Chapter Twelve: The Copy

Ain't no love in the jungle

– "Immortal," Elley Duhé

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Having heard at breakfast that Perpetua had fallen ill the night before, Luna skipped nine-a.m. Divination on Friday; she therefore had the entire morning, and an hour or so of the afternoon, free to do with as she pleased. She spent most of it hanging round the library hoping to a) perhaps catch Marcus Selwyn hovering in the Restricted Section again and b) avoid Riddle, who she knew had class all morning on Fridays. Selwyn did in fact appear, but didn't do anything more than a benignly ineffectual amount of studying; Luna thought it was fairly possible he might have been researching for Riddle, but he looked bored enough to have been reading through the copious appendices of Bagshot's A History of Magic, and accordingly lacked a certain amount of furtiveness of manner that she would have expected out of someone digging into the depths of forbidden magic in the middle of the library.

By 12:30, Luna had passed half her lunch hour watching Selwyn out of the corner of her eye, and was considering skipping her afternoon Transfiguration class. Professor Dumbledore, however, had deigned to cancel his classes all last week, ostensibly due to illness, making this her very first Transfiguration hour of the year; Luna at last decided, therefore, that she had better show up at least for today.

As she was heading out of the library, Luna spotted Cecily Harlowe flipping through a large tome in the Magical Theory section and looking rather perturbed. Luna trotted over, intending to say hello and maybe have a brief commiserating chat about the finer points of Bleckwyn's Theory of Aqualocative Energies, but she didn't get a chance to say anything before her friend looked up in a swish of blonde hair and preempted her.

"Oh! Luna. Hi. Do you think you could take a look at this?"

Luna leaned forward and peered at the book. A tangle of complex diagrams sprawled over the page Cecily was pointing to, demonstrating how the five greater subcategories of spells behaved in proximity to one another. "Why?" Luna wanted to know. "Are you having problems with it?"

Cecily shook her head, though seemingly not in disagreement. Her face was rueful. "I've never been good with this sort of thing. Practising magic is easy for me, but I never seem to be able to grasp the theory of it." She sighed and tapped her fingers on the spine of the book, evidently in thought. "I think what's confusing me is… here." She shifted the volume in her hands and moved to tap on the rightmost figure with a glossy fingernail. "Given the properties of transfigurative spells, and how much they mess with aqualocation and magnetism, wouldn't it make sense for a charm or hex to fail within a simultaneous proximity of five inches? I don't understand how they're supposed to still work. I mean, I know they do, but according to this, they shouldn't, right?" She looked up at Luna, brow furrowed.

Luna hummed in response, scanning the diagram. "I'm not sure… oh, wait." She pointed to a footnote. "There, look. Charms have this exceptional property — they naturally re-orient their aqualocative energies around the nearest stable body of water." She smiled at Cecily. "Unless you're farther away from water than it's strictly possible to be on Earth, all other things being equal, your charm will succeed."

Cecily grinned back and rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Thank you, Luna." She glared at the diagram. "I don't know why they insist on making us think through all these stupid hypotheticals. As if two spells have ever been cast at the exactsame time within a proximity of five inches. No witch or wizard is stupid enough to double-cast that close up. And there always has to be some time differential when two people cast spells, hasn't there? Incantations being variable in length and all?"

Luna just shrugged a shoulder in response, unsure of what to say. "Yes," she responded finally, "but that's not the point of magical theory. It's important to understand why things work, not just that they do."

Cecily squinted at her. "Are you sure you shouldn't be in Ravenclaw, Lovegood?"

Luna batted her lightly on the head with a book, laughing when Cecily yelped and ducked. "I'm late for class," she informed her friend airily and, with a wave, trotted out of the library.

Upon arriving at the Transfiguration classroom, Luna halted just outside the door. Professor Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, despite the hour having started several minutes ago. Like most of the classrooms, the room was divided into tables rather than individual desks, with two students seated at each. Every seat was filled except for one: the right-hand seat at the table on the left wall. Sitting to the left of the empty seat was a dark-haired figure, surrounded by a prickling, hollow void of energy that Luna recognised instantly.

Oh, Cecily, she thought dizzily, trying to control the wave of anger, hurt and betrayal that was rising in her throat. In truth she had no way of knowing whether her friend had conspired with Riddle, but something told her it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. If not for Cecily getting her attention and keeping her talking, she would not have been late for class, and Riddle wouldn't have had time to arrange the seating of the room how he wanted so that she would be forced to sit with him. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have been surprised that Riddle would end up trying to recruit Cecily, but that he'd evidently succeeded — and right under her nose, without her knowledge — felt like a knife in her gut nevertheless.

