Everyone knew that Luna was quite, unnecessarily unusual. I use the term unnecessarily, because it was completely unnecessary. I remembered her at school, as she walked along the corridors, her attention elsewhere, her lips stretched across her teeth. Her smile never quite reached her vacant, silvery eyes. She stared a lot, a hell of a lot. She didn't seem to understand that her penetrating, misty gaze was quite enough to make even the most self-assured man crumble into bits. But I don't think she ever realised it.

I saw her three years after the Dark Lord was defeated, and the wizarding world was still in recovery from the destruction and desecration of the ministry and Hogwarts, not to mention all of their teachers and students. Children were being born into this new era; couples were flocking to be wed. I knew that Weasley had married that mudblood, Granger; I had seen a particular sickening report in the marriage section in the Daily Prophet earlier that year. The quote from Ron had also claimed how happy he was to announce that the Chosen One himself had proposed to his younger sister, and it was apparent that Potter would be marrying the Weasley girl sometime in the future, too. I had seen Potter already, strutting through the ministry one day like he was someone special, on his way to the new and improved Department of Mysteries. I wasn't sure what his post-Hogwarts job was, but it was something better and apparently more impressive than what I was doing. I was trying, and failing miserably and repeatedly, to get a job within the ministry. Everybody knew where my ties had previously lied, and no one seemed to want to have anything to do with me.

It seemed that everyone was feeling good after the end of Lord Voldemort. Banners had hung from windows and flags fluttered in gardens, people were throwing street parties – still, three years after it had all happened. It was embarrassing, really. I was sure that I was the only one who felt so bitterly miserable after He was conquered. I wasn't miserable because he was defeated, no. I was merely embarrassed at my own stupidity to have linked myself with Voldemort, I was angry with my mother and father for having stooped to the level of becoming Death Eaters and bringing me up in the darker part of the wizarding world. Most of all, I hated Harry Potter, because he got all the fame and glory, even more so after he brought down Voldemort, and now I was the one left, bitter and struggling in the world after Hogwarts, with most of my family and friends either uncomfortable about keeping ties with me, or rotting in Azkaban.

It was the 6th of August, three years after my seventh and final year at Hogwarts, that I saw Luna Lovegood in London.

I didn't realise it was her at first. I was sat outside at a coffee shop, sipping my espresso delicately. I'd had a particularly hard week, and I was trying to take my mind of things by allowing myself to relax a little – when I spotted this beautiful blonde woman walking down the street. It was like everyone else tuned into greyscale; she was the only one I could see. Her hair was half-tied up in a ponytail, the rest flowing down her back and over her shoulders in slightly straggly waves. It was still the same dirty blonde colour, but it seemed a bit lighter, somehow. Her eyes were focused directly forwards, wide and as silvery as ever. Her eyelashes were thick and her make-up was soft, not overdone. She was wearing a muggle suit (which was of course appropriate as we were in the middle of muggle London), made up of a knee length skirt and matching jacket in a pinstripe pattern. She had on dark stockings and those heeled shoes. I've never understood why muggle women wear them, but Luna looked great in them. She seemed to have grown about five inches.

Before I could stop myself, I found myself rising in my chair and calling out, "Luna!"

She stopped in her tracks; I saw her thoughts snap back to her gaze instantly, and she looked around in all directions. I shrank back into my seat, cursing myself inwardly for acting so automatically. Those huge, mesmerising eyes, however, locked on with mine, and I found myself unable to look away, only keep staring unblinkingly back into those great, shining silver pools, as they grew bigger, and bigger, overwhelming me—

"—Hello, Draco," she was saying. She was right in front of my face, pulling the opposite chair out and sitting down in it. My tongue and throat felt dry, and I realised my mouth was hanging open. I coughed slightly and covered my mouth, then rubbed the back of my head. I adjusted my sitting position, and hastily reminded myself who I was.

"Hello. Luna, is it?" I asked her softly, trying to ease that sneer back into my voice, the one I was so proud of back in school, the one that managed to make most of the Slytherin girls do whatever I wanted them to. Luna, however, was unaffected. She smiled complacently, and pushed her handbag onto the table, then clasped her hands in front of her.

"Yes, Luna, or I mean, you used to call me…er…" She paused, like it what she was going to say was something she found a little embarrassing. "Loony."

I was momentarily taken aback, and then a ghost of a smile flittered across my face. "Yeah…I did."

