A Christmas Carol

Chapter 04 - The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come

To wait for the last spirit to show up was all Tom could do.

The boy stayed standing in the middle of his dormitory, looking around and trying to figure out what the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come would be like. He had read the book by Charles Dickens and knew that the last ghost was the worst of the three, but Riddle wouldn't let a grumpy spirit intimidate him. Tom was pulled from his thoughts by a weird shadow that appeared on the curtains of his bed's baldachin. That was obviously not his shadow, he could tell that because the image on the curtains was apparently wearing a cloak.

"Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?"

The shadow didn't move.

"Great."

The Slytherin turned around to look at the spirit. He (or was it she?) had the same height as Tom and was wearing a dark cloak which hid his face. Not like the other ghosts, this one didn't make a move when he saw that the boy was staring at him.

"Alright… What do you…?"

The spirit pointed at something behind Riddle. Sighing, the boy turned around to see what the other wanted him to look at… His dormitory had vanished and now they were inside a cozy living room that was all decorated for Christmas. There was a couple sitting on the floor, next to a Christmas tree, talking and smiling. The man was making sparkles come out of his wand, entertaining a baby boy who was sitting on the woman's lap. The baby had dark hair, like his father, and green eyes, like his mother.

"Merry Christmas, Harry!" the red haired woman smiled.

"Our first Christmas as parents," the man leaned and kissed his wife's cheek, "Merry Christmas, Lily," he turned to look at his son and messed his dark hair, "Merry Christmas, big boy!"

The child laughed happily. Tom couldn't help but feel jealous… That was what he always wished for during his whole childhood: a family with whom he could get reunited with during important days like Christmas.

"Alright, who are those people?" the boy asked even though he knew the shadow wouldn't answer.

As he thought, the spirit ignored his question and pointed at something else. Again, the Slytherin looked at what the other had pointed and saw the place around them changing. He and the ghost were now standing in a kitchen of a house which Tom could tell that was owned by muggles.

"Where are you?"

"I'm coming, Uncle Vernon," a little boy entered the kitchen.

The boy was wearing clothes that were too big for his small body and it made him look too thin, almost sick. His dark hair was a mess as it fell over his forehead, almost hiding a lightening bolt shaped scar that was there, and his eyes were brightly green.

"This boy is the baby that we saw?" no answer, "I don't know why I even bother asking."

Saying that, the teenager crossed the kitchen and entered the living room to see what the boy was doing.

"Help your aunt with the presents," there was a large man with a huge moustache sitting on the couch, pointing at a tall, blond woman who was standing by the Christmas tree, "And go quickly!"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

"What happened to his parents?" Tom asked.

"And don't make that face! You should be more grateful, boy!", the muggle spoke, "If it weren't for us, you would be alone on the world! No parents, no friends, no relatives…

So he was an orphan… A young wizard living with muggles, just like Tom.

"Marge will be there in a few minutes and I want everything in it's place," Uncle Vernon looked at the boy with a serious face, "Don't you dare to do anything silly! If anything goes wrong tonight I swear you'll be locked in that cupboard until next year, understood?"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

Couldn't the boy give another answer? Why didn't he do something against that great idiot? If Riddle was in his place, that muggle would have regretted saying all those things he had said a few minutes ago.

The scene in front of them changed again. They were now looking at a little red haired girl who was sitting on a bed with a notebook opened over the sheets. The girl was desperately writing in a blank page while tears rolled down her face. When he noticed that the ghost wouldn't do anything, Tom approached the girl to see what he was writing and gasped as he recognized the notebook.

"I don't know what is happening to me, Tom! Today I had another blackout… Ron said he looked for me all around the castle to wish me a Merry Christmas and couldn't find me, but I don't remember going out of Gryffindor's Tower!"

The red head started to cry even harder. Her quill trembled a lot in her tiny hands, dirtying the page… But the ink soon started to disappear, as if it was being sucked into the old paper.

"Don't worry, Ginevra," words appeared on the page and Tom knew that calligraphy very well, "It can't be something bad."

"But, Tom… The attacks! They always happen when I have those…"

"Ginevra, calm down. You're not responsible for those attacks… I know you and I'm sure you wouldn't be capable to do all those things, little one."

A tiny smile appeared on the girls lips.

"The best thing you can do now is to calm down. Tell everything that happened, it'll make you feel better, my dear."

The little girl and the diary of T. M. Riddle disappeared.

"Escaped."

"How?"

"The girl took him…"

There was a man standing in the middle of a dirty and destroyed room, stroking a huge snake that was resting on his shoulders. The wizard's face was the weirdest thing Tom had ever seen… A mixture of man and snake: red eyes with snake-like pupils, nostrils that were only thin slits in the middle of his face and extremely pale skin… That thing couldn't be human.

"We had him so close," the snake hissed, "We could try to find him… Send your death eaters! Malfoy can do it, can't him?"

"Do you really think he could go after the boy? Lucius Malfoy is a incompetent… Not so different from his father."

