A/N: Fudge. I don't know when is this going to end. I like Tom Riddle's past a little too much. Can't you tell? If you look at the author's note of Taunt a God's chapter called "Gaston," you'll find a further description of my mental breakdown. :'D
I.
He wakes up in a cot, in a white sterile room that's clearly not his apartment. Memories quickly come back before his eyes. Charlie. . . stunning him. . . in the back! He quickly sits up and swallows down the feeling of hurling out what little he has eaten the day before. Wobbling as he stands, he heads over to the sink and washes his face. He's not surprised to find his eyes bloodshot with bags underneath.
Every muscle he uses feels incredibly sore, as if he ran five miles without stretching beforehand. Overextension of his own magic, he knows. But he always feels a bit better afterwards, as if he received the best workout of his life.
A tiny bellow draws his attention to the corner. Honey, her dark scales glimmering and yellow eyes gleaming with an inner fire, flaps her wings with excitement at the sight of Tom. She bellows a bit louder towards the open doorway.
"Calm down," he mutters, out of the corner of his mouth.
A hand shoves a thick mug of black coffee underneath his nose. Greedily, Tom accepts it and downs the warm liquid quickly. He raises an eyebrow at Charlie and says, "If this is your form of apology, please know that it's been partially accepted. There's this little ache in my muscle from where you stunned me."
"Well, good morning, Riddle," replies Charlie, taking back the Christmas mug. He glances at Tom, looking down and then up. He sarcastically remarks, "I'll say I'm fairly confident that you've been well-rested."
Not missing a beat, Tom shoots back with his mouth. "I'll say that your wandwork needs a little more work. No finesse. Shoddy."
He rolls his eyes. "That so-called shoddy wandwork still stunned you." A pause. Charlie's face molds into an expression of somber and seriousness. "Ginny's still acting the same. The Healers can't find any trace of dark magic, but she's still not well."
"Legilimency. I need to look into her mind."
Looking over Tom briefly one time, Charlie nods. "I'll take you to her."
II.
It's a storm in there.
Memories are scattered hazardously without order or structure. Tom has seen memories and minds like this, but never on the scale where the madness seems to be reaching out towards him. Beckoning to join in. He shivers inwards, but outside, he makes no such expression. It's no wonder why no Legilimens would want to dive too deep into Ginny's mind.
Well, like what he said to Goldstein, this is personal.
What exactly makes a mind a mind?
A soul?
Life?
He has gone through a baby's mind before. It's feeble, weak. . . Barely aware much of anything in the world. Undeveloped is the best word for it. It lives on inborn instincts to do the simplest task, and with growth, experience, and time, the brain begins to form more and more.
His brother, Gabriel, seemed to be, at first, nuts when he revealed he was taking philosophy classes as well as psychology and other humanities such as political science. The questions Gabriel asked were of unusual nature. What is a soul? What exactly is free will? Is there actually a difference between right and wrong?
Gabriel admitted that philosophy is hard for him. It asks the most complicated and groundbreaking questions that throw everyone off their orbit. Makes everyone question their very existence and their place in society and their purpose and everything they've learned so far from life. What is life, even? What is the point of it?
To answer these questions, Muggles use math, physics, logic, arguments with mixed results. What they didn't know was magic. Magic, to answer the problems of philosophy.
But even wizards don't fully understand the concept of a soul, Tom admits. It's simply one of those things, like tradition, that's always there but never questioned. Why would you do it this way?
Because it's the way it's always been done.
Well, Tom isn't one of those people who would simply accept the barely understandable explanation that has been passed down over the years and generations. No. He would constantly keep looking for the answer, and when he finds it, he'll verify repeatedly whether or not it's correct. Answers can be drawn from conclusions, but the conclusions must be drawn from experimentation.
Ginny's mind is shattered, torn apart just like a child's mental state. Feeble, weak. Even haunted, he supposes. This sort of damage may be incurable for Legilimens and Healers alike. But Ginny is still a child. Her brain hasn't quite developed yet to an adult's mind. Theoretically, she might be more capable of recovering than an adult's. Many has seen a child hit their head hard upon the bottom of the table, and then two hours later, run around the house as if nothing has happened at all.
Regardless of what magical theories say, Tom is very much open towards experimentation. And he is, without a single doubt, willing to try.
III.
After doing countless amounts of shouting, pushing, and persuading, Tom can't quite figure out how exactly to repair Ginny's mind. Force is useless. Words don't work. But he can feel there's a way to help her. He's just missing it.
He leans against one of her cherished memories. Fred and George sneaking beetles into Percy's socks. It seems quite cruel of them to do so, but hiding in the closet with her two brothers, Ginny finds it particularly amusing when Percy does catch the beetles. He only takes a single blink to guess who the culprit is.
With a flushed face, Percy screams, "Fred! George!" He runs out of his room, carrying the beetle-filled socks in his hand. "Where are you?" he hollers.
Fred begins snickering.
