Love is Surrender

Love is Surrender

Blaise Zabini woke up, and immediately wished he hadn't.

It is too early in the morning to be conscious, Blaise thought fuzzily. Hell, it's too early in the morning for it to be this early in the morning.

However, it was all too clear what had woken him up, as the raucous noise that had yanked Blaise out of slumber made itself apparent to his conscious brain. It sounded as if it were the result of performing extremely inappropriate charms on a cat, and Blaise dreaded what he might see, were he to lift a sleep-deadened eyelid.

When he finally gave in, and opened his bleary eyes, his gaze was met by the extremely unexpected sight of Draco Malfoy, who appeared to be singing to his reflection in the mirror.

Ah. Not a cat, then. Good, I can go back to sleep.

Wait. Why is Malfoy singing?

What is he singing?!

"For Love is surrender," Malfoy warbled in a variety of keys. "You must surrender if you care. You must surrender if you care." He paused to gasp for breath. "Shout about--"

"Malfoy, what in the name of arse are you doing?" Blaise demanded, propping himself up on one elbow. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Malfoy whirled about with a beaming smile on his face. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, and seemed to be having trouble staying in one spot. Faint warning bells rang in the back of Blaise's mind.

"Zabini!" Malfoy exclaimed. "Good morning! And isn't it a beautiful morning?" He strode over to the window, and flung the curtains aside in one dramatic flourish.

Blaise howled as the light hit his eyes. "For the love of--what's wrong with you, Malfoy?"

Malfoy looked surprised. "Why, nothing, Zabini. Nothing whatsoever is wrong today. After all," he paused dramatically, "what could be wrong?"

Blaise opened his mouth to respond, but stopped, as a number of messages from his hindbrain caught up with him.

1. Malfoy does not get up this early in the morning. Ever.

2. Malfoy does not bounce.

3. He also does not sing.

4. Or smile.

5. Should he, by some freak coincidence, do all of the above, he would certainly not do it before breakfast and at least three cups of coffee.

6. Ergo, either he is suffering the after-effects of a badly applied Cheering Charm, or he is not Draco Malfoy.

I can't cope with this, Blaise thought through a rapidly rising headache. I need coffee.

* * *

At the breakfast table, three cups of strong black coffee later, Blaise turned his mind back to the puzzle of Draco Malfoy.

Ever since their first year, Malfoy had stood out from the crowd. His appearance, personality - and, Blaise thought cynically, his hulking bodyguards - had ensured that no one in the school was unaware of his existence.

Slytherins were all aware that early on, Snape had singled out Malfoy as a prefect candidate. Some of the house had been surprised when he was not made Head Boy in his seventh year, but Dumbledore had awarded the honour, unsurprisingly, to Harry Potter.

Meanwhile, numerous improvements to the Slytherin rooms could be traced back to Malfoy money. Lucius Malfoy had donated the re-upholstered armchairs and the thick, forest-green carpet in the common room, prior to his Azkaban sojourn at the end of their fifth year. Blaise's personal favourites, however, were the enchanted windows in the dungeon dormitories. Malfoy's mother had donated them the previous year; they had been made to the same specifications as the windows in the Ministry of Magic, and Professor Snape adjusted the weather seen through them.

With all this behind him, though, Malfoy seemed almost compelled to carry himself in a bubble of haughty, sneering condescension.

And nothing he could do could possibly be more out-of-character than his performance this morning, Blaise thought grimly.

Well, unless he started taking Muggle Studies.

A shadow falling across his plate interrupted his pensive reflections. Blaise looked up, and saw the well-known and remarkably unwelcome figure of Luna Lovegood standing in front of him.

"Hello," Luna said vaguely. "Do you think I should have the bacon? It looks a bit off to me; I do hope they haven't started using goblin meat for those as well." She cocked her head at Blaise. "Yes, I think I'll just have egg and toast, you're probably right." Pulling out the chair opposite to Blaise, she sat down, and began filling her plate.

Up to this point, Blaise had been held motionless by sheer surprise; at this action, he regained his voice.

"Lovegood, are you aware that this is the Slytherin table?" he asked with a mild sneer. He would have sneered properly, but for a firmly held belief that sneering at lunatics was rather tacky.

Luna didn't appear to notice, in any case, as she continued buttering her toast on both sides. Blaise gave a mental shrug and continued to eat his own breakfast.

"You're Blaise Zabini," Luna said after a ten-minute silence.

Blaise jumped slightly, spilling his coffee. "Er, yeah," he stammered awkwardly, mopping the coffee from the table. "What of it?" he added, regaining his poise.

