Entry tags:

100quills, fanfiction, fic: far away as moonshine, writing

FIC: Far Away as Moonshine (1/28)
Title:   Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Why?
Word Count: 1,467
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Notes: The story has three parts, each broken into chapters. The title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband.

Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Epilogue

Chapter 1: In which Draco is exceedingly foolish.


Draco did not know what had possessed him to speak. He stared at his mother's hand on his arm as she dragged him up the corridor and wondered if he had just made a deadly mistake. To be so bold, so crass, so cruel as to discuss the giving and receiving of a prisoner as if she were a Christmas gift? Yet Bellatrix had been amused, rather than enraged. She had not cursed him. She had laughed; and Draco's father has looked down the long table with a hint of his old authority - which only ever manifested when the Dark Lord was absent - and had given the girl to Draco. Given him Luna Lovegood, so long as Draco kept her "out of the way" of the adults.

Happy Christmas, Draco. Don't break her the way you did your other toys. It might even have been funny in another life, one in which Bellatrix's high-pitched cackle did not send shivers of terror down his spine.

His mother's face had been cold and still as stone, and her knuckles had been white where her wand hand gripped the arm of her chair. As soon as it was possible to leave the table, Narcissa had pleaded fatigue and demanded that Draco escort her upstairs.

Draco was not surprised to be pulled into the west wing of the Manor, past portraits of long-dead ancestors whose censure for the current scions had long since been Silenced. There was a painting here in the far stairwell that guarded a Malfoy secret: a room perfectly circular and perfectly empty, warded by blood and bone for silence and secrecy. Only Malfoy blood in the main line could open the door. Narcissa stopped their forward momentum on the landing, and shook Draco's arm.

"Open it," she demanded in a low, implacable voice. Draco had never heard his mother speak like that before the Dark Lord returned. Now she was a creature of steel and silk, building a shield of will, influence, and threats around her family. The Dark Lord alone was free of Narcissa's webs. Even Snape, the Dark Lord's right hand, had been unable to escape entanglement.

Draco placed his hand on the frame - it was an innocuous enough painting of Wiltshire in spring, with indistinct figures frolicking in the fields - and spoke the password his father had shared with him the day his Hogwarts letter had arrived. The wall swung inward just far enough for Narcissa and Draco to slip inside the room, then it swung closed and sealed itself. The room's single wall sconce blazed into white flame the moment the door closed. No one and nothing save Lucius could open the door now, and no one outside would hear any part of their conversation, even if they had planted an eavesdropping item on one of them.

Narcissa released Draco and took a step back, crossing her arms and regarding her only living offspring with narrowed eyes. "Explain yourself," she said, each syllable falling like cut ice from her lips.

Draco did not want to have this conversation, especially not with his mother.  "I think I explained fairly well at the table."

Narcissa took Draco by the shoulders and shook him once. "What are you thinking, Draco? What will you do with this girl?"

Draco was struck suddenly by the fact that he was taller than his mother. He was not used to seeing her look up at him. It was disconcerting, and made him even more uncomfortable. "Does it matter? At least I won't Crucio her for dinner entertainment, or make her the main course for a pack of werewolves." Both had been the fates of muggles and muggleborns to cross paths with Death Eaters in the past.

For a moment he saw a glimmer of relief in his mother's eyes. "No, I imagine you won't. But why, Draco? Why risk so much?"

Draco looked away, wondering how much he would have to tell her before she let him go. Bellatrix had taught him Occlumency, but Narcissa had a particular ability to cut through to the heart of his thoughts without benefit of Legilimency.

"Draco." He knew that she only wanted to understand, to be able to protect him. He resented her, both for her attempts at protection now and for her inability to protect him from the terrible task the Dark Lord had given him last year.

"She was kind to me."

Narcissa said nothing for a long time. Draco finally had to look at her, to see if he could glean some clue as to her thoughts. She was watching him, her neutral expression belied by the burning emotion in her eyes.

At last the silence became too much to bear. "She treated me as if I were just another student, all right? She's crazy, they call her Loony at school, she's ridiculous and quiet and calm and kind. She's not afraid of me. Now that her father is in Azkaban, there's no reason to keep her here, no reason to let her live, she could vanish into the dark and no one would ever know."

Narcissa let go of his shoulders. "She is a pureblood witch, and there is protection in that."

"Not for blood traitors," Draco snarled, turning away and taking the step away the room allowed. He pressed his palm to the wall and his forehead to the back of his hand. The claustrophobic room reminded him too vividly of the many constraints on his own actions, and the looming danger of all-out war. "I have no power anywhere else. This is as much as I can do."

He felt her hand on his back. "You have more power than you think," she said softly. "Let me help you where I can. Now, and when you go back to school."

Draco closed his eyes and tried not to think about the future. "Can she be safe here?"

"As safe as any of us. They will forget, once the novelty of your request fades. Everyone will forget her." Narcissa's words brought Draco little comfort. At least being forgotten did not come with torture and curses.

Why, why in Merlin's name did he have to care so damned much? Draco hated himself, was certain that Luna would hate him equally no matter how forgotten she became in his house. Why did he have to care so much but lack the courage for action? At least when Luna had come face to face with Death Eater wands she had managed to stand up and fight. Draco was so used to running away, to falling back on the influence of others, that he had no more idea how to go about this foolhardy attempt at rescue than he had had of how to assassinate one of the greatest living wizards in Britain.

"She told me once that nothing was impossible," Draco whispered, turning his head so that he could see the fine porcelain of his mother's profile. "I wonder if she still believes that."

Narcissa caressed the back of his neck and stepped away. "Go, Draco. Go save her. We will find a way to keep her safe, while you are back at Hogwarts. It will be enough."

Draco took a deep breath, and whispered the exit password on his exhale. The door clicked open, and instantly Narcissa was gone, her heels clicking on the marble floor of the gallery. Draco wished he knew what she was really thinking, how much she would share with his father, how much his father was actually still himself after Azkaban, how much he needed to fear that his parents would betray him, or he them, by accident or negligence.

He thought of the Headmaster, and second chances. Snape, upon giving Draco the Head Boy badge, had said that Draco must make important choices this year. Choices that would shape his life. Draco was not certain that anyone he knew would approve of the choice he had made today, but somehow Draco hoped that Snape, when he learned it, would get that glint in his eye, and turn up his mouth in that particular smirk he seemed to save for hearing about the latest way that Dumbledore's Army had thwarted the Carrows. To Draco, that smirk looked almost like pride, if grudging, in students proving their worth and skill. And when was the last time anyone had been proud of Draco?

He slipped through the painting and waited for the tingle in his fingers that meant the lock had engaged once more.  Luna was still down in the cellar, and whether anyone would be proud of him or not, Draco meant to get her out.

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