I Defy You, Stars
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing from the Harry Potter universe. This fanfiction is written purely for entertainment purposes and nothing more, though all ideas and writing are done by me and belong to me.
A/N: Well, I am quite irritated with this site. Once again, it has cut me off around the 6,600 word marker and won't let me continue saving further from that point. So once again I am forced to condense my chapters into several different parts. Remember the days when I could easily punch out like 12,000 word chapters? Yeah, it's not happening anymore for some reason.
Anyway, rant over.
I've recently had this conversation with a close friend of mine about the relationship between Ginny and Tom Riddle/Voldemort, especially regarding her experience with the cursed diary, and how it could potentially be incredibly terrifying and dark. After all, the Dark Lord preys on a young girl on the cusp of adolescence.
I rarely see good Ginny/Tom fics that discuss the type of horror I'm certain Ginny faced while in possession of Voldemort's horcrux. I feel like no one likes to go there because it's just kind of messed up. I mean, she carried this thing around with her almost all year. Do you remember how long Harry and Hermione and Ron lasted carrying Slytherin's locket around their neck before they went batshit crazy in DH?
I've just got to give a round of applause to our dear Ginny. I have a newfound respect for her.
And I find the aspect of Ginny/Tom both captivating and horrific, kind of like a car crash that you slow down on the freeway to inspect because we as a people are morbid.
So, here's my attempt at a visceral, dark, very horcrux-ey twist on what Ginny might have experienced.
P.S. - Every quote excerpt in this fan fiction is taken from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.
P.P.S. - I will be writing a companion piece to this about what Ginny experiences in the aftermath of the diary, how it shapes her into the person she grows into during the HP series, and what she deals with behind the scenes.
P.P.P.S - This is serious crack. Like I've never written Ginny/Tom. Up until recently, I've really never even enjoyed Ginny. That being said, I've been itching to write something like this for ages and never had the courage to and well, here we are.
Should I shut up now?
Enjoy!
—Annie
Part I
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
—William Shakespeare
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
Ginny turns eleven.
She's carefree and spirited around her brothers, annoys her mother with prying questions about body changes and when her lumpy, barely A-cup breasts will grow to look like her mother's, and wonders loudly to her father why Ron's voice has dropped two full octaves and squeaks when he's embarrassed.
She demolishes Percy in three swift moves of Wizards chess, isn't ashamed by the spiral of glee that flits through her when Percy sits back, folds his arms, and smiles proudly at her, defeated.
Her hair is short and curls inward around her round, cherub baby face no matter how many times she brushes it and her lips are somehow always chapped. Her sun-kissed skin is speckled and gold and scraped and her cheeks are ruddy from exertion from artfully dodging Fred and George's homemade, bewitched bludgers on their makeshift Quidditch pitch outside.
"Young lady, you are not a wild beast," tuts her mother disapprovingly from her stance near the open kitchen window, soapy and prune covered hands on her hips. "Wash the dirt from your hands, wipe the blood from your knees, and for goodness sake, dear, do something with your hair!"
She wallops Ginny on the bottom as she passes her mother with mud-stained sneakers.
Molly had hoped for a daughter, was the happiest she'd ever been when Ginny was born, had decked her room in pink frill and bought her an army of porcelain dolls with cornsilk hair and painted smiles. She didn't expect Ginny to turn out just like her brother's, with a quick wit and a hearty laugh and an energy of a dangerous scale hurricane. She didn't expect Ginny to cut her doll's hair and glue it to Percy's chin like a makeshift beard or to color over her pale rose walls with vibrant royal blue marker.
But even at a young age, Ginny is a force of nature.
She can't control the trembling she feels in her bones when Harry Potter arrives at their home, attempts to ignore the walloping pitter-patter of her heart inside her chest, tries not to squeak too much when his bold green eyes drift over her, doesn't process Ron's newfound friendship very well.
She feels replaced as she enters Hogwarts and leaves all she knows behind, barely noticed. She's just another Weasley in thrift store quality robes, just another red-haired freckle face at the Gryffindor table, just a little girl too annoying and too young to hang round the brother that was once her best friend before he left for Hogwarts and abandoned her at home with their nitpicky mother. She's too giggly and too sisterly to be noticed by Harry and too unladylike and insecure to be bothered with by Hermione.
She could stand on top of the table in the Great Hall with her hands waving madly in circles through the air, screaming at the top of her lungs, and is certain no one will even bother to glance her way.
Ginerva Molly Weasley, aged eleven, does not take well to being lonely.
So, when her diary begins writing her messages in scribbled black ink, Ginny doesn't hesitate very long before responding.
O teach me how I should forget to think
Ginny hesitates initially.
I'm not one to usually keep a diary, not usually one to lock away my thoughts, she writes, but Dad bought this for me, wanted me to put it to good use, and I need something to occupy myself with. I think he realized how hard the transition into Hogwarts would be for me.
