Fic: How to Rehabilitate a Death Eater
Dec. 13th, 2011 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mini_fest_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mini_festTitle: How to Rehabilitate a Death Eater
Author: ???
Rating: G
Characters: Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy, and assorted others. Mostly a gen fic, but there’s a bit of D/G if you squint.
Prompt(s): 78
Warnings: None
Summary: Luna goes Floo-to-Floo caroling and stumbles into the flat of a rather unsuspecting Draco Malfoy. Adventure and hilarity ensues.
Word Count: 8,938
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this fic.
A/N: This prompt created a vivid image in my head of Luna, as she’s described below, stumbling into Draco’s flat, and I just had to write it. I had intended to write another prompt as well, but this one took over my life. I can’t believe it fills over twenty pages, but I had so much fun with it. Just as a side note: I took some liberties with the Floo Network. I did it because it was fun. Still, I beg your forgiveness for this deviation from canon. ^_^
It had been less than a year since the Battle of Hogwarts and the defeat of Voldemort, not that you’d know it from the look of things. Here it was, seven months after the fact and less than a week til Christmas; it should have been the happiest time of the happiest year since Grindelwald was killed.
But it wasn’t.
There was a general sense of relief, and the wizarding world had certainly been in a celebratory mood for a long, long time after everything was over, but once everyone calmed down and the dust cleared, people started to realize that things were still pretty bleak. Voldemort’s efforts had left the Ministry in ruins and decimated the people’s trust in what was left of it. Rumors of corruption, continued Death Eater control, and possible total collapse abounded, spurred on by a press more unrestricted and undiscerning than ever, and for a short while there was a real danger of complete and total anarchy. Things were looking up these days in that the Ministry was fairly stable and slowly recovering its organization and control, but things were still very strained.
Meanwhile, Death Eater trials had finally begun in late August. By all rights and purposes, they should have ended long ago, but people’s fear of Voldemort’s supporters had everyone turning a suspicious eye on everyone else. Accusations of everyone from strangers on the street to the little old lady next door had people nervous. Those who showed any sympathy for accused Death Eaters or their families were the first to find themselves in a Ministry holding cell awaiting trial. Suspected Death Eaters and Voldemort supporters who stood trial early and were acquitted or released on probation soon stopped going out altogether for fear of the harassment they were certain to face as soon as they appeared in public. The last time Narcissa and Draco Malfoy left their home to visit Lucius in Azkaban, Draco ended up in St. Mungo’s with a concussion after being hit squarely in the temple with a heavy vase.
The whole situation was exacerbated by the many stories run in The Prophet about Death Eaters who cried “Imperius” after the First War but turned out to have been faithful Voldemort lapdogs after all when they returned to his service in the Second War.
It didn’t help that almost everyone had lost someone in the war, or knew someone who lost someone. Healing was slow in the strained atmosphere currently filling the wizarding world, and grief was almost a palpable thing, stretching quiet grey fingers into homes and public establishments alike. Wizard gatherings were subdued and Diagon Alley in particular suffered from unnatural depression. The approaching holidays didn’t seem to help much; it seemed to remind people as much of what had been lost as it reminded them of what was worth celebrating.
Even the heroes of the war were not left unaffected. Harry Potter was still unable to so much as step foot outside without getting mobbed, either by reporters and photographers or by his gratefully loving public. The attention only made him more reclusive, which made his followers even more determined to find him, a vicious cycle that was quickly spinning out of control. The first day of Auror training in September had begun with Harry arriving in the new Minister’s office in shredded robes and begging he be allowed to come and go under a Disillusionment Charm from then on. Ron and Hermione had been harassed almost as badly, both on their own merit and in search of their closest friend.
More minor participants, such as Order members and those who still carried DA coins, were often photographed as well. Because they generally refused to submit to interviews out of respect for friendships or due to classified information, they found themselves the subjects of rumor and speculation often enough to be uncomfortable with the attention. Those who had once laughed and joked together on a regular basis now found it hard to keep up with one another outside of the questionable information gleaned from newspapers.
Luna Lovegood, who was a member of this honored group, was not particularly bothered by the media attention. She understood the curiosity—Harry really was a remarkable person—so she made a point to smile politely whenever she found herself surrounded by cameras and questions regarding the famous Savior before slipping quietly away.
Things were still difficult though. For one thing, her father still cringed and turned pale from guilt and fear at the mere mention of Harry’s name. Luna, who was becoming more and more concerned about the sadness permeating her world, had taken to listening to wizard’s wireless newscasts late at night after her father had gone to bed just so that she wouldn’t have to see his face go white as a sheet or watch the way his hands developed a fine tremble. And she found it much harder to smile politely and slip away rather than hex when the questions shouted at her by rude reporters centered on Xenophilius’s fortunately unsuccessful betrayal of Harry.
Luna was further saddened by the absence of most of her dearest friends. She loved her life and always had, but she recognized that others sometimes found her strange; until she’d gone to Hogwarts and found herself in Ginny Weasley’s affections, she’d never really had friends. Although she still saw Ginny regularly at school and occasionally saw Hermione, who had returned to complete her seventh year, Neville, Harry, and Ron had all gone off to Auror training this year, so she hadn’t seen them since…well, since Lucius Malfoy’s trial in August. And as the six of them had been called there to testify against the elder Malfoy, it wasn’t exactly a happy gathering.
And so it was that, on the morning of the sixth day before Christmas, Luna Lovegood lost her patience. She missed her friends, most everyone she knew was virtually a prisoner in their own homes, and the whole world was sad. Something had to be done.
After several hours of planning, a great deal of vigorous digging about, and a liberal application of paste and a bit of glitter, Luna was ready. She stood in the living room in front of the lit fireplace, Floo powder in hand, and contemplated the perfect phrasing. She had to say her desired location in the right way or this just wouldn’t work at all. After a little thought, she finally lit on the perfect address. Scooping out a bit of silvery powder from the jar in her hand, she tossed it into the fireplace.
“Someone to carol with!” she called out firmly, and then she stepped into the swirling green flames.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Draco Malfoy wasn’t expecting visitors, so when he heard the fire flare in the living room of his small London flat, followed by a strange jingling and the sound of someone dusting themselves off, he drew his borrowed wand and crossed the distance from the kitchen to the fireplace in record time. When he realized just whose nose he was pointing his mother’s wand at, he failed to drop his arm, he was so surprised. It didn’t help that his visitor looked at his wand, looked at him, and then burst into a rousing rendition of “Holly, Jolly, Christmas.”
The girl who stood singing on his hearth rug, blinking overlarge blue eyes and smiling serenely at him from beneath a pair of large, jingle bell and fairy bedecked antlers was shorter than he remembered but every but as loony. Beneath the antlers and above the smile, she had charmed her nose to glow bright red, for some unfathomable reason. As he watched, the glow blinked on and off in a complicated pattern, then returned to a steady, bright light. She wore an equally flashy pair of knee-high Christmas socks over the bottoms of her Muggle denims; the brightly colored Christmas elves and reindeer charmed to dance across the wool were extremely distracting, particularly because there were bells on the point of each elf’s hat and covering the collar on each deer that rang out as they danced. The ugly red and green striped Christmas jumper she wore reached mid-thigh and obviously belonged to her father. The overlarge size made the laughing Santa on the front of the garment seem ridiculously fat and round, and the “HO HO HO” blinking in bright red over the jolly do-gooder’s head became even more obnoxious when he noticed the dotted white light that ran along the edge of each letter as it appeared and disappeared. Over the top of all this, she had draped herself in silver and red tinsel garlands tied on with big bows and her hair was braided with tinsel and holly. To complete the outfit, a large jingle bell dangled from each ear, and she had tied a small red bow above the grip on the wand she had perched above one ear.
When the singing, enthusiastic and surprisingly pretty, finally came to an end, Draco found himself blinking for several long seconds, mouth hanging open in shock.
“Lovegood?”
“Hello, Draco. It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see…?” Draco stared at the girl, incredulous. “Lovegood, what are you doing here?”
“I’m Floo caroling.”
“Floo…caroling?”
“The spreading of Christmas cheer by way of singing Christmas carols Floo-to-Floo,” the strange Christmassy creature explained.
“I understand the concept. I’m just not sure why you’re here.”
“Oh. Well that’s easy. I need someone to carol with. You’ll admit, having heard me singing a moment ago, that a carol sung by only one person sounds rather lonely.”
“You want me to…sing with you,” Draco surmised.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“You want me to sing with you.”
“Who else?”
Draco could only gape at her in response. When Lovegood just kept smiling expectantly, Draco finally found his voice.
“Don’t you have any friends?”
“Certainly.”
“Well why isn’t one of them caroling with you then?”
“I’m sure they would if I asked.”
“Then why are you here?”
The Loony girl blinked at him, perplexed. She tilted her head to one side, setting the bells on her ears and at the ends of her antlers jingling. “When I came here, I asked for someone to carol with. Since this is where I am, that means it must be you.”
“Lovegood, that makes no sense.”
“It’s magic, Draco.” Loony told him, as if that was any sort of explanation at all. Draco frowned and she smiled encouragingly, lights blinking and flashing all the while.
Draco sighed. Maybe it was magic, or maybe it was just Lovegood being…herself. In any case, he could see from the crazy confident look on her face that he wasn’t getting out of this. He thought about objecting more—Draco was not a fan of caroling in general, and with this girl in particular—but he really didn’t think it would be worth it. Lovegood was…loony, and Draco was bored after months of what essentially amounted to house arrest, thanks to the rioting public and the limitations on unsupervised travel imposed on him by his probation. Loony wasn’t exactly an Auror, but she’d been in Dumbledore’s Army. He was pretty sure he was allowed to travel with her. So while he doubted he would enjoy the experience, at least he’d get out of the house.
Besides, mad as she was, Loony’s face was a friendly one. He hadn’t seen anything remotely “friendly” in an age. It surprised Draco just how much that meant to him right now.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Luna hadn’t intended to stumble into Draco Malfoy’s flat, but since she hadn’t had any specific intent at all when she threw the Floo powder into her fire, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see him when the fire finally spat her out.
He looked uncertain, disbelieving, but she knew he’d come around eventually. She watched him scrape his fingers through his hair, looking frustrated as he glanced around the room. Finally, he sighed and looked at Luna again. He looked…resigned.
Resigned was okay. She could work with resigned.
“Fine, Lovegood. Just…I can’t even tell you not to expect me to sing, can I?”
Luna smiled and shook her head, setting all the bells to ringing.
“Alright,” he sighed. “Let me go get a jumper and we can go.”
“A green one would be best,” Luna told him helpfully, knowing he’d never been caroling before. “Normally I would say red, but red would look awful with your coloring, so I suspect you don’t have a red one.”
Draco gave her a look of mixed incredulity and surprise, then shook his head and left the room. A few minutes later, he returned wearing a green jumper that looked both soft and expensive. He was wrapping a thick grey scarf around his neck and he’d pulled on a pair of sturdy black boots, but he’d apparently elected to forgo heavier outer-wear.
“No hat?” Luna asked, certain that he had one to match the scarf.
“We’re Floo caroling. I shouldn’t need anything heavier than this.”
Luna was of the opinion that no Christmas outfit was complete without both a jumper and a hat (or some alternative type of headwear, such as antlers), but she let it go. She had the feeling she would need to choose her battles with this boy very carefully.
Smiling brightly (mostly because he seemed a little stunned every time she did it, which gave her the impression that maybe he needed to be smiled at), Luna gestured toward the fireplace. “Alright then,” she said, “let’s get started.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Draco didn’t know what he was expecting when Luna looped her arm through his and lead him into his fireplace shouting, “A place to carol!” but this was not it. Draco looked around at the tidy sitting room filled with lovely antique furniture—Georgian if he wasn’t mistaken—and shelves and shelves of books. He wondered who lived here; it looked like a place his mother would be comfortable living in.
