See the look on my face
From staying too long in one place
But every time I try to leave
I find I keep on stalling
Feel like a big old stone
Standing by a strength of my own
But every time the morning breaks
I know I'm closer to falling
I'm all out of love, all out of faith
I would give everything just for a taste
Everything's here, all out of place
Losing my memory, saving my face
Saving my face, saving my face
Saving my face.
Listening to what you say
Even though I look the other way
You could never understand the feeling
Of what I'm leaving
I'm all out of love, all out of faith
I would give everything just for a taste
Everything's here, all out of place
Losing my memory, saving my face
Saving my face...
Disclaimer: Harry Potter ™ belongs to JKR and WB. Song Lyrics (Saving My Face) ©KT Tunstall
Warning: More torture and murder and other nasty stuff. I am WARNING YOU NOW this is not a nice chapter. For those of you who want to know what's in the chapter before deciding to read the full version or not note my page and I will give you a chapter synopsis.
9: Seeking Faith
He didn't understand her, and if there was one thing Tom Riddle hated it was not understanding.
He had given Ginny nothing, unless you count his heart, which he didn't. After years of abuse there wasn't much of it left. Not enough to count, anyway.
And still Ginny gave and gave and gave and anyone could tell, just by looking at her, that it was destroying her. Because he could give her nothing in return. Nothing except the tiny smiles and kisses and even they were mostly gone now.
He didn't understand anything!
Everyone should hate him. He'd killed and he'd enjoyed it. Yet here were two girls, living with him, giving him everything he needed and loving him. Even the little brat of a girl who was still mooning over the Hogwarts letter she had only just received.
Merlin knew what the kid saw in him, but he'd become 'bro' just as Ginny was 'sis'. In a strange, warped way he had become part of her family.
And he didn't understand.
Everyday Ginny would come into the bathroom just in time to stop him from cutting himself, but after he'd finished shaving. He didn't know how she knew when to come in, but there was no prickle of magic. She just knew. Then she'd kiss him as if everything was OK and kick him out so she could wash or shower. She'd sweep into Keara's room and tickle the girl awake. They'd breakfast together. Like a family.
Then Ginny would teach Keara. She'd tell her stories of magical people from the past, or little things that she and her brothers had done before everything. Before he had ruined everything. Tom would stand in the doorway and watch as Ginny explained the basics of each of the core subjects or showed Keara how to use ink and quill without smudging the ink everywhere. And he'd wish that he could do that to.
He'd tried, once, to talk to Keara. He'd wanted to tell her about the one time that Slughorn had managed to spray one of the Gryffindors with shrinking potion and the kid had run around the day only a foot tall. But he couldn't. He'd opened his mouth and his throat had jammed up and he'd fled from the room, anger over flowing and destroying everything in his room.
And Ginny had come up half an hour later, saying that it didn't matter. She calmly mended everything that he'd broken and held him for a while. He wished that he was good enough for her. That he didn't have dreams of ripping her open and smearing her blood across the floor. That when he held her so tightly it was because he never wanted to let go, not because he was trying his hardest not to hurt her.
He couldn't hurt Ginny - he loved her too much. He couldn't hurt Keara - because she was his sister now. He couldn't hurt himself - Ginny wouldn't let him. So all that anger and bitterness and bloodlust built up inside him, like the sea rising up to a flood barrier waiting for exactly the right moment before it lapped the edges, breaking down the wall and destroying everything in its wake.
It was past midnight, about a week after Ginny had barrelled back in to his life, when Tom remembered something. A horrible something that, really, answered all of his problems. Like a stress ball painted with someone's face or a dartboard with a picture of someone stuck to it, littered with lots of little holes.
And it was perfect, this horrible something. It was too perfect for words. Ginny would worry where he was, but she wouldn't know. And when he got back things could go on as normal. Except they'd be better than normal because he wouldn't want to kill her anymore.
So Tom got up slowly from the bed, careful to keep the pressure off that one creaky spring. He changed in silence and took out his Hogwarts cloak, changing it, moulding it until it was no longer recognisable as school uniform. It dropped past his heels, dragging slightly along the floor. It's arms were wide and open, just the right length for his hands to appear out the end; his pale, white hands that were ghost like and ethereal against the pitch black cloak, almost glowing in the dim, pre-dawn light.
And when Tom pulled the hood over his face it dropped low, hiding his features in shadows. All he needed now was a scythe and the only difference between him and the Grim Reaper would be his shiny boots, the toes occasionally appearing as he walked, as quietly as possible, out of his room, down the stairs and slipping, silently, out of the house.
He walked through the front garden, cursing the squeaky gate and momentarily forgetting the wards, but not for long.
There was no way of telling how she'd known, but in that deafening silence he heard the ping of a light bulb springing to life and, when he turned up to the sound, his hand still resting on the gate hook, he saw that his bedroom light was on. She stood in the window and just watched him. Her bronze hair rested over one shoulder in a thick plait and there was a tiny frown creasing her brow on her otherwise emotionless face.
He turned and ran, then, the gate still swinging behind him, creaking out a ghastly, mourning cry into the grey, empty air.
Tom was scared. Scared she'd follow, scared she wouldn't. Scared she'd stop him, scared she couldn't. Scared he'd lose his control, scared that the control had never been his - hers, always hers. So he ran, feet pounding over the gravel, spraying the tiny stones out behind him as he raced to the edge of the lane and then, glancing momentarily behind him, he half-stepped, half-spun and Disapparated, leaving only her name hanging as a whisper in the air behind him.
She didn't hear the whisper because she couldn't hear. She knew what he was going to do and, this time, she couldn't find it in her to stop him. Because, while it was tearing her apart giving everything to him, it was tearing him apart not doing anything. Not being able to satisfy that insatiable bloodlust his first kill had seeded into him.
He appeared in the alleyway behind his orphanage, back in London again. He walked swiftly away from the place, that dreadful place that's sight, smell and even taste lingered on his senses and sent chills down his spine. Even now when it was safe, when the horror of his childhood was gone. Tom allowed him a smile, then, when he walked down London's empty streets, his mind filled with images of Ginny.
