I still own absolutely nothing but the plot. (It's not much worth owning, anyway).
The Unspeakable Files: Godspell
An HP Fanfic
By AnotherSpoonyBard
Chapter 8: Dreams
A Dreamscape
"Hey. Hey, are you awake? You're not dead, are you?" The voice reached Luna from what seemed a distance, but slowly she was regaining access to her thoughts, and drawing closer to what felt like her own body. Was she perhaps back in the training room, done with dreams for the moment?
Something poked her in the ribs, and she flinched away on instinct, her silvery eyes snapping open as the voice—not one she recognized—repeated its inquiry. Luna made a small noise when the light proved to be too much initially, and she had to blink several times before she adjusted properly, the blurring environment resolving itself in front of her into sharper images that she could make sense her was what appeared to be Draco's bedroom, only… different. The bookshelves were nearly empty, and what books there were seemed to be more colorful than she would have expected. The bed linens were in similar colors (dark green, of course, though the sheets were white rather than black), but the room seemed much bigger, emptier somehow, as though he hadn't gotten around to filling it properly. A window stood open, the breeze stirring a gossamer curtain in cream.
She was poked again, this time from behind, and rolled over to face her attacker, only to intake her breath sharply, eyes growing wide. The person that looked back at her had solemn grey eyes, hair several shades lighter than hers, and an unmistakable aristocratic bearing.
"…Draco?" He also couldn't be more than ten years old.
The boy blinked and took a step back, his surprise evident for several seconds, until he seemed to remember himself and smoothed his childish features into a very mature impassivity. "How do you know my name?" He demanded, narrowing his gaze in a way so strikingly-similar to the one he still possessed that it surprised her anew.
"I'm your friend." For Luna, the answer was obvious, and she smiled, trying to understand this new predicament placed before her. In the end, there wasn't much to be discerned with such scant information, and so she did what Luna did best: decided to go along with it and see what would happen.
"No you're not," he argued, his tone haughty, straightening to his full ten-year-old height and gazing imperiously down at the woman on the floor. Any doubts she might have had that this was actually Draco Malfoy vanished then and there.
"Am I not?" she echoed curiously, rolling onto her feet with a kind of careless, graceful ease. "How do you know?"
Draco crossed his arms, and she realized that the object she'd been poked with was a wand, though obviously not his. It now stuck out from behind one of his elbows. He was forced to look up at her then, as she was considerably taller than he. "I don't have any friends." His tone of voice suggested that this was something to be proud of rather than sad about, but Luna could only feel a twinge of sympathy in her chest. She knew exactly what that felt like, and no matter how stubborn the child, there was no way he actually enjoyed that state of affairs.
"What about Pansy and Blaise, or Vincent and Gregory?" Luna remembered the latter two following Draco around everywhere when he was in school, and how distraught Harry said he'd been over what happened to Crabbe.
Child-Draco snorted derisively, another mannerism she wouldn't have thought someone so diminutive should have. "Pansy's a brat, Crabbe and Goyle are too stupid to be friends with anyone but each other, and Blaise thinks he's better than me." His lip curled into his trademark sneer, and she supposed to herself that it was probably only a year before this Draco would be boarding the Hogwarts express after all.
Luna was caught between a smile and a sigh. On one level, it was kind of amusing, but mostly just incredibly sad. "Well, I suppose I wouldn't know much about that," she replied dreamily, "but…" she locked eyes with Draco and crouched in front of him so they were at the same height. "I do know that I'm your friend, and I'm the one that gets to say so. You don't have to be mine if you don't want to." He looked about to protest, but her final words seemed to mollify him somewhat.
"What are you doing here, then?" He still appeared to be looking for a reason to be cross (some things, thought Luna, really didn't change much at all), but she chose not to rise to the bait.
