Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter six: Awry

Curse the things that made me sad for so long.
Yeah, it hurts to think that they can still go on.
I'm happy now.
Are you happy now?
Blush - Wolf Alice

•

"Why do you suppose he sent us to 1948?" Luna asked Othello the morning after arriving in the past. The three of them had had managed to get a few more hours of sleep before waking, and Luna was brushing Violetta's hair with her fingers to get out any knots. "Perhaps this was a foolish assumption - Mother always used to say that assumptions were antithesis to inquisition - but I always thought the Time-Turner would take us back to just when we left the first time, in 1944. What do you think?"

Othello did not appear altogether concerned with the year, as he was cleaning his furry belly with his tongue.

"What a curious thing to do. There must be a reason why this is the time he chose in his past to send us. Since we arrived on the same day of year that we left, there must have been a range of dates he found acceptable to arrive, perhaps an entire year. I wonder what he found so important about this year of his past?" She picked Violetta up under the arms and set her on her feet on the floor. "Darling, we need to get you clothes. Time travel unfortunately does not come with the appropriate wardrobe, and you can't wear your pajamas all the time."

"Why not?" Violetta asked.

"That's a very good question, my love, and I'm proud of you for asking. I suppose someone at some point decided that we must have different clothes for sleeping as for being awake, and it's stuck ever since."

"Why?"

"Another astute question. It's possible that this was all a clever ruse by a seamstress or tailor who sought to have us purchase twice as many clothes from them as before. It's difficult to say for sure, however. Regardless, we will both be getting a new wardrobe today. But first, we need to send an owl. I may have to cope with losing my friends in the future, but I still might have some now." Luna turned to Othello, who was now cleaning between his outstretched toes. "Are you going to spend the entire day bathing? What are your plans?"

The grey Kneazle turned his face towards Luna and meowed.

"Very well, we shall leave you to it. Don't forget that if you do go wandering around, you're not supposed to be in Mr. Lazarus' pub downstairs." When the Kneazle meowed again in a disgruntled sort of way, Luna said, "I know, I agree. But this is someone else's home, and he's been quite kind by letting us stay here, so we ought to follow his rules." She scratched under the Kneazle's chin. "Behave yourself."

After Othello gave her hand a reassuring lick with his sandpaper tongue, Luna pulled her robes from the night before over her own pajamas. The sack of Galleons in her pocket was heavy, as she had taken to keeping more money on her person over the past two years. This was in part due to frequently being abroad, and in part just in case something happened and she was, for some time, unable to access her vault at Gringotts. Still, the majority of her money, both in her earnings and her inheritance from her parents, was inaccessible to her now that she was in the past.

Luna carried Violetta down the stairs and into the pub, where Lazarus was already at his post behind the bar. "Good morning, Lazarus!" Luna said.

The old barman paused in polishing glasses with a towel and inspected Luna and Violetta from under bushy eyebrows. "Good morning," he gruffed back.