Twelve Dark Moons

Chapter Eight

Sieve

When Luna awoke the morning after her first literal taste of Voldemort, the first thing she noticed was the coloured sunlight streaming through the glittering rose window. The second thing she noticed was a large hulking armoire in the corner of the room that had not been there before. The third thing Luna noticed was the little table with a stack of books on it.

This last got her straight out of bed. Reading material! Like any good Ravenclaw, Luna loved books, and she was curious to see what had been provided her.

She picked up the books one by one and read the titles. Two were novels, one called 'Le Morte d'Arthur' although it appeared written in English, and the other was called 'The Shining,' by a Muggle author, to Luna's surprise. The others were texts: one on Divination, one on the history of the Naga as written by an Indian magician named 'Naresh Yogi', and a third large tome entitled 'Loyalty and the Dark Arts.'

Curiosity piqued, Luna walked across the room to the armoire. She pulled it open, half expecting a Boggart or some worse surprise, but found clothing instead. She was delighted to see her red high heels resting on the bottom row of shoes; they must have found them in her satchel that was Reducio-ed for her trip to France. Luna put the red shoes on and walked around the room in them. They added a good three inches to her height. She hummed a tune to herself, flipped her hair over her shoulder, admired the way her feet looked as a foil to the hatred of the rest of her body this morning.

When she heard a noise outside her door Luna froze, abashed at how she'd been prancing in the shoes. It occurred to her that she looked like one of those centre-fold girls in 'British Playwitch', stark naked aside from those sexy red heels. The shoes came off at once. She grabbed the first thing she saw out of the armoire: a set of long robes that were a flattering tone of powder blue and fitted her perfectly. There. She was decent.

'Come in,' she said.

It was Smiley and Yorkie. They stood in the doorframe in dumb silence until she said something again.

'Hello?' she tried out the greeting.

It was Smiley who answered. ''ello,' he said, and she knew it was him from the way he dropped his 'h'.

'Miss, we're supposed to make sure you're comfortable,' added Yorkie as though the idea of a comfortable prisoner were alien to him. Perhaps Luna was the first.

'Oh,' said Luna. 'Yes. But do you have a copy of the Quibbler I can read?'

'Sorry,' said Smiley. 'We're not supposed to give you newspapers.'

'It's not a newspaper, it's a magazine,' said Luna. It suddenly became of utmost importance that she see a copy of her father's publication. She wanted to know that he was still alive and working and not gone mad with worry about her. But such comforts were not for Luna anymore. The Death Eaters shook their heads.

'Anything else, though?' Smiley made the effort at deference like only a Cockney could do.

'What day is it?' Luna asked.

'It's the third of October,' said Yorkie.

Luna gave a casual shrug of her shoulders as though she did not care. And indeed the vagaries of time were not for her care under normal circumstances. But here and now the date was vital information: she had been a captive for almost a month. A quick calculation of the moon, her namesake, and she figured that it was approaching full again. No wonder things were starting to happen. And although she would not see it out her stained-glass window, it made Luna happy to know that the shining white disc, the light in the darkness, would bathe the land in happy peace once again. She was approaching the height of her power.

'Can I have my wand back?'

The Death Eaters chortled in laughter at her. 'No, miss,' said Smiley through the expressionless skull mask that could not manage amusement.

'Drat,' she said. 'I'm going to read now.' She hummed a tune under her breath as she tucked her legs up beneath her in the armchair and opened the book on the Naga. Her tune grew louder as she turned pages; she did not notice as her stolid guards ducked out of the room, bowing as they went.

The book was interesting. It told the story of the Naga and their home in India, and the wizard who had created them, a man named Vasuki. He'd made the Naga out of small children, girls, the ones who took vows of the Dark Arts, and they became immortal snakes of their own free will. They hunted until they found a master and fulfilled their purpose as guardians. Judging by that, Nagini was a very happy snake indeed, for her master was the darkest of them all and had plenty of people trying to destroy him. He needed her protection.

Luna was halfway through the book within an hour. She was a faster reader even than Hermione, who had once accused her of merely skimming, but Luna read books in her own peculiar way, too. She did skim, but she also felt, and murmured, and became part of the book for the time that she read it. And on page three hundred and twenty, a heading jumped out at Luna, sure as if it did a little dance on the page.

'How to win a Naga's loyalty,' read the beginning of the paragraph. She peered closely. If a Naga already had a master, the book said, her loyalty could not be gained unless the master were killed. That was self-explanatory. But Luna decided that if Nagini should survive the war without Voldemort, she might take the snake under her wing, for it seemed fair.

