Entry tags:

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

FIC: Far Away as Moonshine (2/28)
Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part I: Malfoy Manor
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Impossible
Word Count: 1,199
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 2: In which Draco remembers.


Draco turned to the door for the cellar stairs.  He was at the wrong end of the house, but if he walked its length downstairs he would be practically guaranteed not to meet any Death Eaters.

He suspected that Luna would not be so kind or so calm now that she had been alone in the cellar for several days. He wished that he could go back to those quiet moments last spring, when his despair had been eased for just a moment by her uncanny cheer.  Or even this past fall, when her particular kind of lunacy had been a balm against the larger insanity of Hogwarts under Snape and the Carrows.


He hadn't seen her until he almost tripped over her in the dark: Luna Lovegood, alone on the half-collapsed balcony over the east courtyard, staring up at the stars with a look of quiet contentment on her face. He felt a terrible, irrational anger at her for being able to smile like that. How could she dare to be so happy when the world was falling apart around them?

Then she looked up, and he braced himself for the condescension, possibly even the brute dislike, that would take over her face. It would hurt to see it, after the confidences last year. But she was part of Potter's court, and must choose sides against Draco and the Slytherins now. Everything had changed with Dumbledore's death.

Her smile did not dim.  "Malfoy," she said softly, a simple acknowledgement.

"Lovegood," he returned. "It's after curfew. I should take points." 

"It is," she agreed pleasantly. "Do you think you're likely to do that?" She had returned her gaze to the stars overhead. Draco could have hexed her three ways by now, and she wasn't even watching his wand.

"I am Head Boy, you know." 

Luna laughed. Her laughter was loud and bright and totally unself-conscious. There was no malice in it. "Does that make you more or less likely to take points, then?" Before Draco could answer, she pointed up. "Oh, look, a falling star!"

She closed her eyes, her hand still raised, and moved her lips in silence. Draco watched, bewildered. When she opened her eyes, she clasped her hands under her chin and sighed happily. "Did you make a wish?" she asked him.

"A wish?"

"On the falling star. Quick, it's not too late." She reached up and closed her fingers around his left arm; Draco flinched. "Close your eyes, and wish. Go on."

Draco felt like an idiot, but at the same time she was the first person to touch him without fear since he'd left his parents at King's Cross. He closed his eyes and thought of a world in which he would not be called upon to torture or maim on behalf of a monster, in which he would not fear that his failures would kill the only people he loved. Just imagining such a thing felt like treason, and he automatically reinforced his Occlumency.

When he opened his eyes, Luna was sitting on the crumbled railing directly before him, her face level with his. Her hand was still on his arm.  "Was it a good wish?" she asked.

raco nodded, and started to speak, but Luna moved first. She held two fingers before his lips, but did not touch. "No," she whispered. "If you speak of it, it won't come true."

Draco stared at her. She dropped both her hands into her lap and stared back. Draco's eyes began to water.  She really was a strange bird.

"Why did we do that?" he asked at last, blinking.

Luna leaned back over the open air, her hands gripping the stones of the broken wall.  Draco wanted to reach out and pull her back before she tumbled into space, but he held himself still.  "You've never wished on a falling star before?"

Draco shook his head.

"What about wishing on the last petal of a fire lily?"

Draco had no idea what she was on about.

"Held the toes of a gnome for ten seconds to make a wish stick?"

"That's ridiculous," Draco declared.

Luna sat up again. "Haven't you ever made a wish on anything?"

"What for? Wishes don't ever come true."

Luna stared at him again, but this time the look was tinged with a gentle sorrow that Draco could not fathom being solely for him. "Do you really believe that?" she whispered.

Draco looked away, up at the sky, where the constellations glittered brightly in defiance of the darkness creeping over Wizarding Britain. "There is no point in wishing for the impossible, and anything possible I can get for myself."

Luna's hand closed gently on his left arm once more. He stilled his reflexive withdrawal, but not before she noticed the aborted movement. "What a sad way to live that must be," she said gently, moving her fingers in tiny caresses over his sleeve.

He wondered what she knew, or guessed.

She hopped down to her feet once more, never letting go of his arm. She was so close that her open school robes brushed his in every breeze. "Well, you've wished now. Perhaps we'll find out that impossible is not so hard to achieve."

Her easy confidence astounded him. Hadn't she said only last term, before the horror of June, that she did not really have friends? That her belongings were regularly stolen?  That her housemates, who should rally around her to the benefit of the House, instead treated her badly, made her life difficult? The Ravenclaws themselves had begun calling her Loony. Perhaps after years of being ostracized, Luna simply recognized a kindred spirit in Draco, who now stood apart from everyone he knew.

"Come on," he said at last. "I'll walk you to the tower. You don't want to get caught out and given detention this term."

"No," she agreed pleasantly. "Probably not."


She had gotten detention eventually, of course. It was unavoidable, and while she never treated Draco with disdain, she did take sides. She and Longbottom and the Weasley girl made trouble, and they all ended up at the wrong end of Draco's wand during detentions overseen by the Carrows.

By Halloween, Draco was sure that he had cursed every member of Dumbledore's Army at least once. He tried not to cringe when Alecto praised him for his spellcasting, and forced himself not to look away when Snape stared him down during meetings with the Head Boy and Girl.

By Halloween, he was convinced that if he wanted to survive this, he could not afford any attachments.  He could not leave himself exposed to enemy attack, and at that point he had no allies, only potential enemies or potential weaknesses. He had not known, by Halloween, that lying to himself would hurt so terribly. He had not known, then, how much he was willing to risk - Merlin, how much he had to risk in the first place - for the sake of one attachment who could not possibly know how much of a difference she made.

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