Into Your Gravity
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Submission

Disclaimer: The army of flesh-eating gerbils previously mentioned in disclaimers has been reduced to a remaining few old, grumpy gerbils who no longer have the energy to or particularly care about eating flesh. I still own them, and I still do not own Harry Potter.

A/N: This chapter picks up immediately after the last one.

Could I kiss you and make you a queen

Or something in between?


Do you want to see it?
The place where I was free?
'Cause in my mind I need it
But you're nowhere near to me.
--Augustana, "Twenty Years"

Luna made a vague attempt to speak after he'd spun her around to finally face him, but he quickly interrupted her. "Don't be a blabbermouth," he hissed. She remembered saying the same thing, though she couldn't recall sounding so bitter when she'd done so. She guessed he was throwing the words back in her face, but she couldn't bring herself to feel indignant or even really think critically about it when he used her hair to pull her head back so he could get better access to her neck.

Her hands weaved into his hair. In response, he tugged harder on hers. It hurt. She ran her fingers down his neck, trying to provoke him to do it again. He did, all the while attacking her neck and collarbone with a flurry of kisses and teeth.

She felt as if she were quickly spiraling out of control, and yet he remained so calm. She tried to pull his face towards hers to kiss him properly, but he reacted fiercely, grasping her wrists suddenly, growling. "You will not," he commanded. He swung her around and backed her up slowly, step by step, until her knees hit the edge of the bed and she was forced to sit.

He took this time to undress her completely, then stood back and seemed to inspect her. Luna was shivering and sweating at the same time, feeling both fuzzy and sharp. Red eyes crawled over her, and then in the next moment, Luna found herself flat on her back with Tom above her. He hadn't bothered to undress, and they were sprawled across the bed rather than lying on it properly. And he wasn't being gentle, but Luna felt everything so acutely, felt pleasure and pain intermingling, felt what he felt, felt him. It was overwhelming. He was using her, using her body, but really she knew she was using him as well. She nuzzled her nose into his neck, and as she let him take her, she was so busy inhaling his scent, reveling in him, breathing him in, that she didn't notice his face buried in her hair as he did the exact same.

Luna woke alone, in a cold, empty bed. It took her a moment to remember that he had told her to sleep and then had left, without looking at her. She sat up, and her head spun once again. She put a hand to her forehead to steady herself.

"There's food in here, if you happened to have changed your mind about avoiding any form of nutrition," came Tom's voice from the other room.

She briefly wondered how he had known she was awake, then attributed it to the fact that the lines between him and her had become blurred during the night. She then found that she actually was hungry for the first time in days, voraciously so. Pushing the sheets back and swinging her feet to the floor, she noticed a silk robe lying at the foot of the bed. She grabbed it and put it on, stifling a smile about the domesticity of the Dark Lord offering her breakfast. No, she corrected herself, there is nothing domestic about this. She cinched the tie around her waist and padded out of the bedroom.

Tom was seated in his armchair, staring at an empty grate. Nagini had reappeared and wound herself around him and the chair, resting her head on his arm, which he did not seem to mind. He had his chin propped on one fist, and he appeared lost in thought. He didn't acknowledge Luna when she entered. Nagini lifted her head for a moment to see who had come in, then, upon deciding Luna was either not a threat or simply uninteresting, laid her head back down.

Luna made her way over to the table and immediately sat down to eat. She ate ravenously, finding that her plate refilled itself whenever she'd emptied it. As she ate, she wondered if she could get him to tell her what had happened. She wasn't sure what sort of mood he was in – if he was more like last night or more like the Dark Lord. His moods changed so rapidly and violently, and he was nearly perfect at keeping them hidden until it was too late. He was merely ignoring her at the moment, which was not a helpful sign either way.

Finally, she just decided to ask and see what happened. The nerves the silence was causing to build in her stomach would only get worse the longer she drew it out. Clearing her throat to get his attention, she said quite politely, "Would you mind terribly telling me what has happened that has caused you so much distress?"

