Into Your Gravity ( Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle )

Chapter thirty-two: Time

"I don't want to," she said quietly.

"I'm not particularly concerned with what you want right now," he snapped, his eyes burning with fury.

"Can I have my wand?" she asked as she sat beside the pillar, knowing the point was moot.

"No. Perhaps that will keep you from running into battle like a fool," he snarled and draped the invisibility cloak over her.

"You're leaving me here alone and unarmed?" she asked mildly, knowing he couldn't see the wrinkling of her nose beneath the cloak.

"There are wards around this area. So long as you don't leave, you will be fine. No more questions," he said and turned to leave.

In spite of the last order, she asked, "Why bother protecting me?"

He spun around, and for a moment she felt quite sure he could see her beneath the cloak after all. "Just do as I say!" he hissed.

Before she could argue with him anymore, he had disappeared between the graves, heading back in the direction of the house. And as soon as he had left, she felt a feeling of wrongness settle inside of her.

For nearly an hour, she heard and saw nothing. She was on edge, jumping at every night noise. She was cold, and for this reason she was grateful she had the invisibility cloak around her. She had read the inscription on the massive pillar behind which she hid, tracing the large letters of an unknown name with her finger. Every once in a while, she peaked around the edge of the pillar up at the manor on the hill, but nothing seemed to be happening. The waiting was becoming unbearable, and her nerves were ripping at her stomach. She was sure that her fate would be decided one way or the other tonight.

Finally, she heard a single voice shout something unintelligible, then a rush of voices, followed by a few distant bangs and pops. The sounds of fighting began to reach her ears, coming from the direction of the house. She watched diligently from around the pillar but the battle seemed to be taking place on the other side of the house or inside it. At one point, a window on the second floor shattered and a witch fell from it with a piercing cry, landing in the darkness at the base of the house. Luna stifled a cry of her own, and she was left to wondering if it had been a death eater or an Order member.

Luna tried to distract herself, but couldn't shake the nagging feeling that she should be doing something. She had never been one to sit and watch. She grew restless, unable to sit still. She fidgeted her toes back and forth in the soil of the graveyard. Should she run headlong into a battle wandless?

And at some point, she began to smell smoke, and the sky above the house glowed.

•

Someone had lit the house on fire. Oddly, Tom wasn't angered by this. The building itself was nothing more to him than his father's old house, and he had nothing of any real value inside.

He couldn't recall ever having felt like this during a battle. Like some sick potion was bubbling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel anxious and mad and out of control. I'm afraid, he thought with self-loathing as he killed yet another foolish young hero. The Longbottom boy had killed Nagini, a loss which he had not yet fully processed. He needed only to get through the battle; Nagini was a loss but she was not his only Horcrux. He refused to think about the weapon Longbottom had used: a basilisk fang. Surely Potter didn't know of his Horcruxes.