“Huh,” said Loony. “Well, this is unexpected.”
“You know where we are?”
“Sure.” She smiled brightly (she kept doing that; it made her look even crazier than she already did) and patted his arm with the hand not hooked around his elbow. “Hellooooooooooo?” she called in a sing-song voice. “Anybody home?”
“Luna?” a disembodied voice called back from somewhere deeper in the house. “Is that you, dear?”
“Yes, Mrs. Tonks. I’ve brought you a gift and a surprise guest.”
“Alright. Give me just a moment.”
“Tonks?” Draco murmured. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d heard it before.
“She’s your mother’s sister.”
“What?”
“Andromeda Tonks. She’s your mother’s sister. Your aunt.” She looked at him inquisitively. “Didn’t you know?”
“I knew mother had a sister, but I’ve never met her. Mother doesn’t talk about her.” Draco thought for a moment. “Wasn’t Tonks the name of that Auror? The clumsy one?” In fact, he was almost sure that had been her name.
“Oh yes. Tonks was your cousin, Andromeda’s daughter.”
“Luna? Who are you—oh!”
Draco turned as a tall, dark haired, dark eyed woman entered the room. For a moment, he had to fight the instinctive urge to go for his wand, she reminded him so much of his Aunt Bellatrix. But then he noticed the way she moved, the tilt her head. She carried herself with the grace and elegance that belonged to his mother, a grace and elegance he’d never seen in his mother’s insane oldest sister.
The minute Andromeda entered the room, Luna burst into song. It was a carol Draco was unfamiliar with, something silly and childish, the type of song his family would never have tolerated when he was a young. Draco listened to the first verse silently, which got him a gentle elbow in the ribs from Loony. He scowled down at her, but she just smiled back, flashing and blinking and glowing and jingling, and kept right on singing. She also kept right on lookingat him, as though she expected him to jump right in any moment now. Reluctantly, he hummed along to the second verse in quiet harmony, singing the words only when the chorus came round again.
It wasn’t until the song ended and the boy in his aunt’s arms wiggled to get down that Draco noticed the baby. Draco found himself staring as the child kicked his chubby legs and fussed when his grandmother failed to let him go quickly enough. He’d never been so close to a baby before.
The moment Andromeda put the child down, the baby scurried across the floor, hands and knees flying as he made a B-line for Lovegood.
“Teddy!” the girl squealed as the baby neared her. “Look at you!” She scooped him up and tossed him into the air. The child squealed almost as loudly as the girl had done, and then laughed wildly when she caught him again and blew a raspberry on his chubby belly.
Andromeda smiled. “He only just began crawling a couple of weeks ago. He’s very eager to show off his new skill at any and every opportunity.”
“As well he should. We’re very proud of you, Teddy. Yes we are!” She rubbed her nose against the baby’s, making the bells dangling from her ears and antlers jangle merrily. The baby laughed and reached for the noisy ear accessories. Then, to Draco’s shock, the baby’s previously brown hair turned the exact shade of green the bells were painted.
Draco’s jaw dropped.
“He’s a metamorphmagus,” Andromeda told him softly. “Like his mother.”
“It’s a rare skill,” Draco told her. “You should be proud.” He shifted minutely, feeling a little stiff and uncomfortable. He really wasn’t sure how to conduct himself in this situation.
Andromeda smiled. “I am.” Then, glancing away, she asked, “How is your mother?”
Draco hesitated. “She’s…as well as can be expected. She misses my father.”
“Yes.” Andromeda looked sad. “I understand how that feels.” After a long, silent moment, she turned to face him fully, examining his features with keen eyes. “You look so much like her.”
“Do you think so? Most people are of the opinion that I take after my father.”
“Oh, he’s there too. But there is so much of your mother in you.”
Draco found he was unable to help the smile that spread across his face then.
“Oh,” said his aunt, “especially when you smile.” She touched his chin with gentle fingertips. The unexpected affection in the gesture had Draco’s eyes stinging; he cleared his throat uncomfortably. His aunt smiled and gestured towards the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Oh, let me help you!” Lovegood exclaimed. “Here, Draco, take Teddy while I help Mrs. Tonks.”
Just like that, Draco found himself with an armful of squirming baby. The boy immediately began fussing, reaching out after his former playmate with chubby fingers. When Teddy’s wiggling nearly caused Draco to drop him, the blond quickly shifted his grip. Nearly in a panic and unable to think of anything else to do, Draco bounced the baby a little. The boy looked up at him at that, so Draco did it again, hoping to keep the kid distracted. The second bounce only elicited an uncertain expression though, so Draco executed a little spin instead.
That got the baby laughing. Feeling successful, Draco spun around a second time. Teddy squealed in delight and Draco found himself grinning down at his tiny cousin, unable to resist the baby’s excited laughter. He bounced the baby again, this time making him hiccup mid-laugh, and the startled expression on the boy’s face, followed immediately by more infectious squealing, had Draco laughing too, a full bodied laugh of the kind he hadn’t experienced since…probably before the war.
When his laughter had subsided to quiet snickers, Draco looked down to see that Teddy, who was now gripping Draco’s scarf in one chubby fist, was smiling up at him from beneath lavender hair.
“That is not a manly color, cousin,” he informed the boy gravely, charmed by the child despite himself. Teddy merely grinned, patting Draco’s cheek with one chubby baby hand. As he watched, the boy’s eyes went from brown to…grey.
“Here now, changling. Those are my eyes.” He wrinkled his nose at the baby, then laughed when Teddy mimicked him…right down to the shape of his nose, Draco noticed when the baby unwrinkled it.
“I’d best distract you then, before you copy my entire face and everyone decides you make a cuter me than I do.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Luna finished placing the tea things on a tray, she turned to find Andromeda standing still in the doorway to the sitting room, smiling softly. Curious, Luna moved to stand beside her. The sight that met her eyes had her smothering a snicker with a quickly raised hand.
In the middle of the sitting room, Draco Malfoy stood waltzing in loose circles with his seven-month-old cousin, singing softly to keep the time. Every time he spun or dipped the baby, Teddy would squeal and clutch tightly at Draco’s scarf.
Luna knew Draco was unaware of his audience, and she desperately didn’t want to ruin the moment, but she couldn’t help but laugh out loud when one particularly enthusiastic dip had Teddy screaming in laughter, and Draco with him. She’d never seen the youngest Malfoy look so happy.
The sound of Luna’s laughter had Draco straightening abruptly. And he was blushing.
“You have a lovely voice, Draco.” Andromeda told him, smiling fondly.
“Doesn’t he though?” Luna grinned. “I love magic.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
If Draco thought caroling at the house of his estranged aunt was surprising, stepping out of the Floo into Pansy’s miniscule flat after Lovegood’s “A place to carol!” was even more so. Draco hadn’t seen Pansy in several months and irritating as she could be, he’d missed her. So much so that he didn’t even mind when Pansy’s “Draco!” nearly deafened him, or that one of her claw-like nails scratched his cheek when she flung her arms around his neck. He even hugged her back.
Then, after Draco was ready to let go but long before Pansy was willing to let him, Greg and Blaise appeared from…somewhere. Draco didn’t see them come in, all he knew was that Greg was suddenly lumbering towards him with Blaise bounding along behind. Without even hesitating, Greg engulfed Draco and Pansy in a hug of his own, wrapping his big, beefy arms around both their shoulders. Blaise paused long enough to make fun of them all, calling Draco and Greg big girls’ blouses before wrapping himself around all three.
It was several minutes more before Draco could extricate himself from the laughing little knot they’d become. When he did so, Pansy (who had tears streaming down her face and for once didn’t seem to care—unlike Greg, who was discretely wiping a tear from one eye) grabbed him by the shirtsleeves and demanded to know why he was there.
“We’re…we’re Floo caroling,” Draco explained, wincing a little at the sound of his voice saying those words.
“Floo caroling?” crowed Blaise.
“We?” questioned Pansy.
“We,” Draco replied, ignoring Blaise altogether.
“Since when do you sing?” Blaise demanded.
“He’s always sung, you idiot. He just doesn’t sing for unappreciative audiences, meaning gits like you,” Pansy told him snidely.
“What do you mean, ‘gits like me’?” Blaise looked at Draco, indignant. “I am your best friend. How is it that I didn’t know you could sing?”
“We still don’t know he can sing,” mumbled Greg. When everyone turned to look at him, Greg shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Haven’t heard ‘im yet, have we?”
Pansy rolled her eyes and turned back to Blaise. “I am his best friend, Blaise.”
“You certainly are not!”
“Draco, inform this poor, mentally challenged man that I am, in fact, your best friend.”
“Greg is the only best friend I’ve got; I’m disassociating myself from the two of you,” Draco muttered.
There was a long silent moment, and then Pansy and Blaise began to protest, loudly. Draco and Greg shared a long-suffering look. This was the very reason why Pansy and Blaise weren’t his only best friends.
“Who is ‘we’ Draco?” Greg asked, ending the screeching with a well-placed question.
“’We’ is Draco and me,” Lovegood piped up from behind them.
Pansy blinked, eyes wide, at the ridiculous sight Lovegood made standing in Pansy’s pristinely stylish flat.
“You are Floo caroling with Loony Lovegood?”
“Shut up, Pans, and don’t call her that,” Draco told her, annoyed. The smile Lovegood gifted him with then was one of her biggest yet.
“What?” Pansy gave him a distinctly unhappy look.
Draco sighed. He loved her dearly, but Pansy was the biggest drama queen he’d ever met. Except for maybe Blaise. “Pansy, do you want the song or not?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I want the song. I always want to hear it when you sing. However, there is no need to be rude.” Pansy sniffed irritably.
Draco smothered the urge to smile. When they were children, Pansy used to come running, bouncing up and down on her toes and clapping and squealing in excitement on the rare occasion Draco would consent to sing. Her irritability now was just an attempt to maintain what she liked to call her “adult poise.”
“What shall we sing then, Lovegood?” Draco asked, arching an eyebrow at the younger girl over his shoulder.
The blond girl noisily tilted her antler-bedecked head and blinked large blue eyes in the direction of his friends. “I find it best, when one does not know one’s audience, to let those for whom one is performing make the choice.” When the only response to that was wide-eyed stares, Lovegood smiled in that kindly, absent way she had and clarified. “Any requests?”
Draco cut that off before Pansy had a chance to answer. She would only have picked some long, boring, “pretty” song that no one, least of all Pansy, really cared to hear. Instead he launched into a silly, upbeat song about snowmen and snow fairies and the little girls who make them—Pansy’s childhood favorite. About half way through the first verse, Lovegood joined in. On the first chorus, so did Greg.
Greg Goyle was an astonishingly good bass. Draco was a little surprised he hadn’t known that about his friend.
Somewhere around the second verse, Luna started doing a little jig, which looked especially funny with all her flashing and glittering and twinkling. After three verses (and much gentle nudging from Draco and Greg both), Pansy eventually gave up and joined in too. Draco even caught Blaise (who was notorious in Slytherin for the awful screeching that came out of his mouth whenever he attempted to sing) tapping his foot in time with the beat and smiling around a bit, although he made a mocking face the moment he caught Draco watching.
When the song was over, Pansy tried to convince Draco to stay. When he hesitated, she even made a fairly sincere attempt to convince Lovegood to stay as well, and Draco found himself feeling rather proud of the evident changes in his friend, especially when Lovegood seemed to recognize them too. But in the end, Draco decided to stick with Lovegood. She might be Loony, but so far, she’d made his day a whole lot better than any he could remember having in…a long time. The “Come back soon, Draco” That his Aunt had murmured to him just as he’d Flooed away would have been enough to keep him caroling with Lovegood out of sheer gratitude for as long as she wanted him, but bringing him to see his best friends…
Draco didn’t know how Lovegood was managing this (Draco, Slytherin that he was, suspected she was whispering Floo addresses under her breath when he wasn’t paying attention), but he was willing to see this caroling thing through, no matter how weird and somewhat embarrassing he might think it, or how odd his companion. Draco wasn’t much for warm fuzzy feelings, but Lovegood had no reason to show him any kindness. The fact that she’d done so anyway, generously and without hesitation, put him in mind to return the favor.
