Lost Little Boy
Disclaimer: See chapter 1
I need to tell someone. If I don't, I'll collapse.
I can't tell Ron. He took it badly enough when he found out who Ginny was going out with in our fifth year.
I can't tell Harry.
My parents wouldn't understand.
Remus' time is taken up with Tonks.
Ginny-
Ginny. She would understand. She was possessed by him, for goodness sake. Of course she'll understand. Anyway, she's an understanding person. And who else can I trust with this? Definitely not Ron. He would probably have a heart-attack or something.
So… Ginny. Here she is. Sitting in front of me, looking curious and pzzled.
I can't speak. I gesture at the pensieve, the one that used to be Dumbledore's, helplessly. She follows my gaze, realises what I mean, and takes my hand as we each dive into my memory.
I'm surrounded by Death Eaters and facing Voldemort. Voldemort is gazing through me, but certainly not at me. The Death Eaters are tense, hands twitching towards wands and eyes darting everywhere.
Voldemort looks up briefly, and I see it. Then my view is obscured by Harry.
"Did you see it?" I ask Ginny, once out of the pensieve. "Did you see Voldemort, just before Harry did his mad, heroic bit? Did you see his expression?"
Ginny nods. Her face has a pastelly, shell-shocked look.
"He looked helpless and lost, like a little boy."
I don't ask her whether she heard what he said. I don't want to know.
I did. Even the first time round, before Harry, very stupidly, dived on top of him, I heard him whisper it. It was directed at me, and I wish it wasn't, but I know it was.
In that single moment, when I saw the boy he had been, the man he could have been, I loved hi. Loved him! I don't know why. I don't know what came over me, but when I heard that whisper, I loved him.
"Mother?"
AN: When she says Voldy's staring through her, she means both her past and present selves. He's a bit distracted with his thoughts at that point.
So, how was it?