Chapter 2

Disclaimer: This all belongs to J.K. Rowling

"Good! I knew you'd agree!" Luna laughed girlishly in her high-pitched voice. "Let's start the procedure right away. Come and sit back down over here while I get ready. It will only take me a moment."

Draco turned away from the door, already regretting his hasty answer. Luna's chatter was annoying to him, so he tuned her out. He didn't have any other options if what she said was the truth. She did seem to know an awful lot about it. He pushed his suspicions away and then did a double take when what she'd said finally sunk in. "Uh, Luna? Did you say procedure? What exactly are you planning on doing?" He tried to sound curious and not nervous.

"Hmmm? Don't be alarmed, Draco. I have been doing this for ages, and it is perfectly safe," Luna assured him. "I don't mean to rush you, but if you don't mind sitting back down, I'd like to get started. This is going to take some time, and it is getting rather late already. I have an early morning appointment with a hinkypunk who has been bothering the people here. I said I would be happy to talk to him. Personally, I think he just needs new shoes," Luna rattled on, oblivious to Draco's rising unease.

Draco came back to the chair he had previously vacated and perched on the edge, his spine ramrod straight. What had he agreed to? This girl was an obvious loose cannon. He had to be crazy to entrust himself to her ministrations.

A jolt of nearly electric pain chose that moment to shoot through his head, making him suck his breath between his teeth. The whole room tilted for a minute, and he saw little black dots swim before his eyes. Draco fought to hold onto consciousness, and the feeling that was dragging him down into the depths passed. He slumped weakly into the overstuffed chair. It seemed that he was at the mercy of a lunatic, like it or not.

He became aware that Luna was calling his name, and he opened his eyes and tried to assume as dignified a bearing as he could manage while in blinding pain. He thought he cocked an eyebrow sufficiently. "Yes, what?"

"I am about to begin. Just relax." Luna was humming.

Draco should have been alarmed, but he couldn't keep his eyes open. He felt soft hands on his temples, massaging. He tried to jerk away from the personal contact...how dare she touch him?...but the struggle was too much, and he felt darkness overcome his senses and swallow him up. His last thought was mortification at losing his awareness like a weakling, and in front of her, like this. Then he knew nothing.

Xxxxxx

Something was tickling Draco's nose. He tried to ignore it, but no matter which way he turned his head, it kept annoying him. With a put-out huff he cracked an eyelid and was instantly overcome with a sensation of complete and utter unfamiliarity. He was curled into a chair and had apparently fallen asleep somewhere. Being that it had been quite a few years since his wild youth had led him to black out over too many firewhiskeys, he tried to remember what the fresh hell had happened. He pushed away the tasseled blanket that was bothering his face and sat up.

Ah, it was all coming back to him. He was at that girl's place. Luna the Lunatic. How fitting. Draco touched his head. The last thing he remembered was having a headache, and then she touched him, and he woke up here. What had she done to him? What time was it?

As if on cue, Luna bustled through the back curtain, singing a little ditty to herself. She saw him sitting up. "Good morning, Sleepyhead. Or, afternoon. You slept like a baby. I always wondered why people say that. Have you ever watched a baby? They don't seem to sleep all that well, if you ask me."

Draco jumped up in consternation, ignoring her blather. "What have you done? I never sleep in! I am, by habit, an early riser! And there is my job to think of. I'm late!"

Luna turned her back to him and started harvesting the herbs that were tied in bundles over her head. "Oh, it's Saturday; did you forget? Yes, um... about that. We need to talk. Draco, have you been forgetting things lately? Or, if not forgetting, then misremembering them?" She peered at him.

Draco stared at her. "Well, how would I know it if I misremembered it in the first place?"

Luna smiled a little, but he wasn't reassured. "Yes, of course. Are you hungry? I made Toads-in the-Hole."

Draco resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair. That was a habit he had thankfully never acquired. His hair was usually perfectly styled, and even if it wasn't this morning, that was not an excuse for him to break a lifetime of good breeding and go ruffling it up now in frustration at this nitwit girl in front of him. He clenched his teeth instead. "I am leaving. That is what is going to happen. I don't know what your story is, nor do I care. I regret that I tarried last night long enough to get entangled with you. You are not capable of giving me a simple answer to even one question. Please, kindly move so that I may be on my way, and forget you ever knew me. Go help the next poor sap on your list."

"But your headache is gone," Luna explained patiently, as if he had not just brushed her off.

"Yesss, thanks. I might have taken a bottle of Tylenol just as easily," Draco said slowly.

Luna blinked. "A what?"

"Oh, for Pete's sake! A Tylenol! It's a Muggle potion, not that it works half the time, but you get my meaning, Loony... uh, Luna. Now, move!" Draco was getting antsy.

"Draco, there is something else," Luna said. "I feel compelled to finish what I started. You know, you came here on your own last night, but after I got involved, I couldn't turn you away, only having half healed you, especially knowing what I know now..."

"It's fine," Draco interrupted her. "I absolve you of your duty, you can be done and not be burdened with guilt."

