A/N: Well, that took longer than expected. I'm still working on making the updates a bit quicker!
We only have a few chapters until the end, which quite honestly is both disappointing and a relief. I've been working on this story for too long now, and you all deserved an ending well before now! About five chapters left, though, and hopefully this will reach it's conclusion by the end of the year.
You don't really want to hear my rambles about life, so I'll just skip straight to the chapter. Just delaying long enough to apologize for the quality. Writing is very hard for me, and part of written weeks ago and part was written today, so it might be a bit rough around the edges.
No more delaying! On with the chapter!
"How is he doing?" asked Luna, her voice full of concern as she stepped up to the bedside.
Ginny was sitting on the foot of the bed, her fingertips touching a feather on the wing of Shikoba, her face the picture of grave distress. "He doesn't seem to be doing any better," she said, her voice showing that she was on the edge of tears. "I've been doing everything the animal healer told me to do. I've been hand-feeding him, keeping him warm, giving him his antibiyawntics-"
"Antibiotics," Luna corrected gently.
"Antibiotics. Nothing seems to be helping. He just lays there and he won't sing or move on his own more than he has to. I think he might-" but Ginny choked on her next words, unable to say them. She wiped tears off her cheeks, and forced them out. "I think he might be dying. I don't understand how his kidneys could be failing, I don't know what I did wrong!"
As Ginny lowered her head to rest beside her dear friend and companion as he lay sick in her bed, Luna patted Ginny on the shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes animals…they just get sick," said Luna gently. "Don't worry, Ginny. It'll be okay. I'll ask my Magizoologist professor to come by and look at him. I'm sure there's something we can do."
Ginny turned her head, and tears fell from one eye, crossed the bridge of her nose and dripped onto the dark blue coverlet. "Really?" she asked hopefully. "Do you think he can save Shikoba?"
Luna nodded. "He's really wonderful, I'm sure he can think of something."
Ginny forced herself to take a deep breath. "Okay. Okay." She sat up, and then shifted on the bed so she could lie beside her beloved bird. "You better go, you shouldn't be late."
"I'll be back as soon as possible," Luna reassured her, and then turned and ran out of the room, somehow sure that if she got to class early she would get home sooner.
The minutes ticked by slowly as Ginny counted Shikoba's breaths. Part of her was sure each time that he would not take the next one, and her heart and soul hurt as much as her throat did and she fought the urge to sob. But another part was hopeful, because she knew he was strong and loved her enough to fight for his life. Maybe if he held on long enough, help would come. Maybe Luna's professor could save him.
Ginny's eyelids were just beginning to shut when she heard a knock at the front door. With a sigh and a quick, soft kiss on Shikoba's head, she slipped off the bed and ambled towards the door, still in just her white nightgown and crimson dressing robe and bare feet. She opened the door to find no one. She stuck her head out the door and looked right and left, but neither saw nor heard the trace of any person on the stairwell.
"Stupid knock down ginger…" she sighed, moving to close the door when she spotted a flash of yellow on the floor.
She looked down to see a bouquet of bright yellow jonquil, and a bit of parchment below it. Carefully picking up the bouquet, Ginny tried to examine the parchment without touching it, but found it was folded and sealed with a red wax seal depicting a crown.
Slowly, Ginny carried in the flowers and parchment, kicked the door closed with her foot, and went back to Shikoba. She placed the flowers on her bedside table, then sat at the foot of the bed and opened the note.
Miss Ginevra Weasley –
The unfortunate news about your bird has reached me, and it is my duty to express my fullest sympathies. I hope for his quick recovery, for your sake.
Regards,
Dante Wickham
Ginny's mouth was agape as she skimmed the note again. Tom had sent these flowers? For Shikoba?
Stunned, Ginny turned to look at the brightly-colored flowers again. They didn't seem the type of flower Tom would pick out, but then, he didn't seem the type to send flowers for someone with a sick bird. Especially since they hadn't heard from each other in three months.
Ginny still didn't know why she had suggested she might show up at one of his book signings. That farewell had been final to her; they had said everything they needed to say, and anything further would only complicate things. She didn't particularly want to see his face ever again, especially after –
After The Incident. She had taken to calling it that in her head. The brief moment where everything was wrong and upside down and reality was twisted and she had felt something that couldn't possibly be attraction to Tom Riddle.
