We said our goodbyes before we said hello.
In a small place, you changed me.
In a crowded place, you isolated me.
Just tell me the truth; it'll hurt less, I guess.
Tell Me the Truth - Lapsley
•
Luna woke the following morning after a night of fitful sleep feeling groggy. Her dreams had been uncharacteristically unpleasant, full of long fingers and long corridors, and also a panic, a smothering fear that she was trapped somewhere she didn't belong and couldn't move. She stretched in her bed, reluctant to leave the warmth and safety of her blankets.
"Oi! Luna! Get up! We're going to miss breakfast!" A well-tossed pillow flew through Luna's bed curtains, landing on Luna's abdomen. Sitting upright, Luna pulled the curtains open to reveal Cat, already in her school robes, hopping on one foot as she hurried to pull a sock on. The other girls had already left the dormitory.
Getting up, Luna spotted a trunk which had appeared at the foot of her bed. Opening it, she found not only a set of new black school robes and Ravenclaw uniforms, but also a rainbow assortment of sweaters and stockings that were not at all far off those she had left behind in 1997. Pleased and feeling a rush of affection for Albus Dumbledore, she dressed with speed, only getting distracted for a few moments by a pair of socks in her trunk which shouted the day of the week when one went to put them on. She picked her wand up from her bedside table, tucked it behind her left ear for safekeeping, then set off with Cat towards the Great Hall for breakfast.
The enchanted ceiling above them was a gloomy grey color, indicating that a storm front had moved in overnight. Luna and Cat walked by the Slytherin table to sit at the Ravenclaw table, and Luna did not turn her head to glance at the Slytherins as they passed.
Lucinda was seated further down the table, having an animated conversation with two admiring boys. Luna and Cat seated themselves next to Lorraine, and no sooner had they sat down than they were handed their class schedules by their Head of House. The three of them began inspecting and comparing their schedules.
"I've got Potions first thing this morning," Luna read aloud.
"Oh, that's bad luck," Cat groaned through a mouthful of toast. "I hate Potions, dropped it as soon as I could."
"Not to mention you got a 'Dreadful' on your O.W.L.," Lucinda interjected from behind Cat, having left the boys behind. "Lorraine and I will be in Potions with you, though, Luna."
Cat made a rude gesture at Lucinda, then returned to the schedules. "Yuck, Luna, why would you take Arithmancy? It's so tedious!"
"I think it's fascinating!" Luna objected.
"I love Arithmancy! We'll be in that together, too!" Lorraine said.
"And we'll all be in Charms together after lunch," Lucinda added, peering over Cat's shoulder at the schedules.
Luna glanced at her watch, then began shoveling food in her mouth. Her father always said it was bad luck to start an adventure on an empty stomach.
"Luna, no one's going to take your food away, you can slow down," Lucinda joked, earning a pointed look from Cat. "Just kidding, of course."
"Oh, I don't mind. Back home, I get made fun of all the time," Luna replied airily, making the other girls exchange uncomfortable glances.
As she continued to eat her breakfast, Luna developed an acute sensation of being watched. Against her better judgement, she allowed herself to look up and scan the Slytherin table. There, halfway along the table, surrounded by other Slytherin boys his age, Tom Riddle was keeping an eye on her. Luna froze with her fork halfway to her mouth and watched as Tom held her gaze, then turned his eyes to one of the other boys to briefly respond to him. Then, with an air of nonchalance, he looked to her again out of the side of his eyes, the corners of his mouth languidly curling upward in a wry smile. She couldn't tell if he was smirking at his friends or at her. She was fairly certain it was at her.
"You alright there, Luna?" Cat asked, waving a hand in front of Luna's face.
Pulling her eyes away from Riddle, Luna said, "That boy, Tom Riddle...he's watching me."
To Luna's bewilderment, both Lucinda and Lorraine giggled after glancing over at the Slytherin table. Even Cat seemed a fair bit pinker in the cheeks.
"He's so good-looking," Lorraine said, blushing and shooting another glance towards Tom.
Cat, who seemed to have regained her composure, cleared her throat and said, "Yes, too bad he's a rotten Slytherin. Always running around with his little gang everywhere, playing teacher's pet. Wouldn't trust him so far as I could throw him, no matter how pretty he is." Seeing that the look on Luna's face had not changed, she added, "Seriously, are you okay?"
