Locked inside your head
Do you realize the things you said
Never made sense?
We can sit here and laugh
But we don't know the half of it,
In your defence
We've been talking a while
And it seems to me each time you smile
Lights are coming on
But they don't burn too strong
And they won't stay for long
And then they're gone again
Funnyman, gotta plan to be something wonderful
Funnyman, listening to the world turning on its sail
Turn it into a brand new universe
Funnyman could never be anything else.
Do you remember that night
When I had to play your angel
Saving your soul?
Even though you were holding on tight
A part of you was taken by the demons below
Disclaimer: Harry Potter ™ belongs to JKR and WB. Song Lyrics (Funnyman) ©KT Tunstall
Warning: some pretty nasty stuff in this chapter, but not as bad as previously, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering with the warning. Death, murder, implied death and murder, self-mutilation and implied sex. I think that's it...
10: Through Closed Eyes
Darkness.
The shadows that hid in the corners of her mind behind the brightest of intentions, desires or memories. But suddenly they weren't hiding anymore. They were breaking through, up and around, swallowing her whole and it was worse than drowning.
There used to be a pond at the bottom of the Weasley garden. It was a tiny little thing, but deep; more like a well with no wall than a pond, really. Once, when Ginny was really little, there had been a wonderful fall of snow and she and her brothers had escaped out into the garden and ran amok, flinging snowballs and making snowmen and snow-angels. Then Ginny, who'd only just begun to walk, had tripped over a branch that had been hidden by the thick covering of snow and she had hurled, head first, into the pond.
The layer of ice covering the pond cracked under her weight and the pressure of the fall and she'd only had enough time to shout a warning before it gave way beneath her and she'd fallen into the icy water. It had been freezing - colder than Ginny had ever been in her entire life - and the ice had seemed to form again over her head and she was trapped under it in the inky black water that rushed in her mouth and nose and choked and suffocated her.
Ginny had been under the ice for, perhaps, a minute or two. That was all. Short enough of a time that she hadn't even blacked out and she had collapsed into gasping sobs, clutching to the front of her daddy's cloak after he'd rescued her. All she needed was a change of clothes and a hot cocoa and she was all smiles and childish giggles again. The next day the pond was gone, the only sign of it ever being there was the freshly turned earth that stuck out like sore thumb on the ice covered ground.
But this was worse than that. Because Ginny knew that she was still breathing, had composed herself enough to know that. In through the nose and out through the mouth, in through the nose and out through the mouth like a mantra, over and over again. Truth be told she didn't even need to do that. But there was so much darkness and it was clinging to her, clawing away at her and she was desperate to get away from it. Any semblance of control she might still have over herself she would cling to it.
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
Ever since she'd arrived in the past Ginny had been terrified of the absolute dark. Eerie glows she could handle, even darkness with a pinprick of light she could survive by. But somehow she was caught in the pitch black and it was creeping through her mind, as well, reducing her good, calm thoughts to dust.
Then, out of the shadows, she appeared. She looked, by now, even less like Ginny. Her paper thin skin was drawn tight over her features, making the pert nose seem too shiny and the lips and eyes too drawn. Her eyebrows were almost gone - now just a thin line of hair - and her chin had almost disappeared in to her neck. Her eyes, now slit like, were a brown-red that wasn't quite crimson, but no longer the original chocolate.
Her hair is darker than it used to be - almost blood red, rather than the honey red of old. Blue veins pulse just beneath her skin, making her snake-like appearance flash white, blue, white, blue. She is wreathed in darkness, standing taller than Ginny had ever or would ever be. The tendrils of shifting shadow flicker over her black robe clad body, making her part of the shadows, rather than merely hiding in them. It fingers through her hair, twisting, plaiting and teasing, making her look like she had a head full of blood red Medusa snakes.
She smiles. It is a terrifying thing to behold. Her eyes are glinting with some emotion so terrible it can not be named and her lips - too red, too red - look wrong on her chinless face. The lips thin and stretch, revealing a line of perfectly round, pearl white teeth that seem to glow green. Her tongue flicks out, so quickly it might have been Ginny's imagination, but it leaves a ting spot of dampness on her lips that also seems to glow that haunting, familiar, soul-light green.
'Ginny,' she sings, her voice not raspy and hoarse like it should be, not childish and patronising like Bellatrix's had been. It is the voice of someone telling a scary story during a sleepover party or in an effort to scare a sibling - calling the other child's name in two, long, drawn out syllables that seem to echo even if the room is fully carpeted. Two, haunting notes that do wonders to scaring young children the world over.
'I'm not scared of you,' Ginny says, even though both she and this other her know that it is a lie. Were it simply a scary story, like her brothers had told over and over, she would laugh it off with no second thoughts. But this was real. This was someone who wanted to kill her and would stop at nothing to do so and she was inside her head. Suddenly the killer dolly that could not be thrown away and the garden gnomes that would come and chop a bit of the child off, 'centimetre cubed by centimetre cubed' did not seem so bad.
The older, serpentine her, does not falter, smile firmly in place and horrifically genuine. 'Ginny,' she sings again. 'I'm coming to get you!' She does not step but seems to flow closer and closer and Ginny can not move, though she struggles to. The shadows are smothering her but she can not move, can not think; only remember the jade eyed boy with the unjaded mind and lightning bolt scar who loved her more than she deserved.
Darkness.
