A/N: Thank you for all your reviews so far, and I appreciate everyone who has followed/favourited this story! During the holidays I may be going back to edit some of my chapters to make them more realistic, so if you've forgotten some of the event which have happened and would like to reacquaint yourself with them, look out for me telling you when I have done it. Please review, follow and favourite (which you can now do on the mobile app, let's just say I screeched in a public place when I received the update.) I hope you enjoy the chapter! :) - Misha

Chapter 12

Luna awoke groggily from her sleep the next morning and yawned casually. She got dressed and practically fluttered down the stairs, having completely forgotten the reappearance of the sad memories which had happened the previous day. She was greeted by a few irascible gazes which brushed over her in the manner of a prickly sweeping broom. "You seem rather annoyed by something." She said to the nearest fourth year, with an air of questioning to the statement.

"There's someone here to see you. It's bad even for you to invite someone from another house into our common room, especially someone like him." The sour faced boy said gratingly, gesturing towards a lithe figure who was seated casually on one of the quilted cobalt chaise lounges, his legs sprawled out in front of him across the length of furniture. He raised a hand in greeting, and turned his head slightly to the left to make eye contact with her.
"Are you okay now, Luna?" He asked, insouciantly ignoring the burning glares of the Ravenclaws.
"Yes thank you, Draco. What are you doing in my common room?" Luna replied lightheartedly.

"Well, I followed you back from the meeting and-"

"I suggest you continue your conversation outside." A seventh year prefect said icily, averting her gaze towards the door.
"But it's so comfy here. And so much warmer than the Slytherin dungeon, even if you do have that intimidating statue leering down at you all the time." Draco replied, looking in mock fear at the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw which stood proudly in the middle of the room.

"Perhaps we should go." Luna said, for once taking note of the stares of the students around her. Draco shrugged, and walked from the common room, a nonchalant smile still smeared on his face. Luna scurried after him, and took her wand from inside her robes to tuck behind her ear, where it fitted a lot more comfortably.

"So how did you get into the common room?" Luna inquired.

"The magical door knocker asked me a question and I answered it, I've heard that they're often quite difficult but I think it may perhaps have sensed your feeling of urgency to get inside and to be alone and gave you a rather easy question to answer, magic still surprises me sometimes. I wouldn't have expected a charm to respond to human emotions."

"There are a lot of things about magic that we don't know yet. I'm very excited to find out."

"Me too. Are you sure you're okay now, I'd do anything to save my family, it must be very upsetting to have lost a parent." Draco said, feeling slightly awkward.
"How did you know-" Luna began, and stopped when memories of the day before came flooding back to her. "Oh, usually I don't really think about it but sometimes it just comes back to me and it is very upsetting." Draco wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her into a comforting hug. Luna immediately felt better, the feeling of dysphoria that accompanied memories of her mother's death seeping out of her. She kept it in mind to inform her father that hugs helped to dispel wrackspurts from the brain. She eventually pulled away and smiled up at him, "I feel much better now. Thank you Draco."

The fact that he alone could make people smile still pleasantly surprised Draco, after the many years of tormenting his peers.

"Luna, do you mind if I show you something? It's something I've been working on this year, to help people if there's an attack and I wanted to test it." Draco asked nervously.
"Of course, where is it?"
"The room of hidden things. Do you still have the lilcean, the bird I got you for Christmas?"

"Yes, shall I go and get it?"

"If you don't mind."

Luna scurried back into the common room and when she returned she held in her hands the tiny bird, which had its wings tucked in at its sides. As it slept it was changing colour, and was suddenly denuded of all colour, completely white as if a disease against colour had plagued it and extricated all hue from its feathers. It would be a disease which affected all of it apart from its iridescent eyes which were just fluttering open. Luna looked at it fondly and then back to Draco.

"Should we go?" She asked

He nodded and led her to the room of hidden things. Once they were inside he looked briefly around the alcove of magical objects before his eyes settled on what looked to be an exquisitely fashioned wooden cabinet. Luna thought it looked rather formidably enigmatic and wondered how it could possibly help anyone.
The pair wove through the forest of fascinating articles, long forgotten vestiges of long forgotten people. She recalled the first time she and Draco had visited the room for something other than D.A purposes affectionately and couldn't help but smile. "Happy about something?" Draco asked in persiflage.

"I was just remembering when we were in here before." Luna said calmly.

Draco's eyes lit up with remembrance, as if a fire resided beneath his smoky grey irises. He leaned in and kissed her softly, teasingly on the mouth, she sighed involuntarily and then felt him laugh against her lips. He stepped away from her and gestured with a flourish towards the curious object, "A vanishing cabinet. I've been fixing it." He said.

