Unfinished Business


Chapter 4.1

I continued staring at Tom, my conscience yearning. I suddenly felt as if there was something in the nothingness around me, a purpose apart from the reason why I was here. Yet before I could figure it out, Tom broke the staring contest.

"I can't believe it worked", he said quietly, looking down at the faucet again.

"What?", I mouthed, a little perplexed.

"The diary, I wasn't really sure that it would work… but it did, how else did you learn about this –" His slender index finger ran gently over the engraved snake. "What I don't get, though", he added, looking back at me. "Why are you here? Why now?"

I watched him for a moment. "Well, I think I – when I… died, I have been given a second chance to… relive what I've done –" I swallowed the word "wrong" with difficulty. "They sent me back where the whole… thing –" Dilemma. "- had started."

"But I – the Chamber had been opened in June of last year, that's more than a year ago…"

"I don't know why now, and I'm not even sure the… conclusions I made are right, it was just a… guess –"

"So you're here to –"

"To do something again or to…" I sighed, a headache creeping up my temples. "I guess someone wants something done before I can… die properly."

Tom raised an eyebrow.

"I –"

You have to feel guilty for what horror you had set free!, a voice screeched in my head. Guilty!

"No!", I murmured, trying to shut the voice out.

"No?", Tom asked with an odd expression on his face.

I couldn't deny it any longer.

"I have to –", I began, echoing the words inside my head. "- feel guilty…"

Tom's expression changed slightly. "Do you?"

I just stared at him, the head ache growing stronger.

"Do you feel guilty for what you have done… in your time?"

His voice was soft and soothing and to my utter surprise, I shook my head.

"No", I whispered, another wave of pain rushing through my head. "Strangely, I don't", I added, looking at him.

"You shouldn't", he told me with a small smile. "There's nothing to feel guilty about."

Even though I felt just like he said, deep inside my stomach was still a tiny knot, protesting viciously.

A moment of silence passed before Tom moved away from the sinks, looking around with a stern expression. I looked at my reflection again, my face becoming more and more unfamiliar. In the mirror, I could see Tom looking back at me as if checking whether I was still there.

I turned around to him, confusion plastered all over my face.

"If I shouldn't feel guilty, then why do I still feel weird about this?", I asked, my voice a mere whisper.

"Of course you feel weird", he replied matter-of-factly. "This is not your time to be." He tilted his head a little. "I would feel weird too."

That was a new twist. Ignoring the protesting knot and my aching head, I glared at him. "Does that mean you… you admit that I am… that I do exist… that I'm… real?"

He threw me a smile. "I wouldn't put it that way, but it does make a lot more sense now that I know about your… reasons."

Oh the relief! He wouldn't shout at me again for being the annoying stalker ghost! Now that I had my "reasons"… I couldn't help but frown, opening my mouth to question his reply, just as he turned his head towards the door.

"Listen", he said, before looking back at me. "I have to go now, Head business. I –", he began, smirking slightly. "I guess you'll find me."

What was that supposed to mean?

Before I could say anything, he strode back to the door and vanished out of sight, leaving me behind with my head ready to explode. I sighed audible and sank slowly onto the floor in front of the sinks, pulling my knees up to hug them. Closing my eyes I tried to ignore the pain inside my head. This was too much.

This was too confusing… The more I thought about, the more confusing it got. I didn't know what to do next, even now that I had a slight reason for my being here. So I was sent back, right, we got that. But why? Always the why, I hate the why. The why is annoying! I let out a grunt and buried my face in my hands.

"Why so sad?", a squeaking voice suddenly interrupted the drumming inside my skull.

I literally leapt up, a scream emerging from my lips as I saw the semi-transparent girl hovering next to me in mid-air.

I opened my mouth, my lips were moving and yet no sound escaped me. I stared at my opponent in utter shock, every thought wiped from my brains.

"Sad and jumpy, my", the girl went on, straightening herself, floating a little over the ground beside the sinks.

Still staring at the girl with my mouth open, my eyes flew over her transparent form. She was wearing a school uniform like me and robes just like Tom, had lank hair and thick glasses sitting on her nose. Her eyes, though as see-through as the rest of her body, were fixed eagerly on me.

"Who are you?", I mouthed, before my mind began working again. "Wait, you can see me?"

The girl tilted her transparent head. "Of course I can see you! I'm not blind!"

"Well, of course not, but –" I gaped at her again. "You really can see me?"

