Twelve Dark Moons

Chapter Four

An Allowance of Life

The Killing Curse shot across the room toward Luna and she spread out her arms to twirl in the cloud of butterflies. She would not see death. She would see life in her last moments, and she focused on a particular butterfly in the crowd, a large luminous white one with gently flapping wings.

But, something happened that neither Voldemort nor Luna Lovegood expected. The fatal green bolt found a mark, but it was not Luna. It was a butterfly, one of the living swirl that eddied around Luna's body. The single butterfly took the curse and dropped, but it was unnoticeable amongst the thousands of insects. Luna, who had been expecting to leave her body at any time, blinked and turned back toward Voldemort.

Through the butterfly swarm that caressed her face, Luna saw the Dark Lord, standing motionless at the other end of the room. He looked at a loss. In his countenance she saw anger, yes, but respect too.

He flicked his wand and with some nonverbal spell, the butterflies disappeared in a mist of white light. They were alone once again.

'Clever,' said Voldemort. 'But not good enough.' He raised his wand again.

'Wait,' said Luna.

He paused, to her surprise.

'Will you grant me a last request?' Luna asked.

Voldemort's lips quirked into an arrogant smile. The admission of his power over Luna must have pleased him. 'Very well,' he said.

'I have a question,' Luna said.

Voldemort's amusement became more pronounced, and he rocked back on his heels and waved his other hand, as if to say 'go on.'

'You seek immortality,' said Luna, 'and seem to have attained it... But I want to know something. My Lord, what is it about life that you love so much?'

The smile vanished from Voldemort's face. His red eyes narrowed at her. 'Excuse me?'

'There must be a reason why you want to live forever,' said Luna. 'You must love life more than anyone, right?'

Voldemort looked nonplussed. Luna wondered if anyone had ever asked him such a question; from his reaction, she doubted it. He raised his wand yet again, and his eyes flared up, angry and bright.

'My Lord, you granted me this request,' Luna said. 'We should follow the niceties, don't you think?'

Again, Voldemort showed his shock and he hissed, dropping his jaw a little. 'Are you always this way?' he asked. 'Impertinent little girl.'

'I'm just curious,' said Luna, tilting her head at him. 'It's a fair question. What is it about life that you love so much?' she repeated herself.

'Power,' Voldemort snapped.

'Power?' Luna said. What a funny thing to say. Luna did not know anything about power, but she did know that other people wanted it. 'Why power?'

'For the love of -' Voldemort broke off. 'I've had enough of you, Luna Lovegood. I've answered your question, and now you die.' For the fourth time he prepared to send his final curse to strike Luna dead.

'What will you do when you get all the power in the world?' Luna blurted quick as she could pronounce the question. She decided that she needed to keep Voldemort talking. Maybe she could learn something before she died.

Voldemort clenched his left fist, and unclenched it again, but did not say the terrible green words. 'What do you mean?' he asked, enunciating his syllables as though making himself be patient.

'When you rule the world. What then?' Luna asked.

'Well, I -' Voldemort began. 'It's none of your business,' he said churlishly.

For a moment Luna thought she was dealing with a petulant five-year-old. Really. The Dark Lord must have contemplated what he would do with his success... or Voldemort was not the introspective type. 'I wonder if you'll get bored,' said Luna. 'Once you have all the power. Maybe you'll have to take up chess, or something, just to stay busy.'

'Chess?' Voldemort said. 'I already play chess. I'm very good at it.'

'Me too!' said Luna. 'Well, I don't know if I'm good. But I do know how to play.'

Voldemort narrowed his eyes again. Then, fast as lightning, he flicked his wand and murmured 'Expelliarmus!'

Luna's wand flew out of her grip and into Voldemort's outstretched hand. She gasped at the suddenness of it; she'd expected the Killing Curse again.

'You are, without doubt, the most irritating person I've ever met,' Voldemort said. 'And that's saying something. I had to live with Wormtail for a year.'

Luna was confused. Was he going to murder her? She felt out of breath, and every minute was weighted down with the potential for death. She wished for the butterflies again. A sigh came out of her mouth, unbidden.

'I think,' Voldemort continued, 'I'll let you live for one more day. How would you like that?' He made an expansive gesture with his hands, the benevolent Dark Lord.

Luna shrugged. 'If it's my time, it's my time,' she said. 'You might think you decide.'

Voldemort whirled away from her in a tornado of black robes. 'Shut up,' he said. 'If you really want to live, you'll show respect.'

'You already have my respect,' said Luna, and meant it. 'I think you have a lot to show the world, even if you are an example of what not to do.'

Voldemort laughed then, a high-pitched sound of mirth that lasted a few seconds before dying away. 'An example of what not to do,' he said. 'You must not have any friends.'

