The sixteen-year-old Tom narrowed his eyes at her when she finally managed to work her mouth.

"B-Bloody hell," Ginny gasped. "Bloody hell, I've gone mad." She stumbled back a few steps and tried to regain her composure when she almost tripped.

"That's a charming way to greet someone," he said.

"What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead!" shouted Ginny. "Harry killed you!"

"Unfortunately."

She hated the fact that his conversational tone and casual stance was calming her. She felt around her robes for her wand until she remembered she had left it in her bedroom. "Get out of here. Leave me alone."

"You've… grown," he noted, tilting his head to the side. "I still remember you as a very unremarkable little girl. How long has it been? Fifteen years?"

"Go away."

He didn't move.

Harry would be back any minute with James and Albus was sleeping upstairs. If Tom laid a hand on her children… She didn't want to think about it. Harry would destroy him, all she had to do was buy time. She took a shuddering breath in an attempt to calm herself. What was the longest time a non-supporter of Voldemort was able to stand alive in his presence without a fight? She was pretty sure she was breaking records.

"I haven't done anything to provoke this mistreatment… nothing recent anyway," Tom sighed, crossing his arms and gazing around the kitchen as if he had never seen one quite like it before. Now that she thought about it, he probably hadn't.

"You're not supposed to be alive."

"I'm not." She wasn't sure if he was agreeing with her or saying he wasn't alive. He fixed his gaze on her again, studying her for a moment before pulling away from the counter and walking around her to look at a clock on the opposite wall. He glanced at the door leading outside.

"Why are you here?" she asked, trying to keep him from leaving.

Harry will be here… Harry will be here…

He didn't answer. If she didn't know any better she would say he was getting bored. If he was getting bored, he might do whatever it was he planned to do in the first place. Ginny licked her lips, glancing around to see if there was any weapon for her to use. All she saw was a loaf of bread, but she doubted it was stale enough to knock him out in one hit. If she retrieved a knife from the drawer, he would certainly notice. Well, she was now older than him, maybe she was stronger?

She looked back at him and almost cried out in alarm when she realized he had gone into the living room already.

Tom was now examining a few pictures on her fireplace. Most of them were of her brothers, parents, and friends. His eyes hovered over one of Ron and Hermione, and then he walked away toward the stairs. She ran ahead of him and blocked his way, glaring viciously.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

Tom rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth to reply but the sound of a door slamming open stopped him. Both of their heads twisted to look at who caused the sound. Ginny's face contorted into one of horror while Tom just looked curious when James sprinted in.

"Mum!" he said excitedly. "Dad said I can go flying with him if you say!"

Ginny had no idea how to reply to that when Tom was standing just three feet in front of her. She could have sworn she heard Tom breathe the word "Mum?"

James wasn't even looking at Tom. James loved people, he would have been blabbering on and on about some nonsense to any stranger if he stood still long enough. Why wasn't he doing it to Tom?

"I-I don't… I mean… yes, I'll just…"

Tom was beginning to look amused. "I surmised that nobody could see me quite a while ago." She stared at him in shock. He stared back at her in what she thought seemed to be fascination. "Nobody except you."

"Muuuum!" James whined.

"W-Where's your father?" she managed to ask.

"Here," Harry said, walking inside and closing the door. She heard Tom snort when he saw him and tried to ignore him. Harry took one look at her face and immediately noticed something was wrong. "Ginny what happened?"

"Yes, Ginny, what did happen?" Tom asked softly, staring at her in what she could only describe as gleefully malicious. To her disappointment, Harry did not react to his voice at all.

Harry grew more concerned the longer she took to answer. "Ginny? Are you ok? Is Albus…? What about the baby?"

Tom twitched at that last word and his eyes flashed down at her stomach. She tried to repress a shudder when she saw the greedy look on his face. Why would that be good news for him?

"I'm fine," she whispered. "We're all fine."

Tom left the two of them and wandered back into the kitchen. Ginny could have sworn he was moving slowly deliberately in order to torture her. Her eyes followed him around the house. It didn't go unnoticed by Harry who was now trying to follow her gaze, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

He cleared his throat, catching Ginny's attention. "You know who we haven't seen in a while? Teddy," Harry said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Let's get Albus and give Andromeda a visit."