"I'm here to spend time with you, of course. That's what friends do. Oh, and explore your house, because they do fun things like that, too." She needed to figure out what was going on, since she suspected she was still in Draco's mind somewhere. A single white-blond eyebrow ascended the boy's forehead, and he huffed.
"Well, fine. I suppose I ought to come with you; you'll get lost otherwise, or break something important." Luna simply nodded, bright smile firmly in place. Without bothering to ask, she took his hand in hers and started forward. He looked considerably startled by this action, and she tried to contain an airy chuckle when she realized that he was turning a faint shade of pink, mumbling something incoherent and cranky under his breath.
Malfoy Manor, Hidden Chamber
The room in which the three had ensconced themselves was remarkably silent. Severus was reclined in his chair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, his hands steepled gracefully beneath his chin. Almost as soon as Miss Lovegood had been swallowed by whatever blackness had taken her, he'd been forcibly thrown from Draco's mind, the younger wizard's Occlumency kicking in apparently unconsciously. Try as he might, Snape could not penetrate the veil of darkness that separated him now from the consciousness (or unconsciousness, as the case may be) of his godson, and though the casual ease of his posture might suggest otherwise, he was deeply troubled by this.
What he had seen, tugged along invisibly in the footsteps of Xenophilius's daughter, had troubled him. The scene, with alterations, was a well-known one in certain mythologies, in which the trickster was punished for his indiscretions. The most obvious analogue was Loki of Norse mythology, bound beneath the world serpent and forced to endure the trickling agonies of Jörmungandr's venom. Even the girl's role mirrored that of the loyal Sigyn, but this was not the only possible interpretation. Prometheus, too, had been chained to a stone after stealing fire from the gods, though his torture was to have a carrion bird tear him open and eat at his innards every day, until they were restored with the night only for the cycle to begin anew.
Perhaps the presence of the serpent was a twisted nod to Draco's former allegiance to Voldemort, perhaps it was a jab at his affiliation with Slytherin. Such things tended to carry over into the world after a student's time at Hogwarts far more than Snape believed they should, but even he was not immune to giving old attributions more credit than they were due, and he knew this well. Snape folded his last three fingers on each hand together and brought his joined index digits to tap thoughtfully upon his lips in a metronomic rhythm.
This was something that could stand the examination of another mind almost as analytical as his own. Miss Lovegood was too closely involved, and Draco was in no position to be objective about it either, which meant that his best candidate for the discussion was obviously Miss Granger. Blaise Zabini and Bill Weasley would have been good options as well, but neither of them knew of his continued existence, and logic dictated that as few people be brought in on the secret as possible. It would not always be possible to secure Unbreakable Vows, and obliviation was something he would rather avoid. Lupin and Greengrass didn't specialize in this area, and therefore would not be ideal, despite the fact of their respective intellects.
Very well; he would simply have to make another appointment for the library by owl post. This idea did not displease him as much as he thought it would, which left him feeling vaguely unsettled.
Such feelings were, of course, the least of his concerns right now, and his flinty black eyes swept with calculation over the two unconscious bodies before him. Draco was still against the chaise on his back, angled slightly upward at the torso, but his arms were no longer folded neatly over his chest. He'd thrashed upon the advent of the dream, but his right hand now draped over the edge of the lounge, firmly grasped in the much smaller left of Miss Lovegood, who was seated cross-legged on the floor, and had apparently in her slumber reached up to catch hold of it.
Snape telegraphed absolutely no reaction to this, but a single word echoed hollowly in his mind, where it had derailed any other thoughts he'd been having. It was the same word he'd thought of earlier, watching Draco watch her as she moved about, and he cursed himself for the sentiment.
Lily.
A Dreamscape, Elsewhere
It had seemed that Draco knew where he was going, tugging her along behind him with a determined stride, his other hand still holding the wand, but when she'd opened her mouth to ask where they were going, the words had not come, and no amount of effort on her part would allow her to speak them. Looking at him now, his eyes seemed slightly glazed, as if he were in a trance, or somehow a sudden somnambulist. Luna wasn't sure what to make of it, so she allowed the events to run their natural course, less wary than another might have been in this situation.