She reviled his apparent attraction to her; she always had. From the moment she had read those files and realized that any part of Voldemort at all had been interested in her, she'd felt sick at the thought. He had not been romantically interested, but still somehow fascinated by her power. Then at the shack he seemed attracted to her, despite his inability to love her. She hated to have any form of his attention – so why did she have that moment where the feeling of his eyes on her skin made her heartbeat quicken?
Ginny dismissed these thoughts as part of her loneliness. She was never one to be single in her adolescence, and now that it had been so long since Harry, she felt a strange ache in her chest, a feeling of longing washing over her whenever she was alone with her thoughts.
Harry had been dead for…well, she didn't know how long anymore, and that was the point. She had once counted the days, hours and minutes since she'd found Harry's body; now she had to sit and think to remember the months. It had been long enough that Ginny felt ready to move on – the trouble was, she had no one to move on to. And a terrible feeling of being solitary and apart from everyone settled in on her.
She had excellent friends. Luna had become her closest friend, and Hermione still dropped by for visits. Ginny had grown close to George, almost filling the hole that Fred had left. She even worked in his joke shop now and then, when Ron sent her an owl asking for a little help during the busy days. And though she loved them all, part of her was hesitant to expose her soul to any of them. They didn't need that burden, and she was afraid of being judged for some of her thoughts. The only one she really had was Shikoba – and he lay dying in her bedroom.
She desperately wanted that person, that one person she wasn't afraid to share her secrets with, someone who could support her through the trying times like the ones she was experiencing now. Everyone else seemed to have someone; Ron and Hermione were married, George was in a serious relationship with Angelina, and even Luna seemed to have two suitors – Neville Longbottom and Rolf Scamander – fighting for her affections, but still Ginny had no one. She'd always had no one. Even when she and Harry were trying to date, Tom had been there in her head, standing between them –
With a sigh, Ginny set the flowers on the table, but tore the note to pieces and threw it away. She had no intention to ever see Tom Riddle again, but the flowers were pretty.
Ginny stood before a dark blue door with a gold plate situated at the top of it, the numbers '312' glistening down at her. Her fingers pressed against the cool wood, and she tried to catch her breath.
It had been a fortnight since Tom Riddle had first sent her flowers. Luna's professor had been able to help Shikoba after all, and the diver was happy as ever and recovering quickly. But flowers continued to come for Ginny, flowers of all kinds. Buttercups and bluebells and larkspur, even some flowers that were technically out of season. They came by the bunch and bouquet every day for the last two weeks, always with a note that only read 'D.W.'. DW – Dante Wickham.
And with each bouquet Ginny's temper flared hotter. She tried to send a message by tearing one up and leaving it on the doorstep outside, but a bouquet of yellow tulips came the next day. Finally, she could take it no longer. Luna and Hermione helped her track down his address, under the pretense of wanting to ask him some questions about his upcoming book.
His door was standing in front of her, and she was making one last effort to calm herself. But the longer she stood the angrier she became, so finally she decided to knock.
Ginny waited only a moment before the door swung open, and she drank in his look of surprise like it was the finest tea.
"Ginevra," he muttered, still clearly a little stunned, but quickly recovering. "What are you-"
"We need to talk," she said, her voice level.
Tom smirked, and then stepped aside to open the door to let her in. She strode into his sitting area and spun around to watch him close the door slowly, watching her with the smirk still fixed on his face.
The smirk made something in her break, and the moment the door clicked closed Ginny reached for her wand. The incantation for her infamous Bat-Bogey hex was at the tip of her tongue when Tom held a hand up to her, indicating to her to wait.
"I've set this flat up so that no magic can be cast inside it," he explained calmly, though perhaps sounding a little amused. "I told you I was trying to resist temptation. I've had to learn to do things the Muggle way again."
To prove his point, he motioned to the kitchen which was open to view from the sitting room. Pristine white and deep cobalt dishes sat in a rack to dry on the counter. He didn't even have a Muggle automatic dish cleaner. Dishwasher? Whatever they were called.
With a frustrated growl, Ginny returned the wand, but then clenched her hands into fists. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Tom stepped forward a few steps and collapsed into an oxblood chair, beside a dark wood fireplace with white, gold and blue tiles around the façade of it. He folded his hands across his chest as he leaned back, still looking at her with an amused smirk. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be more-"
"The flowers, Tom, and you know it!" Ginny practically shrieked at him, moving to tower over the chair. She noticed a bouquet of deep red and white roses on the table beside him. Part of her wanted to pick the roses up and hurl them at his face. "I didn't want to her from you again, Tom! That's why I never tried to contact you! You said you were going to leave me alone, you said I deserved that much! Why in Merlin's name did you change your mind?"
