━━━━ · 。ﾟ☆ .☽ .* ☆ﾟ. ━━━━

(n.) an unpredictable instance,
a wandering journey; a whimsical,
wild, or unusual idea, desire, or action

WHEN LOUIS WAS IN HIS THIRD YEAR, HE HAD GONE THROUGH A BIT OF A SEXUALITY CRISIS. And in his fourth year, there had been a boy he had found himself growing to like and it had left him confused with himself for the longest of time and he hadn't known what to do with himself for half of it.

Louis hadn't known what it was until he had confided in his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin.

Louis hadn't known the reason as to why he decided to go to Professor Lupin for advice but he had seemed the most empathetic one out of the bunch of professors he had been surrounded by that year. Looking back, he had made the right decision because Professor Lupin had gone on to resign that same year so Louis was grateful that he had gone to him. When he had gone to see him, Lupin sat him down and passed him a piece of chocolate before asking him what brought him here.

"I think. . ." Louis had started, trailing off because he didn't know how to word it, "I think I'm starting like someone. But. . .they're not a girl."

"They're a boy?" Lupin had guessed and Louis nodded.

"Yes, but that's where I find myself getting confused," Louis went on, "you see, I still like girls but it's just this one boy in particular I can't seem to stop thinking about, the one I can't get my mind off of. I don't know if it's some sort of infatuation I have or if I actually like him. All I know is that I just think he's cute."

Lupin had nodded, taking in this information. "Have you told them how you felt?"

Louis had looked like he was going to jump out of his chair with the way he had sat up so quickly. "Gods, no! Are you mad?"

Laughing, Lupin had calmed him down, settling him back into his seat. "So, I'll take that as a 'no'. Louis, what is it exactly that you're seeking from me?"

"I'm just trying to figure out if what I'm feeling is okay to feel or not. I wouldn't want to freak anyone out, you know?"

"All I know is that whatever you're feeling inside is completely valid. I guess you could say the same about me. I'm a bit of an outsider compared to the rest of the professors here at school but I accept that what I am as a part of me so I'm okay and I learned to live with it. It's okay to be different, Louis. It's okay."

Louis had continued to carry Lupin's advice with him through his later years, a piece of that philosopher's knowledge that took the form of notes tucked into the pockets of his robes and little scribbles on the margins of his journals.

As for the boy in question, his name had been Arlo James Peters, AJ to a few of his friends, a Gryffindor with sandy brown hair and dimples that had made craters in his cheeks whenever he smiled. Louis had felt something beginning to flutter in his stomach whenever Arlo did smile

     He then went from not wanting to dance with anyone at the Yule Ball because the boy he liked was dancing with Harry and trying his best not to make a fool of himself—although Harry seemed to be having a good time with him—to having his first kiss with a sixth-year Slytherin in the dark corner of the library when he was in his fifth year and then being ridiculed about falling for the Slytherin and from them on being okay with being alone and keeping to himself because he never really did get what he wanted in the end, always getting hurt in the process.

He wasn't sure why, but something about this year felt different—besides the obvious darkness looming everyone's head and poisoning their lungs every time they inhaled the tiniest bit of oxygen. Something in the air around him had changed and his personal north star set out on a new path, the winds of change leading and pulling him down a different direction.

Breakfast was the same as the last.

Louis received his usual Sunday letter from his mother that consisted of updates about her life and wonderments about his days at school. He replied with the same that's wonderful, things are the same over here spiel before having his owl send it back, watching it take off in return to the owlery. In his mail pile was also an issue of the Daily Prophet and an advanced copy of The Quibbler.

"Guess what came in the mail today?" asked Louis in a singsong tone, turning to his friend as he waved around his copy.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Luna beamed, smiling from ear to ear as she saw him wiggling the magazine in front of her. "Father's going to be so excited!"

Across the table where Draco usually sat, the place was still vacant and Louis couldn't help but feel worried, not really sure why he was. There was a small twinge in his stomach, a certain twist to his gut that whispered to him that something was wrong.