Tom woke with the indisputable knowledge that he was not in the same place that he had fallen asleep in. He remembered… killing. His father, so close in visage and figure to himself: death by smile. The wife - blonde, plastic, killed swiftly, painlessly with an Avada Kedava. He hadn't even watched. Then there had been a boy - again, he could easily have been mistaken for Tom at his age. Going home and talking - saying the wrong things. Then an ache in his chest that he couldn't now recognise anymore than he did then. Then talking, reconciling, and sleeping, faces tucked into shoulders and hands and fingers and legs entangled.
But there was no weight on him anymore. Ginny, his wonderful, beautiful Ginny, was gone. And he wasn't on the couch, either. It was then that Tom realised it was not Ginny, but he who was gone. This thought process took no more than a second and immediately Tom's already half-closed eyes snapped completely shut and he regulated his breathing to make it as even as possible.
'Too late, Thomas, darling,' a voice said. It was, on the whole, unfamiliar, but there was a ring to the undertone that stirred some kind of recognition in Tom. Her - for it was a her - address of him, however, was strange. Although his half-brother had revealed his full name to be Thomas Richard Riddle, Tom was simply that; 'Tom'. He was not the kind to allow others - save, perhaps, Ginny - to shorten his name. 'I know you're awake,' the voice continued.
Slowly he opened his eyes to find himself staring up at the clear sky dispersed with various floating candles and the faint outline of stone columns - he was in the Great Hall of Hogwarts? Turning his head he saw a flash of dark red hair and mahogany eyes and a chinless face.
The face had changed since he had last seen it - there was a little less chin and the veins and arteries beneath the surface of the skin were just a little more visible. And this version of Ginevra was… darker, redder, than ever before. More wrong, more unnatural.
Tom sat quickly, ignoring the sudden dizziness that struck him as he moved his head, and reaching for his pockets in search of his wand.
'Tut, tut,' the monster said. 'Do you really think me so silly as to leave you your wand? Even your Ginny was faster than that.'
Tom didn't react. His Slytherin mask, so often forgotten around his little family, was all too easy for him to pull back into place. 'When it comes to dealing with one such as you one can never be too careful,' he said simply, wishing dearly that Ginny had taught him, too, how to do magic without a wand.
'One such as me? Oh, I suppose you'll know all about that. But that version of myself was nothing like I am now.'
Was? As in past tense? Tom blinked the thought away. Ginny had gone once, who was to say that she hadn't gone again? He could cope. He had to. The unwilling images of Hagrid welled up in his mind, followed soon by the plain white stretcher, covered with a plain white sheet; the only thing visible a hand lolling out over the side. White as death because he had allowed death to take her. To take the stupid little Hufflepuff.
'She's all better now though,' that honeyed, horrible voice almost sang at him, and stepped aside.
What Tom saw chilled him to the bone.
Ginny wasn't dead. Oh, far from it. She was sitting on one of the long house benches with her hands neatly folded in her lap and her back, if he could have seen it, would probably be bullet-straight. Her hair was bunched back from her face and shoulders and Tom could see clearly the white lines glowing across her skin.
A circle etched with arcane symbols on her forehead and both of her cheeks, joined together by a larger circle that enclosed all of her features. Tom knew what it meant immediately - a ritual that he'd seen in one of the books in the restricted section of the library. I see what you see, I feel what you feel, I know what you know. You are mine.
The spell was an ancient one used by task masters on their slaves to assure loyalty and good work. But the bearers of such markings could be forced to do any number of things; whilst the Imperius curse could be thrown off, this could not. Imperio was merely a spell, a binding of magic loosened by the air between master and follower. This - this was marked, scarred into the skin. There was no breaking it; neither through strength of self, nor by wish of both parties.
'Until death do us part,' Ginny - the older - said. 'My little puppet, all tied up in string. Isn't it lovely?'
'Fuck you,' Tom said, perfectly calmly, keeping the sudden ache at bay.
The serpentine woman regarded him a moment before turning her back on both teens and walking slowly towards the teachers' table. She seemed to almost float over the floor, and Tom wouldn't put it past her. She reached the podium where the headmaster always greeted the new year and made announcements, when they were to be had. She ran one finger over the gold filigree caressingly.
'The world, dear Thomas, is not as you perceive it to be,' she paused, then, obviously expecting some kind of response, when Tom gave her none she continued. 'Your darling half brother was quite the little hero when it came to defending you, as was the filthy little muggleborn girl who called you brother. But they died in silent torture, as you and Miss Princess slept soundly on.'
Tom refused to look at her, his gaze only on the girl sitting opposite him. She tilted her head towards him and her lips curved, ever so slightly, before she continued the mutated Ginny's speech in the same, disgustingly sweet voice.
'Have you ever wondered, sweet, why I loved you?' the girl asked. 'Why I loved you when I knew what you would be, what you would do,' her voice lowered to a whisper and she leant conspiratorially across the table, Tom automatically leaned forward, too, 'who you would kill.' Then she leant back and laughed a wonderful, whole hearted laugh that told of more than a twisted soul. 'Your power! Just like Harry, your power is bristling! We are not so different, you and I. Lusting for nothing but power, consequences be damned. But I'm stronger than you will ever be. Stronger because I am not afraid to do what must be done.'
Tom gazed at her for a moment, his broken heart fluttering desperately in the cavity of his chest, searching for some kind of answer - an impossible resolution to an entirely too real reality. Then he shut it off. Impossible. There was no way out. His posture shifted and straightened, his eyes hardening and cutting off the world, his Slytherin mask falling effortlessly into place.
He blinked his cold grey eyes once. Then he stood with the utmost solemnity and self-assurance. The younger Ginny - his Ginny - turned her face up to him. Tom offered his hand and she took it as he pulled her into standing position. He took her lightly in his arms, his lips resting by her ear and his whisper was so soft it barely stirred the stray strands of hair caught there.
