CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

"Where will I meet my fate?
Baby I'm a man, I was born to hate.
And when will I meet my end?
In a better time you could be my friend.

I wake up, it's a bad dream, no one on my side
I was fighting, but I just feel too tired to be fighting
Guess I'm not the fighting kind
Wouldn't mind it if you were by my side
But you're long gone, yeah you're long gone now."

(KEANE – "A Bad Dream")

Draco's stylized silhouette came into view once he stepped out from the fireplace of the Chateau's library. The Floo Network was the last method of transport he would use, but under the circumstances, and after recurring to all of the others, that was the last one he used in his pursue to find out Luna's whereabouts. He shook off the dirt from the dark blue suit he was wearing, swallowing hard. He'd been out for about three days in a row searching for his wife, with no luck whatsoever. He hadn't slept or ate since she ran away: the weariness on his body was becoming visible for he was walking unsteady. He stumbled dispirited into the bedroom, throwing his clothes on the floor and kicking his shoes off without paying any attention to where they land and crashed down on the bed. He reached out for Luna's pillow and hugged it; burying his face in it as he breathed in her scent. He then crawl up in a foetal position and covered himself with the sheets. He started to twist and turn, but finally dozed off, sleeping really badly. Draco's breathing was fast and followed an unsteady pattern. His mind was drifting in a pool of despair and confusion. Disturbing memories are one thing and nightmares, well, they are a completely different kind of trauma.

Draco found himself locked up inside a dark room. Feeling lost and scared, he desperately reach out for his wand but someone must have taken it without his knowing for he was disarmed. The sound of laughter echoing distortedly on the walls was becoming maddening. He looked around nervously, trying to locate the source of the mocking laughter, he couldn't see a thing but he could feel that some strange viscous liquid was dripping from the ceiling down in him. He was trapped and there was no exit whatsoever, he started to panic, slamming the walls, trying to get out. He could hear some faint footsteps silently touching ground, coming towards him.

"Stupefy!"

Draco felt a sharp stinging impact on his left shoulder that send him flying away, crashing hard on the ground, laying face down.

"Sectumsempra!"

His slender and exhaust body was whipped repeatedly, tears started running down his face from the pain, deep cuttings appeared on his back from which blood started running down to the floor. As Draco tried to get up, a foot kicked him down, nailing him to the ground again. He collapsed, bloodied and soiled. He could hear a faint voice whispering incoherently.

"Lumos!"

Lucius mocking face came into view approaching Draco with great determination as he started shouting at his son, though no words came from his mouth this time. Instead, a sharp distorted low pitch hiss accompanied the movements of his lips as he pointed his hand at the ceiling where Narcissa's bloody covered body was chained, twisting uncontrollably. Suddenly, she started jerking in pain to the sound of a whip. The invisible whip-lashing continued as blood was splashing up all over her body.

"Stop hurting her!" Draco roared with desperation in his voice as his face turned into an enraged reddish colour, he was sweating profusely.

Lucius released her from the curse, freeing her from the chains as he kneeled beside Draco, reaching out for his hand.

"Then do as I say and don't you dare to question me ever again!" He grabbed Draco's hand and pulled him from the ground with a violent shook, pushing his son's torn body against his chest.

Lucius forced him to take a few steps towards a smoky window panel that reflected their silhouettes: Draco looked no older than seven years, his battered and bruised humanity was shaking violently against his father's robust body frame.

"Embrace your destiny once and for all: you'll be trained to become a Death Eater." A smile of sardonic amusement played at the corner of Lucius lips.

"YES I'LL DO IT! Just don't hurt mother…please take it out on me instead!" Draco backed away from his father, finding himself trapped against the wall.

"Remember, one false move from you and she dies...this time, I mean it!" Lucius shot back in what seemed to be a deadly threat.

Draco nodded, rushing to meet his mother that lied on the floor. He looked up at her through his pearl grey eyes filled with tears.

"I promise you, mother, that I won't let him hurt you again." He soothed her holding tight in his small arms.

"Draco, you're my only son. I can't let your father corrupt your innocence and purity, I simply can't…" Narcissa looked at him blankly with her large, glassy eyes.

He cuddled against her chest, sobbing softly. "I don't care. I just don't want to lose you!"

Draco felt a soft hand cupping his chin, lifting his head softly as she leaned closer to his ear.

"You won't lose me Draco. I'll always be there for you. I love you."

He opened his eyes and saw that the fragile female body he was holding was not his mother's, but Luna's. She was bleeding profusely from her open wounds. Draco shook his head with disbelief at what he was seeing.

"But, I've saved you, this can't be happening again!" His cold grey blood shot eyes redden even more with maddening desperation.