"No, it's not that," Luna breathlessly continued. "The damage was worse than I thought. Your memories, they may be corrupted."

"What?!" Draco exploded. "What don't you get? Do you want me to sign a paper or something? You. Are. Done. Good-bye." He turned on his heel and left her staring at him worriedly, twisting her sleeve out of shape. "Bloody Gryffindors, this is what I get, every single time I deal with one. Nothing but trouble...." He was muttering to himself in his haste to get away from her. Maybe the crazy rubbed off, he thought wildly.

"Draco, wait!" Luna called, just as he reached the door.

He ignored her.

"I was not in Gryffindor." Her voice was soft.

Draco paused a minute.

"I was in Ravenclaw. Do you remember that?" Luna went on. "Really, please tell me. Do you remember that I was in Ravenclaw?"

Draco thought for a minute. Luna was friends with Harry Potter, everyone knew that. He remembered her at Hogwarts. Draco and Luna hadn't been close friends, of course, but he did have clear memories of her there, sitting at the common room tables, eating and joking and laughing. She wore red and gold robes and belonged to the house that he hated. She attended class, sitting next to Ron, her head close to Harry's as they looked over their cauldron together in Potions. What was Luna talking about? "Luna, you are mental. Clearly, you need some help. Why don't you go to St. Mungo's and take a holiday?"

Luna stepped closer to him. "Listen, Draco, just for a minute. After I started your healing last night, I realized how very much the poison had affected your system. There were many adverse effects, more than I had ever seen in a person before. I was not equipped to deal with it. I began to see, as I went deeper, that your memories had lost their integrity. Not all of them, just some of them. I do believe that this is reversible, but I need time to figure it out. If I don't, you will not be able to function. I think that the core of memories that are most affected right now seem to be the ones relating to relationships in your school days, things like that, but it will spread into short-term and long-term if I can't help you. Right now, you don't know what is real."

Draco could barely comprehend what Luna was saying to him. "Are you trying to tell me that you were not in Gryffindor?"

Luna shook her head.

The horrible realization crashed over him. He couldn't have faith in anything. He didn't know what was real. He couldn't trust himself. He turned away from her to hide the sudden well of tears that leaped to his eyes. He had never trusted another human being on the planet before this moment; now he couldn't trust himself, either? What cruel jest was this? His only choice was to trust a crazy girl with a bunch of half-baked ideas, yammering on about hinkypunks and nargles? He willed himself to get a grip and took a big breath to steady himself. "Can you do anything about it?"

Luna pursed her lips. "Well, I think so, but who is ever to know what is going to happen when you start messing in other people's memories? I shouldn't like you to be leaching into my brain, but how fascinating. I never have done anything to this extent before. I think that maybe if I used the draft of the..."

Draco felt himself turn greenish.

"I'll certainly do my best," Luna amended as hastily as she could in her roundabout way. "I think there is a fair chance, if you just would relax. It won't hurt more than getting bitten by a ghost."

Draco raised an eyebrow.

"That is sort of an old joke from my childhood , something my father always used to say to me. He would say, 'Luna, it won't hurt more than the bite of a ghost,' because of course, silly, a ghost doesn't hurt." She flashed him a brilliant smile.

"So, to restate the situation, you think that this will be painless, with a little better than average chance of successful recovery of true memory?" Draco confirmed, trying to steer them back to terra firma. One of them had to be the sane one.

"Uh-huh." Luna seemed a little too dreamy for his taste. After all, his rational mind rested on the ability of hers.

Draco snorted. "When do we start?"

Luna turned away. "After breakfast. Or, lunch. I had a hard time with that hinkypunk. It wasn't his shoes after all. Toad-in-the-Hole?"

Draco rolled his eyes. He would be damned if he would eat some witchy, grassroots concoction. Then he remembered that he was broke and crazy. He swallowed over the lump in his throat and, with as much dignity as he could muster, managed, "Yes, thank you."

Luna got the food ready. It turned out to be a rather tasty recipe of toast with an egg in the middle, not nearly as gruesome as the name implied. As Draco sat down to eat, he had a thought. "Luna?"

"Yes?" She looked vaguely at him.

"I have a question. Was Professor Sprout ever the Headmaster?"

Luna went back to eating. She was reading a manual on the mating habits of thestrals. She shook her head and continued reading.

"Even for a short time, like, two weeks, after a suspicious incident involving squid ink in an exploding candy?" Draco pressed her.

Luna didn't look up.

Draco thought hard. Everything seemed like it had happened. What to ask about? "Did Hooch fall off a broom and break her ankle teaching the first years how to fly?"

Luna just grunted.

Hmmm. Draco was getting alarmed. Well, if he was going crazy, he had a thought to console himself with. "Then tell me that Harry Potter didn't defeat Voldemort and become a hero and savior to the wizarding world!" He sat back, triumphant. That one was clearly too outlandish to be real. Even he doubted it; it smacked of megalomania.

Luna fixed him with a blue stare. "That one happened," she told him calmly.

That wiped the smirk clean off his face.