Draco rather thought he might be indebted to Lovegood forever. The way things were going, he might not even mind all that much.
“You’re really going to keep Floo caroling, Drake?”
Draco scowled at the hated nickname and threw one of Pansy’s fluffy throw cushions at Blaise’s head. “Yes, you pillock.”
“Draco…” Pansy hesitated, then took a deep breath. “You know Lovegood’s friends with Potter and that lot. The weaselette in particular is, I believe, a favorite of your new little friend. You…do realize you’re likely to end up keeping company with a Weasley or twelve, right? Maybe even the conquering hero himself?”
Draco sighed. “Lovegood brought me here, Pans. Voluntarily. Without even asking me first. I suppose, so long as she promises not to let them club me over the head or hide me away in a dingy broom cupboard, I can suffer the company of Potter and fabulous company in return.” During the last bit, he raised his voice for Lovegood’s benefit. The kooky girl had been wandering the flat, examining pictures and knick-knacks with both hands clasped politely behind her back, obviously giving the four friends some privacy. At Draco’s words, however, she turned and grinned brightly.
“I promise, wherever we go, I will not to leave you alone. That’s what friends are for.”
“See, Pans? Safe as houses.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
While Draco was showing his affection for his friend by arguing with her, Luna turned her attention to Gregory. Gregory seemed a little sad to Luna. His friends clearly loved him, but Luna was willing to bet he felt a little overlooked by the other two without Draco around to balance everything out. She considered what to do about that for a moment or two.
“Gregory, did you know that good basses are really terribly hard to find?”
“What?”
“Basses. A good one is terribly rare.”
“Okay?” The poor boy looked awfully perplexed. Luna smiled.
“Do you enjoy singing bass?”
“I s’pose so,” Gregory answered with a shrug.
“Would you like to maybe sing bass some more?”
“I…guess?” Gregory looked completely befuddled now. Befuddled. That had always been one of Luna’s favorite words. It sounded nice.
“Would you like to maybe sing some more today?”
“You mean…what, go caroling with you?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I mean! Would like to go caroling with Draco and I?”
“I’m not…really dressed for caroling, am I?”
Luna took in the black trousers and plain black jumper Gregory was wearing. It didn’t look very festive at all, as a matter of fact. “No, I suppose not,” Luna told him. She tilted her head (and then tilted it a little further, loving the way all her bells jingled with the movement) and raised a finger to her chin thoughtfully. On the other hand, all that black made for an excellent blank canvas. “It’s easily fixed, I think. Draco, if you could just untie my red garland there.” Luna turned her back to her blond companion and motioned to the bow tied over her left shoulder. Draco, who had stopped arguing with Pansy at the sound of his name, arched a slightly mocking eyebrow but deftly untied the indicated decoration. Luna caught the loosening strand and looped the whole thing around Gregory’s neck twice, like a scarf.
Tapping her chin again, Luna examined her handiwork. “It needs just a bit more,” she decided. With that, she reached out and pulled a strand of tinsel from the end of the red garland Gregory now wore. She quickly did the same from the silver garland still wrapped around her own torso, then twisted the two strands together. A little wave of her wand and a bit of clever transfiguration later and Luna was holding a slightly lopsided red and silver striped hat. She stood on her toes and placed the item on Gregory’s head, adjusting the fall of the long pointed end so that it would stay out of his face but still drape over one shoulder. The tip fell halfway to his elbow, and it looked a little sharp and lonely over there by itself, so she whispered a charm and beamed at the little silver bauble now dangling at the end.
“Perfect!”
“It really is, you know,” Blaise chortled. He slapped Gregory on the shoulder. “Mate, you’ve never looked so lovely!”
“He does look nice, doesn’t he?” Luna agreed. Then she suddenly realized what Blaise had meant. “Oh! I’m sorry, Blaise. I didn’t mean to make you feel left out. If you’d like one too, I certainly don’t mind. Now that I’ve done it once, I’m sure I can make another just as lovely.”
“No, really that’s all right,” Blaise tried to protest, but when all of his friends shouted encouragement over his words, Luna knew she’d gotten it right.
Several minutes later, she, Draco, and Gregory left Pansy’s flat, now much cheerier than it had been upon arrival and with much happier occupants. Pansy was grinning broadly and had even hugged Luna good-bye, and Blaise was so overwhelmed by his newly transfigured hat that he kept trying to take it off to stare at it in awe.
Luna smiled at the sight of Pansy laughing and shoving the sparkling garment back on her friend’s head. This had been a good place to stop, just as Luna had known it would be. And now to mend some more fences.
“A place to carol!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Draco listened very carefully when he, Greg, and Lovegood all stepped into the Floo to leave Pansy’s flat, but if Lovegood gave a Floo address other than her generic request for a place to carol, Draco didn’t hear it. Nevertheless, it was apparent by the sheer number of freckle-covered gingers in the room when they stumbled out of the Floo that either Lovegood was somehow manipulating their destinations or there were an awful lot of coincidences happening today.
Draco didn’t believe in coincidences.
The room the three carolers stepped out into was both noisy and crowded. The furniture was mismatched and worn, but the overall effect was surprisingly homey and warm. The cozy atmosphere was only increased by the numerous Holly garlands, tinsel, fairy lights, and other Christmas decorations that filled the room, especially the Christmas tree in the far corner. It wasn’t the professionally decorated 12 foot beauty that always graced the manor’s parlor, but looking at it, Draco thought the homemade ornaments gave it character. The tree looked…loved.
The minute the occupants of the room spotted their new “guests,” the whole place went silent. Draco felt his face heat up and cursed his pale complexion. Flushing was not appropriate for Malfoys, who were never supposed to feel embarrassment.
“Malfoy?!”
Draco had to fight not sneer at the sound of Weasley’s voice. He lost the fight a little when Potter echoed his best friend, but his expression froze when Lovegood’s hand, still hooked over his elbow, squeezed gently.
“Is that…Goyle?” Draco was pretty sure that was one of the Weasley doubles. Lovegood’s hand tightened a little more on Draco’s arm. When he glanced down at her, she smiled reassuringly, then stepped forward.
“Luna!” Before Lovegood could say a single word, the girl Weasley (who was looking quite a lot prettier than the last time Draco remembered noticing her, which had to have been several years ago) came running to greet her, giving her an excited hug. “What are you doing here?”
“More to the point, what are you doing with Malfoy and Goyle?” Weasley demanded.
Lovegood just smiled serenely. “Hello everyone. I hope you don’t mind, but I am Floo-to-Floo caroling this evening and I invited Draco and Gregory to come along.”
“You’re…I’m sorry Luna, you’re what?” Granger had maneuvered her way forward and stood staring at the three of them with wide eyes.
“Floo caroling.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Draco was surprised to feel amusement at Granger’s wry tone of voice.
“I still don’t understand. What is Floo caroling?” Potter looked confused. Draco wasn’t really surprised; it was a pretty common expression for him.
“And why are you doing it with Malfoy and Goyle?” Weasley repeated.
“We’re Floo caroling, Harry,” Luna repeatedly calmly. “Spreading Christmas cheer by singing carols Floo-to-Floo.” She smiled beatifically. “Draco and Gregory have graciously agreed to accompany me because Floo caroling isn’t much fun by yourself, is it?”
“You could have asked me, Luna,” Girl Weasley told her. “I love Christmas carols.”
“I know, Ginny,” (Ah, Draco thought, that was her name) “but I think Christmas is one of the best times to make new friends, don’t you agree?”
“I suppose that’s true,” the redhead said. “Alright then, in the spirit of Christmas.” She turned to face Draco and Greg and held out a confident hand. “Happy Christmas, Draco, Greg. Welcome to the Burrow.”
Draco and Greg exchanged glances. Greg’s was questioning, uncertain. Draco responded with a miniscule shrug and took the girl’s hand. Partly he did it because it would make Lovegood happy, and he felt he owed her. Partly it was because he thought the Weasley girl had spunk, and he liked that. And partly (mostly) he did it out of the hope that it caused Weasley (the Weasel) to die of an aneurysm.
In that, he nearly succeeded. The minute his hand touched Girls Weasley’s (Draco refused to even think the name “Ginny”), Weaselbee about had an apoplexy. It was quite amusing, and Draco had a hard time containing his glee. He must not have been as successful as he thought because Lovegood gave him an absently amused look and the girl Weasley smirked at him. Smirked!
“He is rather entertaining when he’s mad, isn’t he?” she whispered, leaning in a little to keep her family from overhearing. Not that there was much chance of that, since the majority of them seemed to be distracted by Weasley’s little tantrum.
The redhead winked at him with a cheeky little smile, then took Greg’s hand. Her fingers were practically swallowed by his, but she smiled fearlessly and shook his hand just the same.
“So,” Girl Weasley said, “didn’t you say something about caroling? Let’s hear the singing!”
It was probably one of the most awkward experiences of Draco’s life, singing that carol. The tension in the room was high, most of the Weasley’s were eyeing him suspiciously, and Girl Weasley kept looking at him. It was making him nervous, and he couldn’t figure out why he cared. Still, when Lovegood started singing, he sang along with her. And when she started singing a second carol, he frowned a little, startled, but kept right on singing too. And when Mrs. Weasley tentatively asked for a song Lovegood didn’t know, Draco took a deep breath and sang that one as well. Pretty soon the whole thing had turned into a massive sing along. He even caught sight of Potter, arm slung casually around Weasley’s shoulders, singing along. Weasley looked like he’d eaten something sour, but with his best friend participating on one side, and his girlfriend encouraging him to participate on the other, it wasn’t long before he was singing a little bit too.
By the time the situation had devolved into slightly inappropriate revisions of well-known carols (courtesy of the twins), everyone was relaxed and happy, which meant that no one was shooting Draco and Greg suspicious looks anymore. To make things even better, Mrs. Weasley, who had left the room with an exasperated sigh when her children started improvising Christmas carols, soon returned carrying a large tray full of biscuits and levitating another filled with mugs of hot cocoa behind her. Mrs. Weasley passed mugs of chocolate all around and then extended the tray of biscuits to Draco with warm smile.
“Have a biscuit, dear,” she told him. When he accepted only one, she frowned and picked up a second. “Here, dear, have another. You’re far too thin.” She handed him the biscuit, then reached out and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you came tonight, Draco.” She smiled at his surprised expression, patting his shoulder before offering the biscuits to Greg, who took three.
“You realize that now you’ve converted my mother to your side, you’re pretty much doomed to become a surrogate Weasley,” Girl Weasley said, seating herself in the chair to his left.
Draco made a face, which set the girl off laughing. “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, it gets you an unlimited number of delicious homemade biscuits.”
“It also means association with an awful lot of gingers.” His tone was sardonic.
“Is it really gingers you object to?”
“Gingers are alright in and of themselves. I rather like some of them.” He shot her a pointed glance that made her grin. “But the totality of the gingers I do object to all seem to share the name Weasley.” He half expected her to pretend to be offended, but she only laughed.
“Totality? You object to more than Ron then?”
“Listen, Girl Weasley, I object to anyone who thinks turning unsuspecting persons into small animals is funny.”
“Girl Weasley? What, can you not remember my name?”
“I know your name, I just refuse to call you by it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the sort of thing one calls a small child.”
“That’s probably because it was the nickname my family gave me when I was small.”
“It is a nickname then. That’s something of a relief.”
“My full name is Ginevra, but I hate it.”
“Girl Weasley it is then.” She made a face and Draco laughed. “It’s Ginevra or Girl Weasley. I’m afraid those are your only two options.”
