Chapter Nineteen: Once and Future

Why did it take so long to see it?

– "We Are There Together," Sleep Party People

You kill me, but I only get stronger

– "Magic Me," Imogen Heap

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

Luna woke early, before the dawn. Her vision felt clearer than it had since before she first arrived in this dim and distant past, although she wasn't sure whether it was due to her magical senses finally acclimating to her temporal displacement or just to the renewed strength of her conviction to stop Riddle. Her roommates were all in their beds this morning for once, and she could see their auras pulsing languidly over their skin as they slept. Luna took a moment to sit and study them.

They were innocents, these girls, these quasi-friends and petty enemies. They might be cruel, might be thoughtless, callous, but they were still children, more so than she had been ever since the war had begun and she'd started seeing people die. The atrocities of Grindelwald had been before their time, and their lives were so far removed from the realities of the Muggle world war that they were able to think and behave as if it wasn't happening – though she believed that something in them must sense that people were suffering.

Luna herself knew little about the war, but the more time she spent in 1943, the more she felt that the Ministry must have gone to great lengths to avoid addressing the ethics of abandoning ninety-nine per cent of the world's population to their own trials and conflicts when one per cent could have stopped it cold. Back before the Ministry had put a moratorium on any criticism, she remembered reading somewhere that a few witches and wizards, disgusted by the Ministry's failure to act, had abandoned the wizarding world to work for Muggle governments and seek an end to the war. The passage had spoken of these rebels as oddities, outliers, rather than heroes or martyrs. Luna had not thought anything of it at the time, but now the idea that the Ministry had been – was – standing by and doing nothing turned her stomach.

She was flying blind in the past, and she had neither the information nor the means to change that part of history, even if that had at any point been her plan. But she was here to do something, and if the only thing she ended up doing was cleaning up her own mess and preventing Riddle from profiting off of her own presence here, that was something. She would certainly not stand by and do nothing while he continued to build his power base and seek new means of committing evil.

Luna rubbed her eyes and quietly levered herself out of bed to get dressed. Today – Sunday – was October 31st, meaning the Hallowe'en Feast was tonight. Being a prefect, Riddle would have no excuse to miss dinner tonight; most witches and wizards tended to get a bit rowdy on Hallowe'en by force of habit, given that Muggles had traditionally been less suspicious of strange happenings occurring on the holiday before the International Statute of Secrecy had been put into effect, and Hogwarts students were no exception. That gave Luna at least a forty-five minute window to search the castle undisturbed.

There was no way of getting around the fact that her own absence would also be noticed, however. More than likely, Riddle would see that she hadn't shown up and send someone else to hunt her down at the first opportunity. She wasn't sure how aware he was that she was on to him about Firenze, or how much he realised that she knew, but he seemed to have a nose for threats. He'd noticed her almost immediately, after all, although some of that was probably her fault for failing to perfect her poker face first. Riddle's own poker face wasn't quite perfected either, though, she reflected unfeelingly. She'd been able to pick up on his obvious malice and megalomania almost instantly, even though she hadn't been sure exactly how like the later Voldemort he would be as a teenager before she'd actually met him. Her rational mind had known that he would likely be much the same, but she'd hoped differently. She hadn't wanted to admit it to herself, but Tom Riddle had been a bitter disappointment to her from the start.

Luna shook herself. This wasn't the time to stew in her own anger and ruminate on how evil her adversary was; it was the time to act. As far as she knew, she had the advantage of him at the moment. Delaying her efforts would only give him more time to find out her goal and take steps to protect his secrets more thoroughly. She had to move tonight, there was no question of that. The only problem was how to disguise her movements.

Was there any way she could go to dinner, leave, and then return before her disappearance was noticed? Perhaps if she had asked Dumbledore to place her in another house, but no, with them sitting at the same table there was no chance of Riddle failing to recognise her absence. He was suspicious enough that he would be looking for her, if only to make sure she was in attendance and not off doing exactly what she planned on doing tonight.

Luna frowned at Cecily's peacefully sleeping face, frustrated. Well, she supposed she did have most of the day to figure the issue out, so it wasn't as though things were down to the wire just yet. Still thinking, she finished dressing and made a cursory effort at taming her sleep-snarled hair before leaving the dormitory. She dropped in on the kitchens to say hello to the house-elves and grab some breakfast without risking an inopportune encounter, then headed for the library.

