Into Your Gravity
Chapter Thirty-Two: Time
A/N: THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER.
Oh well the devil makes us sin
But we like it when we're spinning, in his grin.
Love is like a sin my love
For the ones that feels it the most
-Massive Attack, "Paradise Circus"
"Wake up! Wake up now!"
Luna awoke to Tom's urgent voice, and to him shaking her shoulders. "What? What time is it?" she asked groggily. She had dwelt on unhappy thoughts for hours before dozing uneasily after he had left her room earlier in the day.
"It's after midnight. Your friends in the Order are coming," he spat. "Come with me. I'm taking you somewhere you won't be in the way."
Suddenly wide awake, Luna said, "The Order? How many?"
"Too many. Get up." He walked over to the armchair, where clothes lie for her. He picked these up and threw them at her. "Get dressed. Quickly."
"Where am I going?" she asked, as she began to dress. "I want to stay."
He rounded on her, pulling his wand from his robes and pointing it at her, his eyes ablaze with a madness that had breached the surface. "Do what I say. I don't have time for this."
"Curses will rebound on you," she said, reminding him of the oath he made not to harm her. She kept her eyes fixed on the tip of his wand nevertheless.
"I'm sure I can have Bella take care of you if need be," he seethed. "Move."
Luna's stomach turned over as she realized that at this point, with him so obviously frayed at the edges, it was not unlikely that he would follow through with that threat. She fell silent and finished dressing as quickly as possible, as Voldemort hovered by the door.
As soon as she was dressed, he seized her upper arm and hauled her out of the room and through the hallway. The death eaters were preparing for battle with a silence Luna found discomforting, as though a bit of doubt had wormed its way into their heads over the day and had settled in to grow. Busy as they were casting defensive spells on the building and positioning lookouts, they immediately leapt out of Voldemort's path as he passed with Luna in tow.
Voldemort flung the front door of the manor wide with a flick of his wand. They set off across the sloping grounds, and she noticed he had pulled an invisibility cloak out of his robes as they hurried into the dark night. He lead her around the back of the house towards a small, winding dirt path that, from her vantage point atop the hill, she could see led to the small graveyard a short distance away. Neither one of them spoke as they hurried down the path, their robes billowing behind them.
The night was chilly, just enough bite in the air to be uncomfortable, but the sky was clear and the stars were bright. Luna thought distractedly that there were far too many stars in the sky, and some of the little lights must be Giant Peruvian Fireflies, which would certainly fly away once all the noise from the battle started. She thought about mentioning this to Tom, but was fairly certain that even if he did happen to believe in Giant Peruvian Fireflies, he wasn't likely to want to discuss them at the moment.
The silence between them was only punctured by their breath until they reached the outermost gravestones of the cemetery.
"You must stay here," he hissed at her, moving quickly between the headstones until they reached a large marble pillar. "Sit," he order, pointed at the base of the pillar on the side facing away from the manor. She would be hidden, even without an invisibility cloak.
"I don't want to," she said quietly.
"I'm not particularly concerned with what you want right now," he snapped, his eyes burning with fury.
"Can I have my wand?" she asked as she sat beside the pillar, knowing the point was moot.
"No. Perhaps that will keep you from running into battle like a fool," he snarled and draped the invisibility cloak over her.
"You're leaving me here alone and unarmed?" she asked mildly, knowing he couldn't see the wrinkling of her nose beneath the cloak.
"There are wards around this area. So long as you don't leave, you will be fine. No more questions," he said and turned to leave.
In spite of the last order, she asked, "Why bother protecting me?"
He spun around, and for a moment she felt quite sure he could see her beneath the cloak after all. "Just do as I say!" he hissed.
Before she could argue with him anymore, he had disappeared between the graves, heading back in the direction of the house. And as soon as he had left, she felt a feeling of wrongness settle inside of her.
For nearly an hour, she heard and saw nothing. She was on edge, jumping at every night noise. She was cold, and for this reason she was grateful she had the invisibility cloak around her. She had read the inscription on the massive pillar behind which she hid, tracing the large letters of an unknown name with her finger. Every once in a while, she peaked around the edge of the pillar up at the manor on the hill, but nothing seemed to be happening. The waiting was becoming unbearable, and her nerves were ripping at her stomach. She was sure that her fate would be decided one way or the other tonight.
Finally, she heard a single voice shout something unintelligible, then a rush of voices, followed by a few distant bangs and pops. The sounds of fighting began to reach her ears, coming from the direction of the house. She watched diligently from around the pillar but the battle seemed to be taking place on the other side of the house or inside it. At one point, a window on the second floor shattered and a witch fell from it with a piercing cry, landing in the darkness at the base of the house. Luna stifled a cry of her own, and she was left to wondering if it had been a death eater or an Order member.
