A/N: YAYYY! REVIEWSS!! My hands hurt. I've been packing for camp; trying to fit a lot of very big things into a very small space. Ouchies. Anyway. A nice, angsty chapter :) I hope you like it.
I NEED MORE TITLE SUGGESTIONS! Look Back : I like it. Chasing History: I like it.
MUST LISTEN TO: Mercy by OneRepublic. Suits the chapter very nicely.
Disclaimer: Get the idea into your head. I don't own it. Now move on.
The Letter P
Chapter Sixty-Nine: P is for Please
Then she looked straight at him for the first time.
She wasn't sure what, in her stare, made him realise that she was really who he thought she was. But he flinched back. He closed his slit-like eyes. He took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and they were less ruby somehow, less snake-like. And he stared at her, pain evident in his eyes. And he whispered, "Ginevra?"
Xxx
The amount of sheer, raw emotion in those three syllables wrenched Ginny's heart into several pieces. It caused the other Death Eaters to look around at him in shock and bewilderment.
The redhead couldn't find her voice. She simply nodded.
Voldemort – Tom – Marvolo – swallowed. "Go." The word was sharp, and his eyes didn't leave Ginny's face. She was confused. Did he mean her? "GO!" he bellowed, whirling around to face his Death Eaters.
They leapt back, alarmed, and quickly obeyed, hurrying away through the Forest.
Once they had left, the clearing was silent. The only noise was Voldemort's ragged breathing; Ginny had forgotten how to exhale, and wasn't breathing.
He wasn't looking at her. Then, slowly, he turned, and trained his dark eyes on her face. They weren't scarlet anymore – those eyes were a familiar shade of almost-black. But they were hard and tight and frightening. "What… why…" The words weren't coming out right. "You… are you real?"
The question came out childishly and Voldemort winced hearing them coming out.
Ginny sucked in air, suddenly remembering that breathing was a good thing and that if she wanted to stay alive, she needed to breathe. She tore her eyes from his and looked at the ground to her right. For want of something to do, she shoved her wand back into her pocket. Though she'd put it away, she kept her fingers on it, ready. She didn't know this Tom. He could still attack her. "Yes."
"Why – how - how are you standing there – like – as though – as thought it's been a day, or a week – not – instead of – years-" His voice cracked. He stepped closer. "Years and years…"
Then he inhaled sharply.
"Time-travel."
Still not looking at him, she nodded.
"You… that's why… you came to Hogwarts half-way through your education, but you knew everything. You didn't get lost at all in the maze of corridors. You had no pictures of your friends or family. You hated talking about what had happened before you came to Hogwarts. You sometimes said weird phrases that no-one understood. You didn't understand our phrases…" He stared at her. "You were from the future all along."
She nodded again.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Her gaze flashed up to meet his. "What, and you would have believed me?" she snapped.
"Of course!" he retorted. A pause. "Well, I might have." A pause. "Maybe." His anger flared back. "You could have told me anyway!"
"What was I supposed to say?" Ginny shouted, desperate. "'Oh, hi, Tom! How do I know your name and everything about you, you say? Oh, that's simple. I'm from a future where you're the most evil man on the face of the planet – where you've destroyed my home and killed my friends and my family – and actually, I'm only here to kill you, but instead of saving everyone I care about I'm going to fall in love with you'?"
Voldemort stared at her in silence. When he did, finally, speak, it wasn't to shout or to curse her or to be horrified at the fact that she'd been sent to kill him. He just said, in a very small voice, "You loved me?"
Ginny's blazing expression softened, taking in the pained voice of the epitome of evil, taking in the twisted mouth and agonized eyes. "I still do."
"Then why did you leave?" he hissed, all sorrow dissolving into fury, salt into water.
"I didn't have any choice!"
"You could have said goodbye!" His moods were moving faster than a spinning-top – agony again.
"I left you a letter!"
"Oh, a letter! A pathetic ruddy letter! The only person in my life that I've ever cared for, that I've ever felt anything more than contempt for, that I've ever loved, being ripped away from me without warning – and a fragile sheet of biodegradable paper makes it all better, does it?" he snarled. Back to fury.
