She was waiting for him.

When finally Barty was able to stretch out on the bed allotted for him inside of Malfoy Manor, he could sense sleep wanting to take him at last. It had been a long fucking twelve hours of ordered celebration and bloody revel. He was exhausted and in need of a pain potion but he certainly wouldn't be the first to ask for one. I won't be weak!

Instead, he rested with his eyes shut against the afternoon sun peeking through the curtains and sank quickly into a deep sleep. And there she was, little Luna Lovegood waiting for him in his dreams once again. He wasn't sure if he was relieved to see her there again at last or not but he accepted it for what it was. An inconvenience to his rest and also a chance for some fun.

Barty had figured out before that the same rules didn't apply here.

She certainly wasn't the same. In these dreams she was again an older vision of herself, youthful cheeks thinned slightly and full lips a deeper colour. Luna was sitting at her old assigned desk with her arm raised high in the air, fingers waving like an eager schoolgirl. Her same blue and white gown a needed clue to remind him this was one of her dreams and not a nightmare of being back inside of Moody's body.

"What, girl?" Barty asked in a rough voice as if he really was her old professor again.

"I'm wondering, sir, if you can explain to me the difference between a sheep and a leopard?" Her face held a hint of a smirk as she looked up at him.

Disgusted by how he had gotten stuck with an irritating witch such as Luna and wanting to curse every ancient wizard he knew for such a horrid turn in fate, Barty huffed and slammed one flat hand against the desk beside him. She didn't flinch- like always. Bitch.

"I've been playing your games for fuckin' years now! I'm tired of this so if you want to know the answer to your foolish question, you'll have to tell me yourself. I'm not adding to this barmy conversation!"

It was his resistance to playing along that proved him right again that in these dreams he didn't always have to follow her suggestions or stay behind invisible barricades. It was still clear that she was more powerful than him and quite possibly more powerful than the Lord he served but things were certainly different in the illusions she pulled him into. He only had to provoke her enough to find out what limits he had in this space and what this witch could really do with her strange brand of magic. It was a risk he was more than willing to take. An assessment of Luna would be needed to see how useful she be if he managed to gain the upper-hand.

Luna kept on as if this was normal conversation between normal people which couldn't have been further from the strange reality.

"A sheep follows his shepherd blindly and needs the flock to keep going. A leopard knows his own power and carves his own path alone. You are sheep when you could have been a leopard. I bet if you could manage a Patronus charm, it would have wool." She ended with a giggle that sent a shiver up his spine.

"You think you know me, little Luna? Think you understand because you can pop into my dreams at will? You've only just begun to live in a world at war. I've known it for more years that you understand, girl. The mark on my arm was my choice. And someday, somehow, I am going to make another choice… to end these tricks of your at last." His tongue flicked out again as he stood straighter, glaring down at her as she looked back up from her seat.

Then, with intentional slowness he bent at the waist and laid his palms flat against the wood surface of the desk, his fingers curling around the edges. Their eyes were locked, dark against light like so much between them, never breaking even as he was close enough to see his breath moving stray strands of her hair. "I. Hate. You." Barty spat out smirking as her eyelids fluttered with the force of his words.

"I know. I can change that."

The dream faded quickly away after that moment and he could only watch as Luna disappeared into nothing, leaving him alone again and feeling irritatingly uncertain of the feelings she was stirring up.


She was there below him.

He could feel her presence in the manor before he was told that Luna was the one Bellatrix cackled about. The manic witch was gloating about how Dark Lord had let her instruct Selwyn and Travers on their mission to take 'the dotty fool's girl' from her home as a warning her father. Xenophilius was publishing articles in his paper against their cause and it needed to be stopped.

Rather than just kill the man, their Master had let Bellatrix play a bloody game with the elder wizard. The two goonies sent to take Luna away were told to not be gentle. Barty had punched a wall in his borrowed quarters at the mere thought of Selwyn laying a hand on her, healing the broken skin quickly when the Death Eaters remaining at the Manor were called to gather. It was time to greet their new guests.

It was the first of many techniques they would employ to scare prisoners into submission. Barty was seething already to know how many of his brothers would be interested in a young, pretty witch like her.

He wanted to protect her from them, if only so he could take her apart himself, his possessive feelings stemming from a twisted need to have her to himself. I hate her. The thought felt more like a false reminder and fizzled away with none of the usual heat.

