A/N: for Eternally Seventeen
Pairing: Tom Riddle Jr/Ginny
Song lyrics from She Wants Revenge: "Tear You Apart"
I want to hold you close
Skin pressed against me tight
Lie still, close your eyes, girl
So lovely, it feels so right
It starts with a girl and her diary, and the whisper-soft impulses beating in her ears as the ink dribbles down the page. It starts with heartache and family secrets and the way her fingers cramp when she's written too much. It starts with the loneliness of an eleven-year-old girl, made palpable with the flutter of a secondhand quill, and the oh-so-caring, oh-so-sensitive words of a boy, trapped in a diary.
He's so friendly, that's the thing. He wants to know all about Ginny, and for the youngest child of seven, for the only girl constantly trodden upon and squashed and ignored (even unwittingly) by a noisy and rambunctious family, trampled by poverty and desperately wishing for a brighter future, it is heady stuff. When she flings herself on her bed, the tears already stinging her eyes and tickling her nose, he is there, patiently soaking up the salty blotches and encouraging her to tell him all about it. He lambastes her family and although she defends them, in her heart, she can't help but feel like he is right. They do treat her unfairly, they do ignore her feelings, it's all true. It's all true and the only friend, the only confidante she has, is him.
He tells her that his name is Tom Riddle and that he used to go to Hogwarts, the same as her. He confesses he was in Slytherin, and asks rather shyly if that means that she no longer wishes to talk to him, if she will shut him up in her trunk now or even throw him out. She shakes her head and fiercely avows her allegiance, proclaiming to the world (contained in the diary and her four-poster, that is) that she will never desert him. He is her bestest friend, and that is all there is to it, she assures him in broad ink strokes, so messy that it's a miracle he can read it, but of course, he does.
Her entries grow sparser, but never die out. She is just so busy with homework, she reassures him, although he tiptoes around that, pleading with her to stay up with him, to write to him, doesn't she know what happens when she closes the book, doesn't she understand it's like a piece of him dies when she puts up her quill? He withers when she's not there, and so she takes to tucking the diary in her breast pocket wherever she goes, feeling the strangest thrill zing through her body when she feels the diary, like her heartbeat. He is her own little secret, her own little pocket friend, and if her father's words ever cross her mind, about not trusting anything until you know where it keeps its brain, she cheerfully ignores them. They don't apply to Tom, anyway.
I want to hold you close
Soft breath, beating heart
As I whisper in your ear
I want to fucking tear you apart
Only then Ginny starts blacking out, and when she comes to, her robes are stained red, and there are chicken feathers in her pockets, and do you know what's happening to me, Tom, I think I'm the one doing it, oh please, Tom, can't you help me? He reassures her, with elegantly scripted words, the ink swirling until she slumps over on her bed, nodding in sleepy, dazed agreement. I'm so glad I have you, Tom, she confides shakily. So-so glad...
If only she knew, but she doesn't. Little innocent first-year with her guileless brown eyes and her wide-open-empty mind, and he slips in like he was born to it, and if there's a stiffness to her movements that wasn't there before, not even her brothers notice. It must be because of the attacks, and not once does anyone consider that there is more to it, that she knows more than she can whisper, cross her heart and hope to die.
The months drag on, the petrified people stack up, and his impatience burns hotter. He shakes her like a rag doll, his mental grip sharp like claws, and she cringes away, terror splintering everything into brilliant green shards. What are you doing, you aren't who I thought you were-but it's been that way all along, and she's not noticed. The monsters have teeth, and when she looks in the mirror, the monster is herself, and how can you deal with that? It's almost a relief when he drags her into the Chamber, to crumple in a pool of stagnant water, her life force dribbling away.
At least then she doesn't have to feel when he rips her apart.