"Well, Ginevra, I-"
"No, I don't care," she spat, turning and walking back towards the door. "Just leave me alone, Tom! Stop with the flowers. I've had enough of you. Just leave me the hell alone, okay?" Part of her wanted to add an 'or else', but she wasn't sure what to threaten him with. Exposing him would be a little extreme for some bouquets, but really, if he didn't let up she didn't know what else to do.
She reached the door and placed her hand on the cool handle, and then spun around again to glare at Tom, who still sat with that infuriating look of amusement on his face. "No, you know what? I do want to know. Tell me, Tom – what the hell do you think you're doing, exactly?"
It wasn't until the words left her lips that Ginny realized the warm look in his eyes wasn't amusement; it was fondness. Tom stood, and Ginny chose to look anywhere but his eyes. She took in his furniture (nice and simple with clean lines), his fireplace (burning some sweet-smelling wood merrily), his decorations (the colors were oxblood, white, gold and cobalt; he had simple throw pillows, blue glass bottles, white candles and one painting of a woman combing her red hair), his clothes (a sage-colored V-neck cashmere sweater, black leather jacket and grey slacks), anything, anything else.
But when Tom spoke, she found herself staring back at him.
"Since my soul reunited," he said, his voice unusually low, so much so that Ginny had to strain to hear him. But his next words came out louder, and confidant, though slowly, like he was savoring each syllable. "I've been in love with you, Ginevra."
"What?" she found herself replying. "I – I – what?"
Tom Riddle smiled gently. "I love you, Ginevra. I was pretending when I told you I didn't know what love felt like, when I said I didn't have you in mind for my future wife," he said, and then he laughed softly. "I tried, I really did try. I tried to leave you alone, to cut you out of my heart, but…it was impossible. I did always hear that one's first love never really ends. I love you, and no matter how I try, I can't stop. And I am tired of trying."
"I – I can't…" Ginny felt breathless and gripped the dark wood table behind the couch to keep herself standing. "I don't un – I don't…you can't…" her mind reeled at this information. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be true, yet it was, of course it was. Of course once Tom became capable of love he would inflict that on her. "I'd have to be crazy to love you!" burst past her lips the moment she was capable of forming a complete thought.
Softly, Tom replied, "Then I'm afraid I have to hope that you go completely mad, my dear Ginevra."
Ginny stood blinking at him for a moment, stunned, and then words seemed to be ripped from her soul, the dark, dirty secret she had kept buried for so long escaping her at last as tears suddenly formed in her eyes and rolled down her pink cheeks: "What…was so terrible about me…that I would attract someone like you?" her voice held no poison; it wasn't an insult. She had kept this fear that there was something terrible about her that attracted someone as terrible as he was – or had been – buried deep inside for too long. "Even when you were the full Dark Lord with no conscience and no empathy you still were interested in me. What is it that attracts you?"
Slowly, Tom approached until he stood close enough to reach out and touch her. But he only stood still as he watched her and spoke gently, "There is nothing terrible about you, Ginevra," he responded. "It was your power that attracted me at first, and then your cleverness. As time went on and I got to know you better, I grew fond of your wit, your temper, your independence. Then there were other things, more things than I can name. Your courage in the face of real danger, your determination to do right no matter the consequences, the way your brow wrinkles when confused or frustrated, your red hair…finally, it was your light that attracted me. Perhaps opposites really do attract, or maybe it's just darkness that grows tired of it's despair and longs for light, happy things. But that is what happened, Ginevra. I was attracted to your light most of all – your bravery, your empathy, your compassion, your happiness, everything that I didn't have that I longed for. For a long time, you were the only light I had. And you still shine the brightest."
In confusion, Ginny's brow wrinkled, and then she forced the muscles to relax instead. She searched for something to say, some kind of reaction – but nothing came to her mind.
Instead, she sighed in frustration and disgust, and turned to Tom's door. She opened it and was halfway through when she heard Tom shout, "It's nice to see some of that fire back, Ginevra!"
Ginny closed the door behind her and found a safe spot to apparate home.
