Chapter Twenty-One: Shall I Do It?
You said to me, it won't be long now
You'll leave the world and you will join me here
– "The Waves Have Come," Chelsea Wolfe
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Luna, a voice was calling. She wanted to reach for it.
It was beautiful, familiar, but she couldn't make out what else it was saying.
Luna.
"Luna. Come on, it's time to get up."
Luna shifted, halfway between awake and asleep. A light touch on her shoulder brought her nearer to reality. The voice still whispered to her, but she couldn't remember why it mattered, and after a long moment she could at last bring herself to open her eyes.
Edith Selwyn, hair mussed from sleep and dark eyes bleary, was looking down at Luna with her usual flat expression. Luna was getting to know her well enough by now, however, to spot the hint of softness in the other girl's face. Over the past two weeks, the pair of them had become rather good friends.
"Good morning," Luna greeted with a small smile, keeping her voice quiet. Edith smiled briefly back before returning to her own bed to dress and gather her school-things. Luna, bracing herself against the morning chill of the dormitory, threw back her covers and slid out of bed. Almost immediately, she had to suppress a shiver. "How did you sleep?" inquired Luna, partly out of genuine interest and friendliness, and partly to distract herself from the temperature while she hurried into her morning routine. The dormitory did happen to be situated under a frigid lake in mid-November, and while all of its inhabitants could cast a passable warming charm, nobody could seem to puzzle out how to make one last through the night and into the early morning hours.
"Well, thank you," replied Edith politely, in the process of buttoning her blouse. She seemed perpetually unfazed by the cold, although she had at one point informed Luna that she simply hid her discomfort well. Glancing at the other beds, Luna noted that Carlotta and Walburga were beginning to stir. Cecily was unmoving, but Luna could see very clearly from her glittering aura that she was not asleep.
Luna dressed herself swiftly and efficiently, pulling on every article of clothing as if it were armour and taking special care to ensure that everything looked neat: stockings, blouse, skirt, tie, cardigan, shoes. Last of all she undertook the hated project of brushing out her hair, which she valiantly attempted each morning to convince herself she did not need to do, until she was inevitably confronted with her reflection and forced to admit otherwise. With the aid of a charmed hairbrush, she managed to accomplish her task in a little over five minutes; after a few more moments of struggling to achieve the braid she had taken to wearing it in, Edith appeared behind her and finished it off without a word.
"Really, Lovegood, how hard is it to do a braid?" Walburga asked, a little snippily, as she was levering herself out of bed.
"I didn't grow up doing anything with my hair," Luna said as simply and calmly as she could, well aware that Walburga had never once in her life done a braid with her own hands.
"Were you raised in a barn?" muttered Walburga. "By Muggles?" Luna blinked and neglected to answer her. Walburga seemed to consider it a duty to communicate to them all just how unfair and irritating it was that she be forced out of bed this early, but the sting and ferocity of her insults varied from day to day. If Luna had to guess, she'd say the cold was making the other girl sluggish. Walburga proceeded to confirm this suspicion by leaving the barb where it lay, sniffing haughtily, and beginning to gather her things. Carlotta, who was usually the last to rise, mumbled an oblivious good morning to no-one in particular and began magically cleaning her teeth. Luna and Edith waited by the door, and Cecily remained stubbornly in bed.
Luna had no fondness for this daily ritual. Each morning, she would imagine leaving the dormitory without them, going to breakfast on her own, and sitting with her Gryffindor friends. After two weeks of this, however, her new routine had shifted into habit, and the fantasy had become more fleeting. Luna was, at long last, growing used to her Slytherin compatriots and their expectations – even more shocking, she was actually beginning to fit in.
What Luna had accomplished in her oath to Riddle was exactly what she had hoped, but it was something of a pyrrhic victory. In an attempt to salvage her chances of befriending Riddle, Luna had fallen back on the oath of fealty as a hasty plan B, which ultimately worked; having removed her own ability to act against him, she now had his trust. Technically she was also gambling her own safety, but that was a worthwhile risk, one she'd willingly made when she decided to go back in time in the first place. The more pressing cost was that under this set of circumstances, she was expected to behave not as an unaffiliated confidante and friend, but as a willing subordinate and party-line member of his social circle. Luna found this less harrowing than she had initially expected, in all, but it still meant that certain options were no longer available to her. She had to conduct and present herself more like the other Slytherins, and she could not simply wander off and do whatever she liked.
