Disclaimer:
I don't really own this, it's true;
Though I try to add something new.
I know what I've got,
It's only the plot,
And I'm making no money: Don't sue!
Author's Note: Something that has been stuck in my imagination for a while, it took a couple days to write out. This is very dark – darker than usual, but one of the scenes was just stuck in my head and I couldn't rest until I had a story to go with it, so this is what came out of that.
Too Pure
Tom Riddle awoke, feeling dizzy, as from a long sleep. He shook his head to sharpen his blurred vision, but a timid voice behind him caught his attention. "Tom?" it asked. "Tom, is that you?"
He turned to find a girl not much younger than himself, staring at him, brown eyes wide like a deer caught in a search-light. She held her hand, which was dripping with blood, over a tattered and beaten up book, a diary he realized quickly. It didn't take much longer for him to place the redheaded girl, although she was certainly no longer eleven. "Ginevra Molly Weasley, who prefers to be known as Ginny," he said through his haze, frankly shocked that she should still be alive.
The girl launched herself at him, disregarding her injured hand, with a wail of happiness – certainly not eleven years old, he thought – but Tom was frozen on the spot. "I knew I could bring you back," she squealed, "All it took was a little blood, you could have told me that, you know. But as soon as I knew I got the diary back, and got you out of there. They're saying you're Voldemort, Tom. I know it's not true, but they say you're evil – you have to prove them wrong, Tom. I brought you back so you could explain that you're not evil, you're not You-Know-Who, and you can help me find the real killer who did all that my first year. It wasn't really you, Tom, I know it wasn't."
Tom could only stare. Was this his luck – to be granted a second chance by a fifteen year old who still clung to her childish notions that everything charming was good? He smirked lightly. "Thank you, Ginny," he said.
I am intrinsically no good
I have a heart that's made of wood
She crawled off the floor and helped him up as well, radiating happiness. "I knew you weren't evil, Tom, I knew it," she whispered. "What will you tell the others?"
Others? Tom blinked. There were others? The only thing he had a mind to tell anyone was to quake in fear at the renewed strength of Lord Voldemort, but somehow he doubted that would appease Ginny Weasley. She seemed adamant about there being others to tell. "What others?" he asked.
"Why, Harry and Dumbledore and the entire world. How will you enlighten them? They don't already know you're innocent, like I do."
Tom sighed. He had nothing to say to them, but he supposed telling Ginny that would be a bad idea. "I suppose… I'll just tell them the truth," he said.
Ginny smiled. "Of course. But what is the truth, Tom?"
"I was born an orphan," he began, "Or I thought so. My father abandoned me and my mother died, so just as good as an orphan." Ginny widened her eyes in mute sympathy. "My days at the muggle orphanage I grew up in were horrible, they still fill my nightmares. More than anything, I wanted control, a magical way to solve everything. And at age 11, I got it, or at least I thought I did.
"The problem was, Hogwarts wasn't much better. It's not easy to be a half-blooded Slytherin, and my lessons were going much too slowly for them to be of any use to me at the orphanage over holidays. And although my wizard friends had no care for the attacks plaguing the rest of Britain, I still had to return to that orphanage every summer, and hear the air raid sirens through the night. I couldn't hide, comfortably protected by magical walls."
His sob story was gaining the intended effect, Ginny's eyes swelled with tears for him. "You poor thing!" she cried, "But what does this have to do with Voldemort?"
"Voldemort – my class mates would mock me with that name, because of my fear of airplanes, death from above. The flight of death – Vol de Mort. They were all ambitious on their own, of course, and I wouldn't put it past them to have taken up the name after schooling to cover their own wicked deeds. Any of them would love the fact that they were implying the responsibility of a half-blood, my responsibility." Tom added, "I have no idea who Voldemort is now," for good measure.
I am just biding my time
Just reciting memorized lines
Ginny nodded, tears flowing down her cheeks. "We have to tell Harry," she said, finally, "He'll want to know."
Tom froze, panicked, as she tugged at his sleeve. Suddenly he knew that he must never tell Harry those lies. "No, It's not time yet, I'm not ready," he mumbled, and hoped it would work.
Ginny nodded and stopped pulling on his sleeve. "All right," she conceded. "I'll wait with you, Tom."