Luna's pale amethyst blue eyes were slowly shutting down; she was trying in vain to keep them open. Over his wife's lap laid the ceremonial dagger he used for the rite. Luna leaned close to his ear, whispering something hardly audible.

"Draco, take a look at yourself and what you've become." She hissed with difficulty pointing at the window.

He picked her weakened body from the floor and walked towards the window, holding his wife's body tight in his strong arms. What Draco saw reflected in that smoky stained glass panel was terrifying: Narcissa's dead body being held in the arms of Lucius Malfoy. Draco blinked twice and looked up once more at their reflection, this time it was himself carrying Luna's battered body on his arms.

Then a crushing sound numbed his senses, forcing him to shut down his eyes.

"Come to the water, and find me there." He heard someone hissing inside his head.

Draco spun over the edge of the bed, landing hard on the floor in a pile of sweat and entwined bed sheets. He woke up from the fall and tried to get rid of the mess of those sheets around him, climbing back into bed. He sighed and leaned back against the headrest. He awoke with a pounding head and a lot of disorientation. He looked around, trying to come to terms with his current whereabouts. He then sited up in bed and breathed heavily, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a sheet. That had been his first nightmare since he arrived at the Chateau with Luna. Just when he thought he'd never suffer from a bad night sleep in his life, it all came back to haunt him. It was clear to him that it was a message from his mother, trying to reach him for she had been deprived of due burial and therefore she was a restless spirit.

He got up and stretched his legs a bit; walking around the clothes he threw on the floor before going to sleep, heading to the window. It was too early in the morning, he probable had slept a few couple of hours and the sun hadn't come out yet. The morning would soon arrive, he couldn't stop thinking about Luna and where she could have gone. He turned away from the window as a sudden sickness came over him. He rushed to the bathroom, twisting his body over the sink, throwing up. He wiped his sickness from his lips, breathing heavily to calm himself. He gave an uneasy glance to the mirror, noticing how pathetic he looked, then glanced at the vomit and flushed it. Then he undressed and stepped inside the bathtub, the water felt luxuriously warm and the stream was powerful. His shower was long and exquisite and as he stepped out he felt relaxed at last.

Draco heard the annoying nasal voice of the house elf calling from behind as he finished dressing. The creature looked truly worried for not having seen him the last couple of days. Despite Draco's harsh and rude manners towards the house elf, he was somewhat the most sympathetic master the creature ever knew, taking into account that he served Lucius before.

The blonde's amethyst blue eyes narrowed a bit as he looked at the house elf in a state of trance without paying attention to what the creature was saying for all he could hear was the faulty tonality and inflection of the sounds coming from the elf's mouth. The soothing shower was slowly awakening his senses one by one, which maybe explained why his stomach rumbled in demand for nourishment.

"Pharouthk, fix me something to eat. I'm starving here!" That's all the blond said before turning his back to the house elf and finish buttoning his shirt.

Draco looked his reflection on the mirror, he got a dark shade around his eyes and his complexion was paler than ever. He pulled some moist blond blocks from his forehead and froze for a few minutes, looking mesmerized at those amethyst blue eyes, Luna's eyes. He never thought the change would affect him in a bad way for that stigma was a reminder of their unique connection, but also was a reminder of a sacrifice that was originally meant to bond their bodies and minds forever but ironically was pulling them apart.

The pink colour of his lips was almost gone, as he ran his tongue over them, closing his eyes. He couldn't stop thinking about Luna, getting desperate for not being able to kiss her. He had to find her for he refused to spend another day without her.

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The moment Draco stepped into the dining room, Noir entered from the window and started making strange sounds while flapping the wings drawing circles in the air around his master. The blond looked up suspiciously, mumbling through his annoyance as he walked behind the bird for it was pretty obvious that the owl wanted to show him something, and it looked important.

Draco stopped right in front of his pet's cage, seemed that Noir's golden palace was usurped by Luna's owl, proudly nesting her eggs as Noir cupped her between his wings in a protective way.

"Noir, you've knocked up Luna's owl?" The blond froze all of a sudden but then he let go a sigh and rolled his eyes.

"You nasty little one….yeah, that's my boy!" He said to the owl in a childlike tone as he caressed those silk black feathers on the bird's back before returning to the dining room with a mocking smirk curling his pale lips.

He sank into his armchair looking at the huge breakfast in front of him: tea, juice, pancakes, honey, syrup, scrambled eggs, some fruit and lemon flavour muffins: his favourites. He grabbed a cup of tea and placed a muffing over the plate. He looked around the table for the wands case from Mr. Ollivander, he had only tested half, none of them with satisfactory results for they couldn't manage to properly channel his powerful magic. The blond was seriously trying to find a replacement for his original wand, the one that Bellatrix destroyed. He wasn't at all convinced in continuing to use Lucius' wand despite that it was the only one that managed to cope with him so far.