Luna looked up from her plate, where she was constructing an odd sort of sandwich with toast and fried eggs. "Oh, there's nothing wrong with it," she said kindly. "One can't help who one is, after all." Lifting her sandwich, she added, "I thought you were a girl the first time I heard your name."

Blaise spilled his coffee again.

"What?!" he yelped in outrage.

"Well," Luna said, "you must admit that it's a feminine-sounding name." She smiled blandly at his look of horror. "Names are important, you know."

Blaise decided to skip the rest of his breakfast. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be as far away from the disconcerting girl as possible.

* * *

Although Blaise was a Slytherin, he had never felt particularly close to his head-of-house. In fact, he had gone to great pains during his time at Hogwarts to ensure that Snape encountered him as seldom as possible outside of classes. It came as a surprise, therefore, when Snape motioned for him to stay behind after Potions that morning.

"Zabini," Snape said with a curt nod.

"Professor Snape," Blaise returned, coolly.

"What was wrong with Malfoy today?" Snape demanded abruptly.

Blaise raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise. "I beg your pardon, sir?"

Snape looked at him with an expression of mild disgust. "Don't play games with me, boy. You live in the same dormitory as Malfoy: you know by now what his behaviour is like. Today, he was behaving abnormally. Why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Blaise shrugged. At Snape's impatient gesture, he expanded on the subject. "When I woke up this morning, Malfoy was singing in front of the mirror. Since then, he's been cheerful, perky, and generally acting like he's having a wonderful time. I don't know why, but I'm keeping an eye on him."

Snape fixed Blaise with a steely glare. "Zabini, I hope for your sake that you are telling the truth. Should I find you have been concealing something..." he let the sentence trail off. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Eminently clear, sir," Blaise returned smoothly. "May I go now, sir?

Snape waved a hand in the direction of the door. "Yes, go, go." He didn't look around as he strode towards the supplies cabinet.

* * *

"Maledizione!" Blaise swore under his breath as he tried to push his way through the crowded corridors. His next class was Transfiguration, and Professor McGonagall was not inclined to be forgiving of latecomers, especially if they were Slytherins.

Rounding the corner at a near-run, Blaise felt as though a brick wall had fallen on top of him. He landed painfully on the ground, with books crashing down around him. Then a softer but heavier object fell directly onto his solar plexus, knocking the air out of him.

Ow.

"Ow," came another, higher-pitched voice from beside his ear. Blaise's eyes shot open.

Luna Lovegood's protuberant eyes wavered into focus about two inches away from his face. She had evidently fallen on top of him after their collision, as she was in considerable disarray. Her long blond hair was half-obscuring his vision and getting into his mouth; slightly revolted, he spat it out.

"Ooh, sorry, Blaise," she said, rolling off onto the floor. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Blaise wheezed, catching his breath. Recovering slightly, he sat up and looked at the mess that their combined belongings had made on the floor.

"Oh dear," Luna said, her gaze following his. "You shouldn't have been running, you know."

Blaise glared at her. "I'm sorry for knocking you over," he snapped.

"Punctuality is the politeness of kings," Luna said dreamily.

"Doesn't look like either of us will be royalty today, then," Blaise said, sotto voce.

To his surprise, Luna smiled properly, the vagueness temporarily leaving her face. Blaise felt as though he had just seen her come into focus. Hesitantly, he smiled back at the girl, before busying himself in picking up his belongings. Some of them were now looking rather battered.

"Oh," Luna said in a disappointed voice. "My quill's broken, and I only bought it on the last Hogsmeade visit, too. Somebody took my previous one." She held the two pieces of her quill and stared at them forlornly.

A sudden, strange impulse hit Blaise. Grabbing his own quill off the floor, he held it out to Luna.

"Here," he said gruffly, "have this."

Luna stared at his hand, her eyes even wider than usual, but made no move to take the quill. Blaise grabbed her hand and, placing the quill on her palm, closed her fingers around it.

"Thank you," she said finally, looking completely stunned. "That was very nice of you."

Blaise shrugged, embarrassed. He suddenly realised that he was still holding her hand, and dropped it quickly. Luna didn't seem to notice, but went on gathering up her things. Blaise followed her example, and very soon they had collected all of their separate belongings.

The two stood looking at each other for a moment.

"Well," said Blaise.

"Yes?"

"We'd - better get to class," Blaise said abruptly.

Luna nodded, her face regaining its usual vagueness. A portion of Blaise's brain noted that she had really looked rather pretty when she hadn't been staring off into the middle distance like a myopic frog. Another portion of his brain wondered where that thought had come from.

"Yes - bye then," she said, drifting off.

"Bye," Blaise called after her, and started walking to Transfiguration. He was going to be very late, but somehow, it didn't seem to matter much anymore.

