Disclaimer: This story includes characters and situations that are part of the Harry Potter universe, which is copyright J.K.Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, etc. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made in the production of this FANFICTION. Not many outside resources were needed this time, but I (as always) made extensive use of the Harry Potter Lexicon when writing this chapter.
Author's Note: Yes, I know you all think it's strange for Ron and Harry to both leave Ginny, but Harry was in a fit of fury and going after Voldemort, and Ron did stay a bit longer – it's all explained here. Thanks go to ray1, Lady Lestrange (neither Harry nor Ron is thinking too logically at the moment when it happens – they're both totally shocked that Tom didn't confess to all the horrible things he's planning. And they're used to the complacent, obedient Veritaserum!Tom.), Amazing, and Sarcasma (Chapter 22 wasn't really filler – the Voldemort speech at the end is quite important. But I do like chapters 23 and 24 better, possibly because they do more character-building.) Also, this might be the last chapter in a while (as my beta reader has still not gotten back to me).
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 24: Dazed and Confused
When Ginny opened her eyes she was still in the entry hall of Hogwarts, her trunk by her side, and she slowly stood up and leaned on it heavily, looking around. The hall was deserted, except for Hermione who stood behind her, very much like a mother hen. "What happened?" Ginny asked blearily.
"You fell into a faint and Harry went running towards Tom – I have no idea where he went. I sent Ron off to find Harry and said I'd stay with you." The older girl approached Ginny and grasped her hand in what was supposed to be a supportive way. "Everything will be alright, Ginny. I can understand if you're scared, of course, but just know that. Harry, Ron, and I will look out for you – we'll take care of everything."
Ginny turned to see the older girl smiling down at her in sugary sweetness. She blinked slowly, trying to place Hermione's sickening support in the realm of reason. This was a hard task considering that her vision continually blurred to the point she could barely make out her friend's face from her mass of hair. Focus, she told herself. "Hermione," she asked, "Forgive me for saying this, but if You-Know-Who has really gotten back into the school, wouldn't you, as a muggle-born student, be in a considerable amount more danger than I, as a pureblooded witch?"
Hermione looked stung, and dropped Ginny's hand. "I never thought of it that way, Ginny. Surely Voldemort must want to destroy your family as much as Muggle-born students," she said, but Ginny could tell from her eyes that the girl was attempting to persuade herself as much as she was making a statement of fact. She allowed herself a brief moment of pride before noting that her vision wasn't getting better, and her head was very close to splitting open.
"No, actually, I think that You-Know-Who would accept Weasleys into his ranks, if they wanted to join up. That's what we were all afraid of with Percy – that he had become a Death Eater, betrayed us all and the like. Really, I don't think He has anything against Weasleys, except that we are generally friends with Muggle-born witches and wizards. Blood-traitors, you know."
Hermione paled slightly for a moment, but quickly regained her composure and smiled down at Ginny. "Even so, don't you worry about me, Ginny. I can take care of myself."
Ginny took a deep breath. There was a red splotch right in front of Hermione's face, and what the girl was saying was absolutely repulsive. This couldn't be happening. "So can I," she muttered. "You can go away now, Hermione, I'm not dead."
"But, Ginny, you've just had a fainting spell and hit your head and possibly had a concussion or something, you should go to the hospital wing, you need someone to watch you in case you faint again – and after all, you're an awful lot younger than me – a year is a long time at our age – and I've had a terrible amount more experience in this sort of thing."
Ginny tried counting to ten in her head. It didn't work. Her head was getting worse. "This sort of thing being defying You-Know-Who when he finds a way into the school and starts writing messages up on the wall? No, I think it was me who held him off for a year that time. You're right about one thing – a year is a long, long time at our age. And four years is an even longer time. I think I can handle myself, Hermione. Thank you for your," here she paused, wondering exactly how acerbic she wanted to be, "kind support," she settled on.
Hermione stuttered for a moment, and looked rather frightened. "Surely I can help you, Ginny," she said, a slight bit panicked.
"No," Ginny answered. "You can't. Get away, Hermione."
"But, Ginny,"
"I can take care of myself."
