Healing

Family, Friends and Enemies

Draco decided the best thing to do was to go and find Granger. He wanted to see what was going on with her too. Weaselbee was obviously depressed and having difficulty coming to terms with the loss of Fred. Harry, well, he didn't know what was going on there, but he guessed there was something similar occurring, but what about Granger?

Even he knew the only place to find her was the library. He wished he had Harry's invisibility cloak, leaving the common room now was making himself a prime target for anyone with a grudge to bear. And let's face it, that was probably 75% of the school, if you didn't include the staff. His case had been well publicised, not something he was overly pleased about, but at least there were a few forgiving people out there who believed what they read in The Daily Prophet.

Luck was on his side, as he pushed open the common room door, his cousin was on the other side.

'Hello, Luna.'

'Hello, Draco. Are you alright? You look a bit distracted, are your Wrackspurts bothering you today?'

Draco smiled, as eccentric as Luna was, he loved her dearly. Of course, his father had disowned his sister as soon as she ran off with Xenophilius; the Lovegoods weren't really a family the Malfoys wanted to associate with, despite being one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Not that it was really a 'run off', more of a case of Pandora Malfoy 'floating off' in a haze of magic mushrooms and moon-dust cakes. However, her death had been heart-breaking, even Lucius had been upset, moping around the Manor and generally being very snappy with his wife and son and the house elves for the best part of a month. It didn't stop Lucius warning Draco not to fraternise with his cousin when she joined the school the year after him. Draco obeyed, naturally, but he would still keep an eye out for Luna and occasionally quietly intervene if he thought, even by his standards, that the bullying went a step too far. After the war and without his parents around to make his decisions for him, Draco went to visit the Lovegoods and to reconnect the families. He ended up spending a month of the summer with them and enjoyed being absorbed into their unconventional ways and peculiar lifestyle. It was utterly refreshing and turned out to be marvellous therapy when Luna made him ramble over the moors with her, paddle barefoot in the stream at the bottom of the garden and lie in the long grass while she wove flowers in his hair. It didn't mean he wasn't a bit wary of the cakes though.

'I'm fine, just wondering the best route to the library with the least number of human obstacles.'

'Ah, yes there's rather of lot of students who've been infected by Blibbering Humdingers, it's making people rather antagonistic and I suppose you're worried they might take their aggression out on you. Don't worry, Draco, that's why I'm here. I've brought you a Hare bracelet, I made it for you especially because it helps to ward away negative vibes. I'll come with you too. I need to go that way.' She presented him with a bracelet made of two slender gold bands that held a small hare penchant.

'It's beautiful, Luna. Thank you.' He was rather touched, although he didn't believe her words, it was exquisitely made but more than that, it was a very personal gift from his cousin, the likes of which he's never received before. He slipped it onto his wrist next to the expensive watch that his mother had given to him when he came of age. It certainly wasn't going on his left wrist where the shadow of the Dark Mark still haunted his pale skin.

They wandered together through the corridors with Luna dreamily chatting about her plans to go back to Sweden with her father to hunt Crumple-Horned Snorkacks after she'd finished school. Surprisingly, although students stared at them, no one said a word in Draco's direction.

Luna left him at the library door and he found Granger buried behind two large piles of books near the large window that looked out over the lawns and down to the Quidditch pitch. What he didn't expect to find was that she wasn't reading, instead she was gazing out of the window into the darkening night sky. She sighed heavily as she watched.