Tom didn't even look at her as she sat down next to him, silently. Something was shocking him too much to allow it – the fact that this pure-blooded, wizarding girl would feel pity for a half-blood like himself astonished him. Didn't she realize that he wasn't even work the air he breathed, the space he took up sitting on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets? She was everything he could hope, wish, dream to be – without the possibility of ever attaining it. What use had she for his presence? "You're bleeding," he said, pointing to the red gash on her hand. You're bleeding for me, he thought. What was he worth that she should be bleeding for him?
"It's nothing," she responded.
And I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Of course I'm sure. It's only what I had to do for you – it's nothing."
No, no, I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment
She came back every day, this pure-blooded girl, to ask him if he was yet ready to talk to Harry and the rest, and every day he said no, it wasn't time yet. She would simply nod and set down whatever food she had brought for him. She never ate.
"Doesn't this interfere with your studies?" he asked, only mildly concerned for the girl.
"Those classes? They're painfully simple. Don't worry about that."
Tom cracked a smile at that comment – he agreed about the simplicity of Hogwarts classes, but he hardly thought he would ever hear his own emotions echoed in a young Gryffindor. What was this – Tom Riddle laughing with a Gryffindor? He caught himself and quickly fell silent.
"Harry is getting concerned, Hermione let it slip that I'd been missing more lately. I need to tell him something, I want to tell him the truth," she said. "I hate lying, Tom," she sighed.
Tom regarded her warily for a moment and then responded, "Not yet, Ginny. I'll tell him myself what a good thing you've been doing. But not quite yet." She sighed and blinked at him, settling down next to him. He found her eyes unsettling, they were unnaturally big – too innocent for anyone over the age of thirteen, and yet she was a fifth year. It made the inevitable betrayal so much more significant that she should never foresee it.
Her eyes were pleading with him now, but she said nothing and he remained silent as well. Finally she relinquished her attempt. "Fine," she sighed, "I'll find something to tell Harry." It was a whisper, a reluctant sign of defeat, of forced collusion.
"You won't tell him?" Tom asked, eager for reassurance that she had indeed surrendered.
"Of course not," she said. "Not if you don't want me to." But what he heard was more than he bargained for. "I love you, Tom."
What business was it of hers to care about him? What business was it of hers to say that? And what business was it of his to care? He didn't know how to take the comment, but ignoring it wasn't possible, somehow. She was too perfect, too pure- blooded, to ignore. He was struck only by the inappropriateness, the incompatibility of it all. Ginny didn't love him – she was a pureblood and he was a halfblood and therefore beneath her notice. And yet, she said she did. And yet, she had bled for him.
She was waiting for something. He had to say something.
She spoke. "Just," it was a whisper, a plea. "Promise me you'll come out eventually." After a pause she added, plaintively, "For me?"
Tom looked her dead in the eye. "I will," he said.
She smiled at that, went back to her mindless chatter. But even if she was satisfied with the lie, the seeds of discontent were planted in his mind. He felt the oncoming betrayal more keenly now because she sat contentedly certain in her statement. She wasn't supposed to love him. He told himself that it wasn't a lie, but his whole existence, his every encounter with her was a lie, so he couldn't get very far. He assured himself that she was wrong, she didn't know her own feelings – she was so naïve she mistook a childish infatuation for love. After all, how could she have any idea what she was talking about whatsoever? But something in the back of his mind made it impossible for him to brush it off so easily. What did it matter what anyone else would classify her feelings for him as, so long as she was adamant in that calmly certain way she had, wasn't that relevant?
And somehow he felt that there was something wrong with killing someone who thought they loved you. Who thought you loved them, because her last question was a hidden plea to answer back, and he had. He was a fool to have said anything, and he suddenly realized it, because now he was trapped into admitting that this strange pureblooded girl had some kind of hold over him, or he would have killed her long ago, when she first looked at him, bleeding over the diary. Now there was no escaping that fatal realization.
And wasn't it wrong to kill someone you thought you loved?
Wasn't there some rule against it?
How would he know; he never loved.
I have no love: only goals.
Can you imagine such a soul?
But somehow, somewhere deep in his nature, he realized that killing that pureblooded girl would bring him pain, and not just the pain of pristine casualty – the sacrifice of blood to his cause. Something about the way she looked at the world, something about the way she looked at him, gave him pause. There had to be something – he should have killed her already.
He was deviating from his plan.
This would not do.
With a sigh he realized what he would have to do, and with a sigh his resolve cemented into place. This wouldn't last much longer.
