"Well, this is disappointing..." Ginny said pulling the blanket over her shoulder which had started to slip, and looking at the creatures that flew in a circle over the roof of the store across the street.
"Dementors." he had said, and that had been enough to draw her attention and make her sit on the couch.
"What? Here? Why?" Tom motioning for her to follow him before disappearing between the curtains, so Ginny stood up pulling the blanket with her and did exactly that.
Tom was standing in front of the window, arms folded over is chest, watching the scene on the street, amazed. But Ginny's reaction when she saw what was going on outside, was to duck and press her back against the small space between the floor and the window.
Four Dementors hovered in a circle above the store across them, like vultures.
That was not normal, they should be in Azkaban, what were they doing there?
Ginny could feel them, even with some distance between them; the air was cooler, and it explained why she had been walking down the hall of the Chamber of Secrets before Tom woke her up.
He continued in the same position, lost in thought, facing the Dementors across the street, completely visible to the creatures if they decided to look inside. Moving quickly, she grabbed him by the sweater and pulled him down.
"Do you want to die?" Ginny asked in annoyance as she pulled the blanket back over her shoulders. Tom pushed her to the side and rolled his eyes, turning back to the window with one knee on the ground and low enough so nothing could see him from the outside.
There was nothing to fear, they were not interested in them, and Dementors were, after all, one of his favourite creatures.
Suddenly they heard the kitchen's table been drawn through the floor and some of the chairs falling down; the noise making them look at the curtains that divided the attic. Tom looked at Ginny and smiled strangely amused. "I suppose the Aurors came to try to search the store again."
"With Dementors?" Ginny asked in a whisper, pushing him to the side to see what was going on. "It seems to me a bit exaggerated..."
The bell sounded muffled on the ground floor when Borgin and Burke open the door to the street before appeared outside, which led to one of the Dementors to descend down to the street, hovering over the two partners, who exchanged a look before turning their attention to the four Aurors that in the meantime also entered their vision field.
"Let's see if we can hear..." Tom unlocked the large window and leant it slightly out, letting in a blast of cold air in that made him gasp when it hit him.
Ginny got closer to Tom and stretched him a corner of the blanket, making him smirk imperceptibly. Pulling the blanket over his shoulders, Tom sat down, as close to the window he could to see what was happening outside, and pulled Ginny closer to him, resting his wrist on her knee, then focusing his attention on what was happening outside, feeling pleased she was letting him touch her without any fuss.
The Aurors had returned, again without all the papers they needed to be able to enter the store. This time, they obviously had come better prepared, with better arguments, a patrol leader with more vocabulary. In other words, more persuasive and manipulative than the one with whom Tom had spoken in their previous encounter.
They didn't understand why they would bring Dementors with them, not just one, to intimidate the owners of the store, but one for each Auror, like bodyguards. A very unusual task for those creatures, no doubt, that rarely exited the premises of the wizard prison.
Stanger than that was the blatant incompetence surrounding the mission. They should never have come back without the proper documentation to search the store, it seemed that someone in the Ministry was trying to do something under the table, but not planning it well at all, and managing to raise a lot of attention with the attempt when they decided to bring such creatures to London.
It kind of reminded Ginny of her own mission.
"Do you think they'll get in?" Ginny asked, bending her back to ease her discomfort, after a few minutes of silence.
"I doubt it." Tom said, repeating the same movement that Ginny, feeling the muscles of his back relax for a moment, then immediately beg for a more comfortable position.
Ginny began to gradually lose interest in what was happening on the street, getting bored and sleepy. It became obvious that they would not been searching the store, and their plan had failed. They had brought the Dementors as some kind of last resource to intimidate the owners of the store. Unfortunately, Borgin and Burkes, by the nature of their business and their shady customers, had more experience in regard to the arts of intimidation then the Aurors would ever have.
Ginny rested her chin in her hand, watching the three Dementors who continued to hover in a circle on the dark roof of the store in front of theirs. She looked further, appreciating the view the attic had, which was a surprisingly nice view over London. It could be seen in the background a very small Big Bang, imposing, none the less, cutting the skyline in the distance, as well as a myriad of church towers and even some cranes next to buildings whose reconstruction was still in process, shadows of WWII still visible in the city.
"Well, there's nothing to see here anymore." Ginny stand and pulled the blanket with her, leaving Tom exposed to the cold air coming through the window's opening. "I'm going to sleep."
Tom also got up and closed the window, watching her disappear through the curtains before sitting down on the bed observing the Dementors. What was going on in the street, had stopped being interesting for quite a while, but he had stayed because she had stayed.
He was about to fall asleep when someone started knocking on the door. "Riddle!" Chanted Burke across the wood. "Riddle!"