Ginny as she smiled at him for the first time, that secret hiding just behind her eyes. Ginny as she taught him the Patronus charm. Ginny as she sneered down at him in that false persona the first time she saved him. Ginny as he stabbed her in the gut, walking away before he watched her die. Ginny when he stood in shock to see her, still alive. Ginny as she kissed him, accepted him. Ginny as they talked of burning together, grinning in that wicked, harmless way of hers. Ginny when she rose as his avenging angel, harmlessness gone and deadly fury rolling off her in waves and killing the man at her feet. Ginny when they cried together, when they told each other that they loved each other. Ginny when she said those three, heart breaking words over and over again like a stuck track in his head. 'I love you,' 'I love you,' 'I love you.'
'I love you.'
'I love you,' he whispered to the air, smile curving his lips and heart beating fit to break.
He was doing this for her. Because if he didn't he'd do something that would hurt her so much - too much. And he couldn't do that. Not to her.
He took a train, a bus, a taxi, anything, until, eventually, he arrived in Little Hangleton.
He was doing this for himself. Because they deserved it and if he didn't he might fall of an edge he didn't think he'd be able to climb back to. Because he had to.
It took a long time to reach his destination, longer than he'd thought. It was almost midnight again and he was exhausted and hungry, but determined. After it would take one apparation to get back home. Home. That little cottage with his girls. His Ginny and… now, maybe, somehow…. his Keara - his little sister. But before he could return to them and love them like they deserved, like a family, he had to do this.
Riddle house loomed above the town like something out of a clichéd horror movie - you could almost imagine a thunder cloud hanging over this - and only this - house, raining and storming away, white lightning crackling down and lighting up the whole house, making the crooked chimney wobble and belch brick dust.
But the air was clear and breezy over the house, just as it was over the town. Tom walked up to the house accompanied only by the slight rustling of his transfigured robes. He raised his skeletal hand to the door knocker and paused momentarily. Choices… so many choices.
His fingers brushed the knocker, but did not raise it, did not alert the household. Instead he ran his fingers down, slowly down over the cool glass and woodwork until his hands rested on the door handle. Fingers curled around the thin piece of metal and, with a muttered alohamora he turned it, pushing the door slightly until it sprang open under his grasp; it's perfectly oiled hinges not making a sound.
Tom shut the door behind him, the light click as the handle slid back in place sounding as loud as thunder in the silent hallway. Then he slid the dead bolt back into place so that no one would follow him. He walked forward and up the grand, slightly curving staircase that screamed money and vanity out at those privileged enough to see it. At the top there was a landing open to the lower hallway and a door way that lead beyond to another hall way, doors leading into other rooms.
Tom walked forward and tried all of the rooms, pausing only to grin in satisfaction at the sight of who he could only presume was his old man sleeping next to, without touching, a pug faced, unfamiliar female with fake blonde hair and too-red lips. But he moved on. If his father had married again maybe there was more family - more scum to get rid of.
He came across one other bedroom, where a boy of about maybe nine, ten years of age lay curled up into a tiny ball, shaking as though he was half way through a nightmare, but silent. Tom stared at the boy who bore his features and looked exactly as he imagined he had done at his age and wondered if, when he slept he shook like that too. But that thought was quickly pushed aside. He checked that his hood was still in place before leaning forward and placing one cool hand over the boys mouth, shaking him silently awake.
The boy woke slowly, but as soon as he sensed a hand over his mouth and another person in the room who was neither of his parents, or any of the servants his eyes widened and filled with fear and… was that anger?
Perhaps.
'Shh,' Tom told the boy. 'I'm not going to hurt you.' Then he raised his wand and cast a silencing bubble over the room, so that even if the boy did scream his shouts would not be heard.
'Who are you?' the boy asked in a whisper, either scared of the consequence if he was not quiet, or clever enough to know to do as he was told. Tom would bet on the former.
'Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,' Tom said again.
'What do you want? If it's money you're after, my dad's just down the hall, I don't have any! Please, just go,' he said in a babbling manner.
'Thomas - it is Thomas, isn't it?' Tom guessed. After all, from a man such as Tom Riddle Senior's point of view there could never be enough Tom Riddles in the world.
'How do you know my name?' the boy asked in a horrified whisper.
'I'm not here for money. I'm here for revenge. For, you see, my name is Tom Riddle, too.'
The boys eyes widened even further, if that was possible, but then they narrowed and he reached forward a hand. It was shaking as he reached for Tom's hood, but as it met no resistance he pulled the hood back, his eyes searching the newly revealed face - for what, Tom couldn't tell. After a moment of inspection the boy nodded. 'OK,' he said. 'I believe you.'
Tom raised his eyebrows in silent question and the boy before him shrugged.
'You look like me. Like Father. But thinner. You need to eat more,' his voice was quietly demanding, like Ginny's when she was ordering him what to do, but because it was what was best for him. Thomas blushed and immediately hid his hand under the covers. 'I - I mean…'
Tom laughed, lightly. 'No, I know. My girlfriend says the same.'
The boy smiled, hesitantly, blush slowly receding. 'Is she nice? Your girlfriend? I bet she's pretty. And clever.'
'Yes. Yes, she is.' Tom wondered at this. He'd come here to kill the family, but instead he was talking about Ginny his… girlfriend. Girlfriend didn't really seem to suit what she was to him - she was so much more than that, meant so much more than that.
'Why are you here?' Thomas asked again.
'Would you like to hear a story?' Tom asked. 'You won't like it, but it's why I'm here. Why I'm going to kill your father.'
The boy's eyes widened again, but he nodded jerkily. 'Go on,' he urged.
Tom did a double take. He'd just said he had come to kill the boy's father and he'd just accepted it… like he'd been expecting him to say something of the sort. 'My mother was a confused person, but she had… certain skills. She fell in love, but the man didn't love her back. So she made a potion - a love potion - and she poisoned the man with it. He took her and impregnated her and she thought, after seven long months, belly round with child, that he'd let her stay. That he'd love her, even without her love potion.