'She sees what you see. She feels what you feel. She knows what you know. But you are not hers. She is you, you are your own. You are mine.'
Then Tom slid his dagger out of his sleeve and between Ginny's ribs.
The ginger haired girl gasped, blood bubbling up and choking her as she clutched her side and fell to the floor. The elder Ginny's anger flared, but she said and did nothing.
'The songbird has stopped singing, Ginny,' Tom told the girl curled up in a pool of her own blood. 'My little birdie ran out of tunes to sing. Would you like to hear what she told me?'
The wretched, blood soaked eighteen year old managed to nod through her pain, still controlled by her older self.
Tom crouched down beside her and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, smearing the blood covering her chin over her cheek and forehead. Softly Tom started humming a haunting, melodic tune that floated around the vast hall, words slowly forming on his tongue. Neither of the Ginnys recognised either tune or words, but it hung in the air like pain between the three of them, the memory forever carved into every stone and window of the great room.
The song ended softly, less like a begging plea and more like a last goodbye. Then Tom reached once more to Ginny's cheek and smeared her blood over that cheek, too. Suddenly those chocolate eyes cleared into an astonishingly sharp gaze, then her hands came up and scratched frantically at her eyes, blunt nails digging into the eyeballs and drawing out. Tom grabbed her wrists to try and stop her, but it was too late; the girl took one last gasping breath before her eyelids flickered closed over bloodied eyes.
'You killed her,' The older Ginny said, her expression somewhere between bemusement and irritation.
'I love her,' Tom replied, as if it explained everything.
Ginny sighed and almost floated towards him, her thin, gnarled hand cupping his cheek and Tom barely refrained from shuddering away from her touch. 'Loved, my darling,' she said. 'Past tense. She is dead.'
Tom turned emotionless grey eyes up to his nemesis, expression suddenly pitying. 'You just don't get it, do you? Ginny is dead, but do I love her any less for it? I will not see her again, but she is still in my heart, as long as I remember her I will love her.'
Merciless anger spewed from nowhere as the monster before Tom screeched in uncontrolled rage. Her words were inaudible, but tumbled like unbounded water from her mouth, poisoning the air that had, moments before, been filled with only pain.
Finally she calmed enough to be understood. 'Stupid boy! Were she still here, she'd hate you! You killed her stone dead to save your own worthless skin!'
Tom surprised her then by chuckling softly, the sound pitying and condescending. 'Were she still here I wouldn't have killed her stone dead, now would I? But I did and she isn't, so what are you worrying your empty little head about?'
It was foolish, really, baiting this twisted, barely human thing before him, but it was so tempting and Tom had nothing to lose. If this monster was to be understood his half brother and pseudo-sister were as dead as the still warm corpse at his feet. The feeling of emptiness and pointlessness left Tom feeling reckless.
It also was sending him into a high that he could not recall ever reaching before, at least not like this. He was untied, free. His actions would have no unwanted side-effects on people he cared about - everyone he had ever cared for, people he'd only just met - were dead! He could do anything, anything at all and he knew, right then, that no one could stop him.
Magical power swept in waves over his skin, arousing him and cutting through his sanity to that layer of madness he had hidden deep within his soul. He'd been protected by Ginny, ever since she'd entered his life at Christmas. But now this bitch had taken the protection away. And it wasn't protecting him, oh no. Ginny had been protecting the world. And, from the looks of it, the monster thought she could control it, could control him. But love was as much a madness as hatred and Tom had loved his Ginny to the point of insanity.
Blistering heat filled him and he became the devil opposite of the avenging angel Ginny had been. Cloaked in darkness so thick it drew the light from around him, he plunged the candle-lit hall into shadows. His eyes did not go slit-like or turn red, the scene all the more terrifying for his undeniable humanity. Face like carved stone cool grey eyes regarded the scene before him like they were made of flint.
Underneath the darkness you could make out the outline of the sharp suit he was wearing, not a scratch or tear in sight, but dripping in blood that was none of it his own and glittered eerily. His hands were unclenched, loose by his sides, one hand cradling his wand.
All Tom needed were horns and he might have been Lucifer himself, the phrase 'handsome as hell' given an entirely new meaning.
'What are you doing?' the monster asked, her eyes narrowed even more as she gazed at him suspiciously.
Tom's lips curved up into a tiny, compelling smile. 'Whatever I want to.' Stalking forward he thrust the hand not holding his wand up at the monster's neck, holding her above him with comparative ease, since she had no chin to speak of. The scene was scarily reminiscent to one several months earlier in which he'd held his Ginny up in a similar fashion.
'Put me down,' it hissed.
Tom through back his head and cackled madly, speaking to no one, 'she kills all I care for and dares to presume she can order me around!' Suddenly he was staring directly into its eyes, gaze so intense it seemed to be burning - though with what was uncertain. 'You share a bit of your past with my Ginny, but you are not her.' All humour was gone as he spoke in a venomous monotone. 'Once you shared her feelings, her thoughts, without a spell. Now you don't even share the same face. She toys with the fate of the world, but you burn it. You have the audacity to play God, but you're nothing but a lost little girl with a broken mind and a dangerous toy.'
It looked down at Tom with mahogany eyes that were almost… proud? 'But what a toy, my darling. What a toy! I can feel your magic make love to me as you glare and spit, but you are mine, more than Ginny was, even at the bitter end.'
Tom glared some more, but since words did not seem to be forth coming it continued.
