When I open my eyes in the hospital wing, Lovegood is indeed there.
My default preferences have been stored as wanting the companion's original personality and Luna wanders a bit aimlessly through the beds and curtains, trailing a hand behind her so they flutter as she walks.
We are the only two here and I settle in for a while. If I come out too quickly it'll mean I either didn't do a thorough job testing the details of the fic, or didn't enjoy my companion. Neither will do.
"Hello, Draco," Luna says, a little vacantly.
I scrutinise her briefly, deciding it's her personality and not that her brains are scrambled.
Sometimes she's like this, dreamy and a little out of it. Sometimes she's quite lucid - for a Lovegood, anyway - telling me things that must have happened to her in the distant past: her father coming down with dragon pox and sneezing sparks for two weeks, or how her mother taught her to plait hair before she passed away.
"Hello, Lovegood," I respond over my shoulder as I inspect Madam Pomfrey's office. Papers on the desk, quills, a wand. Does it work? I pick it up and wave it around. It does not. "How are things?"
Stupid question.
"Fine," she says. "What are you doing?" She's come up behind me and I hand her the wand.
She turns it over in her hands and gives it a wave. It doesn't work for her, either. "Pity, I'd have liked a wand. I don't have one."
I know this. I didn't really think this one would work for her, anyway - that sort of detail is dangerous.
"Checking the details," I murmur as I move back into the main hospital. Here, too, the lights are dim. I think 'More light, please,' and they come up a bit.
"What are we doing here? I don't think I'm sick."
"You aren't."
"Are you sick? You don't look sick. Are you hurt?"
Her concern is precious.
"No, Lovegood. We are here to make sure everything is normal in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey is out, so I'm checking things over. Do you see anything unusual?"
This, too, is a stupid question. Luna sees everything unusual, but none of it helps with the task at hand.
Just as in the Great Hall and the library, I can't find a fault anywhere. If anything, the only inconsistent bit to be found is how empty it is. None of these places would be abandoned like this.
As a participant, I could request to have my chosen fic populated or completely empty. Peoples' preferences vary depending on what they want to ask for.
It could be playing Quidditch before a roaring crowd; you don't have to have a companion. You can simply enjoy the scenario. Other times it's an empty hospital wing for… Healer fantasies.
I can't help glancing over at Lovegood, who is now standing on one of the hospital beds and reaching over her head towards something I can't see, something on the ceiling.
"What is it?"
"Nargles," she says. "I don't have my butterbeer cork necklace to keep them away."
I see nothing at all, of course, and try to parse through Lovegood logic. "So you're getting closer to them?"
"I can try to move their nest somewhere out of the way, somewhere more private. They like that, you know."
Mm. I lean back in a chair and put my feet up on a bed, crossing my legs at the ankles. I don't offer to help and after a few minutes, Luna gives up trying to reach the invisible nest of invisible Nargles.
"Can we play some Exploding Snap? We used to play in your dungeons. Do you remember?"
Hilarious, her asking me if I remember.
"Sure, why not? Let's play a few hands." I think for the game and a deck of cards appears on the table next to the closest bed.
We settle in to play a few rounds as I mull over her question. I wonder how much she does remember - how much any of the companions remember. There's supposed to be a line, a hard stop of memory. Luna remembers the war, remembers being imprisoned in Malfoy Manor.
I've never pressed her for more recent memories. They're supposed to be Obliviated after each fic and I've never wanted to know.
Because it's not just Luna, of course. It's all of them.
In the beginning, when Potter fell at the Dark Lord's hand, the Resistance scattered. Without Potter, Moody, Dumbledore - there was no one left to mount a cohesive strategy.
I myself killed Dumbledore, leaving Severus's cover intact. But when Potter fell, he was able to abandon the pretence. I suspect he's had a large hand in the mist we breathe in to enter the fics.
Potter was presumed dead. When he was found to still be alive, he was bound and disarmed.
The Resistance tried again and again to free him, leading to the steady capture of Resistance fighters, including - but not limited to - Weasley and Granger, as well. Multiple Weasleys, for that matter.
Our orders were always to capture.
The Resistance never fired killing curses, so it was easy enough to follow orders and avoid killing them in turn. Knowing we captured their operatives drove more of them to make foolhardy rescue attempts, playing right into our hands.
It was like beating your head against a wall. It was the same thing, over and over. They never learned.
I would have thought Granger, at least, would have been able to talk some sense into their dwindling ranks. But maybe everybody was so used to tuning out her incessant, swotty prattle they just ignored her.
For our side, my own killing of Dumbledore was a formative moment. Not just for the Dark movement, but for me. It bought me trust and loyalty. I'd struck the worst blow to the Resistance until Potter himself fell.
