Chapter Ten: The Serpent Under't
I've seen your downfall
– "Killer in the Streets," The Raveonettes
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Luna spent the rest of the day in a kind of nervous trance, always half-expecting Riddle to pop out from some classroom doorway or behind a corner and blast her with the full force of his perfect, repulsive smile before mercilessly interrogating her about her resistance to the Imperius Curse. He never did, but she caught him glancing at her in the Great Hall during lunch, and left after her third bite of French onion soup.
She didn't know why she felt so compelled to avoid him; after all, he was the very reason she'd decided to travel back in time, leave her friends, her teachers, everything familiar. But she just knew that she wasn't ready to talk to him, at least not without the involvement of a well-timed hex or two. The wounds his future self had indirectly inflicted on her and her friends — physical or not — were still too fresh, and without Ron there to ground her she felt adrift and unsteady. So instead of spending her free period studying in the Slytherin common room (where he was almost certain to be, given that he also had a free period that hour and apparently didn't like to wander very far from the dungeons in his spare time) she went to see Professor Merrythought about the incident in class that morning.
As it happened, this meeting consisted almost entirely of a series of earnest questions posed by Merrythought and a corresponding series of answering no's. Luna learned nothing about her abilities, only that they were so uncommon as to be nearly unheard of, and after an unfruitful conversation finally agreed to participate in further study of the phenomenon at some unspecified point in the future. She left Professor Merrythought's office feeling somehow deflated and with a slightly less enthusiastic high opinion of her teacher, although she still looked forward to being able to practise her duelling over the course of the term (and perhaps finally hit Riddle with that perfect hex so she could stop daydreaming about it).
The next period of the day was Care of Magical Creatures at two o'clock, Luna's second-to-last before ending with Divination, and she decided to go down to the forest early so as to safely avoid any contact with Riddle. She made her way down to the bloated edge of the Forbidden Forest in a discomfited mood, unsure whether she had high hopes for the class or not; she had been no great admirer of Professor Hagrid's teaching style, but then again there was nothing to ensure that Professor Kettleburn would be in any way superior. She skipped lightly down the hill nonetheless, doing her best to stay optimistic even as the bezoar in her shoe dug into the side of her heel.
When she reached the edge of the forest, there was a gaggle of students already standing around waiting for Kettleburn to arrive. "You're limping," observed one of them in a cool, concerned alto. Luna looked for the source and her eyes met a pair of bright willow-brown ones belonging to a female student. The girl had a face which was more intriguing than beautiful, her severe features contrasting interestingly with the gentle look in her eyes; she was thin with frizzy hair and strong eyebrows, and judging by her uniform was evidently a Gryffindor. She looked vaguely familiar (as did her aura, a peaceful and muted sea green), but Luna couldn't quite place her in the sea of students she'd seen or been introduced to over the past day.
Luna liked the other girl instantly, and smiled happily back at her. "Yes, I am," she replied. "It's nothing to worry about, though. Thank you."
"Certainly," replied the Gryffindor, then squinted at her for a moment, frowning. "Wait — are you Lovegood? The transfer?"
Luna nodded and supplemented the affirmation with an additional "Yes."
Suddenly the girl smiled, and her face lit up beautifully, so like a star that Luna's own smile grew brighter in response. "It's very nice to meet you," the girl said graciously. "Luna, was it? I'm Euphemia Crinsey-Abbott."
Luna's mind ground briefly to a halt. Where had she heard that name before?
"You might have seen me at the Sorting Feast — Dippet always makes the prefects stand up and be recognised," Euphemia went on, rolling her pale eyes slightly before meeting Luna's again with a grin.
Luna blinked abruptly. "Oh! Yes, I did see you. You're a prefect." She felt mildly silly at the obvious redundancy of restating this fact, but the words kept blithely falling out against her will. "Along with Everett Weasley."
Euphemia nodded. "Yes. Do you know him?"
The lie floated filmily to the surface of Luna's mind and slipped out of her mouth almost before she realised what was happening. "Only by word of mouth. My family has some ties to the Weasleys. I've never met him, but supposedly his great-grandfather knew my grandmother once upon a time."
Euphemia's eyes glazed over slightly, which Luna saw with faint disappointment rather than the proper satisfaction at having pulled off the lie. She didn't like how much of a Slytherin she was becoming. Abruptly she was reminded of a late-night conversation with Hermione and Neville, during one of their breaks from working, when Hermione had elaborated to her the true nature of Harry's fantastically useful Potions book and then gone on tangentially to mention a Muggle publication of the 16th century by a man named Machiavelli. The book had supposedly advocated a ruthless manipulation of others and deceit as a way of life. Had the man been a wizard, no doubt he would have got on rather well with Slytherin and his ilk. At the time, the idea of such a lifestyle had made Luna profoundly uncomfortable; now, the fact that it no longer did to nearly the same degree made her feel even more deeply disturbed. She had come here to make Riddle a better person, not make herself worse.