Luna tried to distract herself, but couldn't shake the nagging feeling that she should be doing something. She had never been one to sit and watch. She grew restless, unable to sit still. She fidgeted her toes back and forth in the soil of the graveyard. Should she run headlong into a battle wandless?
And at some point, she began to smell smoke, and the sky above the house glowed.
Someone had lit the house on fire. Oddly, Tom wasn't angered by this. The building itself was nothing more to him than his father's old house, and he had nothing of any real value inside.
He couldn't recall ever having felt like this during a battle. Like some sick potion was bubbling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel anxious and mad and out of control. I'm afraid, he thought with self-loathing as he killed yet another foolish young hero. The Longbottom boy had killed Nagini, a loss which he had not yet fully processed. He needed only to get through the battle; Nagini was a loss but she was not his only Horcrux. He refused to think about the weapon Longbottom had used: a basilisk fang. Surely Potter didn't know of his Horcruxes.
Bellatrix had struck down the traitor Snape a few minutes ago, something he would reward her richly for should she survive. He was just beginning to wonder where the precious Potter was when the brat appeared out of nowhere, sending hexes his way.
What was left of Tom's heart leapt into his throat as the two of them entered into a fierce duel. This was destiny at his door; tonight would determine forever. The two battled with a brutality and hatred that made all the other witches and wizards give them a wide berth, and they slowly moved away from the rest of the battle and closer to the burning house. Tom couldn't help but smile. It was time.
Luna was unbearably on edge. She simply could not rid herself of the feeling that she shouldn't be here; that she should be with Harry, with Voldemort, with all of them. Immediately. The more time went on, the more desperate the feeling became. The battling had crept around the sides of the burning house, and she could now see several pairs of wands firing back and forth at one another.
"I don't care!" she finally whispered aloud to herself. She stood up from the base of the pillar, wrapping the invisibility cloak tighter around her. She saw a few people running away from the battle as she hurried towards it, though she couldn't who was running. The noises of the fight grew louder, and the smell of smoke grew stronger as she left the graveyard and began hurrying back up the path.
The house was now completely engulfed in flames. She glanced up at it for a moment as she reached the top of the hill. While she watched, the whole building gave a horrid groan and seemed to waver, spewing embers and smoke upon the dueling people surrounding it. Pulling her eyes away from the fire, she looked at the battle raging on in front of her. She saw many people she knew, and some people she didn't know. It seemed that the Death Eaters were, for once, equally matched man for man by the Order.
Watching the ongoing fight only preoccupied her attention for a moment before she remembered that she needed to find Tom and Harry. She was certain that if she found one, she would find the other, and although she had no idea what she would do once she found them, the feeling in her chest told her that she absolutely must find them.
Running towards where the house had stood, Luna could feel the air growing almost unbearably hot the closer she got to the flames. She was now no longer grateful for the cloak's warmth, but she dared not discard it in the midst of the battle. She weaved in between all the wizards and witches fighting, not noticing that she was almost hit by a few spells. She was only intent on finding Harry and Tom.
Finally, she spotted them, only a few yards away from the house. They were dueling each other alone, almost apart from the rest of the battle. Although she was still running, she felt as if her legs were lead – she just couldn't move quickly enough. Her breath was burning her lungs as she inhaled mouthfuls of smoke and hot air.
Suddenly, when Luna was only a few yards away, Harry's wand flew out of his hands. Luna's stomach dropped as she realized he had been disarmed. Voldemort was advancing slowly on Harry.
"Well, here we are. The famous Harry Potter is at my mercy," Tom smirked, moving closer toward the boy, gloating in his every word and every step. Just as he began to raise his wand in order to kill the boy once and for all, the burning house gave another groan. Mixed with the sound of the groan was a shriek from Luna, who had suddenly appeared nearby out of thin air.
Tom looked up in time to see the house collapse, and to see one broken beam flying towards him. He leapt aside, using unconscious magic to help him out of harm's way. He landed perhaps a foot from Harry and was momentarily distracted.
Harry had seized the moment. He had whipped the Sorting Hat from his robes and plunged a hand into it, pulling Gryffindor's sword from it's depths. As soon as Voldemort had land beside him, Harry plunged the sword into Voldemort's wretched body.
Harry released the sword, and Voldemort stumbled backward, clutching at the sword faintly as unnaturally dark blood seeped over long, white fingers.
"Your Horcruxes are gone, Tom," Harry whispered, though without much triumph in his voice.
The pain that blossomed through Tom's body was unlike any he'd ever experienced before. Even when the Killing Curse had rebounded upon him and he'd been forced out of his body, even when he'd rent his soul into pieces. This was different. He could feel the very life in him began to ebb out of him, like a glass full of water that's sprung a leak. This was deep. This was fatal. This was mortal.
