A/N: I swear, one day I will get the hang of updating weekly.

Zero excuses for the wait. Excuse for the shortness and poor quality of this chapter: I don't feel well today, at all. But also…I don't know, I was just blocked this whole chapter. It was a huge struggle to get ANY words out. Maybe because this is the only chapter for a while that isn't planned completely through. Apologies for any continuity and/or grammar and/or stylistic issues.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. I own a scented candle and some pens.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Reviews make me smile, and I could use some smiles!

She stood before the dark wood door, shaking. She didn't want to knock. She hated the very idea of knocking, of waiting for an invitation inside that room. She didn't want to hear the voice on the other side of the door, didn't want to see the darkness within, didn't want to speak to the room's occupant.

But what choice did she have? She couldn't sit alone forever, it would drive her mad. She lived alone with her thoughts enough as it was, and now that she hadn't slept in days it was just too much suffering for her to bear. And she was on a mission.

Slowly, hesitantly, she raised a hand and knocked on the smooth surface of Tom Riddle's door.

Ginny stood in the hall, shaking in her green dress. She swallowed hard and waited, but she heard no voice. Carefully, she leaned forward and pressed an ear against the door of his bedroom. She heard no movement. Raising a trembling hand, she knocked again. This time she heard fabric shifting, and then a low voice. "What could you possibly want, Ginevra?"

She took in a sharp breath and jumped away from the door. "I…I need something."

"Obviously," came Tom's dry voice from the other side of the door. "What is it?"

She curled her fingers into fists. "You-you said I could write a letter to Mafalda Prewett, weeks ago."

"So I did," she could hear him sigh. "I never thought you would take me up on that."

When she heard movement, she stood with her back against the opposite wall. She hadn't seen Tom in a week, not since his failed attempt with the amortentia. He hadn't even made her trays of food. Every morning she would see evidence that he'd been in the kitchen during the night, but she wouldn't see him. Now that she hadn't slept for three days, she heard him go downstairs and back to his room at night, but she never tried to speak to him. Until now, she hadn't wanted to.

His door opened, and Ginny couldn't help but feel a bit of pleasure at noticing he looked as bad as she did. There were dark circles under his eyes, his dark hair was untidy, his clothing wrinkled as though he hadn't changed them in days. His skin was too pale, sickly pale. He looked at her through the light of the hallway with narrowed eyes.

"You want to write a letter to a woman you've never spoken to?"

"Well…" she didn't know how to respond without making her intentions obvious.

A ghost of a smirk on his face. "You're hoping she'll give the letter to your family."

Caught. But how could she not be? It was obvious she wanted contact with her family, and what else was Mafalda going to do with a letter from a distant relative other than send it to her family?

Ginny expected Tom to shut the door in her face, but he examined it instead. He seemed to note her own pale skin and dark circles. And then he opened the door and stepped inside, seeming to assume she would follow him., so she did.

His room was not quite what she had been expecting. She had imagined it to be exceptionally neat, with a few possessions in their place and otherwise mostly bare walls and tables, with black and green as the main colors.

Instead, the room was mostly cream and amber colored, but this was hardly noticeable beneath the piles of papers and books, words scribbled on chalkboards on the walls. It smelled of ink and old parchment. Quickly, Ginny glanced at some of the words that were scattered about her. 'Eros' and 'love' were predominating, but there were also lists of potion ingredients. Books with names of magical theorists and unfamiliar potion ingredients were everywhere, a broken vial on one side of the room was oozing some sort of shiny pink liquid, and even a few old, unfamiliar wedding photographs were strewn about.

Tom was studying love, and probably how to create love with magic. She felt confident he would find no answers, but a little fearful voice in her head wondered if he wasn't powerful enough to make his own spell to manipulate love. It already existed in her, after all – all Tom had to do was change it's direction from Harry to himself.

Ginny swallowed and looked around the room a bit more, noticing the bed in a corner, unmade. It looked like Tom was sleeping when she had knocked.

"As promised," Tom was saying as he cleared a table by dumping it's contents on the floor, "I will write the letter, and you will tell me what to write."

Ginny nodded, and then yawned. "I also couldn't find any potion ingredients. I need something to make me sleep."

"How long since you slept last?"

"Three days, I think."

She saw Tom's frown, and wondered how he could possibly be concerned. Maybe he was worried she would die before he could make her fall in love with him.

He dipped a quill in dark ink. "I'll make something once we're finished with the letter."

Ginny nodded, and after a few turns around the room she finally found a chair, covered in a sheet with a cauldron full on books sitting on top of it. She cleared the chair and brought it over to sit beside Tom. Once she did, she couldn't resist closing her eyes resting her head against the table. She was so tired, exhaustion clung to every bone in her body, particularly the ones about her eyes.

