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: And now, what you've all been waiting for (I think). Some good, old-fashioned Tom/Harry action! Er... if you believed me, perhaps you have the wrong fic. Or the wrong author. Also, this past week I finished writing this, epilogue and all! So, in case you were wondering, there are thirty-nine chapters. And I will try very hard to post at least one each week from now until I am done. Thanks to jjp91 and SaintRidley for the reviews, and everyone for reading!
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 32: Jealousy
"Why did you do that, Ginny?" Harry asked as they made their way to Filch's office after dinner. "You didn't have to say anything; Dumbledore must have known that Tom didn't have anything to do with our disappearance, and so all you've done is gotten us in trouble too." He sighed in frustration, and in his demeanor was the unspoken complaint, "I could have been playing Chess with Ron, or spending time with my two best friends, but instead I have detention with you and Tom Riddle."
Ginny tried not to let it bother her. "You would have done the same thing, Harry," she said under her breath. "Why wouldn't Dumbledore believe Ron and Hermione?"
Harry laughed bitterly. "Because Ron and Hermione are always wrong about things like that! Right up until the end, Ron and Hermione and I never really understand what's going on. Dumbledore is always much closer to the right answer than we ever get."
Ginny just shook her head. "Well, it's done, and it was the right thing to do, and you know it even if you're complaining about it, and there's nothing we can do about this so you might as well be civil."
Harry rolled his eyes and muttered something, but they were at the door to Filch's office and so they stopped their conversation. Filch opened the door with a surly, put-upon expression on his face. "We're here for detention, sir," Ginny said in as placating a matter as she could manage.
He scowled at them but held open the door to let them in. Ginny entered with bated breath – what were they going to do for detention in Filch's office? – and she heard Harry stepping cautiously behind her. "Where's the other one?" Filch growled as he shut the door.
"What?" Ginny asked, before realizing what he meant and adding, "Ophicus is in Slytherin – we don't know where he is."
Filch grumbled something about tardiness and slouched at his desk. Harry was staring at the floor and shuffling his feet. Ginny sighed. Nothing for it but to remain and wait for Tom.
"Of course he's late," Harry muttered. "I'll bet he doesn't show at all."
Ginny was about to say "That's ridiculous, Harry," when there was a knock on the door. Filch opened it to reveal a rather surly-looking Tom, and then motioned for Harry and Ginny to follow him. They walked through the hallways in gruff silence for a while, until Tom said, under his breath, "I suppose your little date made all this worth it?"
Ginny was taken aback by the hatred in his voice, and said nothing. Harry spoke up, whispering "It's not our fault you're up to no good, Riddle," in response. "At least Ginny was kind enough to bail you out."
Tom snorted, as though he was better off without such help. Ginny bristled at the tension between the two boys. She knew Harry didn't actually believe Tom was scheming anything. "Harry, you know he's not up to anything," she said, hoping to calm everyone down, but it only made matters worse.
"He certainly should," Tom spat. "Isn't Veritaserum proof enough for you, Potter?"
Harry's jaw clenched, but Filch turned and shouted at them to keep quiet before he could say anything, and they were all three cast into sullen silence. Ginny sighed. This was not going to be pleasant.
They arrived at the site of their detention; fittingly enough, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom had flooded again, and they were to clean up the mess. Ginny almost wanted to protest that she wasn't going back in there; especially not with Dumbledore's charm that kept anything inside from getting out, but Filch shot her a glare so angry that she shut her mouth before any words came out. He handed each student a mop, informed them that they weren't to use any magic, and left, complaining that this was far too lenient a punishment for such miscreants.
Ginny set her jaw and began to mop. When she didn't hear anyone joining her, she sighed angrily and said, "Bloody hell, can't you two set aside your hatred for one minute and start mopping? The sooner this is over the sooner we can all just get over it."
Harry reluctantly began mopping, and Tom might have muttered something under his breath so Ginny shouted, not looking up from the area of the floor she was attending to, "Mop!"
She heard another thud as Tom began to clean up. They filled one bucket with disgustingly brown water before anyone had to say anything, and for that Ginny was glad. "Someone should go in there and empty out the bucket," she said sullenly.
Harry sighed in frustration, but passed Ginny a sympathetic look as he picked up the bucket and went to empty it out in the bathroom. Ginny sighed and leaned back against the wall, muscles aching. At least they were making progress; she couldn't wait for this detention to end. Maybe they could just stay silent for the rest of it and no one would get any more riled up than they already were. "Was it worth it?" Tom asked.
Ginny looked up at him sharply. He was leaning on his mop, a sour expression on his face. "Excuse me?" she asked.
"Was it worth it?" He hissed. "Was your torrid little love affair with Mr. Potter worth getting yourself detention and dragging me into it?"