The journal is small in size and the aged black leather cover is soft against her fingertips. She sighs from where she's positioned on her stomach in the grass near the lake and rolls her eyes, closes the diary's pages, shoves it deep into her book sack.
She ignores it for a good two days, thinks herself too mature now to dilly dally in such a girlish thing as a diary, and she's doing just fine, adjusting well to her classes and she's not too overwhelmed by her coursework, and the bubbly blonde Lavender Brown let Ginny borrow her lipgloss last Monday.
And Ginny is adapting.
Until—
"No, I will not help you with your Potions essay. It's not my fault you've stalled until the last moment. I've got enough to worry about, haven't I?"
"Ron, you're being very rude," points out Hermione, smiling kindly at Ginny in a pitifully sympathetic way that makes Ginny shift from one foot to the other.
"Will you help me?" Ginny asks Hermione.
The bushy haired brunette sighs heavily from her armchair. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I really would, but I've already agreed to help Harry with his History of Magic assignment."
Ginny scuffs her laced up oxford along the crimson carpet runner.
"Ron, please? If Mum finds out—"
"Shove off, Ginny," Ron grates. "Merlin, you are so annoying lately."
The dormitory is empty and the air is stale and Ginny sniffs loudly into her pillow.
The diary blinks at her, waiting.
The binding of its spine is crisp and virgin, and the pages are naked and aching to be caressed from its spot on her bedside table. It makes a crumpled whining noise as she opens it.
She attempts to find her handwriting from where she previously left off and draws up a blank, brow furrowed.
Her words are gone and in their place are new, unfamiliar ones, scrawled out in elegantly slanted cursive.
What is your name?
She hesitates, only briefly, and then—
Ginny.
She eyes the page in astounded and suspicious awe, as her name bleeds into the parchment and begins to dissipate, fading to gray and then disappearing altogether.
Pleasure to meet you, Ginny. My name is Tom.
She gasps, snaps the journal shut.
You see, she hesitates initially.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes
She contemplates tracking Hermione Granger down in the library.
Debates on whether or not to address a teacher.
Maybe write to her mother and father.
But she doesn't, and the diary continues to beckon her.
Tom Marvolo Riddle is printed in single block gold leaf across the bottom right corner.
It seems to be pulsing with life, seems to whisper sweet saccharine nothings in her ear.
Tom? As in Tom Marvolo Riddle, the owner of the diary?
The diary shifts, moans, breathes.
Yes.
How are you talking to me?
I'm in a very peculiar situation, Ginny. You see, I'm stuck inside this diary.
Stuck? How did you end up in there?
I don't really recall. One moment I was out there, in the real world, with people like you. The next, I'm trapped inside my journal.
Has anyone attempted getting you out?
You are the first to come by my diary, Ginny. I have been lonely for quite some time.
The pages hiss, crackle, sigh.
A thousand times goodnight
Tom Riddle is easy to talk to.
He responds to her with clear, sharp movements, within seconds of her handwriting disappearing. He handles her questions with charm and ease, uses a witty, intelligent sort of humor, and remembers every detail of what she shares with him.
Tom Riddle is easy to open up to.
He consoles her when her tears soak into the page, seep deep into the diary's marrow. He calms her anger filled rants over her brother and allows her excitable, frivolous tangents over Harry Potter, and soothes her troubles. He advises her on ways to perfect her mixture in Potions and ace her Transfiguration essay.
Tom Riddle is easy to trust.
She opens up to him about her insecurities, about her fears, her hopes and her dreams.
Her nightmares.
Tom Riddle is easy to lean on.
The diary has become her crutch, the place she turns to when she needs a hand to hold or a sage piece of advice.
Fred is starting to wonder where Ginny runs off to, George questions what she is up to, and Percy worries she is keeping too much to herself.
Ron continues not to notice, and with him, Harry remains dubious to her attention, to her affection.
Tom Riddle is easy to befriend.
He becomes her confidant, the only one that truly understands her. He's kind and witty and brave and cunning. He's smart and helpful and watchful and protective.
Do you have a full name, like Thomas?
Just Tom. How about yourself?
My given name is Ginerva. I hate it. Only my mother ever calls me it, and only when she's scolding me.
He is wise beyond his years.
I quite like it. It's a good name—strong, sophisticated, pretty. Just like you.
He is flattering beyond measure.
Goodnight, sweet Ginerva.
Her full name no longer seems to bother her after that.
Tom Riddle is easy to become infatuated with.
She begins to crave his attention, pines for his affection, lusts after his compliments and approval.
He is older—sixteen—smarter, braver...mysterious.
She is captivated by him, adores him.
Tom Riddle is easy to fall victim to.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Outside, a fierce thunderstorm barrels against the castle, weeping and groaning in the floorboards and through the drafts in the stonework and hissing through the panels of the ceiling.
