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Sleepy eyes blinked open to a blue sky dotted with clouds. Draco sat up and stretched his arms before standing. He glanced around, dusting bits of grass from his backside, and sighed. The beginning was always a bit disorienting but he knew he’d find his way.
Hands in his pockets, he ambled down a winding road. It wasn’t long before he came upon two familiar faces. Fred and George stood outside a cottage that seemed to change shape every few minutes. George - recognizable by the missing ear - held onto a cylindrical firework, its wrappings bursts of colors that were almost garish.
“It’s my invention,” George said hotly. “Let go!”
“You’re being selfish,” Fred shot back as he grabbed the firework. “We’re a team .”
“Then why are you trying to steal this from me?”
Draco tuned their voices out when a figure came flying out the front door, brandishing a wand and pointing it toward the twins. Molly’s voice was shrill in the otherwise calm air. “You two stop your nonsense this instant!”
In their surprise, one of the twins - and neither would admit to being the one - sparked the fuse of the firework. The two brothers looked at each other and began tossing the livewire between them. At the very last possible second, they stared at it, looked at each other, then tossed it onto the ground and dove for cover.
Running as fast and as far away as he could, Draco managed to avoid the explosion of fireworks and Molly’s yelling. As the noise disappeared behind him, Draco let out a breath. Something niggled at the back of his head, like there was something he was forgetting, but he couldn’t remember what.
“What was it that I had to do?” he asked aloud.
“You have to survive.” A far-off sounding voice whirled around Draco, who spun in a circle to find himself in a cluster of trees. He looked left and right then up and down, but saw no one. “Over here.”
Diagonally above him sat a young man dressed in pink and green pajamas. His boyish face was handsome with cheekbones that almost rivaled Draco’s own. Upon his head sat a pair of purple cat ears lined with velvet.
“Theo?”
“Hmm?” He winked in and out of existence, as though he was disapparating to different trees. He finally settled on the sturdy branches of an oak and grinned widely at Draco. “Hello, friend.”
“Hello,” Draco replied cautiously. “What do you mean, I have to survive?”
“Well, that’s what we all have to do, yeah?” He jumped out of the tree but disappeared before he reached the ground. “We have to survive school and heartaches and love and the Mad Man.”
“There’s no Mad Man anymore. And where did you go?”
“We’re all mad here, mate,” Theo said from right behind Draco’s left shoulder. “Didn’t you know?”
Then with an impish grin, Theo swung a silver-lined cloak over his head, and disappeared once more.
“Well, that was quite rude,” Draco murmured.
As he wasn’t sure what else to do, the blond began to walk again, following the path before him. He watched a small mouse run across his path, and heard off-key singing in the distance. He swore he saw Potter zip past him on a broom, a giant-sized pocket watch dangling from the bristles. When Draco shouted after him, all he heard was “I’m very late!”
“Perhaps it’s time for me to get out of here.”
“Easier said than done,” a prim voice told him. “But I know what you need to do.”
Draco froze. He watched as a petite figure materialized in front of him. In a powder blue dress, Luna brought the long stem of a flower to her lips and breathed in deeply. When she opened her mouth, wisps of smoke curled around her face.
“Hello, Luna.”
“Would you like some help?”
“If you’ll give it.”
“Nothing comes for free,” Luna warned. The forget-me-not’s color was slowly transferring from its petals to Luna’s cheeks. “Tell me - what gets broken without being held?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Why, a promise, of course.” She took another puff of her flower. “Did you know that while you can’t see it, the future is always in front of you? Of course, I can sometimes see the future.”
“Yes, and I always worry about that,” Draco mumbled.
Luna laughed a tinkling sound. “But can you tell me what can be touched but never seen?”
This time, Luna waited patiently and held Draco’s gaze. He silently cursed the Ravenclaw’s love of riddles. She kept puffing away on the flower stem, the smoke around her now a royal blue. Draco tilted his head until he finally blurted out, “Someone’s heart.”
“Very well,” Luna said with a happy sigh. “She waits for you in the fields. Do what she says and you will be free.”
And Draco remembered that he had a date with Hermione!
He ran down the road, breathing heavily, until he came to an open meadow dotted with flowers of red and white. He could see something in the middle of the field, so he made his way toward what he soon saw was a picnic blanket. As though she were waiting just for him, Hermione appeared in the center of the blanket, nude and bronzed and shimmering in the light. Her head was tilted back, but she turned her face to him, a mischievous smile on her lips.
A small white card rested on her stomach, right above where she parted her legs for him. As Draco got closer and dropped to his knees, he read the words in tiny black print.
EAT ME.
“Draco!”
At the sound of his name, Draco awoke from his trance as the book in his hands tumbled to the floor. Hermione leaned down and picked it up.
“Lewis Carroll.” She pouted. “Without me?”
Draco pulled her down. “I’ll read it again with you. Promise.”