“I…suppose I…might not mind if you called me Ginevra.”
Draco smirked. “Well, alright then. But only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” she told him, voice wry.
“Draaaaaaaco!” Luna sing-songed from across the room. She waved when he looked over. “Come play chess with me!”
Draco rolled his eyes in amusement, but he turned to his Weasley companion and smiled at her briefly. “Ginevra,” he said in parting, giving her a little nod.
“Draco,” she replied, echoing his tone with a smile.
Draco made his way across the living room and sat down on the couch kitty-corner to Lovegood, the chessboard tucked between them. Weasley, having just vacated that very same seat, shook his head as he stepped aside for the blond. “Good luck playing chess with her, Malfoy,” he said, shaking his head. “She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.”
Draco quickly realized he was right. At first he thought things were going so badly because he was still in shock over Weasley speaking to him in a semi-civilized manner. But he quickly realized that the problem was, in fact, that Lovegood had no idea how to play chess.
“Lovegood,” he told her, gently mocking, “the knights move up two and over one, or up one and over two. What is this skipping around in mad ‘S’ shapes?”
“That’s not a knight, Draco,” she informed him. “It’s a hornless unicorn. It moves in strange shapes because it’s searching for its missing horn, but has been maddened by its loss.”
“Is that right? And I suppose this is not a rook?” he asked, holding up the piece in question.
“It’s a castle. It can’t move unless you get three of the servants,” she held up a pawn, “to push and pull it around. Because it is a building, of course, and buildings cannot move without help.”
And this?” he asked, holding up the bishop.
“That’s the unicorn’s missing horn, of course. Your unicorns are looking for my white unicorn horns, and mine are looking for your black ones, you see?”
“I do,” Draco replied, laughing now. “I see that you are completely barking. Now, why don’t you tell me what else I don’t know about this game?”
By the time Draco was done losing spectacularly to Luna at what he was now privately calling Loony-chess, he was laughing hysterically and was situated at the center of a large group of equally amused redheads. When he finished his second game (during which he understood the rules even less than he had before), he admitted defeat by giving up his place to Ginevra. He took a seat in an armchair on the fringe of the group where he could see the game without having to be quite so suffocated by Weasleys. He picked up a mug of cocoa and one of Mrs. Weasley’s biscuits (which, he’d noticed, Mrs. Weasley and Ginevra had both been feeding to Greg in large quantities; his friend kept flushing at the attention but looked remarkably happy), and took a bite, savoring the taste of sugary biscuit and colored icing.
“Hey Malfoy, can I have a word?”
Draco looked up, rather surprised to find Harry Potter standing before him. Draco’s bespectacled former nemesis was shuffling his feet nervously, and he didn’t seem to be able to meet Draco’s eyes.
Draco arched an eyebrow curiously. “Sure, Potter. Why not?”
Draco stood and followed Potter’s hunched shoulders and ducked head across the room and out into the deserted kitchen. Once there, the two boys stood in awkward silence for several minutes. Draco draped himself gracefully against a counter and waited while Potter shuffled some more.
“Potter, am I meant to guess what we’re talking about here?”
Potter’s head shot up with a glare. Draco raised his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Potter. You just seemed a little uncomfortable. I’m trying to break the ice a little.”
Potter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to thank you.” Draco’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. If he’d been anything other than a Malfoy, he was sure his jaw would have dropped as well. Despite his self control, Potter still caught something of his surprise in his expression and he smiled a little. “You,” Potter took a deep breath, held it for a bit, then blew it out again. He shoved his fringe back and finally met Draco’s eyes. “You didn’t turn us in to Voldemort when you could have, and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate that. I…I never could have…Well, I obviously couldn’t have done any of it if you hadn’t protected us like that. So thanks.”
Draco’s jaw really did drop at that. Harry smiled when he saw it, although it was a little shaky.
“Look, you did the right thing. And it’s obvious that you’ve changed a lot. I mean, you’re Floo caroling with Luna and you actually seem to be enjoying her slightly mad self. Mrs. Weasley adores you, Ginny clearly like you, and you’ve been pleasant company all evening. Luna’s been calling you her ‘new friend Draco,’ or her ‘dear friend, Draco.’ It’s…cute.”
Draco scowled. “Cute?”
Potter grinned. “The point is, despite that fact she’s a complete nutter, Luna’s an extremely good judge of character. If she says you’re friend material, then I think you’re friend material.”
“Are you asking to be my friend, Potter?” Draco was incredulous.
“Er…yes?”
Draco hesitated, eyeing Potter carefully. “Do I have to stop calling you ‘Potter’?”
Potter laughed. “Not so long as I can keep calling you ‘Malfoy.’”
Draco smirked then. Taking note of the irony and feeling privately amused by it, he stuck out his hand. “Alright, Potter. Friends then.”
Potter took his hand and shook it. “Friends then.”
“How’s Weasley going to take this?” Draco enquired, leaning back against the counter again.
Potter shrugged. “He’ll get over to it. He’s not so violently opposed to you as he used to be. Just give him some time to get used to the idea, then ask him for a game of chess. So long as you actually provide something of a challenge, you’ll get on fine.”
“Weasley actually plays chess?” Draco had seen him playing against Lovegood earlier, but he hadn’t actually thought he’d known what he was doing.
“Yeah. He’s really good, to the point that he almost never loses. His head is absolutely huge. If you could take him down a few pegs, or at least make him sweat a little, we’d all really appreciate it.”
Draco chuckled lightly. “I think I can probably give him a run for his money.”
“Harry? I thought that was your voice. Harry, Ron says—oh!” One of the Other Weasleys (one of the older ones, the one with the fang earring) froze in the doorway. “Malfoy.” The Weasley nodded to Draco, and Draco gave him a polite nod in return. The Weasley’s expression was neutral, and his voice was polite, but there was something tense and uncertain in his stance. His eyes kept darting back and forth between Draco and Potter. “Alright there, Harry?”
“Alright, Bill,” Potter replied, giving him an easy smile.
“Ron’s wanting to know if you want a game of chess.”
“No,” Potter replied.
“No?” The Weasley (Bill) shot Harry a knowing smile.
“No,” Potter repeated. “But Malfoy’ll play.”
“Yeah?” The Weasley looked sideways at Draco.
“Ask him,” said Potter.
The Weasley turned to Draco. “Well, Malfoy?”
“A chance to beat Weasley at his own game? Absolutely.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was getting rather late when Draco finally finished his game with Ronald. Luna had sat beside them for the duration of the game, making mental notes whenever they moved a piece incorrectly. She was amused by the strange way they played, but because they were getting along so well and seemed so intent on their game, she didn’t tell them what they were doing wrong. However, they obviously required instruction at a later date.
“So Luna,” Ginny sat down beside her friend. “Where are you going caroling next?”
Luna smiled, feeling a little secretive and sly as she glanced over at Draco. Draco noticed the glance and returned it with a raised eyebrow.
“Why were you wanting to know, Ginevra?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Draco stared in absolute awe around his mother’s beautifully decorated sitting room. At the moment, there were several Weasleys, a Potter, a Granger, and a Lovegood scattered over the two chaise lounges and matching antique armchairs that graced the room. Even Pansy and Blaise were present, since Lovegood had Flooed Pansy’s flat almost as soon as she had arrived and invited them over. Draco was pretty sure they’d come just because they hadn’t believed her when she’d told them who was visiting the manor this evening.
Currently, everyone was drinking apple cider out of his mother’s best crystal goblets and they were singing a loud, raucous carol, apparently a Weasley Christmas favorite. His mother, elegant as ever, was seated at the grand piano in the corner, playing accompaniment and singing sweetly along.
When the current song ended, Ginevra left the group gathered around the piano and made her way towards Draco, snagging an extra goblet of cider as she passed the h’orderves table Draco’s mother had hastily had the House Elves set up upon their arrival. The redhead settled on the raised hearth beside Draco and handed him the goblet. He took a sip and smiled at her.
“It’s pretty amazing, huh?” the girl said, encompassing the room with a glance and an expansive wave of her hand. Draco looked around yet another time. No matter how many times he looked, he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. And he could scarcely believe how strangely warm and happy it made him feel, not that he would ever admit it.
He decided he adored that Loony Lovegood.
“It’s pretty unexpected,” he agreed.
“But in a good way, right?” she asked, looking at him sideways.
“Yes, in a good way.” He couldn’t help the tiny smile stealing across his face.
“Luna’s something special, don’t you think? I can’t believe she managed all this. Of course, she couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t let her drag you hither and yon, but...” she trailed off, watching Lovegood across the room.
Draco’s smile widened, his gaze following hers to where Lovegood stood leaning against the piano, chatting with his mother, Pansy, and surprisingly, Granger. “She’s something else, that’s for sure.”
Ginevra laughed. “Give it up, Draco. You love her, I can tell. Another hopeless Luna devotee.” She turned to grin at him. “She has that effect on people.” Ginevra tilted her head thoughtfully, eyes sweeping the room. “I wonder who she’s going to convert next. Hmmm… My guess is Parkinson.”
“Pansy? Really?”
“Yep. Luna’s already collected several friends from each of the other houses, so it’s time she started in on Slytherin. Plus,” she hesitated, then continued cautiously, “you seem a little…sad.”
Draco frowned a little, and then sighed. “You think Lovegood is, what, the perfect cure for sadness?”
“Luna is really good at cheering people up. She also works really hard to keep her friends happy. Why do you think Harry is so fond of her?”
“Potter?”
“Yeah. He says she sort of saved his life, emotionally speaking. Anyway. She’s obviously good for you. She’ll be good for all of you.”
Draco smiled fondly, watching Lovegood, still flashy and bright and clashing horribly with the perfectly coordinated room she stood in, lean over to turn the sheet music for the carol his mother was playing, grinning brightly when his mother smiled in thanks.
“Luna Lovegood: rehabilitating Death Eaters one Loony act at a time.”
Ginevra looked at him, startled, then let out a bright and happy laugh.
Author: ???
Rating: G
Characters: Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy, and assorted others. Mostly a gen fic, but there’s a bit of D/G if you squint.
Prompt(s): 78
Warnings: None
Summary: Luna goes Floo-to-Floo caroling and stumbles into the flat of a rather unsuspecting Draco Malfoy. Adventure and hilarity ensues.
Word Count: 8,938
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this fic.
A/N: This prompt created a vivid image in my head of Luna, as she’s described below, stumbling into Draco’s flat, and I just had to write it. I had intended to write another prompt as well, but this one took over my life. I can’t believe it fills over twenty pages, but I had so much fun with it. Just as a side note: I took some liberties with the Floo Network. I did it because it was fun. Still, I beg your forgiveness for this deviation from canon. ^_^
It had been less than a year since the Battle of Hogwarts and the defeat of Voldemort, not that you’d know it from the look of things. Here it was, seven months after the fact and less than a week til Christmas; it should have been the happiest time of the happiest year since Grindelwald was killed.
But it wasn’t.
There was a general sense of relief, and the wizarding world had certainly been in a celebratory mood for a long, long time after everything was over, but once everyone calmed down and the dust cleared, people started to realize that things were still pretty bleak. Voldemort’s efforts had left the Ministry in ruins and decimated the people’s trust in what was left of it. Rumors of corruption, continued Death Eater control, and possible total collapse abounded, spurred on by a press more unrestricted and undiscerning than ever, and for a short while there was a real danger of complete and total anarchy. Things were looking up these days in that the Ministry was fairly stable and slowly recovering its organization and control, but things were still very strained.
Meanwhile, Death Eater trials had finally begun in late August. By all rights and purposes, they should have ended long ago, but people’s fear of Voldemort’s supporters had everyone turning a suspicious eye on everyone else. Accusations of everyone from strangers on the street to the little old lady next door had people nervous. Those who showed any sympathy for accused Death Eaters or their families were the first to find themselves in a Ministry holding cell awaiting trial. Suspected Death Eaters and Voldemort supporters who stood trial early and were acquitted or released on probation soon stopped going out altogether for fear of the harassment they were certain to face as soon as they appeared in public. The last time Narcissa and Draco Malfoy left their home to visit Lucius in Azkaban, Draco ended up in St. Mungo’s with a concussion after being hit squarely in the temple with a heavy vase.
