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Dark Matter
Chapter Fourteen: Revelations

Don't go, you're half of me now,
But I'm hardly stood proud.
I said it almost.
Oh, I've been low,
But dammit, I bet it don't show.
It was heaven a moment ago.
Oh, I had it almost.
We had it almost.
Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor

For a long moment, Luna and Tom stared at one another. Luna would have thought time had stopped except that the fire was still crackling beside them and Violetta was still laughing with a snake in her hair. Tom seemed to be preternaturally still, and Luna wondered what would happen when he shattered back apart over her.

"I knew it!" Tom hissed, pointing at Violetta, and there was a strange gloating in his voice even as he started to shake, something Luna could see very clearly with his arm extended in the firelight. "I knew it! I couldn't figure out how it could be, but part of me knew it was true! She's mine! She's a Parselmouth, and she's mine!"

Luna continued to stare back at him. She wasn't sure what she had expected him to say, but it wasn't this, and he was looking at her with a wildness in his eyes that she had rarely seen before, the fire playing across the planes of his face in a way that somehow made him look dangerous in the way only a man coming apart at the seams can look. And he was looking at her as though she had been the one to pull out the stitches.

Tom took a shuddering breath and ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. This did nothing to alleviate the unhinged look about him. A moment later, he blinked, as though a thought had just occurred to him. He spun towards Violetta and spat out several words in Parseltongue. A moment later, the viper was dropping from Violetta's shoulder, landing on the ground with a soft thud, and slithering away from her as quickly as it could.

Violetta started after her friend, but Tom scooped her off the ground to prevent her from chasing after the snake. She began kicking and crying at being denied, fighting against Tom's arm with the vigor and violence of a cat being trapped against its will.

Now Luna stood from where she had felt frozen beside the fire. "Give her to me, Tom."

"That snake was venomous, and you weren't going to do anything," Tom accused Luna as he struggled to keep Violetta in his arms.

Luna supposed she had a right to take offense at being called a poor mother when she had tried to make every decision with Violetta's wellbeing in mind, agonized over them, when she had kept Violetta safe all this time while he was out making Horcruxes and being hateful, but she didn't see the purpose of offense when it would make no difference to Tom and it wouldn't get the fear out of Violetta's eyes. "Stop it, you're frightening her."

"I'm keeping her safe!"

Crossing to them, Luna held out her arms for her daughter. "She was safe the whole time. Did a snake ever bite you when you were a child?"

Tom still did not hand over Violetta. It was as though he couldn't understand the words Luna was saying, even though he was responding to her. "No, of course not."

"Mummy!" Violetta screamed, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

At the same time, blood started to drip out of Tom's nose, which he ignored.

"Just a moment, darling, you're all right," Luna said in a soothing voice to her daughter, then looked back up into Tom's wild eyes. He looked madder than ever with blood on his face. "If they didn't hurt you, then why would they hurt her?"

"That's not - that's not - that snake was venomous!"

"I know, I heard you. But she was safe with it, just like you've always been. Now please, give her to me. You're just scaring her now, and I don't want her to see you like this."

At last, the words seemed to sink into Tom's brain and settle. He froze, then frowned. He handed over the screaming Violetta to Luna, then withdrew his hands as though burned. Turning away from them, he strode off away from the fire and into the dark without another word, wiping at his face as he went.

Violetta clawed at Luna while she cried, hiccupping into Luna's neck. Luna watched Tom's disappearing slumped shoulders while she rubbed soothing circles on Violetta's back. She then carried Violetta inside the tent.

It took Luna a long time to calm Violetta down, but at long last, the little girl was able to be changed and placed into her nest of blankets to go to sleep. Luna told her an extra bedtime story, and soon Violetta was sound asleep.

Luna watched her precious daughter sleeping for several long minutes. She brushed the black hair back, then pressed a kiss against Violetta's forehead.

"I think our life is about to change yet again, little love," she murmured against her daughter's warm skin.

Sighing, Luna stood back up and poked her head outside the tent. Tom had returned and was sitting hunched over, arms crossed on his knees with his back to the tent, beside the dying fire he had not bothered to regrow any higher.

Luna stepped outside the tent and cast a silencing charm around it, so that in the event Tom raised his voice again, it would not wake Violetta. She crossed over to the fire and stood beside him, but he did not look up at her, only continued to stare into the embers of the fire.