All these thoughts passed in a moment or two of silence, and when Luna blinked again Euphemia was looking at her curiously. "Are sure you're all right?" the brown-haired girl inquired, all traces of the smile gone.
Luna shook her head to clear it and then said, "Oh, yes. I tend to get lost in my thoughts sometimes."
Euphemia looked amused. "I completely understand. Ev's the same way. Fleamont and I — that's a friend of ours — always make fun of him for it. Not that it's really all that odd," she added hastily, looking as though she'd just realised Luna might take offence at this. Luna, however, smiled at her to indicate otherwise.
"I don't think it's making fun if you're all really friends, and everybody understands. It's just a joke that everyone can laugh at. That's a nice thing."
Euphemia blinked and then smiled again, more slowly this time, so that watching her face was like watching the sun come out from behind clouds. Her aura glittered magnificently for a moment and reminded Luna of the ocean at sunset, of Bill and Fleur Weasley's little cottage by the sea. Of Harry and war-time and burying Dobby the house-elf in the sandy earth. She felt her own smile slip, and Euphemia's face swam in front of her as the happy expression fell again into a look of concern.
Just as Euphemia opened her mouth to ask again whether Luna was all right, a deep, slightly nasal voice interrupted. "Hello, students!"
Both of them turned; there stood a burly, barrel-chested man with red cheeks and iron-grey hair reaching to his shoulders, whom Luna presumed to be the awaited Professor Kettleburn. A scattered chorus of afternoon, professor and hello and one or two muttered finally!s rose up in answer.
"Do any of you have an idea of what I have planned for you?" Professor Kettleburn asked, rubbing his palms together excitedly. He strode forward into the centre of the circle of students; as he walked, Luna caught a glimpse of a wooden ankle and a stiff gait that implied the presence of an artificial, possibly enchanted limb. Without waiting for a response, Kettleburn burst out, "Mooncalves! Mooncalves, mooncalves! Some of the most glorious creatures ever to walk the earth! Certainly none of you have studied them before?" He looked around eagerly, but as before went on too quickly to allow for any response. "Of course not, of course not! They really are lovely creatures. Muggles think they're space aliens, you know! They love dancing in the moonlight and their manure is simply glorious for plants. Have any of you heard of these creatures even a little? Perhaps read of them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! Written by the wonderful, wonderful Newt Scamander?" His face was so endearing and almost puppyish, and contrasted so wonderfully with his low and booming voice that sounded as if it belonged at funerals reciting eulogies, that Luna found it difficult to be irritated with his over-eager manner and obviously rather unrefined teaching skills. Instead, she merely exchanged a grinning glance with Euphemia Crinsey-Abbott and shifted her weight into a comfortable standing position as Kettleburn launched into a lengthy and ardent lecture on the life and times of the eminent Newt Scamander before stumbling back onto the topic of Mooncalves in the last five minutes of class.
As Luna had to hurry to the North Tower for her final class of the day, she made her way briskly off to the castle once Kettleburn had dismissed them. Euphemia, running to catch up, accompanied her to the front doors.
"What classes have you got this term?" Euphemia inquired eagerly. "Any others with Gryffindor? I'd love for you to meet my friends. Perhaps we could all study together sometime. I just know we'd all get on perfectly."
Her friendly, reserved enthusiasm was infectious, and Luna told her quickly and with a half-smile that she was also taking Charms, which was a Gryffindor-Slytherin class. Euphemia responded excitedly that both Everett and Fleamont were taking Charms as well, and that she would look forward to seeing Luna again at ten o'clock Monday morning — "And don't be late! Professor Mulciber hates tardiness." Luna mentally remarked upon the name and the oddity of its association with a Charms class, but did not comment on this to Euphemia. The two of them said goodbye at the doors, Euphemia heading in the direction of the Gryffindor common room and Luna making her way to Divination class.
Immediately upon entering the classroom at the top of the tower, Luna felt the hairs on the back of her neck come to attention, and knew instantly that he had beat her to the classroom. Abruptly she realised why it was so easy to tell when he was around: he had no aura. The uncomfortable blank space where it should have been stood out like a hole in the air, and seemed to suck warmth and light out of the whole room; she could sense it without even looking, almost ostentatious in its conspicuous absence. When she concentrated, a feeling of prickling curiosity came over her; it seemed perhaps as if he really did have an aura and was somehow… hiding it from her, with that kind of childish furtiveness to which he had apparently always been prone. She doubted he was doing it consciously, but it certainly went along with what she knew of his personality.
