Plot: Once upon a time a naive young girl fell in love with a devil. He toyed with her, made her dance to his tune, and tried to deny that he loved her too. Tom/Ginny

Disclaimer: I is a poor college student and own very little... :(

I have most of this story already written so the rest of this should be uploaded much faster than anything else I've ever written. :P But I've also been revising this for the better part of a year, so who knows how long I can drag that out... I hope you enjoy (and PLEASE review)! 3

The Fruit of Hade's Realm

Prologue: First Taste:

He held out the fruit to her. The bright red pomegranate seeds nestled in a golden bowl. Her colors, she knew. He had planned it that way. In this forever twilight realm of his he had made an offering to her, for her. It was a promise, and an enticing lie.

She knew that if she accepted it she would be trapped here forever. With him in this darkness. Her soul cried out for sunlight, joy, and green growing things.

But when she looked up into his dark eyes, eyes that went on forever, great wells of darkness muffling the cries inside of his soul. He was so lonely and so beautiful in his silence. His pain reached out to her, and she wondered if perhaps her light could make the frozen seed of his heart come alive and grow into something she could call love. But most of all, she knew that either way, she could not abandon him to his darkness.

Slowly, surely, willingly, she reached across the distance between them and took a single pomegranate seed.

He watched in agonizing anticipation as she settled the seed on her full lips, opened her mouth and accepted her fate. He closed the distance between them; watched as her eyes fluttered closed.

He grasped her thick red hair in his hands, held her to him, and almost cried out as her lips found his and her fire embraced his ice.

(By the time her mother arrived it was too late)

**

Finding the Fruit Bitter…

There's no way you could possibly lose a part of yourself…

Not unwillingly anyway…

Tom?

Yes Ginny?

Would you hold me? I don't want to be alone when… when-

He didn't answer her but gently he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She imagined that she could hear his heartbeat, as hers slowly grew fainter. She laid her head on his shoulder and tried not to let the tears fall.

He rested his chin in her hair, his mouth hovered over her ear as though he might have great secrets to impart, but for a long moment he was silent. Then, "You didn't fight me when I told you to come…"

Tears choked her voice. "I didn't want to… to fight you I mean." He smiled slowly, a smile she couldn't see and wouldn't have been able to understand.

"What would you have me say?" His voice was soft, deep. Desperately in the corners of her heart she imagined he cared.

"Nothing." The sigh that contained the word fluttered across his nearly tangible throat and her tears fell anew, went right through his chest and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Somewhere, deep inside himself, he imagined that he did care.

And if he did in fact care, he imagined that he could find redemption in her tears.

And if Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, hadn't bungled his way into the chamber, if he hadn't ruined his plans, he would have held Ginny until the end. He would have made sure she was not alone.

And after everything that was her had faded and his soul was complete he would have held her a moment longer, and wondered, where did one go in death? Was it so far removed that the soul had no memory of this life, or would Ginny still see him, as he pulled her hair back from her frozen face and ran his fingers down her tear stained cheek.

Would she have thought those gestures meant he cared about her. Or would she be able to see deeper than that and observe his detached curiosity or deeper still and know that maybe, maybe, he had cared, just a little. It was hard not to care for someone who willingly accepted death from your fingers.

*

Afterward Ginny sat in the headmaster's office, sobbing in her mother's arms. It was a relief to be here, to not be in trouble for opening the Chamber. It was a relief to be alive. Almost.

She tried to ignore the part of her that had wanted to accept death as she had lain in Tom's arms.

Everyone thought that she had simply suffered through a horrible ordeal. They thought that she had been possessed and had not acted of her own violation. In a way it was true. Tom had wound himself so tightly around her - into her life, and into her subconscious - that there was a part of her that couldn't have refused an order of his simply because it was an order.

There was another part of her that didn't want to refuse. She knew that his kindness and understanding had been a manipulative lie; truly she did, but…

But, those last moments in his arms, his nearly intangible arms, had been so peaceful.

If that was what Hell was, If Hell was absolute surrender, she thought she might take it. He had been controlling, angry at times. She had seen in him a terrifying potential for cruelty. But once she had surrendered to him it had only been a gentle pressure behind the scenes.

His intangible form had smiled at her. His voice had been hypnotic and warm. He had explained what he was doing and why, and what would happen to her. He had expected her to run screaming. He had expected to have to force her to obey. But she hadn't.

Perhaps it was her last vestiges of Gryffindor courage. She hoped that he had admired her for it. She thought that it was perhaps why he had treated her as much as an equal as he had.

Or perhaps he had simply thought her a fool, and humored her as one does a child.

So, now she cried in her mother's arms and grieved. She cried for her close call and for the worry she had caused her friends and family. She cried for the tragedy she had been a part of. And she tried to forget.

She did an admirable job. Tom and Harry really were very similar, as the former had pointed out, and it was easy to continue her childish crush, now increased because he had saved her…

But late at night she dreamed of his soft voice as he expounded upon his plans; of the leashed excitement within him. And she woke in a cold sweat as his voice shifted from the soft personal tones he used with her, to the sharp, cold tone he used as Harry walked into the Chamber.

And sometimes, in the privacy of her own room, she cried for her lost innocence, and the love she had felt which had been cruelly cast aside and turned into nothing but a hazy wisp of smoke.

The years went by…