In theory, of course, it also meant that she had to defer to Riddle. This fact had not escaped her notice, but he had yet to require her to do anything significant. After three unpleasant and extremely drawn-out sessions of interrogation paired with his nascent attempts at legilimency, her former adversary had only managed to come away with the impression that she was basically sincere, and had then proceeded to ignore her as he focused on other matters. Luna considered it progress, if incremental, and she was content to have a bit of breathing room to acclimate to her new lifestyle.
Walburga finished tying her necktie and all but stomped out of the dormitory, clearly expecting Edith and Luna to follow. The two of them exchanged glances and waited another instant for Carlotta, who was still scrambling to pull on her shoes, before all three exited and left Cecily alone to her pretence at sleep.
Cecily Harlowe was the one element Luna was having trouble resolving in her otherwise fairly smooth transition. As Luna had fallen into her new routine among the other Slytherins, Cecily had fallen out of hers, taking to sleeping late (or at least pretending to), missing classes, and avoiding Luna wherever possible. Her reasons for doing so were not immediately clear, but Luna did not care to guess, choosing instead to take the path of least resistance and simply let her former friend be. Her ill will toward Cecily had faded somewhat, but if someone chose to avoid Luna, she was usually not one to press them for an explanation.
The four of them entered the Great Hall and moved toward the end of the table, where Riddle's people usually were. Riddle himself was absent this morning (Luna had observed that he often chose to skip breakfast), but three others were already seated and in the midst of a very involved conversation about duelling tactics. Orion Black, noting the presence of his cousin, immediately interrupted the discussion to offer her a seat. His manner was entirely automatic, but he did not seem unhappy to see her.
Rabastan Lestrange, who had been sitting across from Black, did. After an annoyed glare at Walburga, his eyes moved to Luna and he greeted her with a stiff nod.
"Lovegood," he said merely, in a polite but not-quite-friendly tone. She regarded him for a moment, lips pursed, before taking pity on him and sitting by his side. Brusqueness was nothing unusual for Lestrange, but open emotion in general was not a luxury most Slytherins habitually afforded themselves; nearly all of them had made an art of the veiled expression, the hidden insult, and the private joke. Riddle made himself an exception from time to time, when he wanted to be blunt, but he was evidently not subject to the rules. Lestrange, Luna surmised, must be feeling rather awful. His muted violet aura, which was churning a little sickeningly, also told her as much.
Her neighbour simply gazed at her in what looked like confusion, and Luna smiled a bit apologetically, realising that she had been staring at him. "Good morning," she started to say, but was interrupted by Walburga.
"If Bower doesn't start assigning something other than theory papers, I am going to go mad. That imbecile doesn't deserve his teaching position," declared the other girl, ostensibly to Orion, but at a volume that appeared to direct her comment at the entire table. Lestrange visibly flinched, looking peeved; Luna's two other roommates slumped in exasperation, and little fourth-year Quintus Avery briefly made a face. Walburga had been complaining about the alchemy professor for days, ever since he made the ill-advised decision to give her poor marks on an assignment she had thrown together in under an hour.
"He could be the caretaker instead of Thornfield," suggested Orion in his quiet, even voice, appearing surprisingly unperturbed by her shrill and irritable manner. Lestrange's aura pulsed into Luna's field of vision abruptly, and she glanced at him. His expression was growing more wooden by the second.
"No, no. He's far too incompetent," Walburga insisted. "He'd be far better off if he were completely out of his head and drooling away at St. Mungo's. As it is, I don't think he's suited to exist in wizarding society at all – Mudblood trash." She laughed. "Maybe he would make a few Knuts begging in Knockturn Alley. What I wouldn't give for the chance to toss one right into his stupid face."
There was a brief, shocked silence from the others within earshot as her cousin chuckled softly along with her. Carlotta let out one nervous bark of a laugh. Luna wanted to say something, but was pre-empted before she could.
"I don't know who you think you're fooling, Black," Lestrange said, sharply and very suddenly. "You're just too stupid for alchemy and too petty to take the marks you're given."
Walburga's grin fell off her face slowly, and she and Orion both stared at Lestrange, her face going scarlet, her cousin's white. "You think you're cleverer than I am, I suppose, Lestrange," she drawled, blue eyes chilly with rage.
"Half the house is cleverer than you," Lestrange sneered. "The rest of us don't need to rely on our bloodlines to threaten any professor who gives us poor marks. You are a true credit to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black." Orion Black flinched at this, his eyes moving from Walburga to Lestrange. Luna watched with slightly morbid interest as Lestrange caught his gaze and looked almost guilty before settling once again into a look of anger. "A house of cowards and fools," Lestrange hissed finally, his attention returning to Walburga.
