1 Chaptered: Buried a Lie (Draco/Ginny)

[amorphous]

Title: Buried a Lie; Chapter 6: The Impossible
Words: circa 1500(this chapter)
Rating: PG (this chapter)
Characters/Pairings: Main: Draco/Ginny, Minor/Beginning/Temporary: Draco/Luna, Harry/Ginny (other couples mentioned)
Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH. Pretty much totally disregards the epilogue of DH.
Author's Notes: I know a super beta and her name is jandjsalmon.
Summary: (this chapter) Luna wants Draco to believe in the impossible.
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Draco closed the door behind Pansy, feeling relief that she was gone.

A moment barely passed when the doorbell rang. He sighed and opened the door, revealing Luna standing there. She looked sullen.

"Hello," he greeted her diplomatically, "What do you want?"

She shifted from foot to foot, tossing her blond hair. "Can I come in?" Her voice was a whisper, a broken whisper.

He glared at her for a moment, feeling she was imposing and unwelcome. He finally relented as he looked into her grey eyes. They looked defeated and desperate; he couldn’t help but move back.

Luna slid inside. He shut the door behind her. "Now, what do you want?" he repeated, still brisk and rude. He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at her.

"Draco, we need to talk," she whispered. Her tone – broken and defeated – tore at his heart. He always tried to be strong, but it was hard to do when a beautiful woman looked at him with pain in her eyes.

"Then talk," he said curtly, not moving deeper inside the house.

She sighed, looking more forlorn than before if that were possible. "I want to apologize."

"For what?"

"For letting my father manipulate you. It's true that I didn't know about it for long before he died, but… I should have tried to stop him when I had the chance. I'm sorry," she said honestly, glancing up into his eyes for the first time since she arrived.

Draco sighed, his annoyance at her unexpected appearance melting slowly. "I accept your apology. But you can't fix this with an apology, Luna."

"I know. But I can try, can't I?" she asked, pleading.

"How?"

"I can perform Occlumency. I'm not the best at it, but I can try to help you retrieve more of your memories."

"I already have my bloody memories back."

"Surely you can't have all of them back yet. My dad was a master potion maker… Let me try, please?"

Draco looked at her hard. She was being genuine, wanting to help him. "Fine. You can try."

She smiled softly. "Thank you."

They moved into the living room, where he sat on the couch and she stood staring at him unflinchingly. "Open your mind to me."

"A good Occlumanist doesn't need a person's mind open," Draco muttered, feeling vulnerable and hating it.

"I told you I wasn't the best," she said, still remaining eye contact.

He nodded. "I supposed so. Now, what do you do next?"

Luna didn't answer. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration making a small winkle appear on her normally smooth forehead.

Memories flooded back in a flash, hitting Draco like a brick wall. Memories of laughter, of smiles, of happiness the pair had shared.

He closed his eyes, breaking her power. "Fuck. All you wanted was to show me what a weakling I had been under the potion's power?" He opened his eyes.

Luna shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. I guess you did get all your relevant memories back… I'm sorry I was mistaken."

She looked so crestfallen Draco had to fight the urge to stand up and hug her. A bloody after-effect of the potion, he thought to himself, but knew it wasn't true. The potion had already worked its way out his system by now; the memories recalled helping it along faster. "Damn, Lovegood, just leave."

She bit her lip, her eyes growing far away and unfocused suddenly. "Draco, I just wanted to apologize, to try to help. I can't say I would take back the time we had—"

"The time we had?" Draco shot out, interrupting her.

"You may remember it with disgust, but Draco, I don’t. I'll cling to it, hoping that there is a way – any way, any small amount of chance – to have it back," her words were faraway, liking she was speaking to someone who wasn't in the same room as her.

"There is no way," he retorted without thinking. He didn't know why he was suddenly fighting the urge to hold her, to comfort her. She seemed to genuinely believe she had loved him then. To genuine believe one day it could go back to being like that. He knew it couldn't; he wouldn't ever become that man again. But he still couldn't push aside all the feelings that coursed through him when she said the words, when she said she wanted him just the way he was even if it wasn't who she loved then. He decided there was no point in fighting it anymore. He stood up, walked to her, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. "I'm not that man."

