Makeup
The first time she speaks to him, there is a sunburn draped over her freckles. It stings, but it also hides the way she's always blushing, and so she wears it with a feeling of immense relief.
Dear Diary, it's nice to meet you. My name is Ginevra Weasley.
Dear Ginevra Weasley, the feeling is mutual.
In September they are friends—nothing more, but she has never had a friend before, and so she is happy.
Good morning, Tom, she writes as she sits in Transfiguration with mascara caked across her lashes. She's too young for makeup, Mum has always said, but Mum isn't here. The only parental figure she has at Hogwarts is Percy, who is oblivious to things like mascara.
Good morning, Gin, comes the reply, and Ginny wrinkles her nose and scrawls that she hates his affectionate nicknames for her. Would you prefer Ginevra? he asks, and she scribbles back an affirmative.
"Ginny Weasley," McGonagall says from the front of the room. "What are you doing?"
Ginny blinks. She can see the black tips of her own eyelashes, and it makes her feel beautiful. "Taking notes."
McGonagall gives her a hard look, but after a few seconds she moves on, and Ginny catches a glimpse of Ginevra is a beautiful name before the ink fades away into oblivion.
In October she becomes bolder.
How did you become trapped in a diary? she asks on Halloween night as she sits cross-legged on her bed. The dormitory is empty, as usual. She is the only girl who was Sorted into Gryffindor this year.
She likes being alone, she thinks.
I'm not trapped, Tom writes. The diary is just how I communicate.
Where do you live, then? She swipes a pale pink gloss across her mouth and then smacks her lips together, frowning at the tackiness of the liquid.
At Hogwarts, actually. I'm a student.
For an entire shining second, she allows herself to hope.
You aren't a Gryffindor, are you?
The reply seems to take ages. Afraid not.
Hesitantly, she dips her quill into the ink pot again. Are you a First Year?
Not a First Year, no. I'm a Prefect.
A Fifth Year, then?
Not exactly. My situation is complicated.
Her tongue darts out to smooth down a clump of gloss. Complicated?
I have been at Hogwarts for a very long time.
Out in the Common Room, she can hear people shrieking with laughter as they play Exploding Snap, and she sighs at the childishness of it all.
How long?
I don't like to talk about my past, Ginevra. It's not filled with happy memories. Let's talk about you.
She raises her eyebrows. I'm boring.
I don't find you boring at all.
She feels herself redden. Really?
On the contrary. I look forward to our conversations.
You do?
I find you fascinating. The youngest child, always overlooked by her family, always underestimated. You have had to fight for everything you have. Do you have any idea how strong you are?
She blinks hard. Nobody's ever called me strong before.
I have stood where you stand, Ginevra. They underestimated me once, too. But people like you and me, we set the world on fire.
She bites her lip. How old did you say you were?
I don't want to talk about me, remember?
She feels herself redden, and she's still deciding what to say when a new set of words fades in: For all intents and purposes, I am a Sixth Year.
Another scream from the Common Room, and she can make out Percy yelling at everyone to knock it off while Fred and George sing about Halloween fun.
Have I seen you around the castle? she asks. My brother is a Prefect. Does he know you?
You've never seen me, Gin. I'm certain of that.
Out of habit she writes, Don't call me Gin, but secretly she doesn't mind it so much anymore.
Would you prefer Your Majesty?
She smirks and leans back against the pillows, bracing the diary against her knees. I could get used to it.
What about Your Supreme Majesty?
Her smirk deepens into a real smile, and for the first time since the summer she wonders whether she's wasting her time chasing after Harry.
Sixteen isn't that much older than eleven, after all.
Your Supreme Majesty sounds lovely, she says.
And what are you going to call me? Servant Boy? Errand Lad?
A giggle escapes her lips. Just Tom, I think.
Just Tom, he writes.
She waits, but there is nothing more. What do you look like, Just Tom? she asks after a few moments of silence.
The answer comes back immediately: Let me show you.