Barty made his way down the main staircase and joined in the circle forming, completely on edge as he spotted a set of violet slippers that must have been tossed to the side near the stairs. At the center of the gathered Death Eaters were two dirty werewolves cowering under Greyback's glare, traitors to one of the packs he controlled who were accused of trying to join the Order. Too close by the wolves was little Luna who had her eyes shut tight as Selwyn pressed his wand into her neck, his other hand fisting her blonde hair.

His skin was prickling and hot at the sight. He wanted to lash out, to rip her from the leering wizard's grasp. Barty directed his glare at Luna and pushed his rage into his magic with a wayward wish she would feel it and open her eyes at last. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth in nervous anticipation of what would happen next.

Narcissa stepped forward, urging in a quiet voice for the gathered Death Eaters to act quickly in whatever they were about to do. Her demented sister kicked at one of the whimpering men huddled near Greyback.

"Kill them already, wolf, we've got no time for this," Bellatrix said. Barty could tell she feigning boredom, her greedy, dark eyes gave away her interest in the possible violence soon on display.

Greyback's large arms reached for the werewolf closest to him, pulling him up by the short hair on his head and snapped his neck swiftly. The crack of the motion that had ended the werewolf's life echoed in the large room.

At the sound Luna's eyes flew open, her panic clear.

After pining to see fear in her delicate face for years, Barty realized that he didn't like it at all once he saw it right in front of him. Her breath was coming out in short, heavy bursts and her eyes kept darting around the room as if she was seeking a way to escape. He stepped forward making a low sound in the back of his throat that might seem like irritation to any watching eyes but it was all for her. Barty felt a need to get her attention, to get her to focus on him instead.

At the snap of the second werewolf being killed, those silvery-blue eyes found his finally. He saw her shoulders droop barely an inch though her breathing was still erratic. That's it, girl... look at me. He half-imagined she could hear him and continued to repeat his wish for her to look his way. It wouldn't be beyond her to tap into his thoughts, they both knew that and yet he also knew this wasn't the confident witch inside his head at night. This was a terrified young woman surrounded by gleeful murderers.

If she was going to be afraid then it would be of him. Anything less than that was unacceptable to Barty.

Not caring what questions came afterwards, though he doubted anyone would be brave enough to ask what a madman like him was thinking, he kept his focus solely on Luna. Even as Selwyn dragged her away to the door that led downstairs, her frantic gaze stayed locked with his. Other than the emotions playing across her face, she was still and silent, submitting to the men pushing her through the doorway without resistance. Barty continued to watch even after the door was shut behind Travers who followed the pair closely, his fists clenched painfully tight once he would no longer see her.

Under them was an old wine cellar that Bellatrix had transfigured into a series of prison cells, clearly with her long years at Azkaban in mind. She doesn't belong there!

He needed to hurt someone and fast, the desperate need to feel and inflict pain making him wish to punch another wall. If he couldn't keep it under control, his rage would boil over and cause him to do something rash to giggling Bellatrix who was making bets with the others gathered for how soon Luna would crack. The only shred of good feeling he had to cling to was that she wouldn't be alone in the cells, the wandmaker Ollivander had arrived a few days earlier. But why does that make me feel better?

As the small crowd dissipated, he remained still with his focus still trained on the shut cellar door. How had they found her? Barty knew the Lovegood home was hidden, he had tried to find the plot of land for years and yet they had found her and she wasn't using her magic to stop them. It angered him. It confounded him.

It was a very bad sign.

Confused and cranky, Barty left with Rodolphus to run a patrol around the village of Hogsmeade, a shift he had taken a few times already, and tried to put together the puzzle that was his current situation.

Luna Lovegood was here in the same place with him at long last. He could do something to stop her from using her odd magic on him now, as he had been threatening to do. He could also find her in a weaker state and inflict the pain he'd dreamed about as well. Or the pleasure. Only all combinations of those thoughts made him feel sick in his gut, confused as images of both the child and the older, dream form of her flickered in his vision.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Barty knew he also felt as equal of a need to understand why he had wanted her to look at him for strength when she was afraid. Why should he care at all what happened to the annoying, little witch? What had she done to him to make him want to help her? It confused him, irritated him and made him want to run down to those dungeons and take her away as his forever.

In the dark, early hours of the next day, Barty returned to the Manor and stood near the door that led to the cellars below. To her. He could hear Selwyn's laughter echoing below along with Bellatrix and imagined the spells they were using on Luna for their entertainment. He felt troubled in a way he hadn't felt at the knowledge or participation of torture before and yet he couldn't open the door. That would only lead to a disaster and Barty wasn't sure whose body would lie at his feet by the end of it.

