Draco Malfoy had the funniest feeling - not while listening to Dumbledore's dire speech, but afterwards, watching Harry Potter get on the train. It was odd, wasn't it, the idea that he wouldn't see a fourteen year old child again? Words came to his lips, only to die unuttered.

Stay safe. Draco thought within the barbed confines of his own skull.

Draco managed a fight on the train, of course, and to be a strutting poppinjay while doing it. Arrogance was never a good look for the young, and Draco was ready to play that to the nines, since there was no way in hell he'was sacrificing his schoolwork. Luna had even winked at him - of course she knew his game, she'd planned it right along with him!

From the carping in his wake, he'd done a simply fabulous job. The Weasleys never could learn how to be quiet, and Draco wondered, silently, how they'd managed to stay alive so far. The more somber thought - maybe they hadn't - briefly clouded his mind. And then Draco was thinking of being up in the clouds. Finally free.

Draco's mother and father were glad to see him, although his father looked so white his skin was almost blue, and seemed stretched across his cheeks when he smiled.

Draco took a deep breath, and tossed some floo powder into the floo. "Cooper residence!" And Draco was at Otterly St. Catchpole, dancing out of old Mister Cooper's house before he could get truly caught. His hair was raven-black with dye, and his eyes were glamoured clear crystal blue. He was dressed in archaic formal robes, easily a century old, dating from the time that formality could dissolve into open warfare with little provocation. In short, they were also battle robes. Besides, their dark ash-gray made a statement Malfoy liked.

He knocked on the door to the Lovegood residence (as baffling and batty as Luna could seem, her house seemed crawling with creatures and sentient plants). "Coming!" Luna said, and Draco saw her floating down the stairs, bouncing lightly with her feet. As soon as she landed, she opened the door, saying, "I'm afraid the editor of the Quibbler isn't in today..." At his lack of response, Luna broke off, looking up and down Draco's body.

"For you, I'd be delighted," Luna said, grandly profering her arm.

For once in his life, Draco Malfoy smiled a genuine smile, taking Luna Lovegood on promenade. He thought, for a moment or two, that he'd be approached by someone. "Portkey?" Draco Malfoy inquired, as they left the small town wreathed in rumors and headed into the dark forest.

"Something like that," Luna smiled. She started to sing an impossible lullaby, and both her and Draco were borne upward by windspirits. Draco didn't like to think himself a coward - hadn't he always stood up to Potter, even when he was wrong? But this was legitimately terrifying. Not the flying, but being held aloft by notoriously whimsical spirits.

[a/n: up next: plans in motion. Leave a review? Guess what you think they're doing?]