'You can not kill me, darling. You can not kill me because it is not possible for you to do so. Your fingers may squeeze and your dagger may draw blood, but nothing more than that. It is in your programming.'
Next moment, the monster was sprawled on the floor, Tom keeping her down with his body and his knife pressed to her throat. 'Sometimes, darling,' he snarled, 'a tiny nick is all you need to kill.' The knife tip moved to the pulsing, vulnerable jugular vein in the monster's neck, swelling at each beat of her startlingly calm heart.
But then he froze. Tom found he could move the blade to and from the skin, but in that spot, and that spot alone, he could not break the skin.
'You can not kill me,' it taunted him, laughing softly in genuine amusement.
Tom hissed furiously and threw himself bodily away, stalking up and down the hall in a rage, until he came to an abrupt stop when he was perfectly in line with Ginny's body. He almost laughed. Oh, she was brilliant. Her eyes, her beautiful, chocolate brown eyes that would never see anything ever again.
I no longer see what you see.
Just as she was on the brink of death the connection spell had been broken. As with any wizarding bond the connection would always break at the point in which there was no return from death, less the other in the bond died too.
I no longer feel what you feel.
But the bond was ancient; older than the hills and perhaps as old as Merlin himself. The medical abilities of the time must have been less efficient than the current day. Ginny had been so busy fighting the monster in her head she hadn't realised that significance until the bond had been broken.
I no longer know what you know.
The only part of the bond that would stand until the last breath was drawn, the last pulse of the heart beaten, was that of the sight. And that had been why Ginny had clawed out her own eyes, even when Tom believed she had achieved her right mind. Then, brilliant, fantastic, genius Ginny had staged her own death. Like the fools they were Tom and the monster had believed - truly believed! - that Ginny would die that easily. That the depletion of her magic was the power slowly flowing from her body.
Only now, from his new vantage point, with a clear view of the pulse beating ferociously at Ginny's throat did Tom understand. Ginny's magic, that had seemed like it was fading, was in fact turning inward, healing her. Tom pushed his mind back to this very room, after the first time he had stabbed Ginny. She had sat there, happy as could be like there was nothing at all the matter, but her magic had been seriously drained.
Tom drew the dagger out of his sleeve. Twice this simple metal blade had plunged through skin and flesh, sliding between bones that were Ginny's. Twice it had nearly ended her life. Running a finger down the now-enchanted blade, Tom understood. Painfully real memories made present. And that was how killing Ginny had saved her life. And his too, probably.
'What do you want from me?' Tom asked the monster, his head bowed and the darkness wrapping around his throat and through his hair, caressing with long, cool fingers that sent a thrill of forbidden excitement run down his veins.
The monster had, at some point, pulled itself up from the floor where it had been left and was now sat, casually, on the Staff table. 'Everything,' it replied simply. 'Your mind, your soul, your power and everything the three combined, with my own, can achieve.'
'Nothing, then,' Tom said, smirking openly now. 'Don't you know by now that I am nothing? I am intelligent, but nothing remarkable. I have no heart and my soul is scarred beyond anything resembling sane. My power can not be controlled. And mix that in with yourself and it would not be the beginning of your foretold golden future. It would be the end. The two of together would be the apocalypse.'
'And doesn't that just thrill you? To be the ender of all things - what glory there would be!'
'Glory?' Tom snorted. 'Everyone - including us - would be dead. What glory is there in being the only coward left alive?'
It hissed, 'I am not a coward!'
'Oh no,' Tom said patronisingly. 'Of course not.' The smirk was back, accentuating the thick sarcasm in his tone. 'I was actually referring to myself, but I think I prefer your translation.'
The monster snarled like a wild cat, stalking towards him like he had become the prey.
Losing Ginny and then having her back again, then losing her again and now… Now Ginny was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, but alive. Could the monster moving closer to him sense Ginny's magic build? Could it feel the prickle of fury-driven magic? Could it taste the sudden tang in the air that was salty sweet - an all too familiar bloodlust. But this time it was specified bloodlust and this time it wasn't Tom's.
'Don't you feel it?' the beautiful voice of the hideous face asked. 'That electricity in the air? That's us, Thomas, darling. That's what we are together? How can you not sense it?'
Tom didn't know what 'electricity' was, but the irony of the situation did not escape him. Oh, it was an 'us'. It was even Tom and Ginny. But it was not Tom and the monster that now pressed itself against him, claiming that she, too, was called Ginny.
'I sense it,' Tom whispered tauntingly back. 'But it is not you.'
'Not me,' it agreed. 'Us.'
The monster was pressed completely against Tom now, the anger it had felt mere moments ago having dissipated completely. Tom tried to take a step away from the repulsive creature, but it latched onto him, its arms wrapping around him like iron bands holding him in place. Then it pressed its mouth down on his, tongue pressing past thin lips and demanding entrance, teeth drawing blood when Tom did not open to this unwelcome intruder.
Then, next second, the monster was sprawled over the floor a good five metres away.
'Tsk. Did you not know that I'm a jealous little bitch?' Ginny said disparagingly. Her face was covered in blood that Tom had smeared there, and her hair was half up, half down, but the slave bond marks were gone. Her eyelids kept fluttering - as if expecting to be able to reveal healthy eyes beneath - and kept showing the bloody masses beneath. It was a terrible sight, but it didn't seem to stop the vindictive grin or the teasing tone.
'You're dead!' the monster spluttered, trying to get its bearings.
Ginny's grin grew to cover her entire face. 'Really?' she asked in a childishly excited tone. 'Does that make you God, then?'
