cranberry_crash - Tea with the Dark Lord, Luna Lovegood [Harry Potter], PG
Title: Tea with the Dark Lord
Author: cranberry_crash
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warnings: Deathly Hallows spoilers
Prompt: 52. Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. -- Maya Angelou.
Summary: Luna Lovegood is good at telling stories. Thanks to rufus for the beta. Harry Potter etc. belong to JK Rowling.
Luna is surprised that the Death Eaters don't just kill her outright when they pull her from the Hogwarts Express. "Headmaster wants a word with you," Amycus Carrow says, grinning. "Incarcerous."
As it turns out, that's a lie; Snape has nothing to say to her. He sneers slightly when the Carrows march her into his office, but merely waves a hand towards his fireplace before turning back to the parchments on his desk.
Alecto throws a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. Amycus readjusts his grip on Luna's arm and shoves her into the Floo. After several moments of spinning, they spill out onto a luxuriously carpeted floor. The Carrows drag her to her feet again, and Luna finds herself face to face with a haggard-looking Lucius Malfoy.
He smiles like a ghoul. "Welcome to Malfoy Manor."
"Oh, is this Malfoy Manor?" Luna asks. "I expect we've beaten the Hogwarts Express. Or is Draco coming by Floo, too?"
Lucius wrinkles his brow and steps back from her. "You are not here as a guest."
The other assembled Death Eaters chuckle in appreciation. Luna suffers their muttered threats and imprecations in foggy, detached silence until Bellatrix Lestrange arrives and the interrogation begins in earnest.
Their questions are simple, but it's not in Luna's nature to answer them with anything resembling a straight answer. She spins out tales for them, elaborate metaphors that might mean one thing at one moment, and the exact opposite in the next. At first her intractability annoys them--they make their displeasure known with curses and hexes, rather than words--but after awhile they start actually listening, and Luna can tell from their expressions that they're trying to assign hidden meanings to her words.
It's a small victory, but Luna will take it. She's quite used to people not listening to her at all, and in truth, most of what she tells the Death Eaters is either nonsense or completely irrelevant.
Every few days, they haul her up from the cellar to ask more questions. At first, she just tells the Death Eaters any stories she can remember that have prophecies in them: Oedipus and the Oracle at Delphi, Macbeth, Cassandra's warning about the Trojan Horse. When she starts summarizing The Tales of Beedle the Bard, she feels Severus Snape's dark gaze upon her and wonders if she's taken it too far. He gives her the same inscrutable look that he would give her back at Hogwarts when he assigned 30 inches about hellebore and she turned in 45 inches on the death of Alexander the Great. Snape doesn't say anything, though, and after Luna stares back at him for a few minutes, he looks away.
The Death Eaters like listening to her stories. They flock to her, and she starts to feel like Wendy entertaining her very own Lost Boys. Mr. Ollivander likes her stories, too, but she doesn't mind telling them to him. Every time they throw her back in the cellar, Ollivander grasps her hands like a lifeline and asks for another story. For him, she talks about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and moon frogs and happy, safe things.
The Death Eaters like more blood in their stories. They listen greedily, waiting for her to give up information. Luna keeps talking, afraid to find out what will happen when she stops.
But Luna is not Scheherazade; she cannot keep the Death Eaters entranced for a thousand and one nights.
The Death Eaters have been growing steadily more agitated for days now, and Voldemort's patience is not infinite. When Luna is summoned to take tea with the Dark Lord, she doesn't need to be a seer to know that her time is almost up.
Fenrir Greyback escorts her up to the drawing room. "Loooooooooooona," he says, drawing her name out like a howl. "Luna, for the moon." He leers and licks his teeth. "Oh, I could worship you."
"Enough," Narcissa Malfoy says. She grimaces at Luna with something like pity on her face. Bellatrix Lestrange merely looks triumphant.
Greyback opens the door and pushes Luna through. He stands behind her without fully entering the room.
"Thank you, that will be all," Voldemort says. Greyback steps out quickly and closes the door.
Voldemort sits at an ebony tea table, the tea service laid by his left elbow. Tarot cards are spread out on the table in front of him in the shape of a Celtic Cross.
Luna closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them to focus on a spot just above Voldemort's right shoulder. It seems imprudent to look him directly in the eyes--the abyss stares back, after all.
"Do you read Tarot cards?" Voldemort asks.
"I play solitaire," Luna replies. She glances down at the table. "Page of Cups covers Knight of Swords."
