A:N: HAH! I'm not going to say anything here that might give what happens in this chapter away.
Disclaimer: I don't own Ginny or Tom or Hogwarts or the Wizarding World or Dippet or Dumbledore or Flitwick or Slughorn. However, I do quite a lot of other characters, as I made them up, and the plot is entirely mine.
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Chapter Thirty-Six: Another Glimpse Of Fire
However, the real thing that panicked her was that usually her dreams were soft and blurry. The ones that were this crystal-clear and vivid were unusual and rare… Ginny recalled that the vivid ones also had an uncanny knack of becoming reality.
A happy feeling was swelling Ginny's heart as she walked with Heather to her Charms class, but as soon as the eleven-year-old was out of sight, it sank. What she would give for such an easy happy ending.
Xxx
Let me in from the rain
Don't you let me go again
Let the water run down my face
That weekend was a Hogsmeade outing, and Grace decided that she was going to get her new Transfiguration book then. However, there weren't any bookcases, so once all of the other students had headed off in their Threstral-drawn carriages, Ginny, Grace and Philippa slipped out towards the edge of the Hogwarts grounds to Apparate.
"I'm so glad we can Apparate," said Ginny. "Otherwise this whole year would have been trapped inside the castle."
"I know," Philippa agreed. "We have so much freedom now."
Grace grinned. "We only have so much freedom because we're breaking the rules, you know," she pointed out.
"Oh yeah…"
They all laughed. Alden wasn't coming with them, as he had to work with Penelope Dann on the plans for the Graduation Ball. Ginny knew very little about it, as last year she hadn't been old enough to go, obviously, but this year knew even less. She suspected that she'd remain oblivious until she got there.
"Ready?"
"Yep."
They linked arms, holding onto each over and maintaining body contact, then – crack – they Disapparated.
Appearing on the Diagon Alley side of The Leaky Cauldron, they headed in to get three Butterbeers, and also for Grace to clean herself up, as she'd fallen over upon arriving and grazed her palms on the pavement.
"Are you alright, Grace?" Philippa asked, snickering as the brunette siphoned the blood from her hands and then healed it with a flick of her wand.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She flexed her fingers, wincing as it stretched the new skin, and then drank her Butterbeer.
They didn't have unlimited time, so the three finished their drinks quickly and then progressed towards the bookshop to get Grace's book.
Only when Ginny saw the broad sign declaring 'Flourish & Blott's' did she actually realise where they were going.
She stopped in her tracks.
"What?" Grace asked, turning to her curiously.
"Um." Ginny scratched the back of her neck, staring down at the cobbled street. "Our education's almost over, you know. Do you have to get a new Transfiguration textbook?"
Grace gave her an appraising frown. "Yeah, I need it – why?" Her eyes widened slightly in understanding. "Ohhh."
"Never mind. I'll just wait out here."
"No, come in with us. It'll be fine. If you can't do this, then you can never get on with anything," Philippa said firmly. "Trust me. The instant that Grace's got the book, you can walk on out and never come back. You don't have to even look at him. I can stand in front of you, if you want."
Actually, I would WAY prefer just to not go in.
"Thanks," Ginny muttered, and reluctantly followed the other girls into the bookshop. She didn't lift her eyes from her feet. They were quite interesting, really… so was the floor… and anything that wasn't above shoe-height. Her heart was hammering in her throat, and she was finding that breathing had become difficult.
Together Grace, Philippa and Ginny moved towards the appropriate bookcase, the redhead wedged between them so that she was shielded from view as much as possible. Ginny shifted awkwardly from her left foot to her right, back to her left again, waiting for Grace to find it. The sooner they left, the better.
She could feel someone watching her from across the room.
It was like being on fire.
Luckily, Grace found the textbook quite quickly, so they didn't have to linger long in there.
Unluckily, the person standing quietly behind the till was the last person that she wanted anything to do with.
Her face drained of colour, hidden as her head stayed bowed low. She wished that she could hide behind her hair, but it was tied back in a ponytail.
