Snow
Midnight at Hogwarts is so quiet that Ginny swears she can hear the snowflakes hitting the sand on the shores of the Black Lake.
(She isn't supposed to be here.)
The castle is asleep, as it should be, and she finished her rounds more than an hour ago, but something about the first snowfall of the year keeps Ginny up. It draws her here, to this frozen beach, and as she sits on the ground inhaling the stillness of it all, she is struck with a sudden and unexpected sensation of grief.
With trembling hands, she pulls the journal from the depths of her cloak and runs a finger across its midnight-blue cover.
Tom Riddle is dead.
She swallows hard. The noise of it cuts through the silence like a drumbeat, like a gong, but the snow doesn't stop falling, and so Ginny pretends she has made no sound.
She doesn't know why she bought another diary. Merlin knows she never writes in it—not because she's afraid someone might write back (Ginny isn't afraid, not of anything, not of anything), but because the things she wants to write are too complicated for her to put into words.
So she stays silent, just like midnight, just like this beach, and the barely-perceptible whisper of snow kissing sand matches the sound of the unformulated thoughts that tumble from her breath, and she grieves for the things she has lost even though she knows she does not want them back.
And then there is the crunch of footsteps in the snow, and she is not alone anymore.
"Well, well, well," he says.
That voice jolts through her like lightning. In one swift motion, she drops the journal and draws her wand.
"Come now, Ginny. Is that any way to greet your old friend?"
She doesn't move.
With a heavy sigh, he reaches out and pushes her wand to the side. "You know that won't do any good."
"You're dead." She can't stop the word from trembling on her tongue. "You're not real."
Tom Riddle's mouth, dark as ink against his pale complexion, slants into a smirk. "Are you certain?"
"Yes." She redoubles her grip on her wand. "What are you doing here?"
He shrugs theatrically and lowers himself onto a large rock that protrudes from the sand. "I could ask you the same thing. Shouldn't you be fast asleep in the castle with all the other good little boys and girls?"
She clenches her jaw. "Shouldn't you be destroyed like the evil ugly horcrux you are?"
He lets out a low whistle. "So we've resorted to name-calling, I see."
"How are you back?"
He doesn't answer. His gaze wanders out over the frozen lake. "I've always liked the snow. It's got an air of finality, don't you think? Cold, peaceful, quiet—it's like the whole world's gone into mourning."
She squeezes her eyes shut. Images of death and bodies flash across her vision: Dumbledore, Colin, Remus, Tonks…and another, one whose name and face she cannot bring herself to think about for more than a moment, even now, even after six months without him…
"Mourning for what?" she asks in spite of herself.
"Oh, I don't know." He says it lazily, thoughtlessly, and she opens her eyes to see him looking at her. "The collapse of the human condition, perhaps. The death of the purity of mankind. Could be anything."
She watches a snowflake land on the cover of her journal. It shimmers there for a moment and then disappears, melting into the book the way her ink had once melted into his diary.
"You've replaced me, I see."
She snaps her eyes back to his. "Oh, have you finished waxing poetic?"
He laughs. It is not an unpleasant sound. "Does it write back?"
"I'm not telling you anything until you tell me how you're here."
He sighs fondly. "You always did have a one-track mind."
"You're dead," she says. "You died six years ago in the Chamber of Secrets, and you died again six months ago in the Battle of Hogwarts, and unless you figured out a way to force yourself on the world as a ghost, you shouldn't be here."
"Not a ghost." He extends his arm toward her, palm facing the sky. For a moment, she thinks he is reaching for her hand. "There. A snowflake just fell on my skin," he says. "Do you see it?"
She nods.
"Watch it melt."
She looks. "It's not."
"Exactly." He closes his palm into a fist around the flake. "And it won't."
"Because you're not warm enough?"
He bears his teeth in a dangerous grin. "Touch me and find out."
She doesn't, and he has the decency not to act offended.
"So if you're not a ghost, and you're obviously not a living body, what are you?"
"A memory."
She shakes her head. "Harry destroyed the horcr—"
"Did I say horcrux?" His eyes darken; he is losing patience with her. (She is not afraid of him, not afraid of anything, she is not, she is not.) "Try again, Ginny, and do think it through this time."
"You were Voldemort's memory." Her voice is hard, and she silently thanks Merlin it doesn't tremble. "But Voldemort is dead."
He waits.
The snow continues to fall.
"So you must be someone else's memory."
"Someone else's, indeed." He rises to his feet. He towers over her by at least a foot, just as he always has; it is as if neither of them has changed (he hasn't) and neither of them has grown (she has) and for a moment, she is eleven years old all over again…
It all comes together.
"You're my memory," she breathes.
"Yours." His mouth unfurls slowly into a sinister smirk. "Who are you mourning, Gin?"
Every muscle in her body is tensed. "Not you."