(When she wakes the next morning, she's certain it was a dream, and she can't understand why there's an empty tube of lip gloss on her bed.)
November is eyeliner, and she wears it thick and dark across the edges of her eyes, and it makes her feel like a woman. Tom tells her she's beautiful without the makeup, but he also respects her choice to wear it, and the heat that pools in her stomach when he compliments her is delicious and new and dripping with a kind of desire she doesn't fully understand.
Snape's given me detention, she writes during dinner, trying to tune out the sounds of Fred and George bickering with Ron.
The answer takes a moment, but it comes: Prat.
"What're you doing, Ginny?" asks Colin Creevey.
She barely looks up. "Finishing an essay." The lie falls easily from her lips
"An essay?" Colin sounds worried. "For which class? I didn't know we had an essay due."
"Charms," she says flippantly, and Colin stands up quickly from the table and races toward the staircases. Ginny watches him go before turning back to the diary. Snape is a prat, she scrawls to Tom. He's the worst teacher in this whole place.
I meant you, writes Tom, and Ginny feels herself exhale sharply.
What?
What've you done to get detention, you prat?
Ginny stares at the words until they've completely disappeared, and decides Tom means it as a teasing term of affection.
I just got distracted during Potions, that's all.
Silence for awhile, and Ginny wonders what he's doing.
Can I see you tonight? he asks half an hour later as she's finishing her dinner.
Can't, she scribbles hurriedly. Detention. Going to be late. Talk later?
Oh, Tom writes.
She waits, but he doesn't say anything else.
Sorry, she says.
It's fine, I suppose. It's just that I make a lot of sacrifices for you. I don't tell you about them, because I don't want you to feel bad, but sometimes it feels as though you don't put as much effort into our relationship as I do.
Ginny blinks. He's never called it a relationship before. She doesn't even know if it truly qualifies as a relationship; the three times she's gone to see him are blurry hazes in her mind, and she can't even remember what he looks like.
(She doesn't know if he's kissed her, and she can't bring herself to ask.)
But you can't help it, he adds. You've got detention.
I can come afterwards, she tries as she gets up from the table.
I wish you would. I miss you.
In spite of herself, she grins. I miss you, too. I'll come tonight.
Good. And Your Supreme Majesty?
She's already walking toward the dungeons, but she stops to brace the diary against the wall. Yes?
Wear your eyeliner.
December is blush, which gives her a burst of color she desperately needs after so many sleepless nights.
He's never going to notice me, is he? she writes.
Who, Potter?
Yes.
He doesn't deserve you. You know that, don't you?
She purses her lips. You're only saying that.
I'm not. I know you, Ginevra. I've seen your mind, your thoughts. You are an absolutely beautiful woman, inside and out, and if Potter can't see that he's an idiot who's missing out on someone truly special.
Ginny feels her lip tremble. Thank you.
It makes me furious to see him hurt you like this.
It's not Harry's fault. He doesn't know he's hurting me.
Tell me about him again. He's older than you?
He's twelve, Ginny writes. She's in the library, curled up between two shelves and trying not to fall asleep. None of the other First Years are this exhausted, but then again, none of the others are trying to balance homework, makeup, and Tom Riddle. One year older.
You would date an older man?
Ginny has to try hard not to snort. Twelve isn't really an older man.
What about sixteen?
A chill slips down Ginny's spine. I have brothers older than that, she writes finally. I s'pose I could date someone that age…
And what about sixty-five?
Ginny smirks as she realizes he's joking and tries to ignore the part of her that feels deflated. Sixty-five-year-old men are my favorites. How did you guess?
I can tell you like forbidden things. I know you better than you know yourself, Gin.
She lifts her quill to protest the nickname, but then she decides it isn't worth the effort.