'But when the potion wore off he kicked her out, giving her nothing. My mother wandered the streets for weeks, months, selling anything she had just to get by. I was born in the street, straight onto the paving stones of a backstreet London alleyway and she gave me his name. She gave me my father's name and died in that street, on those paving stones, in that alleyway with no one there to care for her, except a bawling baby with bastard blood and a bastard name.'
'And his name was Tom Riddle,' the nine year old said quietly.
'His name. My name. Your name. Our father's name,' Tom agreed. 'He knew my mother had nothing in the world except the clothes on her back and the baby in her belly and he kicked her on to the streets all the same and - do you want to know the worst bit?'
The boy nodded quickly - not eagerly, but as though he was soaking it all up, so he could lock it all away in his heart so it could fester there, like it had in Tom's heart.
'The people who found me hated me,' Tom told his step brother earnestly. 'They beat me and laughed at me and made me an outcast even before I knew that it was happening. And, when I did know what was happening, they raped me over and over until I bled and could see nothing but that hatred, my blood and the never ending blackness of the death I could never, quite reach.'
'Then she saved you,' Thomas said. 'Your clever girlfriend. She tricked them and saved you because she doesn't hate you, she loves you.'
'Yes. How?'
'It's in your eyes,' the younger boy answered, interrupting the question before it was spoken. 'I don't hate you,' he whispered, as though his words might catch fire and burn everything down.
'No? Even knowing that I'm about to kill your father and probably your mother, too?' Tom asked so softly, so patronisingly, so scathingly.
Thomas stood up from the bed then and pulled his pyjama top off, to stand before Tom in just the bottoms. Tom took in the boy's purpled, battered torso without a blink, without a word or action of surprise.
'No,' Thomas said defiantly. 'Not even knowing that you're about to kill my father,' he repeated Tom's words.
Tom nodded carefully and indicated that the boy should turn, and, after a long time poised to fight back the younger Riddle turned, reluctantly, to show his beaten back.
'Shall I kill both of them?' Tom asked.
'I - you're asking me?' Thomas squeaked in shock, spinning round to face his stepbrother.
'Yes. Should I?' The younger of the two hesitated a moment before nodding. 'Really? You won't regret it - hate me? - later?'
'No. Just… don't make me watch.'
Tom smiled and handed the night shirt back, the boy snatching it and stuffing it hastily over his head. Then he sat back on the bed and curled himself up, a frown of determination striking on such an innocent face. Tom ruffled his hair in such a natural way they could have known each other since birth - been brothers in every sense of the word, not just by blood.
'Stay here,' Tom ordered. 'Make as little noise as you can and try and get back to sleep. But, whatever you do, do not leave this room. Do you understand me?'
Thomas nodded. 'Will you come back for me?'
'Do you want me to?'
Thomas nodded again. 'I want to meet your clever girlfriend,' he whispered, a faint smile sadly lighting his face.
'OK,' Tom said, then he pulled the hood back over his face and swept from the room, locking the door behind him just in case - he liked the boy. He didn't want to be responsible for what would happen when the bloodlust took control and he slipped out of his mind. The last week with his girls it had been so hard not to slip. Not to let it blind him until the deed was done and find them dead. So, tonight, he'd let it loose. Let it do what it willed with his father.
Father. There was no man on earth who less deserved that title. He may not have known what had happened to his first child, but Tom doubted he'd have done anything if he had known. Not with the way he was treating his own, legitimate son.
Tom entered the main bedroom again and stood at the foot of the massive bed, looking at the two figures lying, untouching in motionless, noiseless sleep only occasionally broken by the man's snores. Tom moved his wand to his left, less dominant hand and flicked it, slamming the door and opening the windows, lowering the temperature of the room and causing an ungodly wind to flow icily around and around, fluttering the sheets and knocking pieces of paper flying.
The two occupants sat up, the woman screaming and the man whimpering pathetically, pushing back against the headboard.
Tom smiled slowly, sarcastically, knowing that that was the only part of his face they could see. Wishing that he had brought a scythe with him to really scare them. Instead, he pulled out of his sleeve the dagger that he'd stabbed Ginny in the gut with. Since she had mentioned her friend's improvements to her own knife Tom had been making amendments of his own, especially during those weeks that Ginny had disappeared.
The blade glinted in the light that not so much streamed, but trickled in through the window. The sky was almost yellow outside and the wind had picked up during Tom's little chat with his brother. There would be a storm by the time he got home.
The woman screamed again as Tom took a step closer to the bed.
'Shh,' he said, raising a finger to his lips. 'It's OK, it's all alright now,' he told them.
'Who - who the hell are you?' the man said, still trembling, his voice cracking.
Tom tsked and his smile widened, realising with a certain thrill that, when he let the urge to kill out on his terms he could control it, turn it, bend it to his will - deadlier than it would ever be other wise. 'Don't you recognise your own son?' he asked teasingly, tone dripping with venom.
'My son's nine!' the woman screeched. 'You're not-'
Tom cut her off with a quick slash of green light, stopping her words, her breath, her heartbeat. And he felt nothing. She was no one. Just a faceless nobody in an endless crowd of endless nobodies, none of them meaning anything. The light flashed only briefly, but its eerie glow filled the room with light for a split second and in that second Tom's eyes picked up hundreds of tiny details.
The pages of a book that weren't quite even. The edge of a sheet that hadn't been tucked in. A pen rolling slightly on the desk. A spider web in one of the high corners of the room where the maid obviously couldn't reach. A tiny crack in the paint of the window sill. The corner of the rug that had folded over. The single strand of hair that hung low over his forehead, waving in front of his eyes. The miniscule, multiple beads of sweat that broke out over his father's forehead.
Then the green faded and there was just Tom and his father. The fake breeze he'd summoned had given way, now. The only wind was that which filtered in through the wide open windows.
'How long's it been, old man?' Tom taunted, taking a step around the edge of the bed. 'Over seventeen years. Huh, imagine that!'
His laugh, when it came, was terrible to hear. It was cold and heartless. It made a void in the air that, like a dementor, sucked out every good feeling from the room leaving only that merciless, humourless laugh echoing and bouncing of the walls.