Not for the first time, a cold silence stretched between them that Luna was unsure how to bridge, but even for all the times he had felt so remote to her, she had to admit it had never felt quite so far a distance as this. For as physically near as he was, she thought she might have a better chance at reaching to the stars above them and pulling one down to hold close than to get him to come back to her now. With the sweetness of the last four days in the woods so fresh on her soul - the small softenings of him, the slow walks and easy mornings and long nights, the little magics he worked with Violetta and that she worked with him - the bitterness of this moment was especially difficult to bear, and she wished that she knew for certain that she had been right or that she had been wrong to do what she had done. But she was not sure in either direction, not at all, which somehow seemed the cruelest way for things to fall, when she had always been so sure of herself before he had confused her so.

Just as Luna couldn't stand it any longer and was about to reach out to him, Tom spoke.

"You know," he said, "I asked Dumbledore about it when he came to the orphanage." His voice was not cold, but neither was it warm. It was neutral in a way that unsettled Luna, for she had never known Tom to be neutral about anything.

"About what?" she asked.

"Talking to snakes," he answered. "He came to the orphanage to tell me about Hogwarts. Told me there were other people like me. Then I asked him, were there were other people who could talk to snakes? Was that normal? The fool couldn't even answer me, but I knew what that meant. No. Other people couldn't do it. Even in the wizarding world, I wasn't right. Of course, I found out it was a sign of noble heritage, and I told myself that then, then I understood. I didn't need to be right. I could be great instead." He sighed then, as though thinking of this had taken great effort, like he'd had to turn over heavy stones in his mind to unbury the thoughts. "But I've always wondered about what I'd inherited. How thin the line is between greatness and wretchedness. And how whatever it is, it seems to be a dominant trait."

"Tom, Violetta is not wretched. And you are not doomed to wretchedness either." Luna crouched down, wrapping her arms around him, her chin resting on his shoulder so that their cheeks pressed together. His skin was cold against hers. He didn't flinch away from her, or shove her away. He seemed to not even notice her touch at all.

"You have so much explaining to do," he said in the same flat voice.

"I know." They took several breaths in time with one another, then Luna unraveled herself from around him and moved to sit beside him, as they had been sitting before Violetta had found the snake.

Still looking at the last fits of flame just in front of him, Tom said tonelessly, "That's my two-year-old daughter, but I haven't seen you in five years. I can't seem to figure it out on my own, so you need to explain it to me. And you should start now, as I suspect it will be quite a long story."

Even with such a pronouncement, Luna took her time gathering her thoughts. These had been her most painful secrets for the last several years, the ones that had cost her the most by far, both to create them and to keep them. Now that the time had come, with all her mistruths and mistakes coming unraveled on the spot, she found that she wasn't sure where to begin. A part of her wanted nothing more than to tell Tom everything, and there seemed to be no better place than this dark forest, under watchful but silent trees and stars.

But there was also a part of her that was afraid. That niggling fear and doubt that had become so familiar to her over the past several years. At her core, she was terrified of what might happen, both if Tom wanted to be a family, as well as if he didn't.

Words echoed in her mind, ones that seemed to come at her from across the ages: The heir will possess the power of the Dark Lord. They will together transcend the limitations previously imposed.

Tom was finally looking up at her over the death throes of their fire. His face was shuttered and drawn, but the fight seemed to have temporarily gone out of him, and he looked young, younger even than when she'd first met him at sixteen. Dark blue eyes looked almost black, the eyes of a man drowning within himself.

They will repair that which was broken, and through them the Dark Lord shall live.

Luna took a deep breath, her mind made up. "You're right. It's a very long story indeed. I suppose I should start at the beginning."

So she began to spin her tale. The moment she mentioned the Time-Turner, a wave passed over Tom's face as at last the pieces fell into place in his mind. Then he reverted back to stoic silence as she spilled the secrets she had wanted to tell him years ago. He did not react when she explained how she had been sworn to secrecy by Dumbledore. Even as she recounted their time together from her own perspective, Tom remained silent and flat.

When she came to the part of her story when Dumbledore had sent her back to her own time, the last part of the story this Tom would recognize, he sat up straighter, a familiar scowl darkening his face. Luna would have thought she would never have been so relieved to see him frown, but his silence and expressionless face had been making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. At least this was something she knew and recognized.

