Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter one: Grief

Well, I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette.
I'm a lifeless face you'll soon forget.
And my eyes are damp from the words you left,
ringing in my head, when you broke my chest.
Setting fire to our insides for fun
to distract our hearts from ever missing them.
But I'm forever missing him.
Youth - Daughter

•

It will only work once, and it will only take you where you need to go.

Luna gazed down at her palm where the tiny bit of parchment and Time-Turner rested. The flames from the burning house were reflected in the metallic luster of the Time-Turner: flickering, lambent light.

She looked up towards where Voldemort had fallen and saw his crumpled body cast in shadows. The scent of burning wood filled her nose. The air in her lungs was hot. She retched without nausea, without warning, as though she needed to get the feeling out of her, like she needed to get the knowledge of all that had happened out of her. Nothing came out.

After a shuddering breath, she returned her eyes to the Time-Turner and the parchment in her hand. For a long moment, Luna felt as though her breathing, her pulse, and the rate at which the light of the fire wavered were all in sync. Then a breath of cool night breeze shivered through her hair and lifted the piece of parchment from her palm and carried it up, up, away from her. Her eyes followed it through the air, but as it began to fall towards the fire, her heart rate quickened, sputtering out of time with the beat of the flames.

She stumbled forward a heavy step, hand outstretched, reaching for the bit of parchment, that last bit of proof of his humanity in the intimate details of his handwriting -

An arm grabbed her around her waist, hauling her backward. The parchment drifted further downward. She fought, she kicked, she pried at the arm restraining her with her free hand, she hit with a fist closed around the Time-Turner with her other hand. Her face was wet and she tasted salt; she was crying and screaming, but didn't know when she had started either.

"Luna! Luna!" A voice, the owner of the arm. Another arm wrapped around her, bear-hugging her arms to her sides. The parchment alighted on a burning beam and erupted into flames. It was indistinguishable from the rest of the surrounding devastation.

"Luna!" Harry's voice. It was Harry. Luna stopped fighting, limbs softening and allowing herself to be pulled away. Then her muscles went past relaxed into limp as she lost consciousness.

                                •

Grief. She knew she was grieving, as she had done before. Her father. Tom. Even the memories of her mother's death, something she had so long ago thought she had made sense of somehow, seemed dredged up like silt from the sediment of her soul. Except now, there were invisible, implicit boundaries set on her grief. There were limits to that which was limitless.

Luna was seated cross-legged on the ground in a bedroom on the first floor of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, her back leaning against the small bed. She was sitting very still, eyes downcast at the threadbare rug in front of her. Othello the Kneazle was curled up on her lap, rumbling with a low, steady purr. His purr cut off and he lifted his head from her knee and turned towards the door, huge ears rotating back and forth. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door.

"Luna?" Hermione's voice hesitantly perturbed the heavy air of the room. "May I come in?"

"Of course." Luna felt as though her voice came from somewhere outside of herself.