'Are you scared, daddy?' he asked, not waiting for an answer from the quivering man now directly in front of him. Tom leant over and cupped his fathers face in his hand, his long, thin fingers teasing the hair by his ears, trailing down his jaw to under his chin, forcing the man to look up at him. Up at him. The abandoned son. The black mark on a flawless façade. 'I am,' Tom whispered into his father's ear, as if it was some great secret.
Then Tom let the man fall back, plucking the blade once more from the hidden pocket within his robes.
'What… what are you going to do?' the man asked. Just 'the man'. Just another faceless nobody who had to face up to his deeds, finally.
'I don't want you to be scared, daddy,' Tom said. 'I want you to smile.'
He didn't cut very far - didn't need to. Just enough that the flesh would tear. It was an old trick, this one. The Glasgow Grin they called it. But Tom's was worse.
Holding his father's mouth open he cut a couple of centimetres into the flesh on either side of the mouth, his father's teeth gritted, a keening, whimpering cry escaping his lips in the effort not to scream - to scream would be worse, and that was exactly what Tom intended that he would do. He transfigured some paper into salt and, malicious smile in place, he poured it onto the cuts.
Remembering his brother, in a sudden act of compassion Tom raised silencing wards, so that he wouldn't have to listen as his father screamed and screamed, tearing the cuts further and further as the salt fell further in and hurt him more and made him scream louder and tear the cuts further and further. A ruthless circle.
Tom sat in the seat by the fireplace and watched silently as the man on the bed writhed and squirmed, slowly killing himself with nothing more than a cut and a little salt.
The rain had started falling by the time the man finally stopped screaming. Fat, heavy droplets that flew in the window and stained the carpet, thunder starting to rumble in the distance.
Tom Riddle Senior lay on the bed, his body and face contorted in pain, even in death. Blood soaked the sheets and, at some point, he had knocked the body of his wife off the bed. His son had sat and watched in silence for the entire thing. He stood, now, and went to his father. Eventual cause of death: blood loss. He had screamed too loudly for too long.
Tom pulled a handkerchief from nowhere and wiped the blood from his father's face. Then he pulled the jaw up so that his father's lips touched again, for the first time in hours. He transfigured another sheet of paper into a sumptuous, silky, blood red ribbon and tied it around his father's face so that his jaw was held in place.
His lips were cracked and raw, his eyes blood shot and contracted. But his mouth - what a smile. A smile that literally went from ear to ear.
Tom stood and walked calmly out, cancelling the silencing spell and walking in to his stepbrother's room. Thomas was sitting on the edge of the bed in his everyday clothing - clothing Tom couldn't have even afforded to wear on Sundays - and a bag was waiting, stuffed full of things, at his feet.
'I couldn't sleep,' the boy explained quietly.
Tom nodded. 'It's done.'
His step brother looked up at him, fear in his eyes along with… something else. Something almost like gratitude, but too scared that gratitude was the wrong thing to be feeling. 'Did… was mother in pain, when she died?'
Tom shook his head. 'No. Your mother felt nothing, except a little fear. The same can not be said for our father.'
'That's… OK. OK. Can we go?'
Tom nodded and picked up the boy's bag, brushing his hood back again so his brother could see his face. Then he offered his hand and the boy took it without a moment's hesitation. Then they disappeared without so much as a flash of light or a puff of smoke. They were gone.
The servants would find what happened the next morning and the police would come. They would retch silently and shake their heads, wondering what poor fate the boy had been taken off to. When the medics looked at the bodies they would say that Mr Riddle bled to death, but it was unclear how Mrs Riddle died. Nothing was wrong with her - no bruising, no cuts, no internal bleeding, nothing. But she was dead, no one could doubt that. In they end they'd think that she died after her husband, thinking that it was the shock of seeing him die like that that had killed her.
In years to come they'd puzzle over it and wish the son had died quickly. For his surviving was impossible. And the medics would wonder how Mrs Riddle died first - how that could be possible. And other killers would wonder exactly how much fear they had to inflict to kill someone without touching them. And the general public would shake their heads and warn their children to be on their very best behaviour or the smiling murderer would come after them and whisk them away to an unknown , but surely gruesome, fate.
Tom and Thomas arrived at the end of the lane that led towards the cottage where Keara and Ginny were waiting for Tom's return. They walked slowly through the rain, letting it pound down on them and wash their sins away. The memories of what had happened would never go and the countryside would be haunted with a tale of a mysterious murderer for years to come, but that pounding rain, as merciless as Tom had been, washed away any guiltiness either of them felt.
The gate creaked, as it always did, when it was opened, and as soon as they stepped over the threshold a light switched on in one of the windows and a face appeared. It was not Ginny, but Keara who looked down at them and frowned. But it wasn't a hateful or angry frown - it was the face of someone who was worried and would push others away because of that caring.
Tom walked up the path to his home, with his brothers bag in one hand and the other holding the clutching fingers of said brother.
'It'll be alright,' Tom said, putting down the bag and using his free hand to brush the wet hair out of the boy's face in a surprisingly caring gesture. The boy smiled a little, shyly and then turned back to face the door expectantly.
Tom hesitated a moment only, but that moment was long enough for the door to be wrenched open from the inside.
'Oh for crying out loud,' Keara hissed at them, tears leaking down her face. 'Don't just stand there, come in already!'
'Sorry,' Tom apologised before realising what he'd done, his mouth shutting with snap.
Keara shook her head and rubbed her cheeks bruisingly with a ferocious hand. 'Yeah, well, the longer you stand there the shittier you make Ginny feel.'
Tom picked up the bag again and followed Keara, his hand starting to ache a little because of the death grip the nine year old still held on it. He put the bag down in the hallway and shut the door and walked into the dining room, unconsciously manoeuvring Thomas in front of him as he waited for the hell fire Ginny would unleash.
Ginny was sitting at the dining room table. She was cradling a mug of tea in her hands, her thick her plaited back so that he got the full blown glare.
'Hello Tom,' she said icily.
'Ginny-' Tom began, but stopped when she held up her hand.
Ginny turned to the younger Riddle boy and, getting out of her seat, crouched down next to him. 'Hey,' she said, tones suddenly soft and welcoming, scowl gone. 'What's your name?'