Tom crossed the attic, stopping next to the couch, where Ginny was sitting looking at the door, bewildered. "What does he want?"
"I do not know, but you should grab your pillow and get into my bed." Tom walked back to draw the curtains so that the bed would be visible from the door. "He never wanted to talk to me in the middle of the night before."
Ginny got the message and walked past Tom, resigned.
After what had been happening in the last days, the last thing she needed was Burke being weird again. How she hated her life... She spread the blanket at the foot of the bed, threw her pillow on top of Tom's and sat down on the bed covering her legs, trying to look drowsy and confused.
When Tom opened the door, she gave a brief nod to Burke and lay down, turned her back to the door and pulled the blankets up to her nose.
Tom stepped down the first step of the stairs and leant against the wall, closing the door in the process. Burke was trying really hard to hide how angry he was from seeing her there, before beginning to speak.
Tom resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he was right about Burke's intentions, had she stayed on the couch, she would be in trouble.
Burke was telling him in detail what had happened with the Aurors for what it seemed like an eternity and he was losing his patience because it was obvious that he was doing it just to keep him outside and away from Ginny. "Burke, can we finish this tomorrow? I'm starting to freeze and I really need to rest these last few hours until the sun rises."
"Rest?" Asked the other wizard with a laugh that was far from amused. "She isn't giving you much time to rest when you're awake, is it then?"
Tom coldly smiled in response and grabbed the doorknob. "No, she has not." He said looking over his shoulder, making sure the other wizard understood he did not appreciate such observations about his private life. "Good night Burke." He entered the room and closed the door behind him, activating the spells that locked it with a movement of his hand.
He stood by the bed, founding Ginny asleep.
She was precisely where she should be.
He did not expect to see her there again during the last days they had together before she left the store.
Tom slowly lay down beside her, so as not to wake her up and looked at the back of her head.
The mention of a love potion had been a really low blow from her side, it had put him away, just like it would do to any other wizard. On another level, it had been an insult, but there was absolutely no way she knew what he thought she had alluded to, he had killed everyone that knew.
He rested the back of his hand against Ginny's hip for a moment before sliding the back of a finger up her waist. She responded to his touch, turning to him, pressing her body against his, her head resting on his shoulder, crossing an arm over his chest "What is it that Ron wanted?" She asked in a whisper that caused a wave of disdain to pass through Tom.
Again the same, he was beginning to develop a hatred for this Harry in a way that he had never felt for anyone in years. How was it even possible? It was the fourth night she was there, the first after that kiss, and she still had her mind focused on some guy she hadn't seen for over a month and which who she no longer had nothing?
At the slightest provocation, he could feel her mouth on his, her fingers in his hair, the way she tasted and her body grinding against his. It was impossible that she didn't feel the same desires that were starting to claw at him, underneath his very skin; she was just incredibly stubborn about it. Just as she was about everything else.
He took a deep breath, trying to restore some order to his thoughts. Tom put his arm around Ginny and focused on the feeling of having her so close, focusing on the way her hand rested on his shoulder, the leg that had wrapped around his and fell asleep.
The next morning, he woke up feeling her stretch to his side, before realising where she was.
"It's already morning?" He asked in a hoarse voice, covering his eyes with his arm while holding Ginny down with the other, as she tried to sit up.
"Come on Tom, let me get up..." Ginny muttered trying to sit up again and that turn not finding any resistance. "You should have woken me up..."
Tom also sat, resting his arms on his knees. "You looked so comfortable, I didn't dare..." He said calmly, observing with curiosity the way her red hair reflected the light coming through the window, with a provocative smile on his lips.
"You're horrible..." Ginny stood up, walking over to her dresser to choose what to wear. The weather was still very cold, and today, she was going to spend the night at the Cauldron, so she was feeling like keeping her pants and be comfortable.
She felt kind of melancholy and miserable, and it was because of the Dementors.
Ginny touched her folded skirts in the drawer, ignoring Tom, who continued to look at her from the bed. Today she didn't feel the courage to face reality. She was exhausted. She took a white shirt and a green sweater from the drawer, almost the same colour of Harry's eyes and disappeared into the bathroom, today she was going to be herself.
The small room was colder than the rest of the attic, so she turned on the hot water and waited for the steam to spread around the small space, watching her reflection in the mirror gradually disappear.
Work with Lord Voldemort, live with Lord Voldemort, be his roommate and now share his bed. What was she doing with her life? She cleaned the mirror with the palm of her hand to look at her reflection again.
She looked horrible.
It was not long until she could move out to her own place. It was two days before Christmas and from there to the New Year, was nothing. She was going to have her things ready before leaving with Tom to Hephzibah Smith's party, so that when she woke up the next day, she would only need to grab her bag and move out.
