Disclaimer; Harry, Luna, Draco, Ginny, Severus Snape, and everything else Harry Potter related do not belong to me.
Harry, Malfoy, and Luna were jerked awake when a ear splitting scream suddenly was heard. Harry jumped up and ran out of the cave towards it with Luna hot on his heels. Malfoy, after few seconds, decided to follow them incase they got themselves in situations only Gryffindors and their friend could get into. He stopped short when he reliazed the scream was coming from near the fire, near where they had left Ginny. He started going towards there, quickening his pace. When he got there shortly behind Luna and Harry, he saw why Ginny was currently screaming. A large wolf like creature was running towards her and it looked mad. Harry grabbed a rock and threw it at the wolf-like creature. It hit the creature in the stomach, making it stop short and turn towards them. "Uh oh." Malfoy breathed. The wolf thing started running towards them and Ginny seemed to be frozen in place. Luna picked up one of the bigger sticks for the fire and started running at the wolf thing. "She's crazy." Both Harry and Malfoy breathed at the same time. Luna lowered the stick to the wolf's level and kept on running right at it. Malfoy and Harry both felt like this was one of those Quidditch you are going to hurt and be messy but you just can't look away.
Luna and Luna's stick rammed right into the wolf thing. The wolf thing was knocked down and Luna fell over it. Luna rolled away from it and the wolf thing got up. It seemed dazed and it was stumbling around and Harry had a idea. He picked up the biggest rock he knew he could and he carried it over to the wolf thing and dropped it on it's head. The wolf thing was bleeding from it's head and seemed dead but Malfoy had been taught since he was a baby to always be extra careful and not take any unnessiry chances. He picked up the machete they had been using to make some of the thicker sticks smaller, walked over to Harry and the wolf thing, and used the machete to cut through the wolf thing's neck. It was messy, there was blood everywhere, and it was disgusting but Malfoy had a grim smile on his face as he did it. Luna had to put a hand over her eyes and cover her mouth, Harry just closed his eyes and turned away, Ginny still hadn't moved since they got out here, but Malfoy watch and he felt some sort of sick pleasure in cutting off the head of something that had endangered him. Once he finished he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. He ran behind a rock before he vomited all the food in his stomach. Malfoy wiped is mouth off before going over to the lake to wash his mouth out. After he had gotten most of the taste out of his mouth, he walked back over to the fire pit. Ginny still hadn't moved, Luna was now sitting by her, and Harry was staring at the corpse with some sort of morbid fascination.
"What are we going to do with it?" Harry asked when Malfoy was in hearing distance. "Drag it out to the forest?" Malfoy asked looking at the corpse. Harry shrugged in reply still staring at the corpse. "Ginny?" Luna asked. Harry and Malfoy turned around when Ginny didn't reply after a few minutes. Ginny was still staring at the spot where the wolf thing had been charging at her and still hadn't moved.
"Ginny?" Harry said walking closer to her. Ginny's mouth moved but no sound came out. "Weasley, you have to actually make noise of some sort in order to make words and be understood." Malfoy said trying to sound mocking but he sounded more nervous than mocking. Ginny mouth something again still not making any noise. "Ginny? Are you okay?" Luna asked. "Maybe." Ginny squeaked. Her eyes were still wide and fearfully and she still hadn't moved but she finally said something. "Come on, Potter. We need to move the… thing." Malfoy said turning around. "How?" Harry asked turning around too. "We're going to have to touch it." Malfoy said grimly. "What? No way, Malfoy." Harry protested. "How else are we going to do it?" Malfoy said annoyed. Harry frowned, opened his mouth several times to speak only to close it, sighed, and then said "Fine. But you're moving the head and touching the part with no head." Harry said looking in disgust at the deattached head. Malfoy pulled a face and said, "How about we move the head by pushing it with a stick and we pick the thing up by it's sides?" Malfoy suggested hopeful.
