I Will Follow

This is my entry for BibbiFatti's oneshot competition. I wrote it a while ago, but have edited it. The pairing is Luna/Dean. I got inspiration for it from the song "I Will Follow" by Katie Herzig. It's approximately 1,555 words. Anyway, I really hope you all enjoy!

Shell Cottage is clean. That is the first thing that comes to Luna’s mind when she is settled in her bed the first night she’s there. She wriggles her clean toes against her clean white sheets. Her clean spun-silver hair brushes across her clean face, and her clean hands rest beneath her clean cheek. It is all so very different to the filthy dungeons of Malfoy Manor.

 Of course, Luna doesn’t mind the dirt. As a child (and even now) she reveled in it, made mud-pies and planted flowers. She rolled around in the fresh, rich earth of autumn, touched it, breathed it, lived it.

And even as she thinks about it, life in the grimy underground prison of Malfoy Manor wasn’t so bad. She had company. She was alive. Luna is sure that other people are worse off than her. But even still, she doesn’t think she would be here if it weren’t for Mr. Ollivander. Kind, frail Mr. Ollivander. She still remembers twirling her wand in her hand for the very first time, watching little golden butterflies escape through the tip of it and flutter about her head. She remembers how he exclaimed with delight, clapping his hands and telling her she reminded him very much of himself.

“You will be a Ravenclaw, my dear,” he had predicted, “with a mind like yours. I was a Ravenclaw too, you know.”

She had smiled and laughed, and gripped her father’s hand. She had left the shop and forgotten all about Mr. Ollivander. Now, she feels slightly ashamed that she couldn’t recall who he was when they met again in the dungeon. She hopes that he is okay downstairs. She is sure that Fleur Weasley will have patched him up. Luna thinks Fleur is a strange choice for a Weasley. She is beautiful, sure. But she is graceful, and dignified and perfect. But then, she supposes in their own strange way, so are the Weasleys.

Luna tosses and turns that night, breathing in the clean salty air of the velvety ocean right outside her window. There is far too much for her to comprehend. She spent months in that dank dungeon.

She had relied on her mind to count the hours, relied on her shaky voice to tell the hunger to go away. She had listened to threats and murderous spells, watched Draco Malfoy’s trembling lips tell his wand to torture Mr. Ollivander.

Twice, he’d even tortured her. Afterwards, Luna wondered if his heart had been in it, because the pain was not anywhere near as unbearable as she had expected it to be. There had been no physical ache, only terrible thoughts flooding her mind- though her empty stomach and the total darkness contributed greatly to these terrors.

In her hellish nightmares, she had been forced to wonder what had happened to her father, to Ginny and Neville back at school. Images of their torturous deaths had consumed her, terrified her.

And then suddenly, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Dean Thomas had turned up in her dungeon. In that moment, her heart had sunk. She had truly thought that this moment would never come, that her dear, brave friends would never be caught. She had believed that they’d win this thing.

And then before she knew it, she was grasping the hand of a little house-elf. The dark depths of Malfoy Manor disappeared, and she had landed flat on her back beneath the stars. She hadn’t had the energy to sit up. She had lain there, staring up at the clear night sky, her jaw open in awe.

Someone was leaning over her, she could sense it. But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

      “Hey, are you alright?” The voice was deep, warm. She knew whose voice it was immediately. She always remembered people’s voices.