Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter four: Genesis

They come to see the fire burning in your heart.
They want to witness this love from the start.
They hear you when you cry; this love is far and wide.
When you smile, the stars align,
flower of the universe and child of mine.
Flower of the Universe - Sade (No I.D. Remix)

We're confined to be apart, to take sides in divided cells.
We collide when we depart; don't ask me what's the cost, I don't know myself.
I'm found out if all I do is hide between the lines, an outsider at the door.
I'm unbound, foreign on a path forever mine.
Outsider - Blanco White

•

Tom folded his last set of school robes and placed them on the stack of already-folded clothes in his trunk. He straightened back up and looked around his dormitory. He was alone, his roommates having already headed downstairs to for the End-of-Term Feast. They had wanted to wait for him, but he waved them ahead, saying he would catch up when he was done packing.

Looking around the room he had lived in for most of the past seven years, a heavy feeling settled over him. He reached out and touched the green curtains of his bed. This school had been his home, in ways the orphanage never had. It was here he had learned how powerful he could be, here he had finally learned who he really was, finally learned his destiny. And now it was time to leave.

Turning, he glanced around to see if he had forgotten to pack anything. He looked under the bed, found nothing, then turned to his bedside table. He pulled out his wand and undid the Sticking Charm he had placed on the drawer so that it couldn't be opened. There was also a Curse on it of his own invention, but it would only affect someone other than himself who was nosy and foolish enough to undo the Sticking Charm. Then he pulled the drawer open.

Inside, he kept the things he wanted no one else to see. His diary, his first Horcrux, a piece of his soul, lay there. Loads of parchment, filled with his notes on Horcruxes, necromancy, the left-handed path, and ritualistic Dark magic no one needed to find. Underneath these things, his first letter from Hogwarts, handed to him by Albus Dumbledore, telling him he'd been accepted, his first proof that he was in some way exceptional. He removed these items, then swept his hand to the back of the drawer. His fingers brushed something soft, which he grasped and pulled out. An emerald green quill with a silver serpent on it, a gift from Luna Lovegood.

Sitting on his bed, setting the parchment, letter, and diary to the side, he inspected the quill. He hadn't looked at it in well over a year. Luna had said goodbye. He had thrown the quill into the back of the drawer the same day. He had not gone looking for it since.

Picking up his wand again, he tapped the silver snake, causing it to slither up the quill. He watched the snake's progress for a moment, and allowed his mind to wander. The familiar feeling, as if a vacuum existed in his chest, returned. He raised his wand again, intending to incinerate the quill, but then he hesitated. No, perhaps he would keep it. It would serve as a reminder of the utter foolishness he had displayed when it came to the girl. Remind him to never make those same mistakes again.

Tom stood back up, carrying these last of his belongings and adding them to the trunk. He shut the trunk, transferred the Curse on the bedside table to the trunk, then peered in the mirror by the door. Wearing his black school robes, Slytherin tie around his neck, Head Boy badge pinned to his chest, he brushed his hair back carefully, then removed a bit of lint from his sleeve. With a last glance around the dormitory, he headed up to the Great Hall for the feast.