A/N: Re-reading the Half-Blood Prince, something about Amy and Dennis jumped out at me. Hope you enjoy. :)

Disclaimer: Um, no. Like really. I don't own the Harry Potter series.

The Idea of Beauty

It might sound silly, but Amy had always wanted to kiss Tom Riddle.

Like many of the children at the orphanage, she was an introvert, lack of a loving hand making a shut-in out of her. She found comfort inbetween the pages of books and on notebook sheets, where handsome princes could enchant with a few lines of elegant dialog. Tom was, in a word, beautiful, beyond the place where a girl like Amy could join him. At mealtimes she would stare at him with a schoolgirls' obsession as he delicately ate, alone, removed. He could be her prince, couldn't he?

But whenever she tried to talk to him, his smiles were strange, words sparing with a politeness she knew was fake. She knew the rumors about him--what had happened to Billy's rabbit. But Amy never believed. Not Tom. Not her prince.

Bright afternoons on the stoop of the orphanage brought glances. Evenings cultured Amy breezing past his bedroom multiple times on her way to the bathroom. After a time, his gaze turned from distant and bored to a strange, faraway interest. Amy was so thrilled, she didn't see the calculation behind the casual words he delivered to her when she spoke to him, that the smile that delighted her so seemed a little cool.

She was eleven, and silly, and he was so unbelievably beautiful, an aristocrat among peasants. All she wanted, really was one kiss.

-x-

"Andrew--hands to yourself! Belinda, please stop screaming..."

The day was lovely. Though all around Amy her peers shrieked and wailed and roughhoused, she felt oddly at peace. Though Tom, always on her mind, always at the back of her thoughts, strolled unconcernedly a few people away from her, he had given her a delightful word of good morning that kept her from being bitter.

The village was as different from the orphanage in London as a place could be. For all the children the day out was something to look forward to, hold their breaths for. They were to have a picnic up on the cliffs, just above the place where the waves thrashed the black rock. Some of the younger ones were frightened by the drop, refused to get too close to the edge, but Amy stared idly, and wondered what it would feel like to fall.

The blankets were lain out, and Amy sat with a younger boy named Dennis, who took his sandwich without comment and watched the waves out at sea with large, innocent eyes. Amys' attention, as ever, swiveled for Tom, but she couldn't see him. She fell onto her back and watched the seagulls squawk as they traversed the inverted blue bowl of the sky. The sun kissed her cheekbones, and despite herself, the back of her skull opened onto the idea of sleep, and she dozed.

"Amy! Amy! Wake up, dammit!"

She jerked from sleep at these whispered words, eyes sliding in and out of focus--but she knew that voice anywhere, felt she knew already the long-fingered hands on her side and shoulder, jerking her to wakefulness. Droplets of water were falling on her cheeks, something sopping wet pressing against her clean, dry clothes.

"Wh--Tom? What?"

"Hush, hush, be quiet. Amy, I've found the most delightful place."

"Have you?" she asked stupidly in a whisper.

"Come along, won't you? You'd love it. You'd love it."

Were her dreams coming true? Amy snapped to wakefulness, and excitement fizzled somewhere inside her ribcage. She nodded, silently, eyes wide. He looked excited, color in his cheeks, though he was absolutely soaked, and Amy lost herself in the urge to share that with him. She stood up, and made to follow him as if to the loo, but a tug on her skirt stopped them. There was the little boy, his blue eyes wide with concern.

"You mustn't," he whispered, tugigng again. He couldn't be a day over five, and a lovely child, blond-haired and round-faced. "You musn't go, Mrs Cole will be so upset..."

"Get off!" Amy hissed, trying to pull away, but Tom stopped her.

"No, he should come. If he likes. Go on, pick him up."

She stopped a minute, staring at Tom. His eyes were burning with something, something that was almost frightening. Slowly, she scooped the child up. He continued to whisper warnings in her ear, but seemed so intimidated by the older children he fell silent before too long.

"Tom, where are we going?" Amy asked, as soon as the picnic was gone from veiw. Nothing but a decrepit wooden fence separated them from the cliffside. She felt the child trembling against her.

"Down, in the cliffs. Its amazing, Amy, it's amazing."

Fear danced before her eyes, making her head feel like a fizzy drink. She faltered as he slipped under the fence and began to edge his way along a narrow stone ledge, evidently fearless. His eyes locked on hers, full of scorn that she wouldn't take this, the most trivial of risks, and follow him. The fizzling went black, and she felt herself begin the descent, one of her hands firmly clenched on the childs as they moved downwards.

Everything was indistinct and strange, the world coming to her in waves, moving without the intention to do so. When they hit the water she gave a tiny scream, unable to believe she was doing such a thing, but her arms cut through the water in a way she had never been taught to do, and finally she fell upon the frigid stone ledge, shuddering for breath.

"Get up, come on," Tom whispered, already standing, water falling about him. It was pitch black in the cave, and fear clutched at Amy's heart. Whoever would find them down here? "Isn't it wonderful?"

"No," Amy choked, standing, hands casting about for Dennis, who clambered out of the water behind her. "No, Tom, how will we get--"

"I got out, didn't I?" Tom asked, revolving on the spot, eyes wide. "It's so..."

