A/N: So, this is another prompt fill for that Facebook group I mentioned. It's eight chapters long and will be spanning a period of several years. I've tweaked the prompt to fit this pair, but the initial prompt will be in the author's note at the end of the final chapter for anyone who's interested. If anyone decides to write something for it, please let me know! I'd love to see where you go with it, and I'm sure the others would too.
They were two kids playing pretend
(2 March 1988)
"Let's go outside," his cousin suggests, holding out her hand, and he takes it and lets her pull him along. He's never much been one for the outside other than the required tea parties, but he always makes an exception when he visits Luna. She seems inherently drawn to the outdoors, as if the sky itself is the Pied Piper calling her out with soft notes and sweet promises, and there's something contagious about her guileless joy.
He always likes spending time at her house. Her parents are more lenient and affectionate than his, and the house and gardens have a neat but casually random aesthetic that pleasantly conflicts with the pristine perfection of the manor. The importance of subtle shows of status has been well and truly imparted upon him, but that doesn't lesson his appreciation of places that seem somehow intrinsically removed from that culture of expectation and snobbery.
When they're out of the house and away from his parents' watchful gazes, she lets go of his hand and spins around in a circle, her arms outstretched and face upturned like a blooming sunflower. "It feels so free out here," she says. "I'd live out here if I could."
He doesn't know about the latter statement, but he has to agree with the first. "It does feel rather open."
She stumbles to a stop and turns around to face him, her eyes holding that glazed look that comes over them when her mind is focused on faraway things and places. "Would you live out here with me?"
"I don't think I could," he says. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings, so he tells her a half-truth: "Mother and Father would never let me."
"We could sneak away. The animals around here are lovely, and there's an unused cabin at the back of the property that we could use when it rains, and Daddy would bring us food."
The appeal of living closed off from the world is definitely alluring. He could see himself living in the moment with her somewhere, but he knows that would be an affront to the Malfoy name; Malfoys demand attention and respect, and there wouldn't be much of either of them out there. Furthermore, he demands attention and respect. It's nice to think of running away from it all, but he knows he'd hate it within the hour.
"I like being indoors, and with lots of people," Draco finally admits. "I don't think I could handle living outside where it's dirty and where spiders or wolves or Red Caps could come get you. I'd visit you, though."
This time Luna smiles, and Draco knows he gave the right answer. He's not used to the right answer being the truth, of course, but supposedly it is in this case. "Do you want to see where it is?"
"Of course."
She runs inside to tell her parents where they're going, leaving him in the garden by himself. A rustling from the bushes catches his attention, and he spies a garden gnome peeking out between two bunches of leaves. That kind of thing would never be permitted at Malfoy Manor, he thinks snidely, before tamping down on that reaction. His parents wouldn't tolerate it, but then again that's part of the charm of the Lovegood Estate. A hand slips into his, and Luna smiles at him again and says, "Let's go." She leads him down along the winding path and through the gate draped in ivy that signifies the change from the walled-in part of their property to the half-wild wonderland on the other side. They pass the small greenhouse where her father likes to study plants, the half-hidden trapdoor entrance to her mother's underground experimental charms lab, and the mossy lake they swam in the last time he came over, chatting ceaselessly the whole time.
"There it is," she cuts in brightly, gesturing to the little rundown wooden structure. It's missing a few planks from its roof and its wood has started to fade, but a veranda wraps around it like a life vest, a few potted plants and chairs spotting its surface. "It doesn't look safe, but Daddy put up charms to keep it standing. Nobody's lived there for years."
"It looks quaint," Draco says, and they both know what he really means.
"It doesn't look like much," Luna agrees, "but you can't just judge something by how it looks, can you? If you did, you'd be missing out on so much. Come on; let's go inside. We can make it a clubhouse!"
"I thought you were going to live here," he says, but he starts walking alongside her anyway.
"Oh, no. I would, but I'd miss my parents. Besides, it's so much nicer to think of it as a retreat."