She forced out a high, shrieking laugh. "Is that so! We have grown bold, Lestrange." The threat in her voice was obvious, although Luna had no idea of the extent of her capabilities to follow through on it. "Well, if you will excuse us, this coward and fool" – she indicated Orion and herself – "had better be getting to class." She directed a brittle smile at the rest of the table and with a falsely airy, "Good morning," gripped Orion's arm and walked them both out of the Great Hall.
Lestrange, Luna was a little surprised to find, did not seem at all mollified by his apparent victory over Walburga and in fact was growing even more visibly distraught. His eyes, a dark so profound that they looked flat, were fixed on the table in front of him.
Luna watched him in mild worry, unsure how to comfort him and somewhat conflicted that she even wanted to. She did not particularly like any of Riddle's gang other than Edith, and Lestrange had not distinguished himself as being any nobler than his fellows, but she couldn't help regretting seeing another soul in such obvious pain. He had never lashed out like that in front of her before, and despite his harshness to Walburga was obviously suffering from some emotion beyond mere annoyance.
"Did any of you know," piped up Avery, "that musical charms incanted with polyphonic overtone singing will have their effects amplified by a factor of up to 4?"
"Very interesting, Quintus," muttered Lestrange, who did not look interested at all.
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At twenty minutes to ten, Luna finished eating, doubled back to the dungeons to retrieve an essay she'd forgotten to put in her bag, and made her way to Arithmancy class. Having walked there directly instead of wandering a little and stopping to smell the figurative roses as she usually liked to do, she was a little early, and took her usual seat two rows back from the front. A few Ravenclaws had arrived before her, as had Riddle; the latter was reading something, and looked up at her entrance.
"Good morning," Luna greeted him politely, and he saluted her with the book. Mechanisms of Alchemy by Sargent, a prosaic but still rather conspicuous choice of light reading. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he smiled back.
"One of these days I'll get my hands on that book Flamel's supposed to have written," he said casually. A couple of the Ravenclaws glanced at him, and one of them scoffed, a tall girl with dark hair.
"I don't think it exists," Luna replied, before the girl had the chance to interject and draw his ire. "He's said many times that he prefers to keep his knowledge to himself. It could easily fall into the wrong hands, you know."
He just looked at her, searching, before finally saying, "You have a very odd sense of when, and whom, it is appropriate to tease."
Luna, a bit in spite of herself, had to smile at this. Riddle's mouth quirked a little in reply, and he turned back to his book. The Ravenclaw girl, looking between the two of them in confusion, made a face and returned to staring at her desk. Professor Bornwise strode in a minute or two later, and Luna half-focused her attention on the lecture, her thoughts wandering slightly as she took haphazard notes on arcane geometry.
It was very odd being on such terms with Riddle, this sort of half-genuine semi-friendliness. She still felt the same wariness around him, the same stark and ever-present consciousness of exactly who and what he was, but that fraught and biting tension between them had faded into something closer to banter at a speed that alarmed her. Riddle even seemed to relax a little around her, in a way she had never seen him do. His expressions were often empty, but unfeigned; the bizarre prickling aura-hole was still present, but somehow far less irritating to her third eye. If nothing else, it was evidence that her idea to befriend him was perhaps not quite as hare-brained as her friends had thought.
"Lovegood," said Professor Bornwise suddenly, and Luna blinked.
"Yes, Professor?"
"Can you tell us why a pentagon is suitable for the base form of a sigil, while a hexagon, for instance, is not?"
Luna found herself blanking briefly, but hit upon the likeliest answer after a beat of open-mouthed silence. "Oh – well, I suppose because hexagons tessellate," she volunteered. "Assuming it was drawn accurately, the spell in the sigil would naturally tessellate outwards during casting and become unstable."
"Exactly so, thank you," Professor Bornwise responded with a quick smile, adding, "Oh, and see me after class, please," before returning to the lecture.
Luna hummed quietly. Ordinarily when professors took her aside after class, it was to ask her why she'd tried to argue her thesis on transfiguration of humans by discussing the biology of chimerae, or why in Merlin's name she had completely ignored the assignment to brew a Fatiguing Fusion and instead made herself a rather nice tea out of her mint and wartizome. She highly doubted that Professor Bornwise had anything of that sort to say to her, given that she'd been very dutifully (well, except today) paying attention in lectures and turning in careful work – not to mention that she happened to find Arithmancy interesting anyway, and was very keen on using class time to actually learn about it. She considered for a moment that perhaps the train of thought in her essay hadn't been quite clear enough, but had to discard that thought when she remembered that she hadn't yet turned it in.
