Written for The Houses Competition
Head of House Hufflepuff
Category: Additonal
Prompt: Returning home after a long trip
Requirement: Must include Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood within the story
Word count: 1,513
Beta: Aya Diefair
Home is not a place, it's a feeling
~Cecelia Ahern
Luna Lovegood remembered her home. She remembered the dirigible plums swaying in the breeze slightly outside her front door. She remembered painting her ceiling with the faces of her friends. She remembered the happy atmosphere when her mother and father moved around each other doing their own work with brief, happy conversations between them when they encountered each other. She remembered walking outside and down to the stream to catch the Freshwater Plimpies.
She remembered home disappearing as the war came down like a shadow on Britain. Her father tried to keep her home a home, tried to retain a sense of normality and vibrance. It worked, a little. It vanished as soon as the Death Eaters came and took her away, stealing her from her father and her home.
After that, her days were full of caring for Mr. Ollivander and dark walls. The cold surrounded her as she sat in the dungeons underneath the Malfoy's Manor. She had not been dressed for the cold when she had been taken. She had not expected to need anything more than the light summer dress she had chosen for that day.
Still, it could be worse, she thought pragmatically. She wasn't being tortured by anyone apart from a few snide comments and those she could easily brush off. She had had much practice ignoring those who sought to harm her with words while at school and her fellow Ravenclaws had declared her to be Loony Lovegood instantly. It had hurt at first, how quickly her house that was supposed to be her second home turned against her and even aided other houses in ignoring her. But then she returned to her true home after the school year and her father made everything better.
He told her how he had also been ostracised by his housemates in Hogwarts. How he had also gained the title of Loony Lovegood and they had criticized the ingenuity of the students at Hogwarts. Surely they could come up with something new to call a Lovegood other than Loony? He also told her how he met her mother at Hogwarts. How he had lost a journal he kept research in and she had found and returned it.
"Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect," he reminded her. She knew she would find friends and perhaps the home that Hogwarts should have been. As she sat in the cold, dark dungeon belonging to one of her year mates, she could only hope that someday, her first home could return to her.
Draco Malfoy hated what his life had become. He hated how he could no longer walk down the halls in his own house without fearing meeting someone that decided he needed a bit of 'cheering up'. Death Eater he may be, but seeing defenceless people being tortured with the Cruciatus curse was not something he enjoyed.
His home had once been full of light, sun streaming in through large glass windows. Patterns from stained glass laying on the floors. Now there were curtains on nearly every window, only the small ones (of which there were few) were allowed to remain uncurtained. The Dark Lord had no desire to see the sun, he thrived in the darkness.
While his childhood home may not have been filled with careless laughter or other such things that lesser families enjoyed, there had still been an air of love floating around the large building. That aura had been suppressed and suffocated by the darkness and hatred that the Dark Lord exuded. There was certainly no laughter in what had once been his home now. Apart from the cackles that Bellatrix let out when she was enjoying herself immensely in a torturing session.
As Draco skulked around the building he no longer recognised as his, he heard a strange sound drifting up to his ears. Someone was humming lightly, a happy tune. He frowned, he knew no one that would hum a happy tune while in the Manor. The only people here were Death Eaters and prisoners. Death Eaters were not known for their jaunty tunes and prisoners had little to be happy about.
Slowly, he walked down the steps he knew lead to the dungeons, wondering if there was a guard posted to keep the prisoners in check. Draco tried to ignore the things that happened in his current residence and so had no idea who was down in the cells. He supposed he was about to find out. There was no guard, nor was there any light.
He hesitated, whoever was humming had not stopped though they had lowered their volume. He wanted to know who found something happy in this house of horrors, had to know how they could hum happily while they were locked up in a cage. "Lumos."
The light from his wand showed two people and he knew both of them. Mr. Ollivander was sitting against one of the support pillars, looking as though he would die any second. Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw student one year below him, knelt by his side, clasping his hand and humming softly. She looked up as the light hit her and gave him a small, acknowledging smile.
He stared at her as she continued to hum her tune and found himself relaxing slightly. He collapsed against one of the walls outside the cell and listened to Luna hum. He let the light coming from his wand die and sat in silence as he allowed the small spark of joy soak into him. This is what home had once been, his mother humming softly as she sat in the family room reading or playing chess with him or his father. The calm nights had been the best, had been when he felt truly at home and had then been ruthlessly ripped away from him.
The war was over and the battle won. There was no more shadow to try and escape from, it had been banished by the beacon of light that was Harry Potter. Draco Malfoy didn't really care, he just wanted to be home. His home had been lost to him for so very long, for almost three years he had been searching for a way back there and finally a path had opened up to him.
Battle-weary and ready to collapse within the sanctuary of the walls that now once again belonged to his family, Draco made his way up the long path leading to the front door of Malfoy Manor. He didn't go to his room and fall on his bed, nor did he enter the family room that still held so many fond memories.
Instead he made his way down to the dungeon, to the dark place that had held a spark of light. Once again, he laid his head against the cold stone wall and sat in the darkness. In his memory he could still hear the soft tune being hummed from within the cell by a young prisoner who managed to somehow retain some hope. His eyes slid closed and he drifted off into a calm sleep, the likes of which he hadn't had for many years.
He was home again. When he woke up he would wander the halls, trailing his fingers along walls that he had known since he was a child. He would gleefully throw back curtains that had been closed for too long and let the sunlight in. But for now, he would sleep with a slow tune drifting through his mind.
Luna stood in front of her home, wondering if it truly was going to be her home again. It had taken so long for her to find her way back. She had lost this place long before she had been taken and was unable to return until this moment. It looked the same as it always had, the damage caused during Harry, Hermione and Ron's visit having been repaired by her father.
He was standing in the open doorway now, smiling hesitantly at her. She knew that he wondered if she would be able to forgive him for turning in her friends. She also knew there was no way she could not. He was her father, he was her home more than the building in front of her was. She smiled back at him and took a running leap into his arms, laughing joyfully as he spun her around.
Yes, this was home. The embrace of her father was where she belonged. With a small sigh she laid her head on his shoulder and smiled as he held her tighter. Together, they started to hum the tune that her mother had always sung. With each other and that tune, they were both home. After a year of stumbling in the darkness with only a tune to keep them going, they had finally returned to each other. It was the three of them—Luna, her father and her mother—the Lovegood home as it was meant to be.