Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up?
Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck?
Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost?
I'll show you mine if you show me yours first.
Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse.
Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words.
Swing Life Away - Rise Against
•
On Boxing Day, after a great deal of wheedling during breakfast, a happy Luna walked beside a sullen Tom on a walk around the grounds, as Othello the Kneazle rode along in the pocket of her cloak. Their breath frosted in front of their mouths as they walked, their footsteps crunching in the snow.
"What do you want to do when you're done with school, Tom?" Luna asked. "You'll have so many options available, you're the top student at Hogwarts."
"I'm not sure," he muttered.
Glancing sideways at him, Luna knew he was being dishonest. "You must have thought about it, and discussed it with Professor Slughorn when you were deciding which N.E.W.T.s to take."
"Of course I've thought about it. I just haven't decided yet. I may work in the Ministry, I suppose, or even here. I've heard Professor Merrythought is considering retiring soon, which means the Defense Against the Dark Arts post will be available."
"You're interested in teaching?" she asked, brows raised.
"You ask far too many questions," he said with a scowl.
"This is what friends talk about," she said.
"When did we decide we were friends, again? I must've missed it."
"Thomas."
"Don't call me that."
Luna bent down as they walked to scoop up a handful of snow and inspected the individual snowflakes. "Personally, I should like to be a Magizoologist when I graduate."
"Been reading too much Newt Scamander, have you?"
"Ooh, look at this one!" she stopped walking and held out her hand with a bunch of snow in the palm.
Tom leaned over to look at the snow. "Which one? You've got about a thousand just there and they're rather indistinguishable."
"This one!" she said, pointing to one of the snowflakes in particular. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
"It looks just like all the rest."
"I suspect your sense of wonder has been disabled by Blibbering Humdingers; I've actually been intending to bring it up with you at the appropriate moment," Luna said, feeling a mild level of concern for him as she dusted the snow off her hands.
Tom's eyes rolled towards the sky with scorn, and he started walking again. "There you go, you win, let's talk about our plans for after school. Anything but the bloody Blibbering Humdingers."
"Well, then what is it that you'd like to be?" she asked.
A thoughtful look settled on his face, and Luna was pleased to see he was giving serious consideration to his response. His pale cheeks had faint patches of pink just over his cheekbones from the cold air, and her eyes lingered on them for a moment, this proof of the warm blood inside him under his cool exterior.
"I want to be the greatest wizard that ever lived," he said.
"That's very ambitious."
Tom smirked. "Slytherin."
They had been walking without any particular aim and had now found themselves along the edge of the lake, which was a frozen expanse. They paused beside it, gazing out over the snow-dusted ice.
"What does being the greatest wizard that ever lived mean to you? What do you suppose that looks like?" she asked, twirling a strand of her hair about her finger. She had intense curiosity regarding these parts of his thoughts.
Tom brought his hands before him to twirl the black and gold ring on his finger, staring at it as he did so. "The most powerful."
Luna watched each of his movements. "Power?"
"Yes, power. That's all that matters in this world, power."
"There's a rather large number of things that matter in this world," she said.
He laughed, but it was as cold as the air around them. "What? Family? Friends? Good and evil? Love? Life? None of that lasts in the end. It's all subjective and temporary. Power is the only objective measure."
"Objective measure of what?" Luna asked. "What will you do with power when you're dying?"
Tom dropped his hands and looked at her with his usual air of superiority. "Death is just another thing to have power over."
"I suppose Muggles are just another thing to have power over, as well," she said, feeling her nose wrinkling in displeasure of its own accord.
"You never quit, do you?" he said, his head tilting as he spoke, as though she were a petulant child.
"What is it about them that you hate so much?"
He met her eyes, and the increasingly familiar feeling of vulnerability with an alluring pull that occured when they both were scrutinizing each other fell between them, settling on her like a second cloak. A silence hung heavy for a moment, and Luna knew he felt it, too. Like being seen.
"I've already told you. I was raised by them after my mother died."
"What happened?"
Lip curling in the beginning of a snarl, he said, "Have you ever been to one? An orphanage? Crowded. Dirty half the time. I had nothing at all. And I started showing my magic early - just a baby, didn't even speak yet, certainly didn't realize what I was doing, and neither did anyone else. They thought I was touched by the devil, and that's why my mother died after having me."
"What did they do?" Luna asked.