The next four hours were spent researching with a fury of which Luna hadn't realised she was capable. She ran through all the major illusions and minor inattention charms, hoping at first to construct some sort of eye-repulsing juggernaut of an artefact, before reaching the disappointing conclusion that the sheer quantity of magic involved would almost certainly attract attention in and of itself. With a burst of inspiration, she thought of the Weasley twins and started looking into suitable distractions, but that too turned out to be a dead end; short of releasing a troll into the castle as somebody was said to have done the year before she'd first come to Hogwarts, nothing would reliably cause enough of a ruckus to draw Riddle's attention away from her conspicuous absence.

Luna slammed shut the copy of Major Mischiefs For Magi With Moxie sitting on the table in front of her and slumped down over it, her vexation growing. The amount of literature she'd gotten through in such a small amount of time would have made Hermione proud, but she still had no clear plan. Would she have to just not show up to the feast, and say to hell with the consequences? A few weeks ago she might have done just that, but now something told her it was a bad idea. Maybe she was just getting too used to Riddle's games. It wasn't as though he had threatened her directly, after all, just tried to scare her.

She sat bolt upright. He had tried to scare her – with vague references to her friends and bald-faced implications that he was spying on her, yes, but before that. That day in Transfiguration class, he had done something to conjure that horrible puppet of her that he'd pretended to choke. It had been wretched, at least grey if not outright dark magic, and Dumbledore had been furious. But it had been convincing. It really had been like looking in a mirror. Irony, thy name is Riddle. 'For 'tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard,' this worked, it would be hilarious.

What had the incantation been, again?… "Fairea simulacrum," Luna uttered softly, and then smiled.

Now to find a place to practise.

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Four more hours later, Luna was more magically exhausted than she felt she had ever been, but her spirit was absolutely triumphant. She had at last succeeded in creating a convincing simulacrum of herself, after a series of lumpy terrors that had made her fear for the safety of her meagre breakfast in her stomach. Animating the copy was proving more challenging – she could only really get it to shuffle around, sit, and make some repetitive arm motions that might be taken for eating – but she presumed that as long as she made it hunch over as if she didn't wish to be spoken to and perhaps combined it with some very minor illusion magic, it should be enough to avert Riddle's attention for the duration of the feast. So she fervently hoped, anyway. As long as no one noticed the simulacrum didn't really breathe, there would be no cause for alarm.

She had ended up fleeing to the Room of Requirement in order to perfect her technique after a rather near miss with Professor Dimling of Ancient Runes, who had come bumbling into the darkened classroom she had been using. Apparently he'd just been looking for his notes, and she'd Vanished the failed simulacrum in time, but Luna had decided not to risk any more time in the main part of the castle in case some Snapeish disciplinarian was on the hunt for misbehaviour and happened to catch her. A little to her surprise, the Room of Requirement had only provided her with a fairly minimal 100-square-foot practice space with none of its usual fanciful accoutrements. It had worked for her purposes, however, and so Luna had simply given a mental shrug and used it without complaints.

The Room of Requirement's location was a bit inconvenient for her purposes, though. It was on the seventh floor, and so she now had to puzzle out how she was going to get her new friend down seven flights and into the Great Hall in time for the feast without being noticed. Its walking on a flat surface was satisfactory enough, but Luna did not have much faith in its ability to traverse stairs by itself.

After a little thinking, she pulled out Hermione's moke-skin pouch and helped the simulacrum inside, one foot in and then the other. A part of her felt a little bad about just shoving it into a bag and carrying it, but the puppet didn't seem too distressed by its mode of transport, if in any case it was remotely conscious at all. Recalling the conversation with Euphemia and the others about conjured creatures, she suspected not.

She left the Room of Requirement and jogged down the stairs, aiming to hit the entrance to the Great Hall right as the influx of students would hide the sudden appearance of her twin. When she got there, the crowd was a little sparser than she might have liked, but she was satisfied nobody would notice the simulacrum's slightly strange gait and expressionless face. Ducking into a nearby classroom, Luna quickly pulled out the simulacrum and checked it over for any ill effects from its brief time in the bag. She found none, and so simply cast her trusty Notice-Me-Not on it for good measure and directed it to follow a nearby gaggle of Slytherin girls. If it sat down at another house's table there might be a problem, but nothing about its usual behaviour under its enchanted animation indicated it would do anything besides go to the Slytherin table, sit down, and pretend to eat once the food appeared several minutes later.