The whole situation was exacerbated by the many stories run in The Prophet about Death Eaters who cried “Imperius” after the First War but turned out to have been faithful Voldemort lapdogs after all when they returned to his service in the Second War.
It didn’t help that almost everyone had lost someone in the war, or knew someone who lost someone. Healing was slow in the strained atmosphere currently filling the wizarding world, and grief was almost a palpable thing, stretching quiet grey fingers into homes and public establishments alike. Wizard gatherings were subdued and Diagon Alley in particular suffered from unnatural depression. The approaching holidays didn’t seem to help much; it seemed to remind people as much of what had been lost as it reminded them of what was worth celebrating.
Even the heroes of the war were not left unaffected. Harry Potter was still unable to so much as step foot outside without getting mobbed, either by reporters and photographers or by his gratefully loving public. The attention only made him more reclusive, which made his followers even more determined to find him, a vicious cycle that was quickly spinning out of control. The first day of Auror training in September had begun with Harry arriving in the new Minister’s office in shredded robes and begging he be allowed to come and go under a Disillusionment Charm from then on. Ron and Hermione had been harassed almost as badly, both on their own merit and in search of their closest friend.
More minor participants, such as Order members and those who still carried DA coins, were often photographed as well. Because they generally refused to submit to interviews out of respect for friendships or due to classified information, they found themselves the subjects of rumor and speculation often enough to be uncomfortable with the attention. Those who had once laughed and joked together on a regular basis now found it hard to keep up with one another outside of the questionable information gleaned from newspapers.
Luna Lovegood, who was a member of this honored group, was not particularly bothered by the media attention. She understood the curiosity—Harry really was a remarkable person—so she made a point to smile politely whenever she found herself surrounded by cameras and questions regarding the famous Savior before slipping quietly away.
Things were still difficult though. For one thing, her father still cringed and turned pale from guilt and fear at the mere mention of Harry’s name. Luna, who was becoming more and more concerned about the sadness permeating her world, had taken to listening to wizard’s wireless newscasts late at night after her father had gone to bed just so that she wouldn’t have to see his face go white as a sheet or watch the way his hands developed a fine tremble. And she found it much harder to smile politely and slip away rather than hex when the questions shouted at her by rude reporters centered on Xenophilius’s fortunately unsuccessful betrayal of Harry.
Luna was further saddened by the absence of most of her dearest friends. She loved her life and always had, but she recognized that others sometimes found her strange; until she’d gone to Hogwarts and found herself in Ginny Weasley’s affections, she’d never really had friends. Although she still saw Ginny regularly at school and occasionally saw Hermione, who had returned to complete her seventh year, Neville, Harry, and Ron had all gone off to Auror training this year, so she hadn’t seen them since…well, since Lucius Malfoy’s trial in August. And as the six of them had been called there to testify against the elder Malfoy, it wasn’t exactly a happy gathering.
And so it was that, on the morning of the sixth day before Christmas, Luna Lovegood lost her patience. She missed her friends, most everyone she knew was virtually a prisoner in their own homes, and the whole world was sad. Something had to be done.
After several hours of planning, a great deal of vigorous digging about, and a liberal application of paste and a bit of glitter, Luna was ready. She stood in the living room in front of the lit fireplace, Floo powder in hand, and contemplated the perfect phrasing. She had to say her desired location in the right way or this just wouldn’t work at all. After a little thought, she finally lit on the perfect address. Scooping out a bit of silvery powder from the jar in her hand, she tossed it into the fireplace.
“Someone to carol with!” she called out firmly, and then she stepped into the swirling green flames.
Draco Malfoy wasn’t expecting visitors, so when he heard the fire flare in the living room of his small London flat, followed by a strange jingling and the sound of someone dusting themselves off, he drew his borrowed wand and crossed the distance from the kitchen to the fireplace in record time. When he realized just whose nose he was pointing his mother’s wand at, he failed to drop his arm, he was so surprised. It didn’t help that his visitor looked at his wand, looked at him, and then burst into a rousing rendition of “Holly, Jolly, Christmas.”
The girl who stood singing on his hearth rug, blinking overlarge blue eyes and smiling serenely at him from beneath a pair of large, jingle bell and fairy bedecked antlers was shorter than he remembered but every but as loony. Beneath the antlers and above the smile, she had charmed her nose to glow bright red, for some unfathomable reason. As he watched, the glow blinked on and off in a complicated pattern, then returned to a steady, bright light. She wore an equally flashy pair of knee-high Christmas socks over the bottoms of her Muggle denims; the brightly colored Christmas elves and reindeer charmed to dance across the wool were extremely distracting, particularly because there were bells on the point of each elf’s hat and covering the collar on each deer that rang out as they danced. The ugly red and green striped Christmas jumper she wore reached mid-thigh and obviously belonged to her father. The overlarge size made the laughing Santa on the front of the garment seem ridiculously fat and round, and the “HO HO HO” blinking in bright red over the jolly do-gooder’s head became even more obnoxious when he noticed the dotted white light that ran along the edge of each letter as it appeared and disappeared. Over the top of all this, she had draped herself in silver and red tinsel garlands tied on with big bows and her hair was braided with tinsel and holly. To complete the outfit, a large jingle bell dangled from each ear, and she had tied a small red bow above the grip on the wand she had perched above one ear.
When the singing, enthusiastic and surprisingly pretty, finally came to an end, Draco found himself blinking for several long seconds, mouth hanging open in shock.
“Lovegood?”
“Hello, Draco. It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see…?” Draco stared at the girl, incredulous. “Lovegood, what are you doing here?”
“I’m Floo caroling.”
“Floo…caroling?”
“The spreading of Christmas cheer by way of singing Christmas carols Floo-to-Floo,” the strange Christmassy creature explained.
“I understand the concept. I’m just not sure why you’re here.”
“Oh. Well that’s easy. I need someone to carol with. You’ll admit, having heard me singing a moment ago, that a carol sung by only one person sounds rather lonely.”
“You want me to…sing with you,” Draco surmised.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“You want me to sing with you.”
“Who else?”
Draco could only gape at her in response. When Lovegood just kept smiling expectantly, Draco finally found his voice.
“Don’t you have any friends?”
“Certainly.”
“Well why isn’t one of them caroling with you then?”
“I’m sure they would if I asked.”
“Then why are you here?”
The Loony girl blinked at him, perplexed. She tilted her head to one side, setting the bells on her ears and at the ends of her antlers jingling. “When I came here, I asked for someone to carol with. Since this is where I am, that means it must be you.”
“Lovegood, that makes no sense.”
“It’s magic, Draco.” Loony told him, as if that was any sort of explanation at all. Draco frowned and she smiled encouragingly, lights blinking and flashing all the while.
Draco sighed. Maybe it was magic, or maybe it was just Lovegood being…herself. In any case, he could see from the crazy confident look on her face that he wasn’t getting out of this. He thought about objecting more—Draco was not a fan of caroling in general, and with this girl in particular—but he really didn’t think it would be worth it. Lovegood was…loony, and Draco was bored after months of what essentially amounted to house arrest, thanks to the rioting public and the limitations on unsupervised travel imposed on him by his probation. Loony wasn’t exactly an Auror, but she’d been in Dumbledore’s Army. He was pretty sure he was allowed to travel with her. So while he doubted he would enjoy the experience, at least he’d get out of the house.
Besides, mad as she was, Loony’s face was a friendly one. He hadn’t seen anything remotely “friendly” in an age. It surprised Draco just how much that meant to him right now.
Luna hadn’t intended to stumble into Draco Malfoy’s flat, but since she hadn’t had any specific intent at all when she threw the Floo powder into her fire, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see him when the fire finally spat her out.
He looked uncertain, disbelieving, but she knew he’d come around eventually. She watched him scrape his fingers through his hair, looking frustrated as he glanced around the room. Finally, he sighed and looked at Luna again. He looked…resigned.
Resigned was okay. She could work with resigned.
“Fine, Lovegood. Just…I can’t even tell you not to expect me to sing, can I?”
Luna smiled and shook her head, setting all the bells to ringing.
“Alright,” he sighed. “Let me go get a jumper and we can go.”
“A green one would be best,” Luna told him helpfully, knowing he’d never been caroling before. “Normally I would say red, but red would look awful with your coloring, so I suspect you don’t have a red one.”
Draco gave her a look of mixed incredulity and surprise, then shook his head and left the room. A few minutes later, he returned wearing a green jumper that looked both soft and expensive. He was wrapping a thick grey scarf around his neck and he’d pulled on a pair of sturdy black boots, but he’d apparently elected to forgo heavier outer-wear.
“No hat?” Luna asked, certain that he had one to match the scarf.
“We’re Floo caroling. I shouldn’t need anything heavier than this.”
Luna was of the opinion that no Christmas outfit was complete without both a jumper and a hat (or some alternative type of headwear, such as antlers), but she let it go. She had the feeling she would need to choose her battles with this boy very carefully.
Smiling brightly (mostly because he seemed a little stunned every time she did it, which gave her the impression that maybe he needed to be smiled at), Luna gestured toward the fireplace. “Alright then,” she said, “let’s get started.”
Draco didn’t know what he was expecting when Luna looped her arm through his and lead him into his fireplace shouting, “A place to carol!” but this was not it. Draco looked around at the tidy sitting room filled with lovely antique furniture—Georgian if he wasn’t mistaken—and shelves and shelves of books. He wondered who lived here; it looked like a place his mother would be comfortable living in.
“Huh,” said Loony. “Well, this is unexpected.”
“You know where we are?”
“Sure.” She smiled brightly (she kept doing that; it made her look even crazier than she already did) and patted his arm with the hand not hooked around his elbow. “Hellooooooooooo?” she called in a sing-song voice. “Anybody home?”
“Luna?” a disembodied voice called back from somewhere deeper in the house. “Is that you, dear?”
“Yes, Mrs. Tonks. I’ve brought you a gift and a surprise guest.”
“Alright. Give me just a moment.”
“Tonks?” Draco murmured. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d heard it before.
“She’s your mother’s sister.”
“What?”
“Andromeda Tonks. She’s your mother’s sister. Your aunt.” She looked at him inquisitively. “Didn’t you know?”
“I knew mother had a sister, but I’ve never met her. Mother doesn’t talk about her.” Draco thought for a moment. “Wasn’t Tonks the name of that Auror? The clumsy one?” In fact, he was almost sure that had been her name.
“Oh yes. Tonks was your cousin, Andromeda’s daughter.”
“Luna? Who are you—oh!”
Draco turned as a tall, dark haired, dark eyed woman entered the room. For a moment, he had to fight the instinctive urge to go for his wand, she reminded him so much of his Aunt Bellatrix. But then he noticed the way she moved, the tilt her head. She carried herself with the grace and elegance that belonged to his mother, a grace and elegance he’d never seen in his mother’s insane oldest sister.
The minute Andromeda entered the room, Luna burst into song. It was a carol Draco was unfamiliar with, something silly and childish, the type of song his family would never have tolerated when he was a young. Draco listened to the first verse silently, which got him a gentle elbow in the ribs from Loony. He scowled down at her, but she just smiled back, flashing and blinking and glowing and jingling, and kept right on singing. She also kept right on lookingat him, as though she expected him to jump right in any moment now. Reluctantly, he hummed along to the second verse in quiet harmony, singing the words only when the chorus came round again.
It wasn’t until the song ended and the boy in his aunt’s arms wiggled to get down that Draco noticed the baby. Draco found himself staring as the child kicked his chubby legs and fussed when his grandmother failed to let him go quickly enough. He’d never been so close to a baby before.