Tom listened to this with unabashed awe, ignoring the confusion that nagged at the back of his mind - God? Where was Ginny going with this?
'Because, you see, if you are, there are a couple of things I'd like to ask.'
Tom glanced across at where the monster was regaining its footing, a furious expression welded across its face.
'First up: Seriously? What the fuck were you thinking? You made the human race, surely you know if you tell someone not to something under any circumstances what-so-ever that is exactly what they're going to do? And then you chuck us out of Heaven because we followed the nature that you made for us.
'Next: Eve. Adam and Eve. You named the first two people on Earth Adam and Eve. No offence, but they are really bad names. Was their last name Smith? I bet it was. And what was-'
'SHUT UP!' the monster roared, looking less human than it ever had. 'I am not God! Stop asking pointless, inane questions!'
Ginny jumped up and down twice on the spot, clapping her hands together and swinging around to face Tom. 'Did you hear that?' she squealed, making Tom wonder whether the pressure of being almost killed and draining her magic to save herself whilst battling herself inside her head and tearing her own eyes out had finally driven Ginny mad. 'Straight from the horse's mouth,' she continued. 'She isn't God!'
Oh. Oh. Well. Not mad then.
Ginny turned back to the monster who had once looked like herself and this time when she spoke there was nothing sarcastic, childish or teasing at all in her tone. This time when she spoke she was being utterly serious. 'You said yourself you are not God. Now turn and leave before I loose my head and kill you for shits and giggles.'
The monster didn't even reply as it raised its wand and a spark blood red burst forward.
Tom winced, without his wand he was useless, and it was clear that Ginny didn't have her wand either. Her magic was seriously depleted, but Ginny didn't even have to raise a hand to stop the red spell from reaching her. The spark of light flashed and faded in the millisecond that it was in the air.
'Crucio,' the monster tried, another burst of magic escaping her wand, but again, the pulse flashed and died before it reached its target. 'CRUCIO!' It screeched, but it made no difference, the spell died before it hit Ginny.
As for Ginny herself, she was just standing there, head slightly bowed as if in submission, and a tiny smile gracing her features. A freckled hand reached up and tugged her hair free, the band holding it in place falling to the floor and, somehow, sucking into itself every drop of blood still staining the stonework. The curtain of thick, honey red hair his Ginny's face well, but even the monster could see that Ginny was not exerting herself. Brought herself back to life, stopped an unforgivable spell not once but three times, but not exerting herself.
'You were stupid, you know. To bring us here,' Ginny said, raising her head slightly.
'Stupid?' the monster hissed. 'Stupid?'
Ginny grinned. 'Tom, in the British Isles, where would you say is the most magical place? After Stonehenge, of course.'
And then Tom grinned. 'Hogwarts,' he replied easily, lowering himself onto a nearby bench gracefully and running a hand through his hair. 'Although some say there's a natural spring somewhere along the south-east coast of Ireland.'
'We'll have to check that out some time,' Ginny said, smiling suggestively. 'Could be fun.'
Given the situation Tom was surprised at how quickly he perked up at the suggestion. He'd never had much of a chance to travel, and touring the magical sights of the British Isles sounded an awful lot of fun, especially if he went with Ginny. After all, the word 'spring' had several different, interesting, meanings. He smirked back and tried not to let his mind wander.
'Tom is mine!' the monster snarled, successfully cutting off the shared fantasy both Tom and Ginny seemed to be having.
'No, hon, Tom is mine,' Ginny corrected. Her eyelids finally stopped flickering and stayed fully shut, her head cocking as she turned to face the monster.
'What's so important about being at Hogwarts, anyway?' it hissed.
Ginny seemed to consider the monster before her for a moment before answering. 'Dumbledore has been giving me private lessons, don't you know?' she grinned cockily at Tom who struggled not to snigger. 'Interesting fellah. Completely barmy, of course, but has odd words or two that come in handy. First thing he taught me was how to see without using my eyes. Given my current situation-' here Ginny sighed dramatically, eyes opening fully to reveal eyeballs that had completely healed over, now. Instead of the dark red they had been before they were plain white, with a single, thin black circle the only marker of where her irises had once been. '-is quite lucky, no?
'Second up, and really rather fascinating, was the fact that certain witches and wizards with the right… insight… into the world, can draw any pliable magic from the surroundings.'
Tom didn't hold back his laughter this time at Ginny's terminology. If it had been him, he would have been distraught over the loss of his sight, but the more Ginny spoke the more he understood that Ginny hadn't lost her sight, per se, merely gained a new outlook on life.
'So, you see, bringing a person like me to a place like this really wasn't you smartest idea. And you can drop the glamour now, hon. I can see what your projecting, but I can also the 'real' world.'
The monster once again snarled something incomprehensible and the surroundings started to fade. Disorientated Tom shut his eyes for a long moment in the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, when he woke up again it would all be a nightmare and he'd still be curled up on the couch wrapped up in Ginny's arms.
Tom felt a warmth behind him and almost started, until he recognised the body pressing against his back.
'A word to the wise, sweet,' Ginny said so softly he almost missed it, 'don't look down.'
Hesitantly Tom opened his eyes and, following Ginny's advice, did not look down. Other than that he took in immediate stock of his surroundings. The monster was still standing five metres away, snarling and bristling, but other than that it seemed nothing was the same.
The room glowed soul-green from lights that could not be seen, and the walls, even parts of the ceiling, were covered in bookshelves upon bookshelves - bookshelves that seemed to be unnaturally far away. Tom recognised this place. After visiting the room regularly for almost an entire year it was hard not to. 'Salazar's study,' he whispered.
