Come with me, he says.

All right, I say. And I slip my hands into his, his cool, white hands so slender and awkward-looking even by themselves, and I feel that he is real.

"Yes, Ginny," says Tom, smiling into my eyes. I feel a flush of heat in my cheeks, but I feel the need to maintain eye contact. To still look into those dark, here, real eyes of his.

"Yes, Ginny," says Tom, "I am real." He winks. "Surprised?"

"Actually, yes," I say. He's leading me out the door, me walking forward, him backward and yet he's not hitting anything. And yet I can't tell if there is anything for him to hit, because everything beyond Tom takes on a fog and I can't focus on it properly. I don't ask where we're going, because if Tom were going to tell me, he would have already.

"Aren't you afraid you'll hit something?" I ask Tom.

"Not especially," says Tom, smiling at me again. The smile is ever-present, a little light in his eyes, an affectionate and knowing look with his head cocked to one side slightly. No, I didn't ask him why not, and I didn't ask him where we were going, and I didn't ask anything really. Why? Maybe I was afraid of the answer. He didn't volunteer the information either. I knew he was probably leading me to somewhere I didn't want to go. He knew I knew it.

Why did I go? How can you even ask me that? Haven't you been paying attention? I was bound to go, as surely as I'm bound to ponder over it even now and try to figure out why I did the things I did. Here's one thing I already know: I was bound to go with Tom once I'd taken his hands, and nothing changed that.

Tom leads me further, and the fog behind him and around us grows darker. Tom drops one of my hands and turns around to lead me facing forward, with a backward glance and a wink.

"I like it when you wink," I say. "It fits your personality exactly."

Tom laughs. "That's a funny thing to say. I was just thinking that I like it when you blush. That's you all over: you feel something but you're ashamed of it. But it's so endearing at the same time." I'm flushing over again, proving his point.

"There you go, proving my point," says Tom with another backward glance, like he knows I am blushing without looking. At the time it makes sense that he knows. Tom knows everything about me.

"Why are you here today?" I ask Tom. I don't really expect an answer.

"Why should I tell you?" asks Tom.

"Because I want to know," I say.

"Bullshit," says Tom. "You're asking a rhetorical question. You don't want an answer, you just want to waste sound."

"You know, it gets annoying after a while, this 'I know everything about you' thing."

"Should I fake ignorance? Should I lie?"

I roll my eyes, feeling somewhat vindicated. "Now who's wasting sound?"

"Now who still feels the need to waste sound?"

"Why should we have to waste sound?" I say. "Why doesn't this feel comfortable? We've always been friends, Tom…"

"I'm not sure, Ginny," says Tom, sounding truly pained. "All I can think is that things change when one friend flushes the other down a toilet. If that sounds familiar."

This is the first time he has brought this up, the first time I know for sure that he is aware of my attempted murder. I don't say anything for a few minutes. There is nothing I can say, as I follow silently behind Tom through this fog of swirling darkness. How to defend myself, to explain to him that I suspect him of taking my sanity? How to deny the charges, when they are true and moreover when my silence is testimony enough? How to explain why I am still following him, obediently like a dog, into this swirling void of I-know-not-where?

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Inadequate," says the voice that is either Tom or the back of my mind, and probably both.

"Well, maybe I love you," I say. Tom stops, completely stops walking, turns around and looks at me. He flings down my hand, so violently that it stings in the far distance that is my body.

Go back, he says.

No, I say, and now I find that I can talk.

So maybe I flushed you down the toilet. So maybe I tried to get rid of you. So maybe I'm afraid of you. But I'm not going anywhere but where you're going.

Interesting, but you don't mean it.

I swear it, Tom, and it doesn't matter what you say, even if your rejection is like a wound to the heart. Even if I'm blubbering everywhere, making a fool of myself – I stay where you stay.

No, Ginny – you don't. Go back, Ginny – what do you want with me? My world is completely foreign to you.

Your world is my world.

Go back to your friends, your familiar thought-idols.

Your friends are my friends, and your gods are my gods.

You don't mean that.

I mean to die where you die – do you understand that, Tom?

"You can't!" I exclaim, pulling myself out, of what I don't know. "So I tried to get rid of you! Well, maybe I can't go through with it. Well, maybe I need you, and maybe I really mean what I say. This is right, Tom, me coming with you is right, and I am coming, whether I have your 'permission' or not."