Ginny sighed in relief. Harry would never play the skeptical cop like those on the Muggle TV, he saw a problem so now he was acting on it. "It has been a while, hasn't it? I'll get Albus, you wait here."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"You're the one who suggested it…"

He flushed. "Oh no, I meant to get… alone… Never mind."

Ginny glanced at Tom, and then went up the stairs, wincing when she heard his quiet steps following. She tried to hurry into Albus room before he could see where she went, but he was close behind and just entered the room with her.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, standing in front of the new bed they had bought for Albus.

Tom looked around her at the sleeping child and the small sign on the bedframe. "Albus Severus Potter, is it?" he asked, sneering. "Charming name."

"It's none of your business," Ginny spat. "What do you want? Why have you been following me? And why aren't you dead?"

He snorted. "Of course I'm dead," he replied. "Your dear husband made sure of that. There is no spell to bring back the dead. "

"Then what… Are you a ghost?"

A few emotions flashed across his face but he quickly reigned them in. "No," he said stiffly. He attempted to walk around her to get a closer look at Albus but she sidestepped to block his path.

"You know what? I don't care what you are anymore. I just want you to go away."

"We all want things." Tom tried to go around her once more but she just blocked him again. He looked momentarily frustrated but didn't try to get past her again, instead backing away a few steps to look around the room. "Who's Teddy?"

"Again, none of your business." Ginny reached over for one of Albus's outfits and stuffed it in a large bag. She had a feeling they would be staying at Andromeda's house for a few hours. "Whatever you want, I'm not going to let you have. Whatever you're going to do, I'm not going to let you do it. So get the hell out of my house."

"Oh Ginny, I think you'll find you won't have a choice."

Ginny thought she saw a red gleam in his eyes and shuddered. "What? You'll kill me? You'll kill my family? Of course I should have expected this from Voldemort. Doing either of these things won't help you with convincing me to do whatever the hell you want me to do."

"Voldemort is dead," he said slowly. "That era has come and gone. Twice, actually. Those tactics are useless to me now. Neither do I have a wand to cast the Imperius Curse and I doubt I have the ability to hold a wand anyway."

"You're dead too so you're still Voldemort," she scoffed but he didn't seem to care. "So you can't do anything? How exactly do you plan to make me do what you want then?"

He smirked. "First I was going to ask you if you'd like to help me."

Ginny sneered. "If I refuse?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

She was about to say they were going to cross it right now because there was no way she would ever help him but the door to Albus's door opened and Harry walked in, looking worried. James was at his side, peeking around him and gazing at Albus instead.

"I heard you talking," he explained. "Is someone else here?"

"Just you, me, Albus, and James," Ginny replied in a voice calmer than she felt.

"And our dear old friend Tom," Tom added mockingly. "I'd tell you to reintroduce us, but we wouldn't want anybody to think you're mad, would we? Talking to a person who has been dead for fifteen years isn't a good sign."

"Ten," she corrected.

"What?" Harry asked, looking confused and even more worried.

"I told you so," Tom whispered softly. "Talking to yourself…"

Ginny almost snapped at him to shut up. It reminded her eerily of the diary during her first year. After she began to realize all the attacks that had been happening had something to do with her so Tom slowly began to convince her she was going mad. She almost killed herself after she thought she attacked Nick and Justin. Not that anybody except Tom knew that. She wasn't sure who she preferred, the Tom from her first year or Voldemort. She wasn't even sure which one was in her house.

"I meant, Teddy is turning ten this week, isn't he?" she asked Harry. "It's just a few days away, we'll be visiting him then for the party too. Do you think Andromeda would mind? Visitors are always a hassle."

"Clever save," Tom complimented as Harry thought about it.

"I'd like to visit him early, he'll be very busy at the party and I may not get to spend time with him," Harry said. "You don't have to tell me what's wrong, but I would appreciate it if you came to me for help, Ginny."

She smiled. "Thank you, Harry."

Harry just nodded at her and turned to wake up Albus. Ginny looked back at Tom and was surprised to see the piercing glare he was sending into Harry's direction. She would have assumed it was because of their history, but then it occurred to her that Tom hadn't been glaring at him before when he had first seen Harry.

It took only a few minutes to get Albus ready and they prepared to Apparate to Andromeda's house. Ginny glared in Tom's direction. He was circling Albus's old crib with an unimpressed look on his face. She prayed to god that he wouldn't be there when she came back. He looked at her as if he had read her mind.

"I'll be waiting for you."