The rest of the paragraph was more relevant to Luna's purpose. There were two ways to gain the trust of an already-committed Naga. One was to feed her amrita, or the Elixir of Life; Luna had no idea what that was or how to get it. The other way was to learn the true name of the Naga, the creature's original name, from when she was a human child. But Luna did not speak Parseltongue, so she did not know how to ask Nagini what she had been called once upon a time in India.

For a moment Luna's imagination floated across the surface of the earth to land on another continent, an exotic place with a jungle and tigers and beautiful women with many gold bracelets adorning their brown wrists. In her sojourn she saw a river, a holy man in orange robes, a snake... which brought her back to the paragraph she was reading.

A minor detour on the pathway of knowledge.

The trust of Naga was no small matter. It meant that secondary loyalty might pass to Luna, should she get Nagini to like her. She would have a true ally in the house, another female creature to understand the man they had in common. Snape, Nagini, perhaps her two Death Eater guards... Luna wondered if she had friends awaiting her even in the Riddle House. What a thought.

It took the rest of the afternoon for Luna to peruse the clothing that had appeared within the new armoire. It was all in her size, of course, and all suitable for meeting the Dark Lord on his new terms. Classic clothing, of finest construction, tailored to her tall body, and enough lovely jewelry to keep her occupied for awhile. Shoes, too. And because the clothes were not part of Luna's usual repertoire, they helped her gain strength in her rôle. Easier to act the part when you looked it.

The October sun shone hard and cold through the stained-glass window, and knowing the date Luna was able to keep track of the days after that.

It would be another two days before Luna was forced into company with the Dark Lord again. But after her dreadful experience with him during their dinner for two, something unexpected and very unwanted happened in Luna's consciousness. He cropped up in her dreams, doing even more to her than what he'd done that night, and in her dreams she enjoyed it. It was as though someone (no, You-Know-Who) had turned on the tap and Luna felt grounded down to the sensations in a way that was foreign to her. It was horrible, but when she should have dreaded meeting him next, her body hummed with a new kind of curiosity. She knew it was the power of suggestion, the invasion of her thoughts and mind; she knew what he was doing. It did not make it any easier.

And Voldemort was getting what he wanted: the utter betrayal of Luna Lovegood, the turning of her back on the light.

***

October, the Blood Moon

***

The moon was full when Luna was summoned to Voldemort. She knew this because when she was taken through the house, the calm white rays flooded through the windows and Luna could glance out to see the English countryside bathed in it. A low fog clung to the ground, floating in backlit tendrils and concealing the true shape of the hills, as though the moon had descended itself to earth in the form of milky vapour. The Dementors were breeding, Luna supposed. On the grounds of the Dark Lord's headquarters they must be in abundance.

To her surprise, Smiley and Yorkie led her outside of the house and into the air for the first time since she'd been captured. For a wild moment Luna thought they'd decided to release her. But when they walked along a path and onto a terraced pavilion set in the back of the house, Luna knew better.

At least thirty Death Eaters stood in three rows of a semi-circle, facing a rough-hewn stone altar. Sickly green witchlights hovered and danced above their heads. This, combined with the fog and moonlight, threw their masks into gruesome relief, a grinning monotony of skulls floating inside dark cloth.

Voldemort, in sweeping black robes, presided over the gathering. He relaxed on a throne-like chair set upon a dais, his white hands dangling off the armrests. His chin was raised so that his eyes looked down his new nose. He had a tiny smile on his lips that was unattractive. He glanced up and saw Luna flanked by her guards and he raised a finger to beckon her forward.

Luna could not help but shoot a worried look at the stone altar in the middle of the circle. It was just the right size for a person to be laid upon and she did not want that person to be her. But instead Voldemort gestured for her to kneel down on the left side of him, which she did as unobtrusively as possible. His eyes were bright red tonight, bright like the moon, but the wrong colour, of course.

He said a few words to the Death Eaters that went in Luna's right ear and out her left. She shivered as the words passed through her. Phantom intruding thoughts. Yet, reality would not let her forget herself, not tonight. There was too much evil in the air to pretend ignorance of it.

A line of chained people in ragged clothing were brought forward into the circle. Voldemort laughed.

They were Muggles. That much was apparent, for the bound prisoners looked askance at the wands wielded by their captors, puzzlement and terror mingling in a cocktail of emotion that must have smelled sweet to the Dementors hovering above.

The Death Eaters began with a small Muggle boy. One of a family; Luna saw his parents screaming through the gags between their teeth, protesting. At Voldemort's direction, they put the boy on the stone altar. Rites were said. Terrible deeds followed the words. It ended with great splashes of blood staining the stone. Luna had no idea a child's body could contain so much blood. Her cheeks were wet with tears that she could not remember the start of.