Harry returned with the bucket. Apparently Dumbledore's enchantment had been temporarily lifted. Ginny didn't know whether to be reassured or frightened by that. She fell silent, returning to mopping with a certain vehemence that she knew was uncalled for and would only result in her muscles aching more the next day. Tom didn't dare ask the question again when Harry was around, and so joined her in mopping, with only slightly more decorum. Was it worth it? Of course it was worth it. What an idiotic question! She had been waiting for it for five years, and damned if she wasn't going to put up with one stupid, miserable detention for it. No matter how miserable Filch, and Tom, could make this detention, it would have been worth it. Of course it was worth it.
Of course, she had also cut it short for Tom – he should be thanking her, really, for that – and she didn't regret that either, not for a moment, not when Harry was complaining or Ron was yelling at her for barging in right when they were going to get Tom run out of the school, but that hardly mattered. Of course it had been worth it. What was Tom playing at, asking her if it was worth it? She slammed her mop into the bucket and splashed the water out onto the floor. Tom glared at her for a moment, and then returned to his mopping with a muttered, "I hope you intend to clean that up," that just made her more angry. She did, jerkily and with too much force, and then returned to the puddle in the hallway.
What was Tom on about, anyway? This was ridiculous. Why did she feel she had to make an account of her emotions to him? The idea was patently absurd. She hated him. Well, that wasn't entirely true. She didn't hate him, but she certainly wouldn't call him a friend, and to have to justify your choices and emotions to a mere acquaintance, well, that was flat out intolerable! Was it worth it? What business was it of Tom's if it was worth it or not?
And what did Tom care if she thought it was worth it or not? She was absolutely confident that her feelings toward Tom Riddle were entirely mutual. So his question "Was it worth it?" was really a jibe, an implication that it certainly wasn't worth it, and an accusation that she had gotten him into this mess in the first place, and it should be her job to get him out, and that she hadn't done a good enough job of that.
Which was flat-out ridiculous, if you asked Ginny. She frowned and snorted as she mopped. She had saved him from being expelled, and if he had been just a little bit less aggravating and scheming, if he had done anything to extend an olive branch towards Ron or Hermione, well, he wouldn't have been in that position to begin with! Hermione had once trusted him; he must have done something to deserve her distrust, and Ron, well, Tom had only ever treated Ron with the utmost disdain. So it was his fault, making enemies like that. Of course his enemies would blame him when something suspicious happened. What did he expect? Was he an idiot, expecting that the people he disdained and leered at wouldn't suspect him when faced with a problem? Merlin's beard, was he demented in addition to being callous and cold-hearted?
She almost knocked into Harry in her vehemence, and he jumped out of the way and shouted "Gin!" whether as a warning or an exclamation she didn't know. "Calm down, Ginny," he said under his breath. "What's gotten into you?"
Ginny looked up into Harry's face and saw the concern etched in his features, and almost broke down. "Nothing," she whispered. "Sorry, Harry."
She heard Tom snort, and felt a jolt of anger, but took a deep breath to calm herself down and began mopping more sedately.
It occurred to her, then, that even if Tom's question was not intended simply to needle her into anger, it was still an unaccountable question for him to ask. "Was it worth it?" Was it worth it to her to go through a miserable detention to be with Harry, or had she been caught with a disappointing surprise on March fourth? And what did Tom care for that? Certainly, he didn't. He was a Slytherin, and heartless, and always had been, just like the rest of his house.
Something inside Ginny protested that this was, at base, false. Surely at some point in the long history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry there had been a good Slytherin. And surely, at the beginning of the year, before the messages had come and everything had gotten so... so complicated... surely, then, Tom had seemed to be one of the rare good eggs. Just look at how popular he had been with the Gryffindor girls. How much Amelia liked, and trusted, him. Amelia wasn't stupid, she wasn't easily taken in; she was one of the brightest witches in her class. Ginny knew that Tom was a first-class actor. She knew that Tom could charm just about anyone, but something about all of it just seemed a little bit too sincere for her to brush it off completely.
Which brought her back, predictably, to his question; "Was it worth it?" Was it worth it? She looked at Harry, diligently mopping away at the mess, jaw tight in anger. She looked at Tom, in an altogether similar disposition. She turned back to her mopping.
Of course it was worth it.
There simply wasn't any use in doubting that. It was neither the place nor the time.
They moved into the bathroom, and Ginny emptied the bucket into a sink. She shivered as she stepped over the threshold, and Harry glanced at her with concern, but Tom laughed. "Come on, nothing's going to bite you," he said, with a bit of a sneer.
Ginny said nothing, just began to mop. "I'd have a little more consideration if I were you," Harry muttered.