* * *

That evening, Blaise was slumped in a chair in the Slytherin common room, deflecting the increasingly irritating questions of his year-mates.

Malfoy's behaviour in-and-of itself was not forbidden for a Slytherin. For Malfoy, who was the acknowledged king of Slytherin house, however, it was nothing short of a major incident to most of the house.

Personally speaking, Blaise couldn't have cared less.

"But you must have some idea, Blaise," Pansy Parkinson was currently whining. "I mean, you do live in the same dorm as Draco, surely you must know what's happened to him?"

Pansy appeared to have voiced the sentiments of the rest of the Slytherin girls grouped around Blaise, as a mutter of agreement arose. Blaise sighed and slumped further down into the armchair.

"Come on, Blaise," Pansy was still talking. "Please tell us. Please, Blaisie, pleeease."

"I told you already, Parkinson," Blaise snarled. "I don't know what's wrong with Malfoy. I don't know why he's acting like this. Maybe hanging around with Crabbe and Goyle finally made his brain snap, I don't know! Now will you kindly leave me the hell alone?"

"Lay off, Pansy," Millicent Bulstrode said calmly. "If he doesn't know, he doesn't know." Her eyes swept the room. "Theo!"

All eyes turned to the gawky boy who had just entered through the stone wall. Theodore Nott flushed to find himself the object of attention for so many pairs of eyes, but came towards the group.

"Hi Millicent," he said quietly. "Er, hi everyone."

"Theo, we've just been discussing Draco," Millicent told him in a friendly voice. "Do you have any idea why he's been acting so oddly today?"

Theo shrugged slightly, staring at the floor. Only Blaise noticed a faint flush rise in his cheeks.

"No idea," Theo informed them, in a voice verging on a whisper.

Blaise felt irrationally certain that the boy was lying. After all, he thought, the boy spends all his time in the library. What would he know about Malfoy?

But then again, he does tend to get overlooked quite a lot. Maybe - maybe he's found something out.

The conversation turned to other topics after that. Blaise kept a close eye on Theo Nott, but the boy appeared to present a blank front to the rest of the world, deliberately opaquing his expressions. He was, Blaise decided, a loner by choice rather than default, as he seemed to prefer listening to conversations to taking part in them. On the whole, though, Blaise found him difficult to classify.

Luna Lovegood was also hard to pigeonhole. Blaise was reluctant to dismiss the girl as merely the school oddball; she was also clearly highly intelligent, or she would never have been placed in Ravenclaw.

Part of him wondered why his thoughts kept turning to Luna - "to Lovegood," he hastily corrected himself.

"What about her?" Millicent asked blankly. Blaise's head shot up, to find the rest of the group staring at him.

Did I say that last bit out loud?

"Sorry, mind wandering," he muttered. Millicent gave him a speaking look, but refrained from comment. Theo also looked at Blaise, with a small, enigmatic smile on his face.

The common room slowly emptied, as people drifted off to bed. Blaise was making his way across to the dormitory stairs, when a voice stopped him in his tracks.

"If you want to know why Malfoy's been acting oddly, follow him when he leaves the dormitory tonight," Theo Nott said quietly from an armchair beside the fire.

Blaise turned to stare at the boy. "What do you mean?" he said finally, wild scenarios of plot-and counterplot running through his head.

Theo fixed him with a penetrating stare. "I mean what I say," he said. "What you do about it is up to you." He turned back to the book in his lap, effectively ending the conversation.

* * *

Blaise lay awake, the strange statement running through his brain. So when, at a quarter to midnight, a silent figure made its way out of the dormitory, Blaise followed at a discreet distance.

It occurred to him, as he was halfway across the Entrance Hall, that sneaking around the castle after curfew was probably not the most intelligent thing he could be doing. For a moment, he considered going back to bed. But Malfoy was still moving stealthily round the room, and curiosity temporarily overcame Blaise's better judgement.

Several corridors later, however, and up two flights of stairs, Blaise was seriously questioning his own sanity. Sneaking around after dark, he told himself sternly, is something heroic Gryffindors do. I'm a Slytherin. We don't do foolhardy.

He stifled a groan as Malfoy pushed aside a tapestry and began to climb yet another flight of stairs. Waiting until Malfoy had reached nearly the top, Blaise ascended the long, narrow staircase.

Blaise was paying little attention to anything but getting to the top before Malfoy had the chance to vanish, and so took the stairs as quickly as he could. It therefore came as a shock, when, halfway up the staircase, his leg suddenly sank through a trick step.