"Terrible!" Amy said, and couldn't keep a sob out of her voice. "Tom, we have to go now!"

He turned to her, slowly, and in the fragments of light from the far-off sunlit world, she saw thoughtfulness in his features as he stepped closer to her, head tipped curiously. Despite herself, her heart stopped.

"Can't you stay a while?" he asked softly, and she felt the warmth of his breath on the bridge of her nose. She began to stutter, wanting to step away, unwilling to give up the prize she had craved for so long...

Tom brushed his lips across hers. Feeling lanced through her body, and it took Amy a second to realize it was not euphoria. It was pain. Pain more terrible and horrible than anything she had ever experienced. It felt as though something was devouring her from the inside out, smashing her skull open, breaking her bones, ripping and crushing but not killing, which would be a mercy. She fell to the ground, wanting to scream, unable to move, tears pouring from the edges of her eyes as the things inside of her--tiny serpents, wriggled through her veins, bursting them, ripping, tearing, biting, breaking...

And it was over. She could not move, could not bring herself to ascertain she was whole. She felt hollow, terribly hollow. Like someone had sliced her open and taken all the marrow from his bones, emptied him of organs, spilled every thought in her head onto the stone but to get away. Her cheeks were wet with tears and saltwater, and she pushed herself up, shuddering.

"Amy?" Tom spoke into the darkness, and she gave another sob, wanting desperately only her bed, only to never see Tom Riddle again and his terrible, beautiful face. But she turned to him, as if forced to, and saw his expression. Delighted, but horrified, the look of a child that has acheived its goal but is terrified by their success. "Amy?"

She began to scream, shrieking, screaming for help and for a way out, any way out, as fear spasmed over Tom Riddle's features, then was replaced by delight, that he could make people hurt, if he wanted them to.

-x-

Amy had achieved her dream to finally have that kiss from Tom Riddle. But she regretted it instantly, she had never known that pain could hurt so much. She couldn't look at him for the rest of the summer, spent much time in her room, buried even deeper in her books. Therapists came and went, but she never whispered a word of the cavern to anyone. She was sure it would end badly for her if she did.

Their roles had been switched. She felt Toms' gaze on her at mealtimes, hot on her neck, saw him move past her room at twilight, curious to see what had been made of the girl he had hurt so badly. She took to eating quickly, began to close her door. One day late in August, he came to her, a look of insane happiness on his features. He leaned so close she could smell the peppermint on his breath, see that his features were flawless whereas she had begun to experience acne.

"It's magic," he said deliriously, "what I can do. You should remember that, Amy. I'm magic. I can hurt you again, if I want."

The hollowness returned to her, and she lolled like a doll against the chair she was in, barely able to force a whisper of 'yes' from between her lips.

"What?"

"Yes, Tom, I understand."

He smiled, reaching out and stroking her hair. She flinched away, but instead of seeming upset, he smiled even more widely, and pushed his face even closer.

"Don't!" she yelped, terrified of another kiss, and he laughed, stepping away.

"Such a twitchy little rabbit you are, Amy."

Rabbit. Billy's rabbit. She had always thought that Tom could never do such a thing, but the way he said the word made an electric shock travel down her spine.

Tom left for his school of magic, and she only ever saw him in the summertimes, his expression always full of smugness, always. She was there when he turned eighteen, leaning against the doorframe, when Mrs Cole gave him a slightly wary hug good-bye, and he turned away with his suitcase and his smile. He started down the steps they had sat on so often as children, both buried in books, and glanced over his shoulder at Amy. They had both changed--she growing plumper, her hair losing its luster and beginning to hang lank about her round face, he more handsome by the day. The smile she had been so enchanted with, that had caught her heart, was colder and crueller now. She turned away, shivering.

-x-

She didn't think about Tom Riddle for the long days of her unhappy life. Something about that day in the cave had changed her, taken her from an introvert to a strange, unknowable girl. Few wanted to hire her, she looked so unpleasant. She spoke to herself in low tones, always reminding her of what lurked just beyond what she could see, of magic. She drew pictures sometimes, but they were never lovely, crude lines and shapes that might join together to become a handsome, sculpted face that lived in her nightmares.

Money fell away, she fell hard at the bottom of the barrel and what little she had evaporated no matter how hard she tried to keep it close. She was forced to the streets, where she lived from day to day, hair gray at thirty, eyes sunken, face strange. Her plumpness had withered away, grime caked her mousy hair. It was no wonder Voldemort didn't recognize her, when he found her in the London alleyway. She didn't know the strange, white face, didn't recognize the red eyes. She had no idea who it was who raised the small piece of wood with a twisted smile and a spoken word of death, who used the bleak nothingness of her death to split his own soul, and hide it away in the cavern that lived so frequently in her dreams.

To those of you who are rightfully confused: after a little research I found that Voldemort used a tramp as the death required to form the locket Horcrux. This MAY not be accurate, it's just what I've read, and I can't find any information that conflicts with it.

Additionally, to keep with the mood that Amy went of her own volition, but with a helpful nudge from Tom, I had him put her under a strange sort of Imperius. Maybe impossible. Eh.

Let me know if it was terrible. :) Cheers!

-Vacancy