Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination. I was inspired by J.K. Rowlings wonderful world. Enjoy!

Spellbinding

Page 9

It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.

~Albus Dumbledore

Ginny could easily see the features of the little ghost girl, the resemblance they shared were identical. Their red hair, the matching pale complexion. The girl was wearing a worn and tattered Gryffindor robe. With the lion's emblem upon her side pocket. She remembered the garment perfectly and the the great fuss her mother made over its ruin.

After a moment Ginny took a step forward, and before she could speak, the little girl turned and ran. Ginny chased her. "Wait… stop!" she screamed racing behind the girl, running through the tall grass, dodging gnome holes as she went. "Stop please, come back."

The chase lasted it seemed forever, pulling Ginny further from the safety of the Burrow. She ran as fast a she could, but her speed was simply not greater than that of the girl's. Her chest ached with a burning fire, driving to a point of pain as she struggled to keep up with the younger child. She had forgotten how quick she was as a girl. To trap her was her only way to catch up with her.

But how? She was without her wand, or help, if someone had been with her, then perhaps they could intercept the girl and cut her off.

On they ran, hurrying among the trees, before she soon pludge into the shallow waters of a murky pond. Ginny waded through the water and ripples surrounded her, vibrating from every movement she made. Soon enough, she travel through it, reaching the opposite side where the cattails grew long and tall. But, she couldn't determine in which direction had the girl gone. Ginny knew she to far from the house now. Fear was as close to her as the surrounding water. Elongated blades of grass promised dry land. They were golden from the summer sun, long, dry stems that strecthed on far miles. Ginny darted through the petty waters, she had to hurry back home, what could she had been thinking? Her mother would be beyond panick the moment she discovered her gone from sight, and the strange girl could be a mile ahead of her by now, she was wasting her time.

Her heart was pounding as she she climbed back into the waters, the chilliness of it engulfing her waist. Her gown was completely covered from the muddy sludge from the pond. Then, there was a soft laughter, and she stopped, and looked from side to side. She had heard the girl but where was she? Was she losing her mind? Was she even awake at all? Are was she still in her room sleeping, dreaming that she was awake?

Her answer came quickly, and then she saw her. Black and gold with streaks of red. The Gryfinndor. Ginny bolted back from the waters and soon followed the laughter into the thick mass of surrounding trees, She pushed onward deeper into the woods. Avoiding hanging branches, and large roots that grew upward from the ground like gigantic knarled fingers. She looked desperately around for the phantom's laughter. And when it came, it was short, distant and so very familiar... Where was she? Ginny wondered. Was she hiding, playing these silly little games?

Her heart thudding like a sledge hammer inside of her chest and her side ached terribly. There was nothing now, silence, nothing but the trees and their branches. The sounds of nature all around her, birds, a squirrel. The sunlight broke through the leaves of the trees, and her eyes followed their dancing light across the dry ground, it was then that she saw her....

The field was open and wide, golden and yeilding more tall blades of grass. The little girl was spinning in circles round, and round. Laughing, playing. She sung and pranced about, as if with something, or someone else. She whirled in merry circles turning slower then faster.

Soaked and exhausted. . .At last Ginny shouted her own name. "Ginny!" she screamed,and the little girl stopped abruptly at hearing her name.

Ginny was out of breath, panting and struggling to fill her lungs with air.

The likeness between them remarkably haunting to her. She stared at the illusion, but the thing did not look up, back into her face. No, it only stared down, at the earth. And for some time neither of them said a word. And Ginny's breathing began to ease as she sucked in fresh air.

"Why,why are you running?" she asked the child.

The phantom said nothing and only kept space between them, she would not let the older girl near her, and the more Ginny tried to come closer. The phantom girl would only laughed as if it were a sport of cat and mouse. Quickly she would moved away.

"Do you know what happened?" The little girl's voice came at last, from beneath her bright red hair. Hair that fell like a thick veil, hiding her eyes, her face. She would not look up... she slumped her neck oddly, and gazed down at the ground only.

"Nope. . . no...i don't, do you?" answered Ginny, and then it happened quickly. A beam of lighting came from behind them, just as the child looked up. It was then that Ginny could see her own face staring right back at her. Her own hair, with its fullness so vividly red. But a frown lurked upon the phantom's face.

Ginny took a tiny step back, her legs became limp and lifeless. She had angered the thing some how. "Yes I know, I know what happened. . ." Ginny corrected her lie quickly, she was very shaken now. "I'm so sorry, I didn't understand then…and he was so powerful, but I never knew a boy like him …you remember don't you? The way he was. . . But he didn't mean to hurt you, I mean me. . .he loved me. He told me he would always love me. . . us . . ."

The girl made no reply, she just stared and the horizon behind her, grew as dark as nightfall.

Some how she found courage against the girl's icy glare. "And. . . and I believed him…I still do, I suppose." her voice was growing faint, because she wanted to freak out, literally freak the fuck out. "Where is he?" she demanded the younger girl.

The younger Ginny, then shrugged her shoulders. It was the exact way she often did when someone asked her something she didn't know the answer to. "I couldn't find him," said the younger girl. "I tried…I looked everywhere. I could hear him some nights... crying, he was always crying. And then I learned to sleep. Like he taught me. Do you remember?"

