Entry tags:

100quills, fanfiction, fic: far away as moonshine

FIC: Far Away as Moonshine, 10/28
Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part II: The Battle of Hogwarts
Author: zephre
Rating: PG-13 (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Miscommunication
Word Count: 1,115
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 title is from the song, "Street of Dreams" by Oysterband. I have a constitutional objection to writing accents or dialect phonetically. We all know Fleur has an accent.

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 Fleur encounters a communication barrier.


The beating of the waves against the cliff behind Shell Cottage reminded Luna of home. She missed the familiar hills of Ottery St. Catchpole, but the sea was at least the same here as there. It was comforting beyond measure to be once more in its vicinity.

Luna traced patterns in the dirt with her fingertip. Old runes, they were, some of the same ones that had melted away from all of the windows in Draco's suite with every frost. Strength. Endurance. Family. Rebirth. Change. With a tilt of her head, she could turn them all upside-down, and read a new message in code. The hourglass in wheat wanders its death - was the last word really biscuits? She shrugged.

She could trace Change blind now, she had done it so often. Every night she spent in Draco's rooms at Malfoy Manor, in fact. When he was there, asleep beside her, she traced it lightly into the palm of his hand. When he was gone, she drew it on his pillow. Change. Change. Somehow, as soon as possible, Change. Perhaps all she'd done is give the poor man an inexplicable craving for chocolate biscuits.

"Luna? Where are you?" Fleur's voice calling from the house startled her. She was still not used to being here, to hearing an accent that was not British, not upper class.

"Here," Luna said, standing up and walking back into the house through the garden door.

"Ah, good. You can help with dinner, yes?" Fleur tilted her head toward the piles of fresh greens on the countertop. Tendrils of pale hair came loose from her braid to halo her face.

Luna understood that Fleur was part Veela, and so could not help the incandescence of her beauty, but Luna still sighed a little every time she looked at her hostess. She had all the grace and luminescence that Luna herself lacked. Still, she imagined that having a Veela's uncontrollable appeal would have been ghastly in that cellar - Luna cut off that thought. No, she would not think of the cellar. She must think of dinner, and of being among people again. They expected the same Loony Lovegood as before, one that had never known the malice of a Death Eater's singular attention. No, no, no. She would not think of it.

"Yes, I can help," Luna said, letting her voice fall into its old patterns. It was easier to be dreamy, distracted, even irritating, when it was expected. She found the repetitive movements of chopping and dicing soothing, comfortingly meditative tasks that kept her from thinking too hard about anything but the placement of fingers and blades.

After Luna had been cutting vegetables and washing leafy greens for a few minutes, Fleur looked over from her orchestration of knives, spices, and meat. "You are well, then?"

"Oh, yes." Luna paused, knife poised over an aubergine. "It's good to be busy."

Fleur's eyes developed tiny lines at the corners, a sign of anxiety that Luna had noticed early in her stay. "So you need not - mm," Fleur gestured with her wand as if summoning the proper words, "think so hard on things past?"

"I don't dwell on it," Luna said, and snapped the handle of the knife down, then up, then down, moving it with precision down the cutting board. Fleur's knives behaved the same way, but faster, with no human hands near them. Luna smiled with satisfaction as she lined up her even slices, alternating aubergine with yellow squash because she liked the contrast of their skins.

Fleur's spells stopped when the meat was cut. "Are you sure you do not wish to speak of it? Hermione was greatly helped, to talk to me and Bill." It was not the first time Fleur had tried to ask leading questions. Bill did the same thing. Luna knew they meant well.

Maybe one day she would answer them with more than comforting half-truths. Luna paused her blade over the last squash and thought that perhaps a crumb of information would hold off another interrogation for a few days. She was not like Hermione, who found in words and logic all the world's difficulties neatly explained. Luna would crawl off to a dark place to hide before she allowed the harsh, unforgiving lines of logic to destroy her.

So she used her best old-Luna voice, staring out the window, head tilted to the side, as if just noticing the apple blossoms on the tiny, twisted tree outside. "Mister Malfoy thinks Draco is in love with me."

The gasp beside her made her turn back. Fleur stared at her for a moment. Luna stared back. Luna usually won staring contests, and this one was no different. Fleur blinked first. "Is he?" she demanded, somehow blending outrage and sentiment. "In love with you?"

That question almost made Luna feel something real, but she ruthlessly cut herself off from thinking too hard about how Draco had held her hand, and nothing else, during the darkest part of the night. She made herself remember instead the arrogance in his voice as he made a claim of ownership. "I don't think so. I don't think he knows how to be in love."

"Well, this is not so surprising. Spoiled and rotten, that family." Then Fleur seemed to realize the whole of what Luna had said. "Un moment. You said, Lucius Malfoy thinks this. How do you know what he thinks, this Death Eater?"

"We had tea." Luna treasured the astonishment she created with that sentence. It would fuel speculation, yes, but it would also give the others something to chew on without asking her anything more. "He was quite a good host, but I suppose that is something Malfoys do well, even-" Luna cut herself off. She had almost said too much.

"Oui? Even?" Fleur pounced upon that opening.

"Nothing," Luna whispered, turning her head away. "They were not what I expected, is all."

Fleur obviously wanted to ask more questions, now that she thought Luna was willing to share. Luna felt a flutter of guilt beneath her breast at the way she was deceiving her allies, those who could be her friends. She closed her eyes against it. When she opened them again, a tiny bug with bright blue wings hovered near the windowsill. "Oh, an apple fairy!" Luna cried with real joy, happy to have something she could feel all the way through.

Fleur snapped a tea towel toward the door. "Go on, then, dinner will be ready soon. Merci, Luna."

Luna nodded as she left, then skipped down the garden path. A whole world of fantastic creatures waited to distract her.

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