"Consideration?" Tom asked, appalled. "Consideration? Why should I show consideration to the two people who landed me this blasted detention?" He set his mop aside. "Why should I show consideration to two idiotic Gryffindors, who think their personal, petty little romances are worth making everyone else miserable? Why should I show consideration to a girl who couldn't pass Potions if her life depended on it, but still thinks that a date with her precious little hero is worth more than my time helping her in her desperation? Why should I show consideration?" Tom looked ready to start throwing hexes, and Harry looked close.
"What are you angry about, Riddle?" Harry asked, a cocky smile on his face. "That you have detention because of us or that she chose me over you?"
Tom pulled out his wand, and so did Harry, and Ginny was sure they were going to duel right then and there, and possibly hurt each other and get stuck in the hospital wing all because they were being incredibly stupid about all of this, but something Harry had said froze her to the ground so solidly that she couldn't do anything but watch wide-eyed.
"I've had it with you, Potter," Tom shouted in a fury. And then he shouted "Stupefy!" at the same instant that Harry shouted "Expelliarmus!"
The spells clashed midair and dissipated and Harry and Tom looked like they were going to go at each other again when Ginny shouted "Stop!"
Her words bounced around the bathroom. "If you keep dueling, you'll get us all landed another detention," she said tensely. This was just too much. She was exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to finish the detention and crawl back up to the Gryffindor fifth year girls' dormitory to sort it out. Maybe sleep would help her sort it out. She doubted it. But it wasn't worth it, it wasn't worth this fighting, nothing was worth this fighting. She didn't want to deal with it. "Let's just try to survive this one, and then you two can kill each other for all I care," she said.
Harry open and shut his mouth like a fish, apparently desperately trying to find something to say, but Tom smirked and turned back to mopping. They finished in silence, delivered their mops and the bucket back to Filch's office (he sneered at how long it had taken them), and returned to their respective dormitories. Ginny didn't even wish Harry good night before climbing the stairs and slumping onto her bed.
She pulled out her parchment, stared into it. Tom's emotions were mostly a scribble of red and black, violent and angry, furious and constantly in motion. Ginny could almost picture him pacing in the Slytherin boys' dormitory (which she imagined, naively, was exactly like the Gryffindor girls' dormitory, except with silver and green hangings instead of red and gold), fuming. She started to make out names in the scribbles, her name and Harry's name but also Tom's own. So he wasn't just angry with her, she decided, or just angry with Harry. She pulled out a pen. I'm sorry, she wrote at the edge of the page.
The angry scrawl halted, faded slightly, and then her words disappeared and new ones appeared. What?
I'm sorry, she wrote again. I'm sorry for getting you in trouble. I didn't mean it. I didn't think Ron and Hermione would jump to those conclusions. I thought Harry had told them. He usually does.
The words disappeared again and there was a long pause. I'm honestly sorry, Tom, she wrote again, as if repeating it made it more believable.
What do you want? Came the answer, eventually.
Ginny sighed. She wanted him to calm down. His fits of anger frightened her, reminded her of the Tom she knew her first year, of You-Know-Who. She wanted him to be more like the stubborn, proud, ambitious, but essentially good person she thought existed at the beginning of the year. She didn't want to be caught the fool twice. She didn't think she could say that, though, or at least if he could understand that it would be better understood by reading her thoughts on the parchment, where the suitable level of ambivalence and confusion was apparent. So instead she wrote I don't know. The words were gone as soon as they touched the page. I don't know, she repeated herself, and then added I don't want you to be angry.
You can't stop me from being angry, Ginevra, Tom responded quickly.
Ginny winced. She knew that. Essentially, she had known that all along. But that didn't mean she had to accept it. I can try, she wrote. No answer appeared. She kept going. You know you're being a fool, Tom. You're letting something get under your skin when it has no right to. It's over, and it won't happen again. So you can calm down now, Tom.
She meant the detention, but she hoped that leaving it open to interpretation would help. What do you mean? What's over?
No such luck. The detention, she wrote quickly. And the date. I don't know if Harry will even speak to me after this anyway. So if that's what you wanted, (here she wanted to add "to spoil my happiness," but she thought that would be a bit too maudlin,) then you should be happy. She sighed as she wrote it. Tom didn't respond, and the words were slow to leave the page. I have to study, she finally wrote.
And with that she placed the parchment delicately at the bottom of a shelf, picked up her Transfiguration text, and began to read.
She couldn't concentrate. As much as she tried to push thoughts of the date and the detention out of her mind, they came back unbidden. Was it worth it? She could almost picture Tom writing it, pulling it out of her memory and her subconscious. Well? Was it worth it? Was your time with Potter so stupendous that it was worth that detention?
She ran a hand through her hair. She had control over her own thoughts, she told herself, and tried to fill her mind with Potions, the proper proportions of lacewing flies in different sorts of lightening draughts. Fifth year studies are boring, trivial, she thought – or was it Tom? She couldn't tell – who can concentrate on it for longer than a few seconds, anyway? She sighed and tried to throw herself into the text book, to no avail. Was it worth it?
