Warning: This chapter contains abuse/torture (mainly the Cruciatus) between characters who are eventually intended to be love interests. Please take care of yourself and consider skipping the portion of the chapter after Luna blacks out if you think you may be triggered by this content.

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Chapter Twenty-Three: Concussion

Sounds a lot like young love
Yeah, I wouldn't know
I was always terrified of touching
Yeah, I wouldn't know
I always thought my eyes would burn

– "I Can't Keep You," Ex:Re

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Luna woke early and in high spirits. Yesterday had gone better than she could have ever imagined, and it had begun to seem as though nothing could get in the way of her accomplishing all of her goals. She had started off a little shakily, that was true, but all her decisions had at last led her here, and she was seeing her efforts come to fruition far sooner than expected. That little moment with Riddle in the snow had been beautiful, a treasure of the order of her first meeting with Ginny or the first time she had produced a Patronus charm. On the journey back, she had felt so fond and happy and so pleased with herself and her charge that she could almost have imagined painting Riddle's perfect face on the wall of her room, right next to Harry's. It even made a kind of sense, if she came at it sideways; he had been the source of so much trouble in their lives, and was the reason for Harry's (temporary, she reminded herself) demise, but at the same time he would be the vehicle of Harry's resurrection and all that she loved being saved.
She knew she was probably being a little irrational, and certainly overly charitable toward Riddle, but the spark of joy and hope from that one moment of laughter had ignited a flame, and she had felt her old buoyant optimism from before the war suddenly come surging back. Whatever happened would happen, but Luna was not about to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth.

Taking a cleansing breath, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked around, smiling. She had all but passed out in the common room, and Edith was still asleep beside her, the two of them having worked late into the small hours of the morning on an essay on the mechanics of shield spells for Professor Merrythought and fallen asleep over their parchments. Mercifully, none of the pages had been damaged, although Luna thought she remembered casting a spell to that effect before her eyes had finally dropped closed. Weak sunlight streamed from the windows, filtering down through the lake; perhaps a bit fancifully, she thought it might look brighter than usual today.

Edith stirred, groaning a little as she realised that the ink staining her hands had gotten on her face during the night. "Did we fall asleep down here?" she asked muzzily.

"Yes," Luna replied, her voice soft but cheerful. "But we finished! At least I think we did," and at this, she had to shuffle through the parchments to check, "yes, we did."

"Bet we'll be the only ones turning it in on time," Edith remarked. "Walburga won't do hers until a day or so after the final end date for late work, unless Orion helps her with it. And Carlotta always frets over big papers, so she won't have hers done yet either." She yawned. "I haven't seen Cecily work on it at all."

"Tom's will be in on time, I think," Luna said, and then blinked, pressing her knuckles to her lips. Edith's brows rose.

"He's 'Tom' now, is he?" Her friend's voice was mild, but Luna blushed faintly anyway – a rarity for her, but she'd taken herself off guard as well.

"It's been a little while," Luna said vaguely, trying not to sound too defensive. The truth was that the events of yesterday had felt like a paradigm shift for her; in her mind, he had made an abrupt movement from "neutral acquaintance" to "friend."

"I'm not poking fun at you." Edith tilted her head, her dark eyes nearly black in the dim light. "I'm just surprised. You've been very conscientious about only calling him by his surname when you're not speaking to his face."

"So are all of you," Luna pointed out, her brow furrowing a little. The other girl exhaled through her nose.

"Not all of us," she said, but did not elaborate.

Luna busied herself with putting her things in order and straightening her uniform. A few moments later, some of the early risers of Slytherin started to filter in from the dormitories, the younger ones casting the two of them curious glances. Seeing the parade of faces ready to start the day brought back some of her good mood, as she idly wondered what awaited each one of them. Sometimes she wished she could show others the rainbow of flashing colours she saw when she looked at a group of people. It was very pretty today, and reminded her of a field of flowers.

The crowd started to thicken; out of it came Carlotta, a bit out of breath, and Walburga, looking as though she hadn't slept well. "Perhaps she's worked on her essay after all," said Edith with some surprise, but Luna, glancing at her sullen and bloodshot eyes and her dreadfully turbulent aura, thought not.

