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Moonlight streamed in the damp prison cell through a tiny window high up on the wall.
It had been light when Dean had last opened his eyes. Early dawn, when their camp by the water was raided -
Ted Tonks had broken his leg on the river bank and was still in a splint. He sacrificed himself so they had a chance to run.
That was the last thing he could remember.
"Thank goodness you're awake," said a familiar melodic voice.
Luna Lovegood leaned over him; blonde hair turned white in the light. Her skin had an almost ethereal glow, and her touch was so gentle.
She was like an angel, coming down to guide him through the darkest part of the night. It nearly stole the breath from his lips before the sharp inhale reminded him he was very much alive and injured.
"Where are we?" Dean managed to get out, though his throat felt as though he had swallowed glass.
"Under Malfoy Manor. I think it used to be a cellar, but now it's a prison." Her tone turned mournful, and the flaws on her face became more visible. Bruises and deep circles under her eyes and sharp cheekbones from not getting enough to eat.
"How long have you been here?"
"Long enough." Her features fell completely. "Let's get you sitting up so you can drink some water."
From that night on, Luna tended to his injuries, being a bright beam of hope in the worst place Dean could have ever imagined.
At some points, he wished he wouldn't have accepted his letter to Hogwarts. That he should have turned the whole wizarding world away and just lived on with weird little outbursts of magic.
At some points, he wished he'd never been born at all.
But then everything changed again. Finally, for the better.
And he found himself safe at a little seaside cottage with Luna. He would sneak into her camp bed under cover of darkness just to be as close to her as he once was. She would whisper to him all the things she kept inside, hidden from the others, good and bad.
On their last night together, Luna kissed him and whispered. “One day, when all this is behind us, let's get a cottage by the sea and be just liked this.”
___
The end of the war didn’t happen as fast as it did in the movies, Dean had noted. Sure, the bad guy was dead, but they never talked about the confusion that followed after. Who held the moral high ground when everything had been levelled?
The movies never showed how to heal an entire generation. The daily fistfights and duels breaking out among students over seemingly nothing. Watching students leave escorted by Aurors or just flee the country entirely. No one ever talked about how like physical wounds, it looks worse before it gets better.
Dean and Luna returned to school, to the respective houses they had once belonged to. But when Luna appeared in the Gryffindor boy's dorm every night to simply sleep by his side, no one said anything.
But in their own way, in their own time, they healed, scars and all.
It was their last day at the castle when Luna came to his bed. She brought a letter that she had received shortly before dinner.
Dean could tell right away that something was terribly wrong. Her ever-ethereal light was dimmed, and her eyes ringed in red.
"My father passed peacefully. In his sleep. He was never in great health, and the war took its toll." She sniffed and climbed in beside him. “But even knowing all that, I don’t think anything has ever hurt as much as this.”
He held her close, stroking the top of her head, saying nothing but witnessing her grief. Just when it had felt as if the war couldn't take anymore, it proved them wrong.
Dean went with her to her home in Ottery St. Catchpole. He recruited Harry, Seamus, Neville and a few others to help make repairs to the house and ready it for them to live there when Luna surprised him once again.
"I think I found it, but I need your opinion first."
As soon as they landed from the apparition, he knew where they were. The sounds of crashing waves and the smell of salt on the air-
A tiny cottage, wild with a number of magical plants growing all over the garden, but in the sandy valley below them was a muggle play park and neighbourhood.
"To make it easy for your mum and sisters to visit," Luna explained. "Right?"
He kissed her with everything he had. To try and explain to her without words how much he loved it and how much he loved her.
And for all things dark times, this world would throw at them, they would face together from the cottage by the sea.