The Whimsical and the Worried

Chapter 4

Draco didn't know what had come over him. Why he said yes to the girl he was trying to avoid made little to no sense, but somehow his predicament and feelings of stress over finding a partner had prompted him to unthinkingly, and at the time, if the truth be known, gratefully accepting.
After the class as Draco began his walk to the next he briefly wondered if the witch had some sort of hypnotic power. It wouldn't surprise him, with her big blue eyes that she liked to stare at him with. Definitely not normal behavior to look someone in the eye so much when you were talking to them he decided.
But whether or not she did have these powers he had accepted her offer. That was that. Now he was stuck with a slightly mad partner in an assignment that was important to his future life as a doctor.
How ridiculous.
On Luna's side of the fence she saw it as her just been trying to be nice.
She'd been watching Draco. She'd been trying to limit herself in doing this as she didn't want to ask herself why she might want to focus such attentions on the boy, but she couldn't help it. Anyway she had been watching him despite this and he looked down right uncomfortable.
His pale skin seemed even paler than normal and his eyes showed a brooding well of thoughts and ambivalence threatening to spill over.
He didn't know what he was doing, that was obvious to Luna. He looked so lost and she couldn't help but go up to him and ask if he wanted to do the assignment with her. Even if she had an inkling it would be trouble.
Surprisingly he had actually said yes and they were now going to have to be spending more time around each other. Not just bumping into each other in hallways.
Luna wasn't sure how she felt about it. Her feelings and thoughts had been very jumbled as of recent, which was understandable after her experiences in the war.
The plant they were assigned was the Moondew - a flowering plant found in Scotland. The magical properties of Moondew were discovered by druidess in the Middle Ages Luna remembered from her studies.
After class Luna went to the library to look up more about the Moondew plant. She found a particularly useful book that was a dark purple and very sturdy.
She plonked it on one of the desks and sat to study it.
The Moondew was used in in liquid form, and is an essential ingredient of the Wiggenweld potion.
The Wiggenweld potion, she read, is a healing potion with the power to awaken a person from a magically-induced sleep, which gives it the ability to reverse the effects of the Draught of living death.
She thought it was very nice that she would be looking after and nurturing such a positive plant... however on that thought she read on that coincidentally the Moondew is also an ingredient of the Draught of living death.
That would make sense she thought as often something can be both good and bad for you depending on how you use it. Duality had been a bit of a recurring theme for her at the moment it seemed.
She closed the book after reading the last bit of the page on the Moondew which read that it could also be used as an antidote to common poisons.
Luna smiled to herself as she put away the book once again snug in it's rightful place between two other Herbology and Botany books.
She would tell Draco all about the Moondew on their first meeting on the Friday they'd organised... or rather as Luna had limply suggested and Draco had nodded his head to.
They were to meet under 'Draco's' tree as she'd thought this was rather a funny idea.
Draco didn't show any sign of amusement at her recommending it as a place of meeting, but he had agreed she supposed, so that was good.
This year back Luna had noticed Draco hardly showed signs of amusement.
She noticed a lot of changes in Draco Malfoy.
Of course it was only to be expected. Everyone had changed, you had to in times like these to keep going.
She found more strange the people who just went about their day as if nothing so traumatizing had occurred.
She strangely found some solace in the very different Draco Malfoy.
He was like her. Different and affected.
However something about his change made her incredibly sad as well. Perhaps it was because for some reason she had been seeing herself in him.
His change was hers, although he showed it a lot more than herself.
The difference between them though was that Luna was making efforts to remember all the good in this world, where Draco was living in his anger and hurt.
She could see the way his shoulders were more weighted. How sad he looked.
Suddenly she felt a strong need to go and hug him. She wanted to help him.
Even if it was for selfish reasons. She felt if only she could get him to see the beauty of this world, she once again could believe it and live there in happiness again with him too.
It was a silly idea, but she just couldn't shake it.
She'd somehow subconsciously intertwined or attached herself with him despite their really being polar opposites.
Well it was too late now, Luna mused to herself, and besides what harm could a little help for him be? Surely she wouldn't press herself onto him. She'd just subtly try to make him cheer up a little more.
Besides there was a whole new world after this war and they were both alive in it.
Perhaps she would try and take him to see the fliumworthers in the forest... a very small and mischievous breed of faerie that liked to live in dark places in nature, like tree hollows and rock caves.
Luna thought undoubtedly there would be some in the forbidden forest, although she had never actually seen one herself... in fact very few people had which was why everyone who she'd told about the creatures *cough Ginny cough* had said they most likely weren't real at all.
Another one to add to the list of Luna's creative 'imaginary' list of creatures that were the primary reason the nickname 'Looney' had really stuck at school.
She didn't mind in the least. She rather liked the idea of being a little mad, much more interesting than living fully in this reality.
However she knew herself that she wasn't actually crazy, she just had more belief than the average person. One of the traits for a Ravenclaw was to be open minded and unique.
She just reminded her friends who told her the creatures weren't real *cough Ginny cough* that once humans had thought that the world was flat and that the majority laughed at the idea of it being round. Deep thinkers such as Anaximander, Philolaus and Aristotle had been before their times in questioning the assertion that it was flat, and finally it took a Portuguese navigator called Ferdinand Magellan to go all around the world to support Aritotles assertion that earth was in fact a sphere.
Luna liked the history of this because it demonstrated her way of thinking exactly.
One has to think deeply about the common understandings and assertions of life. Not everything is as it seems.
And besides, she had been gathering evidence for these creatures for quite a while and she was almost certain that they migrated with the lunar cycle which would mean their popping up quite soon if they did indeed frequent the dark forest.
She definitely planned on being there.