Blaise cried out inadvertently as he collapsed onto the stairs. He quickly fell silent, but luck, it seemed, was not on his side. He heard Malfoy's footsteps pause, then turn and begin to retrace their steps to the top of the staircase. Blaise closed his eyes, anticipating the shocked explosion - any second now....

He was suddenly hit hard on the head. Cold shivers spread from the point of impact; looking at his hands, Blaise saw them take on the colours of the stairs under him. It was just in time, as Malfoy appeared at the top of the staircase, and peered suspiciously down in Blaise's direction. Blaise held his breath and kept quite still; slowly, Malfoy walked away again.

A hand was extended over Blaise's shoulder, and, grasping it, he hauled his leg out of the trick step. Placing himself firmly on the step above, he turned to find out the identity of his rescuer.

Standing in front of him was Luna Lovegood, wand in hand. Her long blond hair did little to conceal the fact that she was wearing a very skimpy nightgown that kept slithering off one shoulder.

"Lovegood?" Blaise asked incredulously.

"Hello, Blaise," Luna said, swaying slightly on her feet.

"What the--what did you just--?" Blaise stammered, for once at a loss for words.

"Oh well," Luna said dreamily, "I thought you could use some help."

"Er, yeah, thanks." Blaise felt like kicking himself for his inarticulacy, but the sight of the Ravenclaw girl standing in front of him seemed to have paralysed his thought processes. "Er, d'you think you could -" He gestured at his body, which was still Disillusioned.

"Of course," Luna said. "You'll have to bend down, though; I can't reach when you're up there."

Feeling a bit of an idiot, Blaise crouched on the step. Luna dispassionately hit him over the head again with her wand, and Blaise felt the hot streaks running down his back that meant the charm had been lifted successfully.

He was abruptly aware that he was still wearing his navy satin pyjamas. They had been a present from his mother, who thought they brought out the colour of his deep blue eyes; Blaise would have liked them better if they hadn't been printed with yellow ducks. Just at that moment, though, he would rather have been wearing almost anything else.

"You're following Draco," Luna stated bluntly.

"Ye-es," Blaise said cautiously, "and what are you doing?"

Luna smiled at him. "Oh, I often go for a walk around the castle when I want to think."

Blaise pushed an errant curl out of his eye. "Don't you ever get caught? I mean to say, it is after curfew."

He then noticed the fall of silvery fabric held in Luna's other hand. His jaw dropped in astonishment. "You've got an invisibility cloak!"

"Yes, of course," she said matter-of-factly. "Shall we go, then?"

"Er, sorry," Blaise said, his mind desperately trying to keep up, "go where?"

Luna looked at him. "Upstairs, of course," she said slowly and clearly, as though talking to an idiot. "You want to follow Draco, and I want to walk around the castle. And also," she added thoughtfully, "I have the invisibility cloak."

Blaise, who had opened his mouth to protest, closed it again.

After all, he thought, she's got a point.

* * *

It was a close fit under the cloak, and Blaise was acutely aware of Luna's proximity to him. He was trying to touch her as little as possible, although he was aware that if he were to sling his arm around her shoulders, it would make moving much easier.

Luna, who clearly was having no such issues, linked her arm through Blaise's in order to pull him over to yet another staircase. Blaise bit his lip. His arm was now pressed against - interesting places, and he was glad that the invisibility cloak meant that Luna couldn't see him.

And thank goodness my pyjama pants are loose.

"Where are we going," he hissed at Luna as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Not much further," she murmured back at him. "They're in the Room of Requirement; it's just round the corner."

The room of what? Blaise thought. And - "they"?!

They rounded the corner, and Blaise stopped, amazed. Light was spilling from a door standing ajar halfway down the passage, opposite a tapestry, where he knew there was not usually a door. Faint music appeared to be emerging from it.

"What--" he began to say.

Luna shushed him, and Blaise felt the tug on his arm as she pulled him forwards until they had reached the door. Cautiously, he peered through the opening.

And nearly fell over backwards. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger were locked in an embrace several feet from the door. Behind them, what Blaise could see of the room was furnished in silks and velvets, the most prominent feature being a large four-poster bed. Music was playing quietly, apparently out of thin air.

The couple separated, but only far enough to re-oxygenate. Malfoy whispered something to Hermione, and she laughed softly.

As the chorus started to play, Blaise suddenly became aware of the song.

"For Love is surrender,

You must surrender if you care,

You must surrender if you care."

Blaise had the sensation of being hit with a brick.

Oh. So that's why he was acting - oh.

So Malfoy is taking Muggle Studies after all.

Blaise felt an urge to burst in and demand explanations of the mismatched couple. But the light in Hermione's eyes and the tender expression on Malfoy's face told the story more thoroughly than any words could have done. As they kissed again, the watchers crept silently away.