Too much to risk. She's not worth it. Except there was the quieter thought that maybe she was.

Below his feet, beneath the marble floor of the pretentious manor now laid a true dungeon, smelling of mildew, sweat and blood. He had gone down to the place nearly a week before to goad at Ollivander, a wizard who had always adored his filthy father. The air was thick then, filled with a sense of evil lurking around the corners of dark stone. Barty knew now that with a young witch added to the heady mix, it would be an ambrosia for the darker members of his brotherhood. They'll want her too.

He watched them the next two days slinking off between meetings with grins on their faces as the door to the cellar creaked opened. Each time, images of Luna lying broken in the shadows with monsters' hands roaming over her skin would run rampant in his mind and he would dig his nails into his palm in fury.

They have no right to touch her. No one does.

It infuriated him that she was allowing this, that she didn't fight hard enough to get away when Death Eaters showed up at her front door. He couldn't find an answer as to how or why they had been able to find her so easily when he had been blocked from coming kilometers within her family's home for years. Barty knew this witch had the power to stop things he had yet to imagine but here she was as their prisoner. Weak! Idiot girl!

As he fumed, pacing in his room until the sun rose, Barty realized that maybe, just maybe, this was part of some plan the witch had concocted. That she was letting this happen to see what he would do.Like the other games she's played. It was a weak theory but all he had to hold him on the right side of sanity every time he heard the cellar door creak open. There had to be a reason why she was allowing this to happen to her.

He suspected, or maybe it was that he hoped, something more was scheming in her rose-tinted mind. Luna obviously had the power to stop someone if she wanted and he was itching to find out why she was allowing this to happen.

It didn't take long for him to see clear evidence of her powers in use again.

The first time Selwyn returned from a trip to the dungeons with a dazed look on his face, Barty nearly sighed in relief, knowing that she had done one of her tricks to protect herself. He was confused by how he reacted to seeing the blank faces of his brothers, but not understanding was becoming normal when it came to little Luna. She had confused him since the start. He held on instead to the relief that came over him as each wizard to returned unsated from their twisted attempts to break her.

Many more went down to see her as days turned into weeks, all making crude jokes about her surname and just as many returned with not a hair out place, their eyes glazed over. When Narcissa Malfoy realized her shit-for-use husband had been one of the Death Eaters sneaking off to see the strange girl, she and her sister made a quick plan to move Luna into a long-abandoned section of the cellar separated by brick.

The first night in her new cell, she had called for him in his dreams but the pull was so faint, Barty was able to ignore it, taking pleasure in making a stand by not coming for her. Yet he felt nauseous at doing so. He remembered all too well what it felt like to be young, alone, hurt and hidden away.

At first, Barty wanted to keep testing her, to see how much more she could take before she would do something more drastic, although what exactly little Luna could do was still a mystery.

A few weeks after she was taken, he whispered into Greyback's ear about the untouched girl below, standing sentry by the cellar door the entire time the wolf was downstairs. He hoped having Greyback stalk over to her cell would be enough to scare her, to unlock whatever she kept hidden inside.

Only the wolf came back with an expression of lude satisfaction instead of the trance-like state the others had. It rose panic in his spine to see his plan to test the girl had ended with her hurt even more. In fury, Barty snapped the filthy werewolf's neck in a surprise attack that very night. He could only hope that little Luna would recognize the thud of his dead body falling to the floor above her prison as his first gift to her. An apology.

Making that his new mission, Barty continued to seek out ways to manage the way having her so near and yet too far away made him feel. With a more resolved spirit, he decided that if she continued to intrigue him so he would continue to offer her such presents. She was quickly becoming an obsession although he had yet to make his way downstairs himself. The list of reasons why made him too uncomfortable to focus on them.

He offered her a second gift by dropping Selwyn's lifeless body hard against the marble, convincing the other Death Eaters the dead wizard had spoken ill of their Lord. Of course, he kept it to himself that it was because he had heard her crying late into the night when another student from Hogwarts, a boy named Dean Thomas had been killed in front of her by filthy Selwyn.

Barty looked down at the shocked look on the other Death Eater's face, admiring with a grimace the way his head was twisted at an impossible angle from the neck-breaking curse he had cast.

Then Barty heard her voice, soft and breathy as if she was whispering in his ear, which she couldn't be logically- he had checked with a frantic shake of his head that the blonde witch wasn't standing right beside him.

"You did good to kill him. Two down."