Draco sat with himself in the Room of Requirement for a moment, taking in a cautious breath and giving himself the chance to consciously think about what was going on around, with, and within him. He clearly wasn't in his best state of mind to be fixing the cabinet so he sat on the floor in front of it, leaning his head back against the piece of furniture as he sorted through his labyrinth of a brain for a reason as to why he was feeling this way. He trod carefully in fear of stumbling upon an answer he wasn't prepared to find.

It surprised and scared him terribly how much he's thought about the Nox boy in the past few days. He was always there, continually occupying a space in his head like clockwork for a reason unbeknownst to him, wondering why someone like Louis—a calm ocean with the occasional breeze that would roll through, a safe haven, a lighthouse for those lost at sea—would ever want to reside there in the first place when there was nothing but a war raging on, no place of safety for him to take cover, no net to catch him if he were to ever slip through the cracks of that marble hull, falling into the chasm that was set on consuming Draco, working little by little before taking him in one fell swoop.

Draco then remembered the darkness he waded through, that cataclysmic cesspit of sludge that was up to his ankles, slowly but surely making its way up to him, determined to swallow him whole, knowing that someone like Louis wouldn't be able to stand a chance. It brought him back to that metaphorical room he found himself standing in where that darkness had eaten up any and all of the warm light that had once been there, the apricity now aphotic.

He ran a hand down his face before he let out a shaky sigh when he came to his final decision, the choice that was made to push him off the deep end into a deeper, darker void, one that fell so far down that if one were to look up, they could see even the brightest of stars in the middle of the day. It would be a decision that would come to shatter the fine marble hull that protected his shameless pride and his overgrown ego, stripping him down to nothing but such a vulnerable state of being, one that he hadn't been told about when he was brought into the world as a newborn entity.

Any information on such a topic was nowhere to be found and he was all on his own, seated in his little boat, waiting for the oncoming downpour that was his world about to be radically shifted and changed when he got up onto his feet and made his way to leave the Room of Requirement, the godly shadow that followed slowly transforming itself into the boy that carried it.

With the flickering flames dancing in front of him, Louis sat curled up in the corner of the couch in front of the fireplace in the school library, his open journal in his hands and his wire-rim glasses sliding down his nose once more. In his hand wasn't the usual, familiar quill the students had come to know but rather a fountain pen, the fancy Muggle equivalent.

It was smaller and easier to work with and carry and had been a birthday present from his mother for his twelfth birthday. He treasured it deeply as he's written what he's thought to be some of his most profound—albeit quite tragic—thoughts with it, stories and tales of finding and falling in love within the stars, a love not quite forbidden, however, a secret between the two experiencing it. A love lit by the moon, a love immaculate.

Louis stared at his work, reading back what he wrote when he felt a presence approaching him. Looking up, his eyes met the ones of someone who had half of their life drained out of him, a solemn look gracing his face.

"You said to find you when I needed to talk," Draco spoke hoarsely, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I found you."

"You found me," Louis repeated, smiling and pushing his glasses up his face as he sat up from his position on the couch. Draco stood in front of him, a little awkward and lost as though he felt he wasn't supposed to be here. Louis was moving to get off the couch when Draco stopped him, asking, "We can just talk here, can't we? No one else is here."

Louis let out a small huff of a laugh before fully standing and moving into Draco's space, looking around and examining the space before eyeing the boy in front of him, smiling softly. "This is a nice place, yeah, but I know someplace much better. It's where I do all my best thinking." He swept past Draco before looking back and asking, "Are you coming, Malfoy?"

It was the strange closeness in space between the two of them that got Draco to freeze where he was left standing, taking a moment to move when he got called. Of all the encounters they've gone through—which hadn't been many—this was the one where Draco could really see the blue in Louis's eyes with the small fraction of time they had when they both met in the middle, their eyesight lining up as though they were stars aligned.