* * *

"Maledetto sodomito Inferno!" Blaise swore, temporarily losing his command of English. "Incredibile! Uno Malefede e una sangue di fango!"

"Golly," Luna said succinctly. "Do you feel better now?"

Blaise exhaled. "Slightly," he admitted. "I just can't believe that that's what's been wrong with Malfoy today. I mean - he's a Slytherin!"

Luna said nothing, but Blaise felt her tense. They were still under her cloak, and were making their way back down to the Entrance Hall.

"Still," Blaise admitted softly, "si amano. Any idiot could see that."

"Sorry?"

"They love each other."

"Oh." Luna seemed about to say more, but then stiffened. Blaise's ears pricked up as he too heard the familiar shuffling sounds of Filch making his rounds close by.

"Quick," Luna hissed. She grabbed Blaise's hand and fairly flew down the corridor, pulling him after her. Opening the broom closet at the end, she dragged Blaise inside and carefully shut and locked the door behind them.

Filch's voice grew louder as he passed the closet: "...voices, my sweet, didn't we? Students out of bed..." but the two remained undiscovered. Gradually, the footsteps died away.

Blaise tugged the invisibility cloak off his shoulders and sat down on an upturned bucket. By the sounds, Luna was doing something similar, although he couldn't see anything.

Blaise cleared his throat. Now may be the only chance I get to ask a few questions.

"Lovegood--" he began, but was stopped by the delicate touch of Luna's hand on his arm.

"Why don't you call me Luna?" she inquired seriously.

"I - don't - know," he stammered, caught off guard.

"You think I'm a bit odd," she said calmly. Blaise could have sworn, however, that there was a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"No, no," he protested feebly, "not really."

Luna shrugged. "Most people do." There was a small sniff from the darkness. "Just because I like Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and they don't believe in them - they do exist, you know!" she said defiantly.

"Er," Blaise said caught further off guard, "well, I suppose they might." He fished for the right response. "Actually, I had a stuffed one when I was little," he said brightly.

There was a short pause before a cautious, "Really?"

"Really," he assured her. "I still have it at home somewhere. It was my favourite toy."

Part of Blaise's brain began screaming at him to stop sounding so un-manly, but he quieted it. This was too important.

"I had one as well," said the voice from the darkness, sounding much happier. "I've got him here, on my bedside table. He's called Snorkie," she added as an afterthought.

Blaise coughed. "Mine's - er - Crumpet," he said shamefacedly. Then, hurriedly: "Actually, I wanted to ask how you knew about Malfoy and Granger. How did you know where they were?"

"I was out for a walk last night," Luna replied. "They didn't get the silencing charm quite right; you could hear them a mile off."

Blaise flushed; he was once again glad that Luna couldn't see him.

"Was that Italian you were speaking earlier?" Luna inquired.

"Ah--" Blaise stammered, "yes it was." He hoped frantically that she was not about to ask him for a translation.

"My name is Italian," came her voice, dreamily. "It means 'moon'."

"Yes," Blaise said slowly. "Yes it does, but...." He trailed off as he attempted to put his thoughts into words.

"Luna," he blurted; then stopped, amazed, as an ocean of understanding opened up before him.

I think I'm in love with her.

"Luna," Blaise said again, wonderingly, almost caressing the name with his soft accent. He reached out in the darkness and found her shoulder; he ran his fingers down her arm until he grasped her hand. "I--you--that is--" Blaise trailed off, unsure of how to express the turmoil of emotion inside his chest.

"You could say it in Italian," Luna said gently, squeezing his hand.

"Luna," he began, softly, for the third time. "It's like you said: names are important. Your name is the moon, the lady of the night who catches the gilded rays of the setting sun and transmutes them to pure silver. But also you are l'una, which in Italian means literally: 'the one'. Mia Luna, mia l'una, vivi nel mondo della luna..."

It is very difficult to keep murmuring sweet nothings in any language when there is a pair of lips pressed against yours, and Blaise, sensibly, decided not to persevere.

Amore è resa, dopo tutto, was his last coherent thought

* * *

Theodore Nott turned over in bed and smiled into the pillow. It was 2 in the morning, and Malfoy had just returned to the dormitory. Blaise, however, was still out there.

Theo regularly talked to Luna in the library, which was how he had known of her long-standing crush on Blaise. When Luna had mentioned the cause of Malfoy's good cheer, Theo had seen the perfect way of forcing a resolution to the situation. Blaise's continuing absence was a testament to the plan's success.

Still smiling, the young man prepared to go back to sleep.

I wonder if I can get Pansy and Goyle together...