Was it?
She pulled out the parchment and a quill and scrawled, hastily, If you can read my mind, Tom, why don't you do it?
She swore she could hear him laughing in the back of her head. He'd rather hear it straight from me, the thought bubbled up in her mind. He wants me to admit the date wasn't all I wanted it to be.
She sighed angrily. It was wonderful, Tom, she wrote. It was worth every moment of that detention. And if you don't leave me alone, I'll force you to hear all the details.
She felt like a heel. She knew she was a liar, and she couldn't get that out of her mind. She tried Occlumency, tried to empty her thoughts and present an act, but he was already needling around with her thoughts and he ruined her concentration. Stop it! She scrawled on the page. Stop it this instant!
Again she heard his laugh in the back of her mind. He found this amusing, he found it enjoyable. She had a few choice words for that, but before she could write them down on the page, another thought came into her head. He'll stop, she thought. He just finds it amusing, really. He'll let me continue with my self-denial as long as I like.
Ginny scowled, and put the parchment away, and though she could hear Tom's amused chuckle in the back of her head well into her Transfiguration studying, he didn't interrupt her again.
It wasn't until they met on the following day, to review Potions, that she questioned his newfound telepathic abilities. "What's with you, sneaking in to my head like that?" She asked by way of salutation.
Tom just raised one eyebrow. "You were ignoring me," he said calmly.
Ginny shook her head. "You should get used to it. Everyone gets ignored sometimes."
"I don't," he said, with more of that icy calm that set her teeth on edge. "No one would dare."
Ginny just raised her eyebrows. "Except me," she said, and tried to grin, tried to make it a joke. It almost worked.
With a sigh she pulled out the Potions text, and they went through several examples. It was entirely business-like. In an hour, they had covered the chapter, and Ginny got up to leave, smiling as best she could at Tom. To be honest, his question (and Harry's aggravating response) had been dogging her all day, whether by Tom's determination or not she hardly cared. "Why do you care if it was worth it, anyway?" she asked as she picked up her bag.
Tom was silent; his face devoid of anything Ginny would call humanity. He was considering his response, obviously, which meant he probably wasn't going to be honest. "It was quite rude of you to cancel on me," he finally said.
"It was a Hogsmeade weekend!" Ginny snapped.
"It had been canceled," Tom responded quickly.
Ginny sighed. "You can't be angry about that. If you were angry about that, you would be angry with me and not Harry. But you were angry with Harry, too, so you're hiding something from me," she said. He didn't respond. It hardly mattered. She screwed up her courage and said, "And to be honest, Tom, I don't care anymore. It was worth it. It was bloody well worth it, and that's all the answer you get." She shrugged her bag onto her shoulder and looked at him with an exhausted expression. "So stop asking me!"
With that, she strode out of the library and didn't even notice that he had followed her. She didn't notice until he grabbed her wrist and flung her against a wall, pinning her down. "Tell the truth!" he hissed.
She just glared at him. "Get off of me," she said.
"Not until you tell the truth," he repeated.
"I am telling the truth," she insisted. "Now get off of me!"
He didn't move. His eyes glinted with fury and she felt her stomach quake a little, but she stood tall and jutted her chin out in defiance. "I can tell when you're lying, Ginevra," he said deceptively softly. "I can tell when you're false. I can see right through you, into all of your schemes and plans and pitiful deceptions. It's no use trying to fool me. So tell the truth."
She didn't say a thing. There was nothing more to say, and she only hoped she could beat him in a contest of who was more stubborn.
She expected him to stare her down, to pull out his wand and threaten her, to shout and scream and terrify her, possibly even try to strike her. Any of those, she would have been ready for. She wasn't ready for what he did.
Perhaps she should have expected it, with his anger at Harry and his insistence that she tell him the date had been, essentially, a bust – wonderful and friendly but without any spark (except what she assumed was either a very strong alcohol or a very temporary love potion in those chocolates). But more likely it was understandable that she didn't see it coming, because who could see something like that coming from someone like him?
It was inconceivable. It was incomprehensible. But nonetheless, it was true. Tom Riddle kissed her.
It was a violent kiss, the kind that she thought would leave a bruise, the kind that was meant to prove something and assert something, not at all like when she had snogged Harry a week ago. It was angry and vindictive and told her that he had run out of other options. She felt her head bash against the wall and wondered if that would make her headaches worse. She tried to move her arms to push him away but they were still pinned to her sides. She couldn't move.
And, truth be told, Tom wasn't very good at this at all.
She almost laughed at that thought, and then it was over, and he was striding down the hallway, all fury and anger and who-knew-what else, and Ginny almost doubled over in laughter.
Oh, this was almost too hilarious to be true. Tom had been jealous. Imagine that.