"So, what did you call me over for, Draco?"

Damn. Luna always had been excellent at asking the most uncomfortable and awkward questions. I tried not to look her in the eye again, and focused on a bluebottle that was creeping over her shoulder. "Well. You know, it's not often now that I see anyone from Hogwarts. I just thought it would be appropriate to say hello."

Her pink smile widened. I noticed she had a smidge of lipstick on her front tooth. "Really? You wanted to say hello to me?" I tried not to stare at her teeth, as I nodded, slowly. Then she started blurting out a bit of a commentary about her life since Hogwarts, and truthfully, I wasn't giving her my full attention. I was watching her, yes; I couldn't stop staring at her. I found myself picking out all of her minor imperfections, but I adored every single one. The way her the lipstick spread more onto her front teeth as she talked faster and for longer, her bitten down stubs of nails, the way her wand was tucked behind her ear – a very silly thing to do in the middle of a muggle populated area. How did I never notice her at school? She was an unbelievable beauty, so surreal the way she sat there opposite me, almost glowing in the sunlight.

I focused for a little while on what she was saying. Ah…of course. She was having a brilliant life, just like everyone else from school was. She had helped Harry Potter and his friends of course, she had fought for her school in the battle, not ran for cover to her father, like I had done. She had received awards, triumphed, been praised and adored by many. She had a great job; she'd become editor in chief of the Daily Prophet, and was promising to completely change the way they ran their stories, starting by the ultimate dismissal of Rita Skeeter, and announcing her Animagus status to the wizarding world. Why had I called her over? What had I expected from her? Of course she was going to be one of these, having a fantastic life after the Dark Times; she was a perfect candidate for it. She was going to go off and have a brilliant life, changing the face of the Prophet – she'd probably become a teacher too, sooner or later, and get married in the Spring (probably to Longbottom), and have loads of little blonde kids that would grow up to admire her and all of her oddities until she died, at a ripe old age, after a long, blissful, fulfilling life.

"Are you alright, Draco?" She asked me suddenly, bringing me back down to earth after my short daydream about Luna's life. I was immediately aware that I'd been picturing her Neville Longbottom marrying her, wearing a ridiculously huge and spangled white frock, but still managing to look effortless and wonderful. I disliked the vision of her and Neville instantly, and found my face contorting in anger as if the scene was really happening in front of me. I was grinding my teeth in frustration. "You don't look so well," she continued, peering into my face. "Are you having a deep thought?"

My eyebrows knitted together. What a strange question. "Yeah, erm. I have a lot on my mind, actually, at the moment."

Luna nodded sympathetically. "I would imagine so, after all, you were a Death Eater," I sat up bolt upright, staring at her in shock. She was so open about it, so comfortable with how she just let these words flow out of her open mouth, uncaring. She leaned forwards slightly, and I became aware that her cleavage was pressing together as it strained against her folded arms. "Plus, it may be Wrackspurts. It's a shame I don't have my Spectrespecs on me, I could have taken a look inside your head for you."

I continued to stare at her. I was still in shock at her freely announcing my Death Eater status, like I used to work at a newspaper store or something. Now she was bringing up this nonsense. It was all so confusing, the words "spectrespecs" and "wrackspurts" and "Death Eater" lingered in my ears, all being wound up with the distraction of the creamy, white skin of her cleavage just below my gaze. I searched her face for a hint of a smile; a sign that this was merely her idea of a joke. Nope, deadly serious. I groaned inwardly. How did I manage to find myself nursing an attraction for someone so…weird?

While I was addling myself over what to say next to her, she stood up suddenly, knocking the chair back behind her. She didn't seem to notice. Her smile stretched again across her mouth – but her lipstick had worn away by now. "It's been nice talking to you, Draco," she held her hand out. There were tiny scars that looked like burns on her hands. "I hope we might bump into each other again…you seem…different, now. You're not the same Draco Malfoy we all knew in school. I see that now."

I was dumbstruck, once again. I had never been so speechless in my life. I held out my hand and stood up, coughing slightly to clear my throat, and I looked down at her soft, heart shaped face. "Goodbye, Luna," I bade her, and shook her hand. Her skin was so warm, so delicate. I didn't want to let go of her hand, but she was slipping out of my grasp, turning away and hurrying down the street, holding her fingers up behind her in a small wave.