'Take the blood of the girls,' said Voldemort. 'It will be a prize for Bella.'

A woman's voice laughed with mad glee in the crowd of Death Eaters and she stepped forward. 'Thank you, my Lord, my Master.' Behind her mask a mane of black hair floated in tangles to identify her as Bellatrix Lestrange.

'It's good for the complexion,' Voldemort whispered to Luna. She could but look at him in horror. Of course, he would not let her look away; he muttered the charm that froze her in place so that she could not avert her eyes from the sight of four Muggle girls of about her age, standing on the stone, growing whiter and whiter as the blood drained from their bodies and into large glass bowls. Their eyes were wide with fear. They, too, stared at death, stared at Voldemort, the utter betrayal of all good things written on their innocent faces.

One by one they dropped, limp. Like the young boy before them, they yielded a great deal of blood, certainly enough to fill a bathtub or two. Luna felt sick as she heard the saved liquid of life sloshing around as the bowls were charmed to float away.

The Dark revel earned its name. The chanting grew heavy and feverish; sacrifices were demanded. Ritual killings were made with an obsidian knife that looked like it came from the Americas. An offering of organs was made to the full moon. For the first time, Luna hated her own name, if this was what was offered to it. She tugged at the hard metal chains around her wrists, to no avail. Many times she wanted to scream at the sights before her eyes but she refused to allow it. The screaming stayed in her head until it was sated. Then it was all white, all calm, and Luna ignored Voldemort's occasional glances over at her.

She would not give him the benefit of seeing her upset and so she stayed chained and awake but somewhere else entirely. It was all a cosmic accident.

She blurted out the thought that intruded on her peace. 'You don't care about torture, do you?' she asked Voldemort.

He looked down at her from his place on the throne and raised his eyebrows.

'It's nothing to you. Mildly entertaining at best. You want the control over other people, over your Death Eaters. You're not like her,' Luna glanced at Bellatrix the sadist, grinning and shrieking as she held a Muggle man under the Cruciatus Curse. 'When they do this, they sink deeper into you. They can't escape from what they've done under your orders. So it makes them stay even closer to you.'

Voldemort's lips turned up. 'You're just full of surprises, aren't you.'

'That's why you kept me, isn't it?'

'Lord Voldemort likes to be proven correct.'

When the chanting rose, a hail to the Dark Lord, Luna closed her eyes and waited. She was bound in cold chains yet. She remained so as the revel came to an end, as the Death Eaters staggered off, drunk on the darkness. Voldemort left Luna there. All was still and silent, on the stone terrace, on the grounds, in the house. A light fog whispered to her from above. The fog was filled with Dementor guards.

The immediate space around her was heavy with the tortures so recently inflicted within it. It left a psychic impression on the area, the aftermath of terror and pain hanging like a stagnant stench. Luna did not like being alone amongst it; her imagination threatened to run away from her. But her chains held her fast and she withdrew into herself. Her own mind was a place of light, a haven, something that could not and would not betray her.

When she heard footsteps approach, she thought it was one of her guards come to take her away. After a moment of listening, she decided the gait was too light and tall to be one of her solid Death Eater minders, and that could mean only one thing.

It was the Dark Lord himself returning to the scene of the crime.

'Finite,' he murmured from the shadows, releasing her from the chains. He stepped forward into the light, looking so human and yet so monstrous, a walking contradiction. The rays of the moon played over his features, throwing them into relief, and Luna thought it was funny how her namesake the moon could light up even the darkest of nights. The moon saw everything. The torture committed in her name could not be concealed and even the dark moon looked down upon the earth, though her face remained hidden from human view.

It gave Luna comfort. Looking up at the Dark Lord, seeing the moonlight illuminate his face, made her feel that somewhere, somehow, there was a witness to what he might do. Perhaps it was God, perhaps it was Lady Justice, or perhaps just nature itself, but Luna was not alone.

She moved her wrists with a bit of pain; the chains had cut into her skin when she writhed at the sight of the anguished forms in front of her during the ritual. It was nice to be free again.

'My Lord,' she dipped her head.

He whispered something she could not hear. Then he said the words that made her blood run cold.

'This ritual has not yet concluded,' he said.

'What?'

'You know nothing about full moon rituals? You know nothing about the power inherent at the height of the moon, especially when it is at this aspect in the constellation of Virgo?'

