Chapter Eight: Three of Five

Feel no glory, feel no pain

– "Make It Holy," The Staves

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"I trust you're making our newcomer feel at home, Cecily?" came a light, pleasant tenor from behind them.

Both girls turned around to face the intruder, none other than Riddle himself. He was smiling charmingly, but that ever-present coldness in his eyes chilled Luna to the core. She could not bring herself to summon an answering smile, and merely stared at him, wondering if the snake was somewhere inside him somehow. Maybe the pale, warped serpent's face was his real one, and was hiding underneath the beautiful mask even now, waiting to be revealed. Maybe he had really been Voldemort ever since he was a child, and Tom Riddle had been the falsehood.

Maybe doing this, coming here, had been a mistake. She should have stayed behind in the future and done all she could to help fight, instead of wasting time and resources on a silly pipe dream of saving a killer's soul…

No. She thought of Harry. Harry would believe in Riddle's ability to be a real person, would believe in her ability to help him. Harry believed in everybody.

She realised vaguely that somebody was speaking, and with some effort turned her attention back towards the conversation.

"— parents were Slytherins," Cecily was saying. "Right?" She looked at Luna expectantly.

"Hmm? Oh — yes," said Luna belatedly, hoping she had understood correctly the direction the conversation had gone.

"You are pure-blood, then?" asked Riddle casually, in a tone of polite interest.

Luna's stomach rolled, but she forced herself to answer, "Yes." It wasn't a lie, but it was something she hated to acknowledge about herself; her parents had never taken pride in their nearly-spotless magical bloodlines, and the Lovegood family had no affiliation with Slytherin House whatsoever. Luna had never been raised to see it as something important, and as a matter of fact had developed something of an unconditional fondness for Muggle-borns when she had finally succeeded in befriending the indisputably brilliant and fiercely loyal Hermione.

Riddle was looking at her rather oddly. "Are you quite all right?" he said in a tone of what sounded to her like false concern, the perfect lips turning downward.

Unable to stop herself, Luna glared at him, then forced her eyes away and softened her expression. "I'm fine, thank you," she said after a moment, her voice even. "Just tired. I'm sure you must be as well. It's rather a long train ride, after all." She found the resolve to look at him again and schooled her expression into its usual wide-eyed blankness.

Riddle, however, was not fooled, and she saw his eyes flash with recognition of her lie, followed by mild amusement, and finally a look of dispassionate contempt — this last being so brief that if she hadn't known better, she might have thought she'd imagined it. A moment later, his face bore a sympathetic cast that reminded her rather horribly of Bellatrix Lestrange play-acting at being compassionate.

"If you find yourself needing to retire early," he said commiseratively, "I'm sure Miss Harlowe would be happy to show you to the girls' dormitory."

"Of course," Cecily put in agreeably with a glance at Luna.

Luna took a breath and steeled herself. "Was there a reason you came over to talk to us, Mister…?"

Now that she was paying attention, it was almost easy to catch the expression of irritation that flew across his features like an owl over the moon, before they settled into the former look of easy politeness.

"Riddle," he said amicably, "Tom Riddle. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lovegood." He inclined his head slightly, and Luna wondered with some distaste if he was going to try to kiss her hand or whatever it was people did in the forties, but he made no move to do so, and after a moment she relaxed.

"Luna, please," drifted out of her mouth on instinct before she realised what she was saying. She wasn't sure which was worse — having the future Dark Lord address her by her first name, or the same surname which had belonged to her father, whom he'd killed… would kill.

Something at the end of the table caught Riddle's attention, and he turned back to Luna and Cecily with a slight frown. "I'm very sorry," he said a little distractedly, "but it seems I have some compatriots on the other end of the table who have been missing my presence. I merely wanted to greet Miss Lovegood — Luna," he amended with a disarming smile, and she suppressed a shudder, instantly regretting her request of a few moments ago, "and wish you both a good evening. Until later, Cecily, Luna." He nodded to the two of them and strode off to rejoin his cronies at the front of the Great Hall.

Merlin, I hope he doesn't keep calling me that. Luna's lips twisted in distaste. There was something about the way he said her name that made it sound disgusting to her, despite his undeniably nice voice. Somehow she felt that being addressed as "Lovegood" would make her feel less violated. Less as if by uttering her name, he had somehow gained a kind of power over her. She hadn't expected simply hearing her own name from his lips to be this difficult. She hadn't expected any of it to be this difficult. Just being within five feet of him made her feel cold, drained and weary, as if a heavy weight had been placed on her shoulders.

Somehow, Luna knew she would manage. She would do it — she would make him a person.

And then, afterward, she would get as far away from him as possible, and let him live out his human life in peace, without her in it. There was only so much a girl could manage in one lifetime, after all. Once it was over, she would have earned her own sweet solitude a hundred times over.

