Looking for Trouble

Luna had made a nest of sorts out of fallen leaves and propped herself against a tree trunk by the lakeshore. She was waving her wand about lazily and singing to herself, humming the song she and her father liked to dance to during her lessons. Isolated though her life was, she still was instructed in formal manners and etiquette by her parents. But she danced in bare feet to the few battered records her father had around the house. It was not conventional ballroom training, to be sure, and though she thought she would probably never need to use her formal training, it was fun to learn in any case. She hummed and practiced the charm Professor McGonagall had taught her to make bluebirds. She was directing their flight with her wand pointed skyward.

That was how Draco found her. A trio of little birds was circling above her, fluttering along with her song.

"Going to teach them to deliver your mail? What've you got against owls, Lovegood?" she heard a familiar voice ask dryly. Her smile brightened but she did not look away from her birds.

"Draco, you're back," she said simply. She brought the bluebirds lower to hover in front of him. He smirked at them but his arm rose up seemingly of its own accord and the delicate birds landed gently on his outstretched arm, one after another. They set about grooming their feathers and chirping at their landing post. His smirk melted into a smile.

"That's quite a trick, Luna," he said softly.

"I asked Professor McGonagall how to make bluebirds," she answered, and then, with a whip of her wand, she cast the birds spiraling skyward, where they hovered for a moment before turning back into the fallen leaves they had started out as and drifted lazily to the ground. Her Transfiguration completed, she looked at her visitor.

"Did you manage what you set out about this morning?" she asked him as a greeting.

Crinkling his brow but otherwise seeming to ignore her question, he asked, "Aren't you cold down there?"

She frowned slightly, her brow furrowed in thought. "Yes, a bit."

"Come on, then," he said with a chuckle, "have a drink with me. It'll warm you up!"

"Oh . . . ." She was startled by this casual invitation. Did he mean to take her into town? At her pause Draco's smile started to slip. She noticed his face falling and knew at once that she had offended him. This was the first time he had sought her out, and he was treating her like a complete equal. She couldn't let him think she was rejecting him.

She scrambled up awkwardly, stiff from the cold. "I had thought I might avoid the crowds today," she said in a rush. At least it was a rush for Luna, who normally spoke very slowly. "I . . . ." Her eyes fluttered down for just a moment before she confessed, "I was hoping not to run into Ginny and Dean." Luna continued frankly, "I bowed out so they could spend the day together, and I'm afraid if they see me they'll feel obligated to include me." She looked at him, gravely serious and appraising, as if measuring his response to her next words. "I've so little time to myself, I'd much rather spend it with people who want to be with me."

Draco blinked. He supposed she must recognize the way she was treated by the other students, but even taking that into consideration he wasn't quite prepared for her bluntness. He was used to girls being coy when they talked to him. But Luna projected the same bare honesty he had encountered in her mind during their Legilimency practice.

He cleared his throat. "Don't worry, Luna, I didn't mean to drag you into town." He reached into his back pocket and revealed a flask. "Instead, I brought the Three Broomsticks to you." He unscrewed the flask and looked at her roguishly. His lips twisted into his signature sneer and he took a swig. He wiped the neck of the flask with his sleeve and then stepped over to the edge of the nest of leaves Luna was sitting on. With a look of the utmost solemnity he bent to one knee and held out the hand holding the flask. "Would you join me in a drink, Miss Lovegood?" Draco offered quietly.

Luna's face positively lit up at Draco's display. "Thank you, kind sir, I would be most honored." She accepted the proffered drink and took a small swig. It was butterbeer, still warm, and Luna thought she could taste some froth on the tip of her tongue as she drank. With a whimper of pleasure she took another pull, deeper this time. "Mmmmm, Draco, that's good. Thank you." A warm feeling started tingling in her tummy. Draco smiled at the look of pleasure on her face. It was a good idea, charming this warming flask, he congratulated himself. Pleased, he dropped back to sit on the ground with his leg bent in front of him.

"Oh, Draco, the cold is going to go straight into you, sitting on the grass like that. Here, come sit on the leaves. They'll help insulate you from the chill," she blurted out without thinking. Draco raised an eyebrow at her as she looked at him in concern. He wasn't sure at first how he felt about being told what to do, but she seemed so sincere in her worry that he figured she hadn't meant to boss him. He also wasn't sure about snuggling up to her on her little nest of leaves, but he lifted himself off the grass to settle next to her. "Budge up, birdie," he said lightly as she shuffled over to the side to make room for him. They sat watching the surface of the lake ripple in the autumn breeze for a long time, neither one feeling pressed to make conversation, but every so often passing the flask back and forth.

The breeze started to kick up and scatter leaves onto the surface of the water. "Draco," she whispered so softly that he thought maybe he'd heard his name on the wind itself.

"Hmm?" he answered, still looking across the lake as it rippled. She was silent for so long that he was sure he had heard his name in the trees instead of from her lips.

"What did you tell Blaise?" she asked at last. "I mean, what did you say about, you know, my Mum?"

"Blaise?" he asked, truly puzzled for a moment. Ah. He finally remembered. Blaise had walked out of class with him the day Draco had seen Luna's memory. He turned to look at her in earnest. "I said I saw rain. I figured that was common enough, living in the UK." She turned to meet his gaze, looking straight into his eyes as he answered her.

"Thank you."

"I figured you hadn't meant for me to see that, any more than I meant for you to see what you did."

She nodded. "Yes, that's true."

