"Hey,

(little songbird),

Look all around you

See how the vipers

And vultures

Surround you.

They'll take you down, they'll pick you clean

If you stick around such a desperate scene

See,

People get mean

When the chips are down."

-- Hey Little Songbird, Hadestown.

.XoX.

Sitting on the grass, a blanket laid out beneath her, is Luna Lovegood. She's embroidering. A box of string and needles is beside her. There's an empty plate -- it past lunchtime and not all people are interested in starvation -- and a water bottle there, too, alongside the pieces of fabric she's working on.

Luna Lovegood in her natural habitat. She looks so... content and it's a shame, really, such a shame, Harry's come to interrupt that. (Though maybe he doesn't have to interrupt this, her complacency... maybe he is just here to change it.)

(Surprisingly, and hardly noticed, she is sitting in the exact spot Harry was when he got the warning letter from Luna, before the Cup was drawn from.)

Harry clears his throat. He'd asked Tom what to say here -- had considered, even asking Cedric, but friendship with him is not a bridge he wishes to cross. At least not yet (though some would argue he'd already done do) -- and had recited the words a hundred times in his head on the way over. Even so, the lines dry up in his mouth and he falls, dumbly, to his knees beside her.

It's her who greets him -- an ugly start already. "Hello," she says. She does not look up from him; fingers still working diligently on her project. It's her Hogwarts skirt. She's adding tiny dragons. "Are you here for a commission?"

"A -- what?" Harry looks around her, then, more closely, and notes that not all the pieces of fabric here belong to her.

"I've had a recent spike in popularity," she says softly. "Being one of the Champions and all. People saw what I was working on... and liked what they saw."

Harry swallows. His first instinct is to undermine her progress. Be kind, he reminds himself. Do not think about the future -- your marriage with her -- because this is now and not then. It doesn't matter. Act like it doesn't matter. "That's great, Luna."

Luna.

Oh, and saying her name again, addressing her, god forbid, has brought back so many memories. His first year is sometimes a foggy one -- messed around and ignored in the bookshelves of his mind -- but he remembers what he has said to her. What he had done.

Looney Lovegoo, he'd said, he'd mocked. Any patience she refuses to have with him would be deserved -- but, like everytime they talk, she doesn't care.

It's time, he thinks, to stop feeling bad about that and start making up for it. "No -- no, I'm not here for a commission."

"That's too bad."

"I wanted to talk to you." He pauses, "About what I said."

Luna hms; her sign to continue.

Harry wets his lips -- suddenly all too dry -- and says, "This was rigged."

"Mhm."

"And I'm..." those sticky words, forced out of his mouth, "Sorry. For insinuating otherwise. It wasn't fair of me."

"It wasn't," she says, not unkindly. Calm. Patient. "Was it?"

"No." He adds, "I'm sorry for not responding to your letters. Years... I ignored them for years and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been -- ... wasn't -- angry at you."

"No?" She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "It felt like it. Like you were angry at me."

Harry looks away. It's harder, he thinks. Owning up is harder than it seemed in his head. Harder than it seems in a written scene. His words are not enough then. And they are not enough now. "I didn't want to be married to you."

"Because you're aromantic." Another subtle sign she's read his letters.

"Right. I didn't want to be married because I'm aromantic. And I channeled my frustration toward you--" I bullied you, "because..."

"Because I was who you were married to."

"No," he says. "Because I'm an asshole."

Luna smiles at that, the skin around her eyes crinkling a bit.

"It wasn't your fault. You were just a kid -- and I..."

"You were, too."

Harry blinks. "What?"

"You were just a kid, too," she says. She cuts a string with her teeth, getting to work on the finish. Her art -- and it is art, what she does, like how what Harry creates is art -- is so seemingly effortlessly done. Harry could never. (Harry once did.)

"It doesn't make what I did any better."

"No," Luna says quietly. "It doesn't. It does make it more understandable."

