Twelve Dark Moons

Chapter Seven

The Preservation of Innocence

The elegant clothes made Luna feel more powerful. This had always been the case since she was a little girl. Clothing was an expression, an art form, and the more strength you could put into your style, the better. The dark dress suited Luna's tall lithe form like a second skin and she glided down the hall of the Riddle House as though she directed the Death Eaters. She was not a prisoner, not in her own mind. That was enough.

What Voldemort had planned was a mystery, but Luna's stratagem was set. She was a woman first. Nature had equipped her with what she needed to fascinate any man, even a very evil one. She would just have to descend to his level of weirdness and sick imaginings. Her breath ran away from her as they stopped in front of Voldemort's 'throne room' and she regained control of herself. For the second time that evening, Luna wished she was someone else, like Professor McGonagall, perhaps. Now there was a woman in control. Luna Lovegood was not steady enough to maintain this façade.

Snape's words echoed through her head: let her flightiness work for her. Play to her strengths. Be quirky and direct and unusual and don't let Voldemort gain on her. Luna made a gesture with her hands at the Death Eaters and knocked on Voldemort's doors with her own knuckles.

'Enter,' said he.

The atmosphere of the room was altered from how Luna had previously experienced it. A fire crackled in the hearth, in colours of comforting orange, though the tops of the flames licked green. It was pine wood burning, Luna could smell it. A good, wintery smell, like Christmas. A table for two was set off to the side, dressed with candlesticks and white tablecloth, place settings of silver and china and crystal goblets glinting in their luxury.

Wonderful, thought Luna. A romantic dinner.

Voldemort lounged in his big carved throne chair. Nagini draped herself around his shoulders and with a quick hissed word, Voldemort directed the snake away. She slithered off and coiled up next to the fire, warming herself. 'You need to eat something,' Voldemort said to Luna. 'You're too thin.'

Pot calling the kettle black. 'You're not the first to tell me I'm too thin,' said Luna. 'Maybe if you let me get out more -'

He made a hissing noise of displeasure. 'Do not solicit favors from Lord Voldemort,' he said. 'Sit down at the table.'

Luna obeyed him. Voldemort crossed the room and sat down opposite her.

'If only Wormtail were still around to wait on us,' he sighed, glancing over at Nagini with an expression of regret.

The meal was the best Luna had eaten in a very long time. Voldemort had high tastes, confirming her speculations of him. The wine, a dark red Bordeaux of a good vintage, went smoothly down the throat and even Luna could find an appetite for the goat's cheese salad, the wild-grain rice, the perfect ragout. They ate in silence and Luna could not shake the feeling that Voldemort's thoughts were far away from her, and he did not register much of her presence. She did not know him well enough to tell for certain, but he seemed preoccupied.

In the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, when the group ate meals together around that big kitchen table, Harry Potter often held the same expression. It was hard work leading an entire side of a wizarding war, Luna surmised. She thought that Harry and Voldemort actually had so much in common, they might benefit from sitting down together and complaining about their problems. She knew better than to suggest it aloud. Instead she stared with wide eyes at the room around her, pretending she was somewhere else.

When their dessert appeared before them, chocolate soufflés topped with single red cherries, Luna watched in trepidation as Voldemort brought his attention, his ruby eyes, back onto her.

'You're much better company than Snape,' said Voldemort.

'I haven't spoken a word, my Lord,' Luna said. 'Is that good company?'

'It's a strength to know when to keep quiet,' said Voldemort.

'I just had nothing to say.'

A few moments passed as they ate the soufflés. Voldemort ate only half and then pushed it away, swallowing the last of his wine with a quick sip. Luna ate the whole of her soufflé; though it was at Voldemort's table, chocolate was still chocolate. It helped her to think straight.

'My Lord?' she began.

'Yes?'

'Why do you have hair?'

A pause. Luna thought she'd gone too far. She hadn't meant to be so blunt, but that was her manner and there was no changing it.

'The change in my appearance is a by-product of a magical process which has begun, at first without my knowledge, but is now apparent,' said Voldemort.

Well. That was about as clear as mud. 'What process?' Luna asked.

'And you don't know, little one?' he hissed, leaning forward, malevolent again. 'Your precious Order did not tell you?'

'No,' said Luna honestly. 'Does it have to do with Hesselwhite's Hair Re-growth Potion? I saw some in the store one day and thought the bottle was so funny, shaped like a man's head with that green stuff sticking out the top -'

'Hush. It is not the re-growth potion. For goodness' sake, do you think I would stoop to such things? I liked being bald.'

'Bald suits you,' admitted Luna. 'Forgive me, but you don't look as frightening with all that nice hair.'

'Oh, no?' Voldemort's voice was quiet now, amused. 'You find me more... human?'

'Mmhmm,' Luna nodded. She tried to push away the disquiet that intruded; she didn't like the glint in Voldemort's eye. He was more human with the black hair and the more defined form of nose and brow, but at the same time he was anything but human. He was a monster. It was the eyes, Luna knew; nothing could take away the evil that resided behind them.