"You can do whatever you want with the head but I'm not getting near it." Harry said. "We could probably use the meat." Luna said looking away from Ginny. The boys turned around and Harry asked, "Huh?" "The meat, we haven't been eating very well and we could probably use the protein. We probably use the fur too. As a blanket or something simpler," Luna explained. "I am not eating something that tried to eat me." Ginny said still sounding shaken from almost becoming a meal. "We can fish or something, Lovegood. I saw some fishes in the water but I'm not skinning and eating this thing." Malfoy said voicing his distain at Luna's suggestion. Harry nodded in, probably for the first time ever, agreement with Malfoy's words. Luna sighed but gestured for the boys to carry what they were doing. "You move the head first." Harry said to Malfoy. Malfoy got one of the sticks for the fire and started pushing the disembodied head towards the forest with it. "I hate you, Potter." Malfoy said over his shoulder. "That's nothing new." Harry said back. Malfoy quickly returned once he got the head in inside a part of the forest they didn't going around often. He and Harry got on either side of the body and started carrying/dragging it to the spot where Malfoy had put the head. Once they finally got it there, they got back to the girls as fast as possible. "Are we going to try and go back to bed or not?" Malfoy asked out of plain curiosity. "I don't think I could get back to sleep." Ginny whispered. Harry nodded and said, "Right now I'd probably just laid there till dawn." "I want to go back to the cave." Ginny said softly after a minute, everyone understand the silent 'I don't feel safe here.' They all nodded and they started heading up to the cave. Luna had a arm around Ginny. They sat in a circle on Ginny's bed and pulled the holey blankets around their shoulders. They just sat in silence for a while, just staring at each other. After maybe an hour or so Ginny asked softly, "What's the most terrifying thing that's happened to you?"
A pause and then Luna said, "The day my mother died. She liked to experimate and one day one of her experimate went horribly wrong." There was another pause and then Harry said, "I think it was going to the ministry the last time. I thought that Si- my godfather was going to die, that my friends were going to die and it would be all my fault. I thought I was going to really die. My godfather did die." His voice was filled with so many emotions. Fear, pain, anger, sadness. It was…strange. Malfoy spoke up almost as soon as Harry finished. "The first day of summer this year. I…I had been told about my father going to… going to prison but I…I just I didn't really believe until my mother told me why. And then I met my aunt Bellatrix for the first time in my memory. And… well she was really terrifying. Insane. And…it was just so overwhelming and they expected me to much more than I was. I- I just-" Malfoy cut himself off before he could finish and just shook his head. Luna put a hand his shoulder and he just stared at it as if it was one of the strangest things he had ever seen. "Mine… I think it's between tonight- today- whatever and what happened during my first year. I…I couldn't remember where I was at times or how I got there or why I had blood and feathers on my clothes. And waking up in the Chamber was… I had no idea where I was and there was blood everywhere and I knew I was doing something. The big snake corpse really didn't help calm me down." Ginny said softly trying, and failing, to inject some humor. "Wait, snake corpse? Chamber? Wha- you opened the Chamber of Secrets." Malfoy exclaimed. "I was possessed for most of my first year." Ginny corrected quietly. "Who possessed you?" Malfoy asked with a hint of confusion. "You-Know-Who, of course." Luna said in a way that made it seem like it was in plain view. "Oh." Was all Malfoy had for a reply. They lapsed into silence that wasn't broken until the sun started rising. It was broken by Harry's soft snoring. Ginny looked around when she heard it and saw that the three other had fallen asleep at some point. Harry was sleeping with his head rested on Luna's shoulder, Luna was resting her head on Harry's head, and Malfoy was resting his head on his hand with his elbow resting on his knee. Ginny sighed softly and wished that she had been able to get to sleep.
They ate breakfast silently that morning. After they had eaten their small portens of berries, they just sat around the fire not saying anything. "I think we deserve a day off." Luna said. "A day off? If anything we need to work harder so we can move to Carpe Diem as soon as possible. That certainly be more safe than this place." Malfoy objected. "All work and no play isn't good for you." Luna replied. "But don''t you think that we should work on the huts so we can be safer sooner?" Harry asked slowly. Luna just shrugged in reply. "What would we do on a day off? We don't exactly have brooms to play Quidditch." Ginny asked. "We could swim in the lake. We can always work until noon and then have the rest of the day off." Luna replied. "We did do a lot of work yesterday. Except for the hut with the broken roof, we're probably move up there today. You did finish fixing the well, right?" Harry asked Malfoy. "Yes, it will work for a while." Malfoy replied. "Don't you think that we should make sure it can be as safe as possible?" He asked nervously. "Were you actually worried, Malfoy?" Ginny asked a bit of forced humor. "Well of course I was worried. That it would attack me. Or that you wouldn't be around to gather my food while I did real work. I could do without you degrading me and arguing with me at every turn." Malfoy said trying to make it seem the he really wasn't worried about Ginny's or the other's well being. "Whatever you say, Malfoy." Harry said with a small smirk. "Wipe that smirk off your face, Potter. Like I would ever care about Weasley or you or Lovegood and what happened to you besides how it would make my life harder." Malfoy said harshly. Ginny's smile faltered, Harry's smirk slipped a bit, but Luna's serene smile didn't move the tiniest bit. "So it's agreed? We work until noon and then we have the rest of the day off?" Luna asked. Harry, Ginny, and Malfoy mumbled their agreements. "Wait, are we going to move up there today or not?" Harry asked just before they started walking to Carpe Diem. "I just we could…" Ginny said. "Sercuity wise, I think it would be better than a cave." Malfoy said. "I guess it's decided then. We should get some of our stuff and bring it up there." Luna said. So the did just that. They got the small knives they had found, some of the plates, some of the silverware, the blankets, and the machete once Malfoy washed the blood from the wolf thing off. And then they walked to Carpe Diem.