And her death would bring him more joy than her life did. Her death would bring him power, and in power lied the source of everything he wanted, everything he needed. Her death was the first step on his way to glory, on his way to immortality.
The road to eternal life is paved with skulls, he thought. Only through killing could he achieve it. It made some sort of ironic sense. He laughed at that vaguely.
She was still talking, happily chattering, but her rapid pace was gone and she was beginning to slur words. Her head dropped to his shoulder, and slowly, gradually, she fell silent.
Her face showed only trust, deep and sincere. He gulped, unprepared to handle that. He could handle any kind of fear, but this confident trust set him off guard, put him on edge. He didn't know what to do about it. Her wand was falling out of her outer pocket. He picked it up and spun it between his fingers, pondering.
The very idea of killing someone who could casually sleep on your shoulder struck him as an alien sort of killing, something more profound and darker even than stabbing a friend in the back, which he wouldn't hesitate from doing. But then again, at this point, there was no purpose without her death. There was no way around it. She would have to die.
He brushed her hair from his shoulder. It was bright red, shining on the black cloth of his robe. Too bright, too dazzling, too pure.
It is a soul that feels no thrill.
A soul that could easily kill
Too pure.
She was a pureblood, better than him by half.
Quite literally.
That was the problem: her blood had brought him into being, her pure blood had pulled him into existence, who was he to deny it in killing her? And what's more, how could there be innocent pureblooded casualties in his crusade to purify the magical families?
And I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment
If anyone should die, it should be him; the person polluting the bloodlines.
No, no, I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment.
So he sat, and waited for her to wake up. And when she did, and she looked up at him with those too-big brown eyes, he knew he was right back at the beginning, only with the tables turned. "Ginny?" he asked.
She smiled at him, innocently, happily. "What is it, Tom?"
"I think I love you, too."
And he was shocked to see her happy smile grow even larger.
He wasn't supposed to say that. He couldn't have said that. It was a delusion, or a trick, a game of cat and mouse. But if it was a game of cat and mouse, he was losing miserably. She hopped up, and lightly picked up her wand from his hand. "I have to go," she whispered, and almost skipped away.
He shook his head, mournfully, trying to find where he was – lost in his own labyrinth.
I am intrinsically no good
I have a heart that's made of wood
He had lost control, he realized. He had let affection, purity, eat away at his heart like termites until he hardly recognized the rotten away, mortal organ for his own. But he could recast it in solid steel; he could recast his life in glowing gold.
It must not have been purity that he was searching for, all these years, because Ginny Weasley was as pure as he could imagine and yet she was not his goal, she was a victim. She was an enemy.
She was an enemy because she loved him.
And therein lay the rub, he saw. It was purity he was searching for after all, a way to ensure that Ginny Weasley remained pure – she who would foolishly sully herself with love for a half-blood like himself must be protected. He was searching for willful purity, purity with intention. Ginny was too innocent to have intention.
And so he was protecting her by doing this. He was saving her.
A smile flickered across his face. He was ready.
I am just biding my time
Just reciting memorized lines
He was waiting for a time to get her wand again, waiting for her to fall asleep in his presence so he could pluck his chosen instrument from her gaping pocket. He regretted having let another opportunity pass by, but he didn't worry that there wouldn't be another one. He only had to wait a week.
Carefully standing, he prepared for the curse, raising the wand imperiously over his head. She must have sensed him it, because she woke up suddenly, and looked up at him, her eyes even wider than he had yet seen them. "Tom?" she asked, voice quaking. She didn't want to be wrong twice, he could tell from her voice. She was pleading that she hadn't been fooled once again, tricked by her own memory into this suicide.
"You know I loved you," he said, softly.
She nodded, a tear falling down her cheek, and she did nothing as he raised her wand above his head and said, with almost ceremonious exactness, "Avada Kedavra."
Her body slumped to the floor, lifeless, and he slowly reached down and picked it up, carrying it to a proper resting place for a pureblood, laying it on the dry floor beneath Salazar Slytherin's statue. It was a place of honor, but she would probably hate it as a Gryffindor.
Then again, she wasn't the ordinary Gryffindor.
And I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment.
Stepping away, almost reverentially, he thought he could see her smiling faintly.
Certainly not the ordinary Gryffindor.
No, no, I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment.
He turned, carefully picking his way out of the Chamber of Secrets, and into Hogwarts proper. It was late at night. He had a lot of work to do.