"Yes!", she replied sounding rather annoyed, even though her voice was a mere squeak. "Why is that so shocking?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Well, not… many people can see me."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, but I think mainly because I'm… dead…"

"You're dead?", the girl screeched in excitement. "But –", she then added, a confused frown on her see-through face. "But you're not a ghost!"

"No", I merely said, staring at her. "But I guess… you are, right?"

She glared at me for a second, before she nodded, a sob suddenly erupting her throat. "I died not long ago…"

"I'm… I'm sorry", I said, unaware why that came to mind.

The girl sobbed again.

"What's your name?", I then asked, as she floated a little up, looking around.

"I'm Myrtle", she said, before her sobs died away again as quickly as they had started. "And you?"

"I'm… Ginny", I said. Ginny, the only thing I knew for sure about myself.

"Why are you so sad?", Myrtle then asked again, eyeing me through her thick glasses.

"I'm not… sad, I'm just… confused", I admitted, leaning against the sinks again, looking at myself in the mirror.

"Why are you confused?"

"I don't know why I'm here", I whispered.

Myrtle was hovering closer to me, her translucent form only inches away, her stare quite intense, her forehead furrowed, her glasses slightly askew.

"But you are here", she said, her voice a notch above a screeching whisper.

I nodded, a little uncertain.

"And you are not a ghost like… like… like me!", she whined, stretching the last words into a quite unbearable cry.

I leant back immediately, screwing up my face to shut out the horrible howling. Myrtle still floated in front of the sink, gazing dreamily into the mirror, her weeping eventually fading, until she just sighed and looked back at me. I eyed her with an raised eyebrow.

"That is quite unusual, isn't it?", she said as if nothing happened.

"I guess", I replied stiffly.

"You say you're… dead but yet you are not a ghost…"

I nodded barely noticeable, eyeing her with a mixture of shock and confusion.

"Since when are you here?"

"Um, yesterday", I said.

"Hmm, no full-moon, no weird holiday… how did you die?", she then asked with a disturbing delight in her voice.

I raised my eyebrow even higher. "I… actually I don't know how I died."

"Not? Forgot about it?"

"Seems so, yes, I forgot about… everything, actually…"

"Everything?"

"My life, my family… I just remember my name…"

My voice was a mere whisper as I stared back at my reflection, the ghost-girl hovering beside me.

"So you died and forgot about everything and –"

"And I was sent back here."

"Sent back here? What do you mean by that?"

"This is not my time, I… died in… the future…"

Myrtle screwed up her nose, her glasses very askew by now. "Future? How do you know that if everything you can remember is your name?"

I glared at her. Point taken. "I just… have this feeling and… visions of a former life…"

The ghost-girl floated around me, eyeing me from the other side now. I turned my head around to follow her movement. "So you're dead, but not a ghost, and yet no one can see you", she muttered, looking at me as if I was a highly interesting object for sale. "No, wait, not everyone can see you. Who can see you?"

"Well, you, obviously", I said a little indifferent. "And Tom and –"

"Tom? Tom Riddle?", the girl asked with a screech.

I nodded, watching her slightly unnerved. "Do you know him?"

"Oh sure, I know him. He is…" A sigh erupted a throat. "He is quite… handsome, isn't he? Yet always so… distant and cold… weird boy, but I wouldn't mind his company, though, such a good-looking –"

I interrupted her rambling (that she continued under her breath with widened, dreamily eyes) by clearing my throat. "When did you die, Myrtle?"

She immediately stopped muttering, staring at me as if I just slapped her.

I widened my eyes a little and raised my hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be… offensive, I just wanted to know… well, -"

"I died last year", she said quite irritated, turning away, before she pointed at a toilet cubicle on the right side. "There."

"You died here?", I asked, perplexed. "Last year?", I added in a whisper, before it dawned on me. "Do you mind telling me how you died?"

She turned her head around and floated into the cubicle, her transparent head looming over the edge of the door. "I was in here when I heard a boy's voice talking in a funny language. I wanted to tell him to get out of here and I opened the door –" She floated through the closed door. "- and then I was dead."

I frowned. "But how?"

"I don't know, I just died…"

"But there must have been a… reason why you died so… suddenly?"

"I only remember these yellow eyes…", Myrtle said in a whisper, before floating above my head towards one of the high windows.

I waited for more to come but with that the topic was dropped while Myrtle floated along the windows, muttering to herself. I looked back down to the cubicle, then back to the mirror into my own pale, freckled face. My eyes eventually wandered down and came to a sudden halt on the snake engraved in the faucet.