"Why haven't you slept?" asked Tom as he addressed the envelope. Ginny glanced up and noted that her relative lived in a flat in London now.

"Normally I would refuse to answer that," Ginny reminded him, and she closed her eyes again. "But I'm just too tired to care. I don't know why I can't sleep, I just can't. My mind won't shut off. Every time I get close I just…jolt awake, for no reason at all."

Tom made some sort of understanding sound, and she heard the quill scratching on the parchment now. "What is it you want to write?"

"What plans do you have?"

"You want to ask her about her plans for the future? Really?"

Ginny shook her head and sat up. "No. I mean you. You've had weeks. You must have an idea of what you plan on doing now."

Slowly, Tom set the quill down, and then he rubbed his hands together as though he were cold. "I do."

"And?"

He looked at her through the corner of his eyes. "And why should I tell you, Ginevra?"

Ginny blinked at him, and tried to think of a reason beyond that she was trapped with him and she had a right to know what she was being dragged into. This wasn't a reason that would work on Tom Riddle. She needed a reason that would give him something to gain.

But to her surprise, he smiled and said, "Do you remember that what I want is to call you my Queen?"

Ginny wanted to point out that she hated it, but what was the point? And she was just too exhausted to care. Everything felt fuzzy, unattached, not real, like there was a layer between herself and the real world. What did it matter what she said? He knew she hated him. There was no reason to repeat that. "Yes, I remember."

"I'm going to make that a reality."

"How?"

"By ruling the whole of the Earth, not merely the magical community."

Ginny stared at him wide-eyed, but his gaze was locked on the blank parchment. "How?"

"Preferably with as little bloodshed as possible."

Ginny frowned, confused. "But…but why would you care whether there's bloodshed or not?"

"I told you," Tom sighed, turning in his chair so his body faced her. "If I do indeed have a conscience, I have no desire to weight it with unnecessary deaths. I would rather not risk it."

"But-"

And then they heard the strangest sound, coming from downstairs.

A door had opened and closed. The front door had opened, paused, and then closed. Someone had come into the house.

Ginny and Tom locked eyes for only a second before Ginny leapt from the chair, scrambling for the door to the room, which had swung closed the moment she was on her feet. It was Harry, it had to be Harry. He'd found her finally. Or maybe he didn't know she was there, but it didn't matter. He would soon.

So opened her mouth to scream Harry's name, but found herself unable to make a sound. Tom must have cast a spell on her! But it didn't matter, if Harry could just see her she felt like everything would be alright. She would be saved. She could go home, and everything would be okay again.

As her hand met the cool metal of the door handle, she felt Tom's arm wrap around her waist and he yanked her from the door. She hit the floor hard, hitting her head on jars full of Monkshood. As she fought to see straight, she heard him open the door instead.

"Who is down there?!" he called out, in a voice deeper than normal. He was disguising his voice, so Harry wouldn't recognize it, but Ginny knew he was too smart for that. He'd know it was Tom, and then he would come here and save her. Harry could beat Tom…he'd done it before. Harry was going to rescue her!

But the voice that called back was rough and unfamiliar. "It's me!"

Ginny heard Tom sigh, and saw him lower his wand arm. He turned and glared down at her, and then reached down and yanked her up by her shoulder. She had a difficult time staying on her feet – everything was blending together, her vision blurred after hitting her head and after not sleeping for so long – but managed to stay upright until they reached her room. Tom tossed her in, and then closed the door and locked it.

Once she could see again, she tried to speak. She fought to say 'Harry' with all her might, shaped her lips to form the word over and over again, but no sound escaped her. So she crawled to the door and pressed her ear against the crack between the wood of the door and the wood of the floor.

Tom and whoever the visitor was were arguing, that was clear from the sharp tones, the speed of their words and the raised level of volume. But they weren't loud enough for her to hear exactly what was being said. Every now and then she caught a word or two, 'take' and 'respect' and 'dark'. But it wasn't until the other voice said the word 'mudbloods' that she realized that the other voice wasn't entirely unfamiliar. It was Hades Xylander, the ex-Death Eater that had given her the records of Lord Voldemort, killed a hiker as a threat against Harry, and then tried to kill her.

She strained to hear more, closing her eyes and pressing her ear further against the crack. She steadied her breathing, tried to exhale as softly as possible. But still she could only catch a few words. 'Threat', 'death', 'little house', 'dare', 'rise again' and 'instead'. Frustrated, she sat up.

