Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Round : Round 3
Team : Puddlemere United
Position : Chaser#3
Chasing : The Nati of Himachal Pradesh; write about a character who makes a friend that makes them peaceful (This can include feeling peaceful or curbing their violent tendencies).
Quaffle : 15. (Quote) "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies." -Aristotle
4. (Colour) Lapis Lazuli
Word Count: 2252
DRACO
Draco has long since mastered hiding his emotions, but when Fenrir Greyback brings in Loony Lovegood, he isn't able to hide is shock and apprehension as well as should have. Some small, stupid part of him still thinks that this war is not a war, just another silly fight between Gryffindor and Slytherin, just another standoff between Harry Potter and he. Ravenclaws are not a part of this, are they? He watches as the girl is dumped before the Dark Lord unceremoniously and as she gathers herself into a tight ball. He hasn't actually ever interacted with her, but he has seen enough of her antics over the years to be unsettled. Loony—Luna had never been upset before when she had been bullied by the others back in school, although why he expects her to be as calm before the Dark Lord is anyone's guess. Facing school children and the Dark lord are two radically different things, after all.
He watches with a sickening feeling as the Dark Lord Crucio's the poor girl, simply because can. Her body twitches and she lifts into the air, but she makes no sound. She crashes onto the ground and lies there shivering as the Dark Lord contemplates her with a smile, twirling his wand in his hands.
"Maybe this," he says in his high pitched voice, "shall each Xenophilius Lovegood to obey the Dark Lord."
The other death eaters laugh, but Draco finds himself staring at Lovegood's frail form, unable to look away.
"Take her down into the Dungeons. That is where she shall stay until dear Mr. Lovegood comes around."
Draco hesitates for a moment when he is asked to go down into the dungeons and check on his guest by the Dark Lord, check meaning 'torture'. He had learnt Occlumency back in fifth year on his mother's insistence, and it is useful when he has to protect himself from the Dark Lord in moments like these. But still the Dark Lord knows. He knows Draco hates torturing people and hence sends him down there every time they have a prisoner. Every. Damn. Time.
He takes in a controlled breath and nods, turning away and starting towards the Dungeon with some or other death eater in tow. He opens to door to the underground chambers and flicks his wand to light the brackets hanging on the wall and makes his way down to where Lovegood is being held. He stops when he reaches her holding cell, beside Ollivander's , and only stands and looks for a few moments, reminding himself to keep his breathing even because the other Death Eater—the one who has been sent to keep a check on him—must not find out how much seeing Lovegood curled up into a ball, shrinking away from him disturbs him.
"Well," the other death eater calls out to him, sneering, "get on with it."
He clenches his wand so tightly he's afraid it'd break, and channels his anger—anger at the death eater jeering behind him, at the maniac psychopath who has taken over his world, at his father, who has brought him to this, at himself, for doing all that he has done—channels all his anger and directs it at the frail, blameless girl lying pathetically in the cell before him in a shout of "CRUCIO!"
He watches sickeningly as Lovegood rises up in the air again, much as she had when she was being toyed with by the Dark Lord, and falls to the ground with a crash, a single painful scream tearing through the night. The death eater behind him laughs and claps Draco's back and says, "Keep up the good work, Malfoy," and begins making his way back upstairs—he had done his job after all. He looks back to Lovegood lying on the ground breathing shallowly, not moving, her silvery-blonde hair so like his spread all over the place. He curses her again as the door to the Dungeons open and subsequently close and collapses on the ground much like his victim, closing his eyes and hitting his head against the wall. He is aware of the slight whimpering and groaning sounds coming from the cell, grunts of pain Lovegood is trying to keep down, and in his head he commends her—still trying to fight, keeping herself from screaming to not give him the satisfaction of conquering her. He snorts humorlessly, If only she knew.
It is a while before he gets up and looks into the cell again, at the younger girl lying curled up in a fetal position. Through the dim light of the braziers along the wall, he can see her looking at him apprehensively, calculatingly, rebellion still in her eyes. Somehow her aura feels more like her actual self, as if she has the upper hand and she knows it, much like she had been back in Hogwarts. 'So resilient', he thinks to himself as they stare at each other for a few more moments. He feels as if she is looking right through him, feels naked under her gaze, but he doesn't try to shy away as he does with his mother. He wants her to look through him. He wants her to know how he feels, how he isn't doing this because he wants to. This isn't the world he had wanted. He is just as stuck as she.
He doesn't know what possesses him to go down into the Dungeons later that night, when everyone has retired to sleep. He normally tries to avoid the Dungeons as much as possible, but today, stocking himself up with essence of dittany and some food he procured from a house elf, he makes his way down into the underground chambers where the prisoners are locked. He opens the door slowly, being careful to not make a sound, and slips in. He lights a single bracket this time, the one immediately in front of Luna and Mr. Ollivander's holding cell, and approaches their cells slowly.