"Amusing." Voldemort does not smile. "Sit down."
Luna sits and folds her hands in front of her.
Voldemort waves a hand, and the tarot cards disappear. "Do you take sugar in your tea, Luna Lovegood?"
"I'm not thirsty," Luna says.
"I doubt you'll be surprised to know that I don't really care," Voldemort says. "It's about the ritual of the thing. You do appreciate a good ritual, don't you?" He pours two cups of tea and pushes one across the table at her.
Luna does not drink.
"It's not poisoned, if that's what you're wondering," Voldemort says. "I have more interesting ways of killing you."
"I don't doubt that," Luna says.
"I'm glad we have this chance to chat, you and I," Voldemort says. "You've been keeping my Death Eaters so entertained with all of your stories. I was hoping that you might have story for me."
Luna focuses on a spot in the middle distance. "I was bitten by a Gernumbli gardensi at Bill Weasley's wedding, you know. My father thought it might bring me new talents."
"Your father is a fool. He's the reason why you're here, you know," Voldemort says. "He keeps publishing rot about the great Harry Potter, and how he'll save us all, when no one has seen him for months. For all he knows, the Boy Who Lived is dead."
"I can believe a lot of things on faith," Luna says, "but I will never believe that Harry Potter is dead unless I see it myself."
"You're a fool, too," Voldemort says. "I believe I asked for a story."
"Once upon a time, there was a great and terrible wizard."
Voldemort smiles. "I like this already."
Luna exhales slowly. "The people were all terrified of this wizard, because he ruled through fear. But some people--some good people--knew that bravery is being able to take action in spite of being afraid, and so they fought him."
Voldemort leans forward. "And then what happened?"
Luna looks into his eyes for a fraction of a second. There is something desperate there, and she's not sure if she should be terrified or relieved. She breathes out again. "Eventually?" Luna says. "He lost. Everything."
Voldemort sits back in his chair and scowls at her. "You think you're very clever, don't you?" he asks.
Luna speaks without thinking: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." She giggles, and Voldemort looks utterly nonplussed for a moment.
"Perhaps tasseomancy is more your sport?" Voldemort drains his teacup and thrusts it into her hands. "Tell me my fortune."
Luna peers into the cup. The leaves are arranged in a familiar zigzag pattern. She smiles. "Oh, you're not going to like this."
Voldemort stands up swiftly, knocking his chair backwards. He grabs Luna by the throat and pulls her to her feet, demanding again, "Tell. Me. My. Fortune."
Luna holds out the cup. "You've known it all along," she croaks. The answer seems so simple to her, and her answer is so straightforward that she's surprised he still thinks she's talking in circles.
Voldemort lets go of her throat and snatches the cup away from her; Luna crumples to the ground. Voldemort inhales with a sharp hissing noise. "Harry Potter," he spits. He hurls the cup against the wall, and the china smashes into a thousand and one pieces.
"You're no seer," he sneers at Luna. "I'll show you how this story ends." He sweeps out of the room.
Freed from their cup, Voldemort's tea leaves cling wetly to the wall. Luna starts laughing. Nervous energy she doesn't even realize she's been containing escapes in giggles and snorts.
Peter Pettigrew enters the room hesitantly, unnerved by her laughter. He clamps his silver hand around her arm and drags her back to the cellar.
She is still laughing when Mr. Ollivander crawls over to her and asks what happened.
"I'm a very good storyteller," Luna says.
"My dear?"
She stops giggling abruptly, calm again. "I have a secret," she whispers. "Voldemort's going to lose."
Mr. Ollivander just stares at her.
"Oh, I'm such a good storyteller," Luna says. "We're going to win."
"Luna, what are you talking about?" Mr. Ollivander asks.
Luna opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again when she feels the laughter start to bubble up inside her. It's not hysteria now--more like a joyful, life-affirming laugh trying to break free--but she knows that once she starts she may have trouble stopping again, and Mr. Ollivander looks impatient. Finally, she tells him the story of Voldemort's tea leaves, splashed against the plaster upstairs in the shape of a lightning-bolt scar.
"I never would have said this before, but seeing is believing," Luna says. "So now, we wait." She smiles beatifically and leans back against the wall with her eyes closed. "I'll tell you a story to pass the time."
Mr. Ollivander pats her hand and settles back. "I'm sure there's time for one more story."
In fact, Luna has time for many more stories. Not all of her stories are true, of course, but that's fine. Her most important story--the one she told Voldemort--was completely true, and that's the one that matters.