He pulled out a wand from the case and pointed at the pastry.

"Severius!"

But the muffin didn't get sliced in pieces as expected, it simply explode into several crumbs. He threw once again the wand in the case and rolled his eyes looking slightly annoyed.

Draco picked up a crumb, inspecting it closely before placing it inside his mouth. The taste was fairly good, but it was certainly no match to what Luna's cooking tasted like. He then started playing with the muffin, eating a crumb every now and then. Pushing the plate away from him, he picked up an apple with resentment between his fingers and gave it a bite while tapping the tea cup with the other hand, lost in thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye, he detected a low, slinking movement at his right.

"Incarcerous!" Draco's stunning reflexes gave no time for his attacker to react.

"AHHH!" There was a loud thud, like something or someone fall to the floor, painfully.

Without lifting himself from where he was sitting, Draco summoned his tied up prey, looking rather tense and fully alert, crushing the apple he still held on his hand.

The blond gasped, releasing immediately his friend from the trap. "Blaise, is that you?!"

"Yeah, it's me! What's the matter with you?" Blaise dark eyes opened wide at the initial shock of the assault. "Didn't your house elf alert you about my presence?" The black jet haired young man stared in disbelief at his mate.

Draco then realized that was probably what the creature meant to inform him earlier. He cleaned his right hand from squeezing the fruit with his bare palm and held it out. Blaise grasped it with a camaraderie handshake: both young men interlaced their thumbs while pressing the finger's tops against the other partner's wrist.

"And you said you didn't have a girlie scream!" Draco smirked, inviting his friend to take a sit. "What are you doing here?"

"Merlin, you look like crap!" He said, taking a closer look at Draco as he summoned a chair.

The blond didn't reply, waving one of the new wands negligently through the air testing it without much luck for the Flagrate Charm started exploding uncontrollably in thousand of firey lines within a hundred foot radius from where he was sited.

"I came back from my…holidays…early this morning and I thought to make a stop in France and check out on you two." Blaise said casually as he helped himself with a cup of tea and stirred up honey at a couple of pancakes with his free hand.

Draco sighed, throwing the wand back in the case with the rest. He crossed his arms concluding that all those wands were simply useless.

"Draco, this place is awesome but it's a pain in the arse getting all the way into here. I've followed all the instructions you've gave me the last time we saw and I've barely made it alive! Let me tell you, this is worse than trying to smuggle a Gringotts' vault!" He shrugged.

"That's the idea…" Draco's lips curled with a morbid smirk. "This Chateau happened to be the first of the places I made built right after Lucius arrest. There's a Manson in Germany being erected in the exact place my mother used to take me during holidays. I'm planning to name it after her and move in there with Luna once it's finished."

"It's a wonderful idea of perpetuating Narcissa's memory." Blaise's smile was tainted with sadness for his friend.

"Yes..." Draco said with a pitch of tension in his voice.

Noticing the blurred veil in the blonde's eyes, he decided to change the angle of the conversation completely. "Well, are you going to tell me that you happy to see me or what? I missed you…guys."

"Blaise, why did you drop out school?" The blond arched an eyebrow, changing the subject completely.

"Look who's talking!" Blaise looked slightly annoyed.

"You perfectly know why I did it, what's your excuse?" Draco frowned, looking serious at his friend.

Blaise smoothed back his black jet hair, taking a big breath. "You were too busy trying to save your wife to notice, but my mother got married again and her new hubby, a wealthy wizard who happens to live in Greece wanted us to move there. At first it was great but then I started to miss a lot of things, I guess I was a little homesick."

"So, where are you staying now?" Draco asked casually as he stretched his back on the armchair.

Blaise opened wide his eyes looking at his mate, paralysed, unable to speak for a few minutes and then he looked really, really pissed off.

"I'm your secret keeper, best man and best friend. How about some hospitality, damnit?!" He said, trying with all his might to refrain himself from slamming his fist against the table.

"You're implying that you've invited yourself to stay here while you figure out what to do with your life?" Draco asked venomously.

"Hell yeah!!" Blaise shot back euphorically. Then, adjusting his tense facial complexion, he added. "How's Luna?"

Draco shrugged and sighed deeply. "What's the phrase? She isn't quite herself lately. Right, that pretty much resumes the situation."

"Women! So what did you two argue about?" Blaise lifted one eyebrow, looking bored.

"You name it, we fight over it." Draco replied with slight sarcasm.

"So…where's this wife of yours? Still asleep or maybe locked up in the basement until she behaves, or what?" Blaise asked, looking curious around the room for any sign of her.