"I know. I know who you are. I didn't love who you were under the influence of the potion, I loved who you were before – the man you are now," she whispered, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Draco felt his shoulder become wet as she cried. He tightened his hold, wanting to do anything to comfort her but now knowing why. The memories she had gave him a couple minutes ago seemed to control him. Her musical laugh, her genuine smiles, her radical ideas of what actually exists. He wanted her to hear her ramble on about nonexistent creatures and myths. He wanted her eyes to be faraway, but not broken. He wanted the girl from his memories back, but he hated the man that was there with her.

"You don't know me. You don't know this me – the real me," he told her, inhaling her scent.

She pulled back and looked up at him with hope in her grey eyes. "But I do! I've always known." Leaning up, she pressed her lips to his for a chaste kiss. "Let me show you."

Abruptly, he pushed her back. "You can't. There is no—"

"Believe the impossible, Draco. Believe in nargles and sniptongued rumbles. Believe in the unknown, the unseen – the impossible. For me," she added in a soft whisper.

He wanted to. He wanted to believe in all the things she said, but he couldn't. His rational mind wouldn't give. He let her go, dropping his arms despite the disappointment in her eyes. "Don't look at me like that," he muttered, stepping back to put distance between them.

"Like what?" Luna asked, her grey eyes confused.

"Like you mean what you say. Like you truly do think I can just… believe… believe the impossible," he muttered, his voice coming out rough and incoherent.

Luna sighed. "Please, Draco," she pleaded.

"I can't, Luna," he said, feeling strange and defeated. "I can't just go back and pretend I wasn't manipulated and my mind wasn't messed with. I can't!"

"I didn't do that though, Draco! My father did. He was wrong. I'm sorry. Why are you pushing me away when you know that I didn't do anything wrong?" Luna asked, her voice frantic but still vague like normal.

"You let him."

"I did not! I found out about it about a week prior, I kept trying to get him to tell me more, but he wouldn't. He must have known that I would try to help you."

Draco laughed. "Help me? Helping me would be to tell me."

Luna froze. Her voice was cold and chilling. "Would you have believed me?"

Draco stared at her blankly, taken back by her words. "No. No I probably wouldn't have."

"Then what did I do wrong?"

Starting to pace, he thought. He didn't understand of this. He didn't understand his urge to pull her into his arms and smell her hair, feel her skin beneath his fingertips. The urge was almost too strong. It took actual strength to resist. He knew she had meant something to him when he was under the potion's power. He knew he hadn't been himself, but to feel that way now, to want to comfort her like he actually cared about her was ridiculous.

To take his mind off Luna's sudden and unexplainable attraction, he thought of her father – the real man responsible for his lost of months, for his change. "Luna," he said suddenly, stopping in his tracks. "Your father didn't commit suicide."

Luna started at him in surprise. "I know that."

"He was murdered."

"I know that."

"Who murdered him?"

She was quiet, looking sad. "I don't know."

Draco looked at her seriously. "We need to fight out who your father's enemy was. He knew he was going to die soon – going to be murdered soon – that's why he fucked with my head."

Unblinkingly, she nodded. "Okay. When do we start?"

"Right now," Draco said, hurrying over to his desk where he kept paperwork pertaining to the Quibbler. He flipped through the paperwork, finding nothing. "Luna, who hated your father?"

"Many people. He wasn't always liked because of the Quibbler's nature."

Draco nodded. "Damn it. None of this makes sense. Who would kill over content in a ridiculous paper?"

Luna shrugged her delicate shoulders. "No one should kill to begin with."

He ignored her comment on morals, and looked at her with hard grey eyes. "Someone poisoned him with Basilisk blood then staged a broom accident. The murderer wasn't dumb."

"Isn't. The murderer isn't dumb."

Draco sighed. "True. But we will find out who it is, and then we will get…"

"Even?" Luna suggested with a small, dreamy smile.

"Revenge is sweet, Luna." He leaned back. "I have to go to the office, try to find clues…"