Stuck with Me [Harry Potter]

Chapter 3 - Their First Conversation

Draco and Luna have never really spoken in any of the Harry Potter books/movies, so I had to guess as to what their first actual conversation would be like. Enjoy! =)

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Day 1

An hour later, and nothing.

Draco sat, trying not to think about anything, but his mind could not help but revert back to the battle that took place in his living room. Helena surely was dead. Pointing her wand and casting a spell at the Dark Lord definitely had its consequences, and Draco himself probably wouldn't have lasted that long either if he hadn't escaped. Amid all of that chaos, someone could've accidentally hit him with a spell that would have mortally wounded him... or killed him. It was amazing how fast a civil war could start. No doubt that some of the Death Eaters in there were dead. What was the point of Helena being there, then? It made Draco sick that the Dark Lord probably wanted to kill her just to do it. How horrible.

Draco's whole body jolted, and his heart nearly jumped out of him, when he heard a loud bang from behind him. He looked back and found that Luna was carrying a slab of wood the length of her own body, and about as thick as it, and placed it in a pile along with other massive slabs of wood, and right next to a pile of rocks about the size of quaffle balls. Didn't she have her wand? She could just levitate them all.

He turned back to the view of tall grass, attempting to ignore the Ravenclaw girl, but another bang sounded, and his blood curdled with annoyance. He stood up and stood among the debris. He had to do something about this so she wasn't constantly making noise and making him more annoyed. He pointed his wand to the shambles.

"Erecto!" he shouted, and Luna stood back and watched in wonderment as the wooden boards and stones flew up, and the house put itself back together, creating many bangs, booms, whips, clanks and thumps. The house stood erect, and three stories tall, in under a minute.

Draco put his wand away in his pocket, and he heard Luna take a breath.

"Thank you, Draco Malfoy," she said in her light voice. "It looks more beautiful than before. You know, people always say that it looked ugly, but I thought it was lovely. With homes, it all depends on the person who lives there. A man could live in a rusty shack and still think it's the most beautiful home in the world."

His nose twitched. She was spouting nonsense. He walked away as she asked, "Do you want to come inside and have a bite to eat?"

"No," was his reply and walked off and away from the dirt-covered and smelly girl.

Draco went back and sat in the grass for some time and stared at the horizon, sitting with his knees up and his arms resting on them. The sun was just beginning to set, casting yellows, oranges and pinks across the sky. Draco was almost hypnotized by it—it looked like the painting he had in his room back at the manor, one that he stared at for good amounts of time to calm himself down if he was ever in a foul mood. It was next to that picture of the waving sea.

Speaking of the manor...

How come no one had come to fetch him? Were they even worried about him, or concerned that he was gone? Surly his parents were. And what about Luna, a prisoner who escaped? He sighed in frustration. They probably thought it good punishment to leave him alone with the strangest, looniest girl at Hogwarts, and the daughter of the man who was hated by his father, and whose political views polluted The Ministry and angered his father like no other person had.

He could just apparate somewhere else, and away from this god-forsaken place in the middle of nowhere, and away from that loony-girl... but that could create more trouble. Leaving her alone was just asking for the Death Eaters or the Dark Lord to kill her off as another punishment to her father, like what the Dark Lord did to Helena. Or... a punishment for leaving the Dark Lord's presence, as well as failing in his first task as a Death Eater, could be Draco himself performing the death curse on Luna, and then someone performing the death curse on him.

His stomach twisted into a painful knot.

No. He would stay and deal with her, keeping both of them from getting killed. Because what had she done, anyway? Nothing. She seemed harmless. He had been pestered by many people, like Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger... and Harry Potter. Thank God it wasn't one of those three he was stuck with. He would just deal with Luna. She was a pureblood, anyway. And not a Gryffindor.

Draco noticed someone sitting next to him. He jumped when he saw Luna sitting there with a plate of food in her hand, her person still dirty and smelly. Thank goodness the food outpowered her stench. She held the plate of two slices of buttered brown bread, a bunch of green grapes, and a few slices of white cheese out. It was the strong cheese he was smelling, and it didn't smell bad.

"Would you like some?" Luna asked, looking at him. Draco wondered if she even cared that she was a dirty mess in front of him. Probably not. He didn't think that she was a girl who cared too much about what other people thought.

"No," he said, eyes on the horizon.

She brought back the plate in front of her and ate a grape. He eyed the plate, feeling his stomach pinch his gut in hunger. He looked back to the front of him, but saw a second later the plate in front of his eyes.

"Here," she said. "Have some. You're hungry, but you're too proud to say anything."

He shot her a glare. "What?"

She had a calm smile on her face. He huffed through his nose, defeated. She was blunt, too, and wasn't a afraid to speak her mind. He took a piece of cheese and finished it in two bites. She set the plate down in between them.

"You can have the rest," she said, and she stared off at the sunset, a dreamy look on her face. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

He didn't say anything.

"My father and I had this nightly ritual during the summers of sitting on the stairs and watching the sun set." She looked at him. "It seems that you do, as well."

"I don't," he said haltingly.

"I wouldn't blame you if you did. The large windows on your lovely home are covered with curtains, so I would think that you would enjoy a beautiful sunset when you could see it."

He turned his head to her, his brows pushed together. "Lovely?"

"Yes. Your home is quite lovely. Melancholy, but lovely."

Didn't she have any idea what went on at the manor? "How would you know?"

"Because I saw it."

He stared at her, and the memory of when Greyback carried her in came to his mind. "I saw them bring you in that time. You were awake?" He totally thought she was out cold.

"Oh. Yes, I was. I may have seemed asleep because I was taking in the beauty of the house."

He looked back to the sunset. "Beauty," he spat. "Right."

"Yes. Your home is beautiful, in a medieval sort of way."

He said nothing to that. People had been tortured and killed in his home. Luna herself was a prisoner in it. Was she so naïve as to not know this, that his house was an evil place?

Of course she was.

Draco noticed Luna stand up. "I will leave you alone," she said in her light voice. "I can tell that you want to be by yourself."

She left through the grass back to the house. He looked back at her to see that she was dancing in circles as she walked, waving her arms like a bird, and humming something.

"Strange girl," he muttered and looked back at the sunset, and the golden sun disappeared below the horizon. Looked like he would have to spend a night, and he would have to do it outside and away from Luna.