"What's it for?" Luna asked.

"I thought that if there was an attack we could help people escape through it, there's a twin you see. However, we won't be able to use it this year as it lives in Borgin and Burkes and I can't imagine what would happen if we sent first years or muggle borns there. We'll have to wait until next year to put it into action."
"But you intend to test it using the lilcean?" Luna guessed.

"Yes, but I doubt they'll do anything with it. I've tested other things so they know someone's attempting to fix it."

Luna seemed quite content with that and when Draco clicked the doors open she placed the bird inside; it began to flutter around nervously, attempting to escape and throwing its frail body against the walls. Luna gently pushed Draco out of the way and gave her full attention to the bird, stroking it and whispering something, her lilting inflection becoming very potent. The bird finally calmed down and when Luna extracted her hand from the cabinet, Draco closed the door.

They waited for a couple of minutes, anticipation sparking through their veins. Draco was worried something was going to go horribly wrong and that Luna would hate him for it. There was a small thump. The sound correlated with the action of Draco's heart. He cautiously opened the doors and the sight which greeted him made his breath catch in his throat. The bird's tiny body was stained with a single spot of blood, like a crushed berry in the snow, but there was no denying that the creature was dead. It was limp and lifeless and no longer possessed the lively spirit it once had, fluttering around and singing sprightly melodies. There was no life at all in fact; death had taken the winged being for its own cruel collection. An involuntary shiver ran through Draco, through his bones and veins and blood. He tried to call words from his brain to speak but he couldn't say anything.
"Poor thing." Luna whispered, her words wading through the viscous silence.
"I'm so sorry. I had no idea this would happen." Draco said, forcing the apology from his mouth.
"I know. I can't imagine you would have purposefully killed such a delicate creature." Luna said calmly. Draco was surprised at how well she was taking this, how could anyone be this forgiving?

"I feel awful." He said.

"Don't worry, you didn't actually kill the bird." Luna soothed.
"I pretty much sent it to its untimely grave."

"Stop worrying, Draco. It's okay; obviously it is an awful thing to happen but it isn't your fault."
He finally gave in and nodded. "Ok."
Luna whispered a spell and the bird disappeared. "It's a spell that sends a deceased creature to the nearest tree to its birthplace, its feathers become the leaves and its body rests beneath the roots." She said quietly, her voice dripping with excited passion.

"That's very advanced magic." Draco mused, the girl never failed to surprise him. He realised the shock must have been palpable in his voice, but Luna hadn't noticed as was usual.
"I created it myself, with the help of Padma who knows a little more than I do, being a year older."

"That's amazing, Luna. Really, prodigiously fantastic." Draco said, his face like a newspaper detailing his shock and amazement, his skin was the pale, light paper and his eyes the grey print.
"Thank you." Luna replied, and skipped out of the room.

The next D.A meeting, a week later, fell on the 11th February. Draco decided they would continue to work on legilimency and occulemency, seeing as they were rather complex and he would have been extremely surprised if anyone had managed it during the first lesson. He was curious as to why Harry, Ron and Lavender had decided to join the group after almost one and a half months of being absent. Draco noted that Ron and Lavender were on the complete opposite side of the room to where Harry, Hermione, Dean and Ginny were stood, and in turn Harry stood as far as he could away from Dean whilst still being a member of their small group. "Ok, most of you should remember what I told you last week about how to block someone from entering your mind's defences. If you don't, please wait here whilst I inform Harry, Ron and Lavender of what to do."

Most people wandered off in pairs to practice, though a few remained so that what to do was refreshed in their memories. "Look, Malfoy, I'm really bad at occulemency, Snape tried to teach me last year and I couldn't do it. It always ends really badly." Harry said desperately. Draco felt pleased about this, despite himself.
"Something the famous Harry Potter can't do? Most people will never even have attempted this before so you're not exactly among professionals, Potter. Anyway, it isn't someone like Snape, or Voldemort you're up against, it'll be one of your friends." Draco then addressed the rest of the assembled group in front of him. "Ok, one of you will cast legilimens in order to enter the other person's mind. This person will be thinking of a memory, which you must find. They will then attempt to conceal it from you. As you are not skilled legilimens this should be easier than it would be otherwise, but bear in mind that Occulemency is a rare and difficult skill. I am attempting to teach you it so that if you are faced in the unfortunate situation of being probed by a legilimens then you will have some idea of what to do, even if you are not able to prevent it from happening. I expect some of you will possess a natural talent for it and that is what I am mainly trying to discover; if any of you have the ability, that you will be able to use it. Is that okay?" Draco said.

