Wahoo! Finally an update! :-D

By the time Ginny had made it back to the Gryffindor common room, she was in no mood for sleeping. She felt buzzing, anxious and alive. What had just happened there with Tom Riddle had given her a boost of unearthly energy.

She was certain even her dormitory looked different; the moon glowed through the curtains brighter and the portal pendant around her neck shone even more intensely. She could not see this, but even her eyes were brighter.

She felt a longing. A longing for something new and exciting. An adventure. A passion. A power. Anything. She simply needed something to get away from Hogwarts, where all her troubles seemed to lie, and fly away. On the positive side, there actually was a cure for this desperation. The negative was that she had to run to Riddle to receive it.

Ginny burrowed under the covers. Wait until the morning, she told herself. Run off now, and the night will be lost and I'll be dragging myself along to whatever lesson I have in a daze before I know it. She twirled the snake's head. Although, I'm sure transfiguration can be put aside for one morning.

She shivered. Even beneath her bed covers her breath was cold. She had a curious hunger for warmth. Fire. Excitement. Living in the knowledge that she could travel between dimensions in time, after spending a significant amount of her life being told where to go and when, had set her mind racing with risqué possibilities.

There was just one problem with this request. She needed Tom Riddle. The portal pendant sent her to all these places, but the events would not be memorable had it not been for his intervention.

Ginny bit her lip. She hated him for it. She hated herself for it, feeling weak and pathetic for giving into his power. The only comfort was that she now had a new lease of life. A part of Riddle was coursing through her, and although she was not proud of it, she was keen to test it out.

Enough was enough. She crept back out of bed, this time remembering her slippers, tiptoed out of the dormitory and down the stairs to the common room. Confident that nobody was around, she lifted the portal pendant, which had been sitting in her palm the whole time, and opened up the serpent's mouth.

The room consumed her and contorted her for the moment, until she her feet met the floor once more through a puff of golden smoke. The first thing her eyes became acquainted with was Tom Riddle's smirking face.

"I wondered how long it would take for you to come crawling back to me."

Ginny scoffed. "I would hardly call this crawling," she replied, putting the pendant around her neck and letting it drop beneath her night dress. "I simply cannot sleep."

Riddle paused. "And suddenly I am the perfect remedy for insomnia?"

"Not exactly," she said in a quiet voice.

"And speaking of remedies," he stepped closer to her, his hands typically held behind his back as he strode, "you owe me my magic back."

Ginny tensed, but did not back away. "Your magic?"

Riddle chuckled softly. "Did you really expect me to inject your blood with mine and never demand it back?"

Something inside Ginny's chest sunk. He gave this power, this strong feeling, only to rip it away from her? Then she remembered, this was Lord Voldemort. Compassion was never his strong point.

"Do you expect me to simply smile and let you take it?" she smiled mockingly but sweetly at him. Riddle laughed loudly; his physical appearance may have been more human, what with his matt colouring, grey eyes and dull complexion, but his voice never lost that sharp high-pitched echo.

"Ginny Weasley, you have become the feisty little witch." He paused, his mouth still creasing into a smirk. "Since losing my powers will come as such an upset to you … I'll devise us a deal."

Ginny looked at him with curiosity. "Let me take back my magic, let me regain my full power, and I'll show you something I've never shown anymore before. I'll take you somewhere nobody's ever been."

She continued to look at him. His eyes met hers with confidence. Since he had been zapped of all his previous power, his more human eyes seemed suddenly more trust worthy. They were no longer glossy with a red glimmer, they were simply shiny and grey, coated with a rim of black lashes. In the light they were almost silver. Ginny dragged herself out of them and straightened up.

"Where, precisely, would you take me?"

"Well, that's down to me, so I'm keeping it as a surprise. But I promise you," he pulled out his wand, "you would regret missing the chance to see it."

He held out his free hand, waiting for her to offer him hers. Cautiously she raised it.

"You promise you'll show me this … place if I give you your power back?" she asked.

"I promise," he whispered with a delicate hiss.

Ginny swallowed, then shut her eyes tight as she held out her hand, waiting for the drowning draining feeling from earlier on.

Riddle carefully pushed his wand into her wrist and summoned the magic out from her bloodstream and through his wand into his finger tips. Ginny felt her energy levels drop slightly, and felt her broadly held shoulders stoop. Simultaneously, Tom Riddle's skin regained its pearly sheen and his eyes began to brighten.

Only moments later he pulled his wand away. Ginny brushed a finger over her wrist. She definitely did not feel as weak and drowsy as she did before, but was still bitterly disheartened.

Tom straightened up and twirled his gracefully between his fingers. The mad glint in his eye had returned, if not a little more subdued than before. "Well then, you have fulfilled your side of the deal," he began, looking almost amusingly at Ginny, "so now it is my turn to fulfil mine."

Ginny blinked in surprise. With his wand he casually performed an oval of silver sparks in the air. The sparks chased each other around growing bigger and bigger in size, until they formed the shape of a ring big enough for a human to walk through. Tom turned from the ring to Ginny.

He held out a pale hand. Ginny eyed it with a new growing fear.

No matter how you span it, stepping hand in hand with Lord Voldemort into a magical ring in mid air into an unknown dimension with no idea where it was or how to get back if something most likely went wrong was a bad idea.

A spin-chillingly charming smile lit up his face. His hand remained out stretched.

Just take it. Go on.

NO WAY! You know better than that, Ginny Weasley.

But this could be an adventure!

This could turn into a nightmare.

Maybe this is just a nightmare, a bad dream.

Maybe this is all too real.

Either way, we could go anywhere …

… Exactly ….

"Shall we?"