Remembering Ginny's words from earlier Tom realised that Ginny, when she said not to look down, was inviting him, in a teasing way, to do exactly that. Her arms were tight around his middle, her cheek pressed against the muscle between his shoulder blades and her breathing even.
It was only when he looked down that Tom came to the understanding that he wasn't actually standing on anything.
'Gin?' he asked quietly.
'Hmm?'
'We're not standing on much, are we?' Translated: how the-?? What the-?? Okaaaay.
Ginny giggled, her arms tightening. 'No, not really,' she responded. 'You're… the soul light's going to start affecting you in a minute, is that alright?'
Tom frowned and tried to remember what happened when the soul light 'affected' him. It was hard - although he remembered this room and the meetings here it was not with the usual clarity in which he remembered important things. It was frustrating having his mind fucked with like this, but after a year he had grown… not used to it, exactly. Resigned to it, was a better way of putting it.
'Just get me to solid ground,' he muttered. 'I don't fancy you floating two of me.'
Ginny swallowed and started hesitantly, 'Tom… this is Salazar's private study.'
'Hmm?'
'And Salazar was a sneaky, paranoid little fellow who trusted no one.'
'Where are you going with this?' Tom asked, getting a little tired of Ginny's beating around the bush.
'Are you seriously telling me you think that any of this floor is real?'
'Oh.'
'Hmm.'
It should hurt, really, splitting into two different people. There was a spell, somewhere, that allowed a powerful wizard or witch to create a doppelganger of themselves or another close to them, but it was a lengthy, strenuous process that was in no sense safe. The majority of people who had attempted it had ended up killing themselves, either from over exerting their magical energy, killing both themselves and the doppelganger, or by getting over confident and spending too much time as two people, ultimately resulting in their demise.
The soul light, however, was something completely different. 'Soul light' was the colloquial term for a name so horrendously long and unpronounceable that no one could really remember what it was. Soul light was something that could not be created; it, like diamond, had to be found. The comparison to diamond was a good one - there were various types of magic, the most common of which was 'people magic' this was the type of magic that witches, wizards and even muggles had. They were born to it and grew into it; manipulating it and wielding it. People magic was the magic that people could control.
Then there was 'wild magic', something all children fling about when they are little. It was also the source of nature's magic - the magic that influenced werewolves as the moon grew full, the static that filled the atmosphere before a huge storm, that muggles mistook for electricity. The force behind volcanoes and the swell of the sea. There were other, innumerable types of magic; elvish, gnomic, giant, seers', goblin… the list went on and on, but the last of the three most common magicks is soul magic.
Soul magic came in springs across the world, but it was endless. Unlike the muggles' oil it did not run out; once a spring or well was found it would not end, but constantly supply the owner with soul magic. And the owner only. Soul magic was like a cross between the other two main types; it was wild, it belonged to no one in particular, yet it lay dormant unless manipulated by a vessel (whether the vessel was human, centaur, elven, etc, did not matter).
And the wonderful, magnificent, terrible thing was that this particular spring of soul magic belonged to Hogwarts, it's founders, ghosts, elves, teachers, pictures, gargoyles, hidden rooms, passageways, staircases, ceilings and students alike. And Hogwarts could not differentiate between the two Ginnys. And so leant itself willingly to one of it's ex-pupils wills.
And the soul light, only apparent in the most abundant of springs, was a terrible thing, much as it was amazing. Soul light could allow you to look to the heart of someone, to see the doubts in their very soul, their weaknesses, their strengths and, if you had the power to do so, it allowed you to split that weakness, that soul, that person, into two. It was not a permanent thing, like the Horcruxes, but it was enough to seriously disorientate the receiver and it gave the offender a deep insight into the flaws of character in the other.
Tom was split into two every time he came to this room, under that green, magical light. This time, however, he quickly, effortlessly, with next to no pain, split into not two, but three different people.
The floor that was not a floor decided, for some reason, to form over under all of them, allowing Ginny to set herself and the splitting Tom onto the ground. She was wary of the floor disappearing again, but it seemed unlikely that that would happen.
Once the split – like the refraction of light through glass – was complete Ginny realised that she recognised two of them, they were the ones she had seen before. One was the cold, cynical Tom and the other the warmer, sarcastic yet somehow kindly teasing Tom.
The last did not come as a surprise as she had recognised him in Tom before, but had never seen her as a constant. It was the blood lust in him. The first part of him that had become the monster's. It was the part in Tom that could be surprised, but not forgotten. The part that had murdered his father and step-mother. The part that coolly calculated murder. The part without a conscience.
All this took place within a split second and, when the change was done, all the Toms turned expectantly to Ginny.
'Tom?' she asked softly, moon white eyes flicking from one to the next.
'It's alright, Gin,' one answered.
'Don't worry, Ginevra,' the next said.
'How can you see us?' the last, the murderous one, asked.
Ginny grinned. It was like having three brothers again. 'I know, I won't,' she told the first two, before the grin turned into a smirk as she faced the last question. 'Are you listening, Ginny?' she asked. 'Your little Tommy wants to know how I can see without eyes. Do you want to know?' Her voice was mildly patronising, almost as if she couldn't be bothered to put any real effort into goading her enemy, as if it wasn't worth it.
The monster nodded once, trying to keep the eagerness from its eyes.
'I can't,' Ginny replied. 'I can't see a damn thing. Irritating, that, isn't it?'
One of the Toms chuckled lightly, eyes flashing with some unnameable emotion and causing the monster before them to get really angry.
