The Stars That Lie (Druna ☾)

Chapter 11

Luna learned to listen to the sounds of the manor. If she closed her eyes, she could see it all above her like she was really there, a fly on the wall of the parlor during every interaction.

Narcissa Malfoy did not linger. She was always on the move. Always on an errand or getting the house prepped for a guest. They saw so many prominent people from both sides of politics, keeping the matron of the home in a constant flurry of activity.

Lucius walked slowly and purposeful, his cane echoing every frightening thud of his feet. If he ever strode quickly, she held her breath and covered her ears, knowing a house elf or innocent bystander was about to receive an undeserving punishment.

When Bellatrix Lestrange visited, she was loud, heard the most clearly of all the Malfoy family members so that Luna never had to strain to hear.

(Luna did wish Bellatrix would shut up from time to time though.)

Then there was Draco. She never saw him, but she heard him. He walked the quietest in the house, like he feared making a noise. Feared making his existence known again, and therefore making the disappointment he was to his father known once more. If he ever had an arrogant swagger, it was only at Hogwarts where he did not fear the consequence of existing.

She heard Lucius beat Draco only twice. A swift crack of the cane, and nothing else. Draco never cried. Never yelped. He took the strikes stoically, habitually, like they were as common as receiving a letter.

Truthfully, she wondered if Draco was alive in the house with her, for he did not make his presence known often. At least, she didn't for the first few weeks. A month into her captivity, she started to notice the signs.

Toothpaste tablets hidden under her dinner plate. An astronomy book "accidentally" kicked down the basement stairs. A single lumos light that hovered in the basement every night there was a storm.

Then she started to notice the routine at the top of the stairs. The house elf would draw all the curtains in the house before bed, just after sunset, but someone would draw back the one covering the window she could see from the bottom of the stairs. Though she could only see a top sliver of the glass panes, it offered a view of the stars on clear nights.

Luna liked to imagine him sitting in a chair at that window, looking at the stars with her each night, only one floor apart.

Forty days after she'd been captured, she sat on the dirt floor, knees to her chest, leaning her cheek against the iron bars as she stared up at the little sliver of the night sky Draco gave her. She never spoke, and he never came to the stairs to see her. They simply sat in silence together, separated by so much, but tied together by their quiet love of the stars.

She imagined she was back at the astronomy tower in that little moment he begged her to leave in the past. The moment that things felt good, and nothing felt wrong because they sat together under the stars each night.

Let this memory be. Let whatever good you thought was there exist only here in this moment and place. Don't chase after it.

She should have chased it harder. She should have tackled him to the ground and shook him till he promised to stay in that moment with her.

Instead, she had let him slip away, and now here they were.

Luna vowed to herself that if she ever got the chance again, she would drag him away kicking and screaming if she had to.

She refused to let him slip away again.

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