Luna steeled herself and took a breath, blinking back the hot tears that had begun to prick at her eyes and tightening her grasp on her book-bag. There was nothing to be done for it now; she couldn't simply turn around and leave class, not after she'd so obviously been standing in the doorway. She straightened, keeping her head high, strode over to the empty seat and seated herself quietly. As she was mentally debating whether to greet Riddle nonchalantly or do her best to ignore him, he beat her to the punch with a light tap on her hand and a ridiculously charming smile.

"Afternoon, Lovegood," he said cordially, and she tried furiously to maintain her composure as his absurd magnetism abruptly knocked the breath out of her lungs. How in Merlin's name does he do that? she lamented, fighting a wave of combined annoyance and embarrassment as the smug look in his eyes told her he knew exactly the effect he was having. Luna averted her eyes, and after a moment was able to breathe and refocus.

She paused a moment, willed herself to forget her irritation, and allowed her usual dreamy smile and vacant expression to slide onto her face. Remember why you're here, Luna. "Hello, Tom Riddle," she said. "I must say, I'm a bit surprised to see you sitting by yourself. You seem to have so many good friends."

Riddle was not flustered by her pointing out the obviousness of his ploy, and simply exhaled briefly before smiling at her again, eyes intent. "I enjoy getting to know new people," he said merely. "Sometimes my friends would rather sit with each other, anyway." This she considered to be very probably true, but whether he actually knew it to be the case was more questionable. Voldemort's understanding of his followers' feelings toward him had never been entirely clear to her; as Tom Riddle, a figure who was less obviously invested in evoking fear in others and made at least a cursory effort to be charming, his thoughts on the matter were even more obscure.

Nevertheless, Luna smiled absently in response and did not argue. "Yes, I've… I can understand that," she amended mid-thought, surprising herself with the relatively genuine and unforced nature of her response. She paused, and continued, "You're a bit different, aren't you, Tom?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him recoil briefly in surprise. After a moment he seemed to bring himself back under control, and replied, "I suppose so, yes. Although it depends on what precisely you mean by different." His tone was even.

Luna opened her mouth to answer him, but was interrupted by a large orange shape soaring into the room over her shoulder, followed by the sound of footsteps and a pale ginger head ducking under the low doorframe; Professor Dumbledore, in company of Fawkes, had at last arrived. Luna suppressed a fond, involuntary smile.

"My apologies for keeping you all waiting for so long," said the professor mildly as he strode over to his desk. "I would fill you in on the nature of my erstwhile illness, but I fear the details would cause some of you rather painful nightmares, or at the very least some unnecessary vomiting. Let's jump back into the curriculum instead, shall we? A week is quite enough respite from Transfiguration for you, I think." With a flourish of his wand, a small hand mirror appeared on the tables in front of each of them. "Let's start with something fun."

Beside her, Luna heard Riddle scoff quietly. When she glanced at him, however, his face was perfectly neutral; only the harsh, flickering light in his eyes betrayed his disdain for the man in front of him.

"Mirrors," Dumbledore went on, "can reflect not only our physical appearance, but also our perception of the world around us. Now, don't be too intimidated; this is a warm-up exercise and a way for me to see how your transfigurative abilities have withstood a summer away from school, but it isn't a test. I want you to simply transfigure the mirror in front of you into something you see reflected in it. Any object of your choice will do." He stood there smiling for a moment, and then added, "Challenge yourselves, and work together if necessary." With this, he sat and regarded them, clearly expecting that they begin working without his having to direct them to do so. If he had noticed Luna's somewhat conspicuous proximity to Riddle, he did an excellent job of pretending the contrary. The classroom filled with the sound of murmured conferences and the rustling of pages as students hunted for the appropriate half-forgotten incantations in their textbooks.

"Any ideas?" Luna asked her partner quietly. He was clearly not enamoured of Dumbledore's teaching abilities or of the task set before them, but she was nevertheless curious to see what he chose.

Riddle was silent for a moment before responding. "Well, there's the obvious answer, of course," he said finally, "but I'm more interested in what you're going to do." He turned to smile at her, and Luna did her best not to be distracted by the ridiculous beauty of the expression, almost a tangible force in the space between them.

"Obvious answer?" she prompted, blinking away the dazzling glare and focusing on what he'd just said.

He shrugged offhandedly, but his eyes never left hers. "Yes, well it's a mirror, isn't it?" He paused, and then intoned with a wave of his wand, "Fairea simulacrum."

The mirror in front of Riddle grew and morphed into the form of a human, lying supine on the desk. As Luna watched, her reflection in the warped surface flickered and solidified into an image of skin, blonde hair, and silver eyes. The figure wore her face, her clothing, a frozen wide-eyed caricature of her typical expression of mild surprise. There were flowers in its hair.

Every eye in the room was on them, and Dumbledore stood from his seat at the front, stone-faced. Riddle was ignoring him, however; Luna could see him looking at her sidelong, waiting for her reaction.