Any disinterest on my part in the post-war proceedings was largely glossed over.
But it seems as though any credit I had built up is beginning to fade away.
I'd used the fics early on, of course. Everybody did. The idea was so novel. Even though they were rough, clearly needing a lot of work, some people became hooked immediately.
Pick from a limited number of fictitious scenarios. Pick a 'companion.'
The term was used facetiously at first, trying to mask the depraved nature of the most common fics, but became the commonly-used term once Dolohov's crowd realised they'd need to soften the public image of it a little.
The fics themselves might be able to operate for multiple participants at once. I think if Blaise and I were both in the hospital wing right now, we'd each be in an abandoned fic, all to ourselves. I think.
But the companions are unique, of course. There's only one of each, after all.
Naturally, it put certain Resistance captives in higher demand than others. There came a balance of sorts once things were formally rolled out and Dolohov was able to start charging for the fics.
Now, participants can choose from dozens of fics. The companion options have expanded, too - instead of just getting the Resistance fighter requested, participants can choose their level of awareness.
It was about that time of development that I started backing away from the whole project.
I always preferred my companions to have their original personality.
For Lovegood here, it's loopy and more than a bit strange. Potter, for example, rants and raves, pacing. He thinks he's still hunting Voldemort, which is endlessly amusing. Granger asks for books, still trying to do research, her hair in a bushy cloud around her head. Swot.
Some people request a blank slate for their companion, an empty shell. It's as if they're Confunded. You could do anything to them and it would be as if they were awake but comatose at the same time. They just stand there.
I've heard you can even request that they be fully aware that they lost the war and are being held captive. That was a direct result of the public backlash to the 'empty shell' option. I haven't tested either one.
No matter what level of personality or awareness they are given, the companions are always Obliviated after each fic. It's a full reset for the next one.
In the beginning, the girls were always the most requested. Not surprising. I was never interested in it for that. Malfoys do not deal in what is essentially sex slavery. My father has plenty of depraved views of his own, but our family holds ourselves better than that. It's for men who can't get what they want any other way. It's embarrassing. A Malfoy would never have such a problem.
No, my earliest fics involved duelling Potter in a poor imitation of a bathroom, getting to him before he can slash open my chest with sectumsempra, the jagged silver scar I still see every time I change my clothes.
You can request they be allowed a wand within the parameters of the fic.
Potter can strike me but I sustain no damage - another mark in the 'hallucination' column over a physical experience. Potter can, though. In addition to Obliviation, the companions are Healed of their injuries, ready for the next fic.
Another of my favourites, when I could fight my way to the front of the line, was Granger.
Demand is always high for Granger.
It would be anyway, as Potter's Golden Girl, but there were rumours going around early that men who chose male companions must be gay, artificially inflating the popularity of the women in response. The idea of duelling the men didn't occur to many people at first, evidently.
Unimaginative - it doesn't have to be about sex.
The popularity of the male companions began to slowly rise over time. I'm sure some people do use them for sex, but the idea of fighting a Resistance fighter one on one is fun, especially when you can't get hurt.
Some people pay for more than one companion in a fic, and I'm sure the same idea goes there. Some for sex; some for duelling. Who knows what else?
People became more imaginative as word spread about what other people thought up to do.
My times spent with Granger were always very specific. With her original personality and the default timeline they're given - she remembers the war but not how it ended - she knows I killed Dumbledore.
Within the privacy of the fics, I can allow myself to feel things I ordinarily can't. I don't need occlumency.
Granger's disgust and hatred towards me feels good. I deserve it.
It's usually not very hard to get her to smack me, either.
I found this curious, early on. If I said the exact same things to provoke her, she'd react slightly differently from fic to fic. It makes me think there's a certain level of awareness still tucked inside, a tiny ability to improvise with the little she's given.
Sometimes I don't goad her about Dumbledore. Sometimes I have her reset earlier and needle her about some potion process or snippet of history I know is wrong and infuriate her with it.
She's so easy to wind up. It's immensely satisfying.
Her face turns red and her hair gets bushier, as if it's connected to her rising anger like static. It's fascinating to watch. The more she stomps around, the wilder it gets.
She points her finger in my face and shouts at me. The calmer I react, the more I brush off her tantrum, the madder she becomes.
It would always make my blood tingle in my veins. Sometimes I would engage and our verbal sparring would give me a rush that would last for days.
I'm thinking about those visits like they just happened, but I haven't been here in months. It's probably been close to a year.
That sliver of doubt that there's any awareness left at all with which to improvise responses combined with the request that the companions could essentially be catatonic and Confunded was enough for me to lose any interest. Even if I didn't have to request that, knowing it was happening made me acutely uncomfortable.
Even cursing Potter lost its appeal after a while. What fun is the game when there are no stakes?