Luna was not sure how she could explain herself, and certainly not without breaking some of the most serious laws regarding time-travel, as well as her promise to Dumbledore. How was she to explain that they should not find the future Dark Lord devilishly handsome? How was she to do anything at all? She had stayed up most of the night trying to sort out what she was supposed to do in the situation in which she had found herself, and she was no closer than when she had started. Doing what felt right had never seemed so complicated before; indeed, none of her options seemed to feel anything resembling 'right'.
She took a deep breath, attempting to quell the nausea and nerves that churned in her stomach. "I - I'm not used to having boys watch me, I guess." Noting that she had lied more in the past day than she had in the previous several years combined did not improve the deep, unsettled feeling in her insides.
The other girls shrugged off her behavior, Lucinda shaking her head and muttering, "If I caught Tom Riddle staring at me, I sure wouldn't get upset about it."
A few moments later, after most of the other students had already started to head off to their classes, Lorraine stood up from the table. "We're going to be late, and you know how Slughorn plays favorites - if we're late, it will stick to us the rest of the year." She hurried out of the Great Hall with Luna and Lucinda in tow.
They rushed down the stairs to the dungeons, skidding to a halt outside the Potions classroom with only a few moments to spare. Lorraine pulled the door to the classroom open, and the girls began filing inside.
Professor Slughorn was already there, standing up at the front of the classroom in emerald green robes and an affable grin. "Ah, yes, right on time! Welcome, welcome!"
They found seats together at a table, passing the small group of students already assembled. No sooner had Luna sat down and pulled her Potions book out of her bag, than the door to the classroom opened again, and in strode Tom Riddle with a casual arrogance, as though the class beginning should wait on him.
•
Tom sat himself down at the table in front, where Abraxas Malfoy and Clarence Nott had been saving him a seat. He had spotted the new girl, Luna Lovegood, sitting at one of the tables further back. His back to her, he frowned, remembering the way the Ravenclaw girls had turned to look at him at breakfast then giggled. He was sure they thought he'd been staring at the new girl because he thought she was pretty. In reality, he had been trying to assess how much of a threat she might be.
Having long ago developed the habit of seeing every interaction in terms of opposing forces had enabled him to always be a step ahead of everyone he met. Luna Lovegood could be no exception to this, though he had left their meeting feeling restless and agitated. To his immense displeasure, he had had several dreams the night before into which this flighty, strange witch was incorporated. In one of them, Tom had been a snake to which the girl offered food, much like she had offered bread to the mouse. Instead of taking the food she offered him, he had slowly coiled himself around her pale throat - until her skin had begun to burn his own, and he had released her, falling down, searing with pain.
He had never experienced precognition, but he was well-attuned to his own gut-feelings about things. And his gut would not let him stop thinking about Luna Lovegood.
It didn't help that when they had made eye contact at breakfast, there was an unmistakable mingling of recognition and repulsion in her face, a look which had been absent the night before but very present now, as though she knew him very well and was not fond of him whatsoever. But that was impossible. Perhaps it had just finally occurred to her that he was being condescending last night. He shook his head, pulling out his Potions book, thinking with irritation that perhaps Luna's nuttiness was catching and that he would be best served by steering clear.
A clap from Professor Slughorn brought Tom's attention back to the classroom. "Now then!" Slughorn said. "Let's get started, shall we? I believe we have a new student with us this year, a Miss...Lovegood!" he said, glancing at a slip of parchment in his hand. He gestured towards Luna. "That must be you!" The whole class turned to look at her.
The girl was gazing at Slughorn with her eyes out of focus and only responded when the brunette Ravenclaw next to her prodded her in the ribs. "Oh, yes, hello," she said dazedly, as though coming out of a trance.
"Ah, yes! Hello there!" Slughorn cried. "I trust you will all make our new student feel most welcome!" The quiet sniggering from some of the students did not seem to phase Slughorn nor Luna, whose eyes immediately slid out of focus again as she returned to her own thoughts. Slughorn continued, "Today, we will begin work on brewing Veritaserum, a very powerful potion which compels the drinker to tell the truth. Tasteless and colorless, it can be difficult to detect. Now, this is a very complex potion which I usually undertake with my seventh years. However, I have been so pleased with this class that I've decided to teach it early. We're going to pair up now, and you will remain with your partner throughout the brewing of the Veritaserum, which will take a complete moon-cycle."