'Sorry?' said Luna, surprised that the Dark Lord knew this about her.

'No one who is so blunt could have friends,' said Voldemort. 'It's written on your face now.'

Luna felt shattered. He was right, of course. She had doubts about the depth of her friendships. Yes, the other members of the Order tolerated her, but she had no one to truly confide in, other than her father. And Mr. Lovegood could not be with his daughter forever; it was natural that Luna might seek a life outside of home. Although Voldemort picked out Luna's one source of hurt, her lack of friends, a part of her mind knew that the Dark Lord shared this characteristic. By choice such a man did not have friends. Luna wondered if he regretted it.

Then, Luna recalled other things about herself: her conversations with Neville about Herbology, the companionable meals with Ginny, the kindness shown by Harry. She did have friends, and they were worried about her. She had one up on the Dark Lord Voldemort, and it made her raise her chin and narrow her eyes. 'I do have friends, actually,' she said.

Voldemort laughed. 'Not for long.'

'What do you mean?'

He just shook his head, amused by something Luna could not know. 'I feel obligated to tell you the terms of your survival,' he said. His voice shook with what might have been glee. 'You must keep me entertained. You're right, you know: I am bored. The moment you fail to interest me, you die.'

Luna bit her fingernail and looked at him. This was unexpected. Just as when he'd given her wand back, this made things worse: it made Luna more and more responsible for her death. Right now she would prefer the noble and helpless sacrifice of the lamb brought to slaughter, the lack of choice in the matter. But Voldemort did the cruelest thing of all and made Luna live a bit longer in the house of evil.

She wished she might leave this world as an innocent.

'Entertain you?' she asked. 'What do you want me to do?'

Voldemort pointed at the snake coiled on the hearth. 'You can start by making friends with Nagini.' He tittered with cold laughter again. 'She loves people.'

Luna glanced over at the snake. She had a feeling that by loving people, Voldemort meant that Nagini loved to eat people. 'Does that mean that Wormtail has become food?' she asked.

This sent Voldemort into gales of laughter, and Luna stared in horror. She hated the thought that the Dark Lord found her funny. She would have to re-evaluate her sense of humour. 'Go,' he raised a finger and once again Luna slid across the floor, this time toward Nagini.

At a loss for anything else to do, Luna knelt before the snake. Nagini reared up and her cobra's head formed into a triangle of threat. Luna took a deep breath and met the snake's reptilian eyes. They were not red, but they still reminded of Lord Voldemort.

'Hello, Nagini,' Luna breathed. 'Did Wormtail taste nice?'

The snake did not respond, and Luna looked up at Voldemort. 'Does she understand English?'

'No,' said Voldemort. Then he hissed something in a language that Luna recognised as Parseltongue; she'd heard Harry use it before. It was sort of Harry's party trick. Nagini swayed back and forth upon hearing Voldemort's snake-language words, and let out a long hiss in return.

'She's laughing,' said Voldemort.

Kneeling on the floor inches from the Dark Lord's vicious familiar, Luna took the opportunity to study Nagini more closely. The snake was large, with dry scales that looked soft to the touch. Luna was afraid to put out a hand and see for herself. The cobra's hood stuck out like a headdress and there were fine lines along the throat that put Luna in mind of a necklace. Nagini's eyes were cold and glittering, like round obsidian gems placed underwater, and an intelligence gleamed there that went beyond that of a normal snake.

'She is a Naga,' said Voldemort. 'The most loyal guardian creature in the world.'

After knowing Fawkes, the late Headmaster Dumbledore's phoenix, Luna held the opinion that phoenixes were the most loyal. And then there was Abacus, whose fate she still did not know. However, for the sake of staying alive, Luna was prepared to agree with Voldemort. 'Where did you find a Naga?' she asked him.

'I have been many places, Luna Lovegood,' said Voldemort. 'I've travelled the world over. And Nagini here is one of my most prized finds.'

'Oh,' said Luna. She wondered about prizes. They had to be won, and then they were treasured, held close to the chest, admired and grasped with feverish little hands. She thought that Voldemort liked prizes; she remembered the trophy in old, closed Hogwarts that read 'Tom Riddle, Award for Special Services to the School.' Something nagged at her brain about a link between trophies and Nagini; prizes and Nagini; it was important. Luna shoved it away quick as she could. It was best to keep her mind blank of anything important for as long as Voldemort could read her.

'It's nice to meet you, Nagini,' said Luna. She was struck by an inspiration and put her hands together, Eastern-style, and bowed to the snake. 'Namaste. Mera nam Luna hai.'

Nagini seemed to perk up, and tilted her snake-head in a way that was almost human. She hissed something to Voldemort.