It annoyed her.
Few things managed to get past her impenetrable veneer of dreamy obliviousness and truly irritate Luna, but it seemed that Tom Riddle possessed many rare powers unknown to the majority of wizardkind, this ostensibly being one of them.
She shook off the feeling, the hot, prickling emotion needling at her chest and throat and pushing down on her eyebrows, and took a deep, cleansing breath before looking around the room.
Half Slytherin, half Ravenclaw. A respectable blend of each in the middle, but the two houses were evidently still not comfortable enough with each other to mix evenly throughout the room. Luna spotted a few familiar faces from Slytherin (she refused to think of it as her own house, not with the Ravenclaws right there within spitting distance), but nobody she knew well. Riddle, to her relief, did not look up at her entrance — though something told her he had noticed — and remained deeply in conversation with two other Slytherin students. She recognised Orion Black and another boy whom Cecily had pointed out to her as Evan Rosier, one of Riddle's gang who had once gone around with Carlotta for a week and a half on a dare before dropping her like a sack of bat spleens. Luna let her eyes slide over the three of them as if they weren't there, and briefly scanned the room again, looking for a place to sit. There was nobody among the Slytherins that she'd feel comfortable practising Divination in front of. She always had the option of hiding her gift and faking a firmly closed inner eye, of course, but after the incident in Defence Against the Dark Arts that morning she felt such obfuscation to be practically redundant. Due in part to bad luck and in part to her own thoughtlessness, she'd managed to give herself away quite effectively. If Riddle hadn't already known she was somebody to look out for, then he certainly did now.
Perhaps if she could find a friendly face among the Ravenclaws, somebody who wouldn't run straight to Riddle with whatever secrets Luna happened to reveal in the course of her study, she wouldn't need to waste time failing the class unnecessarily. She wouldn't have to hide her affinity for the Sight, but neither would she be handing the fruits of her labours over to Riddle on a silver platter.
As she turned toward the other side of the room, a flash of light caught her eye the likes of which she'd never quite seen before. A dark, dazzling blue-violet aura with a beautiful depth of colour was flickering anxiously around the form of a little Ravenclaw girl with a heap of wild red hair, who was sitting hunched over in the corner by herself. Directing her gaze steadily forward so as to avoid glancing inadvertently at her adversary, Luna drifted over to her.
"May I sit here?" Luna inquired. The girl looked up, brown eyes wide, and nodded quickly.
"What's your name?" asked the Ravenclaw. Her voice was soft, high, and musical, but of a slightly richer timbre than Luna's own. Then her eyes went wide again. "Oh, no, I know! You're Luna Lovegood, aren't you? The Slytherin transfer?"
Luna smiled in affirmation.
"My name is Perpetua Fancourt. It's nice to meet you." The other girl's mouth curved into a dimpled grin, and her brown eyes grew bright. "Nobody… um, people from my own house don't really sit with me in class. You might have heard… So I-I mean, I know you probably didn't choose me to sit with just to be kind. But thanks, anyway."
Luna twined her fingers together. "I needed somebody to sit with too. Thank you for being lovely and nice." Then she was silent a moment. "If you don't want to talk about it that's perfectly all right, but why did you say that none of the other Ravenclaws will sit with you?"
Perpetua flushed slightly. "Oh… it's nothing, really. I do have friends in Ravenclaw. But, well, I'm a — a bastard. Some witches and wizards still have a rather hard time with that idea. Something we've picked up from the Muggles, I suppose… I must say I don't really understand it — if the biggest concern is producing lots of magical children, why everybody needs to be married I haven't a clue…" Her voice had grown hushed and taken on a slightly disheartened tinge, as it seemed this was an issue which had troubled her for a long while. "But anyway — my friends won't always sit with me outside of the Ravenclaw common room. It sort of comes and goes… sometimes they forget or decide they don't care. And they always talk to me when we're all together in the Tower. But it's just nice… to be able to sit with somebody." She suddenly looked alarmed, as if worried Luna would suddenly get up and leave upon hearing all this, and ducked her head slightly. Luna's smile quirked.
"I understand," she said softly. Perpetua looked up, her face hopeful again. Luna paused, then said, "Let's be friends. I'll sit with you." The conversation rolled to a comfortable halt as the two of them sat there smiling at each other. A second later a small paper plane drifted gracefully to rest on their table, and everything inside Luna's mind seemed to freeze. It had come from the Slytherin side of the classroom.