It was time to cut to the chase.

'My Lord, why did you invite me here tonight? You've got to have better people to dine with. Am I entertaining you, or something?'

Voldemort smiled, a terrible cruel smile, barely showing his teeth behind his lips. 'I look more human,' he said. 'It is not just my appearance. I feel more human. This food tastes... more intense. I can feel my breath entering my lungs... I feel alive... I am rather enjoying it, despite the unfortunate circumstance that has brought it about. I swear I will punish those responsible...' his voice rose to an incoherent little hiss of rage, but turned around to normal with frightening speed. 'My body is returning to the fitness of the man I once was. I am strong.

'How strange, the way things work out, Miss Lovegood...I did not anticipate this, and yet what a fortunate accident that I allowed you to survive after all. It was foresight on my part to keep you alive... you have a use for me. And as of late, I have become aware of certain - desires - which have been long dormant.'

The Dark Lord stood as he said the word 'desires' and glided behind Luna's chair. Her lungs stopped working for a moment. No, please no, he can't mean what I think he means, her mind rambled, in spite of the vow she'd taken earlier to use her body and her charms to her advantage. Faced with the real possibility of it, the seduction took on a horrendous tinge, an affront to all that was good and right and just. She couldn't do it, she just couldn't.

His hands came to rest on her thin shoulders, not with force, but their presence was like an icy lead weight upon her. He leaned his head over the chair to whisper in her ear. 'Stand up.'

Luna's eyes were wide and scared, but he could not see them from behind her. She blinked the fear away, rapid flutters of her eyelashes, gaining strength with each beat. She must be brave. Luna was an actress playing a role. Her spirit would never succumb, would never descend to Voldemort's level. He was nothing to her, nothing, nothing, nothing, please...

'Please, My Lord,' she said, not bothering to conceal the tremor in her voice. Luna figured the sound of fear would ignite Voldemort's interest. She was right.

'Be scared, little one, be afraid. I'm going to do terrible things to you.' His hands struck forward and grabbed her by the hips, twirling her around to face him, and she let out a genuine little squeak of terror. He laughed, high and breathy, almost like a woman's laugh.

Luna was tall, but Voldemort was taller, so he had to bend his head down to take her lower lip between his teeth and bite down on it. She tasted her own blood, coppery like shiny new fear. She tasted Voldemort's tongue invading her mouth, swirling and possessing her, and in cruel dichotomy the chocolate was there too, a hint of safety and pleasure.

Whatever magical process was turning Voldemort into a more human creature, Luna wanted it to stop. He had the needs of a man combined with the cold reptilian strategy of his monstrous mind and Luna was the target of it. He had her exposed, helpless, quivering in his power in the black despair that there was no one to help her now. The fire behind them crackled and popped as though responding to the events unfolding before it. The corners of the room were black, growing darker by the moment as the tapered candles on the dinner table burned down to waxen puddles in their holders.

A ripping sound. The dress, rags at her feet. A thud as her knees came down to the floor. She was naked now, pendulum swinging between acting the part in cool distance, and giving in to the utter terror that gripped the outer part of her soul.

'Pleasure and pain, all the same,' said Voldemort in a sing-song. He raced his nails across the skin of her flat abdomen, spidery long sharp fingers that drew rows of beaded blood. 'You won't know the difference anymore.' His touch turned into a caress, firm but gentle, that went up the back of her legs and wound around to the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Luna was choked with fright, fright and something else she could not name. A heat in her belly, a heavy longing in her throat.

She bled from the scratches on her stomach, enough to sting, but not enough to induce real damage. Her lip bled too, where Voldemort had bit it, and while his glance was directed downward she tugged at the wound with her tongue, sucking the blood off, nursing it a little.

Then Voldemort shoved her down so that her head felt the rough wood floor. Luna was flat on her back now. Her chest heaved up and down. The worst part of what happened next was that Voldemort did not do what Luna expected him to do. There was no invasion. As she was his prisoner, Voldemort could afford to draw her out over time.

His touch was slight. He used his fingers, working magic, gentle until she could not bear it, her soul at war with her body. She had never felt anything like it. And she knew that was Voldemort's goal, to make her despise herself for enjoying this, to erase the lines between physical pleasure and the horrid, wracking guilt for surrendering to it. From now on, she would never be able to have a normal relationship without thinking of him.

It took only a few minutes and she cried out and he left her there on the floor, a smile of evil satisfaction on his face as he glanced with approval over her body in the dim light. She did not register him when he left, closing the door softly behind him, for numbness and afterglow spread through her nerves. It felt almost like after the Cruciatus Curse, in this very room, different beginning but same ending.

Minutes that passed could not be counted. Luna lay there like a rag doll, trying to collect her storming thoughts, bringing her body back under control. Dimly she was aware of Nagini, hissing and slithering along beside her, curling up next to her and settling in for a nap. Luna turned her head and focused her gaze on the living breathing scales of the great snake and for an inexplicable reason the sight calmed her. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at Nagini.

