Author's Note: For the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Two/Round Nine, as Captain for the Caerphilly Catapults, writing a slice-of-life Druna fanfic. Also, for the If You Dare Challenge, prompt 337. Freedom, and for the OTP Boot Camp Challenge, prompt "rotten".

A New Old Path

(Draco and Luna go for a walk.)

Xenophilius Lovegood was not a normal father. Most would have been content with their daughter being busy studying naturalism and with her boyfriend being busy training at the Ministry of Magic, rarely seeing each other. But instead Xenophilius sent an owl off to Malfoy Manor to invite Draco for the weekend.

So soon, a loud pop broke the peaceful quiet that surrounded the odd home, and Draco appeared in the fields, scowling from the Apparition.

The place could not look anything more unlike Malfoy Manor: the gate in front of him was very unsecure and had signs attached, the path beyond it was crooked, and was lined by odd, overgrown plants. The rebuilt house at the end was circular. There was hardly anything around, but it didn't quite give the impression of loneliness.

And then it all disappeared from Draco's view as something tackled him to the ground.

Or, someone. As all the air was squeezed out of his lungs, familiar long blonde hair came into his sight through the dust cloud that had sprung up from where he hit the earth.

"Merlin, what are you doing?" he demanded, as Luna giggled.

"Saying hello to you."

"There was no hello involved in that."

Luna sat back so that Draco could vaguely start to get up, although he was still pinned from the knees down.

"Do you mind?" he asked. "Either say hello to me or let me get up."

Luna still smiled. "Hello, Draco," she said, and kissed him before also letting him stand. He tried to brush the layer of dust off of his robes and shake it out of his hair, but it was no use.

"Hello, Draco!" someone else called. Xenophilius, strolling down the path as if his daughter hadn't just tackled the boy.

Draco tried not to roll his eyes, he really did. "Hello," he echoed, with as little sarcasm as he could manage.

"Shall I fly your bags into the house?"

Don't you have house elves for this? "Um, sure," he muttered instead, and Xenophilius levitated the bags and flew them off towards the house.

"Well," said Xenophilius, "I'm sure you two want to catch up."

"I was going to show him the old garden I found out back," said Luna.

"Splendid!" said Xenophilius. "I'll see you both inside later." And he went back up the big path, while Luna took Draco's hand and led him down a smaller one that cut through the—apparently newer—gardens.

"How's the Ministry?" Luna asked, as if she didn't read his letters everyday.

"Well, it's the Ministry," he started.

They talked, and walked for quite a while, around to the other side of the house, and eventually down a very worn, even smaller path, which led through fields instead of gardens.

"I hadn't found this path until lately," said Luna. "When I was little, Dad said to not wander this far from the house, or the Humdingers would get me."

Draco still wasn't quite sure what a "Humdinger" was, but he said, "Well, I'm glad they didn't get you," and resisted saying anything else.

"And now we can walk as far as we like," Luna continued.

They also didn't have to worry about Death Eaters catching them, but that was another thing that Draco wasn't going to say.

"Yes, as far as we like," he deadpanned, referring to the fact that it was quite a long walk. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"To a garden I found," explained Luna. "I've never seen anything like it before."

Well, if Luna hadn't seen anything like it before, then it was probably something worth looking at. Then again, they had different opinions of things worth looking at—nature for Luna, and Luna for Draco.

"Well, I'm sure it's… something," he said.

"It is," Luna smiled at him.

When they apparently approached the garden, Luna squealed, let go of him, and ran over. Draco, again trying not to roll his eyes, followed.

It was… a garden. An abandoned garden, indeed. Also overgrown, dead, and with rotten vegetables. There were surely a lot of bugs in it, and it smelled in the heat.

But Luna was so excited, talking about how she was going to bring it back to life.

Don't say anything stupid, Draco.

"Isn't it beautiful? Well, it's going to be, there's water from the stream, and this soil is going to be so well fertili—mmph." He kissed her to shut her up and then said:

"I'm sure you'll make it beautiful," because it was the best thing that he could come up with. And it was true.

Luna grinned widely and continued babbling on about it, eventually agreeing to Draco's idea that they go to the house.

"Everything there is new," she informed him. "I painted everything again, and we cleaned it before you got here... It's not anything like the Manor, though."

Draco remembered the times Luna had been to Malfoy Manor. They weren't anything like this.

"I'm sure it isn't," he said, and then tried to fix the sentence: "It seems… cozier." Luna would take that as a good thing.

"It's very cozy," she agreed. "Dad and I like it that way."

Draco had certainly gotten that impression.

They reached the front door. "Thus concludes our tour of the outside area," Luna joked. It sounded odd coming from her.

"Very impressive, Ms. Tour Guide," he said, allowing the sarcasm out. "Shall we begin the tour of the inside area?"

END