The moment Andromeda put the child down, the baby scurried across the floor, hands and knees flying as he made a B-line for Lovegood.
“Teddy!” the girl squealed as the baby neared her. “Look at you!” She scooped him up and tossed him into the air. The child squealed almost as loudly as the girl had done, and then laughed wildly when she caught him again and blew a raspberry on his chubby belly.
Andromeda smiled. “He only just began crawling a couple of weeks ago. He’s very eager to show off his new skill at any and every opportunity.”
“As well he should. We’re very proud of you, Teddy. Yes we are!” She rubbed her nose against the baby’s, making the bells dangling from her ears and antlers jangle merrily. The baby laughed and reached for the noisy ear accessories. Then, to Draco’s shock, the baby’s previously brown hair turned the exact shade of green the bells were painted.
Draco’s jaw dropped.
“He’s a metamorphmagus,” Andromeda told him softly. “Like his mother.”
“It’s a rare skill,” Draco told her. “You should be proud.” He shifted minutely, feeling a little stiff and uncomfortable. He really wasn’t sure how to conduct himself in this situation.
Andromeda smiled. “I am.” Then, glancing away, she asked, “How is your mother?”
Draco hesitated. “She’s…as well as can be expected. She misses my father.”
“Yes.” Andromeda looked sad. “I understand how that feels.” After a long, silent moment, she turned to face him fully, examining his features with keen eyes. “You look so much like her.”
“Do you think so? Most people are of the opinion that I take after my father.”
“Oh, he’s there too. But there is so much of your mother in you.”
Draco found he was unable to help the smile that spread across his face then.
“Oh,” said his aunt, “especially when you smile.” She touched his chin with gentle fingertips. The unexpected affection in the gesture had Draco’s eyes stinging; he cleared his throat uncomfortably. His aunt smiled and gestured towards the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Oh, let me help you!” Lovegood exclaimed. “Here, Draco, take Teddy while I help Mrs. Tonks.”
Just like that, Draco found himself with an armful of squirming baby. The boy immediately began fussing, reaching out after his former playmate with chubby fingers. When Teddy’s wiggling nearly caused Draco to drop him, the blond quickly shifted his grip. Nearly in a panic and unable to think of anything else to do, Draco bounced the baby a little. The boy looked up at him at that, so Draco did it again, hoping to keep the kid distracted. The second bounce only elicited an uncertain expression though, so Draco executed a little spin instead.
That got the baby laughing. Feeling successful, Draco spun around a second time. Teddy squealed in delight and Draco found himself grinning down at his tiny cousin, unable to resist the baby’s excited laughter. He bounced the baby again, this time making him hiccup mid-laugh, and the startled expression on the boy’s face, followed immediately by more infectious squealing, had Draco laughing too, a full bodied laugh of the kind he hadn’t experienced since…probably before the war.
When his laughter had subsided to quiet snickers, Draco looked down to see that Teddy, who was now gripping Draco’s scarf in one chubby fist, was smiling up at him from beneath lavender hair.
“That is not a manly color, cousin,” he informed the boy gravely, charmed by the child despite himself. Teddy merely grinned, patting Draco’s cheek with one chubby baby hand. As he watched, the boy’s eyes went from brown to…grey.
“Here now, changling. Those are my eyes.” He wrinkled his nose at the baby, then laughed when Teddy mimicked him…right down to the shape of his nose, Draco noticed when the baby unwrinkled it.
“I’d best distract you then, before you copy my entire face and everyone decides you make a cuter me than I do.”
When Luna finished placing the tea things on a tray, she turned to find Andromeda standing still in the doorway to the sitting room, smiling softly. Curious, Luna moved to stand beside her. The sight that met her eyes had her smothering a snicker with a quickly raised hand.
In the middle of the sitting room, Draco Malfoy stood waltzing in loose circles with his seven-month-old cousin, singing softly to keep the time. Every time he spun or dipped the baby, Teddy would squeal and clutch tightly at Draco’s scarf.
Luna knew Draco was unaware of his audience, and she desperately didn’t want to ruin the moment, but she couldn’t help but laugh out loud when one particularly enthusiastic dip had Teddy screaming in laughter, and Draco with him. She’d never seen the youngest Malfoy look so happy.
The sound of Luna’s laughter had Draco straightening abruptly. And he was blushing.
“You have a lovely voice, Draco.” Andromeda told him, smiling fondly.
“Doesn’t he though?” Luna grinned. “I love magic.”
If Draco thought caroling at the house of his estranged aunt was surprising, stepping out of the Floo into Pansy’s miniscule flat after Lovegood’s “A place to carol!” was even more so. Draco hadn’t seen Pansy in several months and irritating as she could be, he’d missed her. So much so that he didn’t even mind when Pansy’s “Draco!” nearly deafened him, or that one of her claw-like nails scratched his cheek when she flung her arms around his neck. He even hugged her back.
Then, after Draco was ready to let go but long before Pansy was willing to let him, Greg and Blaise appeared from…somewhere. Draco didn’t see them come in, all he knew was that Greg was suddenly lumbering towards him with Blaise bounding along behind. Without even hesitating, Greg engulfed Draco and Pansy in a hug of his own, wrapping his big, beefy arms around both their shoulders. Blaise paused long enough to make fun of them all, calling Draco and Greg big girls’ blouses before wrapping himself around all three.
It was several minutes more before Draco could extricate himself from the laughing little knot they’d become. When he did so, Pansy (who had tears streaming down her face and for once didn’t seem to care—unlike Greg, who was discretely wiping a tear from one eye) grabbed him by the shirtsleeves and demanded to know why he was there.
“We’re…we’re Floo caroling,” Draco explained, wincing a little at the sound of his voice saying those words.
“Floo caroling?” crowed Blaise.
“We?” questioned Pansy.
“We,” Draco replied, ignoring Blaise altogether.
“Since when do you sing?” Blaise demanded.
“He’s always sung, you idiot. He just doesn’t sing for unappreciative audiences, meaning gits like you,” Pansy told him snidely.
“What do you mean, ‘gits like me’?” Blaise looked at Draco, indignant. “I am your best friend. How is it that I didn’t know you could sing?”
“We still don’t know he can sing,” mumbled Greg. When everyone turned to look at him, Greg shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Haven’t heard ‘im yet, have we?”
Pansy rolled her eyes and turned back to Blaise. “I am his best friend, Blaise.”
“You certainly are not!”
“Draco, inform this poor, mentally challenged man that I am, in fact, your best friend.”
“Greg is the only best friend I’ve got; I’m disassociating myself from the two of you,” Draco muttered.
There was a long silent moment, and then Pansy and Blaise began to protest, loudly. Draco and Greg shared a long-suffering look. This was the very reason why Pansy and Blaise weren’t his only best friends.
“Who is ‘we’ Draco?” Greg asked, ending the screeching with a well-placed question.
“’We’ is Draco and me,” Lovegood piped up from behind them.
Pansy blinked, eyes wide, at the ridiculous sight Lovegood made standing in Pansy’s pristinely stylish flat.
“You are Floo caroling with Loony Lovegood?”
“Shut up, Pans, and don’t call her that,” Draco told her, annoyed. The smile Lovegood gifted him with then was one of her biggest yet.
“What?” Pansy gave him a distinctly unhappy look.
Draco sighed. He loved her dearly, but Pansy was the biggest drama queen he’d ever met. Except for maybe Blaise. “Pansy, do you want the song or not?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I want the song. I always want to hear it when you sing. However, there is no need to be rude.” Pansy sniffed irritably.
Draco smothered the urge to smile. When they were children, Pansy used to come running, bouncing up and down on her toes and clapping and squealing in excitement on the rare occasion Draco would consent to sing. Her irritability now was just an attempt to maintain what she liked to call her “adult poise.”
“What shall we sing then, Lovegood?” Draco asked, arching an eyebrow at the younger girl over his shoulder.
The blond girl noisily tilted her antler-bedecked head and blinked large blue eyes in the direction of his friends. “I find it best, when one does not know one’s audience, to let those for whom one is performing make the choice.” When the only response to that was wide-eyed stares, Lovegood smiled in that kindly, absent way she had and clarified. “Any requests?”
Draco cut that off before Pansy had a chance to answer. She would only have picked some long, boring, “pretty” song that no one, least of all Pansy, really cared to hear. Instead he launched into a silly, upbeat song about snowmen and snow fairies and the little girls who make them—Pansy’s childhood favorite. About half way through the first verse, Lovegood joined in. On the first chorus, so did Greg.
Greg Goyle was an astonishingly good bass. Draco was a little surprised he hadn’t known that about his friend.
Somewhere around the second verse, Luna started doing a little jig, which looked especially funny with all her flashing and glittering and twinkling. After three verses (and much gentle nudging from Draco and Greg both), Pansy eventually gave up and joined in too. Draco even caught Blaise (who was notorious in Slytherin for the awful screeching that came out of his mouth whenever he attempted to sing) tapping his foot in time with the beat and smiling around a bit, although he made a mocking face the moment he caught Draco watching.
When the song was over, Pansy tried to convince Draco to stay. When he hesitated, she even made a fairly sincere attempt to convince Lovegood to stay as well, and Draco found himself feeling rather proud of the evident changes in his friend, especially when Lovegood seemed to recognize them too. But in the end, Draco decided to stick with Lovegood. She might be Loony, but so far, she’d made his day a whole lot better than any he could remember having in…a long time. The “Come back soon, Draco” That his Aunt had murmured to him just as he’d Flooed away would have been enough to keep him caroling with Lovegood out of sheer gratitude for as long as she wanted him, but bringing him to see his best friends…
Draco didn’t know how Lovegood was managing this (Draco, Slytherin that he was, suspected she was whispering Floo addresses under her breath when he wasn’t paying attention), but he was willing to see this caroling thing through, no matter how weird and somewhat embarrassing he might think it, or how odd his companion. Draco wasn’t much for warm fuzzy feelings, but Lovegood had no reason to show him any kindness. The fact that she’d done so anyway, generously and without hesitation, put him in mind to return the favor.
Draco rather thought he might be indebted to Lovegood forever. The way things were going, he might not even mind all that much.
“You’re really going to keep Floo caroling, Drake?”
Draco scowled at the hated nickname and threw one of Pansy’s fluffy throw cushions at Blaise’s head. “Yes, you pillock.”
“Draco…” Pansy hesitated, then took a deep breath. “You know Lovegood’s friends with Potter and that lot. The weaselette in particular is, I believe, a favorite of your new little friend. You…do realize you’re likely to end up keeping company with a Weasley or twelve, right? Maybe even the conquering hero himself?”
Draco sighed. “Lovegood brought me here, Pans. Voluntarily. Without even asking me first. I suppose, so long as she promises not to let them club me over the head or hide me away in a dingy broom cupboard, I can suffer the company of Potter and fabulous company in return.” During the last bit, he raised his voice for Lovegood’s benefit. The kooky girl had been wandering the flat, examining pictures and knick-knacks with both hands clasped politely behind her back, obviously giving the four friends some privacy. At Draco’s words, however, she turned and grinned brightly.
“I promise, wherever we go, I will not to leave you alone. That’s what friends are for.”
“See, Pans? Safe as houses.”
While Draco was showing his affection for his friend by arguing with her, Luna turned her attention to Gregory. Gregory seemed a little sad to Luna. His friends clearly loved him, but Luna was willing to bet he felt a little overlooked by the other two without Draco around to balance everything out. She considered what to do about that for a moment or two.
“Gregory, did you know that good basses are really terribly hard to find?”
“What?”
“Basses. A good one is terribly rare.”
“Okay?” The poor boy looked awfully perplexed. Luna smiled.
“Do you enjoy singing bass?”
“I s’pose so,” Gregory answered with a shrug.
“Would you like to maybe sing bass some more?”