Tom shook his head. "I suppose they thought they could beat it out of me at first. When that didn't work, they chose to isolate me instead. I'm telling you, Lovegood, you have no idea what sort of rubbish you're choosing to so nobly defend."
Luna asked, "Did the other children bully you?"
"They tried," he said.
"What about your father?" she asked, her stomach turning over.
At the mention of his father, the darkness in Tom's face plunged to new depths. "Shameful," he hissed. "My foolish mother, falling in love with a useless, arrogant Muggle, tainting her bloodline. And he abandoned her the first chance he got, before I was even born, even though he knew about me. Even though he had a child."
"Where is he now?" she said, though she knew.
"Dead," he spat.
"How did he die?"
Tom paused, eyes narrowing. "Who knows?" he said after a moment, his voice suddenly careful. "Perhaps he simply got what was coming to him."
Changing tack, Luna said, "So, both of your parents let you down, essentially abandoning you. One was a Muggle. But one was a witch. Why don't you hate all witches as well as Muggles, then?"
"I'm beginning to," he said, eyeing her.
An idea occurring to her, Luna brightened and said, "I'll make a deal with you."
"Your deals never tend to be all that enticing."
"I'll give you five minutes to try to convince me that Blibbering Humdingers aren't real if you give me five minutes to try to convince you that Muggles aren't as bad as you think."
He snorted. "Lovegood -"
"Luna."
"Luna," he hissed. "What is the point? You know we'll never agree. And I feel no need to prove anything to you."
"Perhaps it will be interesting. You go first." She glanced at her watch. "Go."
Tom gaped for a second, caught off guard. "Well - Blibbering Humdingers...that is to say, they don't exist."
"Mhm, yes, and?" Luna said, nodding her head and listening politely.
"No one's ever actually seen one. I mean, no one credible," he added as she opened her mouth to tell him about Edric the Weird. "This is my five minutes!" he said. Luna shut her mouth. "It's simply made up. I don't know what else to say. You can't prove a negative." His face soured.
Luna glanced at her watch again. "You still have four minutes and eleven seconds left."
"I already told you, there's nothing else to say about it," he snapped.
She sighed. "Fine. My turn, then." She turned her back on him and gingerly walked out onto the ice of the lake. Although she wasn't wearing ice skates, she slid across the surface of the lake. "First of all, you only hate Muggles because you've had personal bad experiences with them."
"That's not the only reason why, but fine, if you call utter mistreatment and a pathetic father who ran away once he discovered my mother was a witch 'bad experiences.'"
"It's my five minutes, Thomas. Your father. Let's start there. You are angry because he left you and your mother. That's quite a good reason to be angry. But your father is just one man, isn't he? Just like every witch isn't like me -" Tom snorted, "- not all Muggles are like your father."
"Explain away the orphanage, then, Lovegood. That will be a jolly sight harder. There were dozens of Muggles there, children and adults."
"I told you, it's my turn. So you ended up at a Muggle orphanage, because of course, with your mum dead and your dad run off, nobody really knew what you were, did they? And through a series of unfortunate events, you were stuck with more awful Muggles."
"'A series of unfortunate events?' What are you playing at?" Tom interjected. "They're all like that. And even the ones that are relatively harmless are still quite demonstrably lesser than wizards."
"Oh, hush," she said, causing a rather frightening look to cross his face. "I can understand why you feel the way you do about Muggles, Tom. You've had terrible luck. However," she said, spinning once on the ice, "your misfortune is not reason enough to condemn every Muggle, is it? Can you really decide the worth of millions of people based on your experience with a few dozen?"
Tom pretended to ponder her question, then leveled a glare at her. "Yes. Yes, I can."
Luna sighed at him, placing her hands on her hips. "Arrogance. Just because your Muggle dad walked out on you doesn't mean all Muggles would do it," she said.
He plunged his hand into his pocket, reaching for his wand, his lip curling back in a snarl. He stood glowering for a moment, seeming to rock back and forth upon the edge of fury, the process of calculating if it was worth his it to use an Unforgivable Curse on her on school grounds quite apparent on his face.
"Tom, honestly, how do you expect to be a truly great wizard when you're so close-minded?"
"You're unbelievable," he growled, then turned and began to storm back up to the castle.
Luna slid across the ice and back up onto the snow to follow him. "I'm unbelievable? Perhaps you don't realize this, but you're rather unbelievable yourself. You should look at yourself. You're the cleverest boy I've ever met, and yet you insist on making everything significantly harder for yourself. You're only doing it to yourself, you know."