'Thomas Richard Riddle,' he said proudly, thin chest puffing up slightly. 'You're Tom's clever girlfriend.'
Ginny smiled at him, but then turned to scowl fiercely up at Tom. Reminding him that he was still in for a good tongue-lashing. 'I'm Ginny,' she told the boy, smiling at him again. 'You must be just younger than Keara-' Keara waved over at the boy, grinning and tilting back on her chair, feet resting on the table, crossed at the ankle. '-she's eleven. How old are you?'
'Nearly ten,' he said grinning, waving his free hand back at Keara.
'But, you know, we already have a Tom Riddle here and having two is going to get really confusing, isn't it?' Ginny asked, somehow managing not to sound patronising.
Thomas froze with sudden fear. 'Are you… are you going to throw me out?' he stuttered out.
Ginny shook her head and took the hand not held by Tom. 'Shh, it's ok. Of course I'm not going to throw you out. I might throw Tom out, though,' she added in a low growl, glaring up at Tom again. 'But is it ok if I call you Richard? Or Ricky? How's that? Ricky.'
The nine year old nodded eagerly. 'Ricky,' he said, trying out the name for size. 'Yeah, I like it. But don't throw Tom out.'
Ginny ignored the last and said, instead, 'do you want to get some sleep? I bet you've been up all night and are really tired now.'
Ricky looked anxiously up at his stepbrother, than back across at Ginny, who had opened her arms welcomingly. Slowly, with all the care of a recently startled rabbit returning to its hole, he let go of Tom's hand and stepped forward into Ginny's embrace. Her arms tightened around him and he hugged her back, a little loosely, but enough for now.
'There's a star,' she told him. 'Come on, let's get you settled, hmm?'
Ricky nodded.
'Keara?' Ginny asked, the girl in question jumping up and coming round the edge of the table. 'Can you take Ricky upstairs and settle him into my bedroom, please?'
'Aw, but-' Keara started to protest - she'd wanted to see the fireworks between Tom and Ginny.
'Don't argue with me, Keara,' Ginny told her - an order this time. Then her voice and face softened as she asked Ricky, 'is that alright?'
Ricky nodded. 'Yes, but please don't kick Tom out,' he asked of her again.
'We'll see. Off you go, you two.'
Ricky grasped for Keara's hand the moment Ginny let him fully go and the girl took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. The two paused in the hall to retrieve his bag before they thumped up the stairs.
Tom took off his Grim Reaper Cloak, draping it over a chair and waited.
Ginny returned to her seat, now hunched over her cup of cool tea.
They stayed in silence for quite a while; just listening to the noises of the two kids above them getting ready for bed.
'You look like shit,' Ginny finally said.
'Yes,' Tom agreed. And, after a moment, 'so do you.'
'Gee, thanks,' she responded sarcastically.
Then there was another awkward silence during which Tom rocked slightly on his feet and Ginny looked everywhere but at Tom's face.
'You know, on my old time line, it took you another five years to do that?' Ginny broke the silence again.
'Huh,' Tom said, the only thing he could think to say at the time.
'But you killed Ricky, too.'
'Oh.'
There was another long silence.
'Dammit, Ginny!' he shouted, losing what little patience he had. 'Don't just fucking sit there! Talk to me! Yell at me… something! Anything,' the last words said as a plea.
Ginny looked at him then with tired brown eyes. 'What do you want me to say, Tom? I don't know what to do. Hagrid, I can accept, was an easy scapegoat to stop the school from closing. Myrtle, again, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But this time you actually went out and conscientiously murdered two people.'
'Would you have preferred that I kill you or Keara, instead?' Tom ground back.
'What the fuck?' Ginny cried out, standing up and turning to face him. 'What the hell have I or Keara got to do with anything?'
'It's killing me, Gin!' he shouted back, then quietening. 'It's killing me from the inside out and… I don't know why. All I know is that… thrill, that high I got from the death of that Hufflepuff girl has got me addicted and… I was losing, Ginny! I couldn't lose to it! Not when you and Keara are so close. I would have killed you… I was killing myself trying not to kill you. I didn't know what else to do.'
'Told me,' Ginny replied on a whisper, her eyes slightly wider than usual as she took in what he'd said. 'You just have to tell me, Tom. I can't help if you don't let me in.'
'What would you have done, Gin? What could you possibly have come up with?' he retorted scathingly.
Ginny snarled back at him, 'I need to know, Tom. That's me in your head, killing you from inside out. That's me telling you to hurt and kill. I don't know what to do, but there has to be something!' she was beyond desperate, now. Standing, just looking at him, voice thick and throat sore and Tom knew she'd spent the last day trying not to cry. Trying not to hope too hard that he might come home again.
'I'm sorry, Ginny. So, so sorry.'
Ginny nodded and her head bowed to stare at the floor. She sniffed and that was all it took for Tom to rush to her side and hug her tight. And this time if his arms were too tight it was because he never wanted to hurt her ever again, not because he was trying not to kill her.
'I can't… I can't say I regret it, though,' Tom added, hesitantly.
Ginny looked at him, searching his face for something, like Ricky had earlier.
'He… he was abusing him, Gin,' he said quietly. 'I went to Ricky's room first because I thought, what would be worse than watching your wife and child die before your eyes? Just quick, Avada Kedavra deaths, but deaths nonetheless. But… he reached out to me somehow. He looks so much like me, Ginny,' attempted to explain.
'I know,' Ginny said, sniffing a little still. 'He's like you would have been at his age.'
'That's what I thought,' Tom said with a tiny grin. 'And he… I don't know. Something he said. Then… then he took of his shirt and showed me the bruises, showed me the scars and still weeping gashes in his back and I couldn't.' Tom stopped a moment, wondering if he'd ever be able to explain. 'He was… he is everything I was at his age. And when I told him I was his brother and I was going to kill our father… he told me to. Let me. And his mother. I did it for him, Gin. For him and me.'
'Revenge never gets the world anywhere,' Ginny told him softly.
'Oh, shut up,' Tom said teasingly, stooping to kiss her on the lips gently.