Luna watched the simulacrum shamble away and breathed a small sigh of relief when it made the turn to enter the Great Hall. The Notice-Me-Not was designed to divert direct attention, so if everything went as it should, her fellow students would register its presence in the Great Hall without paying any further notice to it. Nobody would be looking for her outside the Great Hall during the feast, and presumably nobody would notice if it lingered in its seat afterward until she returned to dispose of it.

Now that that was done, it was time to get to work. Luna did not have time to do systematic reconnaissance of the entire castle the way that she had done with Riddle's secret room in the dungeons, but she had a few ideas. The third floor corridor that had, according to rumour, once housed the Philosopher's Stone back in her time seemed like a good place to start; Luna thought she remembered that it had remained disused after Harry had retrieved the Stone, and it seemed reasonable to at least check if it had contained anything suspicious fifty years earlier. She also knew the location of the Chamber of Secrets thanks to Ginny, although she wasn't sure how to get inside and did not especially like the idea of wandering around a Chamber that would still contain a live basilisk. She did feel it was necessary to look, though, seeing as Riddle obviously already knew where it was and how to open it. He'd already used the basilisk to cause the deaths of those two Muggle-born boys as well as Moaning Myrtle, so it stood to reason that he might be making use of the Chamber again. There were a few other hidden locations that looked like viable options, as well.

Luna cloaked herself in her Notice-Me-Not, took a deep breath, and headed for the third floor corridor.

Her search did not go well. The third floor and every inch of the dungeons contained nothing beyond dust, scratchings of graffiti ranging from the mildly offensive to the outright bigoted, and the occasional overlarge spider – Luna wondered idly as she jogged through the dungeons if Acromantulae came in a spectrum, and if Professor Kettleburn, not given to the care of highly dangerous magical beasts to such a great degree as Hagrid, would be likely to know. She checked what she thought she remembered being Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, too, but as she hunted through the stalls and checked the sinks she began to grow increasingly uncertain if it really was the right bathroom; the infamous ghost apparently hadn't taken up her residence back in the castle yet, and Luna had not been able to find much time to talk to Myrtle after the very beginning of her second year, concerned as she had been with her living friends and other, less shrill ghosts who didn't make fun of her socks. Luna suspected Myrtle hadn't thought too kindly of Ginny after the incident with the diary and had somehow sussed out their friendship. In any case, trusting that this really was the right bathroom, it appeared that the Chamber of Secrets was impossible to access at the moment without blowing up the sinks. While she seriously considered it for a few minutes, it would take too much time and the damage would be difficult to explain in the aftermath, even if the gamble paid off and Firenze really was hidden down there. If she couldn't find him elsewhere and became truly convinced he was in the Chamber, she would have to find another way down.

At the end of her rope, Luna wracked her brain for ideas and finally decided she might as well see if she could hunt down a ghost who knew something. It was not a good time for this strategy, given that most of the house ghosts would be in the Great Hall during the feast, but she was quickly running out of options and she evidently hadn't given herself enough time to plan. Because Helena was so shy, she tended to vanish early from feasts and go off by herself before the newer students could ask her too many questions, so Luna thought it reasonable to try for her. She was running out of time, as it was nearing the hour when the feast would normally be concluded.

Ravenclaw Tower was empty, as was the stairwell leading down from the Astronomy Tower; Helena had a habit of finding the highest windows in the castle and staring out of them at the sky. On a clear October night like this, Luna realised suddenly, she would probably like to see it without the barrier of glass. Helena also made a habit of floating around outside when there was no danger of being seen. As she was nearing the courtyard where Helena usually liked to look at the moon, however, Luna stopped dead and stared at the wall, almost not believing her eyes.

A familiar door had appeared in a place she did not remember it being, and a soft orange light was streaming out from under it. The Room of Requirement, which normally manifested very consistently on the seventh floor, had warped to the ground floor – seemingly for no other reason than to catch her attention. That was obviously too suspicious to ignore, but Luna found herself hesitating. Could Riddle have tampered with the Room's enchantment somehow? Might this be some sort of trap?

It doesn't matter, she told herself firmly. Whatever it is, I have to investigate. I can take care of myself. If it is a trap, Ron will be along sooner or later to find me in any case. That "sooner or later" constituted several months was a fact she chose to ignore.

Luna strode forward and slipped inside. As soon as she saw the Room's contents, the reason for its oddly restrained behaviour earlier became immediately clear.