Perpetua looked at her inquiringly, and when Luna failed to respond she reached for the plane. Luna reached out and caught the other girl's wrist. "Sorry," she said, withdrawing her hand quickly and picking up the plane. Her own voice sounded hollow to her ears. "I think it's for me." Taking deep breaths, she unfolded the plane.
It was an elegantly scripted note, brief and to the point.
You're sitting with a half-blood bastard, Lovegood. Just thought you ought to know. Rosier.
Luna carefully refolded the plane, replaced it on the table, contemplated briefly, and then pointed her wand at it and clearly pronounced, "Reducto." Immediately, the plane disintegrated, leaving a small scorch mark on the expensive-looking wood. Luna scratched at it briefly with a fingernail and then turned her head so that Riddle and his two cronies were in her peripheral vision.
Black was laughing quietly; Rosier looked about half-annoyed and half-impressed despite himself. Riddle's face was turned away so that she couldn't see his expression; his posture appeared relaxed, but his hands, lying clenched and white-knuckled under the table, suggested some less controlled reaction.
Just as Luna turned back to Perpetua, who had a questioning look in her eyes, the loud sound of heeled shoes on wood filled the classroom. A piece of chalk rose from the rim of the blackboard on the wall and hastily spelled out, in a jagged and messy script, PROF. SCYLLA SHEARWATER. After this it paused for a moment in midair and added, almost as an afterthought, a little face with a smile so wide it looked more like a cartoonish rictus.
Having sufficiently introduced herself, Professor Shearwater strode to the front of the room and turned gracefully to face all of them. She was an extremely tall and thin woman, whose stature reminded Luna faintly of an uncloaked Dementor. Although this made the professor more eerie-looking than menacing per se, her long pin-straight red hair which hung lankly about her shoulders and her hollow-cheeked, wide-eyed visage did nothing to alleviate the effect. Luna recognised in her the haunted nature of a woman who had looked into the future, had not been driven mad by it, and yet had no way of coping with her knowledge. Luna had dealt with the few smatterings of prophecies she'd been able to glean by putting them away from her mind and examining them in pieces; Professor Trelawney, who'd had the strongest gift for prophecy of anybody Luna had ever met, simply forgot them all the instant after she spoke them. From looking at Professor Shearwater, it would seem that she did neither. Luna immediately felt sympathetic, and did her best to pay attention when Professor Shearwater opened her mouth and began to speak, a brittle smile on her wide lips.
"Good afternoon, class. I am Professor Shearwater. I trust you all know why we are here." The smile remained fixed on the professor's face, but her eyes were darting nervously about the room. "Foreknowledge of the future is not a power to be taken lightly, nor is it one possessed by just any witch or wizard. Those of you who succeed in this class will learn to wield this power responsibly and with wisdom. Those of you who do not will go on to live perfectly wonderful lives without it." In the blink of an eye, the smile grew genuine. "By no means is Divination a tool that any of you will need. Think of it more as an exciting new frontier. Divination is best done when its practitioner seeks knowledge for the sake of knowledge; any practical uses of prophecy, or even the smallest glimpses of the future, are best saved for when that future arrives. Prophecy does not lend itself to paranoia, nor to idle curiosity."
Luna stole a glance at Riddle; he was facing Shearwater so that she could see his expression. The alabaster jaw pulsed as he clenched his teeth, and his dark eyes were glinting with annoyance. She hid a smile. Evidently he must be aware of his failings to some extent, if he was so sensitive to an indirect comment that was even faintly critical.
"I mention this to all of you," Professor Shearwater went on softly, "because the Advanced Divination class tends to fill up much more rapidly during times when the world seems to be in turmoil. Many of us pretend to be unaffected by Muggle conflict and strife, but the truth is that we are not. Their population is far too large, and ours far too small, for us to remain entirely isolated from any problem they face — nor should we be, in my opinion. But I digress." She paused, her stillness for a moment almost statuesque. "I simply wish you all to know that divining the future is no antidote to fear. In fact, at times it may serve to amplify what worries you already possess, consciously or subconsciously." Her eyes blazed solemnly as she looked at all of them. "Peace, serenity, hope for the future, these things cannot be obtained through the acquisition of knowledge. They must come from within, from the deepest centre of the soul. If you have entered into this class with the belief that learning further practice of Divination will comfort you, will solve your problems and alleviate your worries… you are sadly mistaken."