'You've changed, you know, Tom,' Ginny said idly, leaning into him. 'You used to be… distant. Harsh. But here you are, saving kids and bringing them home with you. I just wish you didn't have to kill him.
'What was I supposed to be do, Ginny?' Tom asked, temper flaring a little again.
Ginny scowled. 'We've been through this, Tom. I don't know. I don't know what to do, and that's killing me as much as it's killing you.'
'Hah!' Tom said, suddenly not caring what he said or did. 'What do you know of dying, Ginny? All you ever did was watch as you let the people around you die for you.'
Her hand pulled back and slapped him hard around the face. 'How dare you,' she hissed. 'How fucking DARE you. I went through hell in those months, in this past week!'
Tom put a hand up to his cheek and couldn't help but let his anger rise to meet hers. 'And what do you know of hell, Ginny? I've spent years locked up and beaten and raped. Your Harry was tortured day after day whilst you just sat there and let it happen. Even Keara and Ricky have been through worse shit than you. I thought, for a while, you could save me. Then you fucking disappeared for weeks on end. You think you can just sweep in at the last moment, once the damage has been done and save everyone and everything will be back to how it was?'
Ginny didn't shout at him, like he'd expected. Didn't even glare at him. When she did finally look at him and speak again it was her quiet resignation that really got him. 'No. I don't know what it is to die. I don't know what hell is like. Everyone in the world has been through more than me, haven't they?' she asked lightly. 'Anyone could watch as their family members are tortured and murdered before their eyes, knowing that no hard they struggled the bonds that held them would never break. Anyone could sit by untouched as the man they love is dragged through hell and back every single day for almost three months and know that every shout they make, every attempt to escape, will only make his hell ten times worse the next day. Anyone could travel back fifty-five years in time to save a future they will never know.
'Anyone could befriend the boy who they knew would one day kill everyone they ever cared for. Anyone could fall in love with that boy and could cope with feeling like they'd betrayed everyone who ever mattered. Anyone could still love that boy, even after he stabbed them in the gut and left them to die. Anyone could face themselves to fight for that boy. Anyone could step into oblivion for a love that was only occasionally returned. Anyone could watch that boy being raped and not go completely mad or flee in fear. Anyone could sit at home for over twenty four hours and wait for that boy to return home, hoping that he hadn't decided to jump off a cliff or run in front of a bus.
'Anyone. Anyone at all could handle that kind of pressure without going mad. Anyone at all,' her tone, somehow, was still light and unassuming. 'So thank you for reminding me of that. Thank you for reminding me how I've had it easy from the moment I was born. Thank you for telling me exactly what it is you see when you look at me.'
Then Ginny pushed gently past him to the stairs. Her steps were light, like her tone. Tom wondered, thinking back through her words, what on earth he'd done to deserve anyone, let alone someone as amazing as Ginny. Wondering what on earth he was thinking when he said she'd seen and done nothing. What he, Keara and Ricky had been through did not compare to what Ginny had. Sure, they were hurting. But those cuts and bruises would heal and the memories, whilst they wouldn't fade, could be pushed to the side as they turned their faces like flowers to the sun to the bright future that was theirs to do what they would with it.
But Ginny's hurts would never fade. Her cuts and bruises were the memories, not the physical harm. Tom thanked whatever deity there might be that he had never succeeded in breaking down her mental barriers. He had lived without love, until her. Ginny had lived love, and had every single one of those loves torn ruthlessly away from her.
Tom sat down and groaned as he buried his head in his hands, only now realising exactly what he'd done.
'You know,' Keara said idly, appearing at the bottom of the stairs like magic, chewing casually on her fingernails, 'maybe you should have stayed on the doorstep. I think you actually managed to make Ginny feel even shittier than she was earlier.'
'Fuck off,' he replied brutally.
'No, really,' the eleven year old insisted. 'I mean… I knew you guys were a bit odd in the head. Ginny told me everything. But, seriously. What you did today, killing your dad and step mum… that's just wrong. Then of course you have to go and prove that you're a complete spaz and go and tell Ginny that she's worthless.'
'I said fuck off.'
'I know you did.' Keara picked a Clementine out of the fruit bowl in the middle of the table and sat down in 'her' chair, leaning it back and putting her feet on the table, teetering dangerously close to falling over backwards. 'But, see, I can't. Fuck off, I mean. Because I like you. You're a git and a little whoopsy-daisy in the head, but you're ok. Well, when you're not half way through a killing spree,' the girl added, peeling the skin off the fruit and flicking it daintily out of existence.
'What does it take to make you go away?' Tom snarled.
Keara grinned at him then. Actually goddamn grinned at him. 'You know, that's the longest sentence you've ever said to me?'
'Here's another: you're really irritating.'
'No, see, that's three words, just the same as 'good morning, Keara'. Though I suppose you could say it's three and a bit words, what with the 'you're'. So that'd be like… I dunno. Shorter than 'can you pass the cheese' or whatever, though.'
'Dear Merlin, no wonder I never talk to you.' You could practically see the steam coming out of Tom's ears by then. 'You never shut up!'
'Yeah well, that's your problem now, isn't it?'
Tom shifted in his seat at her accusatory tone. 'What do you mean?'
'Well you don't want to talk to Gin and she'd never let you near Ricky, you're too lofty to speak to yourself and you'd go even madder if you didn't speak at all. I don't want you any madder, you're bad enough as it is. So that leaves me. Self-appointed talker,' Keara said completely seriously.
'I could kill you,' he said.
'Go on then,' she dared him.
There was a long time during which Tom did nothing and Keara ate some more of the segments of her fruit. She didn't say anything to him, or even look at him like Ginny would have done. She just sat there, eating her orange and trying not to let the juice spurt into her eyes.
'Aw fuck it,' Tom said once she'd done eating and banished the last of the orange skin.
'You know you're vocabulary has decreased dramatically since you went and killed the other Riddles,' Keara said mildly, moving her feet to reach for another fruit; an apple this time. Then she propped herself back up, long hair swinging loosely in the gap of nothingness between her head and the floor.
'You shouldn't do that,' Tom said, uncertain why.