Tom straightens when he realizes that most of her psyche, her awareness is centered in the most comforting memories. He begins to smile when he realizes that it doesn't have to be him alone to fight against this darkness.
She's the master of her own mind. She's the only who can truly see the darkness, the scars left behind. As much as he tries, her evaluation is nothing compared to hers.
So perhaps, he should chase away some of the nightmares, but it's her will and strength that must be called to fight off the curse permanently.
IV.
He does something no sane Legilimens would ever do.
He lowers his mental shields and calls out to the swirling darkness. The hopelessness, the anger, the sadness, the unspoken emptiness. He pulls his best memories, the laughter at Riddle's House in the early Christmas morning when Gabriel sneaks up at four to take a peek at some of his presents. Tom always manages to catch him at the foot of the stairs, or behind the Christmas tree, or right in front of Gabriel's bed when Gabriel decides to open his eyes. It has become some sort of game to them.
At the face of those memories, the darkness washes away, receding into nothingness. He grabs additional memories, the good ones that help him cast a Patronus, and holds it in front of him like a sword to cut away and send back the hopelessness.
Because only hope can fight hopelessness. Only light can fight the darkness. Light. . . Goodness to wash away the urge to hurt people, to terrorize children, to subject cruelty on friends.
But then the darkness flexes itself.
Strengthen.
Tom's heart drops. His best memories are torn away, devoured. His throat is seized with panic, and he feels like a third year all over again when he sees that boggart for the first time in Professor Lupin's office. That boggart of his father. . . His mother screaming. . .
He shakes himself.
No. No.
That is fear talking, he realizes. And the darkness, the dead curse, is strengthening from his panic, from his fear, from his lack of objective.
Struggling with all of his will and grimacing from the strain to resist the temptation to relax, to give up completely, he pulls himself together and his shields back up. Yet, the darkness is increasing in power. He's not feeding to it anymore. . .
So who else could it be?
He screams, GINNY, STOP THIS.
From the darkness, he hears a voice. I can't.
With horror, he realizes that the darkness. . . The curse. . . It is not the curse.
It's Ginny's darkness.
Her depression.
V.
It takes several improper looks into her memories that makes him pull together the complete picture. Improper, because there's an unspoken rule among Legilimens to never look into the core memories of a person. A single movement, a little jostle, to the memories can change a person's personality forever.
Ginny is depressed. Has been, for a long time, even before the curse took control over. The curse has most certainly amplified the power of her depression, to the point where she wouldn't eat on her own and actively pursuing ways to off herself before she was admitted to St. Mungo's and placed in a magically-induced coma.
Before the curse, however, she had the sort of depression that made her a bit moody some days. Some days, she felt like she couldn't crawl out of bed, but she always did. George or Fred would pull away her blankets, do a stupid joke that would make her laugh or cry in horror, but encourage her to get up in the morning.
Some nights, she would lay awake in bed at night, finding herself unable to sleep. She could cry to herself about death, about feeling nothing afterwards. About never being able to experience something, to feel pain or joy again.
But she comforted herself with the thought that she would feel nothing in that lifeless void.
He understands.
He, too, has feared death. But it's the kind of fear that comes out of not living, not experiencing enough. Being afraid of not living. He could remember the restless nights and then the ear Gabriel unfailingly offers and all the confusing questions about life, death, and living.
It takes every bit of energy to manipulate the setting. Change the ground to something he could fight on without losing himself. When he could finally breathe again, he finds himself at the blackboard with a chalk in his hand. Only one student is sitting there, dutifully taking notes. Red-haired. Wearing the standard Hogwarts uniform for girls. A quill is tucked between her fingers, and she looks far more solid and alive than Tom has ever seen her since the curse has struck her down.
One Ginny Weasley.
VI.
"Hello, Ginny."
"Tom," she says, smiling weakly. She drops the quill, as if surprised to be holding it. "I don't. . . remember very much."
"You remember what year you're in?"
"My first year at Hogwarts," she answers with conviction.
Tom nods. "Correct. Do you remember what happened?"
She furrows her eyebrows.
Pretty, pretty lady, crackles the rogue psyche Hermione holds imprison. Wonder if she'll like me to lick her hair.
Hermione only squeeze him tighter, pressing him in an willful response.
The psyche winces.
"I fell asleep in bed, with a book on my lap. And it started hurting really bad." Her pale hands drop to her lap, to her thighs. "It was right here. Felt like it was burning me. I thought I would finally know. . ." She pauses, as if suddenly alarmed of Tom's presence. She blushes, shaking her head. "Never mind."
Tom puts down the chalk on the teacher's desk. Fixing the green tie around his neck, he bends his knees and plants himself in front of Ginny. On the floor. Kneeling to her. Gently, he says, "Ginny, I want you to know that you're not awake. Stay calm. You're in a magically-induced coma."
"Because of the curse. I feel it."
"It's gone," he tells her, reassuring her. "But you're holding yourself back. You're the only one who can wake yourself up. The curse is broken. Has been for a while. Try to wake up."