Luna felt a smile creeping over her face. Finally, a Divination professor who really knew what to say, who could put her own half-formed ideas about teaching foresight into words. She looked at Riddle again, trying to gauge his reaction; he was wooden-faced, his nostrils flaring, and he was clearly struggling to avoid scowling at a professor in the middle of class. Luna was suddenly struck by a mental image of him as a professor at Hogwarts himself — a job, according to his history, he evidently wanted — making the same strained face as he suffered through a class of rowdy first-years completely uninterested in learning Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was a ridiculous concept; more probably, he would be able to charm them all with ease, and could mesmerise even the most disaffected eleven-year-old into complete adoration of whatever subject he chose. But the image persisted, and just as Riddle's face began to fall back into relaxed passivity, Luna was unable to suppress a giggle.
Immediately his eyes flicked to hers, and the laugh died on her lips. The look on his face was one of such hatred and blatant murderous intent that she felt a shudder pass through her, and the old terror of the man who had been Voldemort was back in a heartbeat. She had heard of his famous temper, had witnessed it in front of her just seconds ago, but having it directed at her was an entirely different matter. Yet the rage in his eyes was gone so quickly that as before, she almost might have felt she'd made it up. As Luna stared back at him, paralysed like a rabbit, he seemed to make an effort at softening his face, and a moment later his mouth curved again into that beautiful smile, the eyes gleaming with a hint of conspiratorial humour. The expression looked so natural on him, so inviting and friendly, that it was impossible to fail to see how anybody could be taken in by it; but it made Luna feel infinitely worse. An instant later, he turned back to the front of the classroom, seeming to refocus on Professor Shearwater.
This event, taking place in the space of no more than a few seconds, had shown Luna two things. First, one thing that she had already known: his anger was volatile, operated at extremes, was indiscriminate in terms of its targets, and probably was constantly on the edge of becoming violent. Second, another thing which served to confirm a fear that had been creeping into her heart like a blight: he had not been content simply to strike terror into her heart and leave her with the silent and helpless awareness that Tom Riddle was no one to be trifled with. This he might have done with any other student; none of them would have been bold or influential enough to bring any sort of general suspicion against him, not with the level of power he held in the school. But instead, he had paused, restrained his anger, and made an effort to charm her, to ameliorate her obvious dismay — her, personally. She could not pretend to herself, as she had tried the entire day to do, that she had imagined his awareness of her or overestimated his interest in her abilities; he certainly knew who she was, and for whatever reason, frightening her into compliance was not a part of his current plans.
Luna knew a part of her should be pleased at this development. After all, as she had repeated to herself many times previously, she was here solely to place herself within Riddle's life and prevent him from becoming the person that he would otherwise inevitably become. But it was impossible to deny that even now, in 1943, when he was only sixteen, Tom Riddle was someone to fear. Luna had never been a timid or fearful person, but she was also not stupid, and she knew a threat when she saw one.
She had heard, in the Muggle whisperings of Ottery St. Catchpole near her home, of children who liked to catch rats and cut off their heads. They did it, muttered the Muggles under the awnings of their little shops and out of their pristine windows, not because they knew it was wrong and wished to rebel, but simply because they didn't understand. They did it for sport: pain and suffering, to them, was only another game they could play at and win. When she had seen the look in Tom's eyes, she knew that if he could have done it and got away scot free with all of his plans still in motion — regardless of what use she might have served to him — he would have killed her right then, on the spot, in cold blood. She could have become his first Horcrux, as far as she knew. For a half-laugh. For a silly fantasy.
She didn't know if he had cut rats' heads off as a boy. She wasn't sure it mattered. He was dangerous, not just in the abstract, in his far-distant future, but now, to her and to the people she had already begun to care about. To Euphemia, and Perpetua, Professor Shearwater and Professor Merrythought, overexcitable Professor Kettleburn, absentminded and warm Professor Dippet. To Fleamont and Everett, whom she had not yet even had the chance to meet. Even Professor Dumbledore.
Luna blinked rapidly as she looked back toward the front of the classroom. She would do it. Not later, not two weeks from today or a month from today, but now. And she might do it out of pity for the soul of Tom Marvolo Riddle, but she also did it for the souls he would one day grow up to rip from their bodies so that he could live another ten or fifty or hundred years, for the defenceless innocents and incompetent Death Eaters alike that he would slaughter on a whim. She could not allow him to become that person, both for his own sake and for theirs. If so much suffering could be prevented, and if she could be the one to do it, she could not falter, could not second-guess. Would not be afraid.
As Professor Shearwater talked and wrote on the blackboard about the five-possibly-six variable principles of prophetic incursion, Luna felt her fear detach from her body and float away.