She had not foreseen this when she decided it was a good idea to stay close to Tom Riddle while thinking about what to do in relation to him. But how could she have guessed this was going to be the result? She knew something could happen with Borgin, and she had been right, but with Tom?
This was a surprise.
She had to admit to herself that she had fallen into old habits. She built new routines on habits that were created with the Horcrux, underestimating the wizard she worked with, confusing him with the memory that he had left in a notebook.
That was her biggest mistake since she had arrived.
The Tom Riddle that had held her over the night was not the ghost of a teenager trapped in a notebook, he was a grown man, and she no longer was 11 years old.
Now she had set foot through a door she should never have opened in the first place.
Now it was too late.
She slowly undressed and entered the shower, letting the hot water run down her face, almost burning her skin.
Ginny was completely, utterly, irreversibly screwed.
Although exhausted and in denial, she could not say that the day had not gone well. Tom kept his distance, fortunately respecting her personal space, except that brief moment when he slightly pulled her pants to inquire about the whereabouts of her skirt during the breakfast.
Ginny rocked over the heels of her boots, feeling the leather slightly scratch her calves while writing an entry in the book for the small box that had arrived in the afternoon.
They were about to close.
Suddenly the fire erupted in green flames and Abraxas Malfoy emerged from the fireplace, cleaning the ashes from his impeccably black outfit and running a hand through his blonde hair.
Tom left the warehouse, pulling the gloves on his hands, ready to receive the customer, but paused for a moment when he saw who it was. "Abraxas, I was not expecting to see you…" He said with a smile, circumventing the counter to greet the other wizard.
"That's because I did not come to see you." Said Malfoy, looking away from Tom to focus in Ginny, who continued to write with her head bent down, leaning on the counter, not paying attention to them.
Tom followed his gaze and jerked his head back to glare at Abraxas hotly. How dare he disrespect her like that? She had told him she did not want to go out with him… what was going on that idiotic brain of his?
Malfoy, ignorant of Tom's thoughts, walked around him and bent over the counter, next to Ginny, catching her attention.
"Hello, Abraxas." She said without looking up from her book.
"Are you ready?" He asked cheerful, excited with the idea of passing the rest of the day with her.
"For what?"
"To go?"
"Go where?" Ginny put her feather down and closed the inkwell, then blew the ink carefully, to help it dry faster but without smudging it. "I don't remember making plans with you."
"Seriously?" Abraxas was surprised. "Are you serious? You really don't want to go have dinner?" He asked incredulously.
Ginny closed the book and looked at Abraxas and coldly assessed her options.
"I already have plans for today Abraxas, but you can come with me if you want." She put her hands in her pockets. "You can also come, Tom."
"Oh no, Ginevra, I'm not going with you." Tom rolled his eyes and started to lock the door of the store. "Far from me, to allow myself to ruin your night."
"I was not asking if you wanted to come." Ginny said coolly.
"Didn't you now?" Tom put his hand in his pockets, watching her in a calculating way, trying to understand what she wanted. Were they having another "Burke" moment? The last thing he needed was to have Abraxas thinking he had changed his opinion about Ginny.
"No, I didn't." Said Ginny beginning to climb the stairs to the top floor.
Flourish & Blots had, even more, people than the last time she had been there, and she almost hit some wizards that were queueing in front of the fireplace to pay for their books. Before she could decide to which way she should turn to open the space for Tom and Abraxas, she felt the fire explode behind her and then someone hit her almost making her fall down.
She hoped it was not Malfoy that had just put his arm around her to keep his balance.
"What are you doing standing in front of the fireplace?" Tom asked bothered, not having time to notice the wizards in front of them, because Malfoy came out of the fireplace at that moment and crashed against Tom making him almost fall over Ginny again.
Ginny broke through the queue and started to walk up the stairs, followed by Tom and Malfoy.
"Do you know what you want to buy?" Asked Malfoy several steps behind her.
"No, I want to have a look first." Ginny said, leaning against the wall to let some people pass down.
Ginny finally found the Muggle literature section, and slowly ran the books with her fingertips, before pulling out a heavy volume out.
"We don't have much time before the store closes…" Malfoy said. "Maybe half an hour."
"What is it, Tom?" Ginny asked, ignoring Malfoy, looking at him slightly bite his lip looking at some other corner of the store. "You can go see whatever you want Tom, the fact that you have to come with me and Malfoy, does not mean you have to be with us all the time."
Ginny smiled evilly at him. If he had the ability to kill with a single look of those icy blue eyes, she would already be lying on the floor, dead, but Tom chose to roll his eyes at her before walking away without even giving her an answer.
After several failed attempts to make Ginny talk to him and failing every time, Malfoy also walked away, choosing to wait for the two leaning over the railing, watching, bored and annoyed, the queue on the ground floor get progressively smaller.
