A/N: For TheNatureOfRyyan's Age Ain't nothing but a number competition on HPFC forums. I know it's not my best work guys, but it was a little bit rushed :/ Review please :)
Ginny Weasley sat on the floor of the Room of Requirement thinking of her second year at Hogwarts. Sure, Harry was beside her, but she wasn't thinking of him. She was thinking of the man who had somehow captivated her young heart, he had cheated at this game of love and life. And that was easily something that had her drawn into him right from the beginning.
But while she snuck into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom that night, she couldn't help but wonder if he could be here once again. It wasn't Voldemort she'd fallen in love with, it was Tom, he was the one who she'd encountered. Not all bad like his future reputation, no, even his brown eyes held some forgiveness. She looked into the mirror and saw her own brown eyes, but looking again, she saw the brown eyes of a sixteen year old Tom Riddle.
She turned around and Tom was there, it took all her composure not to run to him. Because Tom was Voldemort, and that was wrong on so many levels. "Ah Miss Weasley, I see you've been thinking of Me," a gasp escaped her lips as he smirked. "No Tom, I think you've been mislead," she said whiling up as much courage as she could. "You long after me, don't you?"
And Before Ginny could deny that, he grabbed her arm and they stepped forward into the mirror. Emerging on the other side, they stood in the very same bathroom, but in a very different time. Ginny turned to Voldemort "Take me back right now Volde-" she no longer saw the pallid snake man standing before her. But a rather handsome young man with dark brown hair and beautiful brown eyes was in his place.
"Ginny dear, do you remember me?" Ginny was awestruck. If we could come back to this time, could we stay like this? She could stay like this with him, forever sixteen, she could love him without those boundaries. Without knowing he was the man who had ruined her boyfriends life and countless others'. She sat for a second realizing she had been holding back on these feelings for so long.
Her tears started melting down her porcelain face, this was exactly what she needed. She'd never been fully able to give up on Tom, he sat down next to her and looked into her barely hidden thoughts.
"Age doesn't matter, not here, not there. Whether I'm like this or like that. You love me all the same. It doesn't matter, it's just a number. But we could stay here. Forever sixteen..." he caressed her face, "No more pain," he whispered slowly his forehead leaning against hers. "It's easy, just say the word and we'll stay," his red velvet lips brushed hers as he finished the sentence. Ginny wiped away her tears and tried to form the words on her tongue. It'd be so easy to stay, so easy to forget. But shame and grief came over her, and she didn't spill out her words.
He's caused hurt to so many others, he's so much older, he doesn't want me really. Her thoughts were screaming against each other and bouncing off the tiles of the floor. She took Tom by the hand and the stepped through the mirror into their reality. Where things were easier to understand, when the age gap was clear, he was Lord Voldemort, she was but a sixteen year old girl. "Age doesn't matter, here or there, Ginny," he said, but now she was thinking clearly. Painfully, she tore her eyes away from the ground and up to meet the snake eyes that had been brown a minute sooner.
"You made my world such a dark place, you ruined my life. You don't want me, you just want to Use me." She said as forcefully as she could. She felt disgusting and dirty like a disease, to be even the tiniest bit in adoration, let alone love, of Lord Voldemort. "No." She said and ran out her footsteps echoing across time and space, forever etched into her heart, those brown eyes.