And, with that, Hermione left. Ginny fell onto her trunk, her legs giving out under her. Hermione had been right about something else as well, Ginny was probably in no state to walk up to the Gryffindor Tower alone. But Ginny wouldn't believe that, wouldn't let herself believe that. She was a grown woman and could take care of herself. She didn't need Hermione Granger to babysit her.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her wand and enchanted her trunk to float after her as she climbed the stairs back to the Gryffindor Tower. She remembered the doors flying shut and a voice coming up above the rumbling aftershock, but nothing clearly and nothing afterwards. She vaguely remembered the feel of an impact on her forehead. She supposed that the faint had come at just the right moment to disrupt her memory of the event, and she supposed that the event probably had no small amount to do with her fainting, but she decided to disregard that – she was Ginny Weasley, she was strong and impetuous, she would not faint straight away on account of a darkened hall and the voice of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
She was in a daze as she walked through the hallways and climbed the stairs, she was in a daze that no one and nothing seemed to break, not even when she lost her trunk, and it slipped down two flights of stairs before she stopped it, shouting "Accio trunk!" with so much force that the trunk in turn sped back up the stairs and knocked her over. It was a severe blow to the head and she thought vaguely that perhaps she should see Madame Pomfrey about it, but it never occurred to her to actually go to the hospital wing about it instead of heading stalwartly back up to the Gryffindor Tower. Her vision started doing even more strange things, swirls and dots in the middle of her vision, occasionally a black curtain that she had to fight back and force to disappear. She would be fine, she decided. She thought vaguely that, at a time like this, Hermione would be particularly helpful, but she didn't let her traitorious thoughts lend themselves to actions, such as shouting for Hermione, who must be only a short ways ahead.
The way was long, but eventually she reached the Gryffindor Tower, even in her foggy state. She faced the portrait of the Fat Lady for what must have been thirty seconds before she realised that the old woman had already asked for the password and she said it hurriedly. Wandering into the common room with a bit more focus than she had been able to summon so far, but not much.
One would have thought, however, that even given her rather strange daze she would have started at the sight of Tom Riddle, sitting calmly and confidently in one of the poufs by the fireplace, for all appearances waiting for her. Ginny wasn't sure if it was the blow to the head or her general unawareness of whatever was going on around her, but she didn't even look at him twice, just walked past him, trailing her trunk, up to her room.
"Ginny!" he said, however, and she was forced to turn around. She squinted. Surely he shouldn't be here, she thought vaguely. Maybe her vision was doing even stranger things now, she thought, but no, it had always been vague shapes, not straight-up hallucinations. That wasn't it. But still, surely something was strange here.
"Why are you here?" she asked, slowly, puzzled.
"Harry let me in," he answered, scanning her face. He was looking for something, that much she knew, but she wasn't sure what it was. His answer didn't make sense – Harry hated Tom, that much was true.
"Why did he do that?" Ginny asked, wandering slowly towards the chair Tom was currently occupying.
"Do you really care?" Tom asked, having seen whatever it was he was looking for in her face.
"Not really," she admitted. "Just curious, I suppose."
"You've taken a blow to the head," Tom said coolly. It wasn't a question but a statement – perhaps that was what he had seen in her face. He was asking for an explanation.
"I knocked my head on a stair on the way up here," Ginny responded. "Or maybe it was when I fell down." She realised she couldn't remember with a bit of surprise. But it was nothing to be too shocked about, when all was said and done.
Tom smirked. Ginny wondered if she had ever seen Tom smirk quite like that before, but she didn't really care one way or another. She felt like yawning, but couldn't. A yawn summarised how she felt perfectly, fuzzy and tired. Her brain wasn't working particularly quickly, it felt like cotton gauze instead of a brain. Cotton gauze with jackhammers, because her head was pounding.
"Sit down," Tom said, that smirk not moving from his lips, but she didn't question that, she just complied, falling into a seat nearby. Her vision was returning to normal, maybe. At least, there were no more splotches. "You should see a healer about your head," he said.
"I will," she answered. "I'll go tomorrow morning." Her head was, after all, better now than it had been in a while. "It hurts." Tom said nothing for a while and Ginny was forced to speak up again. "Why did Harry let you in here? He hates you."
"You said you didn't care."
"I didn't," she said, the blur of her vision going away and being replaced by a familiar blur of exhaustion and drowsiness. Color was returning, too, brighter than ever before. "But I do now." Surely that was the fall, the faint. She felt like she had never seen anything so bright and red as the common room before, as though all the red she had ever known was not nearly as red as the chair she was sitting in just now. "And why didn't Hermione toss you out when she got up here?"
"He wanted to question me. And I haven't seen Granger."
"And?" The world was coming back to itself. She could hear the sharp crackle of the fire place and the creaks and groans of the floorboards as people walked to and fro upstairs. She wondered that no one else was in the common room. "Why couldn't he have questioned you somewhere else?"