"Ah, so I have another thing to thank Dumbledore for. Sending you away."

"What was he supposed to do? You know I couldn't have stayed in the past forever."

"And yet here you are." Tom pursed his lips as he leveled his gaze at her, his eyebrows knitted together with a line between them.

Luna fell silent again, meeting his gaze. She had so far sidestepped any mention of Tom's future or what she had returned to. Telling him those things had disastrous potential for both her and the entire wizarding world. But she didn't fool herself to think he hadn't noticed the peculiar holes in her story, or that his mind had not been churning while he sat and listened to her so quietly.

"Tell me, Luna, why are you back here?" He said it with such an inviting tone, as if he had just asked an old friend to tell him about her day. It reminded Luna even more strongly of the dangerous waters in which she was treading, though she suspected he had intended it to soothe her.

"That's another long story. And you know that doesn't work on me."

"I have time. And I daresay you owe it to me." He leaned forward towards her. "Why were you so intent on being my friend back at Hogwarts? Why did you recognize me? I know now that you did, you must have. You seemed to know me. It all makes sense now. I thought perhaps you were just strange, but there was more to it than that. You knew me. You knew my name. And yes, you told me I couldn't fool you, although you have certainly made a fool out of me."

"Tom," she started to say, but he silenced her by holding up one long, pale finger. The fire had burned so low now that they were talking in nothing more than moonlight.

He continued in a calm, methodical way, taking his turn to pull apart her threads this time. "You intentionally ingratiated yourself to me. And then you left, because, as you pointed out, of course you couldn't stay in the past. But," he said, tipping his head in the direction of the tent, of Violetta, "something happened you didn't plan on. And now you're back here. I understand how that girl is my child, because as per usual, you have been meddling with things you would have been better off to leave alone. What I don't understand is why you sought me out in the first place, how you are back, and why you are here now." He paused, and let his eyes tug at her just as much as his words. "Why are you back here, Luna?"

Luna licked her lips. She was suddenly aware of how cold it was without the fire. "I'm afraid of telling you all that."

"Why?" he demanded.

She looked away, pulled her wand out from behind her ear, restarted the fire. Anything to not answer. She felt like she was suffocating and freezing.

The flames burst back into life, lighting up Tom's face as he hissed, angrier than before, "Do not look away from me. You need to tell me. I am done with your lies. You need to look at me and tell me now. You've dropped back into my life with a girl that speaks to snakes, and you want to look away from me as if I don't have a right to know. As if you can't tell me. As if you needn't tell me. Damn it all to hell, look at me."

His last words ripped raw and ragged through the night, halfway between command and plea, and Luna released a small, pained gasp as her gaze was torn back up to his. Something inside her, that she had not even recognized as holding her together before, snapped.

"Fine!" she said, her voice coming out high and thin. "What does it matter anymore? You have never cared what you took from me, only what I have taken from you." She stood and began pacing, unable to remain seated at his side. Resentment she had not known she carried was bubbling up and out of her, feeling poisonous on her tongue. "Yes, I knew who you were, I recognized you. Do you know what year I came from, originally? Nineteen ninety-seven. My world was being torn apart at the time by you. Oh, you went by Voldemort at that time, but of course you'd terrorized everyone to the point, they couldn't even call you that."

Tom's eyes flared wide at his other name.

Luna continued, "But even so, I didn't want to leave my life behind. I had my father, and for once, I had friends. Friends you had hurt terribly." She was crying now, the tears feeling cold against her flushed cheeks, but she could not stop. "I went back in time on accident, and what did I find? You. You were there, and I was sixteen, I had so many ideas and hopes, and I thought - you know, I really thought I could help you. I thought I saw you clearly, and what I saw, it was enchanting and devastating all at once. I never imagined that I would end up loving you, and loving you so desperately at that, even as you went about renting your soul into bits."

At this, Tom stood up as well, but Luna threw a hand up at him, as if to ward him off, though he had not made to approach her. "When I went back, you hated me for it, in spite of everything, and I thought that was the end of it. Nothing seemed to have changed. You were still there, tearing the world apart, just for having the audacity to try to contain you within it. But you weren't done with me. You realized where I was, and then you really would have destroyed the world before you let me go. You kidnapped me, just a short time after I had come back. My father came looking for me, and you know what happened then? He died trying. Another thing you ripped away from me, after you had already taken my heart and my spirit and my dignity. I even forgave you then, even after my father was nothing more than dirt and dust and blood. And you know what you took next from me?" she demanded, her face wet with tears and her breaths coming in gasping heaves.