'Stop fooling around!' it snarled ferociously in Ginny's direction.
'Oh but I like fooling around, don't I, Tom?' Ginny replied rhetorically, dropping a wink over her shoulder at the three versions of her boyfriend.
The monster hissed a curse at Ginny's turned head and, for a split second, it seemed as though time itself had stopped. The bright blue-purple pulse of the curse hung like a frozen shooting star heading straight towards the back of Ginny's head, the girl still smirking from her joke. The monster's face was twisted into a malevolent expression somewhere between crunched up in a snarl and stretched into a smirk.
Then the world started again and watched expectantly for the curse to crash into Ginny's head. The only problem being with this that Ginny's head suddenly wasn't there anymore. The curse passed harmlessly onwards, continuing towards the floor that opened helpfully and swallowed it. Then the air was alight with three different pulses of magic and the monster was knocked backwards to the floor.
Ginny was crouched down, head bowed and hair masking whatever emotion might have been on her face. She had one leg bent beneath her, the other stretched out to the side as a balance. Both hands were fists down to the floor, as though she'd punched it when she ducked from the curse, rather than using her hands to steady herself.
'Coward,' Ginny said, flicking her hair back over her shoulder. 'You are never what I will be.'
'But I am what you could have been,' the monster hissed back, its dark red eyes glinting.
The magic hung in the air was palpable in that moment, singing it's terrible song for all that cared to listen.
'I am you in a way more real than you are yourself,' the monster continued, revelling in the way Ginny winced away from the words. 'I am what you become when you give in to temptation for just a single moment. I am your personally deadly sin.' It cackled madly. 'Who needs seven when you have me, dear Ginevra?'
The monster was practically slithering across the floor towards Ginny, it's head on the same level as hers, in spite of the fact the monster had not actively bent over.
'I know what you know,' it hissed, face by her ear and stirring the strands of hair there, like she and Tom and had whispered to each other, so many times in the passed. Then the monster leant even forwards and traced the shell of Ginny's ear with it's strangely pointed tongue, drawing a thick line of saliva down Ginny's neck, producing a reaction so opposite to the one Tom's similar ministrations would have alluded to.
Ginny's head bowed again as she tried to keep her body from moving in anyway, her entire being concentrated in not reacting, her body radiating the sudden increase in tension. Ginny so longed to jump away and swipe away the monster's spit, cleaning it several times with charms, water and, hopefully, Tom. Instead she stayed in her crouched position on the floor, face crinkled in the effort it took.
Suddenly Ginny realised what it must have been like for Harry to be touched by Voldemort. 'Pure torture,' he'd said. It was different in many ways, as Ginny wasn't being physically hurt in anyway, but the implications, the nearly overwhelming desire to get as far away from that enemy as possible, as soon as possible, was the same.
Ginny needed to do something - change into something that this monster wouldn't want to even approach, let alone lick. That's when Ginny stood slowly and, as she'd practiced, collapsed her body in on itself. As soon as she had turned into her Animagus form she concentrated on dulling the iridescent shine of her scales and slithering - disappearing - into the background.
Ginny? Three voices hissed in Parseltongue.
Ginny, as much as a snake could, grinned to herself. Tom, sweet, she replied in a teasing tone.
'Where is she?' the monster snarled to the surliest version of Tom.
'Right under your nose,' he replied, receiving a nasty stinging hex for his effort.
'You are mine!' it almost shouted, terrible voice almost painful in the echoing cavern.
'I am hers,' three voices echo back, mock obediently. On some instinctive level Ginny knew that the trained response - the answer that was expected by the monster was 'I am yours'. It was but a little victory, but it was something.
Ginny was somewhat amused to notice that in her snake form any injuries sustained in human form did not carry over - or, at least, she didn't think so, judging from the fact that her eyes worked. But, then, a snake's vision was mostly sensed through the vibrations in the air, picked up through its tongue.
Be ready, Ginny hissed softly before she unfurled herself.
There was nothing particularly impressive about Ginny. She was shorter than most, but not very small. She was not impossibly skinny, nor was she over weight. The air did not crackle with possibilities around her, but it still had the familiar hum of magic. Her grades were, agreeably, above average and her wit sharper than most, but it was presented in such a lazy, uncaring way that it often escaped anyone's noticed until the crucial moment had passed.
Standing before this monster she might have become Ginny seemed abnormally normal. She was relaxed, her wand still sticking out of her back pocket and bruised hands dangling easily by her sides. Her eyes were shut in what would appear to be over confidence and her weight was shifted on to one leg, her hip jutting out. Her relaxation in face of the monster was incredible.
And, to Tom, surprisingly erotic.
When the air exploded once more with magic and both versions of Ginny were ducking and weaving in a garish dance of death, sparks of curses and hexes shooting through the air, all three versions of Tom unconsciously licked their lips. As they moved as one the bodies slid together and those three, so different parts of Tom were, once again, united.
Nagini, he hissed, Ginny grinning around a dark blue spell as she recognised the word, even in the snake tongue.
'Tom,' she replied, her blind eyes looking directly at him. A soft smile lit her face and made moon white eyes glow.
Ginny took Tom's hand and span both of them to side as three hexes flashed through the space they'd been standing moments before.
And, in that moment, the fight took on a whole other meaning.
The monster stood in the centre of the room snarling and spitting out curses and hexes left right and centre, the occasional unforgivable unrecognisable in the rainbow of colours. As each spell missed the targets the monster grew angrier and angrier and let off more spells faster and faster, the words and thoughts merging into one and creating new, more terrible spells without effort or thought - it was terrifyingly incredible.