LUNA
She is sitting upright with her back against the wall and she gets up with effort and brings herself to the bars that separate the two of them. Ollivander is asleep, or unconscious. He opens the door to her cell and gets inside silently, approaching her as if he were approaching a shy doe, removing the essence of dittany from his robes. She shifts her weight to the wall and slides down, and watches as Draco kneels beside her, pouring drops of the essence onto her wounds. She hisses at the contact, tries to pull away, but Draco holds on to her hand as he continues to heal the worst scars on her body made by falling down multiple times. It's a wonder none of her bones are broken. She flinches again as he looks into a particularly deep gash and starts talking. It's soft at first, she thinks he's only muttering to herself, until she has the mind to listen and realizes that he's apologizing. Apologizing for everything that is happening to her, for hurting her, for what is being done to all others, for everything that he has to do. It's barely loud enough for her to hear. When the pain from the dittany has cleared, she realizes that it is not just her who is being healed, it's also him. He hands out the little food that he has brought with him, and goes out of her cell and into Mr. Ollivander's. He collects the remnants from her, lest someone find out, and then leaves hurriedly, putting out the bracket and shoving her back into inky darkness, his footsteps more anxious than ever.
She has stopped stiffening at his arrival now—she recognizes his gait. Every night he comes in, and every night he heals the scars he and the other fellow death eaters create earlier in the day. She has not had to face Lord Voldemort again, and for that she is thankful. His aura, unlike anyone else's, is horrifying, made up of only hatred, a soul that has never seen love. She turns away from the door to her cell to let her eyes adjust to the sudden light, and listens as she hears Draco's footfalls approach her. He opens the door to her cell as always, and steps inside gingerly. She graces his presence with a smile to which she is yet to get a response. It isn't until the sleeve of his robe slips back a little while he's working the dittany that she sees it—the bright red scar on his forearm. She grabs his hand immediately, causing him to stop in surprise, until he realizes and pulls back.
"Draco…" She says to him, and it's the first time she has ever spoken to him.
"Don't," he says, shrugging his sleeve forward and going back to applying dittany on a scar that has blossomed on her shoulder.
"Draco," she says again, this time with more authority, pushing him away and looking at him straight in the eye. She reaches for his hand again and pushes back the sleeve to reveal red burn marks along his arm, dotted here and there.
"You've been hurting yourself," she says after a long pause. He doesn't reply. "Why?"
"Why?" she repeats, tracing slightly the burn scars. It stings, but he doesn't react. "Tell me, love, why?" She looks at him, blue eyes wide. "I am a friend. You're safe."
DRACO
The word doesn't immediately generate a response. The friends he has known have been made for political ties, not for trust, not for love, not for help.
"What is a friend, really?" he asks her, and he's surprised at how dead his voice sounds.
"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies." her voice is quiet and soothing, and her smaller hands entwine their fingers in his own.
Sitting before her with his hand in hers, his scars uncovered, Draco seems to deflate. He feels exposed, and when he sees her lapis lazuli eyes looking at him in such concern, ashamed. He's been doing it since his sixth year, and until two weeks ago—until Luna had been brought in. This had been his way of—of punishing himself, for the mistakes he has made, for the things he will most certainly have to do if he valued his life and his family's. Until he started talking to Luna, until he started saying the things that he had wanted to say for so long, until he started letting go of the toxicity. He looks Luna in the eyes again, her orbs of lapis lazuli meeting his own grey eyes and he sees her sharpen.
"Don't ever, Draco, don't ever," she says, as if she has read his mind "this is not the answer, not now, not ever." her voice is the hardest he has ever heard it be, and he swallows and nods.
He stays still as Luna takes hold of the essence of dittany and puts it on him instead, flinching when the healing liquid makes contact with his skin.
It is only a single week before Potter is brought into the manor and escapes with all the captives that Luna gives him the pendant. It is a simple piece of jewellery which has been hanging around her neck that entire time but he hadn't noticed it until she takes it off and hands it to him—a silver pendant on a simple chain set with a single deep blue Lapis Lazuli stone in the middle. He doesn't know what to make of it, so he takes it into his hands to admire its simplistic beauty, much like its wearer herself. He has taken now to sitting beside her in the dim light and talking about his life, the mistakes he has made, and how sorry he is about it all. Confessing all this to anyone else would be hard, but to Luna, it is easy, it is simple. She is an empathetic listener.
"What is this?" He asks her, holding up the magnificent jewel in light.
She smiles faintly. "It used to be my mother's. My father gave it to me when she died. I was nine."
Draco looks at the jewel in his palm and then back at her, a frown creasing his forehead. "Why…"
"It's a sign of goodwill, Draco, from my side. When the time comes for us all to realign ourselves," she sits up and looks at him "and when we finally triumph, this token of goodwill shall see you through. You have done me a favour, Draco, you have saved my life. When the time comes, when the Light triumphs, you shall return to this new world as a respectable citizen of the wizarding world."
"Luna…" he says to her, not really sure what to say "how could you …"
"...be so sure? It's coming Draco—the battle. The day it all ends, it's drawing closer and you know it. Harry, Hermione and Ron are out there doing something and you know it. The war is drawing to a close, and we will both have to choose sides. The Dark Lord shall fall Draco, you know this too."
She shifts closer and closes the palm of his hand around the pendant. "It's a sign of goodwill, a sign of friendship and a sign of trust. What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. Remember that. It's a sign that I hope will be the light that guides you through this night to me."