An Oversight Chapter 4: I Get A Little Broken Over You, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 4: I Get A Little Broken Over You

She likes to think of the constellation of light brown freckles that dot along the expanse of her body as the nails that hold together the porcelain of her fractured doll-form.

As long as she has her freckles the parts and pieces that make up Ginevra Molly Weasley will remain as a whole. So it simply does not matter that as she walks the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the imposing form of Tom Riddle struts just behind her, just in the corner of her eye, with a self-satisfied smirk carved into his grotesquely beautiful face. She has her freckles, so he cannot break her. She is safe.

She has to be safe.

This has to be okay...

A secret: She used to look for the blue of his eyes in other people.

She is not safe.

This is not okay.

Ginny thinks that Tom might want to throw things at her; she doesn't know whether she should be more glad or concerned that the only thing he can touch is her.

She thinks a conjured dagger shoved ruthlessly into her heart would be better than the cruel hands that are sliding up along her throat- the slight pressure he exerts that sends a traitorous trill down her spine, a swoop through her lower belly.

His anger is loud in its silence, crackling in his eyes and through his touch.

She looks through him. Lifeless. Deathly. Dead.

His hands slip from her, his frown as permanent as the grooves above his brow and the clench of his jaw.

This is how they are now. His anger is a flash of lightning and she is a desert; there is simply nothing there for it to strike.

He burns and she is nothing.

Thus is her tactic for she knows that this dark lord in the making, this spiteful little boy, never did like to play with broken toys.

She goes to meals early and leaves earlier.

When questioned: She is fine, but busy. This is the company line.

Ginny has decided that it would not be wise to sleep- that's how he got to her last time.

Well, one of the ways; but the playbook has changed a bit since the last time, in fact, there is no book at all.

He has more power than before, she can't simply abandon him in the loo. He is with her always, she knows he is just waiting for the moment she is no longer in control.

Then he will consume her, whole and entire. Ginny knows that of all the things that have changed this is his ambition, just like last time.

So she won't sleep.

Two days in and she has worked through the rest of the semesters material in all of her classes.

She is fine.

Ginny stands outside of Transfiguration, hair leaks from her messily constructed ponytail laying against her neck in slashes of red that run down over her misbuttoned sweater.

She glances at the thin black watch on her wrist. The second hand ticks past the 12 and she pulls an orange journal from her shoulder bag, it has been five minutes.

She is usually safe during classes, he hasn't tried anything yet...that she knows of...but the point is she must know, she must be absolutely sure, she must remain in control.

She takes her self-inking quill (a gift from Hermione on her last birthday)...

Hermione

Ginny violently shakes her head, refocusing she notes the time and her location at the bottom of a long list of similar notations. She quickly closes the book and shoves it in her bag as Professor McGonagall opens the door for class.

T O M to me too long...long to longingly...Nope. Nope.

Right but it should be wrong, it is wron ggggggg

After- there has got to be a morning after this one long arse day

Unprepared. They are all so utterly fucking unprepared for the avalanche of shite that is about to befall them. Why is she wasting her time listening to Binns prattle on about goblins?! Why are any of them listening to him?! They are about to be in the trenches for Merlin's sake! Ginny stands up abruptly in the middle of Binns' lecture, which of course he doesn't notice, and she thinks she shoves over her desk after a couple of short huffs and a quiet grunt. She knows that people are staring at her (still not Binns), she walks out in a huff after a quick shout of "Worthless!" with her hands thrown up in the air and harsh and penetrating glare directed at Binns. She thinks other people might have followed her, she thinks she accidentally started a revolution in History of Magic.

Masterful. Or so he thinks he is, but she knows. Oh boy, does she know. He may not think she knows but she is wise to his trickery, his skulduggery. All bold as brass walking next to her with his plans- she snaps, shoving him violently to the side and is rewarded with a true look of surprise from the prat as he falls to the ground in a woolen heap.

Arsehole.

She makes it a total of four days before the hallucinations start.

Ginny laughs madly in the near-empty library- she couldn't even think that and keep her composure. Her hallucination(?) is sitting on her right, entirely unamused by her antics, she simply ignores him and turns to her left where her newest delusion sits; she's crying too.

Ginny studies the woman's high cheekbones and dolent eyes, "What's brought you to the party?", she's never been more serious.

The woman doesn't bother to wipe away her silvery tears as she whispers, "I was betrayed by a man I thought to be my friend…"

Ginny nods sagely, "Soul sisters, then." Tom harumphs next to her knowing that any remark will be summarily ignored.

Ginny looks back down at the charms text in front of her, perusing the bleary words that might be in some form of aramaic until she hears a hissing across from her and looks up only to find a great green python in a suit (cravat and all) sitting across from her.

"SSSSSven." he hisses.

Ginny tries to find the words. She looks to her soul sister for answers only to find that she has face-planted into the dark wood table. She refuses to look to the 'french mistake' for help, even in trying times such as these.

