I Defy You, Stars


Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing from the Harry Potter universe. This fanfiction is written purely for entertainment purposes and nothing more, though all ideas and writing are done by me and belong to me.

A/N: Crack, that's all this is. Just, utter crack...

Enjoy!

—Annie


Part III


Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;

Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;

Let them affright thee.

I beseech thee, youth, Put not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to fury: O, be gone!

—William Shakespeare


These violent passions can have violent ends


Mrs. Norris is found hanging by her tail on the first floor landing, petrified.

There's a message written in the blood caked to the wall, blood like she'd had on her palms.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Did she do this?

Is she responsible?

The school is in a panic, even the teachers are frightened.

They've seen this before.

Percy finds Ginny huddled in a corner in the common room later that night, crying her eyes out like some hysterical madwoman.

"Shh, now, Ron's not going to get expelled. I'm sure they didn't touch the cat. Shh, now."

The rest of the first years are in a tizzy.

But none of them feel the way she does.

Because—

Where did the blood come from?


Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.


I've grown stronger. My plan is working.

Ginny traces her fingers along the ridges of his words.

Will you tell me your plan?

Not yet, my dear, but soon.

She sighs, rubs at her face.

Are you quite all right? You seem distant, different.

Just tired, Tom. It's been a long couple of days.

I shall let you rest, then.

It's the first time that Ginny does not protest, watches as his elegant script fades into the page and disappears from sight.

She closes the diary shut and places it in her bedside drawer.

Thinks of what might happen if she never opens it again.


Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds


The next Saturday, Harry is hospitalized due to a rogue bludger and a nasty spell from Lockhart that removes the bones in his arm.

Ginny paces.

She's restless that night, can't stop fidgeting.

She wakes up early the next morning, sprawled out and drooling in a broom cupboard on the fifth floor.

At breakfast, she overhears that Colin Creevey has been petrified. Ginny takes the news especially hard. Colin sits next to her in Charms—he's quirky and sometimes annoying but they get along well and help each other on homework assignments.

She admits to Percy in lieu of a breakdown that she's been having nightmares, trouble sleeping. He discusses writing their mother with Fred and George.

Nothing her mother tells her helps.


O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon


You've been avoiding me.

Ginny's hands quake.

Not avoiding you. Just focused on other things.

Your affections are waning.

Never, Tom, I swear. A friend of mine was recently petrified. I blacked out the night he was placed in the hospital wing.

You don't think you are responsible, do you? Petrification is extremely advanced Dark Magic.

Ginny sniffs, glances behind her back.

I don't know what I'm capable of anymore, Tom. I'm a bad person.

Hush now. I've a present for you, but only if you promise to be a good girl.

Ginny bites her lip.

I swear.

Meet with me again at midnight this evening. Do all that I say and you shall get your reward.

Ginny's quill trembles above the page, hesitates. A plop of ink drips onto the parchment, sinks, disappears.

Good girl, Ginerva.


I never saw true beauty till this night


Midnight chimes.

Ginny opens the diary.

I've been waiting for you.

What are you up to, Tom?

I'm finally strong enough to see you. Would you like to meet me, Ginerva?

Ginny's heart picks up pace, heavy and chaotic.

Yes, please. How?

Hold on to the diary very tightly and close your eyes.

She does as she's told.

There's a tingling sensation over her fingernails, a tearing sound, a scorching heat, a spine-tingling wind.

Gravity buckles around her and she falls down the rabbit hole.

Almost too late, she realizes she's made a grave mistake.

"Open your eyes, sweet girl."

Tom Riddle is cripplingly beautiful in a way that makes her teeth ache and her spine contract—milky white skin, almost translucent in the dim shrouds of the library's candelabras, bracingly stormy pitch black eyes in a fringe of curled, long lashes.

He is jagged points and sharp angles with high cheekbones and a tense jaw and delicate scarlet lips, like what she might picture a vampire to have.

His hair is a dark cloud of black waves, his smile gleaming and sharp and dazzling—

"Tom," she breathes.

"Ginerva," he echoes.

And his voice—his voice—it sparks something dangerous and foreign and frightening in her small framed body.

"Where are we?" she questions with curiosity. "It looks like the Hogwarts library."

"It is," he responds quietly, circling her like a vulture tracks it's meal. "This is where I am trapped, forever frozen."

"That must get very lonely," Ginny whispers.

"Oh, it does," Tom recites, eyes heavy and pointed on her form. "Very lonely."

His voice drips down the back of her neck, settles in the notches of her spine. His hands caress the cover of his journal, an exact replica of the one Ginny owns in her own reality.

"Until you."

A chill rolls up from her toes, brushes over her lips.

"You are younger than I assumed you would be," Tom observes calculatingly.

"I'm not that young," Ginny insists defiantly.

"Touched a nerve?"

His answering smirk is both wicked and angelic.

"I'm not just a little girl," she points out stubbornly.

And in that moment she wants him to believe that, desires it more than anything in her system.

Because she doesn't feel young, not anymore, not with him.

With him she's anyone she wants to be, she's any age she chooses to be.


O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again


She spends the entire night in Tom's memory, in his alternate reality.

She asks him questions and receives clipped, evasive answers that don't necessarily answer much. She's aware of how suspicious this is, files it into the back of her mind, and presses onward.

Because he's just so captivatingly beautiful and he's fascinated with her, struck by her, impressed by her wit and humor—he tells her so.

And in return she discloses everything about herself, until he knows her inside out.

Until they are practically one.

Every single meeting with Tom she feels exhilarated in his presence, like she's on top of the world, like she can be anything, do whatever she pleases. She's manic, exuberant, energetic.

With him she feels powerful and beautiful and wanted.

Her mother and father take off to Egypt to visit her brother Bill over Christmas, leaving Ginny, Ron, the twins, and Percy behind. Even Hermione remains at Hogwarts with Harry, spends all her time with him.

It makes Ginny's blood tick and spiral and coil like an angry snake.

She's been increasingly more irritable since her first encounter with Tom, and it doesn't make sense. She flies into fits of blackened rage, delves into pits of deep depression. It's like she's got this voice in the back of her head constantly whispering dark thoughts into her ear.

Telling her to rip open her flesh, she doesn't need the blood, he does.

Coaxing her to press the ingredient chopping dagger she's managed to sneak away from Potions just a little deeper into her thigh.

No one will miss you, the black voice promises as she bleeds, smoking and clouding her brain. Stay with me forever. I'm the only one you'll need.

She wakes up with her wand pointed at her chest, as if she's about to blow herself to pieces, chop her flesh into tiny little bits.

It is like he saps her dry after each meeting—she returns to her bed and sleeps in late, misses her morning classes, misses breakfast.

Over winter break, she sometimes sleeps so late that she misses dinner.

And no one notices her absence.


End of Part III