It was the "hiding" version of the Room of Requirement, still just as massive as ever and so chaotically strewn with every kind of magical object, instrument, artefact, and trinket that it would normally be impossible to find anything abandoned here without any prior knowledge as to its location; but when Luna stopped to scrutinise it, she realised that some objects were blinking in and out of existence, accompanied by little thuds or creaks or clinks as the things under them or on them shifted or fell. The amount of magical tension in the air was such that it was nearly tangible, making the hairs on Luna's neck stand on end and those on her head frizz wildly and float unnaturally upwards. If she had to guess, she would say that the Room of Requirement was trying its damnedest to keep whatever was contained inside it from exploding the entire castle – or, at the very least, making all its enchantments go absolutely haywire.

The chamber was brightly illuminated by the orange light she had seen coming from under the door, and Luna carefully made her way across the cluttered floor, doing her best not to step on anything that looked breakable. At one point she tripped and her heel landed on a china teapot that she narrowly avoided smashing, but the teapot shrieked at her so loudly anyway that she was forced to cover her ears.

As she drew closer to the source of the light, it revealed itself as some sort of massive orb. Of what it was made, she could not possibly have said; it seemed almost gelatinous, but at the same time somehow brittle and extremely heavy. Its surface was pulsating almost unnoticeably. Deep within the orb was her quarry, revealed at long last. Firenze looked much the same as he had in her own time, although his face was visibly younger. His eyes were open but unfocused, and he was moving with such incredible slowness that he had to be in some sort of suspended animation.

Lost for a moment in her own curiosity, Luna reached out and touched the orb with a finger, and was interested to find that it produced no sensation in her hand beyond a mild prickling. At her touch, a spasm of energy seemed to run through it, and when Luna blinked the orb was gone. A loud thud and a quiet groan alerted her once again to Firenze, who was struggling to his – feet? hooves? She rushed over to him and threw his arm over her shoulders, helping him up as best she could.

"Thank you," he wheezed in his familiarly low, lilting voice. "Thank you. I do not know who you are, but thank you."

"Do you know what happened to you?" Luna inquired, beginning to mentally shuffle through a list of ways to get him out of the castle unnoticed.

Firenze grimaced. "I… know some of it. I was in the forest, preparing to… but I was overtaken by something. A wave of light fell over the forest and surrounded me like a star, and then my vision was obscured, and I could not move. A little human, a young human like you, he found me and I was brought here. He and some others were trying to do your kind of magic with – with the star, but I do not know what they meant to accomplish. They brought me… here." He looked around uncomfortably. "Too much rigid, manipulated magic. Too much dead wood. I do not like being within these walls."

Luna suppressed a remark on his later reversal of that sentiment in his eventual decision to teach here. It seemed he'd been too close to her and Ron when they'd initially arrived, and had somehow been trapped in the margins of the disappearing time spell. "Your uncle and your cousin sent me to find you," she said tersely. "We need to get you back to the forest as quickly as possible."

Firenze nodded, then shook his head. "You will be seen. I must go myself. I can do it," he insisted at her look of concerned skepticism. "Wild magic is not for you to use, but I can ride its currents when needs be."

She smiled at him a little in amusement. "You sound just like your uncle."

He looked surprised, then smiled back. "What is your name, witchling?" he asked.

Luna bowed to him. "I'm Luna. Please give Solarn and Tor my regards."

Firenze paused a moment before bowing back and then, to her complete shock, leaning forward and patting her gently and a little awkwardly on the head. "Thank you, Luna," he said solemnly. He turned, drew himself back and galloped toward the wall, and then leapt upwards and was abruptly gone.

She stood in silence for a minute, poleaxed, before breaking into a fit of hysterical giggles. The whole thing seemed so perfect and yet so ridiculous; but she remembered after a minute or two that she did not have time to waste marvelling at the strangeness of the evening. Luna took off for the door, anxious to get back to the Great Hall in time to Vanish her simulacrum before it was noticed.

It took her less than five minutes, although she couldn't have said exactly how much less, to reach the massive doorway. She paused a moment to regain her breath before entering, but as she was in the middle of doing so another bizarre image presented itself to her, and her breathing abruptly stopped.

Perpetua Fancourt was being marched out of the Great Hall by two adult wizards. They were obviously not professors, and they looked absurdly tall next to the tiny red-haired sixteen-year-old. Perpetua herself was wide-eyed and ashen-faced, and looked as though she were about to be sick.

