Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter twenty-eight: Memory

"Women give us solace, but if it were not for women we should never need solace."
-Don Herold
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"Well, that's interesting," Luna said mildly, after standing for a moment frozen in the doorway. She was staring at the young man seated at the table. A young man who looked not a day over seventeen, with dark hair, an aristocratic nose, a strong jaw line, and slightly hollowed cheeks. And red eyes.

A slow smile, one she did not trust, spread on his face. "It's rather simple magic, really," he responded. "To reflect your memories of me back at you. To appear as you remember me. I've done much more impressive things in my time, as I'm sure you know." He gestured to the chair at the opposite end of the table from him, expecting her to sit.

Luna felt herself moving forward towards the chair, but her eyes were fixed on his face. A face she had never expected to see again. She seated herself quietly. After a moment she asked, "What's the point of it?"

That sickening smile grew wider, but he said nothing.

She could feel her nose crinkling in displeasure but quickly forced it to stop. If he wasn't going to give anything away, she wouldn't either. She made herself look away from his handsome face and calmly reached out and began to fill her plate with food. She was finding it difficult to stop herself from going and touching him. As she raised her goblet to her lips she realized her hand was shaking, so she quickly put the goblet down again.

"Look at me."

Her eyes snapped up to his face before she thought about it. As she looked again, she felt as if something cold had clamped down on her heart, but she kept her face carefully blank.

"Is this really what you remember me as?" he asked, peering at his reflection in his own silver goblet, seeming to inspect his face.

"I recall blue eyes," she replied simply.

The eyes in question shifted to gaze at her face, one corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "Indeed."

When he kept staring at her as if he expected her to say something, she swallowed audibly. "You know, just because you look like Tom Riddle doesn't mean that's who you are. You left him behind a long time ago," she said slowly and clearly.

He chuckled and Luna felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He looked back at himself in the goblet. "I can see why. I did look so...human. Much less menacing, I must say."

Luna said nothing, though she wondered in some part of her mind if her food was getting cold. She then realized she wasn't very hungry.

Setting the goblet down, his eyes returned to her. "And yet I dare say you found me handsome."

Aware he was mocking her, she merely held his gaze, which took nearly all of her willpower. She noticed his jaw tighten ever so slightly, and she mused that he was no longer accustomed to people making eye contact with him. She made a conscious effort not to blink.

"Eat," he ordered finally.

"I'm not very hungry," she replied honestly.

Tom – no, Voldemort, she mentally corrected herself – raised one eyebrow at her. "Eat," he repeated.

Luna looked down at her plate. Even her favorite foods didn't look appetizing. But she forced herself to pick up a piece of bacon and take a bite out of it. She chewed slowly, not tasting the food. She swallowed. She forced herself to take another bite. Chew. Swallow. Bite. Chew. Swallow.