Title: False Hopes
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Tom Riddle Jr., Ronald Weasley
Prompt: 001: Beginnings
Word Count: 564
Rating: G
Summary: Tom and Ron decide to be content with their lies.
Author's Notes: Love Stethoscope is a series of one shots put together to form one huge story. They are from prompts as this is my challenge from fanfic100, a community on live journal.

Otherwise, Meh, not much to say. It's before they meet each other. Don't worry, later ones will be smutty and happy and fluffy but you know, Tom's dark so got to keep in character. Note also that Tom is about fifteen in this. Ron is in his early twenties since it's after the war with Voldemort. He's probably like twenty-two.

The mirror lied to him every night. He knew it did. He knew it had the day he had found it yet he couldn't understand why he kept coming back to it. He couldn't understand why he returned to it to have it lie to him again and again. He had learned of the mirror while overhearing one of the professors talking about it and had decided to find it and discover what it truly did. He was disappointed and angry when he found that all it did was lie. He knew it lied because it showed him his father, powerful and magical standing with him. It showed him in fine robes in a glorious house which he could call his own. It showed his mother, beautiful and happy even though muggle, with her arm wrapped around his father's waist. And above all, it showed himself happy which he had never been.

Yet night after night, after he flicked his wand and snuck out of the dungeons, up the stairs to the third floor corridor, he returned to the mirror to look at it once more. It was his own torture, his own punishment, although why he felt compelled enough to punish himself, he didn't fully understand. So he looked at himself in fine robes with parents who were happy and there. He watched as they smiled and hugged his shoulders.

Tom knew the mirror lied to him. That's all it did. Night after night, lying, giving him false hopes. He knew the mirror lied yet he couldn't force himself away. Perhaps one day he could. But until then, he was content to watch as the mirror lied to him, with the taunting faces of his dead dreams.

No matter what he did, what sleeping draughts he took, what meditation exercises Fleur had suggested, he couldn't get the picture out of his head. No matter how they told it, twisted it, bent it so that it didn't hurt as much, he couldn't get it out of his head. Every time he looked at Harry or Draco, he saw it. Every time he shut his eyelids, he saw it. Every time he heard Harry's breath, next to his ear, comforting and heavy, he couldn't get the picture out of his head.

The picture out of his head. Pale, unblemished skin pressed against tan skin. White blonde hair mixed with jet black. Thin legs wrapped around pronounced, full hips, he couldn't shake it, and it hurt. And the world lied to him. His best friend, his lover lied to him with every kiss, every breath, every smile, and every look. His parents looked away forgiving their hero, their adoptive son in a second. His brothers gave him sympathetic glances and hard pats on the back. Hermione shook her head in disappointment as she looked at him. And the pictures on the mantel shelf lied to him.

Every night it was the same lie. Every night when Harry loved him before he snuck off to love another. Every night when Harry whispered non-senses in his ear, Ron knew. Ron knew the lie, knew the dead dreams, and the false hopes. And like some love sick puppy, he stayed. He picked up the pieces and put them back together. Like some masochist, he stayed, and he lived with the dead dreams, the false hopes, and the lie.