"Ten Sickles."
His voice made her jump. She curled her hands into tight fists.
There was a soft clinking noise as coins were passed over the counter, and as soon as Ginny was certain that Grace had handed the money over, she turned away and moved as quickly as she could towards the door. Grace and Philippa could find her later.
"Ginevra-"
No, no, no!
This isn't fair!
She slipped through the door. The second that she had escaped the shop, she walked faster, almost jogging, away, down the street. She had no idea where she was going – all she knew was that she was going somewhere away from Flourish and Blott's, and she was getting there fast.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
She ran.
Blood pounding through her skull, Ginny spun down a random side-alley between two buildings, breaking into a hard sprint as soon as she was out of the crowds-
A cold hand grabbed the crook of her elbow and spun her backwards.
"Let go," she cried, trying to wrench her arm away.
"I need to talk to you," Tom said pleadingly, only holding on tighter. Fearfully, she looked up through her fringe to meet his eyes. They were so full of pain that it was like watching someone burn alive. There was a bright red patch on one cheek.
"What happened to your face?" she asked, curious despite herself.
"Hartwin tried to stop me from coming after you."
"Good for her."
"She hit me."
"Remind me to thank her for that one," Ginny said coldly, folding her arms across her chest, and shifting uncomfortably next to him. "Say what you need to say and then get lost." She tried to put the right amount of detached coldness into her words, but her voice was broken and this spoiled the effect she had been going for.
"Ginevra, I'm so sorry-"
"You've already said sorry, Riddle," she snapped. "You don't need to repeat yourself. I've never been one for radio play-backs. Can I go now?"
"No, but that was… wrong. I didn't mean it. I… I-" he was stammering, panic and nervousness echoing through his face, emotions unmasked. "Ginevra, I- you know how I hate apologising, so this is really hard-"
"Oh, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience this conversation is causing you."
Tom took a deep breath. "I was trying to protect you," he said, forcing the words out. Every inhalation he took was laboured – he wasn't an athletic person, and running after her the length of Diagon Alley clearly hadn't done him any good. "I- I was trying to give you a chance at living like a normal person. A normal girl – well, as normal as you can be, what with you standing out so much – with a normal life, and normal friends, and a normal job, perhaps, and – and-" he swallowed- "-and maybe even a normal boyfriend."
She stared up at him, the internal struggle to fight tears down slowly being lost.
I didn't want to be protected.
"I mean, Christ, Ginevra, you had to bail me out of prison!" he muttered. "That can't be… can't be the standard of a good, ordinary relationship… and I just thought… maybe, if you were happy, then it didn't matter how much it hurt me… because I want you to be happy, even that excludes me from the picture…" His face was crumpling. "…I didn't know that you wouldn't be. I didn't know that - that I would nearly kill you…"
He raked a hand backwards through his hair, not seeming to cure that it made tufts stick up and therefore ruined his appearance of careful and tidy and dignified.
"Let me somehow – in some pathetic, stupid way – try and explain to you how much I need you." Tom's desperate eyes stared down into hers. "Do you know fireworks? Have you stared directly at where one explodes? Do you know the feeling of having that bright, beautiful explosion in front of your eyes, making everything… everything – so much better and brilliant? And then the fireworks fade away, and it was so bright that you're blind. Everything's dark, and all you want, more than anything, is for another glimpse of fire."
Her heart was breaking. She couldn't do this. This wasn't fair. She couldn't just pick up the pieces, waiting for him to fling his hands out and knock them flying again. It just wasn't fair.
"You've seen the fire," she told him, her voice trembling as she stubbornly tried to resist how badly she wanted to run back into his arms, "and you reduced it to ashes." Crap. The tears were starting up. "If you wanted to keep the fireworks, then you shouldn't have walked over the fuse, should you?"