"Yeah." Harry rubs his hands together. He feels like he is being unraveled at the seams. Being mean, being alone is an integral part of his day to day existence. Harry chose to change that, by sending her his first response, and Tom reinforced it, when doubt crept in. And it is scary, change... but not so bad. It's warm, even. "I read them," he adds, as an afterthought. "I read all your letters."

"You never responded." She pauses. "You responded once, actually."

"I liked it. The letters. Made me feel.." like I mattered, like someone still believed in me, like I was tethered to this earth, "... happy, that you understood my situation enough to choose compassion. Even if you shouldn't have. Even if I didn't deserve it."

"What do you want from me? Now that it is all out, all said and done and undoable."

I want forgiveness. I am not entitled to it.

I want another friend. I am not entitled to it.

I want us to work together and figure out why you were kept in the drawing against your will. I am not entitled to company in this endeavor.

Harry Potter wants a lot of things from her. Not one of them fair. Not one of them owed. And Harry realizes it is because it's not what he wants that matters here, but her. She's given so much.

It is her choice. It should be.

"I want you to tell me what you want from me," says Harry. If wants to never see him again, he will disappear from her life. If she wants a friend, she'll have one. If she wants a partner to figure out what happened with the Cup, he will sit with Tom, scouring books far past midnight (letting the Raven in him bloom.)

If she wants him to be okay with marrying her, with being civil... Harry will do his best to get emancipated. And then, if it fails, he will accept his fate, and her, without question and without further comment.

If she wants not to marry him, Harry will do everything possible to overturn their contract (like he is planning to do regardless), and he will let her help.

It is her decision, her life, her choice.

"I want a client," she says. "And... a penpal."

"A penpal?"

"Yes. After a while... we will see where we go from there."

It is intentional, Luna's ignored letters, left with no response, and her new proposal. There is the implication that this can no longer be a one sided deal. She writes him and, unlike before, he must right back. That's the deal. (That's what is only fair.) "I can do a penpal. I'm a writer. It shouldn't be all that hard."

It wouldn't have been the first time.

"I charge high, by the way, for my commissions." her little way of payback; one cannot be detested for so long without just a little resentment. Harry's fine with that. He even finds it funny.

"Do you normally?"

"No," says Luna. But this isn't normal.

"Well," says Harry, "I can pay high, too." He could do his own commissions -- he does not want to rely on the Potter vault, one of the essentials of emancipation; an independent financial situation.

"...Can I ask you something, Luna?"

"You can ask me anything." This does not mean he should.

"Why did you keep writing me?" He backtracks quickly, "Not that I don't appreciate it, of course, it's just that..."

"That you yourself wouldn't, if you were me?" She raises an eyebrow. "I'd gathered."

Harry feels his face color. "Yeah -- yeah, that."

She rocks her head side to side, humming. "It's hard to say. And mean to."

"I can handle mean." Why dish what you cannot take?

"I suppose I pitied you." Harry feels the familiar urge creep up on him, when someone says something similar to the words concern or worry -- his normal response to a confrontation, or even acknowledgment of his disordered eating, is to bolt. Say This is great and all, but I must be going or Go to Hell, and then just straight up leave.

But now, he's not leaving. (That's what friends, penpals, are for: sticking around.) He can dish it and can take it. He will grow out of his skin of fear and abandon that part of him, the cowardly part, on the floor, on this very blanket placed on grass.

Not all change is bad. Some is warm and some, this kind... feels inevitable. It feels like completion.

"Pitied?"

"Yes. You were reacting strongly to a situation that impacted you strongly. You were forced to be with me, saw our parent's choice in me... and you lashed out. Hurt people hurt people. I know this. And you were ill. Are ill. So obviously sick -- at war not only with me, your parents, but yourself as well -- sick and alone. That's what you were doing to yourself. What you are currently trying to undo. Isolation with only the sick for commentary leaves no room for healing; when you leave a potato in the dark, it does not die. It thrives and grows and tries its best to spread... and I saw you. I saw that darkness in you, the sickness, the loneliness, the telltale signs that you did not want to be a lone wolf but felt as if it was your only choice.