There were tears in Ginny's hazel eyes. "Tom-"
He wasn't done yet. "Look at you! Look at you, standing there, like nothing's changed! For you, nothing has changed, has it? How long has it been for you? A day, two? A week? A month, at most? It has been FORTY-EIGHT bloody years!" he shouted. "Forty-eight years that I've been counting the days, saying to myself, she'll be back tomorrow. Forty-eight years I've been tearing myself apart into Horcruxes so that I could rule the world! Because if I ruled the world, then everyone would obey me! And I could find you! Search the globe if I had to! And then… and then he took over, and it wasn't about you anymore, it was about the power and his greed for everything. I changed my name – Lord Voldemort. It made me sound better, more important. It meant that I never had to hear people whine Tom again. Not after I'd had that name called to me by the sweetest voice I'd ever hear."
"Please-"
"STOP IT!" Voldemort was actually shaking. His face was resigned, as he lost all will to fight and shout and kick and scream. The last of his energy had gone into shouting those two words at her. Now… nothing.
"I'm sorry," Ginny whispered.
He looked at her ruefully, grief showing in his abnormal face. For the longest time, they stood together in silence, in the pouring rain, staring into the other's eyes as they had long ago. Blood trickled down Ginny's fingers from where she'd grazed her hand falling down on the way, dropping onto the sodden dirt. One droplet, in a storm of rain. Her desolation, in a sea of misery.
"You don't have to do this," Ginny said softly, tears clinging to her eyelashes. "You're not a bad person. You can leave this all behind."
"I've killed people. Deliberately. I've laughed while watching someone writhe in pain. Torture amuses me. I-" Voldemort shook his head. "Ginevra… you don't know me anymore."
"I know you better than you think."
"How much do I think you know me?"
"Very little." There was an echoing regret and unhappiness in those two words.
The reaction her words had was heart-breaking. Silently, the tall, lean, most malevolent man of the time period let a single salt-tear of pain and of grief and of lost love run down his wasted, hollowed white cheek.
Tears were flowing in Ginny's own eyes now. "Don't," she whispered, stretching forwards her slim hand towards his face. "Please don't."
Swiftly, so fast that his hand was a blur, Voldemort – no. Tom – caught her hand and held it tight. It didn't hurt, despite the unnaturally strong grasp. His fingers were long and thin as ever; inhumanly pale, and cold to the touch. How tight he held her hand was almost enough to make her cry out. But she didn't. He held on as if he never wanted to let go. Almost as though he believed that if he let go of her slender fingers, he'd be letting go of his soul – of his heart. Then, with a look in his dark eyes as though it cost him a lot of effort, he dropped her hand, never letting it reach him.
Silently, the dam in her eyes broke, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. She was glad for the rain, because it mingled with them – salt-water and freshwater – disguising them. He never had to know how she was dying inside.
What happened next was unexpected. Slowly, forlornly, Tom reached out for her. He cupped her left cheek in his thin, elegant fingers; carefully, as if he knew that he was a monster, as if she was fragile, as if she was glass, as if the smallest touch could shatter her, take her from him again. Staring into dark, familiar eyes in entirely the wrong face, she couldn't help but tremble under his touch. Then, gently, he traced the line of her jaw with his ice-cold knuckles; his fingers lingered by the bottom of her ear.
"I am truly sorry… but you're too late for me."
He spoke quietly. So quietly that he was barely audible over the roaring of the storm. She recalled running out into a similar storm, screaming for him, forty-eight years ago, though for her it barely felt like a month. A month was a long time for her too, however – a desperately long time when she knew that she'd lost love all over again. Her… her true love. Not just some sad, unrequited infatuation with the Boy-Who-Loved. Not just a silly romantic notion for her brother's best friend. She loved him with all her life.
He looked deep into her eyes; dark brown into hazel. The void – into the disguise of the forest, green and brown.
"Don't go back to the castle."
Tom looked as though he longed to say more. His hand still on the rounded corners of her face, he bowed his head slightly. For one insane moment, Ginny thought that he was going to kiss her. The fact that he was trapped in the body of the Dark Lord; that he was about fifty years older than her – held no importance to her. She tilted her head up slightly-
"No."