Nagini hissed at her grumpily as she spoke, as Luna's voice had disturbed her. Luna was painfully reminded of Othello hissing whenever she woke him up as well, and hoped desperately that Neville or Ginny was taking decent care of him. If they were even safe, that was.

"I am aware that it is pointless to deny that something has affected me, but I would not use the word distressed," Tom replied unhelpfully, his voice carrying an echo of chill.

Luna rose from the table and made her way around his chair so that she could see him. He still stared, unseeing, at the grate. Luna made quick eye contact with Nagini, to gain her permission to get closer, which Nagini apparently granted by closing her eyes to sleep again. Kneeling down in front of him to force him to look at her, Luna said quietly, "Please. Please tell me. I need to know."

Finally meeting her eye, he said, "You need to know if your precious Order is safe, don't you?" Luna could hear traces of fatigue in his voice, buried beneath the cold.

"Yes," she said, unapologetic. "But I also am curious because of the way it's...affected you," she admitted. When he still said nothing, she threw out her last weapon, knowing it would either infuriate him or please him. "My – my lord. Please."

He seemed to have no reaction beyond a slight narrowing of his eyes when he looked at her. "Your Order friends attacked here. Undoubtedly in an attempt to rescue you," he finally said acridly.

"They were here?" she questioned, though she wasn't particularly surprised. That would explain everything. And she had known Harry would do something to try to save her. It was in his nature. She wondered if he would still save her if he knew...well, of course he would. He was Harry.

Tom watched her eyes very carefully as he told her the news. It enraged him that she was so utterly preoccupied with Harry Potter. "Yes, they were here." He knew what she would ask next.

"Are they all right?" she asked, just as he knew she would.

"You'll be pleased to know that many more death eaters were killed than Order members," he bit out. Nagini, sensing the change in his mood, raised her head again to his level to also glare down at Luna.

"No, that doesn't please me," Luna replied calmly. "Death never pleases me."

She was always catching him off guard. How could she do that when no one else could? He raised a hand and stroked Nagini's head with a single finger to calm her, soothing his own nerves as well.

"Who died? Please tell me, I beg -"

"Don't beg," he spat. "It disgusts me."

"I'm sorry," she said, nonplussed. "I thought you liked begging."

Her sheer lack of sarcasm annoyed him. "Potter and the Weasley brats are all fine. Bellatrix nearly killed Longbottom, but he got away at the last moment. Does that cover everyone you care about?" he intoned. His patience had ended.

Luna seemed to sense that she shouldn't ask anything else. "Thank you," she whispered. Her voice was so sincere, and it shot another wave of cold hate for Potter through him to know that she was so worried for his enemy. Again, she caught him off guard by laying her head carefully on his knee. She blinked up at him gratefully and almost...fondly. Whatever loathing she undoubtedly held for him was currently being dominated by other emotions. At the moment, she was a perfect picture of submission, though deep down he was aware that she was the one force he could not contain.

"They didn't get to you, but they caused significant damage along the way by catching us by surprise," he was saying, unsure of why he was volunteering the information. "Our numbers were severely decreased. We couldn't withstand another attack." He forced himself to regain his control and stopped speaking.

Luna, for her part, said nothing, merely absorbing what he'd said and taking note of the way the muscles in his thigh tensed and relaxed and seemed to flow with energy. She now at least understood why he had been so eager to escape in her last night. He was afraid. He was, for the first time, considering the possibility that he might not win the war he'd started.

Nagini had been moving without detection since Luna had laid her head on his knee. Only when the snake laid her head on his other knee did Voldemort notice her movement. The serpent had slithered to include Luna in her coils, leaving the two humans in a living entwinement. Looking down at his lap, with slitted, feral eyes watching him from one knee, and seas of blue eyes watching from the other, his hands moved towards each of them simultaneously. Both Nagini and Luna rose to meet his touch.