He was the first to break his gaze away. "Why do you think all this is happening to us? Karma?" He laughed derisively.

"I don't know. I know it made me feel very vulnerable. Not that I was keeping her death a secret, just that somebody knowing my Mum died and sharing the experience with them are two very different things."

"Mmm" he hummed in answer, looking down at his lap before continuing. "I wouldn't have told anyone or shared the experience you saw, not purposely, not ever." After a pause he continued. "But I guess it's best that it was you. I mean, no one around here is likely to get the story from you, are they? You're not exactly chatting up the student body. Not the most popular girl amongst our peers."

"Oh, no. I mean, I get attention, but it hardly ever has anything to do with me personally." At his puzzled look she explained. "Oh, well, the girls in my dorm play jokes on me, and people talk when I walk by but they don't know me. There's no one here I really talk to."

Instantly Draco felt like a cad. What he'd said was true, but it sounded so brutal when he said it out loud. Luna took it all in stride, though, just as matter of fact about it as he was.

They lapsed into silence once more. The wind seemed to turn on them for a moment, enough to give Luna a chill, and she shivered. He passed her the flask once more and she took another drink from it. The warm tingling felt wonderful. She was startled by his voice when he started talking again.

"Jokes, Luna?" It took her a moment to realize that he was asking her about what she had just explained to him.

"Oh, sometimes the girls in my House like to have a bit of sport. Like one time one of the girls cast a charm on me to give me bunny ears while I was sleeping. It's good for me that it was the day of a Quidditch match and my Ravenclaw hat covered them. Not that I would mind wearing bunny ears, necessarily, but she's not so good at charms so they were lopsided and a terrible shade of turquoise."

"Luna," he said, disapproval in his voice.

"Oh, I don't think it'll happen again. I've been sleeping in the common room. There's an armchair that's quite comfortable. I do get a cramp in my neck sometimes, but it's better than those bunny ears. They itched something terrible," she said with a smile that was meant to make light of the ordeal.

"Luna," he repeated softly, almost sadly.

She turned to smile at him then and wiggled her nose in a rabbit impression. "I might've made a pretty good bunny, don't you think?"

"Oh, I don't know. You build a pretty good nest. And your eyes are as blue as those birds you were making. To me, I think you're a birdie."

Her mouth pulled into a silly crooked smile. Involuntarily, she shivered from the cold. It was just instinct, he told himself later, that made him put his arm around her, pulling her close to him to share some of his body heat. As if realizing what he had done, he looked away and said regretfully, "I think it might be getting too cold for us here. Do you want to head inside?"

"Oh, no," she said. "I don't want to go to my common room. I don't need to go to the Library. All I have left to do for homework is that essay for Professor Snape, so I don't really have anywhere else to be." Suddenly her eyes lit up and she pulled her wand from behind her ear. "Hermione taught me something that should help." She murmured and sparks flew from the tip of her wand to make a magical fire.

Luna rarely had anyone she could talk to, but she was always forthright in her manner. Draco was often surrounded by people with whom he conversed but around whom he didn't feel he could be himself. Both felt relieved for the time being, Luna for the sake of the company and Draco for the fact that the formality he had displayed when he'd offered Luna the flask was playful and not perfunctory. They stayed by the lake, talking if they felt like it and sitting in easy silence when it felt right. It wasn't until they got hungry that they begrudgingly decided to head back into the castle.

"Usually I can ask the house-elves to give me a packed lunch when I plan to be out of doors for the day, but I thought I'd be with Ginny, so I didn't. It's too bad. I don't want this to end," Luna said quietly as she rose.

"Ah, it's for the best," Draco said philosophically. "Familiarity breeds contempt, after all. I'd hate for you to get sick of me."

"Good point, Mr. Malfoy," she said in mock seriousness. "In that case, I can't bear to be around you another minute. Any more and I'll be seeing you in my dreams." She sobered at her own words, realizing how much they revealed. If Draco was alarmed, he didn't show it.

"Go ahead without me, Draco, if you like. I mean, so that you're on the path alone. I'd hate for you to end up Billy No-mates just because you happened upon me." She set about extinguishing her magical fire.

"In a way, that's very thoughtful of you," he said carefully, "but I think you misjudge me, Luna, because your words paint me as a cad and you as a social pariah."

"Oh, no, Draco, no. I'm glad for your company. I'm not asking you to broadcast that you spent time with me. It just seems that what people think of you is pretty important in your life. I don't want you to feel forced by circumstance. Or karma," she said wryly, using his earlier words to illustrate her point. He had pretty much compared their intimacy in the Legilimency classes to a punishment of the fates.

"Miss Lovegood," he said formally, taking her hand in his and bending to ghost a kiss across her knuckles, "would you bestow upon me the privilege of accompanying you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Without this kind favor I fear I may not find my way," he said with a gentle smile.

Her returning expression was brilliant. She took on a mock-formal air to match his and tipped her head, curtseying slowly. "I would be most pleased, sir," was her softly spoken reply.

He placed her hand in the crook of his arm and led the way back to the path that headed towards the school. Luna needn't have worried, as it turned out they didn't pass anyone along their way. They parted company just inside the front doors. Luna's smile hadn't dimmed a bit since the moment Draco had asked her to accompany him. He hoped that meant he had succeeded, that he had made her feel like she was the only girl in the world. For him, on that day, she had been.

He stood immobile as she turned and headed up the stairs away from him. "And, Luna," Draco called softly, "I came looking for you today. Because I did want to be with you."