Luna watched them leave, her ears still ringing from Draco's screams. He hadn't moved since the curse had been lifted. He was sprawled across the floor where he had fallen, his face turned away from her. She could see him breathing heavily and every so often his shoulders would judder.

He was crying but for the first time since they had met, he seemed ashamed to let her see him.

'Draco?' She leaned towards him, shaking his shoulder gently. When he didn't respond, she crawled around his head and leaned towards him, her face so close to his that their noses were almost touching.

'Draco, are you alright?' Her voice had risen an octave higher than it usually was, a result of a combination of complete terror, relief and now concern.

The bone dry response of 'What do you think, Lovegood?' instantly reassured Luna that however he seemed, Draco was not injured beyond repair.

He struggled to sit up, eventually allowing Luna to help him struggle over to the wall and slump against it. Luna sank down next to him, subconsciously resting her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence, only the sound of their breathing filling the empty space. Only when the steady sound of Ollivander's snoring filled the air did she realise what they had been waiting for. They were finally, to all intents and purposes, alone.

Luna broke the silence.

'I'm sorry'

Draco turned his head to look down at her.

'So you should be, I'm not a scapegoat.'

'It hurt, didn't it?' There was a concern in her voice so deep that it even managed to soften Draco's tone and, looking aimlessly into the darkness, he spoke with the coolness of someone explaining a difficult puzzle, not the pain of torture.

'It's not the kind of pain you can ever get used to. You can't block it out because it is in every inch of your body, in your bloodstream, in your thought processes, every action just seems to multiply the pain further. You don't even realising you're screaming. And when it stops the real pain from the damage you've inadvertently done to your body hits and the exhaustion. Not to mention the fact that you've been sweating so much that you're soaked to the bone and screaming so much that you feel like your lungs have given way and your throat had been filled with sand. So yes, Lovegood. It hurt, it still hurts and it will hurt again.'

What Luna did then seemed so natural, she wondered why she hadn't done it earlier. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she kissed him gently on his cheek.

'Thank you'

'Believe me, Lovegood, I did not intend to take the curse for you. If he had pointed his wand at you, I would not have leapt to your rescue. So don't thank me for Voldemort's choice. I'm no

hero.'

Luna shook her head. 'You don't realise how strong you are.'

'Don't give me that hippy crap about believing in yourself, Lovegood. You tried that once already and it failed, remember? I looked you in the eye and then I cast the spell. Hardly the actions of a knight in shining armour.'

He got to his feet suddenly, throwing his jacket on the floor and forcing Luna to regain her composure after almost tumbling over.

'But the cruciatus curse takes more than just words, doesn't it? You need to actually want to cause the person pain for it to work? And it didn't work. So you didn't want to. Cause me pain, that is. Not really.'

Draco had found what he'd been looking for: the blanket he had brought down the night before.

'But I still tried. Don't you see? It's the only thing I've ever been taught. When Voldemort gives you orders, you obey them. No matter what. It will never leave me. Damn this shirt.'

He had been trying clumsily to undo the buttons fastening his sweat drenched shirt and so Luna, never losing her cool, got up and undid them for him, only reacting when she saw the bruises and scars that covered his back.

'That's very reductionist, Draco. Not everything you do is determined by what you have been taught. You have free will. You should use it. You have used it. Once when you couldn't kill Dumbledore and once then.'

'Don't blind me with philosophy, Lovegood. I know I have a choice. I just try my hardest to choose the wrong direction and fail every time.'

He wrapped the blanket round his now bare shoulders and sat back where he had been moments before. He paused, sighed and then looked at Luna.

'Don't get over excited, Lovegood. But would you care to join me?' He gestured to the spot directly in front of him. 'I need to steal some of your body heat.'

Luna sat further forward than Draco had gestured, much to his annoyance. Grabbing her waist, he half pulled, half slid her closer.

'I don't bite, Luna.' He whispered into her neck as he encased them both in the blanket.

They were closer than they had ever been before but Luna couldn't help herself thinking that in the days since she had been down in the Malfoy, it was the most comfortable she had felt.