Draco turned the knob on a door she'd never seen before, somewhat awkwardly due to the fact that one hand was in hers and the other held tightly to the wand, but when he pushed it open and they stepped through, Luna found herself standing, along with the young Malfoy, in the halls of Hogwarts castle. Well, not the halls so much as the Astronomy Tower, really. Presently, a figure sat, legs dangling carelessly out the window, staring off at the stars beyond.
Draco, whose expression seemed to have cleared once again, looked at her expectantly, and Luna shrugged lightly, walking forward with him until he could see what she already knew: the figure was herself, at approximately age fifteen. Her school robes were open in the front, the mismatched quality of her clothes underneath rather obvious. She smiled; that combination of pale green and amethyst purple really was nice, even if her black-and-white striped knee socks weren't exactly regular. She was fairly certain they'd just learned a color-alteration Charm in class that day, and she'd always been enamored with it. Her dirigible plum earrings, handmade, swung freely from her ears, and she was quite happily entertained with some digestives (a rare Muggle treat for someone so steeped in magic) and a small, silvery telescope, a Christmas gift from Daddy.
The boy beside her looked back and forth between her twenty-four-year-old self to her fifteen-year-old one, his brows furrowing in confusion. "Is she your sister or something?" he asked, still sounding vaguely put-off by the whole experience, though perhaps not as much so as he should have been, all things considered. She wondered why that was.
"No," Luna replied softly, but she did not elaborate further, because the two became aware of the footsteps behind them at precisely that moment and turned, still joined at the palm, to see a frustrated-looking older version of Draco striding into the tower. His normally-neat hair was askew, and his eyes were red-rimmed and a trifle wild. He raked unsteady hands through his fine blond coif, a testament to how exactly it had reached its present condition, and from this distance, they could easily pick out the jagged sound of his breathing.
Pulling his hawthorn wand from his robes, the teenaged Draco pointed it at the nearest stack of stargazing instruments and charting tools and fired off a quick blasting spell. Pieces of metal and glass went flying everywhere, some even threatening to rebound and hit the wizard responsible until suddenly they all froze, suspended and motionless as though floating in some thick liquid rather than the air.
Both Dracos snapped their heads to where the teenaged girl was sitting, but Luna didn't need to. She knew that her younger self would be tucking her ashwood wand behind her ear and smiling dreamily as usual, rising to her feet, and collapsing her miniature spyglass, tucking it into her robes even as she lifted the package of digestives in her free hand. The young woman standing with the boy mouthed the words silently even as they were expressed in a more childish voice. "Hello, Draco. I must say I wasn't expecting you here today. You usually only end up in the Tower on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
The youth across from her looked momentarily nonplussed, staring at the frozen shards of metal and glass as if seeing them for the first time, then at the only other person in the room he could see. His breathing slowed, calmed, and his shoulders slumped somewhat as he relaxed them. Both Lunas smiled at this, and both kept on smiling in that distant, misty way they had even as he spoke. "It is Tuesday, you loony bint."
Child-Draco's brows furrowed at this, and his little mouth dropped into a scowl. Luna placed her free hand atop his head, a gentle shushing sound escaping her to stop him from speaking just yet. "Oh is it?" her younger self mused lightly. "Well, I suppose the Tower is properly yours then." She nodded as if confirming something to herself, and, heedless of his obviously violent mood, drifted right past him to make for the door.
She didn't get all the way there, as Draco's left hand lashed out viper-quick and caught her by the elbow. That Luna looked up at him calmly, a veiled question in silvery eyes, but for the longest moment his own simply bore into them, searching for something. She hadn't known what, then, but now she was fairly certain that she did. Even this young Luna had recognized that he'd been weeping, but she'd also had the discretion not to let on that she knew. At last, whatever held his tongue released it, and he spoke low, but caustically, having regained some of his composure. "Don't tell anyone what you saw here, Lovegood, or it'll be unpleasant for you."