In the hazy background of her perception, she noted Cecily questioning her. "What?" Luna inquired distantly.

"I said, why did you lie?" Cecily said, sounding impatient. "Not as though I have some sort of moral quandary with them in general, I'm a Slytherin — but most people do have some sort of reason behind lying to a boy they claim they've just met for the first time?" This last assertion had the inflection of a question.

"I wasn't lying," said Luna blandly. "I really am tired."

Cecily's eyes were narrowed. "You weren't on the train here today. You've been here at least a day already. I saw you come into the castle, you didn't have any bags or a trunk or anything with you," she pointed out, her tone mildly accusatory.

Luna paused in the venture of taking a last bite of potatoes. "It doesn't matter," she said softly. "The real reason would… cause problems for me here. I'd prefer it if you didn't mention it again."

The other girl's scowl eased slightly. Finally, she sighed. "All right. If you say so, Luna."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It had not occurred to Luna that morning, despite the obvious logic of the conclusion, that today would be the day she would have to finally move into that wretched Slytherin dormitory. She had never moved any of her things into the dormitory at all, keeping everything tucked away in Hermione's moke-skin bag, which she carried with her at all times and which was now hanging at her side under her robe. In retrospect, she reflected, it probably would have been easy to have simply chosen a bed before the other students arrived and moved some of her things there so as to stake her claim, but the idea had never occurred to her. As it was, she would simply have to take whatever was left by the time she got to the dormitory.

Luna waited until Cecily was finished eating and then the two of them walked back to the Slytherin common room, which was full of exhausted-looking first years being herded into their dormitories by the two Slytherin prefects, Selwyn and Nott, who had evidently been assigned to guide them back to the common room. The common room was just as dark and impeccably furnished as it had been earlier that day, but Luna felt as though its atmosphere was somehow faintly heavier and less welcoming than it had been before, and it was making her uneasy. Cecily was over by one of the staircases leading down into their dormitory and suddenly seemed to notice that Luna had not accompanied her, because she turned back with a nonplussed expression and gestured aggressively for the other girl to follow. Eager to escape the unpleasant ambiance, even for the equally unpleasant character of the dormitory, Luna trotted after her and the two of them descended the steps together and then went through a little hallway before reaching their assigned dormitory.

Cecily pushed the door open and went inside without hesitation, although Luna lingered for a moment before following, still reluctant to subject herself to the flood of coldness and cloying bad intent that had filled her lungs and swamped her aura her last time she'd entered the dormitory; however, the air of the room seemed to have lightened a little since then, perhaps due to Cecily's bright and steady presence. Luna took a breath and went inside.

One girl, chubby and pale with thin brown hair and nervously fidgeting hands, was already there and sitting on one of the beds. She smiled briefly at Cecily and gave Luna a curious, not-unfriendly once-over. "Hi," she said.

"Carlotta," said Cecily, sounding significantly more aloof than she had when speaking to Luna, "this is Luna Lovegood. Luna, Carlotta Bulstrode."

"Hello there," said Luna, her eyes drifting around Carlotta as she examined the girl's weak rose-coloured aura.

"So, you're a transfer student?" said Carlotta, her dark eyes moving between Cecily and Luna.

"Mm-hmm," Luna replied, admiring the flashes of silver that were flickering around Carlotta's face and hands. Cecily was to their right, hovering between two of the beds in apparent indecision. Finally she flopped down on the one in the corner, and Luna — although she would have liked Carlotta's bed, as it was closest to the large window which looked out into the shadowy depths of the lake and gave the illusion of more space — took the one next to Cecily's.

The room was silent for a few moments as Carlotta wrung her hands and Cecily gave Luna a look that read, is she weird or what? Luna looked away, remembering all too clearly what it was like to be the target of that kind of silent disdain. "It's nice to meet you, Carlotta," she said softly and a little defiantly. Cecily frowned briefly, but then shrugged and rolled over, kicking at her bedposts.

"It's nice to meet you, too," echoed Carlotta, but she was looking askance at Luna, evidently a little put off by her preoccupied and distant manner. Suddenly she looked up and smiled again. "Edith! Hello! How was your — oh — hi, Walburga," she finished, her momentarily vibrant tone shrivelling rapidly into bald-faced fear before going entirely silent. Luna turned to see who she was speaking to. Two girls were standing in the doorway.

One of them, the one Luna remembered as Edith Selwyn, was tall, willowy and sloe-eyed and bore a perfectly flat expression as she stared at the floor. The other was much smaller, with a mass of dark curls and blue eyes that looked nearly violet, and was looking at Carlotta with a positively frigid expression on her pretty face. After a moment the second girl turned to Cecily and said, "Hello, Cecily. Good holiday?" Her voice was cool, but her annoyance seemed to be directed more at Carlotta than at Cecily.