"Leave me alone," he muttered.
Hopping from one of his footprints in the snow to the next, Luna said, "No." She knew she should leave him be, let him calm down, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to do it.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"I don't care."
"Well, maybe you should start."
She reached out and grabbed his arm. He tried to pull away, but she held on, stumbling when he wrenched his arm forward. "Stop." He turned and shoved his wand in her face, causing her to stumble a step backward, fall, and land in the snow with a soft thump. Othello mewed in indignation at Tom from Luna's pocket. "Seriously, Lovegood -"
"Luna," she corrected from the ground.
"Seriously, Luna, I think you're taking it very much for granted that I haven't hurt you already," he growled. He turned to go again, but he hadn't gotten far before something very cold and wet hit him in the back of the head. He whirled back towards Luna, hand flying up to the back of his head and feeling snow there. Luna sat staring at him with huge eyes, having made the decision to throw a snowball at him on a whim, and Othello was making an odd squeaking noise that could only be interpreted as Kneazle giggles.
"Did you just throw a snowball at me?" Tom asked.
Luna nodded.
Tom moved so suddenly that she didn't quite realize what was happening until he was right beside her, grabbing her by the chin, and forcing her to her feet. Ignoring the Kneazle hissing and spitting at him from her pocket, Tom whispered, "Do. Not. Provoke. Me."
Before Luna could respond, Othello leapt from her pocket, darted, and latched his claws into Tom's leg, much like he had when Tom had found him. Tom fell once again to the ground, screaming in rage and swiping at the Kneazle. Othello darted back to Luna, who picked him up, unscathed.
"Don't threaten me," she said with a cheery smile.
Tom seethed on the ground for a moment. "Who names their pet Othello?" he demanded. "Not a normal name."
"Me," Luna said.
"Well, there you are," Tom muttered.
Luna offered a hand to Tom to help him up. "See, this is how you help people stand, not by the chin."
Tom stared at her hand, and Luna was sure that he would refuse to take it, just like he had before. To her surprise, he took her hand and let her pull him to his feet.
•
Feeling quite cold, Tom stalked up to the school with Luna and Othello bouncing along by his side.
"It was just a snowball."
"It was not just a snowball."
"It most certainly was. I didn't put a rock in it or anything."
Tom didn't reply. He didn't even look at her. Look at you, you idiot. You've let her make a fool out you, and she will do it again.
"You're being rather silly," she said after a moment.
He snorted. "That's funny, coming from you."
"Why are you trying so hard to make me feel like rubbish?"
Cocking an eyebrow at her, he said, "Oh, you've realized it then? I thought you simply hadn't noticed."
"I'm not stupid." She stopped walking.
Against his better judgment, he stopped, too. Foolish, hissed his mind. At least make her pay. "Aren't you?"
"No. And you know that quite well," she said.
"In my opinion, anyone who thinks Muggles are all right is rather stupid," he said scathingly.
"I don't much care for your opinion, and I honestly, I don't think you do either," she replied with a bluntness that only she could manage.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you certainly don't take your own advice, do you?" she asked. When he said nothing, she continued, "You made a very big deal out of not wanting to be my friend, etcetera, etcetera, and yet here you are."
"That's because you keep following me around. And again, I don't recall when exactly we agreed we were friends."
"That's not entirely true. You followed me to the thestrals."
"To give you detention," he said sharply.
"Which you didn't do."
"Would you like me to give you one retroactively?"
"No, I rather don't enjoy detentions, so I'd prefer it if you didn't," she said with unassuming honesty. "And you also followed me at Hogsmeade."
"After you hit Malfoy?" he asked, a smile coming to his face at the memory.
Luna nodded.
"One time, then."
"It's not just that, and you know it," she insisted.
He scowled at her. "Does it bother you? Because I would be more than happy to leave you alone completely."
"No, I find that I enjoy spending time with you, which I must admit was not quite what I expected."
"Why would you enjoy spending time with me?" he demanded, the words spilling out in his surprise before he could bottle them up. He almost winced at having said it, and his internal monologue did not approve. There it is, you pathetic, dirty-blooded fool. Such desperation. Let her see it, why don't you?
Luna tilted her head at him, and she looked as pale and pure as the snow all around them. "I find you very interesting, Tom Riddle. You're intelligent, you're ambitious, and you're hard-working. But everyone knows that about you. I rather like the parts of you that you don't let everyone see."