"We should go." He eventually said, walking closer to Ginny, who was trying to decide what book she should buy. "We still have to go look for Riddle, maybe try to stop him before he buys the entire place…"
"Hmm? Alright." Ginny showed to Malfoy the two books she was holding. "This one or this?" She asked.
Malfoy frowned while reading the titles. "I don't know Ginny; why don't you choose something normal?" He asked, referring to the fact that she was showing him Muggle books instead of proper wizardly literature.
They were starting to walk down the stairs looking for Tom, when they finally saw him, clearly carrying more books than was wise. They exchanged a look for a moment, fun to Ginny and Malfoy, but uneasy for Tom, who only realised at the time the actual amount of books that he had taken off the shelves.
"You don't understand; I need this books." He said, authority in his voice that didn't leave space for arguing.
"Of course." Ginny remarked, struggling not to laugh.
"Let me help you with that..." Abraxas approached Tom and took half of the books from his arms.
The cashier packed the books in three different piles, and each one of them grabbed one before walking to the fireplace.
"Abraxas, I believe we can agree upon..." Ginny put the books on the free chair of the table where they had sat in the Cauldron to have dinner. "That we will not go to a bookstore with Tom Riddle ever again."
"You're right about that." Said Malfoy, placing his books on top of Ginny's package, before sitting down beside her.
"Both of you are absolutely unbearable." Tom muttered, putting his books in the chair as well. They looked in silence at the books enveloped in brown paper rise above the table top. "They aren't that many... they are just big."
Ginny coughed to disguise a laugh.
"Well, how about we ask for a bottle of wine?" Asked Malfoy, not giving anyone time to answer, he called the waiter and asked him for a bottle with an unpronounceable name in Portuguese.
They stayed in an awkward silence waiting for the waiter to return with the wine, and even when another waiter brought them a menu, they found a topic of conversation, using the small booklets as an excuse to justify the quietness.
"Do you have everything ready for the dinner?" Tom asked, pulling a conversation topic that bored him, but not bearing to be in silence a moment longer. Abraxas was starting to get in a bad mood due to his presence there, after all, the purpose of his visit that afternoon was to take Ginny to dinner, only Ginny, not Ginny and Tom.
On the other side of the table, Ginny had opened her book and was reading its last page as she nibbled the tip of her thumb. With no chance of getting out of there, he could see she had sent her mind away.
"Yes, almost everything is ready." Malfoy said dryly. "We are finished cleaning the guest rooms and decorate the gardens. Ginny, I asked the elves to prepare you a room near Tom's and mine." Malfoy pushed Ginny's book down with a finger to catch her attention, immediately regretting it because of the way she looked at him after.
"Abraxas, we talked about this." She pulled the book towards her, to keep it away from him, and went back to reading.
"Maybe you should reconsider Ginevra." Said Tom, while tearing the tip of the napkin with his knife, bored. "That night, Burke usually has a small dinner in the store with some friends that are..." Tom tried to find the words to describe them. He gave up. "I think you should come with us."
Ginny looked at Tom in disbelief and closed the book tightly between her hands, letting it fall on top of Tom's after a moment. She opened her mouth to ask him why he had not mentioned it earlier, but the waiter arrived with the wine and filled their glasses. She took a deep breath and blinked a few times trying to process what he had said, then he looked at Malfoy. "I will go to your dinner with pleasure, Abraxas."
"Did something else happened with Burke?" He asked, confused.
"No, but it's better that I don't give him a chance to make something stupid." Ginny took her glass to her lips, swallowing the sweet red liquid.
"And you can't forget we have a "thing" now." Said Tom, not resisting, making Ginny choke and look at him with wide-open eyes, her mind on what had been happening in his bed. "Remember what you made me do to get off that situation?" He asked, looking at her amused as she relaxed on his words. "It would be weird if you stayed at the store alone while I went out."
"I've completely forgotten about it." Ginny answered drinking the rest of her glass, ignoring Abraxas that was looking annoyed at her after hearing Tom. "But you're right Tom, as always." She pulled the bottle to her to read the label, but the whole text was in French, so she simply poured another glass to herself, it was going to be a long dinner.
It wasn't late when Ginny and Tom returned to the store.
Ginny put Tom's books on his desk and sat down on the couch, slowly taking off her boots. Tom followed her soon after, carrying the rest of the books he had bought, and also put them on the desk, sitting next to Ginny on the couch.
"Why didn't you tell me that Borgin was going to spend his Christmas Eve here?" She asked, sliding away from him.
Tom leant back, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "I forgot."
"I really doubt it..." Ginny mumbled, upset.