“I…guess?” Gregory looked completely befuddled now. Befuddled. That had always been one of Luna’s favorite words. It sounded nice.
“Would you like to maybe sing some more today?”
“You mean…what, go caroling with you?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I mean! Would like to go caroling with Draco and I?”
“I’m not…really dressed for caroling, am I?”
Luna took in the black trousers and plain black jumper Gregory was wearing. It didn’t look very festive at all, as a matter of fact. “No, I suppose not,” Luna told him. She tilted her head (and then tilted it a little further, loving the way all her bells jingled with the movement) and raised a finger to her chin thoughtfully. On the other hand, all that black made for an excellent blank canvas. “It’s easily fixed, I think. Draco, if you could just untie my red garland there.” Luna turned her back to her blond companion and motioned to the bow tied over her left shoulder. Draco, who had stopped arguing with Pansy at the sound of his name, arched a slightly mocking eyebrow but deftly untied the indicated decoration. Luna caught the loosening strand and looped the whole thing around Gregory’s neck twice, like a scarf.
Tapping her chin again, Luna examined her handiwork. “It needs just a bit more,” she decided. With that, she reached out and pulled a strand of tinsel from the end of the red garland Gregory now wore. She quickly did the same from the silver garland still wrapped around her own torso, then twisted the two strands together. A little wave of her wand and a bit of clever transfiguration later and Luna was holding a slightly lopsided red and silver striped hat. She stood on her toes and placed the item on Gregory’s head, adjusting the fall of the long pointed end so that it would stay out of his face but still drape over one shoulder. The tip fell halfway to his elbow, and it looked a little sharp and lonely over there by itself, so she whispered a charm and beamed at the little silver bauble now dangling at the end.
“Perfect!”
“It really is, you know,” Blaise chortled. He slapped Gregory on the shoulder. “Mate, you’ve never looked so lovely!”
“He does look nice, doesn’t he?” Luna agreed. Then she suddenly realized what Blaise had meant. “Oh! I’m sorry, Blaise. I didn’t mean to make you feel left out. If you’d like one too, I certainly don’t mind. Now that I’ve done it once, I’m sure I can make another just as lovely.”
“No, really that’s all right,” Blaise tried to protest, but when all of his friends shouted encouragement over his words, Luna knew she’d gotten it right.
Several minutes later, she, Draco, and Gregory left Pansy’s flat, now much cheerier than it had been upon arrival and with much happier occupants. Pansy was grinning broadly and had even hugged Luna good-bye, and Blaise was so overwhelmed by his newly transfigured hat that he kept trying to take it off to stare at it in awe.
Luna smiled at the sight of Pansy laughing and shoving the sparkling garment back on her friend’s head. This had been a good place to stop, just as Luna had known it would be. And now to mend some more fences.
“A place to carol!”
Draco listened very carefully when he, Greg, and Lovegood all stepped into the Floo to leave Pansy’s flat, but if Lovegood gave a Floo address other than her generic request for a place to carol, Draco didn’t hear it. Nevertheless, it was apparent by the sheer number of freckle-covered gingers in the room when they stumbled out of the Floo that either Lovegood was somehow manipulating their destinations or there were an awful lot of coincidences happening today.
Draco didn’t believe in coincidences.
The room the three carolers stepped out into was both noisy and crowded. The furniture was mismatched and worn, but the overall effect was surprisingly homey and warm. The cozy atmosphere was only increased by the numerous Holly garlands, tinsel, fairy lights, and other Christmas decorations that filled the room, especially the Christmas tree in the far corner. It wasn’t the professionally decorated 12 foot beauty that always graced the manor’s parlor, but looking at it, Draco thought the homemade ornaments gave it character. The tree looked…loved.
The minute the occupants of the room spotted their new “guests,” the whole place went silent. Draco felt his face heat up and cursed his pale complexion. Flushing was not appropriate for Malfoys, who were never supposed to feel embarrassment.
“Malfoy?!”
Draco had to fight not sneer at the sound of Weasley’s voice. He lost the fight a little when Potter echoed his best friend, but his expression froze when Lovegood’s hand, still hooked over his elbow, squeezed gently.
“Is that…Goyle?” Draco was pretty sure that was one of the Weasley doubles. Lovegood’s hand tightened a little more on Draco’s arm. When he glanced down at her, she smiled reassuringly, then stepped forward.
“Luna!” Before Lovegood could say a single word, the girl Weasley (who was looking quite a lot prettier than the last time Draco remembered noticing her, which had to have been several years ago) came running to greet her, giving her an excited hug. “What are you doing here?”
“More to the point, what are you doing with Malfoy and Goyle?” Weasley demanded.
Lovegood just smiled serenely. “Hello everyone. I hope you don’t mind, but I am Floo-to-Floo caroling this evening and I invited Draco and Gregory to come along.”
“You’re…I’m sorry Luna, you’re what?” Granger had maneuvered her way forward and stood staring at the three of them with wide eyes.
“Floo caroling.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Draco was surprised to feel amusement at Granger’s wry tone of voice.
“I still don’t understand. What is Floo caroling?” Potter looked confused. Draco wasn’t really surprised; it was a pretty common expression for him.
“And why are you doing it with Malfoy and Goyle?” Weasley repeated.
“We’re Floo caroling, Harry,” Luna repeatedly calmly. “Spreading Christmas cheer by singing carols Floo-to-Floo.” She smiled beatifically. “Draco and Gregory have graciously agreed to accompany me because Floo caroling isn’t much fun by yourself, is it?”
“You could have asked me, Luna,” Girl Weasley told her. “I love Christmas carols.”
“I know, Ginny,” (Ah, Draco thought, that was her name) “but I think Christmas is one of the best times to make new friends, don’t you agree?”
“I suppose that’s true,” the redhead said. “Alright then, in the spirit of Christmas.” She turned to face Draco and Greg and held out a confident hand. “Happy Christmas, Draco, Greg. Welcome to the Burrow.”
Draco and Greg exchanged glances. Greg’s was questioning, uncertain. Draco responded with a miniscule shrug and took the girl’s hand. Partly he did it because it would make Lovegood happy, and he felt he owed her. Partly it was because he thought the Weasley girl had spunk, and he liked that. And partly (mostly) he did it out of the hope that it caused Weasley (the Weasel) to die of an aneurysm.
In that, he nearly succeeded. The minute his hand touched Girls Weasley’s (Draco refused to even think the name “Ginny”), Weaselbee about had an apoplexy. It was quite amusing, and Draco had a hard time containing his glee. He must not have been as successful as he thought because Lovegood gave him an absently amused look and the girl Weasley smirked at him. Smirked!
“He is rather entertaining when he’s mad, isn’t he?” she whispered, leaning in a little to keep her family from overhearing. Not that there was much chance of that, since the majority of them seemed to be distracted by Weasley’s little tantrum.
The redhead winked at him with a cheeky little smile, then took Greg’s hand. Her fingers were practically swallowed by his, but she smiled fearlessly and shook his hand just the same.
“So,” Girl Weasley said, “didn’t you say something about caroling? Let’s hear the singing!”
It was probably one of the most awkward experiences of Draco’s life, singing that carol. The tension in the room was high, most of the Weasley’s were eyeing him suspiciously, and Girl Weasley kept looking at him. It was making him nervous, and he couldn’t figure out why he cared. Still, when Lovegood started singing, he sang along with her. And when she started singing a second carol, he frowned a little, startled, but kept right on singing too. And when Mrs. Weasley tentatively asked for a song Lovegood didn’t know, Draco took a deep breath and sang that one as well. Pretty soon the whole thing had turned into a massive sing along. He even caught sight of Potter, arm slung casually around Weasley’s shoulders, singing along. Weasley looked like he’d eaten something sour, but with his best friend participating on one side, and his girlfriend encouraging him to participate on the other, it wasn’t long before he was singing a little bit too.
By the time the situation had devolved into slightly inappropriate revisions of well-known carols (courtesy of the twins), everyone was relaxed and happy, which meant that no one was shooting Draco and Greg suspicious looks anymore. To make things even better, Mrs. Weasley, who had left the room with an exasperated sigh when her children started improvising Christmas carols, soon returned carrying a large tray full of biscuits and levitating another filled with mugs of hot cocoa behind her. Mrs. Weasley passed mugs of chocolate all around and then extended the tray of biscuits to Draco with warm smile.
“Have a biscuit, dear,” she told him. When he accepted only one, she frowned and picked up a second. “Here, dear, have another. You’re far too thin.” She handed him the biscuit, then reached out and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you came tonight, Draco.” She smiled at his surprised expression, patting his shoulder before offering the biscuits to Greg, who took three.
“You realize that now you’ve converted my mother to your side, you’re pretty much doomed to become a surrogate Weasley,” Girl Weasley said, seating herself in the chair to his left.
Draco made a face, which set the girl off laughing. “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, it gets you an unlimited number of delicious homemade biscuits.”
“It also means association with an awful lot of gingers.” His tone was sardonic.
“Is it really gingers you object to?”
“Gingers are alright in and of themselves. I rather like some of them.” He shot her a pointed glance that made her grin. “But the totality of the gingers I do object to all seem to share the name Weasley.” He half expected her to pretend to be offended, but she only laughed.
“Totality? You object to more than Ron then?”
“Listen, Girl Weasley, I object to anyone who thinks turning unsuspecting persons into small animals is funny.”
“Girl Weasley? What, can you not remember my name?”
“I know your name, I just refuse to call you by it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the sort of thing one calls a small child.”
“That’s probably because it was the nickname my family gave me when I was small.”
“It is a nickname then. That’s something of a relief.”
“My full name is Ginevra, but I hate it.”
“Girl Weasley it is then.” She made a face and Draco laughed. “It’s Ginevra or Girl Weasley. I’m afraid those are your only two options.”
“I…suppose I…might not mind if you called me Ginevra.”
Draco smirked. “Well, alright then. But only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” she told him, voice wry.
“Draaaaaaaco!” Luna sing-songed from across the room. She waved when he looked over. “Come play chess with me!”
Draco rolled his eyes in amusement, but he turned to his Weasley companion and smiled at her briefly. “Ginevra,” he said in parting, giving her a little nod.
“Draco,” she replied, echoing his tone with a smile.
Draco made his way across the living room and sat down on the couch kitty-corner to Lovegood, the chessboard tucked between them. Weasley, having just vacated that very same seat, shook his head as he stepped aside for the blond. “Good luck playing chess with her, Malfoy,” he said, shaking his head. “She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.”
Draco quickly realized he was right. At first he thought things were going so badly because he was still in shock over Weasley speaking to him in a semi-civilized manner. But he quickly realized that the problem was, in fact, that Lovegood had no idea how to play chess.
“Lovegood,” he told her, gently mocking, “the knights move up two and over one, or up one and over two. What is this skipping around in mad ‘S’ shapes?”
“That’s not a knight, Draco,” she informed him. “It’s a hornless unicorn. It moves in strange shapes because it’s searching for its missing horn, but has been maddened by its loss.”
“Is that right? And I suppose this is not a rook?” he asked, holding up the piece in question.
“It’s a castle. It can’t move unless you get three of the servants,” she held up a pawn, “to push and pull it around. Because it is a building, of course, and buildings cannot move without help.”
And this?” he asked, holding up the bishop.
“That’s the unicorn’s missing horn, of course. Your unicorns are looking for my white unicorn horns, and mine are looking for your black ones, you see?”
“I do,” Draco replied, laughing now. “I see that you are completely barking. Now, why don’t you tell me what else I don’t know about this game?”
By the time Draco was done losing spectacularly to Luna at what he was now privately calling Loony-chess, he was laughing hysterically and was situated at the center of a large group of equally amused redheads. When he finished his second game (during which he understood the rules even less than he had before), he admitted defeat by giving up his place to Ginevra. He took a seat in an armchair on the fringe of the group where he could see the game without having to be quite so suffocated by Weasleys. He picked up a mug of cocoa and one of Mrs. Weasley’s biscuits (which, he’d noticed, Mrs. Weasley and Ginevra had both been feeding to Greg in large quantities; his friend kept flushing at the attention but looked remarkably happy), and took a bite, savoring the taste of sugary biscuit and colored icing.