Luna felt her body convulse. She felt oddly as if her spine had suddenly shrunk three inches. She wanted to scream again, but felt like the volume on her voice wasn't working, just like her daddy's broken radio back home. She stumbled forward, reaching out to Tom like a zombie.
Both Harry and Voldemort were staring at her now. She wasn't angry with Harry, she had understood this all along, and she was sure he knew that even though she went past him directly to Tom.
Tom suddenly coughed violently. He moved one of his hands to cover his mouth out of habit. When he removed his hand, it was spattered with new blood. He stared at it for a moment, as though not comprehending the sight of his own humanity, then raised his eyes to her face again. Their eyes met and he sank to his knees, his face still largely devoid of expression. When Luna knelt next to him, Tom reached out, saying nothing of the fact that she had disobeyed his wishes of staying in the graveyard. He grabbed at her necklace, which still hung around her neck, his hand slick with his own blood. He forced himself to grab the necklace and pull, snapping the chain at the back of her neck. He coughed again, no longer a handsome young man in her eyes, but the wretch he had become, and the wretch he was dying as. She still reached out to him.
Growing weaker by the second, he wanted to be furious that, in the end, he had died, just like a human. Not just like any human, but like a muggle. But he couldn't muster enough strength to be furious. He was growing dizzy and it was beginning to be difficult to focus on what he wanted to do and, just as importantly, what he wanted to say. "Luna," he croaked, surprised to hear his own voice so drained.
"Yes, Thomas, I'm here," she replied.
He expected to feel the familiar flash of annoyance at her calling him Thomas, but it wouldn't come. He realized he no longer cared. He also noticed that the fighting around them continued, no one quite having noticed yet what had happened. Potter was still staring, but he found he no longer cared about that either. "I knew you wouldn't stay there."
"I tried," she said, finding it was the only thing she could think of to say.
He shook his head slightly to make her stop talking. "Just listen to me," he tried to say. All that mattered was that he carried out the plan he had set up. He had done so as a backup plan, even while denying he needed one. He was glad of it now.
Luna shook her head right back at him. "You're dying."
Tom felt his lips curl upwards into a small smile. Only she could tell him he was dying in such a way that didn't infuriate or terrify him. Staring up into her face, which was silhouetted by light from the flames behind her, he thought that she had achieved something he never had, that she was greater than human. "Luna. Listen to me. Trust me." Speaking was becoming increasingly difficult, and he hoped she would let him finish as quickly as possible. He was almost out of time.
"I always trusted you more than I should have," she said, almost but not quite bitter. Her hand ran across his forehead as if to comfort him, but it shook to much to do so.
He lifted the hand that held her necklace in it, as if to show it to her. "Trust me," he repeated, his voice now just barely above a whisper. Inhaling a rattling breath as deeply as he could, he used his last strength to suddenly lob the stone into the flames of the burning building a few yards away. He felt her tense, but she was unwilling to leave his side to go and retrieve the necklace. "I have to tell you." This was possibly the hardest part of everything he'd planned. "I love you, Luna."
Her lips parted slightly as though in a minuscule gasp. But then she shook her head again. "I know," she said, her eyes pools of light that seemed to outshine even the flames behind her, and he realized he hadn't needed to say it for her, but for himself.
"Go get it," he said, gesturing towards where he'd thrown the necklace as he exhaled one last time.
At first, she was unable to move. She bent low over him, shuddering in spite of the intense heat coming off the flames. Feeling like her lungs were collapsing, Luna finally forced herself to move. Picking up Tom's wand, she moved slowly in the direction that he had thrown the stone. She vaguely heard Harry call her name, but she ignored him. Not because she was angry with him, but because her heart had too many heavy things in it at the moment to take anything else without collapsing like the burning house had.
Coughing on tears and smoke, she stuttered, "Accio necklace!" She watched as the stone rose out of the flames and flew towards her. Unthinking, she held her hand out for it. It dropped into her palm and instantly burned her, causing her to drop it. It landed on the soft grass, and she knelt to look at it more closely. As she watched, the gem part melted away like candle wax, seeping into the ground, and revealing a tiny piece of parchment. Picking up the enchanted paper, Luna noted that the words on it were written in Tom's own hand:
"It will only work once, and it will only take you where you need to go."
Luna stared at the words on the paper, wondering what they could possibly mean, when she noticed that another tiny thing had been stowed away inside the stone, which now glittered with reflected fire.
A Time-Turner.
A/N: In case you missed the first author's note, this is the last chapter. The first couple reviewers have gotten the impression that this story will continue. Unless I write a sequel, THIS IS IT. If there is no sequel, it is up to you what she does with the Time-Turner. I didn't want to put a note here because it messes up the ending but I didn't want there to be confusion. Barring any POSSIBLE sequel, this story is COMPLETE.