"What did you say?" Tom asked sleepy, looking at her under half-closed lids.
"I said, where did you put my pillow?" She didn't felt like arguing, she just wanted him to get up, go to the other side of the attic and leave her alone.
"It's still in my bed." Tom said, closing his eyes again. When she got up, he wondered what would happen if, at that moment, he pulled her into his lap. Nothing good for him probably. But he really wanted to touch her again, have her back in his arms. Kiss her.
"Don't fall asleep there." Ginny told him, throwing her blanket and pillow at him before walking to the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.
Tom pushed her things to the side and got up, trying to not get angry. He changed clothes and was finishing closing the curtains when Ginny sat on the couch, not even glancing at him before putting the blanket over her head.
Christmas Eve arrived and Ginny could not wait for it to pass, she was still feeling completely exhausted and the idea of having to go to a party was not helping her mood at all. She walked upstairs and stopped by the closed curtains.
"Tom?" She called. "Are you alive in there?" Sometime after lunch had passed when she decided to see if he was okay, or was studying, or just doing something evil, she couldn't guess.
Ginny had raised late from her couch, she had actually wakened up at the usual time she had to get up for work, but she felt so tired that she didn't found the courage to get up. When she finally did, the curtains were still closed, nothing special about it, Tom used to leave them like that so that the light wouldn't wake her, it was kind of nice of him, but she could always hear him doing something like moving in bed, or stir some papers.
Despite the fact that he was the most powerful wizard of the century, he didn't seem strong enough to face the mad world of a Christmas Eve.
So, if he wasn't in anywhere of the store, and she couldn't hear him, it had to mean he took some books to read on his side of the attic, stayed up late reading, and now was still asleep to compensate for the lost hours.
The time had passed, with Ginny lazily reading her new book in the kitchen, she ate a hearty lunch because he had a feeling that Malfoy's Christmas dinner wouldn't be anything more than a large number of people eating fancy food all night, and drinking sparkling wine as if all the water on the planet had dried.
Ginny, hungry, would never be able to face one night between the VIP of the wizardly society.
When Tom did not answer her, Ginny hesitated for a moment to whether or not to pass through the curtains and see if he was there. She felt like that because first, this time, she was sober, had she not been that unfaithful night and her relation with Tom would still be quite "simple", second, it was his space and as the guest, she tried to respect it.
"No, I can't say I'm really alive, Ginny." She heard his voice behind her and quickly turned around.
It was not the real Tom that was talking to her.
It was the Horcrux.
She held onto the fabric and let herself slip onto the ground, in shock. "You..."
Of all the Tom Riddles versions she had the misfortune to meet, the Tom from Hogwarts, the one with whom she lived now and of course, Lord Voldemort in the future, who she didn't actually meet but saw from a relatively safe distance; the one she hated the most, was looking at her from the desk.
He was her worst nightmare.
The Horcrux was watching her with cruel amusement, arms behind his back, a hideous smile that did not rise to his cold, blue eyes devoid of emotion. Ginny could see straight through him, to the door to the stairs behind him. But she fixated on the boy in front of her, the one who had been the sole cause of her nightmares ever since she was 11. Her eyes raked over the Hogwarts uniform with the steel-grey and emerald emblem in his chest, the black robes that went down from his shoulders to his ankles, and fell upon his eyes.
With a brief look to the side, she saw the diary, resting open at the desk, its pages blank as if it was a simple notebook and nothing more than that.
When he took a quiet step towards her, Ginny pulled her legs towards her, when he took a second step, Ginny released the curtains and crept back, only stopping when her back hit the wall, feinting the undulating curtains with bated breath, and not believing what she was seeing.
Her heart almost stopped when the Horcrux crossed the curtains, like a ghost, calmly walking towards her. With nowhere to flee, she closed her eyes, pressed her back against the wall as much as she could and turned her face away, her pulse racing, whispering harshly under her breath that he was not there, he couldn't be.
"Don't be like that, dear Ginny. I won't harm you anymore." He said, amused by her reaction.
Ginny looked at him, breathing heavily, he had stopped by the foot of the bed, and she was barely able to articulate, fearing the meaning of his words, feeling paralysed by the fear she felt. "W-What have you done?"
"I took some energy from you." He said with the same, familiar, horrible smile. "I suppose you can feel it. I did it because I wanted to see you again and I need to talk to you."
"You speak with me every day."
"It's not quite me, after all, I exist in a notebook." He said with an unpleasant voice like he couldn't believe she didn't understand the difference between him and his Creator.
Ginny didn't answer, merely waiting for Tom to continue.
She had nothing to say to him.
Tom watched her quietly, serious, slightly tilting his head to the side. "It's odd to see you so silent, I'm not used to it. You never stopped talking." When she remained quiet, he bit his lip and smirked.