Tom stared back at her, his mouth agape, as if she had well and truly shocked him with her tirade, and he had no answer for her.

"You," she whispered. "You died."

At this, his face seemed to crumble in on itself, but she did not have any more thoughts to spare for him or his horrors at the moment, even knowing it was his worst fear of all. The cold no longer seemed only outside of her, but within her as well.

"But you couldn't let me be, even then, because your older self gave me another Time Turner, and your younger self gave me a child." A sob escaped her, and she finally stood still, her pacing run out. "A brilliant, lovely child, the best thing I have ever been given in my life. She is so extraordinary that I couldn't even truly bring myself to regret all that had happened. And I have spent every day since afraid, afraid that she would be taken away from me by your followers who sought her out, and afraid of coming back here, because of what it would mean for her as well, when I had made nearly no difference for you at all.

"But I have done it, I have kept my secrets and my promises, until now, and I have kept her safe. In spite of everything in the world seeming to conspire against me and everything else being taken from me. I have never had a home since then, never had peace or security, never had my father back, but I have kept her safe. And now you don't even care that telling you all of this will change everything, that my time might now already be so changed that I wouldn't even recognize it, just because you wanted it of me. I don't even know if you would have cared if telling you would have somehow changed me being born at all." Fear squeezed her heart, and her words became choked. "Which would mean Violetta was never born at all. So - so you don't get to judge me for what I've done."

She stared at him helplessly as he looked back at her in the exact same way. The next moment she found herself on the ground, her legs having crumpled beneath her under the weight of all her sorrows and terrors. She had a vague impression of Tom's long legs moving towards her in the firelight, blurry through her tears. She covered her face in her hands and rocked herself.

"No," she moaned when he crouched down in front of her and she felt his cool fingers wrapping around her wrists as he tried to pull her hands away from her face. "Please." She continued to repeat it, only just coherent.

"Luna," he said. "Luna."

"Please," she said again, though she did not know what she was begging for.

Tom succeeded in pulling her hands from her face, then took her wet face in his own hands. "Luna, look at me." For she had shut her eyes against him, her last defense.

"No," she whispered. But the sobs inside of her were exhausting themselves. She opened her eyes and immediately wanted to shut them again, because she only saw her own agony reflected back at her in his face.

"Luna, of all the things I might blame you for, I cannot blame you for keeping her from me."

This seemed so absurd to her that she laughed aloud. Tom Riddle was not forgiving.

He frowned at her and his fingertips pressed more firmly against her cheeks, as though he was desperate for her to believe him, and she thought bitterly that it was just so he could get comfort from her in turn. "I mean it. How could I? If all you say is true, you have indeed kept her safe. My own mother rolled over and died rather than bother to protect me, yet here you are." He swallowed as his eyes searched her face, still with that awful desperation in them, when she felt she had nothing left to give him. "Fierce even though you are shattered, having kept her safe." He paused again. "Even from me."

"Especially from you." She had no charity left inside her, nor the energy to be shocked by its absence.

Tom grimaced, something between a flinch and a glare. "Yes. Especially from me."

A sob that had fallen behind the rest wracked Luna once more, then they were silent for a moment, unable to look away from whatever they saw in each other's faces.

Then Tom asked, in the sort of voice a child uses to ask the questions that frighten them most, "I died?"

Luna could only nod her head.

"How?" he whispered. "I have - I have - "

"Horcruxes?" she supplied, and she pointed at the ash tree across the clearing. "I know."

For the second time, his face seemed to utterly collapse, and this time the void and horror in his eyes penetrated her coldness. She reached her hands up and grasped both of his where they still cupped her face. It didn't have to matter right then; they couldn't fix it right then anyhow, and in that moment, it felt as if they were all the other one had through the bleakness that had crept inside of them both. Then she pulled his hands down and pulled him into her, until their bodies crashed into each other, and they held each other tight with their fingers wrapped up in the other's clothes, without any more words to say, for a long time, down on the ground in the dirt.