Disclaimer: All characters and places in the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling – I own none of them, I simply play with them.
Chapter Four
"You're never around lately, Draco," Pansy pouted as they strolled to the library together. "Why not?"
"I've..." Draco shrugged helplessly, slipping his hand into hers. "I don't know. I've just wanted time to myself, that's all," he lied. It was hard lying to Pansy – he always felt as though she knew exactly what he was really thinking.
"You can have time to yourself with me around," she bleated, squeezing on his hand a little harder than necessary.
Draco sighed and stopped in his tracks, pulling Pansy over to the side of the corridor, putting a hand on either one of her shoulders.
"Pansy, you have to stop being so paranoid. I know... I know you get worried about us. You have all these crazy thoughts about me deserting you when I find a girlfriend –"
"- Draco –" Pansy interrupted, but Draco clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Listen. I'm not going to leave you. I love you, Pansy, however much hard work you are, and I'm not going to suddenly go gallivanting off with some other girl and never talk to you again, okay?"
"I'm not hard work," was all Pansy could mutter stroppily. Draco laughed, and saw the familiar twinkle in her eye that let him know everything was okay.
"You are!" he said teasingly, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly despite her making no effort to hug him back. "You're going to be fine, though."
He planted a kiss on her forehead and tousled Pansy's hair, much to her objection, and they walked off hand in hand to the library – it was only out of the corner of his eye that Draco saw the willowy blonde-haired Ravenclaw standing in the corner. He turned his head and tried to give her a subtle smile, but she simply fixed Draco with a blank look, turned, and walked purposefully away in the opposite direction.
~*~
She wasn't in the Tower that night, or the night after next. It was only the night after that when Draco climbed the stairs once more, feeling positively disheartened, panicked incase the entire thing had been a joke, that his heart soared when he saw her perched on the windowsill.
He struggled to keep the joy at her presence from his face – "You're here," he said carefully.
Luna nodded.
"Apparently so."
Her voice had lost that warmth... it sounded more formal and icy. Her words were an echo of the ones he had used on their second meeting, the same unsure, doubting words. Draco frowned, but pushed himself to remember that he didn't know this girl properly – her ways were still somewhat alien to him
.
"H-How are you?" he asked, after a few seconds of hesitation.
"Well. The Quibbler sold record amounts of copies this week," she replied without looking at him.
"That's nice," Draco said weakly, trying to inject a certain amount of care into his voice, although he wasn't really sure why.
"And yourself?"
"I... Where have you been?" he blurted out, and immediately regretted it, clapping a hand stupidly over his mouth and blushing fiercely.
She looked up at him with those wide eyes, an expression of genuine surprise. "Sorry?"
"These last couple of days..." Draco mumbled. "I thought you came up here every night..."
Luna looked down at her hands hard for a few seconds before sighing heavily. "I do. I did. I don't know why I didn't come... I was scared, I suppose. I mean, you're Draco Malfoy..." she looked up at him fearfully. "Why are you... why didn't you tell me to just piss off the moment you found out about me?"
She had just asked the question Draco had been asking himself since that very day. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "I don't know," he answered truthfully.
"Is Pansy Parkinson your girlfriend?"
Evidently, it was Draco's turn to be surprised. "Urm, no..." he said slowly, meeting Luna's eye.
"You were with her, the other day..."
"Yeah, I remember, I saw you. Pansy is... Pansy's my best friend. There's nothing more to it than that – never will be. Dating her would just be weird," he grinned slightly – "I remember once when we were drunk and we got off with each other – it was like kissing my sister. We just laughed about it afterwards."
Luna's face cracked into a smile which caused Draco's breath to hitch in his throat. He quickly regained his composure, however, fixing his face into a neutral expression once more.
"Oh, okay. Because, I was just wondering, you know..."
"Yeah," Draco said quickly, wanting to leave the subject of why Luna was wondering whether or not he had a girlfriend. He never was one to confront situations like that – avoiding them was always best practise. "But we... we let people think that, you know, we're a couple. It just avoids awkward questions... and Pansy's the only decent girl in Slytherin anyway, the rest are all trolls."
"What questions?" Luna asked innocently, cocking her head to one side.
"Questions about us... we... oh Merlin..." Draco raked a hand through his hair anxiously, really not wanting to go through whole 'arranged marriage' situation yet again. Slytherin knew, because that was just what Pureblood families did – him and Pansy, Millicent and Crabbe, Daphne and Terry – but the rest of the school never found out, because the students simply never talked about it. None of them wanted to do it, but the traditions and beliefs that Purebloods should marry Purebloods amongst their parents led the students to be treated like a particularly excellent brand of race-horse.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry," Luna said hurriedly, noticing the grimace on Draco's face.