"You said it's a rare and difficult skill; so can you do it, Malfoy?" Ron asked smugly. Lavender giggled and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Yes I can do it, otherwise I wouldn't dream of teaching you it. I am in fact skilled in both legilimency and occulemency." Draco said irritably.

"Always one to big himself up." Ron whispered in Lavender's ear, however it was loud enough for Draco to hear. He felt annoyance building up within him and attempted to let it out in a powerful exhalation.
"I think all of you are ready to go and practice. If you need my help don't hesitate to ask." He muttered through gritted teeth. The nervous looks on a few of the younger students' faces suggested that they most certainly would not be asking for his help.

"Come on, Draco. I would like to practice with you." Luna said to him, taking his hand.
"I wouldn't think you'd want to practice with me after last week." Draco murmured incredulously.

"I think I'll be concentrating more this week. I think last week I was completely unprepared, and I'm just getting the hang of it today."
"Ok, let's go then." Draco smiled, pointing to an empty space. He suddenly felt a light tug on his sleeve and turned around to see Hermione and Harry looking at him. "Er, you go on Luna. Think of your memory."

"What is it?" Draco said.
"So what have you got Luna?" Hermione asked. "I couldn't help but notice your lack of a gift."
"What for?" Draco spat.
"Her birthday, it's today. Didn't you know?" Hermione said sceptically.

"What? No. Damn." Draco muttered, reviling himself angrily.

"Did you not think to ask when it is?" Harry said with a somewhat superior tone.

"No, I'm not into all that sentimental drivel like you are." Draco growled.

"At least I'm not the git who forgot my girlfriend's birthday."
Draco was momentarily taken aback at the rather official sounding title. "I never said she was my-"

Harry rolled his eyes and walked away, followed by Hermione who was shaking her head. Draco's expression contorted into one of disgust, aimed to pierce their retreating backs. In his mind, however, worry was running wild. Thoughts were bashing past each other frantically, in their haste to get to the front of his mind.

"Are you coming, Draco?" Luna asked from across the room. He nodded and made his way over to her. They began to practice, Draco slowly began peeling away the defences of her mind, but this time felt a slight force against his own mind, pushing him back. It was kind of like he was pushing a buoyant object into water. He felt ripples in her mind's invisible barricade as he pushed his way through, catching glimpses of a cake sprouting candles, and brightly coloured wrapping paper. He lost concentration for a moment, Merlin's bloody beard, she was thinking of a birthday. And suddenly he could see only her in front of him; she had successfully expelled him from her mind. "Well done, Luna!" He said enthusiastically. "Now, would you mind joining Neville and Hannah, I need to go and get something."
"Ok." She said, smiling elatedly, clearly pleased at the outcome of the practise.

Draco ran out of the room, he had just had a sudden revelation. He hurtled down all the stairs until he got to the entrance to the Slytherin common room, where he bumped into Crabbe and Goyle. "In a hurry?" Goyle asked, not unkindly.
"Yes, actually. I need to get something." Draco replied.

"What is it?" Crabbe urged.

"I'm not telling you, it's for the task."
"Everything seems to be about the task these days, Malfoy." Draco heard the unmistakable voice of Blaise Zabini as the boy stepped out of the common room entrance, superiority laced through his voice.
"Don't speak to me like that." Draco spat.
"Well it does: always disappearing, going off to random places. Is holding hands with blood traitor Loony Lovegood to do with the task as well?" Blaise inquired, raising his eyebrows, and smirking.

"What?" Crabbe said brainlessly, his mouth opened in a gormless 'o' of surprise.

"I don't have to answer to you." Draco said, and pushed past them into the common room.

Once in his dorm, he rifled through his suitcase for the item he had been looking for. It was a small notebook wrapped in glistening silver wrapping paper. It had been intended for Pansy Parkinson, but seeing as he didn't really like her anymore he figured it would be a waste to give such a gift to her. It was a notebook, that when you thought something in your mind that you needed to write down, but didn't have paper or a pen to hand, appeared on the page so you could go back to it later. He thought it would be perfect for Luna's Ravenclaw mind, probably sparking often with new ideas and questions. Also, it matched well with the newfound knowledge of Luna's enjoyment for inventing her own spells.

"Reducio." He said, tapping it with his wand and watching it shrink to a pocket sized item. He placed in an inner pocket of his robes and hurried back up to the Room of Requirement. He was greeted by complete darkness.
"Hello?" He said into the vast blackness.
"Shut up!" Padma Patil said playfully next to him. Draco opened his mouth to say something but a chorus of out of tune voices had already started up.

"Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Luna,

Happy Birthday to you."