'No,' said Luna, 'but I did once hear that the constellation was named after the Roman wizard Virgil, millennia ago, who founded a secret society that to this day works to undercut the Italian Ministry of Magic. Their coat-of-arms includes the constellation, although you would never know who the members are because they are identifiable only by their secret handshake, and the toe-rings they wear, but everyone wears shoes so you can't see their toes.'

She knew she babbled. She grasped at the normality of her own voice. As if she could talk him out of whatever he was about to do.

When Voldemort smiled at her transparent attempt, she knew the game was up. Not for the first time, Luna felt swimmingly out of control of herself, as though she'd started playing a game to win and would now be lucky not to strike out at the first test. Where, in her crazy loony mind, had she thought that she might come out of this okay? Where had she vowed to pull one over on this malevolent, brilliant creature in front of her?

'No,' he said in response to her useless information about Virgil the wizard. 'No, that's not it.' While still talking, he took her by the shoulders and guided her toward the bloodstained stone altar. It was dry, but Luna imagined that the small crystals in the rock glistened red with the blood that had spilled upon it. 'I have not gotten to where I am by missing opportunities,' Voldemort continued. 'I am very aware of the ways in which a wizard might augment magical power. Ritual sacrifice is a powerful force, an ancient magic that goes to the roots of what makes us special. The reason for this is that it imposes order on the magical core. It is the same function that a wand serves. But a ritual, conducted at the right time and place and circumstance, can create magic greater than the sum of its participants. This is the power of mind.'

The power of mind, thought Luna. My mind. My body. And like a faint glimmering in the darkness, she hung onto his words so that wherever he went with this ritual business, she might benefit from it. Her mind was vast, expansive, often outside of herself and tied to those oddities which defined human existence. If Voldemort wanted to tap it, then it would bind him to her, and perhaps this was a good thing for Luna's cause.

'Do you want my mind, then?' Luna asked.

'No,' Voldemort said.

When he whispered a cutting charm so that her clothing split apart and fell away from her, she understood. Sacrifice. Blood. Ritual. The height of the moon's power, power in Virgo, power in the Virgin.

So that's what would happen tonight.

Luna found herself lying flat on her back on the altar stone. It was strangely warm on her skin and she wondered if it had been charmed. The moon was within her vision, shining in cool apathy, upside down and right side up. A full circle. Voldemort stood to one side, facing north, murmuring some kind of charm. Behind him the Riddle House loomed with black windows like sightless eyes. Were the Death Eaters spying on them, watching what was happening? Luna rather hoped not. Like cold pinpricks on her skin she could feel Voldemort's gaze and that was bad enough.

The next moments took on an unreality that could not penetrate to Luna's awareness. She felt like she was floating, a familiar feeling for her, a gentle wave that crested her above life's dense physical reality. Yet like a soothing charm, Voldemort's honeyed voice rolled across her body, whispering incantations to prepare her as a suitable sacrifice. He would drain her tonight, leave her gasping and cold, take her magic and usurp it for himself.

The incantations worked. Against her own will, aided by several days' worth of odd imaginings concerning Lord Voldemort and her own body, she felt her muscles relax. A deep red spinning heat began to stroke her veins, pooling between her legs, a wanting that she could not name. She closed her eyes. Her fluttering mind protested against it but it too succumbed. Reality narrowed to include only this stone, this moon above her head, the dark figure of Voldemort now moving around to stand at her feet.

She never knew what spell he cast. An Imperturbable Charm of some kind, a concealment perhaps. In any case, the light was no more, and she was awash in darkness. It hung as a Stygian cloud; she could not see her hand in front of her face or the end of her own nose. To the outside world it must look as a great three-dimensional ink stain in space and time wherein unspeakable things happened.

Voldemort's hands moved on her body, cold hands but expert, and she shivered beneath his touch, wanting it and hating it. She could feel but could not see. Her legs were spread apart and she was shocked to know her own anticipation.

Then the darkness hardened, solidified into the shape of a man settling on top of her. She screamed when he entered her, screamed in pain and fear and mortification, but it was as though the stone beneath her urged her on and told her to move her hips, for there was a cadence to the ritual. Her hiccups of fright changed into gasps of something else.

Because it was so dark, she felt outside of herself, ravished by a nameless cloud of black male energy, something that she wanted to turn into a real man. She thought that if she writhed hard enough, it might reveal itself. In those hot rhythmic moments the name of the Dark Lord escaped her entirely. She was not Luna, she was Woman now, archetypal, the impersonality making things easier. All was dark and disembodied. She arched up into it, over and over again, cold and hot.

'Here,' said Voldemort, tossing her her thin black cloak when it was over. He left her on the altar, shivering with shame and afterglow.