Tom's expression was lost and hopeless. "Please – I can't – don't-" his voice was cracking. "I love y-"
"Stop it!" Ginny stamped her foot. "This isn't fair on me. I can't keep doing this. You say you love me. You say that you didn't mean it when you said that you loved me. You say that you didn't mean it when you said that you didn't mean it when you said you loved me. I can't keep up with you anymore! What you keep saying makes a pattern, don't you see? And I don't want to have to be there the next time you change your mind."
"I never changed my mind."
Sighing sharply with pain, Tom closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he swept his fingers sideways to his eyes, and when he opened them, he was looking at something on his quivering fingertips. He tipped his hand sideways, and Ginny watched a single bead of salt-water dropped to the ground.
Impossible.
"…I love you," Tom whispered. "There is nothing in the world in size that can amount to how much I love you. I know, I never said it enough when I had the chance, but I should have, and I'll say it every waking moment of every day for the rest of my life – I love you. …Ginevra, I-I love you."
His last words weren't even audible, but she saw his lips move, and knew what he was saying.
I love you so much it hurts. Is that the answer you want? There you go. But I don't care, because it's not fair, and it was never fair, and – and I'm not going to be the pathetic one who comes crawling back for you.
She set her jaw tightly.
"Prove it."
Tom's expression slipped from desperation slowly to an incredulous frown. "What? I – I – I don't…" He swallowed, and turned his eyes away from her, to the wall, before they flashed back to her. "…how?"
For the first time, a smile turned her lips, but her eyes were flat and stared evenly back at him. All tears had gone now, replaced by a hard determination that said in her icy mocking voice, nothing is for free these days.
"Surprise me."
xxx
A/N: YAY! I LOVE THAT PART! See? I bet you didn't expect that, didcha? I really wanted to steal Edward's line from New Moon "it was the very blackest form of blasphemy when I said that I didn't love you" but I didn't think that I'd be able to get away with it, as this is already similar enough to New Moon. Mergh. Also, she used my comet-star-endless-night comment, so I had to use fireworks instead. Pfft.
I have some review replies below, not too many though, because that takes ages. OH! And I had to walk right past the Tom dude and I looked at him, and oh God he has beautiful eyes. Seriously. His eyes are so pretty. Ahhhh…
Next Time:
They didn't have unlimited time, so the three finished their drinks quickly and then progressed towards the bookshop to get Grace's book.
Only when Ginny saw the broad sign declaring 'Flourish & Blott's' did she actually realise where they were going.
She stopped in her tracks.
xxx
Cristelle Lillian Black: Er, you can post it in a PM from my profile page, I suppose. Yay, thank you! I thought that no-one was going to enter! No, I do not live in Nottinghamshire, but if there's a Tom-like guy there, then I am so going to investigate! XD That not-being-able-to-finish-stories isn't a bad thing. That's what I'm like! I honestly have a massive build-up of unfinished stories. I just get an idea, write it up, and then realise that it's going nowhere and ditch it. What I recommend is having a separate document (or piece of paper, depending on where you're writing it out) and just basically writing the whole plot out, chapter by chapter. Annoying, but it works. I'll see your chapter soon!
Saene: Ooh, me too! My friend dared me not to say anything, and not to move while I read a book. I lost the dare, needless to say. I just get so happy, and I rock backwards and forwards, and I bite my fingernails, and I squeal incessantly, and when it's a bad bit, I randomly start shrieking, "No no no no!" Ha. I'm stupid. I had a huge fluff overload reading Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, and I could barely breathe from squealing so much. :D
Morning-Sunset: Oh, textiles is really good. Right now I'm doing a mood board, which is like inspiration for a later project, and basically we have to cover a piece of paper with whatever we want – fabrics, pictures, styles. It's really fun. Mine's covered in rainbows, teehee. Yeah, same, I was a huge EdwardxBella fan for the first three books, but after Breaking Dawn the whole, "you look beautiful, but then again, you always do" thing got really old, and I way prefer JasperxAlice now. Jasper is so pretty. Ooh, a GinnyxTom community? Thank you so much!!
Please review!
If you want to ask a question, I would love to answer it, as it's not like I have a real life anyway.
xxx