January and February blur together, and Ginny adds a creamy concealer to the canvas of her face, and this isn't about feeling older anymore, or about looking sophisticated, no, now it's about covering the bags beneath her eyes, it's about hiding the way she's always up all night writing to Tom, it's about masking the terror that's started to creep into her head—because there are nights where she can't remember where she was, and sometimes those nights coincide with the Muggleborn attacks, and the longer she tries to blend her makeup the more she realizes she's in over her head.
Made a fool of myself today, she writes to Tom as she hides in the girls' bathroom after Harry gets her terrible Valentine's poem.
There is no answer.
Harry's never going to like me now.
Silence, and she's starting to worry.
Tom?
I'm here, Ginny.
She feels herself relax. What were you doing?
Taking care of something. It isn't important now. Can I see you tonight?
Every inch of her wants to say yes.
What are you taking care of? she asks.
It doesn't concern you.
I want to know anyway.
Fine, Your Supreme Majesty. Tom's writing looks darker than usual, as if he's found a new brand of ink. I've got myself a pet. He's a handful, but he's worth it.
An owl? she asks, but there's something familiar about this conversation, and in the back of her mind she already knows it isn't an owl—there's a faint memory stirring, and she can almost see it, she's so close—
Not an owl, he writes. A snake.
It comes rushing back to her all at once: the Chamber. The Basilisk.
With a cry, she slams the diary shut. Heart pounding, she throws it into a stall as hard as she can and runs up to the Gryffindor Common Room.
In spite of her comforter, she does not stop shivering all night.
March is a deep red lipstick.
I know what you made me do, she writes when the diary ends up back in her possession.
It took you a long time to figure it out.
Her hand is trembling. Who are you?
Well, I'm certainly not Just Tom.
She can't remember much of April later on.
She knows she was tired.
She knows there was eyeshadow.
She knows she kept the diary hidden beneath her mattress, and only pulled it out twice, when she needed the comforting smell of ink to help her sleep.
May is a palette of color running down her face.
"Ginevra," says Tom, stepping out from the shadows of the Chamber of Secrets. "How good of you to come."
She is shaking as tears stream across her cheeks, smearing her makeup and staining her skin with mascara. "I won't let you hurt my friends."
He laughs. "I haven't hurt anyone. It was you. Don't you remember?"
She clenches her jaw and shakes her head. "I didn't do it. It wasn't me."
He looks like the diary: hair as black as ink swept across a paper-white face. Even his mouth is no more than a dark slant. "We were so close, Ginevra. So, so close."
"To what?" She's clenching the diary in one hand.
His mouth curves up into a smirk. "You were falling for me."
She forces a laugh.
"Don't deny it." He narrows his eyes. "You confided in me. You came to me for help. You needed me. And I—I played the part so well. I told you what you needed to hear, what you had never heard before. All it took was being called beautiful. How does it feel, knowing you're that easy to reel in?"
She bites down hard on her tongue.
"It can't be easy," Tom continues. "Vanity, I mean. You spent hours on all that makeup. Just wanted to be accepted, didn't you? Just wanted to be noticed?"
She closes her eyes. "Shut up."
"And the moment someone does notice, you'll do anything." He has the nerve to laugh. "Possession isn't easy, you know. You need someone who won't fight back as you take over. And you…you were putty in my hands."
The longer he talks, the more she can feel herself losing strength. She sinks to her knees. The diary slips from her hand. "Who are you?"
His tone is gentle, and his voice comes from far too close to her ear. "I think you know."
The world fades to black.
When she wakes, he is gone, and it is years before she learns not to miss him.
June is a face devoid of product.
Ginny looks in the mirror and takes in the face looking back at her. Small eyes, pale lips, short lashes. Blemishes on her forehead. Freckles on her cheeks. A scar over her eyebrow where she hit her head in the Chamber of Secrets.
She is far from beautiful.
(She doesn't mind anymore.)
Quidditch League Round 10: Forbidden Love
Holyhead Harpies, Seeker
Prompt: a relationship with a major age gap (11 and 16 is pretty major in and of itself, but when you figure Voldemort was actually 65, that kind of puts a whole new spin on it)
Word Count: 2,357