Perhaps there was some sort of emergency involving her mother? Luna knew who Perpetua Fancourt the elder was, of course; she'd invented the Lunascope and had had her own Chocolate Frog Card, but Luna had no recollection of when she was supposed to have died. She thought she remembered it being relatively recent, in her time, but she could think of no other explanation for what she was seeing.

Shaking herself out of her stupor, Luna took a few steps toward Perpetua, but the other girl caught sight of her and gave a jerky shake of the head. Something's wrong, she mouthed, and then her face fell into such a wretchedly miserable expression that Luna felt her own heart fall into her stomach. She watched Perpetua walk away from the Great Hall, hunched and pale and looking to be on the edge of hysteria. Away from the Great Hall, and… out of the castle.

Perpetua's reaction, though alarming, did not really tell her anything about the situation. Luna was so anxious about her and so pumped with adrenaline and nerves that she forgot to get rid of the simulacrum before dashing into the Great Hall, but she hissed a hasty "Finite," at the Slytherin table as she ran by, barely stopping to think about whether anybody would notice.

Luna headed straight for the Gryffindor table. Euphemia was conversing politely with another prefect that Luna didn't know, and Fleamont was balancing a spoon on his nose for a trio of first-year boys. Everett, however, saw Luna coming and rose, motioning her aside.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked evenly. "When they came to take Fancourt away, you didn't even look up. I thought the two of you were friends."

"We are friends!" Luna snapped at him, louder than she intended. She took a breath and quietened herself with some effort. "I was… indisposed, sort of. What's going on?"

Everett scrutinised her for a moment. "How do you mean, indis – ? Did you make yourself go deaf, or something?"

"Please tell me," Luna grated out, her high voice strained with frustration.

"She's been expelled," Everett said simply. "Someone tipped off Dippet, and her things were searched. She had some sort of contraband – mostly dark texts, I think, the sort of thing you wouldn't find in the Restricted Section. Bornwise tried to speak on her behalf and turn it around, but Dippet wouldn't listen." He pushed up his spectacles and glanced at the Headmaster. "I think he's still spooked from the deaths last year."

"Who tipped him off," she said, her voice flat enough that it did not sound like a question. Her ears were beginning to buzz. Wrackspurts, she thought to herself, and then, You damned well know who.

"No idea," Everett replied with a frown. "Do you need to sit down? Listen, Luna, if she's been falsely accused or if there's been some kind of foul-up, I'm sure she'll be allowed back. The Ministry will get to the bottom of it. Luna?"

"Bye," she murmured, and drifted away. Down the table. Out of the Great Hall. Out of the castle, the way she'd seen Perpetua go, although her friend was by now long gone. Over the grounds to the hill, the Whomping Willow hill, where Perpetua had cast her first Patronus. The memory seemed far away, as if it had happened months ago, years, instead of mere days. Luna sat on the frozen ground, shivering, and thought.

This was Riddle's doing. She knew it was. He had spotted what she loved most in this time, what was nearest her heart, and had ripped it away from her. He'd framed an innocent girl, maybe even ruined her life for good. All this – why? To hurt Luna, to frighten her perhaps, to remind her who was in charge because she'd become too complacent, too self-assured and self-righteous in her singleminded pursuit of her mission, and he'd wanted to take her down just when she least expected it. Just when she thought she'd won.

She had no doubt that he had done it, just as she had no doubt that he had done it without hesitation or any semblance of remorse. The lives and happiness of others meant nothing to him, as surely as they meant the world to Luna. This was just another confirmation.

Remembering Perpetua's terrified, confused, brokenhearted expression was almost too painful for Luna to bear, but the image kept appearing in her mind. Perhaps the Wrackspurts were putting it there. Her beautiful brown eyes had been the size of dinner plates. Luna would have thought it was funny, once upon a time, if she hadn't known what was happening. If she hadn't known Perpetua. If she hadn't known Riddle.

Luna rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw spots, her chest heaving as she half-sobbed, half-hyperventilated. She hadn't realised until now how much she'd really cared for Perpetua, how much she'd relied on having her around. Perpetua had been unlike anybody she'd ever met – kind, and a good listener, like Ginny, but so timid and gentle. She'd understood what it was like to be treated as if you were lesser, for no reason at all other than being different. She'd never laughed at Luna, not once, not even when she'd told her about Nargles. Luna loved Ginny with all her heart, but Ginny – eleven years old and half-incredulous, if half-delighted – had laughed. She'd forgiven Ginny quickly, but she'd never really been able to force herself to forget, no matter how hard she tried.