The word was choked. He turned his face away, looking past his shoulder.
"I- … I'm sorry. I don't… I can't -" He looked back into her face. "Not like this."
"Tom-" She grasped at breaking strings. The rope was pulling away – she would throw herself off a cliff to grab it – sand slipping through her fingers – water running past her hands -
He dropped his hand from her face, seeming to take a huge effort. The glimmer of emotion in his now once-again masked face showed that the short movement caused him a great amount of pain. Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked quickly into the rain, into the distance. He disappeared through the trees in an instant, but Ginny heard his voice, echoing, far away, to his Death Eaters:
"Do not harm the red-haired girl. If she is hurt, I will kill you in the most excruciatingly painful way I know. Understood?" A pause, where perhaps they were agreeing. Then: "Storm the castle. Proceed as discussed."
Ginny fled before the dry, painful sobs could build up. She ran towards Hogwarts. This was all a horrible mistake. All her fault. She sprinted out of the Forest and up to the majestic stone building. Already there were flames and explosions. They were taking it down.
A scream was building in her throat as she threw herself through the door. "Dumbledore!" she gasped. She prayed fervently that he'd escaped – that he and that Ravenclaw she'd punched, Higson, were alright. She hurtled up towards the Headmaster's office as fast as possible. Regardless of where they were, she needed to get past the gargoyles at get to the ex-Transfiguration teacher's office.
The gargoyles were destroyed. They howled with misery as she hurried past them.
Up the steps.
Through the door.
In.
Dumbledore wasn't in there. He was probably out looking for her frantically. Guilt twisted her features, but it was nothing compared to the blame heaped upon her. She'd destroyed everything. She'd ruined the world. She'd killed her own family. She'd killed her own friends. It was all her fault.
She scanned every surface. Flames – curse-made flames, not real ones. Fiendfyre – were coming up already, filling the room with black smoke that made her eyes sting. The castle was being destroyed.
There! Dumbledore's wand. The exquisite one. The one with the carvings on. The one that had turned her into a human Portkey. The one that would take her… home.
Ginny picked it up and turned it on herself. She reached under her clothes and pulled out the Time-Turner, warm around her neck. She had no idea how many times to turn it. "Please," she whispered to it, and then spun the dial. Around and around the circles twirled, slowing… stopping. Then she pointed the wand at herself.
"Portughhhh!" she tried to cast the spell, but smog was filling her lungs and she couldn't speak without coughing.
Oh God. This was it, wasn't it? She was going to die. She was going to be asphyxiated. She'd never see any of her friends again. She would never see Tom again. All that she could hold onto was that moment in the rain, of agony and heartbreak.
No! I'm not giving up now!
Get that cough out, she told herself, and hacked and hacked until she felt sure that her cough was all gone. Then:
"PORTUS!"
Nothing happened.
Then light flashed, and the last of the Weasleys disappeared.
xxx
A/N: ARGH Well, I guess that everyone knows what's going to happen now… mergh. I need to be more unpredictable. I'm getting better at it… a bit. Anyway. If you cried, high-five! That rhymed. Wah-hey! So yeah. REVVIIIIIEWWWW.
Next Time:
Had she died? Was this it? Had she passed out and perished from the flames? Had that burst of light, in fact, been the white tunnel? She hadn't seen her life run before her eyes. She was glad of that. Sixteen out of seventeen years of her life held images that she didn't want to see a re-run of. It was so cliché, anyway.
Then suddenly she was falling…
XXX
This isn't a joke, just something that I thought of as a parody for this chapter.
"Are… are you real?" Voldemort stammered. He reached out a hand towards her face… and went right through her. He heaved a sigh. "Damnit. I knew I took too much cocaine this morning."
And also…
"ARGH!" Dumbledore jumped out of nowhere, knocking over a large fruit stand and sending melons flying everywhere. The stall-owner started swearing at him.
"Oh, !" Ginny exclaimed, and ran faster.
Hahahahaha… At least I made you laugh to make you feel better if you cried. Hm. Review! Press the big blue button. You know you want to…