Chapter 19

Draco sat on the ground with his arms crossed, “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Yes, the castle’s just over there,” Luna told him for the thousandth time.

“That’s what you said an hour ago!” He whined.

“Shut up Malfoy.”

“What happened to first name basis?”

“That ended when you decided to judge my sense of direction,” Luna sighed.

Draco rolled his eyes, “okay, fine. I’ll admit that you have a good sense of direction if you can get us back to the castle before someone notices were missing.”

“....I can’t make any promises....”

“Of course you can’t,” Draco sighed. They’d been stuck in the forest for over twenty four hours now and it had set them both on edge. Every little thing Draco did annoyed Luna and she thought that if she was stuck with him in there for any longer she’d go crazy.

“Look!” She shouted.

“What? What is it!?” Draco screamed, spinning around to look in all directions. Even though he had been in there for a while, Draco was still deathly afraid of the Forbidden Forest.

Luna giggled, “No, I just meant look,” She said and pointed to where the towers of the castle were visible over the trees.

A smiled spread across Draco’s face and the two started walking with more purpose. Finally, they arrived at the edge of the forest. Luna was about to head out of the outskirts of the forest when Draco’s hand stopped her.

“What?” She asked him.

“...What will people think? When they see us come out of the forest together... what will they think?”

Luna looked him in the eye and said two syllables that changed Draco’s whole perspective on life, “who cares?”

He looked at her for a second with a distant look in his eyes. All of his life he’d been taught that image was everything and now Luna was telling him that he should just give up his reputation. The real question that troubled him was what was more important, his reputation or Luna? The answer to that was simple; he just had to learn to accept it.

Luna took his hand; a simple gesture that held a lot of meaning. She looked at him with a reassuring smile and Draco’s spirits lightened. He felt a lot more confident then he had a few minutes ago but he was still afraid of the harsh words people would surely utter if they saw him holding hands with Loony Lovegood. At this thought he dropped her hand, trying to ignore the flash of hurt that crossed Luna’s eyes and started to walk back to the castle. After a couple minutes of staring at his back and trying to figure out what had just happened, Luna followed.

Judging by the people outside and the position of the sun it was around lunch. Luckily, not a lot of people were outside due to the mid-fall chill that danced across the grounds. Luna shivered and put her arms around herself in an attempt to warm up. Draco knew that the right thing to do would be to offer her his sweater but he couldn’t shake the thought that someone might see. Then again, who cares? The internal battle raged inside Draco’s mind for a while until they reached the Ravenclaw dormitory and he shut them out.

“So, um... see you later,” He said, glancing around to make sure no one saw.

Luna looked at him confused and slowly nodded, “yeah... see you later.”

With that, she walked into the dormitory and left Draco alone with his thoughts. Great. After what seemed like a lot longer than it was, Draco moved from the Ravenclaw common room and headed to his dorm. He was stopped when he entered the common room by Blaise.

“What do you want Blaise?” Draco asked impatiently.

“Where the hell were you?” He questioned, “You were gone all night!”

Draco sighed and pushed past Blaise, heading to his dorm. Blaise followed and sat on the edge of Draco’s bed.

“I-I told Luna that I’m in love with her...”

“Really?” Blaise asked intrigued, “and what did she do?”

“...she kissed me...”

Blaise grinned, “That’s a good sign.”

“Then she fell asleep laying next to me.”

“...where were you guys?” Blaise questioned.

“The Forbidden Forest...”

“Creepy... “

Draco nodded, “then we got lost, she got pissed at me and then when we found our way back... she tried to hold my hand but... I pulled away...”

“Why?”

Draco explained the whole story to him. By the end of it Blaise was looking at Draco like he was a whole different person, “Wow. She changed you, man.”

“What do you mean?”

“A year ago, you would have never even thought about going into the forest after some girl, now look at you! She’s turned you into some type of romantic or something...”

Draco flushed, “Well... is that such a bad thing?”

“No. Not at all but... you’re still going to hang out with the guys and stuff right?” Blaise asked uncertainly.

“Of course,” Draco smirked, “Why, would you miss me too much?”

Blaise grinned and playfully slugged him on the shoulder, “I might.”

Draco looked at him with a raised eyebrow, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Blaise answered quickly.

Draco narrowed his eyes but decided to let the matter rest for tonight.