Caught between the lingering hurt of the old memory and desperately missing her first and best friend, Luna sobbed harder, huddling into her knees against the biting wind. Why did this have to happen? Why had he done this to her? Why had she even come here in the first place? Why had she ever thought she could get through to –

Luna's sobs ceased, and she took several deep breaths and sniffled, her brow furrowing.

Riddle was treating her as an adversary.

Why?

She hadn't really taken the time to think on it, which was uncharacteristic of her. She'd half-assumed that he saw her as a threat from the beginning, and then she'd become completely caught up in finding out what he was up to and stopping him from hurting anyone. He was treating her as an adversary because she'd treated him as one.

Luna thought it was an understandable misstep. There was trauma tied up in the name and person of Riddle for her, more than she'd perhaps acknowledged; she'd expected him to be entirely different from Voldemort, but the amount of similarity she'd seen had thrown her off and frightened her, and she'd reacted with anger. Riddle wasn't exactly doing himself any favours, either; he clearly didn't care about being liked, except by those whose respect and admiration he expected to benefit from.

After a moment, though, Luna had to revise that thought. His attempts to hide his cold nature in front of her had been completely transparent, but he had seemed to really be making them, at least at first. It was only later, once she'd expressed clear distrust and then hostility toward him, that he'd mostly tossed aside the façade and stopped trying to placate or befriend Luna.

She had no illusions about him seeking her good opinion from any motivation beyond self-interest; presumably, he had been confused by her immediate dislike of him initially, and then had become (correctly) concerned that she would disrupt his operations at the school. But the fact remained that it had been Luna, not Riddle, who had ultimately carried their uncomfortable and tense acquaintance into outright and undisguised antagonism.

Why had she come here in the first place? It hadn't been to act as a vigilante against the machinations of a teenaged boy. No matter what she did in this time to stop him, she wasn't going to stop him eventually becoming Voldemort. She was playing a defensive game, and she had understood in the beginning that winning would be impossible as long as she was still playing by the rules.

Luna had come back in time not to style herself as an emissary from the future, here to condemn Riddle for all the evils he had yet to commit. She had come to help him. She had wanted to become his friend, to show him that he could be better. To save him. And not only that, but she'd been certain that she could do it. Perhaps she hadn't been sure of the details, but she'd had faith.

Somewhere along the line, she'd lost that. But it didn't have to stay lost.

Her entire frame shaking, wracked with violent shivers from sitting out in the frigid night air for nearly an hour without a coat, Luna was almost too cold to smile.

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

She didn't bother trying to be stealthy while she descended the stairs. It really didn't matter whether anyone heard her or not, but in any case the noise coming from the hidden chamber was so loud that there was very little chance of anyone catching footsteps coming down the stairs from the dungeon corridor.

Something had told her he would be here, celebrating. She bit back her anger at that reminder. Perpetua was alive, at least. Perhaps she would be allowed back into Hogwarts, perhaps not, but she would have a life, magical or no. That would have to be enough.

As she drew closer to the door, though, it became clear to her that celebration was not what was happening. People were talking loudly, but many of the voices sounded upset rather than triumphant, as she'd initially believed. Oh, she thought suddenly. He must have discovered by now that she'd found and released Firenze, destroying whatever chance he had of studying the time-bubble further.

That idea made her hesitate, and she stared sightlessly at the greenish light from under the door for a few moments, briefly paralysed. But at last she took a deep breath, thought of Harry, and pushed it open.

The difference from the bare chamber she'd seen before was night and day. The room was filled with luxurious furnishings, some of which she suspected had been pilfered from the common room, others of which looked old enough to have been sitting in the Room of Requirement for centuries at least. A magnificent green chandelier hung over the whole garish affair, spilling verdant light over the entirety of the chamber.

Riddle was seated on a dark, throne-like chair in the centre of the room. Surrounding him were his followers, talking loudly with each other as he sat and listened. He looked so calmly imperious, so comfortable in his position of command, that she felt he resembled Slytherin himself; yet his face was so beautiful that anyone else might say he looked like an angel.

