Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter nine: Nargles

Who's seen Jezebel?
She was born to be the woman we could blame.
Make me a beast half as brave;
I'd be the same.
Jezebel - Iron & Wine

I got a bad heart, got a mean streak,
a good way of leaving you weak.
Got time to kill, but time don't equal love.
It just reminds you of the water we can't get above.
Sirens - Daniel Ahearn & The Jones
•

On Halloween, a Sunday, Tom entered the Great Hall for breakfast to find the by-now familiar decor of hundreds of carved pumpkins and a similar number of black bats flying around in clouds. Some of the students, taking advantage of the fact that the holiday was on a weekend, had playfully donned masks and were busy complimenting or trying to startle one another.

Tom had dressed as usual, without a mask, black hair smoothed carefully back, clothes impeccably wrinkle-free. He was surrounded by Malfoy, Lestrange, Nott, and Avery at the Slytherin table, listening with mild amusement as Lestrange whispered a story about how he had terrorized a Muggle-born first year the day before by conjuring hundreds of spiders to crawl all over him while in the bathroom. Lestrange himself had hid carefully out of sight in another stall while the boy had panicked in fear.

"Swear I thought he was going to piss himself," Lestrange whispered with glee. "Lucky for him he was already in the loo."

Nott, Avery, and Malfoy howled with laughter, slapping the table and wiping tears from their eyes, while Tom smirked in silence.

A girl with dark hair wearing a sequined black mask sat down next to their group. "I see you're all having a good morning. But where's your Halloween spirit, boys?" she asked, lifting her mask up and revealing a pretty porcelain face with thin lips and arched brows.

"Walburga Black, you're too lovely to be wearing a mask over your face," Nott said, leaning towards the girl.

"Watch out, Nott, she's only for her cousins," Malfoy quipped.

"Ah, in the future maybe," Nott said. "But for now, I've got to try, haven't I? And I'm pure-blood, besides, darling." He grabbed one of Walburga's hands and planted a kiss on it.

Walburga tittered in a way that made bile rise in the back of Tom's throat. "Oh, don't be so naughty," she said. Her dark-lashed eyes shifted to Tom, who gazed back with an emotionless face. "I'm free as bird right now, anyway."

Suddenly, Tom's eyes were covered from behind by two small hands. Restraining himself from responding violently in the middle of the Great Hall to whoever had dared to sneak up and touch his face, he tensed.

"Boo!" said a dreamy voice behind him. "Guess who?"

The hands were removed, and Tom opened his eyes to see his fellow Slytherins snickering. He took a deep, steadying breath and turned around. Luna Lovegood stood behind him, wearing an enormous hat shaped like a phoenix that had been enchanted to flap its wings and look around.

"Happy Halloween!" she said.

"You have to be kidding me," Malfoy said sullenly. His pride had not yet recovered from the Hogsmeade incident.

Walburga looked Luna up and down with her lips pressed together in a sour expression. She had not missed the casual way the odd Ravenclaw girl had approached Tom.

"Oh, excellent charmwork, Miss Lovegood!" Professor Slughorn had appeared at his House's table and was admiring Luna's hat.

The group of Slytherins, including Tom, sat up a little bit straighter, their expressions losing their open hostility in the presence of a teacher. "Good morning, Professor," said Tom.