Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to Harry Potter.


That night, he falls asleep with the picture of her face in his mind, and dreams, oddly enough, not of death and fear, but of sitting on the grass with doves all around him.

In the dream, he has a piece of bread in his hand, and he's breaking off tiny crumbs and putting them on his outstretched palm, and offering them to one of the doves. Softly cooing, it stretches over his hand to reach the crumbs, and his fingertips brush the warm, living, feathered softness of its breast.

'It's lovely.'

Dream-Draco turns towards the soft voice. It's Luna, sitting next to him, her hands flowing over with dew-damp violets, her head tipped to one side. She looks serious, as though it's important that he realise just how lovely it is.

'Here,' she says, holding the violets out, 'take them. They're for you, but don't keep them in your cellar, because it's too dark.'

The doves are pressing around the dream-Luna as she speaks, nestling their soft grey-white bodies against her, and she smiles down at them delightedly, still offering him the sweet damp handfuls of flowers.

'I can't take them!' Draco tells her, agitated. 'I can't, I really can't. Don't you see? I don't have anywhere else for them to go.' He's panicking, in the dream, holding out his hands as though to keep her away, tensing up his body to get up and run away.

'Don't worry,' she says, comfortingly, 'it's OK. He can help you; He likes to look after people.' She points behind him, placing the violets in her lap, and Draco twists round to see, but all he can see is sunshine and grass and trees.

'You can't see Him, can you?' she says. 'It's allright, I didn't think you'd be able to, at first.' She puts her hand on his arm and strokes down it gently, warm and shivery.

'I can see you,' Draco says, rather defensively. 'You're beautiful.'

'Well,' she says, 'that's something,' and the soft look is back on her face as she raises her eyes to meet his. Then everything dissolves and it's early morning, and the sky outside his window is just beginning to lighten. The dream goes fuzzy in his mind, but he can remember the doves and the damp violets, and Luna's hand on his arm.


He rolls over, and then realises: it's Christmas Day.

Unsurprisingly, there aren't any presents for him, but at least he's warm and safe – or at least sort of safe. He remembers how dark it was in the cellar, dark and cold and cheerless, and something throbs in his chest. It feels strangely similar to pity, and Draco Malfoy does not pity people.

But still. It was cold down there. He carefully avoids wondering if Luna Lovegood is missing her home, but his bed is somehow not very comfortable anymore, so he gets up and dresses. Perhaps he ought to go and check on the prisoners today. He can't really pretend to himself that he enjoys gloating over people any more – he used to, but something shifted over the last year. But someone really should be checking on them.

He slips off to his mother's chapel, after she's been there in the pre-dawn stillness, to see if he can find any candles. It feels oddly unhurried in there, he notices, restful, and the cold winter morning sunbeams slip through the stained-glass above the altar, splashing rainbow light across the room.

He looks at the stained-glass panel, really noticing it for the first time. There's the dove, and a lamb on a green hill and a golden-maned lion. Why on earth, he wonders, is there a lion in stained-glass in the chapel of Malfoy Manor? Actually, nothing about the panel is much like what he would have expected in his family's home, and he scowls at the stupid gentle lamb. It has its head on one side like Luna as it looks down at him. Did his ancestors even look at the stained-glass before they had it put in?

He finds the candles in an ornately carved wooden box, and picks out two fat, sturdy ones to take down to the cellar. He looks back at the peaceful little room before he leaves, and sees that his mother has left another candle burning, and a tiny white rosebud. It gives him an idea, and he leaves, the stained-glass lamb watching him as he goes.

He goes out into the grounds, through the snow, to the vast, magically heated greenhouse where roses grow even at Christmastime. As he slips through the door, he hears a quiet crack of Disapparition – he's obviously surprised one of the garden-elves at their work. There are roses everywhere, on bushes and creepers, deep red and soft pink and, his mother's favourite, pure white.