They piled the items they brought in the stone porch in front of huts. They all took a minute to look around at Carpe Diem.
The stone huts, except for the one with a large hole in the roof, looked livable. The closely fitted, almost perfectly fitted, stones looked impressive and spoke of hours of labor someone must of spent making them and fitting them. The few feet long stone paths lead to a large stone porch like thing with a large fire pit in the middle. The fire pit is so big that all four of them could stand in it and two of them could sit in it with a little room to spare. The outside had been covered in dirt and decaying leaves and rotten wood and broken pottery and some other broken or rotten things they couldn't identify. And now it was as clean as most outside areas were. The pond was still murky and filled with leaves and unidentifiable mush but it wasn't needed right now and they were planning on working on it when they had finished with the huts. All of the huts had stone walls and floors and the roofs were made of two dozen or more big wooden beams that crisscross with each other that had thin and narrow strips of wood or something simpler stretched across the beams in a over lapping crisscross pattern.
Inside the left hut, they had cleaned the animal nests and, umm, droppings out, cleaned up the small amount of dirt that had gotten in, set up the dresser they had found in there, and filled the dresser with the clothes they had found that were still wearable. In middle hut, the biggest, they had cleaned the animal nests and dropping, cleaned out the dirt, left the chest and fancy large wood boards in there, and taken down the broken wooden door. The other two huts didn't have doors, they just had moth eaten cloth hung in the doorways that they had taken down. Since the right hut had a large hole in the roof, they just cleaned out the animal nests and droppings and the rotten furniture and cloth. Malfoy had fixed the well that was a short distance from the huts and the water in it was clean and clear. "What hut are we going to move into?" Harry asked. "The left one, I think. It doesn't had a huge hole in the roof and there's room for all of us." Ginny replied. "The one in the middle is bigger. We'll have more room than if we moved into the left one." Malfoy argued. "What do we need more room for? We just need room for sleeping." Harry argued back. "I, personally, don't want to wake up with Weasley or someone sleeping on top of me so the middle one is the way to go." Malfoy replied. "Like I want to sleep on top of you. It would be much too soft." Ginny replied sneering. "For once Weas- what do you mean soft? I am not soft." Malfoy demanded. Ginny poked a finger in his stomach and said, "Yeah you kinda are." "Let's get back to the topic at hand. Anything that isn't about…that." Harry said cutting off Malfoy's retort.
"Which hut we're moving into." Luna said. "We have three huts. One we can't use right now. Which means we have two usable huts and one is much bigger than the other." Ginny said out loud softly to herself. "Thank you for telling us what we already know, Weasley." Malfoy said sarcastically. "Be quiet, Malfoy. What I was saying, since we plan on fixing up the roof on that one hut then we'll have three usable huts. The biggest can be used for storage or something like that and the other two can be sleeping quarters. One for the girls and one for the guys." Ginny finished. "I saw two problems, Ginny. Malfoy and me. You expect us to get along in close quarters without any buffers?" Harry asked. "I should not be blamed because you can't control yourself, Potter." Malfoy said snobbishly. "I can control myself, Malfoy. It's you that can't stop yourself from making degrading remarks." Harry replied. "Both of you get along better here than you do at Hogwarts and you've never been in a fist fight. With anybody I know of." Ginny said. "I would never start a fist fight with anyone." Harry said at the same time Malfoy said "Malfoys would never lower themselves to fighting like a filthy muggle." "What was that yesterday then? A sophisticated duel of strength?" Harry asked. "That was Weasley challenging me and a Malfoy doesn't let a challenge go unanswered." Malfoy replied. "Oh yeah? What about that challenge in first year?" Harry challenged. "That was a trap. Not a challenge." Malfoy easily replied. "What challenge? What trap?" Ginny asked butting in. "Well, you see Mal-" "It's history that you don't need to know." Malfoy said cutting Harry off. "It sounds interesting." Luna commented. "Aren't we suppose to be deciding what hut we're going to be sleeping for however long we're here?" Malfoy asked annoyed. Trying, and failing, to hide her snickers Ginny said, "Let's just put our stuff in the middle one and talk about it later if we really have to." "For once, I agree with Weasley." Malfoy said. "So do I." Harry said. "That's fine with me." Luna said staring at Ginny for some reason. Ginny tried to ignore Luna's staring and went to start putting the stuff they had brought in the middle hut. Harry was quick to help and Luna followed shortly after him and Malfoy gave in and helped after being glared at by Harry and Ginny for a few seconds.
