A/N: Hello everyone

A/N: OMG! OMG! OMFG! OMROFLFJANFSDEGGGG! Aaarghhh! Sorry. I love this chapter so much though. Be warned: it will make you squee. I can't stop squeeing! AAAH! SQUEE! Anyway. HAHAHAH! SQUEE!

Disclaimer: Get the idea into your head. I don't own it. Now move on.

The Letter P

Chapter Fifty-Two: P is for Pigs Will Fly

"You're quiet," said Grace to her two companions, lingering a few steps behind her, and, seemingly, being silent. "What's wrong?"

Ginny didn't reply. To her, at least, there was a hell of a lot wrong.

Things that could, perhaps, in time be solved – Svengali. Her public embarrassment about the beaver and the Imperius-prompted kiss. Then, things that could probably never be solved – the murderer of Hogwarts. Why Vander of all people was targeted. And then, things too complicated to even consider how they would turn out. And that, in all certainty, burned down to one word, one syllable, three letters: Tom.

xxx

The days grew warmer as spring set in; crystal snows melting, giving way to the boldest of flowers that battled through ice. More students took to hanging about outside, as the need for gloves, scarves, hats, hoods, and army-boots diminished. Ginny saw this through a stained-glass window to the left of the hallway she walked through, and smiled.

Spring. She thought of Easter – of lots and lots of chocolate, actually. Forget the holiday. It was all about the chocolate. She thought of flowers and fluffy bunnies. And, twelve days away, she thought of the pagan holiday for love. Feburary the fourteenth. In all reality, the redhead detested the holiday. Girls either getting giggly 'in love', or hysterically 'heart-broken'.

You know neither, she said bitterly, glaring (unintentionally) at one of said giggly girls passing by. Her mind strayed to a bespectacled boy long gone. Then she crunched her brain down, squashing such thoughts, and thought again of chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

Happy again, Ginny hummed tunelessly as she made her way down the third-floor corridor, swinging her schoolbag boredly in front of her. A fifth-year had blown up several Dungbombs in the Slytherin common room, and the seventeen-year-old Prefect found herself now heading in the direction of the library, a refuge where perhaps her Muggle Studies and Potions homework would miraculously complete itself.

Or not.

She pushed open the library doors. Casting a hazel gaze across the available tables for her to work upon, she surveyed the people sitting at each one.

A group of Ravenclaw girls investigating love-potions… ew no.

Two sulky-looking Gryffindors having an arm-wrestling match, while their friends watched and cheered (albeit quietly, so as to avoid the wrath of Madam Crofton)… definitely not.

Hufflepuff first-years writing studiously… I could scare them away. Or I could try and make friends.

Abraxas Malfoy, with a heavy-set Slytherin seventh-year girl, both deeply engaged in the educational theory behind snogging. NO.

And… Ginny smirked. A table in the far corner, partly in the dark, well away from society, with a flickering lamp to illuminate the table top… Tom Marvolo Riddle.

She crept up to the table as quietly as she could, preparing to bang her schoolbag down onto the work surface as loudly as she could, scaring him from his book-engrossed state… lifting the bag, and-

"Hello, Peregrine," said Tom absent-mindedly, not looking up from his thick, dusty book.

Ginny's mouth fell open in surprise and annoyance. "How did you-" she spluttered.

Tom's eyes flashed up to her. "You're not a quiet person, Peregrine. Don't even try."

I am a quiet person, Ginny thought indignantly. I was a spy in the War, so you can stick that in your juice box and drink it!

Keeping that to herself, she dropped into the chair opposite him with a huff. She pulled her books, parchment and writing utensils out of her bag and dumped them on the table. "Anyway," she said, fully and gleefully aware that she was interrupting Tom from reading in peace, which would irritate him, "where's 'Peregrine' suddenly come from? Whatever happened to 'Ginevra'?"

The Head Boy watched her carefully, as if trying to gauge if she was serious. Ginny self-consciously tilted her chin defiantly up at him. Seemingly finding what feature in her face that he was looking for, Tom said, "Alright. Ginevra, then."

"Yay." Ginny grinned, and then opened her book to the correct page, pulling a piece of parchment towards her and scrawling across the top: Ginevra Peregrine, Slytherin, Year Six. 2nd February, 1959. Then she glanced back up to Tom, finding herself inordinately curious. "Whatcha reading?" she asked, leaning across the table and peering, upturned, at the page he was looking at it.

Upside down, she read the letters: tiorgrettapS.

"Spattergroit?" she asked, looking up back to Tom's face. "Rather morbid interest, don't you think?"

"It's for a History of Magic project," Tom informed her. "The history of magical diseases and maladies over time." He lifted his book to show her the cover, which depicted a gruesome image of a wizard covered in green, pus-leaking boils, and being sick everywhere.

"Lovely." Ginny sat back down into her seat.

"It is, actually," Tom commented as she began to scribble the title for her Potions homework.

Ginny raised her eyebrows at him, still mostly paying attention to writing the introduction to the Potions essay on the full uses of asphodel in conjunction to chicle roots. "Is that so?" she asked cynically.

"Indeed it is," Tom replied smoothly, and a smirk was pulling at his lips that made the redhead immensely suspicious. "Have a listen to this extract, why don't you?"

Narrowing her eyes at him, Ginny continued writing, though her attentions were now on Tom.

"Spattergroit," Tom reading, his smirk doubling in size. "Tis a deadly infliction of the macroscopic anatomy-"

"The what?" Ginny echoed incredibly.

"Macroscopic. It means the parts of the body that you can see without enlarging your vision – for example, by spell or by Muggle microscope," Tom explained. "The opposite of microscopic."

"Oh."