"A pretty, sick, sad child. That's what you were. I... I think I wanted to help. In a cabinet full of darkness, I refused to let your fungus fester; I was a light. I attempted to be.

"It was therapeutic, too, to write those weekly letters. It was for me just as much as it was for you.

"I remembered, kept remembering, the parts of you worth saving. Not your anger or sadness, but your writing. Your wording. It was and is sharp and I did not want to let it die with you." She adds, looking at him, "You were pretty in the face, too. It helped."

Harry feels sick to his stomach.

Pretty. Twice she'd called him that -- even if she acknowledges the second time that his body is not attractive, is not pretty... it feels weird. Weird that he had spent so long yearning to be undesirable only to, miraculously, fail.

He had started his eating disorder to kill himself. Quickly, at first, then settling to slow descent. It was amongst other reasons -- he's not sure he can pin it all on suicidal ideation and lately, all his motivation seemed to swirl together into a murky brown thing. Not every part of it is distinguishable.

But some parts are. His want to die. His desire to be unattractive -- so that Luna Lovegood, his bribe to be, would not want him.

(I am not supposed to be beautiful to you. I am not supposed to be anything to you.

Tell me I am sick. Tell me I look ugly, a walking skeleton -- like I am dying.

Sickness and ugly and dying are validation that I am doing something right.

Beauty... for me, is not.)

But he'd agreed to hear it, didn't he? She'd told him it'd be mean. Implied it was not an admirable confession.

Harry pushed her anyway. He got what he wanted and what he got (was mean) was the truth.

She pitied him. Found him a pretty, skilled boy that would waste away alone, so she put in the minimal effort to ensure he wouldn't.

It's kind. It's mean. It's a mix of both and that's what, Harry figures, the truth is most of the time; neither black nor white.

Luna Lovegood... is a good person. And Harry is not. So he does what he thinks she would do in this situation (what Cedric might, what Tom would try to), and says, "Thank you for telling me."

Luna says nothing in response -- which says something on its own, which says she is grateful he did not blow up on her (and what a sad expectation to have of someone -- sad and all his fault and on its way to changing). Instead, she asks him what design he'd want for his (overpriced) embroidery commission.

Harry lets it slide.

He tells her he wants a diadem on the hem of his dress shirt.

.xox.

Tom is an overthinker. It's his greatest asset and his worst curse -- other than, of course, his older self's impending insanity. While Harry Potter is making his sort-of-amends to Luna (Looney) Lovegood, Tom Riddle is (carefully, as not to be spotted) searching the library.

He's looking for things veiled. Things that are public knowledge but meaningful only to a select few -- like Tom. Voldemort's legacy, given context by Harry, is a well-documented path of blood.

He looks at old newspaper clippings of the man Tom would become and finds that, fixed with his handsome face -- showing signs of aging, only slightly, a luxury, still, that Tom does not have -- Tom finds it is a legacy not worth inheriting.

But he's not here to revel in the past, however regretful it is, however disgustingly unchangeable it is. He's here for the future.

His future. Their future, that's the right word.

Voldemort's followers --- some arrested, some only suspected, most free for political reasons Tom follows only loosely -- are written down. Names are stolen from headlines and interviews. Some are crossed out by pure process of elimination.

Remaining names are investigated further. He looks for words like Dark Magic, Dark Object, Ministry Searches. And Locket. Always locket.

Finding out who had the locket horcrux before will help Tom know who has it now. Assuming, of course, that Marvolo does not have it on his person. (Unlikely. But not impossible.)

It will also add a prefix to the locket. Give it a proper name -- Voldemort chooses only things noble, or person, or is some way special to house something so important; the locket's name will be proper -- and the proper aspects of it. He must know more about it to know how to break it.