Lucius Malfoy? Was him the son of Abraxas?

"What are we going to do, master?"

"Potter will show up," the man whispered, "Sooner or later, he'll have to show up… And Lord Voldemort will be waiting for him."

Lord Voldemort! That was his name, his nickname! How did that man know…?

"That… That's me…"

Stare at Lord Voldemort and trying to imagine how did he manage to end up like that was all Tom could do. Alright, it was fascinating to see how powerful that wizard was… But, at the same time, it was disturbing to see that, one day, he would become that.

"At least you'll have power," he thought, "Yes, and the only creature who'll support you in your life will be a snake."

Still staring at Voldemort's snake-like face, the boy saw the scene change. What he saw now made his jaw drop…

It was a couple, but not any couple. Tom could swear that the young man was the orphan boy raised by muggles and the girl was the little red head who wrote in his diary… Both of them looked relieved, smiling calmly to each other.

"Ron, Mione!" the boy with green eyes waved for two people who had just entered the room: a tall, red haired boy with blue eyes and a short girl with bushy hair and brown eyes…

"Hermione? The Ghost of Christmas Past…" Tom whispered, looking at the girl, "That's her! What is she doing here?"

"Hello, Harry… Ginny!" Hermione smiled at them, sitting next the red haired boy on the couch, "Hi, Neville! Hello, Luna."

It was just now that Tom noticed that there was another couple in the room. Neville, a tall boy with brown hair, and Luna… Which was the same Luna whom he had met as the Ghost of Christmas Present. The six of them started talking happily, until one of them touched a subject that, apparently, was pretty delicate.

"Have you noticed that this is our first Christmas without Voldemort?" Neville asked, taking a sip of his butterbeer.

"Our first Christmas without having to worry about that idiot," this time it was Ron who spoke.

"Thanks Merlin," Hermione, the same sweet Hermione who had treated him so well, seemed satisfied with the fact that the Dark Lord had been defeated, "But… Enough of it! It's all over now, we're all getting our lives back after all the horrors he made us go through."

"What does that mean? Was I imprisoned… In Azkaban? What happened?" the Slytherin asked.

The spirit extended his hand, handing him a edition of the Daily Prophet. Even though he didn't understood what the ghost wanted him to do, Tom took the newspaper, without noticing that the place around them had changed.

"LORD VOLDEMORT DIES IN THE BATTLE OF THE SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY OF HOGWARTS

HARRY POTTER, THE BOY WHO LIVED, FINALLY DEFEATED THE DARK LORD"

"No… This is not true," the boy whispered, widening his blue eyes and feeling as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs, "I can't be defeated by a boy lika that! I CAN'T!"

He threw the newspaper at the floor and turned to look at the spirit. Riddle gasped as he saw that the ghost had removed the hood of his cloak, revealing his face… A dark haired boy with green eyes and a lightening bolt shaped scar on his forehead.

"You! Y-You are the idiot who is… who is…"

"I didn't do anything to you, Voldemort," the other boy whispered, approaching the Slytherin, "You did it to youself."

"No, no, no, no!"

"This hunger for power of yours leaded you to this. You didn't want to love, right? Because love is for the weak… You managed to do it. You didn't want to be human, because to be human is to be mortal…And to be mortal is to be weak."

"It's good to see that you understand my point of view," said Riddle, restraining himself from showing any trace of fear in his voice.

"Congratulations, Tom, you did it," the spirit was close enough to touch him, which made the Slytherin really uncomfortable.

Riddle looked around and noticed that they were standing in the middle of a graveyeard. There was a elegant grave with a scary stone angel standing right behind him. There were three names written on the stone…

THOMAS RIDDLE

MARY RIDDLE

TOM RIDDLE

"You managed not to be human, Voldemort," there was another name being formed on the stone while Harry spoke, "And this leaded you to your defeat."

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Tom was sure that he was going to pass out anytime soon. He couldn't breath as he read his name on the grave and, suddenly, felt the ground beneath his feet disappear. Now he was falling right into the grave where an opened coffin was waiting for him…

He couldn't end up like that! He couldn't end up in that filth grave! He…!

"No!"

Tom Riddle couldn't breath, couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't hold onto something to stop the fall… The only thing he could do was to close his eyes seconds before he felt his body hitting the bottom of the coffin.

N/A: Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come... I've always been scared of him XD This ghost is represented by Harry because... well, I always imagined the Ghost of Future as something that makes us remember of "Death", and Harry is Voldemort's death... Yeah. I translated it during my mother's cousin Christmas dinner ._.'

Wow, I discovered a stupid mistake I did in this fanfiction D: I said that this story takes place in 1942, right? But, in the books, Myrtle dies only in June of 1943 D: I can't believe I let it pass! Really, I hate when I read a fanfiction with wrong time line and all, and I've just done that D: I'm sorry... [let's just believe for a while that Myrtle died in 1942 x_x].

Well, hope you liked it :D

Ari.