Disclaimer: The ideas are mine, he characters belong to J.K. And among those characters, Luna is one of my favourites...

"Luna was once again demonstrating her usual knack of speaking of uncomfortable truths; he has never met anyone quite like her."Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

The park was silent and covered in white as the snow slowly fell on him.

Blaise hardly ever came to that part of Hogwarts' grounds. It looked very much like a park, actually, with circular stone benches built around the largest trees, and a pathway outlined in the grass. It was an isolated area on the edge of the Forest, and it was far too cold to be outside anyway, but he wanted to be alone. He sat on one of those stone benches, dropping his backpack next to himself and rubbing snow on the back of his hand. The cold temperature made the pain a little bit better.

Blaise was so distracted he didn't even notice the light footsteps that approached him from behind.

Luna.

"What happened to your hand?" she asked, and the seventh year Slytherin was slightly startled. He had seen Luna Lovegood around the school before, she was just a year younger than him, but they had never spoken to one another.

"Nothing," he said quickly, hiding his hand in the Slytherin scarf crumpled in his lap. "Go away, Loony."

The two of them were quiet for a moment. The silence was interrupted by the agonising sound of a child screaming in pain. It came from the castle. The Carrows were probably punishing someone for missing a deadline or something. The sound of a student being tortured had become so common place in Hogwarts that it was difficult to tell sometimes.

"Yes, I suppose some people do call me that," the Ravenclaw girl said simply, looking back at Blaise as if she didn't realise that he meant to hurt her. "but my real name is Luna."

She seemed far more distressed by the sound that came from the castle than by the nickname Blaise had used, and her serenity caught him off guard. She knelt down in front of him, pulling his hand from the scarf delicately, her long fingers touching his wrist.

"Tergeo," she whispered, pointing her wand at the back of his hand, removing the ice, water and blood that covered the wound. Blaise did not try to pull away, but the muscles of his hand flinched when he looked down.

Luna studied the wound. The hand was red and swollen and she could just make out some words carved into his skin.

I must not act like a Mudblood.

Dolores Umbridge, the former high Inquisitor of Hogwarts, had sent the new deputy headmasters her quill as a gift. An instrument to inspire the new generation of educators, she had said. Now the quill that wrote with the writers own blood was used in some forms of detention at the school.

Blaise felt warmth in his cheeks. It took him a moment to realise that he was embarrassed by that.

"There's only so much ice can do for this, you know," she said, looking up at him with those protuberant grey eyes. "I think I can help make it better."

Blaise nodded weakly and the girl walked away to kneel in front of a flowerbed a few meters away. Blaise watched as her long dirty blonde hair fell over the roses. The pink flowers must have been sustained by magic to retain their beauty in spite of the winter's snow. Their petals were covered in drops of water that wet Luna's hair as the girl conjured a small bowlwith her wand and reached out for the boils of a small cactus-like plant hidden amongst the roses. A Mimbulus Mimbletonia. Luna used a silver knife to extract some sort of liquid – that could only be Stinksap - from the plant's boils, catching it with the bowl, and Blaise caught himself thinking, much to his own surprise, that the girl belonged exactly where she was: amongst the roses.

"A friend of mine planted this Mimbulus there last year," Luna said, returning to sit by Blaise's side and placing his injured hand in the bowl. He felt a wave of warmth running through his body, and the pain in his hand got a little better. "The liquid attracts Nargles, but you don't have to worry about that. I think my necklace can keep them away from both of us."

Blaise had no idea what Nargles were, although he thought he might have read something in Fastastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the chapter about extinct creatures. In any case, he doubted a poorly crafted necklace could protect him from anything, whatever it was. Besides, with Luna by his side, he didn't think anything bad could ever happen. It was a silly, illogical and unjustified thought to cross his mind, but it was how he felt, nonetheless.

He looked at the Butterbeer cork necklace around her neck. It would have looked ridiculous on anybody else, but somehow Luna made it work. It certainly looked odd, much like her beetle ring and the fact that she was sometimes seen around school walking with no shoes on, but while a lesser person's confidence might be shaken by wearing those strange objects, Luna's was undisturbed. In fact, she smiled when she realised he was staring at her necklace.