"She's not here, she…ran away." Draco rolled his eyes, he was feeling more annoyed and frustrated by the minute.

"What?!" Blaise dropped the butter knife and opened wide his eyes, looking perplexed.

"I came to the conclusion that communication is nothing but a series of little conflicts. Luna and I are facing one stressful conflict right now and we'll solve it if she condescends to show up!" Draco's fist slammed hard on the table.

"Draco, you've got to admit that Luna was always a little loony, you know…" He made a cuckoo gesture with one finger.

"Just name someone who's in his right mind." He paused, waiting for Blaise to answer, but he didn't pronounce a word for Draco was right.

"To a greater or lesser extent, we're all insane." The blond smirked, twirling the wedding ring on his finger.

"Okay then, but why did she take off?" Blaise asked as he poured some more tea on his cup.

"Because she temporally lost her focus, she's not seeing things the way I do. I never met anyone more flighty, more prone to melodrama, more… ethereal. So many hormones exist in her bloody emotional tears! Whenever I confront her she develops the very same pattern: she cries, screams, shrieks, sobs then she takes a big breath, whimpers a little and repeats the circle all over again! Crying is a way to manipulate others, and she pulls it out extremely well." Draco clenched his fists over the table, throwing a stabbing stare at Blaise.

"Manipulative? Well, you've got to admit, she's becoming more and more like you mate." Blaise shot back with scepticism.

Draco's face got whiter, if that was possible for his skin already resembled a paper white colour.

"I meant that as compliment." Blaise said, sounding like he was trying to excuse himself.

"Trouble is…that things are not going exactly as planned." The blonde's head hung slightly tilted to one side, looking tired. "Luna is becoming unpredictable and unstable, fluctuating rapidly between moods, between loving and hating. She's not being objective lately, for her is all-good or all-bad these days."

"Meaning you're visible all-bad for her, what did you do exactly?"

Draco looked burdened; his thoughts were running non-stop inside his head. It was hard to answer that one to Blaise, but he decided to do so, holding back on the gory details, if that was possible. It has been a month since the incident, since he granted Luna the ultimate gift, to have a second chance and live. Somehow those memories that hovered on the fringes of her consciousness came to light. All those unpleasant bits of memory came to her one by one. Once the big picture was completed inside her, she finally snapped out, unable to understand the true meaning of Draco's actions: to stop her from dying.

"So the healing process turned out to be the outbreak of her trauma. What doesn't kill you simply makes you…stranger?" Blaise asked, as he cleared his throat looking unusually calm.

"I tried my best to protect her, but I was unable to protect her from….myself." The blond said as he managed a tired smirk.

"To be honest, I don't understand Luna. If I were in her place I'd never have said to my lover: stop, if you love me, please stop… not in a thousand years because that's exactly what love truly means…complete surrender." Blaise gave a vague smile, looking straight into that blue amethyst pool of Draco's eyes.

"Blaise…" He paused, swallowing painfully. "...sometimes I think you talk just to make sounds."

Draco said, cursing himself for addressing his friend so coldly, but he wanted to make a point and get things back in track to the original course of the conversation: Luna.

"Yeah…you're right."

Seemed that Blaise was trying to find the strength to go on for he had lost track of the conversation, he looked really lost.

"Damnit! I'm really pissed off with myself. I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be this living hell. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so angry about it." Draco was starting to feel the weight of his actions crushing down on his shoulders.

"Where is she now, at her father's?" Blaise asked, scratching his chin.

"No, I've searched every single place she could have gone for shelter, every single corner I could think of, all except one…" He paused, closing shut his eyes with fury. "She chose it very carefully, knowing that it would certainly be the last place I'd like to place a foot inside again."

"And where is that exactly?" But before Blaise could finish the question, Draco took off and rushed upstairs heading to his bedroom.

Blaise followed him shortly after and leaned over the doorframe, holding a glass of juice in one hand tapping it with his fingers, looking puzzled. He frowned, watching closely at Draco who seemed to be at the edge of snapping out completely, opening and closing some trunks, throwing clothes in the air looking dangerously enraged swearing under his breath an unlimited list of unspeakable words.

"Draco, what are you doing? You seem like you have something on your mind. What's up?" There was a trace of panic and despair in Blaise's voice.

"I can't find that filthy trunk with my damn clothes!" Draco shot back through clenched teeth, with a dark look in his amethyst blue eyes.

"Which trunk and what clothes?" Blaise mumbled, raising an eyebrow with concern.

Draco stared at Blaise for a calculated moment before responding. "The one with my Slytherin's uniforms, I'm going back to Hogwarts."

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A/N:

I'm clueless here. I see a lot of people reading it on the stats...still no posting any review...come on, speak your mind, let me know what you think about this story.

Divinne