'She thanks you for the greeting in her native Hindi,' said Voldemort, 'and takes note of your first name.' He sounded amused still. Luna was unsurprised that Voldemort understood Hindi, for any Dark Lord worth his salt must speak the many languages of magic. She figured he knew Egyptian, Tibetan, and Chinese as well. Luna herself knew only pleasantries in different languages, because her father said it was important to show respect to other cultures, particularly if you were interviewing a foreigner. Father's mindset was always toward getting a good interview.

She turned to face Voldemort, and had to keep her eyes disciplined enough not to shy away from his face. He loomed like a terrible angel over her, black billowing robes and crossed arms, and his face so white that Luna was reminded of the moon, her own namesake. The eyes, as always, looked like those things the Muggle-born students described as 'laser-beams.' Piercing and unforgiving.

'Sir,' she bowed to him, unsure what to do next.

However, Voldemort turned away and commanded something that Luna could not hear, and two Death Eaters came into the room, the same two that brought Luna to begin her torture. They stood at attention, awaiting their next spate of orders.

'Take her,' said Voldemort, pointing behind him at Luna. 'See that she remains relatively unharmed. Put her in the round room.'

Luna was on her feet before she could register it, and the two Death Eaters had her by the elbows. She chanced a look back at Voldemort on her way out the door. He knelt down by Nagini, petting her head with a gentle hand, and did not look at Luna.

The corridors of what Luna assumed was the Riddle House went by in a blur as her feet stumbled and dragged past door after carved door. She stayed on the same floor of the mansion and then she heard the murmured deactivation of wards on a door shaped like a gothic arch. It swung open, and the Death Eaters threw Luna forward and slammed the door after her. She turned right away and tried to open it again, but the door was so solid that it might have been carved of stone. Luna slumped down against it and looked around with a despondent gaze.

She saw why it was called the round room. It was not round, but instead had a round window, in the old cathedral rose style. An odd architectural detail, to be sure, and the stained-glass inset dimmed the light coming in and made it like glowing jewels dancing on the fine carpet. The window and the Oriental rug were the only luxurious things about the room. The walls were aged plaster, crumbling in places, revealing the rough-hewn stone beneath. A double-wide gothic plank bed with simple white blankets occupied one corner, with a single nightstand next to it, empty of all but a half-burned candle.

There was a dusty dark green velvet armchair, and Luna half-smiled at it. It looked like her favourite seat in 12 Grimmauld Place. She heaved herself up off the floor and scooted the armchair to a nice place next to the window, a gesture which made her feel better. At least she had control over where the chair sat, if over nothing else.

The room was designed for boredom. There were no books of any kind, nor paper, quills, games, or artwork. Luna was alone with her thoughts and the big rose window. She whacked the armchair with her hand a few times, fluffing up clouds of dust, and she waved her arm to disperse the filth. She sank down into the chair, cross-legged in bare feet, and put her hands on her knees. The drawback of having a pretty stained-glass window with an Unbreakable charm on it was the lack of a view. The colours gave no clue as to what was outside, and so Luna stared at a spot of dark purple, a little diamond of it within the larger pattern. It was a colour she liked for its calming effects, and she let purple wash over her consciousness until she felt centred again.

***********

For three days Luna was without company. She began to think she'd been forgotten, a notion that was quite welcome. Then she remembered that she'd thought the same thing down in the dungeons, and see how that turned out. Interrogated, inflicted with the Cruciatus Curse, and then told she needed to keep the Dark Lord from suffering boredom as the price of her life.

This set Luna in a new direction: what, exactly, did Voldemort mean by 'entertain' him? From what Harry had said before, Luna got the feeling that Wormtail might have previously borne the brunt of Death Eater jokes and derision, but Wormtail was long-gone and digested by now. There was no one Luna could ask about how to entertain Death Eaters, and several scenarios came to mind. She could juggle quite well, even with large Quidditch-standard Quaffle balls. She could dance, too, funny dances like the Wimple-Walk and the Rosebug, along with standard things like tango and waltz. The summer when Luna was sixteen her father had given her the dance lessons she'd requested, from a tutor named Madame Dunblatt. It was a lot of fun and gave Luna something to feel good about. She was lost in memory of it and then like a bird her mind fluttered back to the present moment.

Entertaining Lord Voldemort. Well. Luna knew that a person's sense of humour told a great deal about their character, so Voldemort's humour must be sick, twisted, and abnormal. That would be the assumption, and yet he found her funny enough to keep her alive. Disturbing, that. The man was clever, brilliant even, and Luna got a sense of dry, crackling wit about him. He was the type of person to wreak great havoc simply because it amused him to do so.