Author: cranberry_crash
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warnings: Deathly Hallows spoilers
Prompt: 52. Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. -- Maya Angelou.
Summary: Luna Lovegood is good at telling stories. Thanks to rufus for the beta. Harry Potter etc. belong to JK Rowling.
Luna is surprised that the Death Eaters don't just kill her outright when they pull her from the Hogwarts Express. "Headmaster wants a word with you," Amycus Carrow says, grinning. "Incarcerous."
As it turns out, that's a lie; Snape has nothing to say to her. He sneers slightly when the Carrows march her into his office, but merely waves a hand towards his fireplace before turning back to the parchments on his desk.
Alecto throws a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. Amycus readjusts his grip on Luna's arm and shoves her into the Floo. After several moments of spinning, they spill out onto a luxuriously carpeted floor. The Carrows drag her to her feet again, and Luna finds herself face to face with a haggard-looking Lucius Malfoy.
He smiles like a ghoul. "Welcome to Malfoy Manor."
"Oh, is this Malfoy Manor?" Luna asks. "I expect we've beaten the Hogwarts Express. Or is Draco coming by Floo, too?"
Lucius wrinkles his brow and steps back from her. "You are not here as a guest."
The other assembled Death Eaters chuckle in appreciation. Luna suffers their muttered threats and imprecations in foggy, detached silence until Bellatrix Lestrange arrives and the interrogation begins in earnest.
Their questions are simple, but it's not in Luna's nature to answer them with anything resembling a straight answer. She spins out tales for them, elaborate metaphors that might mean one thing at one moment, and the exact opposite in the next. At first her intractability annoys them--they make their displeasure known with curses and hexes, rather than words--but after awhile they start actually listening, and Luna can tell from their expressions that they're trying to assign hidden meanings to her words.
It's a small victory, but Luna will take it. She's quite used to people not listening to her at all, and in truth, most of what she tells the Death Eaters is either nonsense or completely irrelevant.
Every few days, they haul her up from the cellar to ask more questions. At first, she just tells the Death Eaters any stories she can remember that have prophecies in them: Oedipus and the Oracle at Delphi, Macbeth, Cassandra's warning about the Trojan Horse. When she starts summarizing The Tales of Beedle the Bard, she feels Severus Snape's dark gaze upon her and wonders if she's taken it too far. He gives her the same inscrutable look that he would give her back at Hogwarts when he assigned 30 inches about hellebore and she turned in 45 inches on the death of Alexander the Great. Snape doesn't say anything, though, and after Luna stares back at him for a few minutes, he looks away.
The Death Eaters like listening to her stories. They flock to her, and she starts to feel like Wendy entertaining her very own Lost Boys. Mr. Ollivander likes her stories, too, but she doesn't mind telling them to him. Every time they throw her back in the cellar, Ollivander grasps her hands like a lifeline and asks for another story. For him, she talks about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and moon frogs and happy, safe things.
The Death Eaters like more blood in their stories. They listen greedily, waiting for her to give up information. Luna keeps talking, afraid to find out what will happen when she stops.
But Luna is not Scheherazade; she cannot keep the Death Eaters entranced for a thousand and one nights.
The Death Eaters have been growing steadily more agitated for days now, and Voldemort's patience is not infinite. When Luna is summoned to take tea with the Dark Lord, she doesn't need to be a seer to know that her time is almost up.
Fenrir Greyback escorts her up to the drawing room. "Loooooooooooona," he says, drawing her name out like a howl. "Luna, for the moon." He leers and licks his teeth. "Oh, I could worship you."
"Enough," Narcissa Malfoy says. She grimaces at Luna with something like pity on her face. Bellatrix Lestrange merely looks triumphant.
Greyback opens the door and pushes Luna through. He stands behind her without fully entering the room.
"Thank you, that will be all," Voldemort says. Greyback steps out quickly and closes the door.
Voldemort sits at an ebony tea table, the tea service laid by his left elbow. Tarot cards are spread out on the table in front of him in the shape of a Celtic Cross.
Luna closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them to focus on a spot just above Voldemort's right shoulder. It seems imprudent to look him directly in the eyes--the abyss stares back, after all.
"Do you read Tarot cards?" Voldemort asks.
"I play solitaire," Luna replies. She glances down at the table. "Page of Cups covers Knight of Swords."
"Amusing." Voldemort does not smile. "Sit down."