Taking a deep breath, she regains her composure and turns to Sven, "Terribly rude of me, it is a pleasure to meet you Sven, my name is Ginny.", she tilts her head dreamily to the side in a manner far too reminiscent of Luna, "May I enquire as to why your suit has arms?"

"Onlyyy one in myy sssizze."

Accepting this, "Right. Well you look lovely. Best dressed snake in the place." The snake grins (?!) at Ginny with a gentle flick of his tongue, she offers a manic smile in return and retreats hastily to her book.

Several hours and a quick farewell to both woman and Sven, Ginny is back in her dorm room and on her knees in front of a frightened Marlena, "Lena please, I'm concerned that there might be worse than Sven or that he might have a top hat somewhere and I really don't think I could cope if he found a top hat! I will give you my first-born, or-or a stake in my soul! One of those has to be worth something to you-"

"Ginny, I don't want either of those things," sensing a dismissal Ginny starts to blubber frantically about dead chickens until Abigail interrupts the exchange with a smart slap that sends Ginny's face whipping in the opposite direction, "Knock it off Weasley, you're scaring her!"

Ginny sobers immediately, rising from the floor, "Sorry Marlena, Abigail; I never usually let it get this bad," quickly adopting a forlorn expression, "it's just since the quidditch accident, i've been sleepwalking and potions don't help and I just didn't want to fall down the stairs and end up back in the hospital wing again so sleeping is out of the question unless-"

"Unless you can get someone to spell your drapes shut or something of the like so you can't leave the bed and go pottering about the castle?" Abigail answers.

"Exactly." Ginny says with an overexcited smile.

"Done. Get some sleep, Weasel."

And so it's done and Ginny is in bed and praying she doesn't need to use the loo in the middle of the night. As she drifts off Ginny is comforted by the fact that at least the chickens will be safe.

In retrospect, she should have prayed for a dreamless sleep. The memories she seems to slip into every time she closes her eyes are somehow worse than even the hell her waking world had become.

In a world of grey, they alone are in colour.

Well, them and the sconces on the walls which still flicker the bright gold of a warming flame for reasons that an older and wiser Ginny would put to a symbolic manifestation of the safety she thought they both felt in that world that was theirs alone.

Or more accurately, her feelings of genuine safety and his need to lull her into a false sense of surety.

So it was, but also is, that inside a tatty little black book inscribed with the letters T.M.R, a black-haired boy weaves his lithe fingers through the thick ginger locks of a young girl as she reads to the boy from his battered copy of Dante's Inferno.

In this moment, as his hands slide through the silk of her hair, as her fingers thumb against the rough parchment of his book, they are content. They are safe. And in the unusually drab tones of his dormitory, they alone are woven of incandescent colour.

"Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people-"

Ginny stops reading, a frown working its way along her lips, "What does the M stand for?" she tilts her head slightly to the right, Tom gently nudges it back into place.

"What 'M'?" Tom mutters, the majority of his attention focused on the french fishtail braid he is weaving through her hair.

Ginny huffs with impatience, "Your M, silly." she says matter-of-factly.

He makes no response, his hands still gliding nimbly through her copper tresses.

A grin inches into the corner of Ginny's mouth, "Honestly, Tom M Riddle sometimes I think you might secretly be a blonde!", just as Tom is tying off the braid Ginny wrenches from his grasp only to whip around, shoving her hands into the thick waves of his dark brown hair, throwing the causally artistic ripples into a hectic smattering of curls.

A surge of anger overtakes the young dark lord as he yanks her small hands from the bird's nest that is now his hair. This fearsome half of a sixteen year old boy glows with thoughts of 'how dare this nothing of a girl think to assault his sovereign form' up until the moment he looks down into Ginny's open face and wide smile. She trusts him. But more than that, she is unafraid of him. She is comfortable with him. Even if the 'him' she is comfortable with is only a half of his whole, but then again, he is only a half of the whole Tom Riddle. His anger melts in an instant and the only word that falls from his lips is "Marvolo."

Ginny tests the word along her lips before saying, "It's certainly a very 'wizard' name, but I still prefer Tom."

Tom looks down at their hands and shakes his head in disgust, "Tom." he pulls his hands away from hers, "It is so terribly muggle. A dirty, common name. I can barely stand to be called by it."

Ginny searches his face, the downcast set of his mouth, the tension in his brow, the clench of his jaw. Slowly she raises her hand and rests her palm on his cheek like she sometimes sees her Mum do when her Dad has had a particularly trying day at the Ministry. The leeching cold of his eyes meet the luminous warmth of hers, "I don't think names matter half as much as the way people in our lives say them. 'Ginevra' is as witchy as can be but I hate it, up until the moment I hear you say it. Then I don't mind so much." Ginny says candidly, "Tom, like Ginevra is just a name until it isn't. You're my Tom, unless, of course, you'd prefer to be my Marvolo."

Tom cracks a smile as he gently guides her warm hand from his face, "So wise for one so young. I think I shall keep to being your Tom, my Ginevra." They grin warmly at one another.

