Sixth year Luna Lovegood walked through Hogwarts, angry at the world. Well, not the world, just most of the students at Hogwarts, but close enough. “I am not loony,” she muttered to herself. She was sick and tired to death of that nickname. If she ever found out who started it originally, she would kill them, no questions asked.

As she was fuming, she accidentally ran into someone. “Move it,” she said before she saw who it was.

“Well hello Lovegood,” said Draco Malfoy. She gasped. Lately he’d been giving her the creeps, watching her from across the halls in the school or in the Great Hall during meals. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I don’t have time for you tormenting,” Luna said, attempting to walk around him. He moved in front of her. “Move it, Malfoy!”

“You seem angry,” he said softly. “Why?”

“That’s none of your business!” she snapped, slipping by him. Malfoy turned around and quickly pulled her back by the hips. The sudden movement made her drop her books and she gasped when he pressed her back to the wall. She seemed shocked. “M-Malfoy?”

“I’ve been waiting for weeks to catch you alone,” he said. “I’m not letting you get away now that that’s happened.”

Her pale blue eyes flashed slightly with fear as they looked into Draco’s icy ones. “What do you mean you’ve-?” She stopped as Draco suddenly leaned forward and kissed her. She gasped slightly and he took her partly opened mouth to his advantage and slid his tongue sensually along her own.

Instinctively, she responded longingly before realizing what she was doing and whom she was doing it with. She pushed Draco away and ran towards the Ravenclaw Common Room, forgetting about the books she dropped. Draco watched her go with a dumbfounded look on his pale face.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

The next morning, Luna was kicking herself mentally for leaving her books. She hadn’t had a chance to do her homework and she needed them for classes today.

As she was staring at her breakfast, wondering what she was going to do, and owl with a package dropped in front of her. Her brow wrinkled in confusion, but she saw it was addressed to her. She unwrapped it as the school barn owl flew off to the Owlery. Inside were her books and her homework completed. She looked at the short note.

‘No need to thank me… I’m sorry for last night.’

She looked up and saw that Draco was once again watching her, looking for a reaction. She grinned slightly in his direction, and carefully put her books and the homework in her bag.

As she did so, her extra sensitive ears caught someone down her own table saying, “Wonder what’s got Loony grinning like that…” The grin left her face, and she swung her bag up on her shoulder and left the Great Hall to go to her first class.

She was ten minutes early to Transfiguration, and McGonnagal was still at breakfast. She sighed and sat down, leaning against the wall. As she did so, another owl flew over her head and dropped a letter in front of her. She didn’t get a chance to see the owl, but opened up the letter and saw Draco’s handwriting.

‘Want to talk about it? Astronomy Tower-midnight.’

She stared at the parchment in disbelief. Why was he acting this way? It was apparent last night that he’d begun to fancy her, but why?

And did she feel the same way?

Sure, like most girls at Hogwart’s she occasionally glanced his way and thought about how good looking he was, and what it would be like to kiss but, but she now knew first hand from his instigation!

She decided she would sneak up to meet him, if not for any other reason than to ask what the hell was going on.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

11:30 came and Luna was glad to be the only on left in the Ravenclaw Common Room. She finished off her homework and stood up to stretch. She picked up the robe she had discarded earlier and pulled it back on over her Ravenclaw uniform. She walked over to the exit leading to the fourth floor corridor, but then stopped an remembered she could get into a lot of trouble walking around this late at night. She sighed and pulled out her wand. She quickly put an invisibility spell on herself and slipped the wand back into her pocket.

Tip-toeing the whole way, she made it up to the Astronomy Tower without running into anyone.

When she reached the top, she pulled off the invisibility charm and looked around. The moon’s light shone down, and she saw no one. She sighed and sat, leaning against one of the walls. She was fifteen minutes early, but she still wondered if maybe Malfoy had set her up and was telling a teacher she would be up here.

As she was gazing up at the almost full moon, she heard the door open and close. She panicked and pulled out her wand. Just as she was about to make herself invisible, Draco appeared at the top of the stairs. Their eyes met once again. “I didn’t think you’d accept my invitation,” Draco said. He walked over and sat next to her.

“I just came to ask why you’ve been acting the way you have,” she said, looking at her hands.

After a moment of silent thinking, Draco said, “Tell me what’s been bothering you, and I’ll tell you what’s going on with me.” She looked up at him and saw he was dead serious.

“It’s not important,” she said, looking away.

“Then neither is what you want to know,” he said, standing up as if he were leaving.

“Wait,” Luna said, standing up and catching his hand. He stopped and turned. Luna blushed and pulled her hand back. “I’ll tell you…” She turned away from him and leaned on the side of the tower, looking up at the stars. “I’m just annoyed that all of Hogwarts thinks of me as ‘Loony’ Lovegood. I wish for once I could just be Luna. Not ‘that-weird-Ravenclaw-girl’ or ‘Loony’ or anything but what my mother named me.” Her heart ached to talk about her mum, and tears began to cloud her vision. “I’m different, I know… I just don’t see why I’m treated as such.”

As she tried to calm herself down a bit, Draco came over and turned her around and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug. Luna let him and cried silently into his robes.

When she slowly pulled back, she looked up at him. “Your turn,” she whispered softly. “What’s suddenly made the frightening Draco Malfoy seem so caring?”

“I’ve been watching you subtly for longer than you know,” he said. “At first, I thought it was hatred… You had helped Potter throw my father into Azkaban, so I felt resentment. But then it was curiosity that held me. You have your own way of doing things, and you don’t let anyone get in your way of doing them. In short, you intrigued me.” Luna looked away, not sure whether or not to believe his story. “But then I slowly began to realize it wasn’t curiosity anymore. It was something deeper, and though I tried to hide it, I couldn’t… It was as plain and simple as my own name…” Luna looked back up at him, but he was looking at the sky above, still holding her loosely to him. “It took a while, but I finally surrendered to those feelings a few weeks ago, and stopped being secretive when I watched you.” Luna remembered the first time she caught him staring at her across the Great Hall.

“But if you felt that way, why didn’t you send me a small note sooner and ask me to meet you so you could talk to me?” she asked.

“I knew you were getting suspicious of me, and I was afraid you’d refuse. It took all I had to send you the note I did today.” He was now looking at her again. “I’m glad my father’s in Azkaban. I realized that all these years the reason I was so cold… so cruel… was because I was a coward. I was afraid of him, and it disgusted me. So I took it out on others…” He sighed and a single tear fell down his cheek. “But now I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid to be the good person I know is in me… I’m not afraid to make real friends… I’m not afraid to…” He was leaning closer with every word he said, and now his lips were barely an inch from Luna’s, their breath mingling in the small space separating their lips. “-to… love,” he finished softly before placing his lips on hers.

A cold wind blew around them, and Luna shivered slightly, but found that she didn’t much mind. Her arms found their way around his neck and she responded to the kiss without thinking twice. When Draco pulled away, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Sweet Luna,” he said, “you’re no different than any other human being that exists… And you’re definitely not loony.”

FIN