The girl's eyes grew soft, but she nodded anyway, gaze flickering for the briefest moment to the exposed left arm. It was still pale, smooth, and unmarked then. He released her grudgingly, and the little boy's frown grew deeper. "I don't like him. He has my name, but he sounds like my father. " Grown Luna sighed softly.
"I know, Draco. But not everything is the way it seems. That boy there… he did some very bad things."
"So then why was she so nice to him?"
"Because… she wanted to be his friend, even then."
"Why would she want that?" He pulled a face, and she couldn't help but smile. It was almost funny, that he was still too innocent to understand how, in a way, this behavior was exactly what grew out of the way he'd been haughty to her earlier.
"Well, I suppose it's because she believed that, no matter how mean or cruel he was right then, there's some good in him somewhere, and that it deserves a chance to be looked after and grow the way his hate did."
"Maybe she's just stupid." Luna bit down on her lip, trying unsuccessfully to smother her smile.
"It has been suggested before. Many times in fact. I don't think that's it, though." She was spared the ordeal of looking for further ways to explain how she understood the unfortunate soul that sprouted from his very boy into that teenager and then the man he was today when the surroundings blurred again, much like her vision had earlier. The child beside her intook a breath sharply, tightening his grip on her hand and hugging her around the waist as their feet again left the ground. Unlike his older self from before, she did not feel his grip slacken, and had the feeling that wherever she was going this time, he was coming, too.
Elsewhen
The air around them settled, and they opened their eyes to find that they had not moved at all, at least spatially. Temporally appeared to be another matter; the light of evening falling over the stillness of the Tower. From where they stood, they could see only Dumbledore, haggard in appearance and clutching his blackened hand to his chest, his wand clasped tightly in the other.
"Who's that?" the boy beside her asked, and Luna had to swallow over the lump in her throat in order to answer. She could feel heat building behind her eyes, and privately pleaded with whomever was showing them these things not to make the young Draco watch this. She knew, however, that it was something they needed to see, and she would not shrink back from it.
"That," she answered softly, "is one of the greatest wizards who ever lived."
Draco scoffed. "That old man? He's crippled and he looks tired and weak. Salazar Slytherin was the greatest wizard who ever—" He cut off his words abruptly when Luna leveled a stern gaze upon him, pursing her lips.
"Power is not the only thing that matters, Draco. This man loved the world so much, loved even his enemies so much, that he was willing to die to save them all." Luna knew that she viewed Dumbledore and his actions through very rose-tinted lenses; many of the things he'd done for his cause were questionable at best. But he, a good man at his heart, was willing to do them, to take the blame for them, so that other people wouldn't have to. She admired the same quality in Severus.
He might have replied, but she hushed him with a hand on his shoulder, just as his counterpart again entered the scene. They were for some reason unable to hear the words being spoken, and watched a pantomime of what had been, the expressions of agony and conflict contorting older Draco's face and his shame flushing it pink. Younger Draco set his jaw and looked angry when his future self pulled a wand on the old man, and from there he only seemed to grow more and more confused as the rest of the scene played out. She tried to place her hand over his eyes when Snape dealt the curse, but he pushed it away with surprising strength.
"He was going to kill that man! Why?" he demanded of Luna, curling his little hands into fists. She turned him by moving his shoulders, and crouched in front of him, one of her palms resting on each.
"Because he was a very sad, lonely boy, Draco. He believed some horrible lies, and wanted to do bad things in service of those lies. But in the end, he could never quite do it. He could never commit himself to those delusions, and he suffered for it. Other people suffered, too, because he couldn't commit himself to doing the right thing, either." A shiver wracked her frame, her body remembering what her mind strove always to put aside. Bellatrix Lestrange and the Carrows had held no such reservations, nor had Voldemort or Greyback. She would know.
