Before her extended stay in Malfoy Manor, Draco couldn't confess to knowing Luna Lovegood all that well. He knew her as 'Loony' of course—he'd seen her around Hogwarts after all, usually with the annoying Weasley girl, sometimes wandering alone—but he'd never really had a conversation with her.
Seeing her in the Manor was something else entirely. Aunt Bella had pulled no punches—not that she ever did—but Luna, the girl he knew as scatter-brained and ridiculous, took it all with a kind of quiet dignity that was…unexpected. It was the sort of reaction he would expect from his mother, he supposed. Seeing it from her was jarring.
She didn't cry either, so far as he could tell. The first few days they had her, he sneaked down in the middle of the night and stood outside the door, listening to the stories she told Ollivander about (probably non-existent) strange creatures. She wanted to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, she said; even Newt Scamander hadn't managed to find one of those. Draco had snorted and gone back upstairs, but the quiet lilt of her voice and the conviction of her words wouldn't leave him alone, so he found himself there the next night—and the next.
A week later, he sneaked down, but no one was speaking. He could hear Ollivander's quiet, snuffling snores and Dean Thomas' heavy breathing; but nothing of Luna.
Draco waited for a moment, his heart thudding in his ears. Had Aunt Bella taken her? They were still waiting to hear something from Luna's father; had that news come already?
"Nargles live in mistletoe, you know," she said in the darkness, her voice soft so as not to wake the others. It was loud enough for Draco; he fancied she was pressed up against the door just like he was, to sound so close. "They like to steal little things, like paper or shoes—they don't mean anything by it, it's just they're mischievous and get carried away. It's in their nature. If you want to stop them doing that, you need trinkets. Like this."
There was a gap in the top of the door that was barred, but Draco caught the object she pushed through it, turning it over in his hands. It was a necklace, he thought, one made of what seemed to be Butterbeer corks. He stared at it, bemused, but when he looked back up, she was looking through the gap at him.
"It's not magical as such," she said, "But it should keep you safe from the nargles."
Draco couldn't look away, even as she smiled at him like there was none of this between them, this massive gulf that one or the other was bound to fall into. He choked on his words at first.
"Thank you," he said finally. He couldn't quite apologise, though he wanted to.
Luna's smile only brightened. "You're welcome."
Author's Note: Written for the dl_drabbles comm on LiveJournal, for the prompt: dignity.
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