"Fine, Walburga," Cecily replied with a smile. "And you?"

"Good," Walburga clipped, then strode over to one of the empty beds and sat on it. Without saying a word, Edith drifted over to the last empty bed and seated herself as well. "My brothers and I went to France for the summer. I think there are more pure-blood witches and wizards there than there are here. Must be something in the water." Making a noise of disgust, Walburga fell backwards onto her pillow and took a breath before looking over at Luna. "You're the new girl, are you?"

"Yes," said Luna. "And you're Walburga Black?"

"The same," said Walburga sardonically. "I'm eldest of the Slytherin prefects, by the way, and just so you know, I also would have been Head Girl this year if that old fool Dippet weren't so insistent on keeping a 'balance between the houses, Miss Black.'" She imitated Dippet's weak voice mockingly, ending with an elegant snort. "He's an absolute joke."

"At least you know it wasn't you," Carlotta ventured, twisting her hair between her fingers anxiously. "I mean — if it's Dippet's fault." She quailed under Walburga's answering glare.

"Try not being so entirely useless sometime, Carlotta," the older girl snapped. "I don't need pity from you, of all people."

"Don't bite her head off, Walburga," said a low, soft alto from the corner of the room; Luna realised after a moment that it had been Edith who had spoken, at last. Her tone was as flat as her expression. "She hasn't done anything wrong." Carlotta grinned at Edith shyly, looking grateful. Edith ignored her, except to glance briefly in her direction before turning her eyes back to Walburga.

To Luna's mild surprise, Walburga subsided at this, although she still looked annoyed. "I hope the old dullard dies in his sleep," she said merely, before her eyes met Luna's again. "You don't know anything about Dippet, I suppose?"

"Not really," Luna admitted.

"He's the worst Headmaster in the history of this idiotic school."

"Don't let Riddle catch you saying that," said Carlotta suddenly, and for once Walburga's eyes were more perplexed than angry when they fell on the chubbier girl.

"Why? He thinks Dippet's ridiculous. He told me so."

"Not about Dippet. About Hogwarts being idiotic. He loves this place more than he loves his own mother, Walburga, you know that," Carlotta said promptly, her aura looking brighter than it had a minute ago. It seemed her trepidation about speaking to Walburga had faded upon Edith's intervention.

Walburga sighed and tossed an arm over her eyes. "I'll never understand why he worships this place the way he does," she mumbled.

Luna was sitting in the middle of her bed, stock still, legs crossed under her. She felt all of a sudden as if she were made of stone, and realised a moment later that Cecily had also fallen silent a while earlier.

Apparently, all of the other girls in their dormitory, with the exception of Cecily, were followers of Riddle. Even mousy little Carlotta, who looked as though she couldn't have found it in her to harm a fly. All of them would grow up to be Death Eaters, or to be the wives and sisters and aunts and mothers of Death Eaters. Three out of the five of them, more than half. Luna felt her supper sitting in her stomach like a rock. She looked at Cecily, a little desperately. Cecily looked back at her and lifted her shoulder almost imperceptibly, a tiny shrug. Her face looked resigned, and a little bored. Happens all the time, she mouthed to Luna, who lay back on her bed and sighed very quietly.

The other girls were still chattering away, having apparently forgotten the presence of Luna and Cecily; it seemed that when Walburga was in a charitable mood, she and Carlotta could get on tolerably well. Edith remained silent for the rest of the conversation, cleaning dirt out of her glossy fingernails and picking at the embroidery on her bed hangings. Luna let her thoughts drift, wavering in between memories and half-remembered dreams. Riddle's face kept popping up periodically, always with a haughty, exaggerated sneer and an icy look in his eyes, which Luna found mildly odd since she had never actually seen him make such an expression, at least thus far. But the image lingered in her mind anyway, and she couldn't help feeling that this was the face he was really making, inside, all the time, at everybody. It was an ugly face, marring the beauty of his flawless features, but the look she saw in the dream-Riddle's eyes, the same one that she had seen hiding behind his projected mask of politeness and geniality when they had spoken that evening, struck Luna as far uglier and infinitely more horrible.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Thursday, September the 2nd, 1943. 12:48 am.

I cannot sleep.

I have never been able to sleep on the first night of term at Hogwarts, not since I first came here as a mere boy of eleven.

As always, it feels good just to be back. That orphanage is nothing more than a purgatory, a waiting room until I can return to the place I really belong. Every summer spent there, since that first year, has been like an interlude — a pale and hollow hour, inconsequential in the greater scheme of my life, except for the time I spend planning my newest magical endeavours and grandest ambitions. This year, I was impatient to return here from the moment I stepped off the train at King's Cross.

