Waking Dreams

Chapter 5 - Truth

At about seven am, Malfoy was awakened by the smell of bread and a hand on his shoulder.

"It's breakfast," Lupin's voice informed him quietly. "Would you like to wake up and have something to eat?"

Malfoy opened his eyes slowly, a gaping void in the place where his stomach ought to be. He heard an emphatic growl of hunger from it, but decided to ignore it. It was his room, anyway.

"Food would be good," he muttered, sitting up and eyeing a bowl of soup critically.

Lupin shrugged and handed the platter to him; he sipped at his tea as Malfoy demolished the meal.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," he said. "I take it Miss Weasley did an adequate job on you?"

Malfoy set the empty dishes on his bedside table and turned to look at Lupin with a raised eyebrow. "No comment," he said.

The older man seemed amused by his response, but he said nothing.

Malfoy frowned at him, suddenly deciding he could get what he wanted from his old 'friend'. "Whatever happened to Loony's parents, anyway?" he asked, knowing the question was out of nowhere.

Lupin's reaction was not encouraging. He seemed incredibly taken aback, in fact.

"You don't know?" the werewolf asked.

Malfoy grimaced. "If I knew," he said acidly, "I wouldn't be asking, would I?"

Lupin settled back into his chair, staring at him for a moment. "You're already sounding like your old self again," he observed. When Malfoy showed no signs of being distracted, he sighed. "You know, you're always putting me in the most awkward situations. I don't know why I put up with it."

There was another long pause.

"Her mother died in an accident when she was young," Lupin said. "Before she came to Hogwarts. Her father raised her on his own for a good while, until he died in her fifth year at Hogwarts."

Malfoy felt a chill go down his spine.

"H-how?" he croaked, suddenly feeling the food in his stomach like a hard lump of rock.

Lupin regarded him seriously. "He walked into the wrong shop," he said. "I think you'll remember the incident at the muggle antique merchant, in your sixth year."

Malfoy swallowed. "They said there were only muggle casualties," he whispered.

Lupin couldn't look at him. "That's what the authorities believed, for about three weeks," the other man said quietly. "Until Miss Lovegood made an inquiry as to his whereabouts." Then: "I was there, when she found out."

No further explanation was needed, to be sure.

Lupin sighed. "I've lost my appetite for conversation, it seems," he said, rising from the chair and picking up the dishes.

At the door, the man turned back to look at him; the grey in his hair seemed, for some reason, to have become even more prominent lately.

"She would forgive you," he said quietly. "Even if you didn't ask."

The door closed.

Malfoy thought for a few long moments before getting up out of his bed and walking over to his mirror.

He stared at the reflection he saw there.

His hair was disheveled, his eyes were blurred. His skin was an even paler shade than usual, and it stood out prominently against his dark black sleeping robes.

But he wasn't sinister looking, for all of that - his expression seemed more lost than malevolent.

"Do you think you're the only one who's lost something?"

He laughed, but only because he was confused and tired.

"I'm only human," he said to the haunted reflection. "Human and selfish and stupid."

He opened a drawer below the mirror and pulled a small, pinkish vial from beneath one of the crisply folded shirts. He stared at it for a full three seconds before throwing it to the floor.

It shattered with the musical tinkle of breaking glass. Seeped along the cracks of the stones like a sickeningly sweet river, before he vanished the whole thing with his wand.

"I must be clumsy today," he said, looking up at his reflection in the mirror. It smiled, bitterly.

-----

"Sir?"

"Yes, Yates?"

"Are you feeling all right?"

"Yes, Yates, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely, positively sure, because you look sort of-"

"Enough Yates, or I'll take another ten points."

The boy grinned cheekily and left his potion sample on the desk. It was horribly off-color. Malfoy supposed it must have been because he spent all of his study time coming up with ways to annoy his teachers.

The bell rang in the nick of time, saving him from having to brood ominously at his desk. It was harder work than it seemed, after all.

He picked up his wand and stowed it in his cloak before walking from the room and, in an unprecedented act, leaving for lunch before his students.

For once, he knew where he was going. And, as long as it had waited for him...

Malfoy pushed through the door easily, and startled a woman with wavy blonde hair and dreamy eyes as she worked to pack up her things.

"Oh," Luna said, surprised. "Did you need something?"

Malfoy shrugged. "I thought I'd ask how my fortunes are doing, lately. And possibly have lunch."

She smiled at him, and he discovered that it really did make her look remarkable, when one was looking correctly.

"You'll do well, as long as you don't upset the nargles again," she told him.

He smiled lopsidedly in return. "They need upsetting, once in a while."

And Luna agreed with him for the first time he could remember, as they sat down to talk beneath a sky that opened up to a world of stars, somewhere far away.