Tom steps back for a moment, eyes calculating; then his face breaks out in a smile. I'm not too far gone to notice that the smile is distinctly fanged.

"Let's go, then," says Tom, taking my hand again.

"Where?" I ask. "What are we doing?"

"We're dimension-hopping," says Tom. "We're defying the fourth dimension. We're stepping outside of time."

"I think I knew that already."

"You did. I made sure of it, ickle Ginny-kins."

I am beyond fear, in a swirling void that encloses all but Tom and so far from my own body that it might as well be a point of light at the end of a long, gray tunnel.

Your people are my people. Your gods are my gods. Where you die, I die.

Stepping out of time means you never die.

How did I reconcile the two realities I held in my mind? How did I completely trust him and completely doubt his intentions at the same time?

…sure, the possession spell is as good an explanation as any. We'll use that as a fallback. I have more faith than that, though, in the erratic nature of my mindleft all toits lonesome.

You've been writing so often lately, Ginny. Dozens of pages in a day, I would guess.

Is there a problem with that? Am I taking too much of your time?

No, of course not. I've rather enjoyed it. I'm just making an observation.

I guess I've had more to write about lately.

I guess so. You haven't mentioned Harry Potter in days.

I guess I haven't. It's funny, I've still been thinking about him just as much. But I'm really considering something.

What?

If Harry weren't handsome, and weren't famous, I wouldn't be in love with him.

Probably not. But it's only natural.

How shallow of me.

So you're worried about your standards.

I should love a person for their personality. I should love for what's on the inside, because that's really them. Not their face.

Or their name.

Or their name, unless they earned it.

An interesting qualification.

I have a lot of respect for fame or glory if it's earned.

Is Harry's?

Probably, but not the greater part of it. I have no name.

That's what really bothers you.

That and other things. But mostly that. Well, and I'm shallow. I'm so silly, really. Love should be more like – more like us, Tom.

I agree.

Me too. Of course, I said it first, so technically I don't need to agree.

I'll let you, Gin.

Do you know why you're special, Tom?

Why?

Because I have a name with you.

Even if it's 'ickle Ginny-kins'?

Yes. Because I know you don't mean that. We each have names with each other, even if no one else knows our names.

You know what having a name means, don't you?

I think so, but you've probably got a better idea.

It means stepping outside of time.

Interesting.

It means never dying.

That makes sense.

It means being important.

It means never having too-thin air.

Exactly, Gin.

You understand everything.

I want a name with everyone else, the whole world.

Me too.

The gray fog is black fog now, black on blacker. The fact that it was once gray registers in the back of my mind, but there's no way to reconcile the realities. Anything that is just is. And if it is, then I'm walking through it, and if I'm walking through it, then Tom is leading me by the hand. Tom is leading me by the hand. I don't know what this fact is supposed to register, if it's supposed to register anything at all.

I give up, I say.

No need, says Tom. We're nearly there. You've been a good girl, says Tom.

Shut up, I say. You know I hate you making fun of me.

Just write what I tell you to, says Tom.

Black on blacker fog, this fact doesn't register, Tom is leading me by the far-away pinprick of light that is my hand, or something that encompasses my hand…

Just write it, says Tom.

Non-sequitur.

I give up, I say.

But you're doing beautifully, says Tom.

I don't like this, I say. Give me a sense of where I am.

You don't need one.

But I want one.

But you promised to follow me no matter what.

Tom doesn't give me any sense of where or when or how. If I had eyes I would cry, but I don't think I have them. Then again I don't think I have a brain either, so I don't know how I'm thinking that I don't have eyes to cry with when I don't think I have a brain to think that I don't have eyes to –

I give up, I say. Tell me the answer.

What?

Exactly. Please.

I don't know what you're talking about. Let's go.

I'm not talking.

Sure you are. Let's go.

Why?

Silly question.

What, why?

A why is rarely ever a why, Ginny, it's a cleverly disguised what.

What do you want me to do wherever we're going?

That's more like it. You're a quick learner.

What?

Help me.

Why?

He sighs. He says, I'll tell you when you're older.

I give up. Just tell me the answer, please.

I think, I don't think there is an answer. The Tom-presence holding what used to be my hand doesn't contradict me.