'Yeah, that's what sis says. Tells me I'll break my neck, one day. I won't though, look.' Keara raised her ankles of the table, but instead of rocking forward she rocked back, just a little. She wobbled like that for a moment, balancing impossibly, before she put her feet back on the table. And all the while she was rubbing the apple against her sleeve until it shone.
'No, I meant the table,' Tom blurted out, before he could stop himself.
Keara laughed. Not like his laugh, earlier, but a childish, care free laugh. 'What? The table shouldn't do that? Do what? It just stands there day in, day out.'
Tom really wanted to scowl at that, to glare at her. Instead he grinned. A nice grin. 'No, I meant you'll get the table dirty.'
'Yeah, and my fingers actually will turn green, you'll actually turn into the snake lord and Ginny will disappear off the face of the earth when the timeline straightens itself out. Get real, bro. We live in the world of the impossible, the improbable and the downright unlikely. The least you do would be to acknowledge that fact.'
Tom's grin slipped and he was scowling again.
Keara took the first, crunching bite into her apple.
He sat and watched her and she sat and watched him.
'I hate you,' he said finally.
'Fantastic,' Keara grinned. 'Now all you have to do is go apologise to sis.'
'I really, really hate you.'
Keara laughed, flipping away the apple core that, like the fruit peel, disappeared in mid air. 'Aww, I know Tommy-wommy, I love you too!'
Then, for no reason he could fathom, she hugged him - hugged him… him! - and bounded off to her room.
Tom was muttering ferociously all the way up the stairs. About stupid little sisters and meddling brats. Ginny'd already seen him at the top of the stairs by the time he realised that Keara had manipulated him spectacularly, without even mentioning Ginny's name until he'd said he hated Keara. Dammit.
Ginny wasn't crying because Ginny didn't cry. It was something Ginny just didn't do. Well, except those couple of times at the beginning of last week when she'd found Tom. But they didn't count, not really. She'd been under a lot of stress and pressure at the time. Ginny sighed and tried to ignore the prickling in the backs of her eyes. Told herself that it was hay fever. Not that she'd ever got hay fever, but it was the right time of the year - sort of - and you never knew.
She looked right in front of her and centred her energy like she'd been practising. Then, slowly, she told it what to do. And it lifted her, slowly, off the floor. Ginny liked this state of meditation that Dumbledore had taught her about. It was relaxing and pushed her at the same time. It took a lot of effort to keep that energy in her without an overflow, but it was relaxing to be able to float like that, away from the earth and, for a little while, away from her troubles.
Ginny really thought that Tom would be the death of her, one day. She used to think that about her brothers, even about her Harry at one point, but then it had always been in jest. She didn't think that about Tom.
Tom Riddle was… an enigma. That was the best way to describe him. There were so many different layers to him that Ginny didn't even try to understand. She just knew that she loved him and that would be her damning fault. It was hard to believe that she'd ever thought that he might love her back, but she'd thought… there was a look in his eyes. There was a way that he'd touched her. But not since that first night after she'd come back and he'd tried to kill himself.
Since then he'd been so separate, so distant. Watching her and Keara, unable to help. She'd seen the hurt when he hadn't been able to talk to Keara. She'd seen the self-loathing and the fury and she hadn't known how to deal with it because she'd never had to deal with it before. She could live with angry and puzzling. She could never fathom her brothers' motives and Harry had always had a short temper.
But never a murderous temper. Never one that consumed him and made him kill mindlessly.
Except Tom hadn't killed mindlessly - Ginny kept forgetting that part. Tom had killed carefully, brilliantly. The muggle police would never know who it was and the Aurors wouldn't bother looking. With nothing happening in the wizarding world, people just assumed that nothing was happening in the muggle world. Ginny had always wondered at that, but she'd never asked. It seemed too frivolous at the time.
One of the bedroom doors opened and Keara was there, in her doorway, looking at her as if floating in the air was perfectly normal. Well, after all the strange things that had happened to her in the past week, no doubt it would seem normal, Ginny reasoned.
'Hey.'
'Hey, love,' Ginny greeted, unfolding her legs and straightening them, noticing with some amusement that they still didn't touch the floor. So she concentrated and she dropped the last couple of centimetres, the rest of the things in the room jumping up a couple of centimetres. 'Damn,' she muttered to herself. 'I need to work on that.'
Keara giggled before her face turned utterly serious. 'So how are things with Tom?' she asked immediately. Ginny wondered sometimes if Keara was more suitable for Slytherin or Gryffindor; there was no beating about the bush with her lack of subtlety, but that was just a cover a lot of the times - Keara could manipulate Merlin himself if she could be bothered.
'He told me that I knew nothing about anything and was basically just a silly little girl compared to you three,' Ginny said, failing, now, to keep the bitterness from her tone.
'Boys are prats,' Keara told her, producing a pout.
'Period,' Ginny agreed.
Keara grinned. 'Oh, I dunno. Tom can be nice sometimes.'
'Doesn't stop him from being a prat, though,' Ginny pointed out, making Keara giggle again.
'But we love him.'
'Yes,' Ginny agreed again. 'We love him.' Then she sighed and flopped down on the sofa. 'I don't get it Keara. He's changed so much. But, at the same time… he's the same. Do you know what I mean?'
'Nope,' the eleven year old said cheerfully. 'But no worries, I hardly ever get what you're going on about, I just nod my head and make encouraging sounds.'
Ginny thwacked her sister upside the head. 'Now is one of the times to make encouraging noises, not tell me you don't understand.'
'How am I supposed to understand when you don't?' Keara pointed out with a smug grin. 'Shall I go and talk to him for you?' she volunteered.
'He doesn't talk to you,' Ginny responded, hesitating. It would be lovely to have a go-between for herself and Tom, but this was Keara and Tom had just killed two people in cold blood.
'Relax, sis,' Keara assured her. 'He's pissed off. Angry people always know how to talk, though they generally say things they don't mean,' she said pointedly.
'Thanks.' Ginny sat up and hugged her adopted sister tightly. If there was ever a good thing to come out of this mess, it was Keara.
'Ok, but, look, this may take a while, so don't come running unless you actually hear me screaming or Tom laughing hysterically.'
