lost to love
"The boy's future is clouded, Gellert."
"He is the Chosen One; there is no question about it. One day, he will have to make a decision—the fate of the Wizarding World rests in his hands."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Let him in, Arcturus, my friend. I wish to speak with him, alone."
"Gellert?" The headmaster of Durmstrang gave his Deputy a look, and the man nodded his head. "As you say."
The boy stepped in, tall and lean, dark-black hair falling into his eyes. "Headmaster, you called for me?"
"Hello, Tom. Come, take a seat. There are some things I wish to tell you."
Tom woke up, a sense of lethargy filling his senses. It felt as if he had been asleep for decades. He opened his eyes and looked around, and all he could see around him was an inky-black nothingness. Somehow, he knew the place was as big as life itself, and in the pitch black, Tom felt he was tiny.
Where was he?
It seemed as if the answer had been waiting for him, just waiting for the question to be asked. Memories filled him, then.
Living in the orphanage… a red-haired man in dark clothing visiting him, asking him to join Hogwarts—Tom had been wary of that man for some reason, something telling him to keep away from the man… more people coming to see him that evening, telling him how they had been searching for him for years… his decision to follow his gut and go with them to Durmstrang… meeting Headmaster Grindelwald for the first time… being told about the war… six years of learning at Durmstrang… making friends with Abraxas Malfoy… coming to think of the school as his own home and Abraxas as a brother…
The headmaster's prophecy… Tom agreeing to help… being hidden in a book until the time was right…
So that was where he was—inside an unassuming journal. He had picked the journal, wishing to get lost in his own past instead of random words of some book, and something told Tom it was the only reason why he had got the memories back so easily. He was, after all, surrounded by his own past.
Voices brought him out of his thoughts. A part of him felt an utter sense of relief—at least there would be some connection to the outer world—but another part of him felt too lonely already. He wished he had stayed asleep. What was the point of being awake in this dark abyss?
"Durmstrang scum!" a male voice was saying, "Inbred filth, that lot is, children. Keep distance."
"Arthur Weasley," another smooth voice said, "what a pleasure." The sarcasm was evident in his tone.
"Lucius Malfoy—" Tom tuned the rude man he assumed was Arthur out, wondering who Lucius was. Abraxas had never mentioned a brother, and Tom know the Malfoys didn't have any extended family—the Dark Lord's followers had wiped them out. Was this Lucius, merlin forbid, Abraxas' son?
How long had he been stuck in this journal?
Just then, he felt a sharp jolt; it seemed as if the journal had been moved too quickly and landed somewhere, hard. Tom felt dizzy and disoriented and when the blackness surrounding him moved to engulf him, Tom gave in willingly.
This time when Tom came to, he felt very weird. It felt as if someone was trying to—
"I wish he would just look at me."
Tom turned around, trying to see through the darkness where that voice, or rather thought, had come from. It felt surreal.
Just then, it happened again. It felt like a gash against the back of his head, as if someone was trying to dig into his very skin and write something into his thoughts. "He is too busy to be trained into the advanced Dark Arts to think of me as anything more than his best friend's little sister, even though I'm the best dueller in the entire fourth year. I wish…"
Tom cried out in pain as the gashes continued to form over his body, and the thoughts of what he understood to be a girl continued to seep into him. It was a long time before the pain stopped, and when the darkness came, Tom welcomed it.
The next time, Tom was more prepared. He was conscious when he felt the journal open up, leaving him vulnerable to the thoughts of the girl. He could actually see as a deep black—blacker than the abyss that surrounded him, even—came hurling towards him, and Tom braced himself.
When the thoughts hit, Tom pushed back. It took him a few tries, but finally, he was able to send out a tiny thought of his own: Hello, I'm Tom Riddle.
The girl took a longer time to come back to writing in his journal, and to his shame, Tom found he had actually been waiting for her. The writing that tore into his skin felt like a welcome change from the loneliness that filled Tom as he floated in the black nothingness, alone, lost in just the past, wondering what, how, and when the present even was.
