Diary

Dear Tom,

Eleven years old is too young. Isn't it? Isn't eleven too young to feel such things?

Ginevra, I could not say.

Why not? You can always say. You know that.

You are different, my darling…

I am not. I am plain, such a tiresome thing. I am poor, and the youngest Weasley. The only girl. There are so many of us, and I am by far the least interesting. I am nothing.

You will never be nothing.

You are so kind, Tom. But you promised you would never lie to me. Don't, please.

As you wish.

Harry is so much older. Brighter.

You shine, Ginny. You do. You are one of the Light.

What does that mean?

I could not explain. I could never explain that side of the world. But know, darling, how beautiful your soul is. You shine through your eyes, your smile, even in your simplest words.

What are you telling me? Tom, I beg of you. Be clear in your words. I am young, still. I have not the ideas you put in my head, the thoughts you weave through my mind. What you try to tell me is so surreal. The reality in your words is lost on me… No one has ever spoken to me as such before.

No one has ever seen you properly before.

Is that it? I doubt it. You see me only as you want to. They all do. Each of them sees me through a special sort of web. Preconceptions, misunderstanding – all sewn together in a thin film, a filter over their eyes. Each of us wears one. Yours is darker. You see me how you wish to, and I am blessed in that you want me to be extraordinary. You wish me to be beautiful.

Webs… We all weave our own?

Except maybe Harry.

He is always the exception to your words

He is. He is the exception to everything. But truly, Tom. He sees us all for what we are. And that is frightening.

You've said as much

He does scare me. That's why I run. His perceptions are crystal, his eyes unclouded. They glow so green only because the man looking through them is pure. His vision is unobscured.

You idolize him

I do not.

No one is so pure, Ginevra

You cannot know

So you insist

He is nothing like what you dream the world to be, Tom. He is so brilliant. A light in the dark.

For you

For us all. A candle in our black oblivion.

How would you know? You were yet to see light… or dark… when he committed that act of murder that has made him such a hero.

Not murder, Tom.

Murder

He destroyed him, yes. But Voldemort. He was that black oblivion. Tom. I do not see why you can't understand.

It is not I who is limited in my powers of understanding...

How dare you! You have no right to say such things. You know nothing of my world!

I see what you see. I feel what you feel. I know all that you know, darling.

Don't call me that. You hardly know me.

I know you well enough.

Then why can't you see? Why can't you understand?

Do you understand?

Stop talking in riddles! I hate it when you do that. You insist on being difficult just because you think I loveyou too!

Love?

Oh…

Ginevra?

How can I love him?

Who do you love?

Harry. I cannot, though. Even Mum says I'm right. I cannot possibly know the extent of love at the age of eleven. Eleven years isn't long enough to learn how to love.

How old were you, Tom? When you were trapped?

I was sixteen.

Did you know? Had you ever fallen…

I have never known love.

I'm sorry.

Don't. I do not feel any less for it.

Do you love me now?

I don't know.

What is love, Ginny?

Power. The power to break someone so completely, and the trust that they never will. The power to hold your world in your arms, and know that what you have with them is untouchable. It is a special power; deeper, stronger than anything else.

You speak of power all the time, but I think… You cannot have known power if you haven't felt love.

Power, I have known.

Not without love. This is more powerful than anything else.

You are young, you have said so yourself. You have time. You will come to know power, someday. Power is not love, my darling. Power is stronger than that. Where love is so easily broken, strength will hold. Intelligence will cut, leave you more alone than the darkness of loss. Pain will rip through a soul, sharper than the jagged tear of betrayal. Thirst for power is more horrible than any longing for a loved one. If you are looking for something that lasts forever…

No. Wait. I don't understand.

You will. Love is not the highest power. I am loathe to believe it is power at all.

It is power, Tom. If you had felt it, you would have known. Have you really never loved anyone?

I told you already. I have never felt such emotion.

Not for your mother? Father?

My father was never anything. He was filthy, dirty, despicable.

And my mother? Ha. She was weak, so very weak.

Truly, I have never known her. My father, I never wished to know.

Tom…

Don't be sorry. You are nothing like them. You have nothing to pity. If anything, Ginevra, do not pity me.

No… I won't.

Then I will answer your question.

Please.

Age is a measure, Ginevra. And for many of us, it is important.

But not for all of us?

For you, I think not. I do not think you are too young. Eleven years old, you are ready to love. Because you are Ginevra. Because you can.

Only me? Why should that matter?

The way Harry is always your exception... I am inclined to believe that you are mine.

What… What does that mean, Tom?

Love is an exception. Not some terribly beautiful, fascinating power. I think… you, my darling, are just that.

I cannot be...

Why not?

You, who have never felt such things, cannot fall for someone so singularly unspectacular as myself.

You are different, Ginevra. To me. As he is different to you.

I can't, Tom.

Ginny, darling, you don't have to.

I am so sorry.

This is not pity?

No, it is not. This is an apology.

Then things must go on the way they were planned. The future may take its course.

I don't think I will ever understand, completely. But you, unlike any other, understand me. For that, I am grateful.

I too am thankful...

For what? I have not been able to give you anything. Ashamed for it.

For this opportunity.

Tom.

Do not attempt things that will never be. It happens as it may, the way the plays were meant to be played.

Impossible, that I should be so numb.

Don't. Please. Don't force this. I've said, already. Now stop. You words are wearing

I cannot love you. I am… so sorry.

Goodnight, Ginevra.


Reviews are appreciated, Flames are not.

For Christina, Forever.