What would Luna Lovegood do to create entertainment for such a wicked person? She might tell jokes, but she'd never been any good at that. Luna did not find things funny the way other people did. People laughed at her for being herself, so perhaps that was the best approach: just be herself. Her weird, absent-minded, unconventional, flighty self, with bottlecap necklaces and red high heels -

Luna's thoughts ground to a halt as a new, sickening possibility presented itself. 'Entertain' the Dark Lord. There was another meaning there, a potential that was worse than anything Luna might have conceived. It would make the Cruciatus look like a cake-walk. Even the brief mental image made Luna feel violated and awful. What if she was meant to entertain Voldemort with her body?

She knew nothing about the Dark Lord's sexual preferences, or if he even had any. It was a topic never mentioned during Order briefings. Harry, Ron, and Hermione never spoke or even speculated on it, and the few Order members who were alive during Voldemort's early years, McGonagall and Hagrid, had not told of any prior relationships that the young Tom Riddle had indulged in. It was a mystery, one that Luna hoped not to solve, but now she wondered. Why else would Voldemort spare a young, lithe blonde girl with an unusual mind?

The tangy taste of fear worked in Luna's mouth. She would rather die than submit to Voldemort like that. She'd never thought of herself as a martyr who could stare down death and plunge into it; Luna was not brave like Ron and Harry, but there were some things that were not to be borne. She thought of her poor parents, one dead and the other living, and how she wanted to stay their precious little girl forever. She would not allow her innocence to be taken.

But then the bane of Ravenclaw House, logic, interfered with the vow. How would Luna stop it? Voldemort now had the power of life and death over her. She had no means of killing herself, sans wand and weaponry. Her eyes flickered across the crisp white bedsheets in contemplation of making a hangman's noose, but she dismissed the idea almost immediately; there was too much that might go wrong. There were no rafters or beams to hang from in the room, Luna saw with a glance up at the ceiling, and no chandelier either. She would succeed in hurting herself with a noose made of sheets, but it would not kill her. No, the only way to leave this world was for Lord Voldemort or one of the Death Eaters to force her from her body by violence.

She pinched her skin to make sure this was not some kind of nightmare, but the sharp little pain told her it was real, the same pain from a thousand other pinches over the past three days. Luna could starve herself to death, she supposed, but that would take the kind of resolve that she couldn't muster for much of anything. As it was, she got one meal per day, and it appeared in the same corner of the room, sent up by probable house-elf magic. It would not have been enough food for a normal person, but Luna's appetite had never been normal, and in captivity she was like a caged animal: she found it difficult to eat much at all. For that, the death-by-starvation option seemed unlikely since Luna barely ate in the first place and she was still alive.

Today the noon meal had been a thick slice of bread, a tomato, a glass of pumpkin juice, and a bowl of some meaty stew that Luna hoped was not made of people. She'd eaten the stew and saved the rest for later.

To keep herself occupied when not contemplating death or torture, Luna re-made her dress stitch-by-stitch until it now wrapped around the front and had a neat little fringe along the bottom hem. It gave it a gypsy effect. She wished for her jewelry back, for it was a nervous habit of hers to play with her earrings or twirl her necklaces around. As it was, Luna was forced to play with her long sand-coloured hair, and it got braided and re-braided into endless patterns.

She tried to ignore the body beneath her clothes, and its possible uses to the Dark Lord.

Mid-morning on the fourth day in the round room, there was a knock at the door. Luna peered up at it, the polite sound alien to her ears. She sensed the wards unlatch from the outside and the big heavy door swung open. It was Professor Snape.

'Professor!' said Luna, just like that time some days ago. Her voice was in good condition, for she sang and hummed to keep it fresh even when she was alone.

'Miss Lovegood,' said Snape. He nodded at her with his familiar sour expression. 'I trust you are well?'

'Well enough,' said Luna.

He closed his eyes for a moment with a look of weariness. Luna sensed that Professor Snape was tired to the bone and she felt sorry for the man. How difficult it must be to see his former students fighting each other, dying and killing. 'The Dark Lord has requested your presence,' said Snape.

Luna bit her lip and looked at the floor. She loved the carpet pattern; it had peacocks and sparrows and flowers and medallions on it. Right now she would rather stay bored in the round room than see Voldemort. To behold his countenance, once in a lifetime was one time too many.

'Sir?' she said to Snape. 'Do I have to?'

'Miss Lovegood,' Snape said, exasperated. 'I should have been more clear. Your presence is not requested, it is ordered.'

'Oh.'

'Stand up,' said Snape. 'For what it's worth, I - I don't think he's going to kill you.'

This was the worst thing Luna could have heard from Snape's lips. For if Voldemort was not going to kill her, what was he going to do?