"Let's get a move on, then," said Walburga snappishly, and sure enough her voice sounded a little thicker than usual, as if she'd been crying. The others, all of them knowing better than to try comforting her, made for the exit of the common room without a word. Luna smiled a good morning at Carlotta, who attempted to smile back through her obvious worry.

Breakfast passed quietly. Luna read over Carlotta's essay for her, and had to make an effort to restrain her urge to ask questions about her own tangential lines of thought or comment on pretty word choices. Eventually she handed it back with a recommendation to expand on a source that Carlotta had referenced only in passing, knowing that Merrythought was the type to feel very strongly that her assigned readings ought to be read, understood, and cited properly. (Professor McGonagall had been similar.) Carlotta thanked her a little tremulously and excused herself to try and finish the paper so that she might have it done before Defence if she skipped her first class. Luna, her good mood being invaded by a sudden vague, creeping anxiety and her appetite accordingly curbed, double-checked to reassure herself that she had all the pages of her essay and read it over again instead of eating.

When Luna at last stood outside the door of the Arithmancy classroom, her optimism had all but disappeared. A heavy miasma that clouded her third eye like fog permeated the air all down the hall. If she focused, she could match it to the pins-and-needles feeling that had always accompanied Riddle's aura void, but this was far worse than it had ever been even before her oath, when she thought he had been at his most guarded. She had promised herself that she would not be afraid of him anymore, but "angry" was likely an extremely mild descriptor for his state of mind at the moment, and Luna turned over and over in her mind the question of his abrupt mood swing with something like growing panic. She had known the second she had figured out what was going on that she would have to speak to him right away, or it would only get worse – that he was prone to grudges was a laughable understatement. By the time Luna had forced herself to open the door and walk in, she was still struggling to decide how to approach him, but her mind immediately ceased functioning once she had stepped over the threshold.

Being hit with the full force of his rage was even worse, feeling to her spectral body less like pins and needles and more like knives. The pull of his aura, too, had evolved from a mild vacuum into something more akin to a black hole. Had she been able to think, she might have wondered if it affected her more strongly because he was specifically angry with her. Oddly, though, she found that her impulse was to draw toward him rather than away. Professor Bornwise was entering the classroom now, and most of the students were settling down, but Luna hardly noticed.

"Tom," she said to him in an undertone. He ignored her, though she thought he must have heard. "Tom," she repeated, more loudly, although not enough to draw attention. Again he neglected to respond.

Luna pressed down on a prickle of her own anger. Really, how childish he was, to think a cold shoulder would get him anything, or even deter her at all. It brought up an unpleasant memory of peers drifting past her in the hallways and pretending not to hear her when she'd said hello, and she had to grit her teeth against the echo of pain, even though she was already in a great deal of discomfort because of Riddle's petty rage. What a joke, she thought spitefully before she could stop herself. The most fearsome Dark wizard of all time was only a stupid boy throwing a tantrum. With perhaps less hesitation than was wise, she reached to touch his hand.

Before she knew what was happening Luna was on the floor, ears ringing. A strong sense of déjà vu came over her as she recalled a similar experience the last time she'd tried to touch him, just before she'd given him her oath, although that time she'd been physically knocked to the floor rather than magically shocked so badly that she'd collapsed. "Miss Lovegood?" a lightly accented voice was saying with alarm: Professor Bornwise, who moved to stoop over her after another moment and looked to be briefly checking her over. "What's wrong, dear? Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?"

"No," Luna said, well aware that the student who would be asked to take her would almost certainly be Riddle, since he was nearby and a prefect. She sat up slowly, with effort, and her head spun. "I'm fine," she insisted, but knew that she sounded faint. She forced herself to look in Riddle's direction; he was at last meeting her eyes, and his expression was colder than she had ever seen it. He hates me, she realised fuzzily. Yesterday we were friends. Yesterday I was his only friend, maybe ever, but that doesn't matter today, because today he hates me. The room seemed to tilt, with Riddle as its axis, and Luna's stomach lurched. "Sorry," she gasped, meaning it as an apology for his upset feelings, whatever the reason might be. His glare remained unchanged; she was not forgiven.

