/\Broken\/
She had never had a friend before.
For sure, there were those acquaintances, people to laugh with sometimes, to joke around. The kind of people you talked to when there really wasn't anyone else to talk to. The kind of people you wouldn't get personal with, tiptoeing in conversations making sure to avoid touchy subjects. People like Luna Lovegood, who was, to be sure, an amusement, and shy Michael Corner, who sometimes wanted more. People who could be friends, she still hadn't decided if she wanted them to be.
There was Hermione, but Hermione was…well, she was Hermione. And as much she loved the poor workaholic of a girl, she was friends with her Ron and Harry, busy trying to save the rest of the world. She couldn't imagine Hermione the kind of girl to stay up late nights with, to sit outside at night and drink up the moonlight and the stars and be careless and unbound like young, innocent girls such as them should be. Hermione, she thought, was maybe a little too uptight, too worried in all things Serious and Important and Ginny didn't want that. She didn't want to care anymore.
But it was life, and going through this endless tunnel of silly school girl crushes and overprotective brothers and always being stereotyped and underestimated just didn't seem entirely fair without the one person to complain to and understand. It just didn't.
By second year, she gave up on wanting that best friend to trade misshapen bracelets with and make flower crowns with and do other things that silly schoolgirls with silly schoolgirl dreams and warped realities did. But also by second year, it wasn't an issue of want anymore. It had become this need, this amazing necessity manifesting her very soul and mind. Ginny could hardly breathe anymore from all the things she had stuffed up inside of her.
And perhaps she was just tired of being talked to but never being able to talk that she took that diary in her hands and let it grow into her soul, a parasitic disease that gave her love and understanding. His silky smooth words and the pretty way he curled his y's were like some sort of beautiful dream she lived, until she woke up and realized it was all a horrible nightmare.
It wasn't so scary the way he lured her into his little world, or the way he controlled her. It wasn't at all frightening that he had used her body to commit terrible, terrible things, or the way he toyed with her soul, like a play thing, pushing it over and holding it in his hand, until she felt dirty and diseased. The scary part was, she hardly put up a fight.
He had invaded her! Took away her very innocence! Stolen the twinkle in her eye and her love for simple pleasures! He had played with her heart, twisting it and tearing at it like a hungry beast, demeaning her very existence! But it was his understanding that she longed for, that she pined for and he dangled it in front of her like a piece of meat to a dog because he knew it in the way you know when your stomach needs food. She had become his dog. That was what scared her. She had blocked it out, made excuses for him. Blocked out all the terrible things, convinced herself it wasn't him, it was her, and punished herself for it.
And there he was, with his funny little cursive writing and the smooth parchment, empty, yet so full with words. Words of understanding, and when she hungry for that understanding, hungry for justification, for some sort of consolation to what she did, she simply opened that little tattered old book and sold her soul to him. It was just that easy.
But it was when Hermione landed in the hospital wing that she really started to rot away. How could she do something like that? But he consoled her, yet there was no more understanding in his writing now, just irritation. Some anxiety. She could tell she was wearing him away, and even though she was sort-of-kind-of happy for this revelation, who was going to give her what he gave her? That amazing sense of purpose and worth. Where else, if not Tom, beautifully dangerous Tom, who gave her everything, was she going to find that?
She sighed with her soul a heavy sigh that weighed her down with a million different things. She couldn't talk to him now. She knew he was going to destroy her. She felt it in the way he rustled in her stomach, the way paced in her heart. It was true he had taken a space in her heart, but not in the way someone should linger in a young girls heart. He was the smoke from the cigarette that stayed in your lungs and gave you that terrible hacking cough.
She was very, very, tired of it all.
And so she let him lure her into the chamber without doing much luring and she stood in the palm of his hand ready to do what he told her.
And it was the last time that he spoke to her, the last words he gave her that made her want and need and fear him more: "I will always be here,sweet Ginny. Forever and ever and ever. I will be inside of you after and before and now and there's nothing you, or dear Harry or your brothers can do about it."
She didn't like the game he played anymore. She wanted out. She was finally scared.
And he gave her out, but Harry pulled another one of his Superman tricks and saved her. But she really didn't think she needed to be saved. She was broken, yes, but she didn't need fixing or saving or any of that knight in shining armor nonsense.
All she wanted was understanding.
Author's Note: It's a little muddled, I understand, but I really, really like how it turned out. Please take time to review and tell me what you think. Suggestions and criticism (ahem, be polite, ahem) are appreciated and will always be taken under consideration. Somehow, I think that if you like this, you'll like Broken Promises, one of my other fics, of which I am quite proud of. It has nothing to do with this, but both were written under the influence of some very strong coffee and lack of sleep. Enjoy!