That was it! More than a year ago, as Tom had said, the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and there had been a murder. I then stared up at Myrtle again, my mouth open. She had been the girl murdered. The monster within the Chamber had killed her! The realization almost knocked me over.

"Myrtle?", I asked carefully.

The ghost-girl hovered near the windowsill and looked at me from behind her thick glasses.

"Do you mind me asking… did you find out who that boy was? The one whose voice you heard just before you… died?"

"No", she whined and span around again.

Alright. No help from her side, then. I sighed and looked back at the snake on the faucet. Nobody knew that Tom had opened the Chamber, it really had been hushed up. That meant nobody blamed him for anything. Maybe… I stared at my reflection in the dirty mirror, my eyes narrowed, my mind racing. Maybe I was here, in his time, to make him think? Blame him for what he had done? Make him feel guilty? But how should that work? Why should I blame him when I had done the same thing?

Confusion rushed over me once again. The why was back

I threw a glance back at Myrtle who seemed very interested in something outside the window, before I turned around to leave. Looking at the cubicle as I passed it, I couldn't help but remember the images I had seen. I opened the Chamber and released a monster and yet I didn't feel guilty. Why? Maybe it had not been my fault after all. Was that why I felt as if I couldn't be blamed?

The head ache came back pounding violently against my skull. I sighed and left the bathroom. As I stepped onto the hallway, I realized I had no destination. Once again, I felt viciously out of place. Just as I turned around I saw a group of little boys striding along the hallway, heading straight towards me, chatting and laughing. I expected them to walk right through me – yet to my utter surprise, they walked around me.

I gaped after them.

"Hey!", I then shouted. "Hey, wait, can you see me?" It didn't matter how stupid I just sounded, I was too eager to find out why they had walked around me.

Yet –

No. They didn't stop. They didn't turn around to glare at me as if I was mental. They didn't even seem to hear me. But why did they walk around me? Maybe they felt me. Maybe they felt me? Did my presence grow and I didn't notice? Why –

Oh.

Finally an answer span around in my head.

It seemed as if my weird condition had changed when –

Yes.

Tom Riddle had more or less admitted that I was real.

Was that why Myrtle had seen me?

Suddenly I had my destination. Tom. I had to find him, tell him that him admitting I was real would bring me back, would make me visible. Somehow. Sort of. No, no! This time I wouldn't let the why win! This time I followed the feeling inside. I felt that he was the one that could bring me out of this miserable state. I didn't care about what would come after I might be visible for everyone again, I didn't care about the fact that I was still lost in a time I didn't belong. I just wanted to be seen again!

And I hurried along the hallway. I didn't know where to go but somehow my feet dragged me forwards. I ran down the steps of the marble staircase leading down into the Entrance Hall – just when I saw two people emerge from a lower landing.

This really was abnormal!

Tom Riddle walked across the Entrance Hall, talking to the black-haired girl I had seen on various occasions now. She looked up at him with a vague expression on her flushed face, while he walked onwards, his eyes straight ahead, even looking a little indifferent.

It didn't matter where they came from, the fact was, as they both walked right towards the large oak doors leading outside, their backs now turned to me, I sprinted down the stairs.

"Tom!", I called out before I knew what I was doing, my voice echoing through the Hall.

Even in the distance I could see him flinch, yet he didn't turn around.

He didn't. But she did.


A/N: Chapter 4 part one - this time there are two more parts to come to complete chapter 4, half of them already written.

So, new twist here, what do you think?

Bianca: Lol. Your theory of Tom being pregnant, oh my god!! xDDD Well, who knows, right? He is a mystery after all!
His creepy eagerness, hehe, yeah, same thing as Myrtle's disturbing delight of death xDD But yeah, he admires Ginny sort of, and there's more to come. She actually pulled some lever and twisted him xDD More in the next part!
About your maybe ("Maybe she just came back to see if it would work between them") - lol!! I mean that's exactly why I'm writing this! xDDD But well, I can't just write it that way, I don't want to write cliches and such, confusing plot is necessary xDD
About Seamus - OMG!! That's my exact opinion about him - I love the accent, Irish accent is sooo cute!! But then when I look at him... irgh, nah, close your eyes and just listen to his voice xDDDDD
So, jup, more sweetness ahead, have it all planned out in my head!
And I hope you saw this update in time! Thanks again for your review - I hope the next time they won't cut you off, that is so mean!!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.