Sometimes, Tom felt like a figurine in a music box, made to stand in a box until the keeper turned the key, and then, he would pirouette to the tune. He wondered, if the dancing figure in the box actually looked forward to being used. If it, too, felt as lonely as Tom did.
Something shifted within Tom, then, and he realised he wanted out. He wanted this dizzying, endless blackness to go away, and he wanted to feel alive.
When the girl wrote her thoughts, he sent back thoughts of his own.
Gradually, he learned more about the Dark Lord Dumbledore who had appointed himself the Headmaster of Hogwarts. He learned how the students at Hogwarts learned Dark Arts, and he listened to the girl boast her own skills.
In turn, he told her about his own life at Durmstrang, and somehow, he found a certain friend in her. For some reason, he kept quiet about how he could write through the book—the secret of him alive inside the book still a secret, as did his discussions with Headmaster Gellert, and for some reason, the conversation Tom had heard the day he had first woken up—but he talked back a lot. She appreciated him, ranted to him about her brother and her crush on Potter, Dumbledore's chosen warrior, and wrote about everything from the weather to how tasty the pudding her mother made had been.
He felt lost when she left, and he looked forward to being written into, the gashes turning from a pain to a sense of life. The inky black from the girl mixed with blackness that surrounded him, the latter a shade lighter, and somehow, one day, when Tom woke up, instead of nothingness under him, he could feel a cold, black marble.
Tom rejoiced that day, feeling closer to being alive than he had in a long, long time.
The next time Ginny—that was the name of the girl—wrote about Harry Potter, Tom felt a flare of jealousy rise within him. When she asked him why Harry wouldn't love her, he couldn't help himself. The thought rose and moved towards her too fast to stop: I would give you the love you deserve, Ginny.
Ginny told him he was too good, that he made her smile, and Tom felt a sense of happiness bloom within him. Grinning, he laid down on the cold, black granite, arms under his head, and wondered how the girl he was beginning to care for looked in real life.
He could sense a distress within her when she wrote to him, and Tom told her sweet nothings via the journal.
I love you, he told her that day.
"I love you, too, Tom," she wrote back, and he could feel the but before she wrote ahead. "But you're a journal. I don't even know if you're real."
I'm very real, he told her.
"Do you exist someplace else? Do you have a link to this journal? Where do you live?"
I am the journal, Ginny. I am alive within it, waiting to come out until the—Tom stopped, horror dawning upon him as he realised he did not know how to leave the journal he was trapped in.
"Until what, Tom?"
I don't know.
"I think you have to wish it, Tom. Do you wish to come out? Do you love me?"
I do, Tom said, and it was true. He didn't know how this sweet girl was the daughter of the rude man whose voice he had woken up to, but he was hopelessly in love with her. He did not want to wait—he could not wait to see her, to hold her, to… to kiss her.
Gathering up all his thoughts, he willed as hard as he could to be free of the prison this journal had become. It seemed as if a light shone through a crack somewhere above him—Tom could feel it even though he had his eyes closed—and Tom pushed all his resolve towards it.
The blackness around him fell away with a shatter, which didn't even make sense because there had been no glass, but Tom didn't care. His gaze was fixed on the girl in front of him, pretty, red curls framing a beautiful face, her chocolate eyes bright with something Tom couldn't place. She was dressed in a black dress, and to Tom, she looked the definition of gorgeous.
He stumbled on his first step, but the next one he took was steady; he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her. "I love you, Ginny."
She echoed back the declaration of love, her arms coming to wrap around him. Tom buried his face in her hair, the feelings overwhelming him more so than the newly-found senses, and he missed the malicious grin that tugged up Ginny's lips.
x
Written for Quidditch League by Chaser 2 of Puddlemere United.
Prompts: Write about a story where good is evil and evil is good, or you could write about reverse characterizations. Think polar opposite from canon.
[Pairing] Tom Riddle/Voldemort x Ginny Weasley, [Song] Shatter Me by Lindsey Stirling, [colour] Black
Words: 1664