Bornwise misinterpreted her. "You needn't apologise," she reassured her gently, checking the temperature of Luna's forehead with the back of her fingers. "I really think you ought to go to the Hospital Wing, though. Mr. Riddle – ?"

"Of course," he replied coolly, the expression of hatred vanishing from his face as soon as the professor looked at him.

Suddenly panicking at the thought of having to touch him again, Luna cringed. "I can stand," she forced out. "I can go by myself."

"No, you can't." His voice would sound matter-of-fact to a casual listener, but Luna caught the undertone of command and closed her mouth on a sharp retort.

She tried another tack. "I have an essay due later," she said to Professor Bornwise, aware that she was beginning to grasp at straws. The professor smiled at her and held out a hand, seeming not to notice that Luna had meant this as a reason that she be allowed to stay.

"Who is it for?" she asked kindly. "I will give it to them personally." Luna, through the haze of her panic, automatically began to slowly gather up her rolls of parchment and hand them to the professor.

"It's for Professor Merrythought," Riddle put in just as Bornwise took the essay. "I have one, too. I can turn in hers along with mine."

For an instant the woman looked as though she might refuse but, to Luna's chagrin, decided otherwise and handed the pages off to him. "Very well. Thank you, Mr. Riddle." Luna's shoulders slumped.

"Come along, Luna," Riddle said then, his tone deceptively gentle. Her old creeping horror of him using her name had fallen away with her surrender weeks ago, but she still knew it now to be a threat. He had ordered her outright now anyway, and she had no choice but to go, but he meant to tell her that if she tried to disobey anyway the consequences would be very bad.

Don't touch me, she thought, trying to make her inner voice resonate loudly enough for him to hear, and looked at him pleadingly. His eyes narrowed: he heard.

He took no mercy on her. When she tried to stand, he slung an arm around her waist and took her hand, pulling her arm over his shoulders. The pain of the contact was dizzying, and she only barely managed to keep from crying out before her vision went dark.

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She woke, not in the Hospital Wing as she'd hoped, but feeling herself in motion. For a mad instant she thought Riddle might be carrying her in his arms, before she recognised that she wasn't in pain. Her eyes opened to the high-arched Hogwarts hall ceilings moving slowly over her, and she realised she was being levitated. Involuntarily, she shifted her weight, and was met with the bizarre sensation of nothing moving underneath her.

"Let me down," she said quickly. She liked flying, on Thestrals at least, but being levitated by someone else was not a sensation she enjoyed. She heard Riddle scoff, and turned her body just in time to catch herself with her arms when he dropped her to the floor without warning. She pushed herself up onto her bruised knees, and sat there for a moment, huddled over the tile. Her lips were numb.

"In there," said Riddle tonelessly, flicking his eyes at the door to an empty classroom. His rage was still palpable in the air around her, but she was beginning to tolerate it a little better, she thought. Luna took a breath, shoved herself to her feet, and went into the room. He followed her and closed the door. A chill ran over her when he muttered a ward for silence, then another that would warn him if anyone came too near.

For another moment he only stood there, still facing the door. A second later Luna felt as though her veins were burning, as though streams of acid were running over and through her body. She must have managed to get out some sort of protest through her screams, because the next moment she was being thrown against the wall, hitting her shoulder and then her head very hard against the wall.

The torment continued for a number of minutes. Luna tried to remember what Harry had taught them about the Cruciatus curse, if he had ever said anything about how to make it better – how to resist – but the only fleeting thought that entered her head other than the pain was of Neville's poor parents, tortured into oblivion. Even the tears coursing down her face seemed to burn her skin, but she couldn't help crying anyway.

At last, the burning ceased. Luna blinked in surprise and sat still for another moment, breathing steadily, registering the silence, a very slight ringing in her ears, and the lingering throbbing pain from being tossed into the wall. She risked a look at Riddle.

He was standing in the same place, looking at the floor rather than at her. For the first time she noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, with shadows under them, and that he was swaying very slightly on his feet.

"Did you sleep?" she blurted. The bloodshot eyes flicked up to glare at her.

"You dare speak to me," Riddle said. His tone was too flat to sound intimidating, though the memory of the torture curse still made her cringe involuntarily at the implicit threat.