"Do you like it?" she asked. "My dad made it for me when I got my Hogwarts letter. He doesn't have the talent Mum used to have with these things, but I know he tries his hardest."

Blaise didn't think anyone had ever given Luna Lovegood a real piece of jewellery, but that thought didn't surprise him. The Lovegoods had never had a lot of money. What surprised him was catching himself thinking that someone really should give her real jewellery. She deserved it.

Luna pulled his hand out of the bowl for a moment and examined the wound.

"It looks like the swelling is going down," she said, pointing her wand at his hand and whispering an incantation he had never heard before. "There, does it feel better?" she asked.

The pain in his hand had diminished. It must have been an analgesic spell.

"It does. Thank you," Blaise said slowly, looking down at the snow covered ground. "And... I am sorry," he said finally, slowly, as if he had to think about every word, "for calling you Loony before."

Luna didn't say anything, just smiled and nodded quietly. There was something to be admired about that boy as well. Most people would not repeat the nickname in that situation;they would rather forget they had ever said such a thing. But Blaise was not most people. When he admitted to a mistake, he admitted to the full extent of his crime. No denials.

Her hand had been touching his arm, and when she used that hand to brush a strand of hair away from her eyes he looked down. The wind touching his skin in the place where her own hand lay a few seconds before felt colder, perhaps because her own skin had been so warm. Luna was not exactly pretty, nor was she built to 'suit a fashion model size' like many of the girls he had hooked up with. As a matter of fact she had the most unique fashion sense he had ever seen. But there was something about her. And when Blaise tried to describe it in his mind, the only word he could come up with was, much to his own surprise, beautiful.

"What were you doing in the forest?" He asked, mostly because he didn't want her to see that he'd been starring.

"I come here to feed the thestrals sometimes," she said, shrugging. "They are very gentle creatures, but most people don't realise that and avoid them. I come here so they don't feel too lonely. I think everybody feels lonely every now and again. But no one should be alone all the time."

Blaise didn't know what to say, but it didn't look like Luna was expecting an answer. She looked at the castle as another of those horrible screams cut the air. Blaise hated those screams. Much like the sound of a Mandrake Root, those screams could petrify you. And indeed, Luna was very still, looking at the highest tower of the castle. He could see the sadness in her eyes. Nothing about her went with that sadness; not the reach of her arms, the stride of her steps, the arch of her back, the curl of her hair, nor the fire that had been in her eyes just a few seconds before.

The young man lifted his hand from the bowl and felt a jolt of pain rising up through his arm. He looked down at his hand, forcing himself to look away from the girl and closed his hand, slowly making a fist before opening it again.

Luna held his hand. The stinksap smelled like rancid manure, but Luna didn't seem to mind that the dark green fluid was getting all over her hands.

"I think this is the best it will get for now, but you should probably use more stinksap tomorrow. I think, there's bound to be some in the Hospital Wing" she said ethereally, pointing her wand at the bowl "Evanesco!" she said, making both the liquid and the bowl vanish and using her wand to drain the remaining fluid from his hand with a non verbal spell. His hand was still very sensitive, and she was careful not to touch it in any way that hurt. Then, saying something about keeping it warm, she wrapped his hand in the scarf crumpled in his lap.

"I didn't know they did that to Slytherin students," Luna said in a low voice, while she wrapped the scarf around his hand.

"Nobody knows that. Until it happens," he said bitterly.

Luna looked him in the eye for a moment.

"You know, you didn't tell me your name."

"Zabini," he answered, and after thinking for a moment the Slytherin added, "Blaise."

"What did you do to get detention, Blaise?" she asked softly, placing his hand on his lap and looking at the boy.

He looked away.

"A second year student snuck a bubble machine inside Professor Carrow's office," he explained. "It was just a prank, but there were so many bubbles inside that they forced the door open and invaded the Dark Arts' classroom during our class. The door was destroyed, along with pretty much everything is his office, and all his clothes were wet and smelling like bubblegum."

