All Or Nothing

Chapter Two. In the Hands of Fate

If only he had an Invisibility Cloak. That's what would make Sunday nights better. Was his family not rich or powerful enough to have one? Certainly not! And yet Potter had one! Whoever was in charge of fate did a rather poor job of divvying it up properly.

Damn you, Potter!

It was annoyingly difficult darting in and out of empty classrooms and doubling back back to avoid getting caught being out of bed past bedtime. How could he explain to somebody why he was going to the Astronomy Tower at midnight?

Looking at the stars, he smirked to himself.

And yet, he hadn't missed a single Sunday since his second year. In fact, it had been his idea. It was the least he could do after he had decided to publicly ignore her.

It had started when he was in his first year of Hogwarts. While he had never figured Potter and his sidekicks into his picture of the grandest year ever, it was still pretty grand nonetheless. A lot of the Slytherins looked up to him since his family was easily the most influential family in wizard society. And he lived for that.

Crabbe and Goyle were his protectors (not that he'd ever admit that to anybody else), Pansy his girlfriend that was purely for show only, and Blaise his informant. Blaise Zabini could be the eyes and ears of Hogwarts if he wanted to (i.e. when bribed). And his best friend...well, she was back home, reading a magazine most people wouldn't be caught dead with and helping her father with dinner.

Meanwhile, her being pureblood and abnormal, she was often the topic of the Slytherin Common room discussion. She was too weird, too odd-looking, and too unacceptable to associate with. So when she had finally come to school the following year, he had no choice but either completely pretend she didn't exist or make fun of her. If he were a Gryffindor he would have remained her friend no matter what. But he a Slytherin through and through and couldn't shatter the reputation he had built.

And so the Sunday night rendez-vous was born. He had proposed to have a more clandestine friendship instead of an open one. To his surprise, she didn't seem to mind too much, as most people would have. But of course, she was not most people.

It was usually easy to slip out because his fellow classmates were too busy studying for their O.W.L exams. In truth, he should have been doing that too but he was never much of a studier anyway and welcomed the distraction. Although the tests were only a few weeks away, he was still only studying an hour or two a day.

Before he realized it he was already at the Astronomy Tower and stepping through the invisible wall that he had discovered ages ago. She was already there waiting for him, like she always was. No matter how early he left, she was always first. One of these days...

"Beat you again," she said loftily.

"Yeah, well, you'd better watch your back because you never know what could happen," he said, realizing how much he sounded like a sore loser.

"Indeed, I will."

Luna looked so serene and Draco was suddenly struck by how pretty she was. How had he never noticed it before? Not the conventional kind of pretty, of course. But then, nothing about her was conventional. And that's how he liked her. Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips and he felt a peculiar feeling in his stomach. He even wondered what she would do if he just took her in his arms and snogged her senseless.

He shook his head. This was Luna - Luna! - he was thinking about snogging. And while the thought seemed strangely appealing at the moment, he knew he would live to regret it later.

"Are you okay, Draco?" she asked, looking concerned.

Well of course she looks concerned. You're standing there like a bloody idiot like you've just seen a girl for the first time. You're no better than Potty or the Weasel.

"Yeah, just a little headache is all."

"Or maybe it's a guilty conscience," she said with an edge.

All of his strange feelings were gone. He was so sick and tired of going through these discussions about the damned DA.

"That can't be it because I have nothing to feel guilty about. I did what I had to do and that's all there is to it!"

"You mean you did what you had to do to gain more power, to place yourself more and more at Umbridge's right hand. Which, by the way, you'll never get there."

Her words were angering him. "Look, Luna, I have better things to do than to stand here and argue with you. I'll just leave right now if--"

"I don't want you to leave," she said fervently, taking a few steps closer. She grasped her cold hand in his and he felt a shiver race up his spine. He exhaled a short breath he hadn't even realized he was holding in.

"Then give me a reason to stay," he whispered, recognizing just how seductive he sounded, even to his own ears.

As if they were being magnetically pulled together, their lips were drawn to each other into an achingly sweet and tender kiss. He placed his hands awkwardly on her hips while he felt her intertwine her arms around his neck. His moves were as tentative as if it were his first kiss, which it most certainly wasn't.

It was their first kiss though. Frankly, until tonight he had never even thought of her this way. She was his best friend, his only real friend! The thought of kissing Luna Lovegood would have made any sane person run away screaming; instead it emboldened him to move more intensely on her. He prodded her mouth open with his, slid his tongue inside, and gently ran it over her smooth teeth. One of them groaned. It might have been him but he couldn't be sure. It was hard to tell whose body part belonged to whom. Corny as he knew it to be, he felt like they were one with each other. And oddly enough, he realized that this wasn't the first time he felt like this - most times when they were together, he felt this sense of being complete.

Finally they pulled apart from each other. Draco's lips had a not-quite-unpleasant tingle to them. Luna, too, was touching her lips and she looked well and truly snogged.

"Fate's laugh is a cackle," she whispered pensively. Although she habitually spouting bits of nonsense, for once he actually understood what she meant. Fate had been steering them along to this moment since their very first meeting seven years ago.

"And we're still leaving here unresolved, aren't we?" he asked her. It was indeed getting late and he needed to get back to his dorm straight away.

They both walked through the wall and stopped just before the corridor split to the right and left, to Ravenclaw and Slytherin, respectively.

Luna ran her hand along his cheek. "Let's just agree to disagree for now. Until next week at least, okay?"

Draco removed her hand from his cheek and brought it to his lips. He placed a kiss on her palm and then closed it up, as if to seal it there. He pulled away and said, "Agreed."

And so they parted ways.