"I assume you stopped because you wanted to talk," Luna said anyway, following her impulse rather than common sense. He shifted, his eyes narrowing, and he seemed to consider this for a moment.

"It is astute of you to observe that I am capable of hurting you for as long as is necessary." He was turning his wand over in his fingers, almost compulsively.

"Necessary?" Luna tried to keep her tone mild and failed. "Tom, in what world could this possibly be necessary or even useful to you at all? I am on your side – I literally cannot be otherwise! I'm not even capable of trying to hurt you!"

"You're a very clever liar, Lovegood," he snapped, "but I'm not falling for that one again. You've found some kind of loophole in the oath, some way to trick me, just the way you do everyone."

She couldn't help her scoff, though it turned into a sniff because of her still-running nose. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about?"

Riddle's voice suddenly went low; she noticed that his fingers were white-knuckled around his wand, and he'd stopped toying with it. "Do not play innocent with me. Don't you dare – unless you want more of the curse." On the word curse he turned the tip of his wand toward her slightly, and Luna flinched. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. If you say otherwise again, I shall lose my temper."

Well, she believed that. Seeing no other obvious option, Luna sat quietly for a moment and tried to think.

"The book," she said at last, trying to inject more certainty into her tone than she felt; she still couldn't see how that would have caused any offence, but it was the only idea that seemed at all likely. Something in the air seemed to ease, and when she looked at his face she realised it was because she'd said the thing he had been waiting to hear. He was still angry, but some of the pressure had ebbed with her hitting upon why.

"Yes, the book," he snarled. "Your poisonous little gift. You thought I'd read it and realise what you've been trying to convince me all along. That nothing I'm doing is worthwhile, that I'm doomed to fail. Well, I am not. I know better than to believe anything you say."

"I don't even know which poem you read," Luna pointed out. "Shelley wrote about all sorts of things. How could I have made it so that you chose a specific one? You were there the whole time, you would have seen if I did a spell."

He moved his gaze to the empty air to his left, seeming almost bored. "I don't care how you did it. All I wanted was for you to admit what you did, admit your bigotry, so that I could move on from whatever this – " He glanced back at her, then looked away again. "Whatever this is."

"Bigotry," Luna repeated softly, in total shock. "What are you talking about, Tom? What – because of your blood?" His jaw clenched, and she went on, "What have I ever said to you that could have possibly convinced you that matters to me at all?"

"You didn't have to say it." His eyes flashed, and he opened his mouth as if to say more, then stopped.

Luna bit her lip and took a moment to consider this reaction. That he was being unfair was obvious, that his anger at her was unfounded equally so. But clearly his having expected this of her meant that he had received it from someone else before, likely multiple someones. It had never occurred to her what it would have been like for him to be in Slytherin before he'd had any inkling of his parentage, before he'd known of his blue blood or had a chance to ingratiate himself with his peers.

Had they bullied him? Had they hurt him? Perhaps they had only had the chance to try, once, maybe twice, before he'd taught them a lesson much like this one.

Still…

"For the moment," she said, "I will entertain what you're saying. I intentionally chose the book in order to hurt you… somehow. And the reason I kept giving it to you was because I was bent on hurting you. I wanted you to suffer, when all the time you were beginning to feel we were friends, and that you could trust me. And when you read the book, you realised it had all been a lie, that I hated you all along, and that you have no friends."

That look from the secret room was back, complete rage mixed with equally complete vulnerability. His face was white, and his eyes were huge, furious, and over-bright with what she thought might be tears. The air seemed to vibrate with the intensity of his emotions, murky though they were; it made her teeth hurt. She stood, very slowly.

"If I had done that, it would be awful," Luna went on. "If I had really intended to hurt you. But either way, you were hurt." He was beginning to shake his head, very slowly, which she ignored. "Either way, you were upset, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She took a breath, trying to will him to believe her, to understand that she meant what she was saying. "There have been times when I've been angry with you, or when I've even wanted to hurt you." A month or two ago she might not have even admitted this to herself, but here she was, she reflected. "There have been times I would have chosen to do something like this. But I chose to give you my oath, my binding oath. I can't hurt you now, and I don't want to hurt you now, because you're my friend."

"You still think you can hurt me," he sneered. "You think you have any power over me at all. You think I would ever call you a friend."