'Sure thing.'
And then Keara was out of the room, thundering down the stairs like a herd of elephants. Ginny shook her head and grinned ruefully. But now was not the time to remember old times, better lives. Now she should practice her Inadfectatus Magicus again. Damn Dumbledore and his damnedly difficult unaffected magic.
Ginny was uncertain how long she sat there, cross legged, hanging in the air before Keara came bouncing up the stairs, indicating that her talk with Tom had, at least, not ended in her casualty. Keara winked at Ginny before skipping in to her room and shutting the door behind her with rather more force than necessary.
Then, mere seconds later, Tom's head appeared on the stairs. He appeared to be muttering about some distasteful thing or another, a frown prominent on his face. When he reached the top of the stairs he turned to look at her with an unfathomable expression on his face.
'Ginny, I-'
'Wait,' Ginny cut him off. She sent him a half smile, half frown to let him know that she was serious, but that it had nothing to do with him. Slowly, not rushing it this time, or unfolding her legs, Ginny drifted slowly down to sit on the sofa, then patted the space beside her in a silent request to Tom to join her.
'How did you do that?' Tom asked her, momentarily forgetting his planned apology in favour of the need to know whatever knowledge she had that let her float.
'My private lessons with Dumbledore have proved quite fruitful,' Ginny explained with a shadow of her usual grin that didn't - quite - appear.
Tom sighed and took that as his cue to start saying sorry again. 'I'm… I don't think I have the words to tell you how much I regret saying what I did just then to you,' he settled with.
'It's ok.' Ginny smiled softly, tenderly, as if she had never expected him to find the right words and was simply grateful that he could at least admit that.
Tom shook his head, taking one of her hands in his. 'No, no it isn't. I've acted like a complete bastard around you since the moment we met and you've no idea how much I wish that wasn't so.'
'Tom, sweet, you act like a bastard towards everyone. If you hadn't towards me I would probably have taken you to St Mungos,' Ginny teased him.
'I didn't stab anyone else in the gut, though.'
'I survived,' Ginny told him gently. 'That's what I'm best at - surviving. Sometimes it's more of a curse than a gift.'
'Still doesn't make it right. Doesn't make any of it right,' Tom informed her solemnly. 'I tried to kill you and have killed three other people. It's driving me crazy, Ginny, having this voice in my head telling me that it's right, that it's good and that it's what I'm destined to do! I don't want my life planned out for me! I know that I can be a complete bastard but I'm not evil. I don't want to be a Dark Lord.'
Ginny watched him curiously. 'Not even knowing the power you would have at your finger tips if you were?'
'I already have that power, Gin. The difference is that I know when not to use it.'
Ginny kissed Tom then. He'd never sounded so mature - never sounded less like Voldemort. If only she could free him of herself. If only she could find the truth of her older self and bring her down. Ginny didn't know if she had the strength to do it, but she knew that if she didn't then no one else could. Tom might have, perhaps, if he hadn't already succumbed. But Ginny wasn't willing to put that kind of responsibility on any one else's shoulders. It was hers and - quite literally - hers alone.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised when they came up for air.
'Sorry for what?' Tom asked, clearly baffled by her apology.
'For being such a hypocrite,' Ginny explained. 'I mean, Ricky's your brother, even if you have only just met him. If it had been one of my brothers in his situation I probably would have-' but he placed a gentle kiss to her lips to stop the flow of words.
'No, you wouldn't Gin,' Tom said.
'I killed that man,' she reminded him.
Tom looked at her dubiously. 'No matter what you might think, Gin, you are a Gryffindor. The man was raping me. I do not doubt that any one of your friends - either from now or the past - would have jumped to my rescue.'
'Do you honestly believed they would have killed him? Like that?'
'The Slytherins? Perhaps not. I think they would have thought that death was too good for the man. The Gryffindors? Most definitely.'
Ginny grinned a little, snuggling closer to him and draping an arm around his waist. 'Is it wrong of me to find that comforting?'
'No.'
'Good.' Ginny looked up and placed a tender kiss on Tom's jaw. 'Because I'm going to kill again,' she whispered.
Tom stiffened where he sat, but did not comment or react in any other way.
'You deserve better than having that bitch controlling you, Tom. I'm going to find her and I'm going to kill her.'
And neither of them doubted what Ginny said. Neither of them needed to be told who 'that bitch' was. Tom said nothing, but he relaxed slowly and, eventually, Tom and Ginny fell asleep in one another's arms again. Both of their dreams delving into deepest black of plots to find and destroy what Ginny would one day, maybe, become. And then soaring up, above the clouds of worries and unconsciously planning their future together with their unorthodox family.
A/N: Oh my God! I am so, so, so sorry! I never planned for this to happen! Tom wasn't actually going to go and kill his family and he
And, hah! I bet this chapter wasn't what you were expecting, hey? Well I never said anything about muggle or wizard therapy, some of you just assumed... I'm not a shrink, loves, I don't do the mind-stuff. Not really. Besides, what's more therapeutic than saving your previously unknown stepbrother from having the shit beat out of him and then murdering the guy responsible very, very slowly? Hmm?
Well, we have one more chapter to go (I know!! I'm so excited!! I still don't know exactly what's going to happen, though - I'm still throwing ideas around) and that's it! And I know I've promised a sequel, but it may be a while before I start writing it. We'll see. Anyway, if any of you come up with some more really good words like 'vindictive' and 'malicious' let me know!
Much love and please drop me a review - it makes my day!
Cal
xxx
PS, many thanks to all of my readers from (in no particular order) - Ireland, Israel, Kazakstan, USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, Spain, India, Canada, Argentina, France, Sri Lanka, Finland, Greece, Thailand, Germany, Netherlands, Mauritius, Norway, Portugal, Austria, Malasia, Russia, Venezuela, Latvia, Brazil, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Hong Kong, Philippines, Belgium, Hungary, Serbia M, Guyana, New Zealand, Poland, Czech Revar and Mexico! And good luck to all in the Olympics!
PPS, keep your eyes open for a fluffy one shot, Sweet Things, about Eileen and Theo's first date - didn't think I'd forgotten about them, now did you?
