This is my response to whispered touches' "Live, Love, Laugh" challenge.

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"The love we give away is the only love we keep."

-Elbert Hubbard

It went against everything Blaise had been taught – his interest in Luna Lovegood – but the world had been turned upside down and inside out. Good started to look an awful lot like bad, until he could no longer distinguish between the two. Some of his fellow Slytherins had the same difficulty. Draco Malfoy grew thinner as the war drew closer, the dark circles under his eyes spreading. Pansy burst into increasingly frequent bursts of hysteria. Others did not share their uncertainty – Crabbe possessed a flair for torture, his small eyes lighting up as his victims writhed in pain. There had never been a time in his life that he had wished for anything other than the solitary existence that belonged to him. Until death and darkness had spread through his home, through his school, through his country, like two pestilences.

There was only one thing that didn't change – at least, not outwardly: Luna. Her eyes retained their innocence, no matter how tired they became. She still skipped through the corridors from time to time, her hair swinging lightly from side to side as though blown by a breeze Blaise could not feel. Luna even managed to smile, on occasion. He didn't understand why, but it didn't matter.

What he liked most about her was the way her expression didn't change when she looked at him. Her nose didn't crinkle in disgust, and her bright blue eyes didn't narrow. It was as though Blaise was no worse than anything else in the school. He liked that feeling. It was like having the sun on his face after days of rain.

And then she disappeared.

It was as though she had been recalled to her own fey world by other mysterious, unknowable people. Only, Blaise knew that she hadn't. Luna had been as good as locked away in purgatory, if not hell.

He couldn't stand to think of her suffering, so he tried to put Luna out of his mind. Every so often, when he least expected it, Blaise would think of her. It was a vulnerability he did his best to disguise – Luna didn't belong in his mind or in his life. Blaise kept his head down and tried not to look at anything around him unless it could be helped.

He didn't know if he would survive the war.

He didn't know if he wanted to.

Quite by chance, Blaise discovered that she was free. It had been a struggle trying to maintain his cool facade at the table. It had seemed like all eyes were on him, like he was in a pit of snakes ready to bite him. He had downed his coffee and stalked from the hall, out into the grounds. Luna would have appreciated how quiet it was, and how beautiful – she was whimsical that way – but Blaise only felt alone.

He continued to feel alone, even after the war reached its climax. Blaise saw her several times at those too bright, too happy parties, her head tilted to the side as though she was lost in her own thoughts. He wondered what it would be like to talk to Luna, and what he would say. Her eyes were sunken and she was thinner than he had imagined, but other than that she looked as Blaise remembered.

And it always would be memory – he couldn't bring himself to talk to Luna and sully her life.

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