"You grew up." He observed.
"What do you want with me?" Ginny asked again, a wave of anger beginning to go through her and starting to override the horror she felt to have him there with her, just a few steps away from where she was sitting on the floor.
"Part of me is also surprised to be here, talking to you in this attic and not at Hogwarts, to recognise you at a time where I should not be able to do so." Said Tom, ignoring her question, folding his arms across his chest. "But I have been analysed the information I saved in the diary…"
"You saved?" Ginny interrupted him, starting to rise from the floor.
"That I saved, yes. Don't forget that I am the same person as the man who lives in this attic. A piece of his soul forced to meld itself into a set of memories, a piece with different objectives of the whole, but the same, nonetheless."
Ginny took a deep breath, apparently, she had forgotten.
After weeks of living with Tom on a daily basis, after what had begun to happen in the last days, she had managed to build a wall between the Tom she took with herself to Hogwarts and the one she found here. The same principle even applied to Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort, they were the same wizard, she knew that, but they were different.
"But, as I was saying; I was very curious. How could it be? You are 50 years into the past, so how can I have such a clear memory of what happened between us? Between the time you placed the tip of your pen on my pages and the moment when you entered the Chamber for the last time?"
Biting her lip in anticipation, almost breaking the delicate skin, Ginny waited for Tom to explain what was going on, why was he out of the diary, because now she remembered, her exhaustion was the same she felt when he started to come out of the diary, back in Hogwarts. How could have she forgotten?
"What has happened here, and I suppose you will not like to hear it, is that we are connected now." Tom said, somewhat resigned, not very pleased with the meaning of his own words.
"How connected?" Ginny asked.
"Connected to the extent that our souls are interlinked. It all started when I decided to have a walk through Hogwarts."
That brought Ginny memories of waking up in her bed in the Gryffindor's Tower, still dressed in her uniform, surrounded by chicken feathers, confused and frightened by not knowing what had happened, sitting in the dark and waiting for the other girls leave for breakfast and not peek into her bed and see her like that, asking questions she had no answer to.
"As you know, possession is something common among certain types of spirits, but it doesn't leave long-term consequences." Tom put his arms behind his back again, balancing himself on his heels for a moment, looking at the rooftops of the city through the window. "But I'm not a common spirit, I am not a ghost, I am something quite different. When I touched your soul, I left an impression, a mark so to speak, it is part of the work process of a Horcrux, a soul for a soul, you should have died that day. But you didn't, so my mark never disappeared. Now? Now, we're connected on the deepest of levels. We're bonded."
"But what does that mean?" Asked Ginny, afraid.
"It means that until the end of Time, we will always find each other, like-" he tasted the word carefully, "soul mates." He paused for a moment, observing her reaction to his words. "But not exactly. I was made first of all to kill and only after that to bring life, my life, and by life, I don't mean ridiculous feelings associated with love and compassion."
"No, Tom, you're mistaken." Ginny said, her voice trembling, refusing to believe his words.
"I'm never mistaken, Ginevra." said the Horcrux. "There will always be a moment of your life in which I will appear and bring you some kind of misery, and I will do whatever it is in my power to have you, because that was my goal when I marked you, to have your soul and exchange it for mine, even if I don't realize why I want you, or what I'm doing. It is what is happening to you right now, right at this moment, in this store, with this Tom Riddle."
Ginny shook her head in disbelief, rising from the floor.
"You know my story, you know my plans, my goals, and you know that there is no room for someone like you in my life, but even so, I crossed that line. I would never do it if it weren't what I had done to you in your childhood, years in the future. I have spent all those months at your side, I was the one with whom you shared everything you could and you could not share, I wanted to see you again."
"Those red eyes…"
"It was me. I can't obviously possess my Maker the same way I did with you; I cannot hurt or change his intentions. What I did was... how should I say... Go back home." Tom laughed, amused at his own analogy. "Since I have already crossed paths with you, it allowed him to lower his walls a little, and that's why you slept here for a second time." Tom looked at the bed for a moment, before returning his eyes to her. "I was the one that wanted that."
"And what happened when you touched me for the first time? That energy? I don't mean you, but this Tom, from 1946…"
"That? Well, I'm not sure yet, and you shouldn't lose sleep over it, I believe you will need as much of it has possible for the next days." He smirked. "I think it was a side effect of time travelling and coming back to me, I realised you were here the moment that happened."
"Don't make it sound like I'm here because I want to be!" shouted Ginny, not able to restrain herself.
"That's irrelevant." Tom said rolling his eyes. "You may be here by chance, but you're here, you woke me, you woke up our little curse..." Tom crossed the distance that separated him from Ginny that slide back to the ground, hiding her face in her knees and covering her head with her arms.