He shakes his head in mock disappointment. "What a little liar you've grown up to be. I seem to recall so much more honesty when we were in the Chamber." He gestures at the sand. "It's below our feet right now, you know. Just under the lake. Is that why you're here? Couldn't make it down into our old secret hideaway, so you settled for standing above it, instead?"
"No."
"Come now, Ginny. Lie to the rest of them if you must, but do not lie to yourself."
With narrowed eyes, she lifts her wand. "Reducto!"
The spell shoots through him harmlessly. He grins.
"Oh, dear. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple to rid yourself of memories like me."
"You aren't real." She is not afraid of him. She isn't. She isn't. "You're in my head. You can't hurt me."
"On the contrary." He leans down, traces her cheek with a freezing finger. "I find the demons in our heads can hurt us just as often as they please. Don't you?"
With a shriek, Ginny twists away from him and aims her wand at her empty journal. "Incendio!"
The pages ignite instantly, glowing a painfully bright orange as they shrivel and curl into ash. The sudden heat draws tears up into Ginny's eyes. She blinks them back furiously.
"Dear me." Tom's voice, cool and unconcerned, comes from far too close to her ear. She whirls around and nearly collides with him. "I'll be honest with you, Ginny, I didn't think you'd try so hard to destroy me."
She fights the urge to swallow.
"Truly. I gained a lot of respect for you just now. A valiant effort."
Her heart is in her throat. "Avada—"
"Oh, don't be absurd."
She lets the spell die on her tongue.
"It's a losing battle, anyway." He takes his seat on the rock again. "I really don't understand why you're still lying to yourself."
Her chin trembles. She doesn't trust herself to speak.
"You obviously wanted to see me." He opens his arms wide. "I'm here. Tell me what you need to tell me. Get it all off your chest."
She finds her voice. "And if I do, you'll leave?"
"I think you'll find that's up to you. I'm your memory, remember?"
With a deep breath, she sits on the sand beside his rock. "I have nothing to say to you."
His laughter is sharp, quick, and it makes something in her chest bleed. "Very well. Shall I be the one to start us off, then?"
"I don't want to hear anything you have to say, either."
"Then why am I here, Gin?"
She winces at his old nickname for her. "You're here because it's snowing."
He waits, lets her work it out on her own.
"You used to remind me of snow," she whispers. "Cold. Unyielding. Numb. And I wanted—I thought—"
"Say it."
She can't meet his eye. "I used to hope I would be the one who finally convinced you to feel something."
Her journal is a smoldering pile of embers.
"And what else?" His voice is breathy, but not weak. She does not have to look up at him to know that his eyes have softened.
"I saw you again." She pulls her robes tightly around her body. "Voldemort, I mean. Six months ago. I saw him, and I watched his face for any sign of recognition, and I swear, I don't know why, but I was disappointed when you didn't—I mean, when he didn't—I mean, I knew it was stupid, but I had been hoping, just barely, just a little—"
"My, my, my." Tom's voice is just as condescending as always, but she can tell his heart isn't in it. "Carrying a torch for me all this time. I'm touched."
"You don't know anything about it."
"I know everything about it." The words come out in a hiss. "And now I think it's my turn."
"You don't—"
"Do you know how absolutely infuriating it is to live inside your head?" His voice is steely. "Always there, hovering just inches below the surface, waiting for you to either give up and let me rest or admit to yourself that you were ready to have a proper thought about me?"
"I didn't—"
"There's a word you've danced around all night, Gin—a word you've been dancing around for six years."
She closes her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Do not lie to me!" The next time he speaks, his voice comes from directly in front of her: "Say it. Tell me the awful, horrible secret you've been keeping all this time. One word. Get it off your chest, and I'm gone."
She hides her face behind her hands. "I can't."
"Why not? Because it isn't true? Or because you don't really want me to go?"
"Stop!"
His fingers grip her chin so tightly she fears it will bruise. "Tell me now, in front of this frozen grieving world, that you were in love with Lord Voldemort!"
She tries to flinch. He won't let her. The tears spill over.
"Who knows." He drops her chin and rubs away a tear with his thumb. "I may respect you even more for it."
She closes her eyes. Tries to breathe.
"Say it."
She shivers.
"Say it."
"I loved you."
The wind picks up.
"Again," he says coldly.
"I loved you."
His hands disappear from her face. "Again."
She opens her mouth. Breathes. "I still love you."
The world is silent.
Ginny opens her eyes. Tom Riddle is gone. The snow has ceased to fall.
She buries her head in her arms and sobs.
Quidditch League Round 3
Holyhead Harpies, Beater 1
Prompt: Write about a character who comes to respect someone they didn't previously
Word Count: 1,921 (MacBook Pages)
Optional Prompts:
3. (setting) beach
7. (object) snow
12. (object) journal
I feel like you all need to know that this fic started out as a Blackinnon summer camp AU. I don't really know how we got from fluffy summer fun to this tragic pile of angst, but I enjoyed the ride.