Doubting Tom

Summary: This is one of the dreams Tom talks about. Ginny's wondering why she has them; she wonders why she can't get away. Poor little Ginny, stuck in the world Tom has made for her. Why won't he leave her alone? Why does she fall for him every time? Well this time, she's doubting Tom.

Disclaimer: Verily disclaimed.

Every single night since just about a year ago, in fact the very day that Tom- Lord Voldemort was defeated I'm twisted by agony of beauty. I'm certifiably in love with Harry Potter, I'm his fiancée, there will be a June wedding. Unfortunately, I don't ever have dreams of Harry Potter.

I fall asleep to the soft breathing of Harry in my ear and I can feel his arms wrapped around me, but night comes in swiftly and unassuming. The arms lengthen and the fingers elongate. His head leans into my neck and I can feel thin lips smiling cruelly. His hands stroke my throat.

Will this be the night he tightens them? No, he removes them slowly and picks a flower from the field of tulips in their iridescent colors and holds it up to my hair. Slowly stroking the blossom with one hand his other hand slides caressingly up the perfect evergreen stem where it rests, meaningfully on the base of the bloom. With a quick twist of his fingers he snaps the blossom off and gives me a smile of innocence.

"Why did you do that Tom?" I can't help asking. He looks at me. He really looks at me ;like none of my brothers, none of my friends, nobody ever has, as if he's stealing my soul in a Dementer's Kiss, but holding my hand like a young lover might. It reminds me of why I was seduced by him in the first place, but I'm older now, even if in the dream of preserved as a fourteen year old, he can't hurt me now.

"Why?" he says, considering. "Why not? The flower was pulling the stem down. The flower is making it mortal. Stems can stand forever; they never die in the cold. So, tell me, why not?"

For a moment I don't know what to say, this is too much logic for a romantic's mind to take. Then I look past the words to the flower. "Look at that now Tom. It's ugly. Look what you've done Tom, you've ruined its beauty." He doesn't answer, just gives me a knowing smile and strokes my hair.

The field sinks into mist and I'm standing by a foggy lakeshore where cherry petals sway in the trees. The air is damp and it smells of cleanliness, of purity. I can hear silk swaying along my feet and I look down at the gown I'm wearing. It feels like I'm going to the Ball, like I could afford to go in what was new and lovely for once.

I know he's there. Come on Tom, I can take you any day. Not eleven anymore, and you can't fool me again.

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

Misty morning is parted by a large figure, looming up like an Arthurian legend. Ah, here's the boy himself. Come on Mr. Immortal; let's see your dazzling circus now. Let's see your sleight of hand, the glitter, the sparkle. Let's see your acrobatic miracle astride your noble steed. Dazzle me Tom, make me gasp and scream. Ensnare me just this one time.

He leaps off his horse with a practiced smoothness. I bite back a tiny sigh at the swift romance of it all. Would Harry ever do something like this? Would he woo me on a Firebolt Platinum in Quidditch robes?

No, because the perfect man is not into the seduction of the legend, only in the personality and pleasuring grace of beauty in his girl. Harry would no more romance me with anything besides a fumbled kiss and a spurious line of devotedness then go evil. Only the wicked are into myths of passion.

The horse vanishes in a cloud of multi-colored stems. I pick one up.

Foxglove- so typical of Tom and Tom's cunning and humor. Slip a drop of liquid into his glass of wine and propose a toast? Lucreza Borgia's old tricks would take care of dear Tom. Beautiful, wicked Lucreza Borgia, the goddess of a family of the sinful.

He took my hand and led me to the water. We sat on the ground. I felt the dress getting ruined, but couldn't find the effort to care about the flowery creation. Tom could replace it in his pathetic little dream world.

His pathetic, entirely unworldly world in which there was no sound beside the smothered hum of my breathing. You could almost hear Tom's smile as he strokes my hair, lying behind me. The peace lay like a blanket over the two of us for what seemed like hours until suddenly I realize he isn't there.

He's standing in front of me suddenly. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but there's strings attached to my elbows and hands with a cord wrapped around my waist. I think about screaming, but I can't, this is terrifying. He's trapped me here. I try to wake up, please please please please...

With that Mona Lisa grin on his face glazed into my eye I feel myself lifted from the riverbank. The dress fades into a white gown. This isn't my dream, this is Tom's, this can't be my dream, it can't be. I struggle to see if I can get free, but I'm stuck in the ropes. Helpless and alone, I want to cry.

A hand on my face soothes me. I look into eyes greener then a poinsettia leaf with a slight scar marring his forehead. "Harry," I sob out, and the world comes to a jarring halt like I'm thrown from the balcony in Romeo and Juliet, but Romeo catches me. Dear sweet Harry, nothing can ever hurt you.

I see my hand, attached by the strings, being pulled up, a glittering dagger clutched in it, it's pulled closer and closer to Harry like I want to embrace him. I struggle to stop myself. Harry pull back, run Harry.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

Too late.

His eyes widen and he slumps. Why isn't he falling? What's the matter with him, why's he just limp? Then I see the strings holding him. Around me there's clapping everywhere. I turn my head over my shoulder and see a glittering audience talking over their burgundy wine, laughing, and diamonds sparkling, chilling music everywhere. I claw at my throat to make the words come out.

Then I see him standing there, dressed in a muggle tuxedo. I fall to my knees as the strings disappear. Despair overwhelms me as I try to claw my way over to Harry's bleeding body. Oh no, oh no. He beckons my with a gloved hand, looking suave, debonair, classy. I feel myself wanting to be with him. No.

I run the other way, down past the body which has pooled blood all down the stage. I run down the stairs into that rich audience and they can't even see me. They're all looking at the stage, watching the new characters come out. They don't see the body, they see make-believe. Oh Harry, please don't be dead.

There's an alley outside. I wish it gone. It goes.

I've escaped you Tom. You see me caught in your stupid little web? Am I eleven anymore? No.

You're just a memory Tom, just a sweet memory battered by time.

This time I won.

Goodbye Tom.

"Goodbye Ginny," croaks a voice from the ground. I'm in a field of gold, sweet and calm, blown about by a warm afternoon wind. I look down and see him sitting next to me, calmly sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees. I want to run, but he shakes his head, so I sit, preparing for the worst.

He rests his head against my shoulder and sighs, contented. "Love you," he mumbles indistinctly in my ear. This is just a trick, just another magic trick, my mind says, but my mouth goes with my heart. "I love you too, Tom." "Forever?" he asks and his arms wrap around me in a gentle embrace.

Forever, my mind says and it sounds upon the wind.

We sit there, enjoying the warm summer's day. Couples appear and begin to picnic, it becomes a perfect day in the park. A cherry tree grows and provides us with a cooling shade. I try to think of when I've been more at peace, but can't.

Tom takes my hand and by some force lifts me into the air with its sweet light. Petals fall around us in some kind of gentle dance. The other couples take flight around us and we sway with wistful abandon just Tom and me, always.

The world dims about us and I snap awake in my bed, next to Harry. He looks like a baby, the care lines soothed over by the wash of sleep pouring around him like an afternoon shower. I stand up and look around the gloomy room.

Something tells me I should pack and leave. I realize what a danger to him I am, as I have every night where in every dream I kill him some other way. I know I should go, but I'm too selfish to leave.

Gazing out the window, into the clear night, wishing you could see the stars in cities, I sighed. In my dreams... that's a tragically hopeful, like alternating between terrific and terrifying. In my dreams, I never distrust Tom, but awake...

Awake I'm doubting Tom.

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-Shakespeare