After class, Luna suppressed her mild trepidation, gathered up her essay and approached Bornwise's desk. The professor smiled at her approach, but the expression did not reach her eyes, and Luna noted with some concern that her aura was also a bit dimmer than usual.
"Hello, Lovegood. I'm sorry to keep you, but I just wanted to talk with you for a few minutes." She had a very pleasant and warm alto voice, which Luna had always liked. "I must be honest, and tell you that I have always felt a bit protective of you." Her dark brows rose. "I know you are happy in Slytherin, but I sensed right when I met you that you would also have been happy in my house, with the Ravenclaws. Yes?"
Luna inclined her head slightly and waited for her to continue.
"I had just been… noticing, lately, that you don't seem quite yourself. You're quieter, more subdued. You are spending more time around other Slytherins, when before I noticed that you seemed to have friends in other houses. You're even doing something different with your hair." She studied Luna, frowning. "I know that a lot of big changes happen in our school years, but I wanted to be sure everything was all right."
Luna mulled this over for a second or two. In retrospect, it shouldn't have been a surprise to her that others would notice her acting differently; after so many years of performing her own particular brand of intense strangeness, however, she tended to forget that other people paid attention to or wondered about the workings of her inner self at all. She had already felt some degree of mentor-student rapport with Belinda Bornwise, but this sudden and unasked for expression of care made her estimation of the professor rise a couple of notches.
"You aren't mistaken," Luna said carefully after a long exhale. "I have been behaving a little differently. But I assure you, there's nothing to worry about. I'm fine, thank you." A part of her balked at her own formality; it hit her abruptly that she really had begun to sound like a different person when she spoke sometimes. But the words were out already, and she closed her mouth to stop herself trying to edit them after the fact.
Bornwise did not look quite satisfied, but she nodded. "Very well. I'll take that," she added, gesturing at the essay in Luna's hand. "It was due at the beginning of the hour, you know."
Luna shrugged slightly and handed it to her. "Can't be acting too much like one of those perfect Slytherins, can I?"
The professor snorted. "Trust me, dear, turning in one assignment at the end of class is not going to set you back to where most of them are. I'll see you on Friday."
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Having half-expected to find Riddle lurking outside the classroom and demanding to know what Bornwise had wanted with her, Luna was surprised to find Euphemia Crinsey-Abbott, to whom she hadn't spoken at length since her oath, lingering in the hallway instead. She briefly considered different options of what to say, appearing in her mind's eye like a fanned-out deck of cards. None of them seemed right.
"Hi," said Luna, her eyes wandering to the floor.
"Hi."
Luna's feet felt like they had grown wings; she was unsteady. Something about just being around Euphemia made her feel like her old self, not the hollow snake-skin, the simulacrum of herself a part of her felt like she had really become. The patterns on the floor tiles looked like maps.
"Don't you have anything to say to me?" Euphemia asked, her voice plaintive. Luna looked up at last and met her eyes, feeling very sorry, and closing her mouth on the apology.
"I know it's been a while," she said merely. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." For a split second, it seemed insane that the culminative weight of her choices and hopes should really mean that she couldn't stand in this hallway and have an honest conversation with her friend. A deep, resonating part of her dearly wanted to just tell Euphemia everything. To tell her how sorry she was, and whom she was doing this for. She pressed her lips together, feeling the tension in her own expression, forcing it to ease.
Euphemia smiled one of her brief, wonderful smiles. She still looked unhappy. "Yes, well. Do let me know if there's… if there's anything I can do for you," she pressed, her eyes searching. "We all miss you, you know."
"I miss you too," said Luna honestly, and fled with a little wave, trying very hard not to feel as though she were walking away from Harry.
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The rest of the day floated by without incident. Luna was practically comatose through her double period of Divination, only taking notice of anything when Rosier grabbed her elbow on the way out of class and whispered that they were meeting in the room off the hidden passage and that Riddle had said he wanted her there.
This surprised her a little. He had not requested her presence at one of the gatherings before, although to be fair, there had only been three or so since the time of her oath. She found herself holding her breath as she made her way hesitantly down the steps that evening, undisguised and surrounded by compatriots who knew she was meant to be there with them. The atmosphere reminded her, perversely, of the Dumbledore's Army meetings, which now seemed to Luna to be decades in the past, despite in actuality being nearly half a century in the future. The air of excitement, of forbidden adventure, of loyalty to a beloved leader and allegiance to a cause, was just the same.
