A/N: Written especially for AlwaysPadfoot (Ami) with her prompts Tom/Ginny, dark, whispers and "Can't you just be normal?" I'd love to get to know you better and I really hope you enjoyed this; you inspired me to write for

xPerfectImperfect's Scrabble Challenge with the prompt rewind.

reminiscent-afterthought's The A-Maze-Ing Challenge with the prompt compass.

Stains on their Diary

|Pause|

Her nervous hand stopped an inch

Above the yellowed pages of an ancient diary

While the blots of ink fell freely onto pages that could never be stained.

Her mind wouldn't function

As the images in her mind flickered, faded and

Died, and dark words crept upon the page, calling for her;

What disturbs you, Ginny Weasley? Talk to me, and I can solve any problem you may have

For you seem rather disturbed

Ink refuses to form words in your distress

And my heart longs for a single word, a single sign of you; your soul, as being mine.

|Stop|

Dear Tom, she wrote, but

Her hands suddenly ceased to shake as the

Wicked whispers in her head loosened their grip on her mind

If only just a little.

But deep within her charred being

A bubble of hope bloomed, blossomed and shone, glowing by the minute

Goodbye. There was no hope

For another beginning in another time when her mind

Would be seized again and her moral compass would be rendered directionless.

But before her limbs

Moved to discard the tattered diary with the tattered remains

Of a tattered man whose perennial thirst for power had rendered him nearly dead

(Nearly, but not quite)

Her soul was seized

Her body made a vessel of pure evil

And she watched as he drained the last vestiges of life from her cold, cold body.

|Rewind|

In the beginning,

It was just an old diary gathering dust

At the bottom of a sparse trunk she couldn't be bothered to look through

And then

It became an object of

Deep fascination; innocence swallowed by the darkness

She remembers talking to him

When the rest of the world seemed to have turned its back on her.

Can't you just be normal?

She remembers asking that, and a million

More questions that he answered patiently before the demands began

And her memories faded

And her actions made no sense to her anymore

Now, after time

(Because time does heal all, you see)

All she remembers

Are a pair of startling green eyes

And the piercing cry of a phoenix followed by an ethereal song.

Please do drop a review on your way out, it would mean the world to me. :)