"That's what I am," Luna insisted, her voice breaking a little; couldn't she get him to listen? Why wouldn't he listen? He looked so tired; he must have been up the whole night.

"No, I'll tell you what you are." Without warning, his wand came up again, shoving her back against the wall and making her see stars when her head was hit in the same place again. As if that wasn't enough, he strode forward and grabbed her roughly by the throat, and she had to struggle hard not to panic. She couldn't fight him – he could kill her right now, and she wouldn't even be his first victim, only the first to die by his own hand. It could all end, here and now. He opened his mouth to speak again, fingers squeezing, and Luna coughed and sputtered; her eyes might be as bloodshot as his by now, as well as teary. Somehow, she forced out in little more than a wheeze:

"Nothing in the world – is single."

His grip loosened slightly, and he stared at her. She coughed, and tried again.

"Nothing in the world is single; all things by a law divine in another's being mingle – why not I with thine?" She blinked rapidly, repeating the last line under her breath. Riddle remained silent for a long moment.

At last she went on, "That's all I remembered. It's only a fragment, not the whole poem. I picked up a book once, at my friend's house, her father's office. I thought it was so pretty… and well written." She could breathe easily now, his grip was so slight. "I wanted you to read that."

His face had eased. The hand around her throat fell to her shoulder, very briefly, and then away. There was a shine behind his eyes now, the same lightness she'd seen yesterday in the snow. "Oh," he said, careless all of a sudden, as if he'd only just noticed something trivial. Without another word he swiped his thumbs under her eyes, as if he hadn't been on the verge of crying too. Luna stilled in surprise.

Did he mean that as an apology? Surely not; at this stage he would never admit fault, even indirectly. But the look in his eyes was the complete opposite of how it had looked only moments ago – from pure hatred and rage to something softer, trusting, almost fond.

Something – relief, maybe, or that look in his eyes, or even simple exhaustion – made her lean forward and fold her arms around him. Riddle froze for a moment, hesitating. Then, very slowly, as if not quite sure how, he returned the embrace. The remnant of her anger drained away, little by little, until she could swallow it.

The two of them stood there for nearly a minute, not moving. Luna vaguely registered that she was hugging a boy who had been torturing her less than a half hour ago, and that perhaps something was wrong with her to be this comfortable, this close to him. Certainly it was something she would have to keep an eye on, she thought fuzzily. She would remember her promise to herself, to save his soul and accomplish her mission and not allow herself to grow too attached. But the lightness of his relief, of his trust, was just as compelling as the weight of his pain and anger had been. And it had been so long since she'd had a nice hug, or any real touch at all, that it had started to feel like an ache.

She made a deal with herself, just for this once, to hold him until he decided to let go.

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That evening, the two of them were sitting together at the Slytherin table. Edith, who had a fine hand for healing spells, had easily taken care of Luna's injuries, despite Luna's protests that she could have done so herself. Riddle seemed to have somehow picked up on this, and had tacitly invited Edith to sit closer to him than usual, letting her have the place that her twin usually occupied. Luna was seated at his right hand. He said very little to anyone throughout the evening, but Luna kept noticing him listening to her as she spoke and smiling when she said something funny.

About twenty minutes into the meal, she also registered that he didn't seem to have touched much of the food in front of him.

"Tom," she said softly to him, "aren't you going to eat?"

He did not respond or look at her, and after a moment Luna carried on with the conversation, not wanting to dog him about it. A while later, however, she noticed that he had quietly diminished the contents of his plate by about half.

She went to sleep smiling.

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A/N: over a year! I hope you guys forgive me ^^; I had a very, very tough time with this chapter, partly because I kept bumping up against the fact that I had never really sat down and done a detailed plan for this arc (which I thankfully now have). I had been slowly trying to work on it all year, but I don't think I actually figured out where this chapter was going until the beginning of this month. I really appreciate you all being so patient and sticking with me.

I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, in spite of its dark nature; if not, though, know that things are going to start to lighten up from here through the rest of the arc. I will try with all my strength to get the next chapter out much, much sooner than this one, although you guys know I'm slow on the best of days, lol. But I'll try.

I love you guys and I hope you keep surviving in 2022. thanks for reading, as always. xo shai