Ginny fumbles to her dormitory with a piercing migraine, her throat dry and lips cracked despite the abundance of pumpkin juice she'd downed at dinner.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
There is a leak from the far side of the silent dormitory. The rusty orange-tinged water plops into the tin bucket, similar to the rhythm of Ginny's heartbeat. It reverberates around the cold, damp room, jostling stuck inside of Ginny's brain like a mantra.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Ginny is unreasonably agitated, blames it on her headache, lights a crackling fire behind the cast iron fence barrier. The fireplace hisses and sparks to life, welcomed warmth barreling out like velvet hands upon her frigid skin.
She feels peckish, irritable, lightheaded.
You must rest, Ginerva, Tom insists. Close your eyes and darken your thoughts, numb everything else out, don't focus on your surroundings.
With a lofty sigh, Ginny strokes Tom's scrawl like some lovelorn mistress and places her diary in the folds of her bedside table, tucked away and hidden underneath her ripped and yellowing edition of Standard Book Of Spells: Grade 1.
Following Tom's advice, Ginny allows her eyes to drift closed, leaves her thoughts behind, and forgets herself.
Where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury
She dreams of death.
The drip, drip, drip of faulty plumbing.
Mangled moans.
A pitiful, mournful cry of a ghost.
Hiss, hiss, hisssss.
Her hands quake, the world a capsized blur, shifting and groaning and creaking.
Squeaky pipes.
Come closer.
She dreams of blood.
Closer.
Her heart is a pinprick, tight and coarse and lucid.
Free...I am free...
At last.
She dreams of Eve in the garden.
Kill—must kill.
Sweat pools at her neck.
Well done, Ginerva.
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood, all in gore-blood
October brings a cruel wind and an abundance of rain. The sun seems permanently hidden behind the claustrophobic cusps of black, rolling storm clouds.
"Looking a bit peaky," mentions George, pressing his hand to her forehead.
"Doing okay, little one?" Fred asks, shaking her shoulder when she remains silent. "You've hardly eaten your dinner."
"Mmm, just fine, thanks," she murmurs quietly, pushes around her peas. "Tired."
"Such a studious, thoughtful young thing," Percy comments proudly. "Always scribbling away in that notebook of hers wherever she goes."
"Heard you even perfected Snape's latest potion concoction," agrees Fred warmly.
"Who knew?" George jokes, comically ratting Ginny's blood orange hair. "Careful or you'll turn into Percy."
Ginny simpers, dry mouthed and bland-faced.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Gradually, Ginny's body begins to develop.
Puberty slams into her like a freight train, barreling through her veins, skyrocketing up her bone marrow, changing and shaping and tearing.
Her shins ache every night with what Madam Promfrey assures her is growing pains, her hips begin to jut out, her hair grows in thicker and lush, and she's burdened with a flourish of blemishes that seem to pop up overnight.
Lavender Brown makes fun of her blossoming breasts and her acne and Ginny skips Transfiguration to cry in a stall in an abandoned girls lavatory rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a girl that died there years before.
She inspects her body with accusing, loathing eyes that rake over her budding form and spit blisters on her consciousness. She's ugly, repugnant, foul, awkward.
Stupid, silly, little girl, a sibilant voice hisses in the forest of cobwebs in her brain. Disgusting runt, pitiful babyface, ugly duckling.
She writes to her mother in tears and Molly assures her that there's nothing to be concerned about, that she is becoming a woman and is an early bloomer and the other girls will catch up with her soon enough.
It is Tom that teaches her the Bat-Bogey Hex that she uses vindictively under her breath on Lavender Brown that evening. It is Tom that mentions a special face cleansing product at Hogsmeade to help with her acne. It is Tom that helps her learn to appreciate the new forming curves of her changing body.
Sweet Ginerva, lovely Ginerva, pretty Ginerva,whispers an ethereal murmur. My Ginverva. Mine. Mine. Mine.
It cocoons her, wraps her in silk arms, purrs in her ear.
Slowly, Ginny transitions into someone else, someone she's starting not to recognize.
Her concentration begins to slip during lectures and she starts bringing her diary to class, occupying her attention with the velvet of Tom Riddle's caressing scribe.
Ginny drifts like a shade, like a specter, through the corridors.
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
The nightmares begin halfway through October.
They come in constant, sharp images, terrifying and visceral at one moment and deafening, silenced blackness the next.
Pits of hissing black scaled asps latching onto her naked flesh and pumping their sticky slick and fire hot venom deep into her veins.
Wounded howls of a choking, decaying barn cat that bears an eerie similarity to Mrs. Norris.
Ghoulish faces at the window, sneering and red-eyed and baring sharp razor teeth, raking nail-like fingers against the grimy window at her bedside.
And blood.
Always blood.
Flowing and pulsing and black and fresh and metallic on her tongue.
Shut off your mind for me, Ginerva, Tom coos. Sleep with my diary tonight and empty your thoughts. I will keep the nightmares at bay.
Ginny holds the leather bound journal close to her heart, like a safety blanket.
Like a tourniquet.
End of Part I