"Stop!" She screamed in terror, a sob coming from her throat that was nearly closed by the panic she felt.
"You are mine, Ginevra, now and forever, and the day I finally walk through the valley of the dead, you can be sure that you will be the one by my side."
The room was suddenly silent; Ginny could hear the echoes of her own sobs in the abruptly empty room. It felt like ages before the sounds dissipated until she was only left with the sound of her tears, letting them wash away the memories of today. Today and those of long ago...
Tom found Ginny sitting at the foot of his bed, her back bent and hands between her legs, eyes fixed on the closet in front of her. "Ginevra?" He muttered, realising that she was not well.
Ginny looked at him for a moment before turning back to the closet, wiping tears from her face with the sleeve of her sweater. Tom began to wish that there were more people and more queues in the shops he had visited during the last hours while trying to find something to gift to Malfoy's mother, so that now, he wouldn't have to deal with this. "What's wrong?" Ginny slumped forward, hiding her face in her hands, her hair hiding her from him.
Walking through the attic, Tom left his bag on the desk, over his diary, and lowered himself in front of Ginny, resting his knuckles on her knee to keep his balance, and proceeded to put some strands of hair behind her ear. "Ginevra?" He called again.
Ginny took a deep breath and looked at him, curiosity in his blue eyes, framed by slightly raised eyebrows, lips closed in a thin line that could almost be of concern, but surely were not.
What was she going to say? She couldn't tell him that his Horcrux decided to attack her; that the Horcrux had told her that she belonged to him, that they were sentenced to cross their paths until the end of time; that she had spent the last hour reliving the worst moments of her life.
No.
"I really want to go home, Tom, I don't want to go to the dinner with you, I want to go home, I want to go see my family." She said, a reasonable and childish lie.
When had she become good at doing that?
Tom sat down beside her on the bed. "If you were not here, what would you be doing?" He asked, deciding to try to distract her, despite the topic being completely indifferent to him.
Ginny cleaned her face again and gave him a sad smile. "Well, if you really want to know, now I would be helping my mum and my aunt to cook, and since my family is so big we have the biggest house of the..." Ginny stopped before she could say her last name.
The minutes passed, Tom pushed his pillow against the wall, resting his back on it while listening, and Ginny crossed her legs over the bed, telling him about the routine those days brought, the confusion that kept the house busy for two days, the discussions, accidents, all the adventures. When she finished, they were almost in the dark, Tom smiled, sympathetic to what he had just been hearing, and Ginny looked away, sigh and put a lock of her hair behind her ear.
Distracted by her own talking, she didn't even notice that she had just shared something of her private life with him, for the first time since she had arrived, and he had heard her just like his Horcrux used to do. It was like she simply forgot that a part of him had terrorised her just a couple of hours before. It was the old routine again; she, spent and worn from the day's troubles, came to him with her sorrows and he listened. That was his tantalising gift, he drew her in, so faithful, so understanding. That was how he had almost destroyed her.
"I'm going to get ready for dinner." She said after a moment of silence, slowly raising from the bed and not looking at Tom, disturbed.
He watched her idly for a moment, watching her open the drawers of the dresser where she kept her clothes, trying to find something to wear. Pulling the book he had on the bedside table he began to read, feeling sleepy after such a one-sided conversation, and making a spell to light the candles around the room.
When he lowered the book to look at the clock, he got both angry and incredulous, he looked at the other side of the attic, to the closed bathroom door.
They were getting late! How was that possible?
He rose from the bed, cursing his distraction and began to strip his jacket, and then the waistcoat, leaving them on the bed, then he opened the closet and pulled the suitcase, threw into it something to sleep in and clothes for the next day, something less formal for the lunch with the Malfoys.
He took off his clothes for the party that night, and crossed the attic, entering the bathroom without knocking.
Ginny almost jumped, startled, scratching half of her face with the black eyeliner she was trying to apply. "What are you doing? I'm using the bathroom." She asked looking at Tom with her eyes wide open, not believing what he had just done.
"Yes, for an eternity! You think I didn't notice?" Tom said, taking a clean towel from one of the shelves built into the wall behind the door, putting it over his shoulder and stuck his clothes over the other towels. "Abraxas made me promise we would be there a couple of hours before the dinner started, and I hate to be late. If I was going to wait for you to exit the bathroom, we would probably be late for the dinner itself..." He argued, looking at her through the mirror's reflection while unbuttoned his shirt up to the middle of the chest, preparing to shave. "What?" He asked, looking at her angry face.
"Since when do you have the habit of entering bathrooms when your female roommates are using them?" Ginny asked, shocked by this new behaviour.
"I don't… but since what has happened in recent days, you can pretend we are…" Tom stopped and looked at her trying to decide what to say. "Brothers."