"It's none of your business, the point is that I'm here," he said sharply, as though she had insulted him. She just blinked, not really feeling the need to flinch in fear. In her new, sharper, vision, he looked like just any other boy she knew and she wondered why she had been so afraid of him before.
"It is my business, because you were waiting for me," she said calmly. "Why were you waiting for me?"
"How do you know I was?"
"Why else would you be waiting in the Gryffindor Common Room?"
Tom frowned for a moment and then just smiled. "All right then, I was waiting for you." Ginny stared at him calmly, trying to find in his face whatever it was he had found in hers, but she had no idea what that was and whatever it happened to be she couldn't find it in the cool, composed face of Tom Riddle sitting across from her. But she remained silent and he continued his explanation. "Your brother didn't want me to."
"So this is all a very elaborate way to get on Ron's nerves?" Ginny asked calmly.
"Partially."
"And?"
"I want to know if the hex I used worked," Tom added.
Ginny suddenly felt her stomach drop with more than a bit of fear. "Did it?"
"Yes," said Tom with a bigger smirk. "In fact, it did."
That must have been what he was searching her face for when she came in, evidence that his spell had worked – so was her dazed state a result of the spell and not her fall? Her head throbbed with a sharp pain and she sighed. "My head hurts," she commented.
"You should go down to Madame Pomfrey," Tom replied quickly.
"No, it's too many stairs – I'll probably fall. I'll wait until morning and then go," Ginny insisted.
"Your brother and Harry would have you go," Tom added quietly.
Ginny stared up at him. "What the bloody hell do you care what my brother and Harry would have me do? I'm not some kind of china doll, Tom, if I were in serious danger I wouldn't be sitting here, I'd be in the hospital wing, of my own volition, without anyone else needing to coax me or cajole me or help me to get down there. It's that simple."
Tom stared her down, doubt in his face. "Look, Tom," she added, frustrated with the entire situation just then, "I'm sorry if I've been acting childish lately, and I know you think I have, but it's hard to behave like an adult if people won't give me the chance – Harry and Ron and Hermione and them are all out to protect me from myself and I can't convince them that I'm competent so how am I going to actually get anywhere with this? What's even the point of being an adult if no one trusts me or believes me anyway? I'll always be the youngest Weasley, no matter what I do, I'll always be treated like a little child, Tom."
He stared at her coldly. "You do realise how childish you sound right now," he said, and tears were in her eyes. This was altogether too much for her to take – even he thought she was a small child.
"You don't understand how frustrating that is – all last year I was the one behaving like an adult and Harry the one throwing petulant tantrums, I was the one who helped Hermione convince Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to join the DA and help to fight You-Know-Who despite Umbridge, I was the one who snapped Harry out of his weird funks, the one who got him to smile and stop acting as though the world was falling down around us, not my idiotic brother who could only flounder about and talk about Quidditch nervously, or Hermione who regarded – still regards – a Harry's mood swings like changes in weather. I was the one who took care of that." She was crying outright now, she couldn't hold it in any longer.
"And how did he repay me?" she said between sobs, but shook her head and got her emotions under control again. "He tries to stop me from coming and helping him in the Department of Mysteries. He and my lousy brother, who thinks I can be broken like a twig! Well guess what, I got out of that with less injury than Ron, or Hermione, the ones who Harry accepted quickly. But that doesn't mean I can take care of myself, oh no." She stood up quickly, rubbing the tears out of her face. "I was the one who got over my silly crush because it was stupid and immature, who took up the seeker's position knowing that I would give it up again and whatever minuscule amount of glory I could have compared to Harry bloody Potter would be forfeit at the beginning of the next year but smiled and commiserated with him about his loss anyway, the one who sent Harry an owl instead of continuing to argue with the Order about where we would bloody find him, and how am I treated? They want to take me out of Hogwarts because you show up!"
Tom was silent, but his face had softened somewhat. Ginny, however, was past caring. "And so you can go on about how immature I'm being right now, but since actually being mature doesn't help me more than giggling like a fucking twelve year old and sticking my elbow in the butter dish, since people will call me the little baby girl whatever I do, I think I'll throw tantrums when I feel like throwing tantrums, I'll scream when I feel like screaming, and I'll sulk in my room when I feel like sulking. It's not as though it makes a damn bit of difference anyway, I'm just Ginny Weasley and they'll always think I'm some sort of damsel in distress, waiting in my white tower for someone to rescue me anyway."
She turned to leave, tears now streaming down her face, and she added, "Get the hell out of my common room, Tom."