“Hey Malfoy, can I have a word?”
Draco looked up, rather surprised to find Harry Potter standing before him. Draco’s bespectacled former nemesis was shuffling his feet nervously, and he didn’t seem to be able to meet Draco’s eyes.
Draco arched an eyebrow curiously. “Sure, Potter. Why not?”
Draco stood and followed Potter’s hunched shoulders and ducked head across the room and out into the deserted kitchen. Once there, the two boys stood in awkward silence for several minutes. Draco draped himself gracefully against a counter and waited while Potter shuffled some more.
“Potter, am I meant to guess what we’re talking about here?”
Potter’s head shot up with a glare. Draco raised his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Potter. You just seemed a little uncomfortable. I’m trying to break the ice a little.”
Potter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to thank you.” Draco’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. If he’d been anything other than a Malfoy, he was sure his jaw would have dropped as well. Despite his self control, Potter still caught something of his surprise in his expression and he smiled a little. “You,” Potter took a deep breath, held it for a bit, then blew it out again. He shoved his fringe back and finally met Draco’s eyes. “You didn’t turn us in to Voldemort when you could have, and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate that. I…I never could have…Well, I obviously couldn’t have done any of it if you hadn’t protected us like that. So thanks.”
Draco’s jaw really did drop at that. Harry smiled when he saw it, although it was a little shaky.
“Look, you did the right thing. And it’s obvious that you’ve changed a lot. I mean, you’re Floo caroling with Luna and you actually seem to be enjoying her slightly mad self. Mrs. Weasley adores you, Ginny clearly like you, and you’ve been pleasant company all evening. Luna’s been calling you her ‘new friend Draco,’ or her ‘dear friend, Draco.’ It’s…cute.”
Draco scowled. “Cute?”
Potter grinned. “The point is, despite that fact she’s a complete nutter, Luna’s an extremely good judge of character. If she says you’re friend material, then I think you’re friend material.”
“Are you asking to be my friend, Potter?” Draco was incredulous.
“Er…yes?”
Draco hesitated, eyeing Potter carefully. “Do I have to stop calling you ‘Potter’?”
Potter laughed. “Not so long as I can keep calling you ‘Malfoy.’”
Draco smirked then. Taking note of the irony and feeling privately amused by it, he stuck out his hand. “Alright, Potter. Friends then.”
Potter took his hand and shook it. “Friends then.”
“How’s Weasley going to take this?” Draco enquired, leaning back against the counter again.
Potter shrugged. “He’ll get over to it. He’s not so violently opposed to you as he used to be. Just give him some time to get used to the idea, then ask him for a game of chess. So long as you actually provide something of a challenge, you’ll get on fine.”
“Weasley actually plays chess?” Draco had seen him playing against Lovegood earlier, but he hadn’t actually thought he’d known what he was doing.
“Yeah. He’s really good, to the point that he almost never loses. His head is absolutely huge. If you could take him down a few pegs, or at least make him sweat a little, we’d all really appreciate it.”
Draco chuckled lightly. “I think I can probably give him a run for his money.”
“Harry? I thought that was your voice. Harry, Ron says—oh!” One of the Other Weasleys (one of the older ones, the one with the fang earring) froze in the doorway. “Malfoy.” The Weasley nodded to Draco, and Draco gave him a polite nod in return. The Weasley’s expression was neutral, and his voice was polite, but there was something tense and uncertain in his stance. His eyes kept darting back and forth between Draco and Potter. “Alright there, Harry?”
“Alright, Bill,” Potter replied, giving him an easy smile.
“Ron’s wanting to know if you want a game of chess.”
“No,” Potter replied.
“No?” The Weasley (Bill) shot Harry a knowing smile.
“No,” Potter repeated. “But Malfoy’ll play.”
“Yeah?” The Weasley looked sideways at Draco.
“Ask him,” said Potter.
The Weasley turned to Draco. “Well, Malfoy?”
“A chance to beat Weasley at his own game? Absolutely.”
It was getting rather late when Draco finally finished his game with Ronald. Luna had sat beside them for the duration of the game, making mental notes whenever they moved a piece incorrectly. She was amused by the strange way they played, but because they were getting along so well and seemed so intent on their game, she didn’t tell them what they were doing wrong. However, they obviously required instruction at a later date.
“So Luna,” Ginny sat down beside her friend. “Where are you going caroling next?”
Luna smiled, feeling a little secretive and sly as she glanced over at Draco. Draco noticed the glance and returned it with a raised eyebrow.
“Why were you wanting to know, Ginevra?”
Draco stared in absolute awe around his mother’s beautifully decorated sitting room. At the moment, there were several Weasleys, a Potter, a Granger, and a Lovegood scattered over the two chaise lounges and matching antique armchairs that graced the room. Even Pansy and Blaise were present, since Lovegood had Flooed Pansy’s flat almost as soon as she had arrived and invited them over. Draco was pretty sure they’d come just because they hadn’t believed her when she’d told them who was visiting the manor this evening.
Currently, everyone was drinking apple cider out of his mother’s best crystal goblets and they were singing a loud, raucous carol, apparently a Weasley Christmas favorite. His mother, elegant as ever, was seated at the grand piano in the corner, playing accompaniment and singing sweetly along.
When the current song ended, Ginevra left the group gathered around the piano and made her way towards Draco, snagging an extra goblet of cider as she passed the h’orderves table Draco’s mother had hastily had the House Elves set up upon their arrival. The redhead settled on the raised hearth beside Draco and handed him the goblet. He took a sip and smiled at her.
“It’s pretty amazing, huh?” the girl said, encompassing the room with a glance and an expansive wave of her hand. Draco looked around yet another time. No matter how many times he looked, he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. And he could scarcely believe how strangely warm and happy it made him feel, not that he would ever admit it.
He decided he adored that Loony Lovegood.
“It’s pretty unexpected,” he agreed.
“But in a good way, right?” she asked, looking at him sideways.
“Yes, in a good way.” He couldn’t help the tiny smile stealing across his face.
“Luna’s something special, don’t you think? I can’t believe she managed all this. Of course, she couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t let her drag you hither and yon, but...” she trailed off, watching Lovegood across the room.
Draco’s smile widened, his gaze following hers to where Lovegood stood leaning against the piano, chatting with his mother, Pansy, and surprisingly, Granger. “She’s something else, that’s for sure.”
Ginevra laughed. “Give it up, Draco. You love her, I can tell. Another hopeless Luna devotee.” She turned to grin at him. “She has that effect on people.” Ginevra tilted her head thoughtfully, eyes sweeping the room. “I wonder who she’s going to convert next. Hmmm… My guess is Parkinson.”
“Pansy? Really?”
“Yep. Luna’s already collected several friends from each of the other houses, so it’s time she started in on Slytherin. Plus,” she hesitated, then continued cautiously, “you seem a little…sad.”
Draco frowned a little, and then sighed. “You think Lovegood is, what, the perfect cure for sadness?”
“Luna is really good at cheering people up. She also works really hard to keep her friends happy. Why do you think Harry is so fond of her?”
“Potter?”
“Yeah. He says she sort of saved his life, emotionally speaking. Anyway. She’s obviously good for you. She’ll be good for all of you.”
Draco smiled fondly, watching Lovegood, still flashy and bright and clashing horribly with the perfectly coordinated room she stood in, lean over to turn the sheet music for the carol his mother was playing, grinning brightly when his mother smiled in thanks.
“Luna Lovegood: rehabilitating Death Eaters one Loony act at a time.”
Ginevra looked at him, startled, then let out a bright and happy laugh.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 10:22 pm (UTC)Greg sings bass. Hehehehe.
And am I imagining the Draco/Ginny flirting?
Beautifully done! I grinned my way through this entire story.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:26 am (UTC)As for the D/G flirting...nope, not imagining it. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 01:36 am (UTC)“Someone to carol with!” she called out firmly, and then she stepped into the swirling green flames
What a cool idea, that you can use Floo to find a type or kind of person/place rather than a specific one!
The girl who stood singing on his hearth rug, blinking overlarge blue eyes and smiling serenely at him from beneath a pair of large, jingle bell and fairy bedecked antlers...and her hair was braided with tinsel and holly
LOL! Perfect, I can just picture this :)
“When I came here, I asked for someone to carol with. Since this is where I am, that means it must be you.”
Impeccable logic.
Resigned was okay. She could work with resigned.
I have faith that she'll turn it into something much more positive :)
Luna was of the opinion that no Christmas outfit was complete without both a jumper and a hat (or some alternative type of headwear, such as antlers),
A sentiment with which I totally concur...
Smiling brightly (mostly because he seemed a little stunned every time she did it, which gave her the impression that maybe he needed to be smiled at)...
Awwwww. That's adorable!
It was a carol Draco was unfamiliar with, something silly and childish, the type of song his family would never have tolerated when he was a young.
"I want a hippopotamus for Christmas," perhaps?
Just like that, Draco found himself with an armful of squirming baby.
Oh the discombobulation!! Lovely how Draco warms up to him :)
“I am your best friend. How is it that I didn’t know you could sing?”
“We still don’t know he can sing,”
*snicker* Good point. And the decorating of Gregory is hilarious/sweet.
By the time the situation had devolved into slightly inappropriate revisions of well-known carols (courtesy of the twins)...
Ahahahahahaaa! Of course it would end up that way :D
“That’s not a knight, Draco,” she informed him. “It’s a hornless unicorn. It moves in strange shapes because it’s searching for its missing horn, but has been maddened by its loss.”
Oh my, that's perfect!! I'll think of that now every time I play chess.
One of the Other Weasleys (one of the older ones, the one with the fang earring)
Of course that would be Bill ;)
“Luna’s something special, don’t you think?
Luna really is magical, isn't she?
This was lovely in every respect -- sweet, funny, heartwarming. Wonderful job!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 02:51 am (UTC)You have a wonderful way with Luna. She's so IC and such fun.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 11:12 pm (UTC)That would be terrible, wouldn't it? *chuckles*
Potter looked confused. Draco wasn’t really surprised; it was a pretty common expression for him.
*snerk*
What a cute feel-good fic! Nicely done.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-15 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-18 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 01:17 am (UTC)Everyone, and I mean really everyone is so wonderfully him- or herself!
And the way the floo works is just amazing; I want a thing like that! :D
And then the route they take; every step is just so perfect.
I love the scene with Teddy, where Draco laughs for the first time in such a long time... well, you just can't *not* be happy around a laughing child. :) And Andromeda's request that he should come back soon... I can see the sisters coming back together after all the years of not talking, and I just love things like that. <3
Then Pansy's flat, and Greg and Blaise being there, and the hug-knot! Who knew Slytherins are this loving and affectionate? ;) Lovely descripition of a long, long friendship. :3
Love that Greg joins them, and how both Slytherins are surrogate Weasleys in no time. ;P
And how much do I love Ginny (aka Girl Weasley) here? Isn't that strange, considering I don't really like her all that much in general??? :D
And it all comes down to Luna being the most awesome person on earth. Hehe. ;)
But really, I adore the way she just sees right through disguises and always hits exactly the right spot. Brillinatly done, this story sucked me in and held me in the middle of all the wonderfully fleshed-out, insanely lovable characters.
Really, really great story.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 12:39 am (UTC)As for the affectionate Slytherins...I've always been of the opinion that Slytherins are just as prone to displays of affection as anyone else, but that they normally reserve such displays for private settings (to better protect themselves). However, this is Pansy's flat, so they feel comfortable there, and they haven't seen one another in a long time, so there are extenuating circumstances explaining their managing to overlook Luna.