Ginny nodded a reply. Of course she remembered. No matter how she tried, she could never forget anything about Tom. He had taught her a trick of the body and mind, how to sleep so deeply, so sound, that someone would think you were no longer alive. He taught her so that sometimes she could allow him access to her soul, and privelege to her memories of Harry Potter.

"I could find him then, but only when I would sleep." continued the young girl "He was my friend. But then, he came. The strange man, and something happened, I ended up here and our book was destroyed."

"Why are you here?…first Tom and now you, I mean me!. . . This isn't happening! Where is Tom. Did he go back there, where is my diary?" Ginny demanded, with anger rising in her voice, and she rushed forward, determined to learn all she could from the other her. But, the girl took equally large steps back.

"STOP IT! . ." shouted Ginny "STOP RUNNING AWAY!. . . " She stood still, and so did the phantom. Her legs were trembling, and a boom came from the sky before her. The storm would not wait until night. It was approaching them now. The thunder rumbled, it was not faint in the least, but vibrated the air, like the roar of a dragon, and it was enough to bring everything back to her. The past....

"You didn't have to do it you know." said the girl "He said that he wished he had never asked me to do does things, they were wrong. He said he's sorry, and he wished he could undo it."

"What sort of wrong? What are you talking about?" asked Ginny.

"The bird, the school rooster the one we straggled to for him."

"The bird…" Ginny thought wildly, and like pieces misplaced they tumbled together for her and the memory of that day came rushing back.

Tom told her that they would take her away. He told her, that the only way to stay with him forever was to join him, to become like him. He told her, that he had been placed there for safe keeping, but that he was always alone. He wrote back to her in the diary each day, and she told him many things. She even told him about the stupid rooster, and how it had chased her all the way to the greenhouse on her first day of school. She hated the stupid bird, but would not have ever killed it, not deliberately.

It was Riddle in the end. He was so upset with her that day. The one thing that would keep them apart was a stupid bird and she was to afraid to kill it. He entered her body, without her permission. This was something he had never done before, not ever and he forced her out onto the school grounds. She had to kill the school bird he said to her. For many reasons, he said. He needed to open the chamber, and he needed blood to do it. He said he would never use her blood to open the secret chamber, that she was special, and that she should be happy that he loved her so much.

She then told him that maybe, if he only needed a little, that she could spare her own blood.

But no, she was like a friend. His only friend in a long time. He had never had a friend that was a girl before and he could never dream of hurting her. But when she realized his power, and what little control she had against him, it terrified her. And when he spoke to the basilisk, it scared her beyond reason. Even though he promised her it would be ok, that the snake would only obey him and never attack her. And that now, they could find a way to be together forever.

But he was not living…and she was. She wanted to stay with him, but it was so scary and she was just a girl. The idea of owning so much love scared her then.

But where was he now? It has been weeks since that day in the shop, and she missed him so much....

She did not share this thought with the girl. "We can go back to the house, and find a way to fix this." said Ginny. "If you'll only come back with me. Please!"

"No, I've come to give you a message. . . Tom needs help."

"Help, why what has happened?" There was a brief pause and Ginny wasn't sure if she was ready for the truth that would follow her question. "So he's really back then.... and that was really him that day in Diagon Alley?" She smiled at the knowledge in knowing it was truly him that kissed her in the tiny room.

The child tilted her head with a questioning look, she had no idea what the other girl was talking about. "Loads has happened." said the phantom. "I cannot stay with you." she looked up into the treetops behind Ginny. The phantom smiled, looking at her older self. Her, standing there in the day, protected by the light. While she would soon return to the darkness "One came…" she said to Ginny. "They heard our cries. And one came to help us."

"One . . . . One what?" asked Ginny

"Them…they... It has asked me to stay with him and watch over him until he has awaken. He's not strong enough, not now. and I have to take care of him. But he needs you too. . . you see, I can't stay long." She clasped her hands together and looked down at her feet and her tattered, shoes. "I will have to leave soon. . . .there's no place for me here. But Tom can't go yet, he can't escape. The stranger that came for us, will not let him leave…he's stronger than Tom. You have to help him when I am gone....you have to be brave for him, you can't let him win." The girl looked up and there were tears along her face. "Do you promise, promise me you'll be there for him."

This was not a favor, nor a request. It was a plea for help. Ginny nodded yes, and started to cry too. She didn't understand any of this, and wasn't sure she wanted to, because it didn't matter, because for Tom she would travel through death and back. "Yes…" she said and wiped her eyes "I promise."

Now, she stood alone in the field. With only the grass blowing wildly about her, and in the place where the girl had been standing. The field wild grass was fighting against the wind, swirling, fleeing helplessly against the approaching storm. Ginny then turned, and headed back towards the way she had came, back toward the Burrow.

What she did not know, was that the thing for which the little phantom girl danced and played with, layed in the deepest part of the field, where the dark grass stretched highest and overrun.

What she did not see was a tiny animal, knealing before the storm, it had been watching them. A ki rin, it licked at its hoof clean, and feared nothing within the field, nor the raging heavens above it. It knealed calmly, and was at peace with both the light on one side and the darkness on the other. Because it did not fear the balance of good nor evil. The tiny fawn-like creature watched the two girls has they exchanged their vows and promises. But the Ki rin did not interfere. For now, it would only wait.

Author's Note: For the Ki rin, please search this magical beast online, or you may view my profile page, under Ki-rin. For Story Profile and theme song chosen for this story please visit my profile under Spellbinding.