•
There was a sudden rush for everyone to pair up with someone with whom they wanted to work. Before Luna, Lorraine, and Lucinda could begin sorting out which of them would pair up, Professor Slughorn bustled over to their table. "Miss Lovegood, I am quite sure you are a competent potion-maker; however, given that you are a new student, I'm sure you have plenty on your mind this first month. As such, I would like to pair you with my most advanced student to ease your workload on this delicate and complicated potion."
"That's very kind of you, sir," Luna said, picking up her textbook and bag as Lorraine and Lucinda paired up.
"This way, this way," Slughorn said in a jovial voice through a smile, moving away and beckoning her to follow. "Mr. Nott, please find another partner. I'd like Tom to work with Miss Lovegood here."
Nott looked Luna up and down, scowling at her when Slughorn turned away from him, but paired off with another Slytherin boy without argument.
"Miss Lovegood, this is Tom Riddle. Best in my classes, even better than my seventh years!" said Slughorn.
Luna felt as though her feet were glued to the floor, refusing to carry her any closer towards Tom Riddle. Her nose was beginning to wrinkle in a giveaway of her discontent. "Sir, I'm sure Tom would rather work with his friend."
"Nonsense! Tom will be happy to help you, won't you Tom?"
"Of course, sir," said Tom with a nod, sycophantic and smooth.
"Wonderful!" cried Slughorn before sweeping away towards his desk.
The moment Slughorn's back was turned, the look of earnest fell from Tom's face. "Isn't that wonderful."
Luna narrowed her eyes at the way his practiced tone of voice could so finely walk a line between politeness and condescension. She steeled herself and sat down next to him. She did not deign to respond to his comment, and instead opened her textbook and began to prepare ingredients. As she was chopping her Wartizome roots with a bit more violence than necessary, she considered the fact that she was seated next to a young Lord Voldemort brewing a truth serum. If someone were to use it on her, they would get quite the earful. She let out a bark of laughter as she continued to chop the roots. Never, from hunting for Snorkacks in Sweden to fighting Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, had she ever found herself in quite such an unbelievable situation.
•
"What's gotten into you? Why are you ruining our Wartizome roots?" Tom asked, eyes on her hands, line of irritation returning between his brows. "The last thing I need is for my grades to flag because of an inept Potions partner."
She did not alter the way in which she was going about chopping the roots. "That's the last thing you need," she scoffed. Her comment appeared to make perfect sense to her, though it was a mystery to Tom, and she did not expound upon it further. She finished the roots and set her knife aside. "I'll get the Jobberknoll feathers from the cupboard." Then she left the table, drifting away without looking at him. When she returned, she continued about her work without further acknowledgement of his presence beside her.
"You know," he said, "you were much more pleasant last night. Today you seemed downright disgusted at the idea of working together." He was curious, probing at her defenses, testing her.
Luna paused halfway through plucking the barbs from the rachis of a Jobberknoll feather. She turned her lamp-like eyes on him. "You're quite obvious, you know."
"I beg your pardon?"
"What you're doing. I'm sure it works most of the time or you wouldn't persist in doing it, but I know what you're up to, and it won't work on me. I'm not going to play any games with you, and I'm not going to let you figure me out." She said all of this is such a serene, matter-of-fact voice that Tom would have wondered if she might be joking were it not for her lack of any hint of a smile.
Masking the rage that flared inside of him, Tom changed tack and gave her a winning grin. "If I've offended you, that was not my intent."
"You haven't," she said. She returned to plucking the feather.
They passed the rest of the period in silence, and by the time Tom was packing his bag up, he was seething. He stalked out of the Potions classroom with Malfoy and Nott by his side, a storm brewing on his face, lost in thought.
"Riddle? Are you listening?"
Tom shifted his gaze to Abraxas Malfoy, who had been telling him a story. His voice sardonic, low, and dangerous, Tom said, "No, I'm not, Malfoy. As if I haven't anything better to do than listen to you blabber on like an enormous prat."
Something that looked like anger flashed behind Malfoy's eye, but it was stifled as soon as it appeared. He had learned, over the years, that an argument with Tom Riddle was in general quite unwise.