She arrived in her bedroom, and collapsed on the bed with a sigh, her hair spreading across the bedspread. She felt exhausted, like every bit of energy had been drained from her body and left her only an empty shell. It reminded her a little of how she'd felt in the flat in Paris, only without the cold, tingling numbness in her fingers.
Her mind was blank. She knew she should be reeling from Tom's confession, be examining every little part of it, but she couldn't. She didn't have the strength for that. Thinking about it would make it too real and she couldn't allow it to be part of her reality. She had to try, once again, to put Tom and everything involved with him behind her.
Maybe she ought to begin by throwing out his books. Ginny stood, and headed to her living room to pull the books off the shelf and toss them away. As she walked into the room, she spotted Luna sitting on the couch, reading the newest Quibbler with Shikoba sleeping beside her, still recovering from his illness, but no longer sick.
Ginny stopped in front of the bookshelf, closing her eyes for a moment before turning to take a seat in the chair across from Luna.
"Luna, can I ask you a question?" she asked, her voice tight. Luna had become someone Ginny relied on to be honest. The blonde girl always seemed to see things no one else did.
Luna looked up from the Quibbler, a strange pair of cardboard glasses on her face, with one lens red and one blue. She took them off, set aside her magazine and folded the glasses and placed them on top of the glossy surface. "Yes, Ginny?"
Now that she had Luna's attention, Ginny wasn't sure how to state her feelings into one clean, clear question. She took a moment to collect her thoughts, and then finally said, "Why is it that someone as dark as Tom Riddle could…could have feelings for me?" she choked on the last few words. "And how could I have ever felt any attraction to him whatsoever?"
She hadn't told Luna about The Incident, and she realized she had to clarify. But she didn't want to admit the moment that had felt like a sin, so she avoided telling the whole story. "I mean, when I read the books, I thought he was – was better, was a good man, and I thought he might be…like someone I might want to be in a relationship with."
Luna sat for a moment, her eyes distant in way Ginny now recognized as her thoughtful look. Her head tilted a little when she spoke, causing her radish-shaped earrings to shake a little beneath her ears. "Well, Dante Wickham isn't quite the same person as Tom Riddle. When Hades Xylander attacked us, he took the time to save me from being hit by another curse. He could have just taken you to safety, or killed Xylander right then, but instead he risked his life to save me. Tom Riddle never would have done that. He never would have even thought about me."
Ginny remembered the scene in the park from so long ago, and realized Luna was right. Tom had sacrificed his chance to kill Hades to save Luna. Lord Voldemort would never have even imagined that possibility.
Luna continued, "He's changed, he's a different person now, complete with a new face and a new name. He's committed horrific acts in the past – we all know that – and though he should still be held responsible for what he did, he's done his best to make up for it. He's Dante Wickham now, a different person. Though he may not be a good person – because doing good things because you feel guilty isn't really an act of selflessness – he's trying to be one. I read the other day that he's gone beyond helping victims of the war, to promoting Muggle rights and trying to fight for regulations that would prevent a Dark wizard from amassing an army like he did." Luna took a moment to pat the stirring Shikoba, relaxing him back to sleep. "So it's okay to be attracted to him. As for any feelings he might have for you, well, I can't say I blame him. It's like he's been released from a curse. He didn't ask to be incapable of love or empathy, and now that he's free to feel them…why wouldn't he have them for you? Even when he was incapable of love, he chose you to be the one he tried to love. You're powerful, and fierce, and lovely – maybe that's just his type."
Again Ginny had trouble wrapping her mind around those words. Luna had a point, of course: Tom hadn't asked to be incapable of empathy, and now that he was he was taking full advantage of it, trying to make up for his past horrifying acts, and falling in love with –
Ginny stood, walked to the shelf and pulled Dante Wickham's books out. "I can't do this," she muttered as she went into the kitchen and tossed them into the bin. She couldn't accept Tom's love of her, and she couldn't accept any attraction she might have to him. He had locked her up and abused her and tried to force her to love him solely for the sake of power, and she had used every ounce of strength and life she had to prove to him she wouldn't give in. Even with all that in the past, even if the man who had done that was somehow dead and replaced by someone else, she couldn't give in. She was programmed to fight it now, and she would never trust herself or Tom with those feelings. She couldn't do it.
She couldn't.
Artificial: I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! The painting of a woman combing her red hair that Tom has is 'Lady Lilith' by Rossetti. Also, I'm sorry I'm terrible at writing Luna! Please leave a review, they're already very inspiring and push me to write more, and update faster.