'We're both Voldemort's girls now,' she said. It made her giggle, harder and harder until she was laughing. Nagini opened her eyes and Luna's intuition about animals thought she saw serpentine laughter there, and understanding too. 'Let's be friends, you and I,' she whispered to Nagini. 'He'll be under female control, which is what all men should be. Dark Lords, too.' A quote came to her. 'Behind every great man,' she told the snake, 'there was a greater woman.'

Luna reached out with her hand and gently ran a finger down Nagini's nose. She felt a brief shudder of fear as Nagini raised her head, but it was only to hiss with contentment and turn her triangle-shaped head into Luna's hand. In spite of everything, Luna had not lost her touch with animals, a fact that cured her of her turmoil better than anything else could.

It was no small effort to put her fine dress back on, for it was torn and she had to hold the sides together with her hand. Luna was not embarrassed about it and opened the door of Voldemort's throne room to peek her head out. Her two Death Eater guards were there; they must have been waiting for her.

'Back this way,' one of them said gruffly, jerking his head.

'What are your names?' she asked the guards.

There was silence in response.

'Oh, come on,' said Luna. 'Have some manners. You do have names, right?'

One of the guards sighed. 'We're not supposed to say.' He had a heavy East End London accent and pronounced it like 'suppowsed to sai.'

'You're from London,' Luna said.

'He can't escape his roots,' said the other guard, who had a just-as-bad Yorkshire accent, which Luna was quick to point out.

'And I'm from Cornwall, myself,' she added. 'But Hogwarts gave me the public-school accent. So neither of you went to Hogwarts? Do I know you?'

'I went to Durmstrang,' said the one with the Yorkshire accent.

'I was - erm - home-schooled?' said the other one.

'Oh,' said Luna. 'How fun for you, getting to do whatever you wanted.' They were almost to her door. 'Well, since you won't tell me your names, I'll have to call you something. You, I'll call Yorkie -' she pointed at the Yorkshire Death Eater, who grunted in protest, '--and you, I'll call... um... Smiley.'

'Smiley?' the London Death Eater said, sounding incredulous behind his mask. 'That's stupid!'

'Then give me your real name,' Luna said.

Smiley made an unintelligible noise but did not give his real name, so Luna stuck with her own christenings. 'Good night, Yorkie. Good night, Smiley,' she said as they reached her own door. 'Sleep tight, don't let the bed-bugs bite! And watch out for Invisible Bed Fliers, too. At this time of year, they're breeding.' She closed the door on their faces, shooting a little grin as she saw both masked heads tilted at her as though in puzzlement, and then once the door was latched behind her she slid down onto the floor, no longer smiling.

Luna had the shakes. The pleasure that had torn through her body still echoed in her cells, thrumming on its own, and it reminded Luna of who was responsible. A tear slid down her cheek, one tear that turned into a river, cooling her cheeks that burned.

Is that what it was about? If so, Luna finally understood what the big deal was. She had arched into Voldemort's touch like a dark limitless craving, sating a hunger she hadn't even known she possessed. And whatever else the white monster may have been, he certainly knew what he was doing in that field. It could not have been the first time the Dark Lord used sex as control. And it aroused in Luna another emotion she was unaccustomed to: anger.

So Voldemort thought he could control her just like that. The arrogance was disgusting. He could use her, abuse her, and make her like it. That's what he knew.

It took more than expert touching to tie down the wild, free spirit of Luna Lovegood. She would make her body divorced from it, let it run riot beneath his ministrations, and she would turn the tables on that rotten bastard and he wouldn't know what hit him. If her hunch was correct, Voldemort did not think too highly about the cunning of the female brain, or indeed any brain in comparison to his own. He would never suspect that Luna could pull it off: playing his mistress and learning and observing and biding her time until she could destroy him.

Her eyes had stopped their tears now, just as she wanted to cry with the force of her idea. Her hands clenched into fists.

Really, it was a one-in-a-million chance for the Order of the Phoenix. One of their own was on intimate terms with Voldemort. Luna might be an even better source than Snape. She would be the secret weapon. She would let Voldemort think he controlled her, that he'd turned her, even. She would take the Dark Mark and grovel and serve and allow him access to her body and oh, how he would revel in it. Then, when the time came, Luna would unlock the secret castle doors and let Harry Potter in, lead him to destroy the Dark Lord once and for all. Right now it was the only possibility that would keep her wanting to live, the only way to justify her survival. She had to hang onto it.

She could not wait to see the look on Voldemort's face when she betrayed him.

Once her vow was settled by calm reflection and planning, the anger was soothed and it disappeared. Luna was not the sort to hold on to such emotions, anyway. They got in the way of life. What was done was done. And she did her Seer Stretches, she slipped between her clean white sheets, and she dreamed that she was riding on Abacus, high up in the clouds, soaring free in the sunshine with green earth on one side and blue sky on the other.