Written for Shipper's Dictionary Challenge/Competition, Fanfiction Marathon Competiton/Challenge, and AU Battle Competition - Sign-ups open. Prompt I used was 'purple'.
Luna let the water stream through her fingers. Her blonde hair was tied back in a dirty purple bandana, and she felt Malfoy's gaze upon her. Luna was only allowed to clean her face and her arms at the current moment. A clean bath would have to wait until The Death Eater came to port and Luna could be watched over by Narcissa Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange, to make sure she didn't run away.
Luna Lovegood was one of the major crew members of The Phoenix Feather, which was captained by Harry Potter himself, son of James Potter, the legendary captain of The Marauders. James Potter and his wife, Lily Evans, known though on the high seas as the Flower of Death based on the fact that after every battle she won, she would leave a single black lily on the ground where she stood.
They had always fought side by side, winning every battle except their last, when they were killed by the dreaded Tom Riddle, who still insisted on being called by Lord Voldemort, the title he had in England before he lost it all after he killed his father, and was forced to come to the Caribbean and had chosen to become the most feared pirate in it.
The Potter's had been killed when Harry was only a year old, and Harry forced to leave the sea, to go to England to be raised by his mother's sister. But when Harry was eleven, he snuck onboard a ship and came back to the place that was always calling to him, and rose just as fast and just as prominent as his father with his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron's little sister Ginny joined them soon enough, as did Neville Longbottom, whose parents had served under James, and Luna herself.
"What are you doing, Lovegood?" she heard a seemingly bored drawl say behind her. "Clean yourself off. Then again, it's not surprising that you don't know how to do that considering you are a part of Potter's crew."
Luna sighed. She never really allowed herself to get mad, especially when she was in enemy hands, waiting for her friends to rescue her. But sometimes, some people could push her buttons hard enough where she could feel that slow lick of anger in her belly.
This was one of those times and Draco Malfoy was one of those people.
"I don't care," she said. "I truly don't."
"Really?" Malfoy asked. "I'm surprised. You would think that a woman would care about cleanliness."
"You're wrong," she said, her voice nearly a whisper. "All a woman really cares about is freedom."
She heard nothing but silence behind her, and just when Luna was thanking God for giving her something that had shut Malfoy up, he spoke again.
"Why are you with Potter?" he asked. "Why did you throw your hat in someone who will fail?"
"You don't know that," she responded.
"You don't know that he won't."
Luna shrugged. "If we fail, if we don't stop your captain who is an awful man, make no mistake, then someone else will take up the mantle. And if they fail, someone else after them. You act like we're the end, but in reality, we're just the beginning."
For a minute, Draco said nothing.
"How can you be so hopeful?" he asked finally.
Luna shrugged. "I just am."
She turned to look into his eyes. She remembered a book that had been passed around the ship, a terrible romance novel filled with florid descriptions. Everyone had laughed at it, but Luna knew that everyone had also read it from front to back. One description had always stuck out to her, one that been used to describe the leading hero.
He had eyes the color of frozen moonlight.
Draco had the same.
"You can be more than this ship," she told him. "You can be more than you ever thought."
She held out her hand.
She didn't know if he would take it. She didn't think he would.
And, yet, he did.