For what seemed like the hundredth time, she felt herself be drawn in a little by his curiously potent charm, the heavy and almost tangible aura of power and potential that he wore about him like a cloak. Now, however, the bitterness and resistance that usually accompanied that realisation was not there. Instead, Luna felt a strange calm and impassivity settle over her. She knew exactly, with perfect clarity, what she was going to do.

The chamber fell silent as she entered. After a long, drawn-out moment, Riddle's eyes slid to hers. It really was strange how they did not remind her of Harry's in the slightest, although the colour was similar.

"Miss Lovegood," he said, feigning politeness. "What a surprise."

"No, it isn't," said Luna. Rabastan Lestrange, seated to the left of the throne, shifted as if to rise, but Riddle stayed him with a glance.

"No, it isn't," he agreed easily, leaning forward and propping his chin on his hand. "So tell me, Lovegood, why have you sought me out?" A cold smile flickered over his lips. "Have you been rendered bereft by the loss of your little Ravenclaw? What was her name – Persephone?" He mock-pouted at her. "Were you thinking of seeking your revenge?"

Luna closed her eyes briefly and took a breath. When she opened them again, the expression was gone from his face, and he was staring at her expectantly.

"Perpetua," she corrected evenly. "And no, that isn't why I'm here."

He scrutinised her for a moment, eyes narrowed, and then sat up. "Really," he said in an oddly toneless voice. The aura-hole around him pulsed, and she caught just a flash of that dramatic midnight green before it subsided. Luna believed that she was seeing him in a state of genuine surprise.

"Yes," Luna said. What greatness he could have, she thought as she looked at him. Not the awful kind, not the sort he would have as Voldemort. But how beautiful his heart would be, if it were filled.

Before she really knew what was happening, she had moved forward and thrown her arms around him. He smelled of soap and the tangy, cloying buzz of dark magic. She could hear his heart rate increasing.

Hands landed on her shoulders and violently shoved her away, and he was screaming Get off me, get off me, you little whore! She stumbled backwards, unbothered. Somebody else stepped forward and backhanded her across the face, and Luna processed only vaguely the flare of pain from a split lip and the accompanying fact that she was now on the floor. The stones underneath her bruised hands seemed almost to be singing. Luna coughed and licked her lip reflexively, briefly pausing to appreciate the uniqueness of the moment and the energised, pregnant silence that surrounded her. Turning points like this came perhaps once or twice in a lifetime, and she wanted to remember this one. Slowly, unsteadily, she rose.

Riddle was staring at her, wide-eyed, white-lipped, so furious that he looked half-terrified. "How dare – " he whispered, but stopped, as if he could so little believe what she had just done that he had no real rebuke or punishment ready to hand.

Luna swayed, and began to speak.

"Under the moon and sky which housed my forebearers and granted to them the power and nobility of magic," she began as clearly as she was able, "this I swear without deception or reserve."

The oath of Merlin, from Willard Wayfair's Prince of Enchanters. His completely poleaxed expression told her he recognised it, as she'd hoped. Good.

"From this moment forth do I render to thee every loyalty and service in good faith that thou request. My life becometh thine, thy guard and counsel mine." Her eyes did not leave his. "Should thy will oppose my own, still shall I obey thee. Should thy properties and holdings come to nothing, still shall I toil for thee. When Death for me, at the last, outreach his hand, still shall I remember thee." She felt herself begin to tremble as the weight of her words seemed to fill the room. This was old magic, a variation on the Unbreakable Vow that did not require a wand. It was not a Death Eater's oath, because Luna would not be a Death Eater; but it was binding.

"Never shall my fealty be broken or my oath abandoned till thou ask it," she gasped, the oath beginning to clog in her throat like honey as the magic strengthened. "By the names of my father and mother and by the purity of my blood, I – Luna Lovegood," she'd almost said Merlin, but had corrected herself at the last moment, "give fealty to my lord and master, Tom Riddle."

The room fell entirely silent. Riddle just looked at her, blinking as though he were gazing into a bright light.

Without another word, she rose and left the chamber for the dormitory. No one moved to stop her.

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

Monday, November the 1st, 1943. 12:04 am.

I do not understand.

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

A/N: Aaand there's the end of the first arc. Pretty exciting! :) I honestly can hardly believe we've made it here after nearly 2 years, it seems so amazing and surreal. And we're not even halfway done! Hope y'all are pumped for arc two!

Thanks as always for your readership and patience with my slow updates. Love you guys! 3