"No, no, it's okay..." He waved his wand in the direction of a telescope near one of the windows and muttered "Sedile," instantly transforming it into a dark green sofa. He sat, and beckoned Luna to sit with him.
"Certainly better than the scatter cushions I managed the other night," she laughed softly, and he laughed back dryly. "So, you were saying, about you and Pansy?"
"Yeah. In Slytherin we have... that is, the parents of all the old Pureblood families, like the Malfoys and the Parkinsons and the Greengrasses – "
"Yes, I know all the old Pureblood families – I am one of them," Luna interrupted, grinning a little. Draco cheeks turned a little pink –
"Sorry. 'Course you are... anyway, if they have children the same age and different sex, they usually have an agreement with another Pureblood family – decided sometimes before they are even born – that they will... that their children will..."
"You have an arranged marriage?" Luna said, her jaw dropping in shock. Draco shrugged helplessly. "I didn't know they still did that!"
"Well, yeah. They do. With Pansy. And trying to explain to Slytherins that you have an arranged marriage with someone that you refuse to accept, who you know you can't love, is like trying to explain Arithmancy to a brick wall. They all just accept their arranged marriages like obedient lap dogs or something. Thick, the lot of them, except Pansy and I of course. They don't understand the concept of rebelling... must be all that inter-breeding."
Luna smiled slightly at his joke, although still looked slightly dazed.
"Luna..."
"Hmm?" she turned her head towards Draco, perking up a little.
"I told you all that crap about my parents the other night... I babbled on for much too long, and now I – I want to hear about you. About your parents. If, you know, if that's okay..."
Luna swallowed hard and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Okay," she began shakily, folding her arms in her lap and taking a deep breath. "My mother is dead."
Draco swallowed, hard. He opened his mouth to say something, feeling like he should, but couldn't find the words.
"It's okay. She died when I was nine... but I was there. I mean, I saw it all... a spell she was doing backfired, and she just fell to the floor..." Luna furiously blinked tears from her eyes and tugged on her hair. "I didn't realise she was dead at first. I didn't realise magic could do anything so... powerful, awful. I was young. And when I realised I –"
Luna's voice was wobbling dangerously and tears started to flow faster down her cheeks. Draco bit down on his lip, and wrapped his arms around her the way he had done with Pansy the millions of times she had cried to him. But this felt different – this wasn't Pansy. This was Luna Lovegood, and the feeling of her body pressed into his was enough to quicken his heart rate drastically – so much so that he grew anxious that she could hear it thumping wildly against his chest.
"My dad has always blamed me for it," she whispered into him, muffled by the material of his jumper. "He thinks there's something I could've done to save her... he didn't get home for hours after she died, and he found me just curled up next to her, crying onto her body. Hours I laid there, hoping for something to bring her to life again, hoping she was just asleep, but part of me knew, part of me knew the whole time –"
Luna couldn't continue. She took several deep breaths, and dug her fingernails into her palms. Draco understood. He laid his cheek against her sweet, clean smelling hair, and said nothing. He almost felt guilty for making such a big deal of his parents the other night... at least had never been a witness to one of their deaths.
"I-I'm so sorry," she said eventually, pulling away from him and grinding tears from her eyes with her fists.
"It's okay," Draco reached up and stroked her long hair, his thumb brushing her cheek. "It's okay. You have every right to cry, it must have been... horrendous."
Luna nodded silently, and then laughed. Draco gave her a bemused look – "what's funny?"
"Us," she smiled, placing her head back down on Draco's chest. "Sitting up here, moaning to each other about the woes of our lives... cheery pair, aren't we?"
He grinned. She looked up at him and gave him a teary smile. His eyes were pulled towards her lips, which were slightly parted, almost screaming to be kissed. He swallowed hard in an attempt to control his screaming desire to kiss her, and Luna looked away awkwardly.
"I guess we should go now," Luna whispered hoarsely, eyes not moving from her lap. Draco nodded numbly, inside screaming for her to stay – there was so much more wanted to tell her, so much more he wanted to know about her...
"Yeah."
"I guess – I guess I'll see you... soon?"
"See you soon."
She quickly leant in and brushed Draco's cheek with her lips before fleeing the Tower. He reached up his hand and touched it – it burnt beneath his fingers and his hand shook slightly... this is crazy. How can she be doing this to me? She's just a sixth year!
Draco rested his head in his hands wearily, trying to slow down the turmoil of thoughts whirring through his head. Most of him wanted nothing more than to give in to his unexplainable feelings, not care about the fact that she wasn't in Slytherin and she didn't have a high social status and she was a sixth year, wanted to tell her everything he'd wanted to tell for years, open up his soul for her, let her have him – all of him, the real him, but a part of him was weary. Whatever they had, it was crazy. He'd only met with her a handful of times, and these feelings he had for her... they were probably just a stupid, random crush... weren't they?