"Which is what, exactly?"
"Your soul," she said, sending a shiver up his spine that had nothing to do with the wintery air. "The part of you that still cares that your father didn't stay for you. The part of you that still cares that you mother didn't save herself for you."
Disgusted with himself for having shared those thoughts with her, he said, "Weaknesses, you mean."
"What makes you human. And what makes you human is quite resilient, despite your best efforts to drown it."
"I will make myself better than human."
Luna paused, and the way she looked at him echoed of pity, which infuriated him further. "Why are you so unhappy?" she asked, her eyes sliding out of focus as though lost in thought.
"Unhappy?" he repeated, the word feeling strange in his mouth. A consideration of happiness was not one he found he had time for.
She nodded. "Happy people don't get so angry when they're hit with snowballs, or hating huge swaths of the global population. They don't behave as you do."
"Why do you care?" he snapped.
Blinking, her eyes came back into focus and settled on his own. "Because I see you."
Tom stared at her, short and sure of herself, and he was unsettled by the truth in her words. "What are you up to?" he said abruptly.
Luna was caught off guard. "Sorry?"
"You've been full of lies and secrets from the day we met, persistently following me around trying to be my 'friend'...did Dumbledore put you up to this?" His paranoid thoughts were now spilling out of his mouth as accusations. "Where are you really from? Why are you really here? Tell me the truth."
"I'm sorry about the lies and secrets, Tom. If I told you what they were, you would understand why I couldn't tell you what they were."
"That makes sense," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
She reached out to take his hand. "But I want you to know, I'm spending time with you right now because I want to."
Two sides of his brain were warring, one which wanted him to jerk his hand away from her and the other which very much wanted to leave his hand where it was. The result was an awkward twitch that radiated down his arm. He searched her face and again saw nothing but sincerity. Instead of reassuring him as she intended, it further unsettled him, giving the part of him which wanted to pull away the victory. He took his hand away from her. "I don't like spending time with you."
"That's not true," she said. "You let me sit with you in the library the other day."
"A man only has so much energy to expend on pests; I can't chase you off all the time when I have work to do."
"You didn't hex me Christmas Eve in the hall, even after all your blustering."
"I would have if you hadn't started petting my head and being generally absurd."
"You made sure Malfoy didn't hurt me that day in Hogsmeade."
"I already told you, I didn't do that for you. I had an obligation as a Prefect."
"You petted the thestrals with me that night."
"Wasn't feeling well that night. Was feeling a bit off." He was aware that his excuses were sounding less and less convincing.
"You had me sit by you for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner."
"It was a small table."
"You pulled the chair out for me!"
"Headmaster Dippet was watching and thought it polite."
"And you even got me Othello for Christmas!" she said triumphantly.
"Listen, Lovegood," he snapped, out of patience. "I didn't get that stupid thing for you. I found it outside the castle, and it wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed to take it inside. I gave it to you when I saw you because I didn't want to deal with it anymore."
Luna's triumphant look faded in an instant. "Oh."
Further frustrated and disturbed by his own deep-seated moment of guilt, Tom shook his head and turned to walk away again.
"Stop walking away from me like that; I'm not done talking to you," she said in a voice so commanding that his body turned back around before it had consulted his brain.
He gaped at her. "I don't care. I'm done talking to you."
"You're just afraid you might be wrong. You're just afraid to change."
"I'm not afraid of anything."
"Oh, very good, you can be masculine. But you can't be honest. Don't be ridiculous, Tom, you're more terrified than anyone I've ever met."
Tom expected himself to grow furious at her accusations. Indeed, he wanted to. Instead, he felt flat and blank. He wondered if she might be right.
Luna continued on, growing more passionate by the second. "You're wasting your life away. When was the last time you laughed? I've seen you snigger and smirk, but I'm talking about a real, deep, genuine laugh that goes all the way to your eyes, that makes you happy to be alive in precisely the moment you're in? I've never seen that from you, not once. You're the smartest wizard I've known, and you're also the one who knows the least." When she finished, she was breathing just a bit too hard and her eyes were shining just a bit too much.
She watched him for a moment, as though waiting for him to say something. Tom's brain was running at high speed, lurching from one feeling or thought to the next, but it was, for once, failing him. He did not have a response. After a few seconds, Luna averted her eyes away from him and carried on her way, back into the school without another word, leaving him very cold and very much alone.