky. He is the dragon, lifting her higher and higher.
And this is that. No more writers block. Lot of issues and things going oh so wonderfully wrong right now as always, so I decided to write something. So. Luna's mom offed herself. Luna's deaf. Draco isn't so bad. Stupid background characters. Lots of dead people.
The reason for the pairing? Luna means moon, Draco is a constellation of stars. I liked it.
Draco's little saying 'all owing a death' is from my history teacher. I liked it, and wanted to make a story around it. Key words were tragedy, sky, and silence. I got a few stories I'm working on, and I recently added another one. Setting Sun, a Malfoy centric fanfic.
One more Luna and Draco fanfiction in the works, called of Liars and Pretenders.
Read and Review?