Disclaimer: Not JK...

A/n: This is the next to last chapter for the story as you might well know. Hope you liked the story so far and would stay with me for the rest too. Any suggestions, please just leave a review!

Chapter 6: The unhealable wound

#6: When you feel incomplete and worthless without her presence, you know you've lost it.

It was the seventh and final year of his life at Hogwarts and Blaise considered it eventful enough. Mysterious disappearances, attacks on the Ministry, You-Know-Who trying to take over the world, it was a good year. And his Christmas this year had been more tolerable because he had had memories of good times to set off the sour reminders of his parentage. Blaise got off the train feeling like he had escaped Azkaban itself, which, in his opinion, was better than the dreary building that he was supposed to call home. The holidays had been hell, surely, but they only made him look forward to meeting Luna.

Luna, the very thought of her made an absent smile tug at his lips. He still did not know why he liked her, or even what he thought of her as. She never pushed him to choose a term for their relationship, and he had been happy to oblige. Admittedly, the past half year of his life had been more enjoyable than the rest combined and he felt not even the slightest bit of humiliation in admitting that it was because of her.

Of course no one else could understand his weird fascination with the girl, but they did not know anything about her and he intended to keep it that way. Sharing her with her friends was one thing, but his friends meeting her was another thing entirely. It might seem stupid, but made perfect sense to him.

When he entered the Great Hall that evening, he could see the noise level increase unnoticeably. Especially over at the Gryffindor table, he thought he saw several people staring at him with mixed emotions; doubt, pity and most prevalently, anger. What had he done now? Sure he hadn't exactly been chummy with the lot, but he hadn't gone out of his way to harm them either. Why then was Weasley glaring daggers at him?

He tried to ignore the scathing looks as best as he could and sat beside Nott, who was immersed in another of the endless books he seemed to be intent on reading. He looked up momentarily to smirk maliciously at him and muttered a derisive, "Well done" before he went back to studying. Confused, Blaise stared at Nott's head until he looked up with irritation in his eyes. His tone was unforgiving when he spoke.

"I thought you were turning human, should have known. Didn't you ever like her at all?"

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"Lovegood, Blaise. I have to admit, your plan was clever. You trapped her quite well with your charm. Poor girl must have been heart broken when she learnt of your treachery"

"What happened to Luna?" his voice was trembling and he had a death grip on the table lest he let his thin layer of composure go. Dread was filling in him alarmingly fast, washing away his anger. But his anxiety was another thing, mounting until he felt he'd die if Nott tarried a second longer.

"Nice act, Blaise. As if you didn't know that she was abducted from the train when we left." Nott tried to turn back to his reading but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Abducted? L…Luna? Why?" though his words were broken, his mind was compensating, jumping from one scene of torture to another. No doubt his imagination was inflicting more pain on him than Luna could ever endure there. Nott looked genuinely surprised at his bafflement and the first sliver of pity laced his question.

"You didn't know?" Blaise shook his head and his answer seemed mechanical, already lacking the emotion it had held so far.

"I…I apparated home. I wasn't on the train when…Merlin! She was abducted? Where to? Do you know? Why was she taken away? Was it because of Potter? She knew nothing of him!"

"Calm down, Blaise. We all know that, but there's nothing that we can do about it." Draco cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something before he thought better of it and only said, "Meet me at the commonroom in an hour" before he looked back to his plate like he hadn't spoken at all. Blaise and Nott exchanged glances before they went back to their food. But Blaise had lost his appetite and left the Hall soon to walk around the castle. It had been one of the things they both liked doing. Luna had always been interested in learning about the passages and tapestries and he had indulged her curiosity. She especially liked to talk to portraits and he had been the sole witness to some of the most humorous conversations she had had with them.

He smiled wistfully thinking of those days now, as he braced himself against the biting cold wind that blew all through the castle. He knew it was the Dementors and the general climate but it felt more like the ice that had frozen inside him had seeped out. Feeling suddenly lonely, he jogged to the commonroom and reached it just as Draco was about to enter.

Seating himself beside Nott at his usual place on one end of the couch, he tried to fake disinterest as he listened to Draco explain in hushed tones the events that had occurred during Christmas at the Malfoy Manor. When Draco had begun explaining, Blaise had been bent on blaming him for everything but in the end, he could only pity the guy for all that he had gone through. It might have also resulted from the fact that he knew Luna was safe. At any rate, his restlessness subsided.

A week later, Ginny Weasley confronted him in the middle of a deserted corridor, which had become almost his regular haunt, and apologized to him for making assumptions. He was dumb struck and replied that he was least worried, which was apparently the wrong thing to say for the little weasel grinned conspiratorially at him and left with just a "Now you say that". He forgot all about it, since worrying about what Weasley thought of him wasn't his botheration.

Having nothing to do now besides acting like a loser, Blaise chose to throw himself into his studies and discovered that he had a penchant for healing. Having found an ambition worth pursuing, the next few months saw him immersed in books about healing and Herbology alternatively. Even Nott was beginning to get worried, but Blaise was ignorant of the concerned looks which his house was giving him. He knew he would be useful to someone someday, only he didn't expect that day to come so soon.

When the war had come, the rest of his house had scampered out of the castle at the first chance but he had headed in the opposite direction; the direction of the Infirmary. He knew people would be hurt; war meant causalities, and he was determined to avoid as much of it as he could. It mattered not which side he was; his wish was to save lives; worthy or unworthy was not his concern. Nott followed him, more out of loyalty to him than interest but Blaise did not object. The more the merrier, as they say. Bursting into the Hospital Wing, they startled Madame Pompfrey who hadn't heard about the impending battle yet. But she trusted their words and graciously accepted their help both before and after the war.

Blaise lost count of the number of spells he cast that day, or the number of potions he brewed, or the number of wary victims he treated, but one in particular stood out. She wasn't hurt very badly, but his heart clenched all the same at the sight of her, limping into the room. Leaving the potion he was heating to simmer, he rushed to her side, helping her to one of the free beds nearest the entrance. His hand trembled slightly as he checked her for spell damage or internal wounds. Finding none, he let out a breath he did not know he had been holding. Her leg though, was another matter entirely. It was badly broken and Blaise was sure the bones were too much in repair to be mended overnight. They'd knit together eventually, but the process would be a painful one.

"Your leg…" she looked up at him for the first time that day, her eyes filling with tears of pain. It was torture for him to see, so he averted his eyes instead, opting for putting it up in a sling.

"A part of the castle wall fell on it" she replied in a clogged, broken tone that was completely unlike her; he flinched at the image. Treating Lavender Brown's scars had been a walk in the park compared to even hearing about her injury. He quickly called for Madame Pompfrey and moved to the next patient, unwilling to torment himself by watching her suffer. He could feel her steady gaze on his back as he retreated, but he did not turn.

The next he saw her was a week later when she had healed enough to hold a clear head. A head clear enough to accuse him of not wanting to be near her when she was hurt, a head deluded enough to think that something other than his affections for her had rendered his presence impossible.

That was the last he saw of her for a while. A decade, almost.

A/n: Review please?