It was clear to her that this was a display of power. He was not only showing off, but making it subtly obvious — to her, to the other students, and, most alarmingly, to Dumbledore — that she was of particular interest to him. He was not looking for an awed or flattered response from her; he wanted to see that she understood his real meaning, which was that no-one was going to stop him from getting whatever it was he wanted from her. He wanted fear, resignation, submission. Had he manipulated her seat in the room so as to show her this? Had he known what Dumbledore had been planning for the lesson that day?

Luna looked at him, and then at the empty-eyed copy on the desk. He was leaning over it, his hand suspended near its pale neck. The implication was clear, but he wouldn't be so bluntly threatening as to really touch it — would he?

For some reason the thought was unbearable, and before she knew it, her hand shot out to grab his where it hovered over the not-Luna. He glanced at her, seeming pleased at the panicked look in her eyes.

"It's — " she started, and then broke off, uncertain of what to say.

Before she could respond properly, however, Dumbledore's voice boomed behind her, "Reparifarge." The copy melted and shrank back into the form of a mirror. For a moment, there was silence, and then the professor spoke again.

"You ought to know better than this, Tom," Dumbledore said quietly. "Ten points from Slytherin, and a roll of parchment on the questionable ethics of simulacra, to be turned in by the beginning of next class."

"Of course, Professor," Riddle replied smoothly, inclining his head in an elegant mockery of contrition. Dumbledore, with a convincingly disinterested glance at Luna and a raised eyebrow at their still-joined hands, returned to his desk. Luna, abruptly conscious of her hand in his, withdrew it quickly and looked at him again. Riddle stared back, half-smiling.

"The flowers," she whispered hollowly, "were a nice touch." The half-smile broadened into a brilliant icy-eyed grin.

They did not speak for the remainder of the lesson, except for Luna to recite an incantation and turn her mirror into a moth, which was summarily burned to a crisp by a lantern on the wall. She tried not to see it as an omen.

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When Luna arrived back at the Slytherin dormitory that evening during dinnertime, she was greeted by the unexpected presence of three of her dorm-mates. Walburga, Carlotta, and Edith were sitting on the floor, forming a circle around a small bottle of mulled wine and an extravagant arrangement of fine cheeses. Walburga and Edith were both perched on cushions — Luna suspected Carlotta of offering, or being forced to offer, her own; she was the only one sitting on the bare floorboards, and the bed by the lake window was suspiciously bare of pillows. Nevertheless, Carlotta was giggling rather loudly at something one of them had said, with Walburga laughing along and even Edith smiling slightly. Luna hesitated briefly at the doorway, but was noticed quickly enough; at Walburga's too-wide smile of greeting and wine-bright eyes, she approached and settled on the floor between Carlotta and Edith.

"Good evening, Lovegood," said Walburga; Luna caught a mild slur in her words, well hidden behind her coldly aristocratic manner.

"Skipping supper?" asked Luna in a blasé tone, her eyes flicking inquisitively to the wine. She glanced at Edith, who seemed the only sober one of the three; the girl inclined her head slightly in the direction of Walburga.

"I thought I should reward these two for a job well done," Walburga explained airily. "They obtained something of mine which had been temporarily appropriated by that Mudblood fool, Thornfield." Luna recognised the name of the castle's caretaker, who would one day be briefly succeeded by Apollyon Pringle, and later by the prickly Squib Argus Filch.

Mumbling quietly to her wand, Carlotta conjured a cup after a few tries and pushed it into Luna's hands with a conspiratorial smile. "We took some of his Firewhiskey, too," she stage-whispered, and tapped her heel on the floor. "I hid it under the floorboards." Luna found herself admiring the unusually happy, red-cheeked glow of Carlotta's expression. Walburga was evidently far friendlier when intoxicated than she was while sober, and Carlotta seemed to be taking full advantage of the situation to pretend that the two were, in fact, friends. Luna's heart twisted slightly at the thought, but she steadied herself; if Carlotta wanted to remain friends with a girl who abused or ignored her by turns in between brief periods of tolerance, it was no business of Luna's. This was a situation that she, too, could benefit from, she realized.

"Why just us girls, though?" Luna said, her lips parting slightly in a smile as she tapped her nose with a pale finger. "Aren't you friends with those handsome boys who hang around with Riddle? Rosier, Black, Lestrange — that lot?" At the mention of Evan Rosier's name, Carlotta stiffened unhappily, but the other two either failed to notice or pretended not to. Wishing to avoid the appearance of joining the conversation while suspiciously neglecting to join in the consumption of alcohol, Luna reached for the wine and poured herself a modest portion, resolving to keep a careful eye on how much she drank.

