Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter thirty: Blame

"All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.
It's not a cry you can hear at night,
It's not somebody who's seen the light;
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."
-Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"
•

Luna tilted her cheek into his hand, then paused, realizing what she was doing. This was unacceptable. He was not the boy she had known. He was the murderer of thousands. The evil that kept all the good people looking over their shoulders. He had killed loved ones, and loved ones of loved ones. Of all the dead, Cedric Diggory flew into her mind. Cedric had once told his friends off for making fun of her in her first year. They never spoke, but from then on he'd smiled at her every time they passed in the corridor. And he was dead. Good people were dead.

And here Luna was...acknowledging this man as her lord? Loving every inch of his pale, handsome face? Sleeping in his bed?

She felt his eyes on her but she refused to look up at him. She couldn't. She was glad there wasn't a mirror around because the only thing worse than looking at him would be looking at herself right now.

"I'm going to be sick," she said calmly, before rising and padding quickly to the bedroom, then the bathroom. She had just knelt in front of the toilet when she vomited all her breakfast right back up.

The heaving finally subsided. She stayed on the ground for a moment, feeling some overpowering sense of absurdity at being in Voldemort's bathroom. Was he even human enough to need it anymore? She laughed shakily, but gagged on the laughter and heaved again. She was suddenly wishing desperately for Harry.

After a while, she felt well enough to leave the bathroom. She washed up in the sink, avoiding making eye contact with her reflection in the ornate mirror above it. When she emerged, it was to find Voldemort speaking with three death eaters, one of whom was Bellatrix. She seemed delighted. Luna frowned. That couldn't mean anything good.

Bellatrix's smile faltered when she saw Luna coming out of the bedroom in a robe. Another second and it had devolved into horror. Then she seemed to remember something and she grinned wickedly once more. "I've got a secret," she sang to Luna.

Luna's curiosity piqued in spite of herself. "And what's that?" she asked politely. Her eyes flickered to Tom's face, but he seemed emotionless, distant, and cold. He was observing the conversation as though he had nothing better to do, but he wasn't particularly interested.

"Wouldn't be much of a secret if I told you, now would it?" Bellatrix giggled, crossing the room towards Luna.

"I suppose not," Luna conceded. "Although you seem to be wanting to tell me."

Bellatrix reeled in a snarl, then reached out to play with Luna's hair. Luna, for her part, watched her carefully but didn't move away.

"I bet you're a daddy's little girl," Bellatrix said thoughtfully, her eyes glinting and a smile tugging the corners of her lips as she twirled Luna's golden hair through her fingers.

Luna tried once again to read any emotion from Tom's face, but he only quirked an eyebrow at her unhelpfully. Returning her attention to the woman next to her, Luna said, "My mother died when I was young. It's always been me and my father."

Bellatrix apparently thought this was hysterically funny, and she doubled over in her mirth. Luna was beginning to get a sense of foreboding about whatever Bella's secret was. The two male death eaters who were still standing near Voldemort weren't wearing masks, and she could clearly see that they were amused as well.