"Where exactly are we going?" he demands.
Luna just takes him by the hand and leads him away from Hogsmeade, right to the edge of the forest. She smiles when Draco mutters something about not liking surprises, because she knows for a fact it isn't true.
Because Luna just can't see how anyone wouldn't like surprises. Life would be quite boring if everything always went according to plan, after all.
So she shakes her head in response to his questions, turning only once to put a finger to her lips. "Shush!" she says, with a bit of impatience. "I'm not going to hex you, I promise. You'll like this surprise."
He stops talking with a smirk, and she thinks that if he hadn't she might have hexed him. (Just to make him shut his mouth, she amends. It wouldn't do to scare everything away.)
The sun is just setting as they reach the small grove of willows just inside the forest, which is good. The lights are beautiful during the day, of course, but they are simply magnificent at night.
Luna conjures a blanket with a wave of her wand. She lays back on it, staring at the night sky, and turns to look at Draco. He's still standing, his hands clasped in front of him, looking quite clueless.
Luna finds it quite endearing.
She beckons him to the blanket with a wave. "It won't hurt to be comfortable while we wait," she whispers as he takes a seat next to her. "What are we waiting for?" he asks. She smiles at him, unable to help herself. "You'll see. But you must be quiet."
They sit there for a few minutes, in silence. It's nice to just listen sometimes, she thinks. She's been surrounded by altogether too much noise lately, she thinks. But she doesn't come here for the quiet.
The first lights that rise from inside the willow are purplish in hue. They're almost like stars, rising up in the night sky. NO matter how many times she's seen them, Luna has never tired of seeing the beautiful orbs.
All around them more lights are rising into existence, some of the green as grass, others gold – more gold than Felix Felicis – still others a brilliant shade of pink.
She tears her gaze away from the entrancing lights for a moment to look at Draco. He is sitting much in the same way he'd been a moment before, but his eyes are locked on the lights, hypnotized. She can't blame him. The first time her mother had brought her to an enchanted grove she had never wanted to leave.
She is surprised when, a few moments later, he breaks the silence. "What are they?" he wonders aloud. The lights flicker for a moment, their owners frightened by the sudden noise.
Luna leans forward and whispers, almost in his ear. "Faeries."
"They're beautiful," he says, louder.
The lights flicker again and sink back down into the trees, the faeries unnerved by a human presence. Luna leans back, slightly disappointed, but then realizes that Draco is looking at her, a curious expression on his face.
"I would come here every Hogsmeade weekend, you know," she says. "It always was so peaceful. I could sit here for hours and just watch them."
"Are they really faeries?" he asks. "I thought faeries didn't exist."
She nods. "Well, everyone calls them fairy lights, because they don't realize they're actually corporeal beings. They like living in groves like this. They're quite shy, though. All those stories about them being terribly cruel are myths, I think."
She thinks that people always think the worst of everyone else. Maybe that's the problem - everyone's just horribly misunderstood. (Well, almost everyone. Voldemort was quite horrible.) She also realizes, wryly, that perhaps she is beginning to sound a bit like Hermione Granger.
"How do you know they aren't?" His question is curious.
"Well, we're here, on their land, aren't we? And they're still afraid of us. But no one's really sure, because no one's ever talked to a faerie."
As she says it, she realizes that they're rather like boggarts, faeries. No one really knows what either of them look like, since the boggart takes the shape of whatever scares you (In her case, it's a mirror image of herself – but without the gleam of imagination in her eyes.), and the faeries hide behind their lights. She wonders for a moment whether boggarts really try to scare people, or if they're just as scared of themselves as others are of them.
"What do you suppose the faeries look like?" Draco wonders aloud.
She's never really considered that question. Faeries to her have always just been beautiful floating stars.
Luna looks over at Draco and realizes that he's been staring at her. She looks away quickly, blushing.
"You're the first person I've ever brought here, you know," she confesses quietly.
He doesn't say anything for a long while, and she sees the lights creeping slowly up again when he says, "Why?"
(The lights creep back down.)
"I don't know," she says honestly. "There was no one at Hogwarts I really knew well enough."
Well, there was Harry and Ronald and Ginny and Neville and even Hermione, but after she became freinds with them there had never really been a chance to show them. And maybe there had been a bit of selfishness too, she thinks. Because this was her place, something no one else knew about. Somewhere where she could escape.
"I always thought you were quite brave," he says so quietly that she looks over at him to make sure that he's actually said something.
"Everyone always called you Loony and said you were daft, but you never seemed to care. At least you never let it show," he continues, and she's suddenly confronted with a barrage of memories that she doesn't want to think about - especially tonight.
Clothes and shoes going missing right before end of term, no one ever really looking her in the eye, having lots of room for meals at the Ravenclaw table, anonymous owls with articles disproving the Crumple-Horned Snorcack or Nargles.
Tears well up in her eyes, but she blinks them away. That was the past. She has friends who care about her now. For goodness sake, she's a bloody war hero!
She smiles for a moment at that last thought. She had never expected that she, of all people, would become a war hero.
Luna realizes that, once again, she's lost herself in her thoughts, and turns to smile at Draco. "Sorry."
He's looking at her with the same look that Luna sees when she sees Ronald looking at Hermione.
She is surprised to discover that, in fact, she isn't surprised at all. What surprises her is that she feels the same way.
She leans forward at the same time he does, and just when their lips are about to meet, they bump noses. She pulls back slightly, rubbing her nose. (She really has got to do something about those Wrackspurts, she decides.)
They lean in a second time, and this time their lips meet.
She's never been kissed, and hasn't really thought about it much. But as Draco kisses her, she realizes that maybe she has been missing something wonderful. His lips are cool but soft against hers, and his arm around her waist is quite comfortable.
She decides that since they're kissing, she might as well cross another boundary and runs her fingers through his hair. It's smooth, but softer than she'd expected.
Brilliant colors fill her vision and for a moment she thinks they're fireworks, before she realizes that the faeries are out again. She and Draco break apart and sit, for what seems like hours, staring at the beautiful lights, before Luna gets up and pulls him to his feet.
"Time for butterbeer," she announces, Vanishing the blanket.
He stares at her with a hint of increduility. "We just kissed," he says.
She can't help but smile happily at the memory, but then decides to keep him on his toes. "Yes?"
He looks like he's about to say something like, "Now what?" but he seems to change his mind. "You're incredibly unique, you know?" he says, a smirk gracing his lips.
(Maybe another cure for Wrackspurts is kissing. She wouldn't particularly mind that.)
She smiles at him. "I know."
She realizes that maybe it's a good thing she didn't really have anyone to tell about the grove.