"Tis is deadly infliction of the macroscopic anatomy. The disease attacks from the inside, by way of devouring its path out. The symptoms are obvious…" Here Tom's face seemed ready to crack, he was smirking so much. He forced his face impassive of his glee, and continued calmly. "The first and foremost symptom is the dying skin. It becomes pockmarked and blemished with fair, light brown spots, generally accentuating the paled skin."

Ginny frowned. "What are you getting at?"

"Sometimes this early symptom is thought to be a mere case of birthmarks spreading, brought out in sunlight and given the pet name of 'freckles'," Tom completed his sentence, great amusement glittering in his dark eyes.

"Hey!" Ginny cried. "That's not fair!"

"No, wait, there's more." Had Tom been a normal person, Ginny was certain he would have been giggling hysterically. "The secondmost symptom to be seen is the death of hair cells. With no air reaching the strands, the hair is deprived and perishes. In this state of oxygen-starvation, it turns a dark and vivid shade of scarlet, for the blood trying to revive it."

"Okay, now you're just making it up!" Ginny said crossly.

"The symptom that truly affirms the state of the spattergroit present in a person's genes is stunted growth," Tom continued, riddled with smug hilarity. "The Inflicted may shown signs of having inherited shortened genes from their parents as a child, but reality soon sets in that having a pygmy-state of height is less than average, and the Inflicted is perilously ill."

"It does NOT say that!" said Ginny furiously. "Give me that!"

She lunged across the table, but Tom rocked easily back on his chair, out of reach, and continued reading happily aloud. "As the illness progresses, the Inflicted begins to find that the hair, now at its most astonishing shade of crimson, becomes near impossible to handle – or even comb."

"You're mean!" Ginny howled, stretching her arm as far as she could. "Mean, Tom, mean!"

"Also, the Inflicted soon develops a compulsive obsession for sweet food – most often, commonplace, cocoa," Tom said. His eyes were dancing with wry entertainment.

"MEH!" Ginny sat back heavily down into her chair. She pouted. "I hate you." Deciding that if he wanted to make fun of her, he could do it by himself, she began to sweep her books, ink, quill, and unfinished homework into her schoolbag.

"Where are you going?" asked Tom innocently, setting the book down.

"You're horrible," Ginny told him, and stood up to leave.

"You're not seriously going to run off just because a book says that you're hazardously ill, are you?" Tom said, lifting one eyebrow.

"No, I'm leaving because you're being mean to me!" Ginny folded her arms and marched away. People were staring, but what the hell. "Goodbye, Mr. Riddle!"

"Come back, you idiot," said Tom bemusedly.

"See what I mean?" Ginny shrieked at him. She wasn't really that hysterical, but it was fun to be melodramatic. With a swirl of 'dying hair cells' and her black school skirt, she marched away.

"Ginevra…" Tom called after her, a sort of warning tone in his voice, like don't make me have to stand up and come after you. Then, he did stand, and followed her. "You're being really childish," he said in an extremely un-Tom sing-song voice.

"I am not the childish one here," Ginny said crossly, whirling back to face him, and abruptly finding herself in far closer proximity to Tom than she had expected. Regardless of her surprise, she continued to rant at him. "I'm not the one singing their words. I'm not the one making up huge portions of text just to annoy me! I'm not the one being absolutely horrible! In fact, you're being so nasty that I think I'm going to-"

She had no idea what happened next, except that the circumstances changed, and suddenly Tom had stooped his head and kissed her.

Her hazel eyes widened about double in size, and she completely froze. She vaguely felt her toes going numb, but she had no idea what else was happening to her.

Then, with a great start, Tom seemed to realise what he was doing, and jumped backwards. He literally drained of all colour, and the first words out of his mouth were, "Oh shit." Then this exclamation of horror was followed by: "Oh God, I'm sorry. I'm – I'm sorry." Shortly after a stammered apology that didn't really make any sense, he shoved a hand roughly backwards through his tidy hair, wheeled around and disappeared through the library doors.

Ginny stared blankly ahead at where he had just been. She could hear her heart throbbing in her ears. She'd actually stopped breathing entirely, and she had to tell herself to suck in a breath. She glanced sideways, seeing that Tom had left his school-things behind and that hundreds of people were staring, but not taking any of it in.

What in the name of Merlin just happened?

She had no idea.

One thing, however, that she did know, hit her like an arrow being fired, and it made her feel sick to her stomach. She stumbled from the library and ran towards the Slytherin common room.

xxx

"Hey!" said Grace cheerily as her friend came through the doors. Then she saw Ginny's face – as though someone had just died. "Ginny, are you okay?"

Totally disregarding the question, Ginny said, "Grace, do you remember what I said four months ago, at the Hallowe'en Ball?"

Grace frowned. "You said a lot of things, and most of it was drunk crap. Why? What's wrong?"

"You asked…" Ginny had to choke out the words. "You asked if I had any feelings for Riddle, and I said, 'pigs will fly before I fancy that tosser'. Right?"

"Yeah…" Grace didn't understand.

"Well, guess what?" Ginny's voice was getting high-pitched and hysterical. "Pigs have flown."

xxx

A/N: AAAHHHH! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! THEY KISSED! THEY KISSED! –dance dance dance- Anyway. Just to let you know, from here it will start to get very fluffy, very fast.

XXX

Next Time:

"Okay, let's go over this one more time," Grace said calmly. "He did what?"

The three turned right and headed towards the grand Entrance Hall doors, which were already open and allowing the sweet scents of approaching spring to waft in. Then, there, in the doorway, he was. Ginny stopped. Grace and Alden followed her gaze, and they stopped as well. The brunette cleared her throat and quietly sang, "Awwkwaaard."

XXX