She closes her eyes. "This doesn't feel like a dream. But if it is. . . It is a vivid dream."
"Dreams are vivid when you're sleeping. They become only pieces when you're awake," he explains. A pause. "Picture Fred and George. Putting one of their devilish tricks in the early morning," he suggest. "And you can sense them doing that, messing around with your hair, tickling your feet, and tiptoeing across your room. You decide to wake up, to shout them away."
Her fists clench together. She concentrates.
Tom's heart drums rapidly when he sees her translucent. Evaporating into thin air. Without a single breath of hesitation, he reaches towards her and grasps around her wrist. "Ginny," he gasps, her name coming out strangled.
She quickly looks around, her dullish eyes wide open. To his relief, she has resolidified. Mostly. She looks like a living ghost. Or a ghostly girl. She blinks a few times, clearly confused, and asks, "Did something happen, Tom?"
"No," he lies. He twirls his wand, trying to figure out how to hold Ginny here and help her put herself back together. To make her stand on her own.
His idea truly sparks when he recognizes the classroom he stands in. A Hogwarts classroom, yes. But not just any classroom. The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. This is from his memory, this is the place where he discovered his strength back in first year, this is Professor Moody's classroom. Here is where Moody taught how to defeat darkness with light, and like what Moody has done to Tom, perhaps the same could be done for Ginny.
VII.
He discovers it isn't easy to teach her. Her gifts lie in Quidditch, jinxes, and hexes, not in other fields that he is exceptional at. Though he has always been exceptional in discreetly cursing people as Charlie has found out many times over in April of every year. In Transfiguration, he finds her frequently glancing away, not quite concentrating on what he is saying. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, she has some intuition against the Dark Arts, but it is not enough to help her.
But in the meanwhile, he teaches her simple Charms to cheer her up. The Cheering Charm, when cast upon her, helps a little and seems to take away whatever pain and aftershocks of the Dark curse she is still feeling. She seems to find amusement in Curse of the Bogies, though Tom personally thinks it's a juvenile, simple spell specifically made to humiliate people. He is pleased to discover how quickly she learns Charms, however.
But it is with the Fire-making Spell where she is incredibly proficient. He smiles as he watches Ginny burn down some logs he has transfigured from the desks in the back of Moody's classroom.
VIII.
"Well, how is she doing?" asks Charlie, a book lying open in his palms. It is on the same page—one-hundred thirty-nine—as before. Tom has been giving him hourly updates, moving in and out of Ginny's mind.
"Some progress." A pause. "But she is not ready yet."
He straightens in the hospital chair by Ginny's bed, a hand coming to rest upon her forehead. "Will she ever be?"
Quirking an eyebrow, Tom turns to look at Charlie's sister and rhetorically asks, "How can anyone be ready against the pain of living?" Tom's dark eyes glow mournfully. His head turns away from Ginny and towards the windows letting the rays of the sunset in.
IX.
Once the memory stops, it forcefully spits the Hermione and the rogue psyche out. More prepared than the psyche, Hermione shoves hard at psyche, shocking it temporarily. She thins out, concentrating. Then she seizes forcefully onto the psyche, trying to absorb it into her. She has one memory particularly picked out.
The psyche seemingly obeys. Then it sharpens, cutting through Hermione's essence. She cries out, clinging onto him once again and tugging him towards the sticky memory.
But before the psyche could enter the sticky memory, it frees itself from her control and dives into another one of core memories. Hermione, composed of will and strength, follows.
Only a matter of time before she completely traps him. Only a matter of time.
X.
It must have been months later in the next memory she enters. She could feel the psyche running ahead of her, occasionally taunting her in some moments.
Ginny stands in the classroom, her wand held firm in her hand. Moody's classroom used to have four walls, except this time, one of the walls has been removed to examine the depths of Ginny's despair. Tom stands to her side, his own wand pointing down by his thigh. He whispers, "You can do this, Ginny."
"Expecto patronum," she whispers. Only a silver wisp comes out of her wand.
She senses the psyche ahead of her, rushing through the memories. Shoving aside another memory, she enters a memory sequence and follows the psyche through. Memory sequences occur more frequently in the core, where memories that are large and complex bind together to form a sort of flow or pathway between one and another.
Scenes blur by as Hermione gains only whispers of conversations between eleven-year-old Ginny Weasley and a young Tom Riddle.
"I can't do this," she says.
"You can," he always replies, confidence in his eyes. "You believe that you can't do it, then you will never be able to do it."
She hears the laughter of the psyche ahead of her.
Pretty girl, it coos.
Hermione grimaces.
"I feel the same way." A pause. "I fear it, too."
Ginny nods, as if knowing that all along. "But how you do live with it?"
"I can show it to you. A memory."
And the psyche, then Hermione, enter the memory within a memory. She breathes in, stunned by how weighed this memory, this one memory back in his early years at Hogwarts, is.