Ginny couldn't believe her hears. "You kissed me!"
"I don't care, Ginevra, stop being dramatic! Just be done with whatever you were doing and let me get ready."
"Don't try to hurry me after almost making me stick a pencil in my eye!" She said, right in her accusation.
"Like I would ever be able to make you do something against your will…" Tom muttered, applying the shaving cream to his face in small circular movements. "And by the way, you look horrible."
Ginny rolled her eyes and pushed him to the side the moment Tom was about to touch his cheek with the blade so that she could reach the mirror over the basin. "Be careful!" He told her in a low, menacing voice, looking at her through the mirror with his eyes half closed.
"Careful!?" She repeated sarcastic. "If I was not dressed, the only dinner you'd be enjoying this night was whatever they would be serving at St. Mungo's..." She said wiping the black line off her face and almost sticking her nose in the mirror to finish her makeup. "Besides, I don't look horrible, I'm not done getting ready yet..."
"Then what's up with that dress? We're going to a party, not to work." Jabbed Tom, concentrated in his reflection in the mirror.
"What's wrong with it?" Ginny asked releasing the knoll and pointed the wand at her head, trying to decide what to do with her hair, while looking at her dress for a second. It was the first thing she had put on after going shopping, back in the Cauldron.
"I've seen you with it like, five times, I thought women liked to buy new things for this kind of things."
Ginny raised an eyebrow at his comment "I didn't know you were interested in women clothes, Tom..." Ginny said sarcastically, bewitching her hair into a simple updo.
"It's a recent hobby I got, but not the clothes of all women..." He paused to slide the blade through his jaw. "Only yours."
Ginny hit him in his arm with an elbow, almost making him cut himself. "Ginevra..." He warned her again.
"Tom..."
Looking at herself in the mirror, she pulled her dress down and her sleeves up, watching Tom's reflection in the mirror. He always had an impeccable air and perfect appearance, he was also going to be Lord Voldemort, and it was odd to see him do something as mundane, as human and simple as shaving.
"You missed a spot." She said, breaking the awkward silence that had settled for a moment, turning to Tom.
He lowered the blade and looked at her, confused.
"Here." Ginny took the blade from his hand, pushed his chin up, still covered in shaving cream, and placed the blade to his throat before he could even react. Tom stopped breathing and swallowed hard, surprised, not daring to move, he looked at her from the corner of his eye, one hand gripping the sink to steady himself, the other hovering her waist.
Ginny bit her lip as she slowly slid the razor up, grazing the pulsing skin that hid his jugular. She held her breath, fingers trembled imperceptibly. At that very moment, she held his life in her hands. For the first time ever, he was a vulnerable animal between the jaws of a predator, throat bared for slaughter.
She would only need to press down and Lord Voldemort would be erased forever.
The silence hung between them.
And she lifted the blade.
She felt his fingers close around hers tightly, and he bent her wrist to drop the razor onto the counter. Her eyes never left him, and when she met his gaze, his pupils were so dilated that the blue of his eyes was barely visible. It felt like aeons before he took his hand away from hers. She looked away and turned the tap on, rinsing her fingers, before wordlessly turning it closed.
When she looked back, Tom's face was impassive. He continued to regard her with his ice cold gaze, but his eyes held the same blazing intensity they had held the morning when he kissed her.
Ginny forced a smile, wiping her fingers on the towel resting on his shoulder.
"You're welcome." she said sarcastically, making him smirk, taking a step back from her, and turning back to the mirror.
"For what? Making my whole life flash before my eyes?"
"Don't be so dramatic, Tom." Ginny said, with relief, closing the bathroom door behind her, then leant against the wood for a moment, her lips a tiny line of worry. She almost fell when Tom opened the door behind her.
"What are you doing?" He asked frowning at her.
"Nothing!" She muttered regaining her balance and looking back at him. "Don't you have to shower or something?"
Tom rolled his eyes. "Don't forget that we sleep there, bag what you will need to spend the night out and something for lunch tomorrow, we're only coming back before dinner." He said closing the door again.
"Right…" Ginny said to the door.
Going back to her dresser, she took a handbag that was offered on the house when she had shopped for her clothes and bewitched what she would need, to fit in there, then she sat on the couch reading, turning the radio on to hide the sound of the shower running in the background.
"I thought you had drowned!" She exclaimed when he came out, fully dressed, spotless and immaculate.
Tom ignored her as he passed by her to grab his coat from the wardrobe, putting the suitcase wing on his shoulder. Then he stopped in front of Ginny, holding out his hand to help her up.
"Let's go."
A/N: Kudos to my betas ShirleyIAmSirius and sinsinnatus from Tumblr!