The green light from the chandelier gave everything a strange cast. The piles of curios and pilfered furniture looked as if they belonged in the forest; in fact, the appearance of the whole affair reminded Luna of a meeting of the fair folk. Not harmless fairies like the ones she had grown up around, but the ones from old Muggle tales, clever, malicious, long-fingered beings who had to be treated with caution and extreme care when encountered, and were probably best not approached at all. Riddle, sitting off to the side with his throne nowhere to be seen, looked every inch the empty-eyed Erl-king.
In truth, Luna had discovered, he did not seem to spend very much time exercising his power over his classmates in any truly significant way. This evening he seemed more interested in observing the chaotic energy of the room and muttering in Marcus Selwyn's ear than holding court. Luna looked around, feeling a bit lost; Walburga was speaking animatedly with Carlotta, apparently not yet having reached her threshold of annoyance for the evening, and Cecily was sulking at the perimeter of the room. Edith, she observed a little forlornly, was nowhere to be seen.
"Wondering why you're here?" inquired a voice at her shoulder, and Luna started and turned. Abraxas Malfoy was half-smiling joylessly at her. "Me too," he said before she had a chance to respond.
"Your hair looks green," she informed him, and he was silent for several seconds.
"Look, for what it's worth, it was not my choice," he said bluntly. "Before. You know he made me do it."
"I know," Luna said.
"I suppose he's broken you too, now. Finally." He sounded strangely sad, and Luna thought of his grandson. An entire family line, roped unwillingly into the service of Voldemort – perhaps. She had a feeling he was not as free from responsibility as he might wish her to think.
"Yes, I suppose." She twined her fingers together and looked at Malfoy again, raising her eyebrows. He was frowning at her.
"No… " he said slowly. "He didn't, did he? Was it the other way around?"
Luna smiled impishly, unwilling to confirm, but unable to deny.
Malfoy looked into her eyes for another few seconds, and then laughed, suddenly and sharply. "I have the most incredible feeling," he said, "that this is going to be hilarious." With that, he saluted her and moved off.
An instant later, she realised that there was an odd darkening of her vision at the corner of her eye, which vanished almost as soon as she took notice of it. Luna turned, following a suspicion, and saw Riddle looking directly at her, face blank but open. His aura had come through again, although she had no inkling as to why. Moving steadily but not hastily, Luna wove her way around the clutter of furniture and throng of teenagers to his side.
"I didn't even have to call you," Riddle said, no longer looking at her.
"I intuited," she replied. "And you were staring." He glanced at her, his eyes flickering briefly, and he gestured for her to sit.
"You understand, of course, why I do not take active measures toward furthering the cause of blood purity within the confines of the school."
That was not what she had expected to hear. Luna had to suppress a shudder. Still, this was him pointing out that he was doing next to nothing to torment the Muggle-borns of the school; at least that was something.
"Public relations," Luna noted coolly, and Riddle inclined his head, unflustered by her obvious disapproval.
"Just so. I am, however, interested in… expanding my area of influence, so to speak. I thought perhaps you might have some counsel for me, seeing as you freed my centaur."
This threw Luna for another hard loop, and her voice climbed higher in bafflement. "You want to recruit them?"
Riddle merely steepled his hands and looked at her expectantly.
"They would never," she insisted, doing her best not to sound too accusatory. Riddle had to know this would be a fruitless endeavour, given what he had done, and even putting aside the fact that centaurs were difficult to negotiate with in the best of times. Was he playing with her?
"And if you acted as my intermediary?"
Luna fell silent as she considered this. The idea repelled her, but her oath brooked no argument. The centaurs, a few at least, knew her; Tor and Firenze would likely vouch for her, though she could not expect that much of Solarn… Given her recently discovered ability to lie, she had to admit that it was possible she could obtain him some kind of result, although the odds were still very long. "If you asked it," she said finally, feeling as though she was having to force the words out of her mouth, "I would try. I can't make any guarantees."
Riddle stared at her briefly, then smiled and waved a hand dismissively, seeming very pleased. "No," he demurred, "Not now at any rate. It was just a thought."
Luna took a cleansing breath. He had been toying with her, or rather, testing her. At least an abject betrayal of the centaurs had been kept off her to-do list for the time being. It was time to do some testing of her own.
