Angels can't fall for demons, of that Draco is sure. So why does he find himself cradled in her slim arms in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, her lips murmuring soft words of comfort even though she's the one who's captive? Whose arms and legs are chained, whose left cheek is bruised because Bellatrix now holds court in his family's ancestral home, who brutally beat this starlit girl with hair the color of the moon.
But the scratches and scars and bleeding drops of red do little to diminish the warmth of her smile. How she comforts him, arms around his broken body, because he's the weaker one. He's the one who can't stand the world he's in anymore—he is the one who wants to strip the skin from his left forearm, to watch it bleed and fester so he could lacerate the rawness of his torn flesh.
This world is choking him, suffocating him from the inside. It's a cruel irony, Draco thinks, to be trapped in the silver halls he once used to call home; powerless, without strength—a rag doll whose influence only extends as far as the Dark Lord wills it. It's a terrible, fragile realization that seeps through Draco's skin and shatters him, bone, blood, and marrow.
And more often than not, it's during the night that Draco contemplates transfiguring a fallen tree branch or emptied fruit bowl into a blade as sharp and dexterous as the werewolf's teeth. He wants to feel the raw, exhilarating pain of slicing this off, of clawing and tearing and seeing his fingernails stained red with coagulated blood as he continues to slice into his cut and gored skin. Slashing and mutilating the most hideous part of himself until Luna hears his labored breathing and comes to hold him, to chase away the guilt and loathing and touch the ragged, flayed skin on his pale forearm.
He has no pride left.
(He tells himself this, time and time again, for how else can he cope—how can he go on—knowing that his family's prisoner has become his raison d'être?)
No one cares where he goes so long as he remains inside the manor and keeps to himself. Bellatrix is saccharine, his father is unnerved, but his mother is implacable. So long as Narcissa Malfoy can see to her family's safety, she will endure and she will carry on.
She says nothing when, a quarter after midnight, Draco vanishes from his bedroom and does not emerge again until a new faded dawn breaks through the fogged horizon line. She says nothing because it's on mornings like this that Draco resembles the boy he once was.
There is color in his cheeks, purpose in his gait, and his eyes—those silver sharp eyes—are alive with emotion.
Luna, silly girl that she is, calls him her 'dark prince' after he bitterly denounces himself as a hellish fiend worthy of Le Fay's contempt. He brandishes his arm, bringing it close to her face, because even human goodness must have a limit; even she must see that he has been branded slave and serf to a master who will never let him go.
He does his best—truly he does—to frighten her away, to make her leave him. To lessen their attachment to one another.
He knows once the final battle comes, they'll both be on opposing sides. He, to the dark; she to the light. And Draco isn't sure which one will prevail but he hopes that somehow, someway, they'll both turn out all right in the end.
He's not so selfless to wish for his own death but sometimes, he'll wish for eternal peace because (and this is the brutal reality of it all) he's more than selfish.
He's a Malfoy.
"Why won't you ever let me kiss you?" Luna asks in that dreamy, soft way of hers.
They both sit reclined against the dungeon wall, Luna in his lap, and her head pressed against his chest. ("I like to hear your heartbeat," she whispered one midwinter night when temperatures fell below freezing and Draco was surprised that body burned hotter than the stars themselves.)
"Draco," Luna asks again, this time demanding his attention in a way that was both foolish and foolishly brave.
He, in turn, refuses to acknowledge the question and instead, presses a tender kiss to her neck and revels in the simple vanity that she still smells like gardenias and dewdrops, even with bloodspots decorating her shirt collar.
Luna's hands—fragile, beautiful hands that flutter and sway and remind him of the movement of doves—come to press against his cheek. Above, they can hear the shattered glass of Bellatrix's voice and the reciprocating snarls of Fenrir Greyback. He can see them now, witch and predator, stalking the dining hall premises, both coiling with raw, unhinged volatility and he is grateful, so grateful, that he has become Luna's only guard.
The touch of her hand on his lips forces him to look down at her, so he schools his face into a neutral expression, one that's not entirely convincing.
"Please answer me." She breathes, gazing up at him with such simple, unadorned adoration that it breaks something in him.
"Why?" He demands, voice rough from misuse. He has stayed silent for so long that to hear the reverberations of his own voice is a foreign, strange experience.
But then there is Luna, a panacea and a dream and an unattainable smile. She runs her slim fingers through his perfect silvery blonde hair and he wants to beseech her, to ask her to stay, please. It must be madness, he thinks, the last gift of Bellatrix, that he should even think of this impossible request.
Luminous as she with hair the color of the moon, holding him close in this enclave of stone and iron, Draco must remember, the impossibility of it all, the—
"Please Draco," her voice is feather light, "won't you kiss me just once?"
The madness of the moon eclipses his judgement and the three kisses he steals from her are the only memories he chooses to keep, replaying them in his mind again and again until they are worn and threadbare and he can no longer see, in perfect clarity, the moon color of her hair.
It doesn't matter, he tells himself, when the dungeons are empty and she has gone. It doesn't matter because he can still smell the watery fragrance of her perfume—orf gardenias and dewdrops. It will soon fade (he knows this, expects this, is comforted by this) and he will be alone.
But for now, in this moment, as Draco stands near the barred window, it's enough.
A/N: Re-written/edited version of 'Reprieve.'
Feedback appreciated :)