"Well, yes, of course," sighed Walburga, swirling the wine around in her cup and reaching for a piece of cheese. "But they are not in my good graces of late. My dear cousin Orion is surly because his best friend failed to inform him that he would not be in Defense Against the Dark Arts this term, and he has apparently elected to blame me for not filling him in sooner." This last was punctuated with an elegant snort. "The others are being ridiculously secretive these days. Honestly, don't they know we're all on the same — " She paused, evidently thinking better of finishing this thought, and delicately rephrased. "They needn't be quite so smug about it all." Privately, Luna thought it was likely rather astute of them to avoid giving Walburga any important intelligence about the doings of Riddle's inner circle, if she was this easy to get information out of.

"And it's not as though we'd invite Rosier anyway," Carlotta intoned, with a sniff that did not quite succeed in appearing dispassionate. "He's a prat. So are most of them, really." Walburga nodded sagely in agreement.

"What have the rest of them done?" Luna asked in unfeigned interest. Was there dissension in the ranks? Surely Riddle would attempt to quash such an obvious chink in the armour of his little personal army. But then, she was unsure how this sort of girls-only gossip would reach his ears anyway. Her eyes flicked briefly to Edith, who still hadn't spoken since Luna had entered the room, and then back to Carlotta.

The chubbier girl brightened, clearly pleased to have anybody's undivided attention, even that of a strange new housemate. "Well," she began a little theatrically, "it's not as though all of them have committed some drastic crime against the virtue of the fair maidens of Slytherin house." She sniffed again. "Just most of them." Walburga cackled, and Edith's lips quirked in a ghost of a smile.

"So — besides Rosier," Luna prodded again, "who's the worst of the lot?"

"Nott," Carlotta said instantly, shuddering. "He's so creepy."

"Not as creepy as Lestrange," interjected Walburga with a look of distaste. "He looks at me like I killed his firstborn."

"If you want to ask about Riddle, Luna, there's no need to be so shy about it."

Another voice interrupted them from the doorway, and the other three looked up. Luna inhaled deeply and blew out her breath as quietly as she could, before turning to face the intruder. It was Cecily.

"Who said I wanted to know anything about Riddle?" she asked faintly, knowing she had already been caught out. There was no way she could turn the conversation to get anything useful out of the others now, not when Cecily had so blatantly pointed out her endgame.

Cecily smiled at her. "Oh, come on." She strode over and seated herself between Walburga and Edith, propping her chin on her hand. "It's obvious you're completely in love with him," she observed crisply. "Why else would you be that curious about what he and his friends are up to?" Cecily's voice was friendly, but she was staring Luna down with a sharpness in her eyes that made her real meaning obvious. Keep asking questions and see what happens.

"Fair enough," Luna replied lightly, staring back with a faint smile and suppressing her deep-seated desire to protest this insinuation. "I don't know if I'd use the phrase in love. But he's really quite charming. Can I help it if I'm taken in just the teensiest bit?" She folded her hands and let her gaze grow distant, ostensibly to ruminate on Riddle's plethora of draws as a romantic prospect; in reality, her attention remained entirely focused on Cecily, anticipating her reaction.

Cecily looked disappointed, evidently having hoped that Luna's obvious distaste for Riddle would trip her up and cause her to say something that would expose her attempt at interrogation. "I wouldn't get your hopes up," she said tartly, eyes flashing. "He hasn't a taste for oddities, as far as my knowledge goes. You'd likely be better off with a spaceman — somebody more like you."

Luna blinked back the film of tears that rose unexpectedly in her eyes. She was used to ignoring this type of casual, cutting insult from strangers and acquaintances, but not from friends; and while her mind had already accepted that Cecily was no longer her friend, her heart was apparently lagging a bit behind. There's no need to be nasty, Cecily, she heard Walburga protesting, and choked back a bitter laugh. So Walburga, Sirius Black's razor-tongued and black-hearted mother, would defend her, while Cecily plunged the knife into her back and twisted? There was irony.

After a moment, she collected herself. Don't be so dramatic, she chided internally. Pull yourself together. You knew you weren't here to make friends. Irritated with herself, she blinked away another wave of tears and met Cecily's eyes, her lips twisting into an unhappy imitation of a smile that was closer to a grimace. "Maybe you're right," she replied at last. "I ought not to fly quite so close to the sun. A girl can dream, though, can't she?" Her high voice, pitched higher in her distress, wavered slightly, and she cut herself off.

Cecily scoffed, lines of tension bracketing her mouth. "It's all you ever do anyway," she retorted in an unreadable tone, reaching for the bottle. Luna gave a brittle laugh, in something resembling agreement, and retreated from the circle to her bed. There she could hide under the covers, and be who she was, and pity herself a little while in peace.

She heard the others continue talking for a long time before she drifted off to sleep.