He searches, along those lines, for possible other horcruxes scattered through Voldemort's far too large mass of Weepers. The problem here is, the big fucking kicker, that Tom thinks and overthinks and suspects. Nearly every public Weeper might have one -- for all he knows, they all do. (Unlikely, he knows! But with Voldemort, with that man with no self-control and too much power, there is no such fucking thing as an impossibility.)

He settles on gathering (not checking out, sorry librarian) books about famous, important, or powerful magical artifacts. If there's a connection to Voldemort among any of them, he'll look further into, he'll check and cross-check with his list of Weepers.

Lying books on top of each other in his arms, he pauses. " The Tales of the Beedle and the Barb," he says, slowly. He knows this storybook. It was a basic of many Pureblood's childhoods and, as a student, he'd tried (and tried hard ) to integrate himself into that culture.

For some reason (not nostalgia, not yearning, but emotions that aren't his through a hand that's not all that there), he adds the small book to the top of the stack.

.xox.

Badgers, finds Sally, are a harshly regulated species. It is odd that the least Hufflepuff girl she'd ever met is at the top of their social heiracrhy -- and it is even odder that they have a social hierarchy at all.

Coming to Hogwarts for the Tournament, she'd been aware of certain social standards and the House rivalries existing. She'd hoped that the Hogwarts Champions would be from different Houses -- maybe they would turn against each other. The enemy of an enemy is too busy to be an enemy of hers.

She'd been put with the Hufflepuffs. It is fine. She'd expected -- even hoped -- to be underestimated. Look at Sally, look at Pieck, friends with the Badgers. Hardly a threat, with company like that.

Of course, Marvolo would see through it. He is her classmate, her close peer, and he is smart beyond his years. Kind and charming, too. It is a shame that Sally plans to win because if she didn't, he'd be a close second pick.

But it's weird. Everything. She'd had many expectations -- though that's on her; that's entirely her fault -- of Hogwarts, of her experience here, and it seems that all of them, without fail, are waiting their turn to be crushed.

Marvolo had involved himself, pretty much immediately, in drama. Continued it by picking fights with Slytherins -- the House he was put it. Where had all his smarts go? If there is a deeper plan amidst his erratic change in behavior regarding all things Harry Potter, Sally doesn't know enough to see it.

Hufflepuff, too, is not the caricature of too-nice people with too-wide smiles, all stupid, she'd thought it would be. The people here believe so fiercely in Ravenclaws -- their presumed rivals -- that is seems every Badger is attached to the hip with one.

Hermione Granger is the Headgirl. She also seems to be a lot more. (The least Badger Hufflepuff Sally has ever met.) She preaches House Unity, but also critical thinking skills. Loyalty, she says, is vital, but knowing who and who not to be loyal to is just as important.

Wisdom. It seems to be her go-to, her tenent, and anyone not exercising it is public criticized (though subtly, not all that harsh... not at all like Marvolos' recent remarks.)

You are to be wise, be selectively loyal, and give any information to the Ravenclaw Champions because it doesn't matter that they are not Badges; they are their people.

And Sally gets the impression that even if the Hogwarts Champions were from Slytherin and Gryffindor, Hermione would step up (rise above her station of Hufflepuff head; join forces with those who Sally perhaps not met yet), and this would not be a school weakened by infighting. These are not the kind of people led to tear each other apart.

Hufflepuff is weird. Hermione Granger is weird. Marvolo is, newly, weird.

Sally sinks into the melancholy shadow of just watching. Meanwhile, she thinks.

.XoX.

"In the palm of my hand sits an eather

You, and prowess, your people

Crushed by the weight of your vigil

You, and distress, you're brittle

Falsehoods sprinkled around the truth

You, and press, your youth.

What good is my soul bared if the light from my hand

(From you)

Overpowers it?

I am no brighter than what people want to hear.

Admittance to fraudulence is nothing.

Accusations, like ink, are not unbecoming."

-- Harry Potter, "The Star."