Potion of Souls
Prologue
by
pyrogirl23
In a basement of a shop on Diagon Alley, there toiled two brothers-one named Fred, one named George. They were twins, twins who spent all their time together and were each other's best friend- and, more importantly, prank partners.
They were also, in a way, each other's worse enemies.
For, you see, Fred had spoiled George's chances with the crazy blond witch of George's dreams, while George had run over Fred's little chance of happiness with the sarcastic Hufflepuff on Fred's mind. They had both stopped each other's chances of happiness in the dust. It was unintentional, of course-but still, it had been done. Both of them had walked away from true happiness because of what had been done.
Neither of them knew that they hadn't had the last chapter written on their dead relationships with the witches they loved. Neither of them knew it would be because of a potion that they would devise.
Neither of them knew.
Luna Adrienne Lovegood didn't know much about the real world. Oh, she knew perfectly well the stuff about things in her textbooks, (she was a Ravenclaw after all), but she didn't think she would ever know the things that make the real world tick.
Like how to get a man to notice you. So many women got men, everyday really, and she never had one. (She almost had a red-headed, no-good, rotten, cheating, Weasley, but that didn't count. She meant a REAL guy, not a guy that hid behind his twin when things started to get bad. Plus, almost doesn't count.)
Or how to be normal. Not that she wanted to be normal (the fact was that normal didn't look good on her), but people seemed to care about that more than herself. It made her a little bit…mad.
But she couldn't change that; just like she couldn't change George Weasley, or his dirty tricks, or her love for him. Because all he had done to her because she wasn't normal, all he had done to hurt her, she still loved him.
And that hurt the worst.
In an old house on the side of a road in muggle London, you can find Lavender Brown's old address. It wasn't in a place you wouldn't expect a former war hero would be living in; it wasn't a place a common thief would ever live in, truth be told.
But Lavender took what she got. She knew that she wasn't anything these days, being a werewolf and all. She never expected to be given this a nice- it had electricity and hot water-even if it did have rodents, and walls with gross shit on it, and a smelly bathroom, and-
Oh, who was she kidding? The place was a true dump. But she was a werewolf, and she knew that it could get no better than this, even if Bill Weasley told her otherwise.
But who was Bill Weasley kidding, either? He had a wife that truly loved him, and a nice house, and he wasn't the pariah of the wizarding world. He wasn't bitten on the full moon; he didn't know it was truly like.
No one did.
No one ever would.
Oliver Wood was sick and tired of everything in his life. He had been living the same life for ages and ages, and he was sick of it.
His life was stuck in a routine, a god-damned routine at age nineteen: get up, dress, play Quidditch, joke with Katie, kiss her, go home, take a shower, eat something, brush his teeth, go to sleep. He knew he was expected to get married to Katie by twenty, have children with her by twenty-three, and give up Quidditch (retire would be the formal word for it) because of "family matters." The truth of it would be because he was getting kind of old to play professional.
He didn't want that. No one knew what he wanted, but then no one cared enough to know, so that didn't matter either. They just plotted out his life like it was a game, some type of god-damned game that they could mess around with.
Well, he did. He knew exactly what he wanted and how to get there. He had it all planned out- his whole life story- exactly like other people had his life planned out.
Oliver smiled-a genuine one that hadn't appeared in weeks. He'd show them.
He hadn't been a Gryffindor at Hogwarts for nothing.
Malfoy Manor had never seen anything like the desperation it saw now. The house was overrun with plants, the courtyard was bare of them (like they had moved for some reason), and, worst of all, there were no peacocks for miles around.
Damn the Ministry for doing this to him.
He had been part of the wealthiest family this side of Europe since he had been born. The Malfoy name was meant to be worshipped; they were practically gods, superior to all others and bowed down to none.
Yet, that was how he had gotten into this situation. That mentality had nearly driven his family bankrupt, his business nearly broke, and his sanity nearly broken.
The key word in all of that, though, was nearly. The Malfoy family had never been fully beaten. The side they were on could betray them for their own gain, they could be betrayed by people they considered close friends, and they could lose nearly all they held dear. But as long as they still had each other, they could betray sides and friends right back, and they could pull through and could weather the storm-and come out better than they were.
And Draco still had his mother, Narcissa. That was a blessing. Lucius…not so much. He was in Azkaban, and that was a blessing in disguise.
He still had people that he could trust and love. As long as he had her, his family, he would be all right. They would be all right.
Now all he had to do was convince the board of Malfoy Enterprises the same way he had convinced himself- that they could pull through too.
And he could pull through. He was a Malfoy, after all.
Author's Notes-NEW STORY NEW STORY NEW STORY! This is really short. But it'll get longer. Also, review if you like it. They won't be so choppy or different points of view either.