"So he's a coward and a monster," little Draco asserted forcefully, and Luna felt something shift within the dream.
"No," she murmured softly, drawing him into her arms and hugging him close. "Never a monster."
His arms, locked in place at his sides, loosened, and then wrapped tentatively around her back. "…I'm not brave," he whispered into her neck, his child's voice tremulous with the effort to hold back thick emotion. "I'm not good."
Pulling back, Luna ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, smiling sadly. "I know," she replied simply. "But you could be. I still believe in you, Draco, and nothing you can show me here is going to change that."
Child-Draco's eyes went wide, and the dream world shattered, literally fragmenting into millions of tiny pieces and falling down around her. His arm in her hand crumbled to a fine powder and drifted away on some unseen, unfelt breeze. Her fingertips wavered, and she could sense herself being literally unmade, her ashes following his dust into the wind.
Malfoy Manor, The Waking World
Draco woke first, his eyelids cracking open almost painfully. He could recall fragments, pieces of what had happened. The venom, then sudden relief, Lovegood looking down at him from above. The feeling of being embraced, like his mother used to do in his childhood when he'd been particularly upset. Only… he didn't think it had been his mother. Words, he remembered words.
I'm not brave. I'm not good.
I know. But you could be.
I believe in you.
Draco swallowed hard, sitting up against the chaise. He felt… cold, all over, except for one of his palms, which was pleasantly warm—
He glanced down at where one of his pale, long-fingered hands was entwined with a much smaller one. Slowly, his eyes followed the length of the arm to which it was attached, eventually reaching the somnolent expression of Luna Lovegood. She looked… serene. She normally looked like that, of course, but in sleep, there was something decidedly different about her. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but—
"So you're awake," the voice was soft, but Draco started, wrenching his hand from Lovegood's and causing her to stir faintly. Glancing up, he was met with the eminently-neutral expression of Severus, who reclined still in the chair Draco had last seen him in. His godfather's obsidian eyes flickered downwards, and something in his expression wavered just slightly, a hint of a feeling both softer than usual and troubled appearing for the briefest of moments before it vanished like so much smoke. If Draco hadn't known Severus so well, he would have missed it completely.
Draco didn't see the need to dignify the comment with a reply, instead testing his ability to stand, surprised when he managed it not only with no trouble, but feeling better than he had in… well… ever. His entire body felt alive, as though some kind of vital force were tingling just underneath his skin. Severus seemed to notice, and scrutinized his former pupil closely for a moment, eyes widening perceptibly. He was opening his mouth to say something when a small noise from Lovegood drew both men's attention.
She stirred again, opening her eyes blearily and blinking several times. She caught sight of Draco first, and smiled brightly. He was caught strangely off-guard by the action, and his heart made an irregular thump in his chest, as it would if he'd been snuck up on by something and then become suddenly aware of it. "You're awake. That's good. We should test your magic, then."
Her words were sensible (surprisingly enough), and he nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak. He was in a strange state at the moment, but it was not at all unpleasant. Withdrawing his wand from his robes, Draco took aim at a cluster of practice dummies, pointing well away from the other people in the room. He stared with a basic spell.
"Bombarda!" Something inside him shifted, and he was sure he could feel the expulsion of magic in a way he never had before. Which was why he knew something had gone wrong moments before his wand exploded, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions. Severus and Luna both shielded themselves, and save for the light clattering of slivers of wood raining down on the stone floor, all was silent.
"Well," Lovegood broke in lightly. "That was unexpected."
*Collapses.* Well, this took longer than I was hoping. At this point, my sincerest wish is that it doesn't disappoint. We're done with the dreams for now, and some of the symbolism behind them was elucidated here. These are (somewhat obscure, probably) hints to the plot, and I promise they had a point.
Anyway, let me know what you think. Love it, hate it, whatever… as long as your hate comes with good reasons. ^_^