"Ginny, wait," he commanded, and, tired, she turned around. "You could always act the adult for yourself alone, and no one else."
She laughed hollowly. "That's rich, coming from you – you're always playing a part, Tom, and don't think I don't know it. It's all worthless to you unless it gets you something. Why don't you take your own advice?"
Tom appeared stunned. "What are you talking about?"
Ginny shook her head. "I knew you before this year, Tom. I trusted you before this year. I can't do that again, you know, right?" She looked terrified again, almost ready to cry again. "I don't know why you came back now, but if it has anything to do with me then you'll just have to… I don't know, disappear again or something because everything would be so much easier if you weren't here." She was exhausted, her head hurt, the vision problems were coming back, and she was not in the mood to be told to play the good little girl by Tom Riddle.
And then he did something entirely unheard of, something wholly against any conception of his character that Ginny had, something neither slickly seductive nor cleverly evil nor contemptuously contradictory. He said "No," slightly angrily, and he grabbed her wrist before she could leave. "You're not getting rid of me that easily. What are you talking about?"
She sighed. "I know you have an ulterior motive for every sentence you say to me. I'm not stupid. I'm not naïve anymore, or at least not as naïve as I was my first year. You can't fool me so easily. I know you're out to get something and that's the only reason you befriended me or anything, but I don't know what it is yet. That doesn't mean it's not there."
He shook his head. "And if I say I don't?"
"Of course you say that, Tom. You said you were my friend first year, when you were plotting to kill me and Harry. Of course you say you don't have an ulterior motive."
He laughed. "Do I have to drink Veritaserum for you too, now?"
She blinked. "So that's what Harry wanted – when you said illegal methods I thought you meant torture or something horrible. So it was just Veritaserum," she sighed. "That's a relief." She paused before adding, "I don't know if I'd trust you even if you drank Veritaserum, Tom. I don't put it beyond you to not be effected by the stuff. If anyone would be immune to it, it seems that it would be you."
"Why?" Tom asked, frowning severely. "Why would I be immune to Veritaserum?"
"You're the liar, the seducer, the one everyone wants to believe but shouldn't. That's who you are – it's undeniable that your greatest weapon is the lie, Tom. So if anyone could defy Veritaserum and continue to lie, it would be you, because your very essence is a lie."
"You don't know that," he insisted.
"Yes, yes I do," she said calmly. "I knew you first year. You betrayed me. That's undeniable."
"If you're so sure I betrayed you your first year, why aren't you siding with Harry and Ron, avoiding me, calling me out to Dumbledore as evil incarnate, trying to get me sent to Azkaban?"
Ginny smiled a bit at that, but it was weak because she was so very tired. "I knew Dumbledore wouldn't believe me, whatever I said. And I wanted to believe that you were good, but I can't. You don't understand what that's like – I didn't pop out of the diary, you did. What was I supposed to think, what am I supposed to think?"
Tom just shook his head. "Nothing. You were supposed to believe me."
"I can't just do that, Tom. You should know that. I can't just believe you when everything in my being shouts the opposite." She smiled a little bit before adding, "That would be childish and naïve, I'm not that gullible."
He laughed. "I know. You're just full of surprises, really." He paused and it looked like he was going to hug her or do something else entirely impetuous and un-Tom, but he didn't. "How can I prove to you that I'm telling the truth?"
"You can't," Ginny said softly. "I have to prove that to myself."
She wondered if she should hug him before heading up to her room. She decided against it and just turned away and, waving her wand vaguely to make her trunk follow her again, climbed the stairs wearily. "Promise me," he called after her, "That you'll go down to Madame Pomfrey if your head still hurts in the morning."
"Of course," she answered with no small amount of frustration – now he was babying her as well. "I can take care of myself, Tom. You don't have to father me."
He laughed. "I'm not fathering you, Ginevra," he said, before leaving.
Well, that was certainly interesting, he thought to himself. But there was a chance that Ginny would begin to behave like an adult again; she had by the end of the conversation, so there was hope in that front. And he was somewhat closer to picking apart her rather interesting psyche. Or perhaps somewhat father away. The two appeared to be somewhat strangely synonymous.
When he got to the Slytherin Dungeons, his housemates were all asleep. He flattened his parchment on a nearby desk with the thought that he would write on it and see if Ginny had fallen asleep yet, or perhaps give her a warning for the next day – to be sure and see Madame Pomfrey – but he decided against it at the last minute and simply went to sleep. He had a strange premonition that tomorrow would be a very long day.