For a long time she fixated on the small note. Nothing had changed about it except each time she opened it the creases grew ever more frail. The breathless emotion she felt when she opened it entrapped her to it. The girl that often found herself lost in the unbelievable, the hopeful, the secretive, the fictional, but had never experienced something so vast and undefined before. All of the ache and exhaustion had given way to a silent rapture.
When the dorm began to fill with female students she began to ready herself for bed. Placing the letter safely under her pillow. She undressed. Slipping out of her uniform and into a long, modest white cotton night dress. She removed a number of hand crafted jewelry and placed them in a small dragon bone dish on her end table, next to the stick wreath of withering flowers. As she laid stomach down on her bed she swiped a stack of letters that sat on her night stand. Keeping herself under the radar of other students while they readied for bed. By her sixth year Luna had mastered blending. The girls around her gossiped, teased and huffed among one another. She was thankfully noticed her. None of them aware of her small paper secret.
Now she browsed through the excess letters from her father. Xenophillius wrote everyday, and sometimes twice, so that he might comfort himself. Luna wrote just as frequently with the understanding that if she didn't he'd have less proof that his daughter was alive and well. To ever remind him she was still living and breathing. Sometimes she only wrote a line or two back, but that was enough. Neither of them wrote about how she go off the property that night. They didn't write it about it for very different reasons.
When lights went out she crawled to the top of her bed and pulled her blankets up, letters replaced on the night stand. Held tightly in her hand was that note. Restlessly she turned and wrapped herself in the thin linen. Staring out the gray darkness of the room. Luna waited until she could hear the soft breath sounds of her dorm mates slow and their bodies to settle. Then after a long while she slipped from her bed. Feet on the cold stone that caused goose flesh to spread and let go. Without regard for the cold she snuck from her dormitory. Luna slipped down the stairs with cautious steps, bare feet a light pitter patter on the floor. The common room was empty, the fire had turned to embers. The halls were near empty. Only ghosts prowled where she wandered.
He was already there when she arrived. In that dark tailored suit that added to his lean angular build. A beautiful silhouette. Around glittering instruments of gold and silver. Complex maps, bookshelves filled with sleeping pages. He knew she was there but they stood there without saying anything. Neither of them wanting to kill the sanctuary of this place with the burden of truth. The damning truth of who she was and what he was. How forbidden that was to share this space. Then he turned.
Seeing Luna standing in the gauze gown the shape of her body plain through the material but the sexuality of it lost in the darkness. Hair mussed as if she just been woken up. She turned shut the door and then there was the sound of the lock sliding into place.
"You're stupid," Draco said. There was no accusation in his voice. Luna crossed the room to stand beside him and he didn't ridicule her. The girl look at that elegant face, the glint of those pale blue eyes. What had started as a empathy for the Sytherin Price had developed into a undeniable magnetic attraction. Sacrifice and debt had drawn them together. Forged a trust in a time when that was too dangerous to speak of. In a time where they were outlawed from this friendship.
She turned her gaze to the slender window.
"They don't really teach about the stars in Astronomy," Luna was ready to shoulder his burden." They are so beautiful they demanded a mythology. Greif, lust, wrath. . . "
Draco was not moved. He would not take the bait. He interrupted her.
"Don't think just because I. . ." and he found the confession hard to grasp.
"I don't," she reassured him and caught his gaze once more. Cold that eked from the walls. Luna reached for his hand and this time Draco did not retreat. Before she reached him there was hard banging on the door. A hard rattle. They forgot their place and stared at the door. Terrified that their secret though never revealed had been exposed.
"Draco!" One voice but at least two bodies. "Let us in, comon." It was the rough English of Crabb.
"Let us innn," shadows under the door moved. "You've got her cornered, don'cha?" there was a sadistic glee.
Draco stepped back. He slid apart away from her. In that cold distant that had become his only comfort. That distant that Luna had threatened. He was liven by his purpose once more. His alliance had been called. He was trapped between them and her.
"You're stupid, " he repeated. He spoke with gritted teeth in a low hiss. "Do you know what they want me to do?" Those words were not a warning they were a clear threat. He began to pace with his hands in his hair .Punishing himself with a rhythmic tap of the heel of his palm to his temple. It did not ground him. The door still rattled and the boys goaded him on.
'Draco" a whisper,
He stopped and drew his wand.
"Where is it?" A demand. She knew what he was talking about.
"I can't tell you." Luna had her own alliances. Luna readied her wand. By the time Draco could react she was already in motion. She was casting a silent incantation. Instinctively Draco made an unnecessary step to the side. A flare of red gold sparks discharged from the ivy gort wand the spell flashed by him and rebounded off a silver plate on the wall. The plate cracked and fell. The spell rebounded knocked the girl off her feet with a short lterrifying scream.
As if on cue the door broke down and Crabb and Goyle appeared in the door. Draco didn't know what do. He looked frantic between her and his pack.
"What you do her?"Crabb laughed inching toward her nudging her lifeless arm with a prod of his boot. Luna laid unconscious and bleeding. Blood blossomed into the white purity of her gown. The spell had burned a hole through the fabric showed scotched skin below just below her ribs. That is where her spell had penetrated her. Draco didn't know what it was, but he knew she had cast it on herself.
"Shut up," Draco snapped.
"You didn't kill her. . . did you?" the goonies faces went slack. Crabbe nudged her harder and she whimpered lightly. Draco took a breath and then shoved Crabbe hard away from her.
"You're an idiot " he sneered. This anxiety he could not hide. A ginger cat trotted into the room looking to them rather disgruntled and offered a broken meow.
"We better get out of here" The goons were gone as quick as the they came and spoke in unison. They were cowards. Draco stood uncertain of what to do. Flitch's uneven gait was near. Draco acted quickly, impulsively, snatching up her wand. Another silent incantation that shot red sparks from her wand. As he ran from the room he dropped it in the door frame.
"I'll get you this time, fifthly urchins" the care taker grumbled chewing on his tongue. "Hang you in the dungeons, " a sniffle.
Swimming against consciousness and dream Luna woke to the sounds of Madam Pomfrey at her bedside.T he nurse shut off the light and shuffled away. Luna dropped back to dream.
Draco appeared at the infirmary. He stood among the beds. Shivering, broken, confused.
