10. Dean loves Luna by Cuban Sombrero Gal
-salvation and dreams-
Dean laughs as she scrabbles about the dank, putrid room, attempting yet another fruitless search. Gently, he sketches the outline of her face, his eyes tracing every contour of her cheeks, but concrete and a rusty pocket knife cannot capture that ethereal glow on her face. Drawing is his salvation, his escape from the deepest pits of insanity, and yet, lately everything he creates looks so crude and rudimentary.
"What are you doing?" Luna's question is not probing, merely an expression of curiosity.
"You."
Dean says this without any trace of shame. Once, he would have lied, too embarrassed by the whole situation to do anything more than stumble over a false answer. Now, there's no point, any traces of dignity once possessed are absorbed, soaked into the spasmodic sleep and disjointed plans for escape and freedom.
Luna nods thoughtfully, her blue orbs wide with an unidentifiable emotion – is it intrigue or simply a longing for basic human interaction? In this dreadful pit, with its ceaseless smell of mildew and its sinister shadows, it's impossible to tell.
Ollivander's snores persist; night after night they puncture the air, piercing the silence like a knife as his mouth droops and a slight trail of saliva slithers along his chin like a snake.
"Can I see it?"
It's Dean's turn to nod now as she leans over him, her own half-finished face looming in front of her. As Luna's shoulder grazes his cheek, skin caressing skin, he can't help but notice he smells different. Luna smells like dreams. There's not a definable scent, no definition that can be reinforced by a textbook. There's nothing to explain this,nothing to explain why she smells like everything Dean has ever wanted. She just does.
Dean smells it again and again, her scent haunts every stifled conversation, all smothered by a blanket of secrecy lest the Malfoys hear. It lingers in every moment, whether he's conscious or in slumber.
If it wasn't so damn confusing, Dean would be convinced he's possessed.
Instead, he just sits there, silt seeping into the seat of his pants (how long has it been since he's had a shower anyway – time is indefinable here, it's measured in food deliveries from a leering, rat-faced man and snippets of news about the outside world), surrounded by half drawn figments of his imagination and wondering what the hell in Merlin's name happened for him deserve such a tantalising fate.
Luna's scent wafts constantly through his nostrils and his mind, and then Harry comes - their knight in shining armour, only he has no intention of falling for this knight because somehow, his subliminal mind has managed to fall for someone else – and they escape, fleeing into comfort's open arms. The scent is still there, but it's weaker, as though it is fragile, easily broken when not fuelled by peril.
---
"Have you ever thought about the future?" Dean asks one day, when the ghosts of Malfoy Manor have started to fade into oblivion.
"The future is indefinable. Daddy always says that no-one can predict it and that Trelawney's a fraud under the influence of Nargles." Luna lets out a giggly little laugh that reminds him of Lavender, and he shudders, because there is absolutely nothing in Luna that is like that … that twit; Luna's so much more wholesome and real.
"I know, but then again … she did predict Hermione leaving our class back in third year. What I mean though, is, do you ever dream about the future – you know, what's the job you want, who's the person you want to marry."
Dean makes every attempt to keep his voice candid, but his heart is racing, and he seriously doesn't know why. All he knows it that no-one, not even Ginny, has ever made him feel quite like this.
"Me? Marry? Do you know how many people would laugh at that?" It's so matter of fact; the words flee her throat with no emotions attached, it scares him.
"I wouldn't."
Luna nods yet again, as though she has no idea how to respond, which, Dean rationalizes, she probably doesn't.
"Thanks."
It's just a simple gesture, nothing more than an exchange between friends, between two people who have laughed together and cried together and endured hell together, and yet, in this garden, sparkling with sunlight and reeking of sea salt and of her, it means everything.
---
And then she runs off and gets married to that Rolf guy, who hasn't been through half as much with her as he has, and it still means everything, but now it's everything heartbreaking, and nothing right, and he wonders, just occasionally, if she smells as good to Rolf as she did to him.