Ginny blinks awake into the growing light of the fourth year girls dorm in Gryffindor Tower. She stares through the crack in the red velvet of her drapes and meets Abigail's olive eyes as she adjusts her red and yellow striped tie.

"Ginny…" Abigail starts. Ginny breaks eye contact and bodily flips to face her window instead. Abigail huffs angrily, "Fine. Be that way. But if you cost us any more house points because you missed classes again, I am going straight to McGonagall!" Abigail grabs her book bag and storms from the room, the echo of the slammed door resonating for long moments after her departure.

Ginny takes the long sleeve of her brown flannel and scrubs it through the tracks of tears that line her face in varying stages of moisture. She attempts to breathe through her clogged nose, looking to the window ledge where a moody Tom Riddle stares out at the school grounds.

Ginny flips over once more, with newly wet eyes.

Ginny is sat in an armchair in the Gryffindor Common Room staring disinterestedly into the fire contemplating the variety of ways one can go insane, as is her right mind you, when she is bombarded by a herd of angry Weasley's, a sheepish Chosen One and the ever-righteous 'brightest witch of her age'.

While Ginny is well aware that she has been behaving more like a paranoid hermit than her usually bright and bubbly self, an intervention is honestly a bit overkill.

(is what Ginny would think if she were able to gather herself together)

Hermione steps out of the mob of nervous faces, revealing herself as the de facto leader (to no one's surprise). With her hands planted firmly on either hip and her unruly curls crackling around her in determination, she opens her mouth and…

Ginny knows she must say something, in fact, she is probably saying quite a lot of things that most probably have to do with the value of friendship and the pathways of open communication and it's not that Ginny can't be bothered to pay attention it is simply that…

If HE is real he could kill them.

Harry crashing to his knees, clawing angry red grooves into his scar

Fred and George lay side by side-the ghost of a smile on each face-eyes empty

Ron his face going from shock to acceptance as he is enveloped by a flash of green light

Hermione screaming: enchanted knives carving her blood status in a litany all over her body

Luna's abused frame naked curled into a ball, her body vibrating with tremors, her wide blue eyes vacant

If HE isn't real isn't real then she doesn't want them to see her come apart in this way.

A cascade of nails fall to the floor- every one echoing with a resounding crack - each a new fissure rending her flesh down to the bone up until the final loss that shatters her into a thousand pieces scattering asunder to shatter separately dissipating desperately done grievously gone

Hermione is still speaking when Ginny stands from the chair.

She is through the portrait-hole and making her way down the slowly emptying corridors and before she is even aware of where she is headed she is sitting on the stone ledge of the Astronomy Tower.

Ginny Weasley stares up at the vast deep velvet, dotted as it is with people whose names and stories were sewed into the substance of worlds eternal and she longs to be either known as they are in their tragedy or to be free from the state forever.

The world should know and rage and understand all that she is about to give up. All of her could've beens, might've dones.

"Ginevra...please get down."

She doesn't need to turn around to see him. She already knows the crinkle in his brow and the gentle reach of his right hand from the catch in his voice.

Because i knew you i thought i knew you with my whole heart but it wasn't real

"Go away"

"I can't do that." The shake of his head is as swift as the end of their friendship and as decided as the destruction that ere long awaits them.

"I know." she says with the kind of smile one only gives when a thing is truly about to end.

He knows this too. "Princess, I need you to trust me. "

"I can't." she whispers with a minute shake of her head that seems so much more vehement in the chasm that is slowly wrapping itself around them.

Ginny spins herself around so that she is facing Tom and with a gentle smile she lightly pushes herself up to her feet and throws her arms out falling backwards into the night just as Tom charges towards her.

And then Ginny is no longer falling but standing next to Tom in the vast, echoing emptiness that is the Chamber of Secrets. And Ginny is not fourteen but twelve.

"I never left the chamber."

"Nor did I."

Ginny gets down from the ledge and hesitantly moves towards Tom. She looks at him-her entire form trembling with the need of this truth-he slowly takes her hand and presses her palm against his chest over where his heart would be-if he had ever had such a human thing- "I am here" he whispers "you have me."

Her face crumples and she is all heaving breast and hot tears, "I looked for you in everything- for so long, Tom, for so long. I ached for you and you never came! You don't get to be here now," her knees give out and he eases her to the ground- one hand still pressing hers against his chest in an almost desperation, "I was finally doing okay- I made the team…" with a harsh and wracking sob she fists her hand in his shirt once, twice, then throws her arms around him with the violence of a harsh wave colliding against a pillar of rock. "don't leave, please don't leave me again"

"don't leave, please don't leave me again"

"You're only trying to save yourself"

"I cannot watch you die"

"You have before!"

"You are MY friend"

"No."

"You said you would forgive me anything"

"And you knew better"

In this place between love and hate we exist eternal.

Astra inclinant sed non obligant.

EPILOGUE:

Ginevra Molly Weasley and Tom Marvolo Riddle sat together in a world constructed of parchment, leather and ink- tragic things in a terrible world. But they had found one another through the ravage of time and restriction of circumstance and in this they were happy.