With a sigh, she tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. 'Take' could have been anything, an oath or an item or even a person. 'Respect'…Tom had said that. Probably, Hades found it difficult to respect the Dark Lord in such a different body. 'Dark' could again be anything, but given the speakers…they probably meant 'dark mark'.

'Threat' and 'death' were terrifying words. Tom had said the first, and Hades the second. Tom wanted Hades to deliver some sort of threat of death. That had to be it. 'Little house' was too confusing entirely, but maybe Hades disliked the Dark Lord living in such a small shack? 'Rise again' was clear – Tom Riddle would rise again. 'Instead'? Maybe Tom was explaining that instead of killing 'mudbloods', they'd just be taking the whole of the earth.

If only she could have heard more words, if only there had been some way of connecting these words better. But Ginny couldn't think of anything, and she could hear the front door opening and closing again.

There, that was another hint. The door could easily be opened from the outside. Maybe…just maybe there was some way to use that information to her advantage.

Ginny stood quickly when she heard Tom's footsteps approaching her door. A soft 'click' told her that her door was unlocked, and when it opened she was face-to-face with Tom. It was strange…obviously Hades had arrived to plan something with Tom, yet if anything Tom seemed even more tired than she was.

He lifted the spell that kept her silent, and turned to walk away. Ginny followed.

"What was it Hades wanted?" she asked, trailing after Tom.

Tom shook her head. "That information is not for you."

"I deserve to know."

"Really? What makes you think that?"

"I'm involved," she said as he walked into his room. In case he intended to close the door in her face she jumped through the threshold, but he only continued towards the table he'd cleared for her letter.

"You're involved? That is poor reasoning, Ginevra," he said, picking up the addressed envelope and running his wand over it. The writing disappeared, making the paper blank again. "Being involved does not mean you have a right to all the answers."

She walked up to the table as well, and stood beside him. "Of course it does!"

He took a seat, picked up the quill, and addressed the envelope again – this time, to the Burrow.

Eyes wide, Ginny sank into her chair. "W-what are you doing?"

Tom didn't reply for a moment as he finished addressing the envelope. Then he pulled the blank parchment closer, and poised the tip of the feather quill above it. "You and I both know where this letter will end up. It may as well be sent there in the first place."

"You're letting me write to my family?" asked Ginny incredulously. There was no way Tom would allow her contact with them…was there? Why would he do this? What was she missing?

Tom's eyes were locked on the parchment. "On one condition."

"What condition?"

"You must tell them to abandon your childhood home."

Ginny felt her breath catch in her throat. He wanted her family to leave the Burrow? But…why?

Suddenly, Ginny felt a sharp pain behind her ribs. Sheer panic was crashing down on her and could only breathe in short, sharp breaths. There was only one thing that had changed. Hades. Hades had been here, and there was a threat of death.

She was already deathly pale, yet she could still feel blood draining from her hollow cheeks. "Are they in danger? Is Hades coming for them?" Ginny's voice was a low whisper, and shook with nearly every syllable.

Tom looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, and before she could read his expression, he chuckled. "No, dear Ginevra. If you will recall, I do not have compassion. If Xylander was intending to murder your family, why should I put a stop to it? It wouldn't be my fault…only his."

Ginny swallowed, and then leaned forward. "But then…why…?"

A smirk spread across his face again. "If you do ever manage to escape, I don't want you knowing where to find them. I want you to be completely lost without me."

Ginny blinked as he turned back to the parchment. "But-"

"Time to write the letter. And remember…this may well be the last words they hear from you."

Ginny leapt from her seat. "So he is-"

He reached out and grabbed her arm, and then roughly pushed her back into her seat. "Your family has always resisted my will, Elaine. If they resist it now, I cannot allow them to live."

Ginny took in a sharp breath, her head spinning, her vision blurring again. This wasn't real, it couldn't be real, she must be asleep, dreaming –

She realized that Tom was staring at her forearm almost in horror, in the same place he had grabbed her. She looked to see if his touch had somehow left something on her skin, and saw that her arm was still as pale and clean as it had been all day. She looked back at him, brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"I…I apologize, Ginevra."

Her light brown eyes narrowed on his darker ones, which were still focused on her arm. This was by far the strangest words to have passed his lips. "What do you mean by that?"

"I just remembered. You said…"

"What did I say?"

His eyes remained locked on her arm for a moment, and then he closed his eyes and shook his head, then looked her in the eye, a cruelty in his gaze again.

Tom Riddle smiled. "So, my darling. What shall your last words to your family be?"

Artificial: A reminder that reviews mean the world to writers, positive or negative, short or long. If you can, please spare the time to leave your thoughts! And remember, the end of this story isn't set in stone, so your words could easily shape it! Yay exclamation points!