"Oh," Luna said. "That was nice. He always smells so dreadfully bad."

Blaise looked at her for a moment; it was just like Luna to say something like that.

"Well, he didn't like that," Blaise explained. "So he brought the boy in and ordered us to cast the Cruciatus Curse in him. It would be his punishment."

Luna nodded. She was not surprised. That kind of thing happened all the time at the school now. She waited for Blaise to continue the story, but after a few moments of silence, she spoke.

"You didn't do it."

"No," he said simply.

"But I heard about that story. That boy wasn't even a Slytherin! He was a Hufflepuff, and a half blood."

Blaise seemed a little angry.

"I know, but he was twelve, and it was a prank. So, no, I did not torture him," he said finally. "Not that it did any good. Crabbe did it in the end, and I had to listen to the boy screaming as I was forced to sit down and write lines," he indicated his injured hand with a small gesture.

"But I thought you didn't like half bloods," Luna said.

"Yeah, I thought that too," Blaise said. "But I don't know if I agree with everything the other Carrow tells us in Muggle Studies either."

I'm going through changes, Blaise thought, and there was an audible pause.

"I never..." Luna started. "I never thought someone like you would do something like that. I mean… Even if you don't like the Carrows, the Death Eaters are doing you a favour, aren't they? You don't care about the Muggles and Muggle-borns dying, do you? Your family are Purebloods, the Death Eaters won't take your house or hunt you down."

She was thinking about her dad now, whom, Luna knew, had received similar threats.

Blaise smirked.

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't interest me," he answered. "Going to bed at night knowing that I've done something worthwhile..."

"I didn't think there were any Slytherins who thought like that," Luna said finally.

"Yes, most of you don't," Blaise said bitterly, referring to students from different houses. "But there's a world of difference between being a Slytherin and being a Death Eater. I look at the Carrows and I know that's not what I want to be."

Again, there was a pause. Then, Luna leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"I think you needed it," she answered simply.

"I think you're Magic," Blaise said before he could stop himself

He was awestruck. He was all aquiver now, but he doubted the cold or the snow had anything to do with the reason he was trembling.

He watched Luna for a moment, but when she made a move that suggested she might stand up he held her hand to keep her by his side. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. He wasn't exactly snogging her, it was more a simple press of lips, but he had his eyes closed, and it lasted for several seconds. Even after it was over it he kept his face close to hers, the tip of his nose brushing against her cheek, and the girl never pushed him away.

That closeness lasted for several moments, and it wasn't until there was some distance between them again that Luna finally spoke.

"Your lips are cold," she said simply, looking at the scarf wrapped around his hand and touching her mouth softly. She removed her own scarf, blue and bronze, and wrapped it around Blaise's neck to keep him warm.

"We should get back to the castle," she said, standing up and holding his uninjured hand, waiting for him to stand up and walk with her.

As he walked back, squeezing her hand between his fingers, Blaise still couldn't say a word.

Author's Note: My thanks to DolbyDigital for Beta Reading this for me. That simple line "I ship it now" at the bottom of the DocX meant a lot :) Cheers

I wrote this for:

1) Ultimate Battle Challenge: Matching Accessory Set

2) The Pinterest Picture Prompt Challenge: The Lover (Item prompt 13, phrase 3, word 18)

3) The Getting Around Challenge! (No Deadline! Always Open!): Blaise

4) Greek Mythology Mega Challenge: Thea: Write about a beautiful and very good character. Alt; write about someone noticing someone else's beauty.

5) Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry Competition! (Astronomy, year one: Poem - Phenomenal Woman - Maya Angelou / Opening Line· The park was silent and covered in white as the snow slowly fell on him. / Genre: Romance / Mood: Intimate / Emotion: Sad / Action: Kiss / Prank (Item has to be used in prank):Bubble machine/ Plant: Mandrake Root / Item: Knife / Quote: "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. . . Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful. . . that's what matters to me." – Steve Jobs)