And if Tom had thought the duel looked like a dance before he had been mistaken. He and Ginny span around the floor in a complex pattern as they bowed, span, side stepped, dipped and jumped their way from spell to spell without being hit by a single one. It was a deadly dance of risk and chance that the couple excelled at, drawing from the strengths of each other, both leading and following when their time came.
But this constant state of step, slide, turn, do the unpredictable and never stop moving could not be held forever, the duelling dance reaching a terrible crescendo when Tom span Ginny one last time and bowed her back so far her head almost grazed the ground. Then her head raised and her lips crashed into his, lending him the final push of strength and knowledge he needed to knock their adversary of its feet.
Their hips ground together and Ginny dropped her head back again, back arching to press herself closer - closer. Tom devoured her inviting neck and thrust against her once, twice, three times. One of Ginny's hands cupped the curve of his backside, the other trailing fingertips from his chin, down his neck and past his naval.
'Tom,' she said, so softly he almost missed it.
'Love you,' he replied to her neck, knowing the sentiment she had not voiced and returning it.
Then he straightened, pulling her upright with him. He kissed her again, all teeth and tongue and wonderful heat before they let one another go and turned to the monster prostrate at their feet.
The hideous figure, once proud despite its ugliness tried in vain to pull itself into a standing, or at least sitting position. Its eyes, once dark crimson that gleamed with malicious glee or infuriated anger were now dull and once again just a normal brown. It's hair had lost all colour, grey curls flopping hopelessly against too thin shoulders and neck. Lips and nose and widened and thickened, returning to their usual proportions, a half-hearted sneer not quite reaching its eyes.
The darkness that had once cloaked the figure had receded quickly, disgusted by its host's weakness and leaving plain black, torn and patched robes that even at his most needy Remus had not been reduced to wearing them. What a sad state of affairs when a pureblood witch wore worse robes than a half blooded werewolf.
Ginny stepped forward and knelt by the figure, close but not touching. Tom took two steps back, watching the interaction with interest.
'Oh, Ginny,' Ginny sighed, head bowed as a sudden wave of empathy struck her. 'Could you not see? We've seen a teen age boy fight a Dark Lord win, seen people raped and tortured, heard people scream for their lives, seen unadulterated love directed as us. Compared to that, what are we?'
The monster finally managed to raise its stricken face and Tom suddenly realised with a pang that the monster was no longer that; was no longer an 'it'. This was a lost, confused old lady driven mad by her own history and isolation.
'There's so much out there, Ginny,' Ginny continued in the same soft voice. 'There are so many people and lives and love and, somehow, you managed to miss it all, didn't you? You forgot what it was like to be held; to be loved.'
'I've never been loved,' a cracked voice replied, broken and aged and totally unrecognisable to the dulcet tones of earlier.
'Harry loved you,' Ginny said. 'When we were one and the same, he loved you.'
'No, he loved you. I am not that girl anymore,' the broken voice contradicted.
Ginny did not even try to argue against that.
'I just wanted to matter.' Tom realised with horror that the monster - no, the old lady - had started to cry. 'I just wanted to do something - be someone. I don't want to be a nobody dying in a backstreet with no more than a stub of rock to commemorate my life. I wanted… I wanted to live.'
Ginny hugged the lady hard, the two figures of the same person on different, yet intertwined timelines clutching one another desperately. 'I know,' Ginny whispered, 'I know.'
Tom felt awkward and out of place in his position standing over the two women, so he made to step around them. Maybe he'd talk to Salazar, tell him what had happened. Perhaps he'd help him get a few if his many issues sorted out.
It was as he made his way around the back of the old lady that he saw the deadly glint of a sharpened blade - directed towards Ginny's - his Ginny's - heart.
'Ginny!' he yelled, jumping towards them.
'I know,' the girl whispered, as the blade held by her older self twisted down.
It was another one of those awful moments when time seemed to stop, the details of the situation far too sharp and far too impossible to escape.
Tom didn't even see the flash of green, not with the soul light that filled the room. But the blade stopped millimetres from Ginny's skin, already tearing a hole through her shirt. The already duller eyes of the enemy suddenly as flat as a fish's as the body slumped and the first tear escaped Ginny's sightless eyes.
'I know,' she whispered brokenly, rocking the corpse that she still hugged tightly. 'I know and I'm so, so sorry.'
She pressed a kiss to the lady's forehead and then stood shakily, letting the body go completely. Tom rushed straight to her side, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her upright. She looked mournfully up at him and, in that moment, Tom knew that his Ginny would never become what the monster had been. She simply cared far too much.
She hugged the front of his shirt and wept against him, Tom simply standing and being, his arms loose around her. She didn't say anything and nor did he - neither needed to. He simply offered the comfort he knew she needed and she took it without question, accepting it with a grace that seemed unfathomable at that point in time.
Finally Ginny straightened. She rubbed a hand swiftly across her bloodshot eyes and gave him a weak, watery smile. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough.
'OK?' he asked.
'No,' she replied honestly. 'But I will be.'
'Let's go Ginny. It's over.'
Ginny smiled sadly at him again. 'This battle is won, sweet, but the war for this world is never over.'
A/N Woot! Final chapter! Sorry it took longer upload than I'd expected, but this was incredibly difficult chapter to write. And for that, I fear this chapter is not as coherent as usual. If it is I sincerely apologise. I will, one day, read through and revise this story, but until that day I simply can't be bothered.
Anyways, I won't say too much more, as my final note will be put at the very end of the story. Until then, please review and tell me what you thought!
Much love,
Cal
xxx