Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.


They bring Potter in the next day, Potter and his friends. Potter, with his face swollen almost unrecognisably, red and inflamed and distorted.

Draco knows it's him anyway. Of course he knows, and he dreads and dreads what he knows is coming.

'They say they've got Potter. Draco, come here.' His mother, her voice completely devoid of expression.

'Well, boy?' Greyback, the werewolf, his voice sending drips of cold sweat down Draco's back.

He hesitates a bit too long, hanging back. He can see, in his mind, Luna's great grey eyes looking at him, solemn, waiting…

'Well, Draco?' His father, avid, showing more interest in him than he has in months. 'Is it? Is it Harry Potter?'

He doesn't look at the other boy, but he can feel the tension in his old enemy. Potter, he knows, is waiting for him to say it, waiting for him to give him away. 'I can't — I can't be sure,' he stalls.

'But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!'

Luna's face, full of light, a beacon-flame…

'Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiven…'

The werewolf interrupts, and Draco tries to calm himself, nervously squeezing his sweat-slick hands into fists at his sides. He thinks of Luna, calls up her face, holds to the thought like a lifeline.

His father's still looking at Potter, his eyes alight with a sort of tense excitement. 'There's something there, it could be the scar, stretched tight… Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?'

Luna… No. No. The softest eyes he's ever seen… Oh Luna, Luna!

He runs his tongue over his lips. 'I don't know,' he says, and turns and walks away.

He's so scared, so scared, because they're going to call the Dark Lord, and he'll know, and there's Luna in the cellar and there's nothing, nothing he can do to protect her… oh Lord… oh save me, save me! Then Bellatrix is shrieking and raving, and she sends the werewolf to take Potter and Weasley to the cellar, and he's so afraid for Luna that his heart almost stops.

And his mad aunt tortures Granger, and the horrible agonised screaming rips right through him like guilt… all that do wickedly… that do wickedly…

His father sends him down to fetch the goblin, and before he opens the door, he calls a warning in to the prisoners, more to bolster his own courage than anything.

'Stand back. Line up against the back wall. Don't try anything, or I'll kill you!' It sounds false to his own ears, more frightened than threatening. His voice is shaking, even. Luna will know, though, she'll know, she always knows…

His eyes search her out automatically – she, too, is against the back wall, standing by Ollivander and looking at him gently, almost with a smile. His eyes meet hers for an instant. Luna – my darling – I love you – forgive me.

And he takes the goblin and goes, and then – he discovers later – Potter rescues her.

Potter. Always – always – damn – Potter, doing what Draco's too much of a coward to do himself.


The Dark Lord comes, too furious to even delve into their minds, and turns everything to scarlet pain, smashing them all with the Cruciatus Curse, again and again. Draco's sobbing, whimpering – he is pain – everything is pain – oh God, oh God!

He writhes, the pain piercing, crushing through every part of his body – oh God, he can't take it any more… Luna! Luna! He nearly screams for her – her jasmine-white gentleness – the softness of her hands – Luna! – but he clamps his mouth closed, his limbs jerking, twitching, his head tossed back. There's a pulsing red veil before his eyes – he can't see anything but him, the inhuman, merciless face twisted in rage…

When it's over, he's left crumpled, broken, on the floor, too weak to move. He opens his eyes and looks up at the high ceiling, the image of her face swimming before his eyes like a bright candle-flame.

'Luna…' he whispers.


She's gone, and everything's grey, dreary, lifeless, and he despises his weakness in wishing she was still there. There's a distant, dull relief that she's safe, though. He wonders, pitifully, if she thinks about him at all – what she told Potter and his friends…

She said she loved him, once, and he clings to it fiercely.

I love you too, you know…

love is strong as death…

Love is – love.

And he drops his face silently into his hands, and the shameful tears leak out.

What's going to happen? Surely, surely Potter doesn't stand a chance – an idiotic teenage Gryffindor against the Dark Lord in full power?

But the Dark Lord is angry, and growing angrier, more dangerous, as the incongruously soft spring days pass by, almost as though he's – afraid – of something Potter might do.

Draco doesn't know which side is going to win, and he doesn't know what would be worse. If the Dark Lord finally defeats Harry Potter, Luna will still be in danger… they'll imprison her again, if they find her. And if – somehow – he hardly dares to let the thought form – against all odds, Potter manages to defeat the Dark Lord…

Well, he, Draco, would probably be in Azkaban then, and there's no way Luna would – would – have anything to do with him. He grinds his knuckles into the tired grittiness of his eyes, trying not to pay mind to the spreading, terrified void inside him. Azkaban – the Dementors – dark and empty and alone, alone with his hideous memories…

But she said she loved him – she said it – and he snatches desperately at the thought of her, holding it up like a shield, a patronus of light to hold back the darkness.


He goes back to the chapel one time more, slinking off there in the early morning with the rising of the sun. His mother has not gone there since Potter came.

Lucille, curled up within his fingers, watches as he bends over the heavy Bible again. With his free hand, he opens the creamy pages near the right hand end, the New Testament. He sheafs through the pages, looking for what Luna spoke about…

His fingers are shaking a little bit, so that he nearly tears a page, and that's when he spots the word, sprinkled thickly through a cluster of sentences.

for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

He reads it, staring at the two little sentences for a long time before slowly closing the book. Lucille squeaks softly and curls her tiny paws around his finger.


The scripture Draco reads is in 1 John 4.