Luna sits and folds her hands in front of her.
Voldemort waves a hand, and the tarot cards disappear. "Do you take sugar in your tea, Luna Lovegood?"
"I'm not thirsty," Luna says.
"I doubt you'll be surprised to know that I don't really care," Voldemort says. "It's about the ritual of the thing. You do appreciate a good ritual, don't you?" He pours two cups of tea and pushes one across the table at her.
Luna does not drink.
"It's not poisoned, if that's what you're wondering," Voldemort says. "I have more interesting ways of killing you."
"I don't doubt that," Luna says.
"I'm glad we have this chance to chat, you and I," Voldemort says. "You've been keeping my Death Eaters so entertained with all of your stories. I was hoping that you might have story for me."
Luna focuses on a spot in the middle distance. "I was bitten by a Gernumbli gardensi at Bill Weasley's wedding, you know. My father thought it might bring me new talents."
"Your father is a fool. He's the reason why you're here, you know," Voldemort says. "He keeps publishing rot about the great Harry Potter, and how he'll save us all, when no one has seen him for months. For all he knows, the Boy Who Lived is dead."
"I can believe a lot of things on faith," Luna says, "but I will never believe that Harry Potter is dead unless I see it myself."
"You're a fool, too," Voldemort says. "I believe I asked for a story."
"Once upon a time, there was a great and terrible wizard."
Voldemort smiles. "I like this already."
Luna exhales slowly. "The people were all terrified of this wizard, because he ruled through fear. But some people--some good people--knew that bravery is being able to take action in spite of being afraid, and so they fought him."
Voldemort leans forward. "And then what happened?"
Luna looks into his eyes for a fraction of a second. There is something desperate there, and she's not sure if she should be terrified or relieved. She breathes out again. "Eventually?" Luna says. "He lost. Everything."
Voldemort sits back in his chair and scowls at her. "You think you're very clever, don't you?" he asks.
Luna speaks without thinking: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." She giggles, and Voldemort looks utterly nonplussed for a moment.
"Perhaps tasseomancy is more your sport?" Voldemort drains his teacup and thrusts it into her hands. "Tell me my fortune."
Luna peers into the cup. The leaves are arranged in a familiar zigzag pattern. She smiles. "Oh, you're not going to like this."
Voldemort stands up swiftly, knocking his chair backwards. He grabs Luna by the throat and pulls her to her feet, demanding again, "Tell. Me. My. Fortune."
Luna holds out the cup. "You've known it all along," she croaks. The answer seems so simple to her, and her answer is so straightforward that she's surprised he still thinks she's talking in circles.
Voldemort lets go of her throat and snatches the cup away from her; Luna crumples to the ground. Voldemort inhales with a sharp hissing noise. "Harry Potter," he spits. He hurls the cup against the wall, and the china smashes into a thousand and one pieces.
"You're no seer," he sneers at Luna. "I'll show you how this story ends." He sweeps out of the room.
Freed from their cup, Voldemort's tea leaves cling wetly to the wall. Luna starts laughing. Nervous energy she doesn't even realize she's been containing escapes in giggles and snorts.
Peter Pettigrew enters the room hesitantly, unnerved by her laughter. He clamps his silver hand around her arm and drags her back to the cellar.
She is still laughing when Mr. Ollivander crawls over to her and asks what happened.
"I'm a very good storyteller," Luna says.
"My dear?"
She stops giggling abruptly, calm again. "I have a secret," she whispers. "Voldemort's going to lose."
Mr. Ollivander just stares at her.
"Oh, I'm such a good storyteller," Luna says. "We're going to win."
"Luna, what are you talking about?" Mr. Ollivander asks.
Luna opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again when she feels the laughter start to bubble up inside her. It's not hysteria now--more like a joyful, life-affirming laugh trying to break free--but she knows that once she starts she may have trouble stopping again, and Mr. Ollivander looks impatient. Finally, she tells him the story of Voldemort's tea leaves, splashed against the plaster upstairs in the shape of a lightning-bolt scar.
"I never would have said this before, but seeing is believing," Luna says. "So now, we wait." She smiles beatifically and leans back against the wall with her eyes closed. "I'll tell you a story to pass the time."
Mr. Ollivander pats her hand and settles back. "I'm sure there's time for one more story."
In fact, Luna has time for many more stories. Not all of her stories are true, of course, but that's fine. Her most important story--the one she told Voldemort--was completely true, and that's the one that matters.