Until noon they went back and forth between their camp and Carpe Diem bring their things. They even brought their bedding after Malfoy pointed out that if they didn't then they would have to make new ones. No one wanted to do that. Harry thought of catching a good sized stick on fire on bring it up to Carpe Diem to set small sticks and a few good sized ones on fire in the fire pit in Carpe Diem. That way they didn't have to go through the time and pain it took the first time they started a fire again. At noon they took a break and sat around the new fire and ate a small bit for their lunch. "Are we going to have that day off?" Luna asked went they had just about finished lunch. "Day off? I dunno…" Ginny said. "Maybe a few hours. I think we could take a break for a few hours." Harry said. "Unless we were going to start fixing the roof today, I don't think we have much to do." Malfoy said reluncdently. "Shall we go swimming?" Luna asked. "In what? We don't exactly have swimming clothes here." Malfoy pointed out. "We could swim in the clothing we found. You are already wearing some and Ginny know which ones will fit her. It shouldn't that hard for Harry and I to find some that fit." Luna said. "I guess that would work." Malfoy conceded.
So Harry and Luna searched through the pile of pants and shirts that had survived until they found them while Ginny put on the ones she had found yesterday. Most of them had a hole or two or a rip in them but they worked for what they were going to use them for. Harry found some pants that fit pretty well and a shirt that was kinda big on him but he didn't really care. Luna found a pair of pants that fit quickly and, after wondering out loud why pants were called a pair, found a shirt that fit okay. After everyone was changed, they walked past Misterul and down to the lake/pond that until a hour or two ago was their camp. Luna skipped past Ginny, Harry, and Malfoy and jumped into the lake. She surfaced and said to them, "The water is quite nice. Very lovely." Ginny smiled and started running at the lake and did a cannonball after the ledge. Once she surfaced she called out to the boys, "Are you coming or are you a couple of chickens?" Harry and Malfoy looked at each other and then, without a word, started racing each other to the water.
They landed in the water with a huge splash. "I so beat you, Potter." Malfoy said out of breath. "No way, Malfoy. I so beat you." Harry replied so out of breath. "You're kidding yourself, Potter." Malfoy replied. Harry used his hand to splash Malfoy in the face with the water. Malfoy looked at Harry in shock as if he couldn't believe Harry would do that before Malfoy used both of his hands to splash Harry right back. Harry tried to splash Malfoy back but Malfoy ducked underwater and the splash hit Ginny right in the face. Ginny got a evil glint in her eye and splashed back but Malfoy came up for air then and it hit him. He turned around and splashed Ginny but she moved and it hit Luna. Soon it was an all out splash war between the four teenagers. They were trying to splash each other while not getting hit themselves and staying above the water. At one point Ginny lost her control while trying to splash Harry and Malfoy at the same time and latched on to the person nearest to her, Malfoy, to try and stay afloat. Ginny was pulling Malfoy down so he tried to shake her off but the girl had a good grip. He couldn't shake her off so he grabbed Harry to tried and stay above the water and Harry grabbed Luna when he started going down and Luna didn't have anyone to grab so all she could do was try and grab a rock that was six or seven feet away.
Once Ginny reliazed she was going under water she let go of Malfoy who let go of Harry who let go of Luna. What could of been a end to the splash war wasn't because Ginny splash Malfoy in the face and then swam away once they all caught their breaths. The splash way came to an end when Malfoy and Harry decided that they were better off working together than against each other and teamed up. They each grabbed a girl and splashed her until they said that Malfoy and Harry were that winners. Malfoy let Ginny go and Harry let Luna go. "Let's go back to Carpe Diem. It's getting dark and I, for one, don't want a repeat of last night." Malfoy said before Ginny could restart the splash war. He trusted Luna to not restart the splash war but Ginny was a different story. So the four completely soaking wet teenagers walked the somewhat short distance to Carpe Diem, changed into their dry clothes, and then sat down to their cold dinner of roots, a few berries, and a shared coconut in front of the fire. After that they went into the hut with their beds and went to beds. "Good night, everyone." Ginny said with her eyes closed and a small smile on her lips. "Good night." Harry replied. "Sleep well." Luna said. "Good-umm-night, Weasley, Potter, Lovegood." Malfoy said a bit awkwardly. "Today was the best day I've had in a while." Ginny said after a while. "That wasn't too hard to do, Ginny." Harry replied. "Yeah." Ginny said. Soon the hut was quiet except for the even breathing of Malfoy, Luna, Ginny, and Harry and Harry's soft snoring.
A/N; Here's the chapter.