"Do you mind if I ask something?" she put out, more tentatively than she wanted. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, the smile fading.
"I've heard some things, from the other girls…" The information had in fact not come from them, but she was not about to remind him of Yancy. "That you're doing some kind of research, and that you keep it very secret." Riddle was entirely still, his face expressionless. "You know you can trust me," Luna pointed out. "By my own doing, I'm no longer capable of betraying you."
"True," he allowed, still watching her carefully.
"So," she took a breath, preparing to put out the lure. "What are you so curious about? Something so secret that you will only reveal it to your followers in pieces? Something so unusual that you wanted others to be seen doing your research, rather than yourself?"
"The truest answer I can give you," he said simply, eyes glittering, "is that I seek greatness."
As she suspected. Now comes the shot in the dark. This was absolutely not, not the time or the place for this; she knew it. But she had to say something in response to that – some refutation, some pushback. An introduction to the light, as it were, from the voice of a friend, or at the very least an ally. Luna steadied herself, trying her best to communicate absolute sincerity.
"Death is not something to fear, Tom," she said, as softly and gently as she was able.
His reaction was immediate, even though his face did not change at all. His aura was flaring out of his skin, deep green like the forest at night, so dense and far-reaching that it almost seemed to fill the entire room, like a gas, or like water, until Luna was certain she was breathing it in. The air was electric, heavy, the same as it had been when she'd stood in the centre of this room and given her oath. Riddle's eyes were bright with intense emotion, and Luna had no difficulty parsing what they held. Shock. Rage. And beneath that, the eyes of an orphan. It would be naïve to call him vulnerable, and yet she could think of no better word. After another instant, Luna revised that thought. Perhaps – lost. Not at all a conscious cry for help, but simultaneously, she felt, the clearest possible expression of the fact that he desperately needed it.
"No?" he responded finally, voice just as quiet, his aura beginning to sink back into his skin like blood being drawn back into a wound, the mask settling back into place with a vengeance. Slowly, intentionally, with feigned casualness, he reached for his wand and pointed it at her. "With two words, I could end your life, Luna Lovegood, right here and now. Shall I do it?"
The seconds ticked by. Luna could not have said she was truly caught off guard, but the right response was nevertheless eluding her. Details of her environment began to present themselves to her again, the seemingly growing pressure of gravity on her body, the dreamlike green light like a fog, the now-familiar but still enchanting beauty of the face in front of her. He looked so tragic, she thought sadly, not for the first time. So hollow. The deaths of thousands in that face.
Her mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, trying and abandoning different replies, before she found her voice again.
"I'm no use to you dead," she tried half-heartedly.
"True." His eyes glinted; a warning. "But not the point."
All right, then. She wouldn't lie to him, not any more. "I don't wish to die now," Luna told Riddle evenly, "because I still have things to do. To me, that is not the same as fear. You may do whatever you wish, of course." She lifted her chin. "Death is only another door."
"So brave," he mocked, smiling at her again. "I also have things to do, you know. The difference is, my list of things to do will never end." The smile slipped a little, and she saw the anger flash in his eyes again. "Your hands are shaking, little rabbit. You see, you are afraid." Luna registered that her hands in fact were shaking, more from the intensity of the moment than from fear, although she was not about to argue the point now. His wand fell to the side.
Luna pressed her lips together and looked at him, and after a pause she saw the look from before rise to the surface again. Perhaps they were both afraid, and the difference lay in how they chose to react. In the face of oblivion, Riddle, not she, became the rabbit. It was not the look of a predator that he had, not now. The deepest root of nearly everything he did must be fear, she recognised.
Vol-de-mort. Flight from death. He knows it himself.
I ought to be able to work with this.
"Lovegood," he said in a cavalier tone as she was getting up to leave, and she looked at him again. "What did Bornwise want with you after class?"
The corners of Luna's lips twitched up in spite of herself. "She said I'd been acting differently recently, and she wanted to ask if I was all right."
"That's all?" Riddle sounded mildly surprised. "What did you say?"
"I told her that I'm perfectly fine how I am," she stated.
He scoffed at her, though there was no harshness in the sound. "A lie, of course."
"If you asked me to tell you the truth," Luna said, "my answer would not change."
After a long pause Riddle smiled, faintly but genuinely, looking a bit perplexed. Luna waved and left.
Yes. I can do something with this.
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A/N: hiii guys! It has been a HOT minute so thank you for being patient and sticking with me, although I'm sure you're all familiar with my slow updating by now. I hope you are all looking forward to this arc of the story! xo shai