Now here I am. Surrounded by my sleeping devotees and followers, my "friends" — Malfoy, Black, Lestrange, Dolohov; they are only a few of the many acolytes I have amassed here at the school. I am unquestionably the king of my little hill. I have been for some time, and I confess that obtaining the level of power and influence I now possess at this school has been laughably easy. One might think witches and wizards, being what they are, might be a little more canny and aware of my true motives than Muggles — not so. I won't complain, but I cannot deny I was mildly surprised at their astounding level of malleability and obliviousness. Disappointed, in a way.

Even from the moment I realised that I was the most powerful student at the school, however, I have never been satisfied with what I've achieved. I want more; I always have. I don't want to simply be the best student, the one all the professors look to in a crisis, the one all the students turn to either for protection or an easy excuse to be the violent, brutal creatures they truly are. I want to be the best wizard. Not king of Hogwarts, or of Slytherin, of little hills. King of the world.

I want it so badly I can almost taste it, can almost grasp the phantom powers as they spark and flicker around me in the air. The greatest of them being, of course, the one I desire most of all: power over death.

I have no illusions about my pursuit of this kind of well-kept secret; it will be no easy task. I still have very little idea of the kind of magics that exist to resist death, only that they are deeply taboo and in most circles considered to be of the darkest kind of wizardry. Frankly, this sounds to me like weakness… cowardice, an inability to take power where it is offered. I cannot help but feel disgust toward those pitiful wastes of potential who avoid speaking about such things purely because they are afraid.

I have resolved to devote all my free time this year to the study of this topic. It's not possible for me to spend as much time doing so as I would like, due to the constraints of being a student and my duties as a prefect, but I still have one more year remaining at Hogwarts and after my seventh year I intend to apply for a job teaching here. Given my stellar records, I see no reason why I should be refused; no doubt the female students will all be thrilled. I'm sure I will succeed in recruiting a great many of them to serve my own purposes.

On that topic, however… it seems Slytherin House has acquired a transfer student, who just happens to be in her sixth year. I paid little attention to her at first, assuming merely that she would quickly become acquainted with the way of things and leave me and my followers be, along with the other students I have chosen not to bring into my little circle. After catching her staring at me, however, I thought that she might require a little extra safeguard, in case she was one of that suspicious sort who — once their attention is drawn to someone or something, as it appears in this instance to have been drawn to me — becomes obsessive and begins seeing and noticing things they ought not to see or notice.

She was sitting with Harlowe (one of those left on the outside, although now that she has been appointed as a prefect I may revisit that decision) and the two of them looked to be getting on well, so I judged it might be the ideal time to make my own introductions — I imagined Harlowe was encouraging her, in that false, clumsy way of hers, to open up, and that the little thing was probably still feeling shy and vulnerable on her first day. The perfect moment to allay any fears or sinister intuitions she might be experiencing surrounding me; a smile and a friendly word or two, I thought to myself, would do the trick easily enough. It nearly always does.

This time, however, I encountered something truly fascinating. I had never seen this girl before in my life, and yet she looked at me as though she knew and understood my innermost thoughts and feelings, and found me somehow wanting. Her eyes, when they met mine, were not merely suspicious — they were knowing, accusatory even. No doubt this was due to a false impression she might have formed, a word or two from another student perhaps, in the wrong place at the wrong time (if it was Harlowe, I will have her head). But I was confident in my ability to sway her, to captivate her and draw her to me, as I have so many others.

No matter what I did or said, nothing seemed to please her. When I realised I might be digging a deeper grave for myself in her estimation, I made some excuse and left the two of them alone, and spent the next twenty minutes fuming at the other end of the table. I admit it, she wounded my pride; I fail so rarely in my attempts to charm others that any such instance is curious and extraordinary to me, especially when I am unable to understand why it has occurred.

After a little while distracting myself among the others, however, she and the incident had been put out of my mind. Perhaps I was right to do so; it's entirely possible that she is no threat to me at all, that she is simply another vain and haughty cynic who has made up her mind to be pleased with nobody and nothing, and that I ought not to trouble myself with her cavilling manner. But something about her, for whatever reason, did not strike me that way. She might be ordinary, ignorant, and out of place at a school like Hogwarts… but she appears at least passably intelligent, and a passably intelligent witch who makes up her mind to pay attention — even an ordinary and ignorant one — can be dangerous.

I don't wish to become distracted from the objectives I have set for myself in this coming year, but I shall take care to keep an eye on her doings at Hogwarts… after all, how hilariously tragic would it be if all my ambitions were to be undone by a silly little girl with a name as ridiculous as Luna Lovegood?

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the late update & thanks for being patient. Remember to leave a comment if you have any thoughts, I love to hear from you all! :) xo shai