Everyone sang mirthfully, ending with the traditional three cheers. Personally, Draco found whole happy birthday business cringe worthy and just generally embarrassing. Why would anyone want to fall witness to their friends singing an irritating song out of tune? He noticed 16 flickering candles be extinguished and the lights went up. An exquisitely detailed cake, in the shape of a sleeping dragon was levitated in front of Luna, who was smiling like Draco had never seen her smile before. This of course triggered a grin to sprout on his own face.
"Ginny, Padma, Madeline and I baked it." Hermione piped up proudly.
"The house elves tried to help but someone gave them a firm no. I'll give you one guess who it was." Ginny laughed.
"I never thought I'd have friends who cared this much to bake me a cake, and organise for everyone to do this. Thank you so much!" Luna said. She so often took everything in her stride that Draco was surprised to see a watery pool forming in her eyes. A few of her closer friends began to give her presents, as everyone else sank into a hubbub of excited chatter. "Engorgio." Draco whispered, retuning the gift to its normal size.

Draco hung nervously at the back, and when everyone else had gone from Luna's side he handed her the pristinely wrapped present, done by a house elf of course (Draco was atrocious at present wrapping), though he bore it in mind to make sure Hermione didn't find out. He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, another thing he hated about birthdays was the whole present giving affair, watching nervously to see whether they liked it or not made him feel like vomiting. Luna picked up the card placard with the instructions on it, Draco was glad he hadn't thought to write Pansy's name on it. She smiled as she began to reach the end. "Thank you very much, Draco! This is wonderful for me, I'm always thinking of new ideas!" She exclaimed. "Although, I didn't think you'd be getting anything for me seeing as you only just found out it was my birthday half an hour ago when Hermione and Harry told you."

"They told you that? Bloody scarhead and his frizzy haired-" Draco began.

"No! You think I don't know you well enough to see your panicked expression? Admittedly, it was rather funny seeing your horror at my birthday related memory. It was my ninth birthday by the way." Luna giggled.
"I'm sure it was hilarious." Draco said, fighting the smile that was playing at his lips.
He took her hand and Blaise's words rang minaciously in his ears. Is holding hands with blood traitor Loony Lovegood to do with the task as well? But he pushed it away quickly.

He pulled her close to him so that they were pressed against each other. "Happy birthday." He whispered, and leaned his face towards hers.
"I noticed you didn't join in with the singing." Luna said, making him stop midway. He chuckled quietly. "I don't sing."
"You should, it's quite pleasant."

She smiled up at him, her face an open map of her thoughts and emotions, her hair the soft frame. Her mouth was a curving river bend of light pink. Draco leaned in and parted her lips with his, taking in her sweet taste and the way she softly responded. He heard a few gasps from behind him which made him want to laugh aloud, but forgot the urge as Luna entwined her arms around his neck and played with his hair. He began to twist his own hands through her hair, letting the curls sweep over him like a blissful tide. He then realised that they were doing this in front of everyone, and although he didn't want to, he reluctantly pulled away with a groan at his own actions.

He turned to look at the pulsating mass of students. The majority of people were paying them no attention but just the people he hadn't wanted to see were looking straight at them, their expressions ranging from shocked to bewildered to mirthful. He smiled casually at them and said, "I think I should be getting back to my common room. Goodbye Luna, I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday." And with a quick kiss on the mouth to Luna and a jaunty wave of his hand, he left the room, almost drowning in happiness.

Luna waved him goodbye and wondered if he understood how much what he had just done had meant to her. His public display of affection had shown that he didn't care if people knew what he felt about her, even though she was the 'crazy' girl, and he didn't care what other people thought about the fact that he wanted to be with her. Although she knew that it should only be expected of someone to show these things, she felt a wave of euphoria and exuberance wash over her. She had not been sure if he just wanted to keep their relationship secret, or if he had been okay with their friends knowing. Luna knew that of course she would have to keep it a secret from the other Slytherins, for his wellbeing as well as her own safety, but that didn't seem to matter. It was logical that the Slytherins not know of this part of Draco's life as they would be sure to pry, and question his motives, leading to unnecessary questioning and awkwardness.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a tapping on her shoulder. "I've got a letter for you from Professor Flitwick." Madeline piped up, breaking the silence that had formed between the group who had seen the event happen: Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Dean, Padma, and of course Madeline.

"Oh, ok. Thank you." Luna said, still in a rather dream like state.

Dear Luna,

First of all, I would like to wish you a happy birthday! It is hard to believe that the first year I encountered four and a half years ago, eager for knowledge and full of ideas is now sixteen. It has been a pleasure to see you flourish as a witch and as a person. Sentiments aside, I am delivering a message from Madame Hooch, who wishes to inform you that you will be welcomed as one of the school's Quidditch commentators. You begin on Saturday.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Filius Flitwick