I'm sorry if this seems choppy (or rushed). This is still a work in progress so I might repost it later (or I might be lazy and not).

Chapter Three: Into the Arms of the Devil

He had opened the Chamber for the first time that day, discovered the snake. Now he crept quietly back into the common room, hoping to go unnoticed, but then he saw her silhouetted against the fire place, her back to him.

He stood in the shadowy common room, a part of the darkness and yet deeper. She was engulfed in the red light from the dying coals. She couldn't know he was there, and yet she sighed turning slightly and he observed her profile, tall, erect, trembling: a phoenix fading, not sure if she had the strength to rise.

"Tom." It was a whisper, nothing more. He imagined it scrolled across the darkness between them: red ink on a black canvas. "What are you most afraid of?" He took a sharp intake of air. He imagined he could see her shiver in the fading light.

-He set the quill to the page but he could not pen words-

He didn't answer her. But that was ok. She hadn't expected him to. He hadn't before. He was just the excuse for her to be an open book after all: providing the blank pages and pretending to offer a comforting ear. "Most of all," she whispered, "I'm afraid of the unknown…"

The room wavered around him and his breath caught.

"I know," he murmured. And he did.

He wasn't aware of moving across the room toward her, but before he knew it she was in his arms as he slowly sank to the floor.

Her fingers threaded through his hair as she eased against him and she shivered slightly: intensely aware of the form pressed to her back. He ran his fingers along her collarbone and up her throat watching the black shadows of his fingers trace her fire-lit skin.

He felt tears on her cheeks and his throat caught on something unfamiliar.

"Ginny." His voice was soft and comforting and she bit back a sob. It came out anyway, a strangled, gasping moan. "What's wrong? Tell me." Even the demand was warm now and she almost believed his sincerity.

A watery laugh met his ears and she turned to bury her face in his shoulder breathing in the scent of him for the first time and travelling a road down memory lane. "I fear I will never be free of you." She confided this to his throat and he tried desperately to pretend that she had no effect on him, but she was pressed to closely against him.

She pulled away just enough to look up into his eyes. "Tell me to leave you and I will." There were no more tears in her eyes but they were still damply luminous. He didn't tell her to leave him. Instead he pinned her to the floor beneath him and kissed her as passionately as he knew how.

*

They sat in the common room again, actually studying this time. Actually studying this time. Every now and then his fingers brushed hers as he turned a page. Ginny's hand seemed to be on auto-pilot and wrote steadily as the larger part of her mind focused on her predicament. She had never thought she would be in so hopeless a state. Her twisted childhood crush on Tom Riddle had intensified in his near constant presence.

She could not deny that she felt love for him, but often she found herself wondering why. Tom was often cruel and demanding. He hardly ever took her feelings into account and when he did it seemed as though he were only trying to discover something about her. And he had opened the Chamber again... or for the first time. Her first year was happening all over again and there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

She thought of her friends and family in a future that she might never see again. What would they think of her if they could see her now?

She felt the stuffy, cottony feeling behind her eyes that signaled another bout of tears and she cursed to herself. If only she could stop crying, she would not feel so weak, so helpless. And then, like a moth to a flame, Tom turned to her, before the first tear fell.

He cupped her face in one hand and ran his thumb over her cheek. Looking him in the eye she knew he expected her to cry, he seemed to crave it, and this knowledge gave her strength. the tears filled her eyes but they did not fall. He gazed at her for a moment longer and then smirked in something resembling triumph. Gently he pushed her back against the sofa and kissed her slowly. The students remaining in the common room hurriedly filtered out.

He began working his way along her jaw, freeing her mouth and she bit her lip, trying to keep the words in. As he nuzzle her throat she closed eyes and her lips betrayed her and with a soft gasp she murmured, "I love you..." immediately he looked up at her with a hint of curiosity shining behind his eyes.

"And that makes you cry?" she nodded as he leaned in for another kiss. This one was much more passionate than the last and in the corner of her mind she wondered what he thought of her confession, but really, she didn't want to think at all, she just wanted to drown in his kiss and imagine that he did care.

But this was the great mystery of Ginny Weasely and he would not just let it pass him by. He pulled away again and then asked with a slow smile, " "if you love me, why do you cry –"He hovered over her, his pale handsome face alight with curiosity and carefully veiled excitement. Everything about him seemed gentle in that moment and yet she knew it was not. It made him seem that much more dangerous, and yet that did not curb her feelings for him. Softly he continued, "– I've heard so many confessions of love – they never begin with tears." His smile, subtly cruel, told her that they always ended in tears.

Once again she turned her face away from him, but she was still trapped between his forearms. He leaned slightly to the side, covering her face with one large hand, feeling out the contours: tracing gently over her eyelids, brushing her damp lashes. He covered her more fully so that his lips hovered beside her ear. "Why do you cry Ginevra?" His hand slid down her face to cup her chin – her lips pressed lightly against his thumb.

She opened her mouth, tried to draw him in – trying to distract him. He smirked down at her, aware of her ploy and kissed her once, pulling away too quickly. She lay gasping beneath him, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. He traced a singly tear track down her cheek.

She gazed up at him silently for a moment, stealing her nerve. She was about to flay herself alive for him, lay all of herself out for his perusal. With a deep breath she looked him in the eye.

"I shouldn't love you. I know what you are, what you're doing… and what you'll become." Her voice was barely there. His look had become steely. She looked up at him and then reached up, trying to smooth the frown from his brow. "I know I shouldn't love you – and I know what my family would say -if they could see me now. . And... that, more than my physical separation from them, is why I cry..." The frown was slowly fading from his face as another thought occurred to her. "I know all of those things, but I can't stop loving you!" It sounded like an accusation and he couldn't help but feel an odd sort of pride. He nearly missed the soft whisper. "I can't stop… and it makes me feel weak." She looked him in the eye. He smiled. "I hate feeling weak with you."

She closed her eyes, awaiting his recriminations, but they didn't come. Instead he began kissing his way down her throat as though his original intentions had never been interrupted. She lay still at first, still unsure of his response. After a long moment she began to respond, running her own hands over his body. She felt him smile against her skin and then he murmured, "That I can understand."

She gasped as his fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse but she wasn't sure if it was in response to his actions or the cool statement which seemed so at odds with each other.

She didn't say anything else, just accepted him, as he wanted her to and as he expected her to. It wasn't until later that night when they were falling asleep in Tom's room that he finished the statement. "I never think of you as weak. You are passive to my Direction, but there is too much hidden fire in you for me to view you as weak."

She looked up at him, to try to interpret his expression but in the moonlight his face was impassive. His eyes were closed. She sighed softly and leaned more fully into him. His arms tightened subtly around her.