It's hard to choose, but he finally settles on a pale yellow rose that smells like sweet sunshine and the aliveness of growing things, and nips off three blooms and a bud. He carefully uses his wand to remove the thorns.


When he opens the cellar door, she's sitting, facing it, with her legs crossed, and she looks up into his face with a bright smile as he casts the wand-lighting charm. She's cocooned in the bright tartan blanket, and he sees the tips of her little white fingers curled around the edge. He looks around for Mr Ollivander, but the old man is curled up, facing the wall, in exactly the same position as last time. There's a blanket tucked in around him too, though.

'I thought it was you,' Luna says. 'You walk differently to the others.'

Draco looks at her, then down at the flowers in his hands, suddenly feeling like an idiot. 'I, um, brought these,' he says, and stops awkwardly.

'Flowers!' she says softly, wonderingly. 'You brought them down here for – me?'

'Uh – yeah,' he says, and then, quieter, because he's not entirely sure he wants her hearing him at all, 'it's Christmas.'

He offers her the roses, and she reaches out both hands, small and with splayed fingers like a child, to take them. Her eyes are as wide and unblinking as ever, but then he sees something wet and silvery start to trickle down her cheek, and she swallows softly.

'Don't cry!' he says, panicking. He can sort of handle his mother crying – she cried a lot, last year, and he was the only one there to comfort her – but Luna Lovegood?

'Look, please, I didn't mean…' He trails off, and does the only thing that he can think of; crouches down next to her, reaches forward, and softly brushes the tear away with his knuckle.

He watches her face worriedly. 'Lovegood… Luna?' he says, tentative. She's sort of smiling now, a little bit wobbly, but definitely on safer ground.

'Sorry,' she says. 'Thank you, Draco. Merry Christmas.'

They look at each other, warder and prisoner, and Draco feels the uncertain little tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth. She smiles back, softly, and a little thread of understanding reaches out between the two of them and connects.

He looks away after a moment, embarrassed, and digs into his pocket to pull out the candles. 'Here,' he says, 'candles. I'll light them before I go, but you must blow them out if you hear anyone coming.'

She reaches out and puts her hand gratefully on his knee. He jumps, because he can't remember the last time that someone touched him gently, voluntarily, someone who wasn't his mother. Though it shames him, he goes still, drinking in the touch of her hand. He hopes she won't take it away, and she doesn't.

She looks cleaner now, around her face, but her skirt and jumper are filthy, streaked with dust and dirt she must have picked up from the walls and floor. Of course, she has nothing to change into, and she can't take them off and wash them, not with it so cold, and with Ollivander in the cellar.

'Your clothes,' he says self-consciously. 'Do you want me to –?'

'Oh, can you clean them up?' she asks, bright and totally un-self-conscious.

'Yeah,' he mumbles, 'yeah, I know a spell…'

She gives his knee a gentle pat before she pushes off the blanket and stands up. Then she spreads her arms, facing him, making her body open and vulnerable; it's almost as though she trusts him. 'Please?' she says.

'You shouldn't do that,' he tells her sternly. 'I might be about to – hex you.'

She tilts her head slightly, sceptically, and smiles at him. He's starting to wonder about the odd fizz he gets in his chest when she does that. Maybe it's his conscience again. Anyway. He lifts his wand and waves it slightly at her clothes.

'Laundrium Enstarchio!' It's a good spell; he knows that, he's used it enough times at school to keep up his image of well-groomed elegance. Something tiny and warm and pleased blossoms inside him as he sees her pleasure at having her clothes fresh and clean again. It's sort of – cute, really.

Damn it. He must be mad to be thinking things like that, as though everything's normal and peaceful and his family's not keeping a couple of prisoners locked up in the cellar of their house. He shakes himself, mentally, to remember how serious life actually is, and turns to go.

'Goodbye, Draco,' he hears her say as he leaves, and then, softly, 'Merry Christmas.'

He doesn't answer, but afterwards spends rather too long wondering whether he should have.