Chapter 6

Hey guys, sorry it's been years. I stopped this story because the laptop that I had been writing on crashed and burned and I lost all the data and chapters I had been working on. It made me so mad that I just gave up on the story. But I've noticed that people are still favoriting and following it, and I feel bad that you've waited so long to know if she tells the truth or not.

Anyways, I recovered this chapter because I remembered that I had sent it to a friend to have her review it for me before posting a long time ago. So, it was saved in the outbox on fanfiction and I found it just now!

I don't know when I will post again, unfortunately, since I don't have the next chapter done (just an outline) but probably after my other story "A Light in Arda" is done. It's a "Modern girl falls into Middle Earth" Hobbit story. I'm almost halfway done with it, so, after that I'll be coming here next to finish. Or at least try to.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine. I'm just playing with JK Rowling's toys :)

What?" Harry frowned, his shoulders tightening at the mention of the name. "What about Voldemort?"

"He… he was…"

Hermione took a deep breath. The moment had come.

She would tell him everything. She had to.

She opened her mouth, felt herself teetering on the edge of a precipice…

"Are you so eager to burn another world with me, Hermione?"

… and, feeling like a coward, stepped back from it.

"It's just… being at Hogwarts...and then in London… I… couldn't help thinking about him."

Not a lie. Not really. But not the truth either. Her Gryffindor house would be ashamed of her.

Ron immediately pulled her into an embrace, making comforting noises in the back of his throat that she didn't deserve. They rumbled in his chest, vibrating through her in a calming way that made her feel like wilting with guilt.

"Harry…" she said tentatively, pulling back from Ron to look over at him. It hadn't occurred to her to ask before the words were on the tip of her tongue, but as they left her mouth, she found that she needed to know.

"What… what was he like? I mean… you know, before…"

Before he lost his mind and made a deal with Death, tried to kill you, and turned into a crazy snake-creature bent on conquering England and enslaving the world?

The words didn't need to be said; Harry understood her meaning. Or at least some of it. He looked at her for a moment in bewilderment, clearly perplexed by the turn their conversation had taken. But ultimately unconcerned. It was plain as day that he didn't suspect a thing. And how could he? He trusted Hermione with his life.

Hermione wanted to hide under a rock.

She noticed that Ginny's hand found Harry's and had given it a little squeeze. And then, to the astonishment of everyone, Ginny said, "I probably know the answer to that question better than Harry does."

All three friends stared at her in bewilderment.

Of course! Hermione's mind raced. Of course Ginny knows about the 16 year old Tom Riddle! But how much didthe horocrux reveal to her? How much did she know?

Hermione could tell by both Ron and Harry's surprise that this was all unexpected.

Ginny gazed into the glowing fire, her eyes reflecting its dancing light and for a horrible moment gave the illusion of her eyes emitting fire as well. Hermione watched her, hawk-like, while Ginny descended into memory.

"How do I explain such a dark wizard before he was dark?" She said. A small, troubled frown pulled at her lips. "Well, I mean, technically he was already dark since he made a horacrux with a diary.." She snorted unhumorously and met Hermione's gaze, but then looked back into the fire, her eyes somewhere far away. "But...mere words may not suffice. In so many ways he was a mass of contradictions."

She began in halting, hesitant tones, tasting them and testing them as they came out, "He was… elegant? Very well-spoke and polite...but a bit vain about his appearance, and at the same time he was unafraid of getting his hands dirty."

Hermione leaned forward. These were memories that he had shown Ginny! Her mind instantly began making plans of somehow convincing her to show her in a pensieve...

"He was reserved, but obsessively curious. Very...manipulative" Ginny shuddered and Hermione could almost hear Tom's seductive voice telling her to paint the wall with Mrs. Morris's blood... "But.." Ginny took a deep breath and let it out, "he was pretty honest about his own dishonesty; unashamed of it, I would say. He wasn't quiet, but he was calm. Observant, but never shy. Uncertain at times, but unafraid – Tom Riddle was no coward."

Hermione's eyes widened a little to hear her say his name so casually.

Ginny shrugged, "He was thoughtful. Intelligent. Witty. Passionate about whatever took his interest. He loved books the way you do, Hermione." Ginny nodded and gave a half smile to try and lighten the strange conversation they were having. Hermione winced at the comparison, but Ginny continued, not noticing.

"He was devious, but claimed that he was loyal to those he loved. He was-"

"Wait!" Hermione had to stop her, suddenly feeling cold despite Ron's body heat next to her, "Loyal to those he loved?" She tried to reel in her interest and make her voice sound dubious even though it came out breathless, "Did he...ever really love anyone? I thought he wasn't capable of that."

Ginny opened her mouth but Harry responded with a hard bitter voice, "Of course he wasn't. Voldemort never loved anyone. That was his downfall and it was why he failed."

Hermione swallowed, feeling ashamed for the expression on Harry's face. She never wanted to cause him pain. She didn't want to dredge up memories of his family or their dead friends and aquantances. Part of her wanted to change the subject just to see the bitter sadness in his eyes go away. But...what if Harry was right in a way? What if love HAD been Voldemort's downfall just not in the way Harry imagined?

Hermione slowly nodded to show Harry she agreed with his assessment. If she wanted to keep the conversation going she would have to concede this point. She would have to talk to Ginny about this further. "Anything else you remember about him, Ginny?" She looked over at her.

Ginny spoke up again, also anxiously looking at Harry from the corner of her eye, "He was practical, but took pride in artistry and irony. He loved competition, be it against others or against himself, but he claimed to never seek glory for its own sake."

Harry scoffed at this and shook his head. Hermione could feel this line of topic coming to a close. She didn't want to build tensions between Ginny and Harry.

"Tom showed you what he wanted to show you, Ginny." Harry said in a low angry voice, "He did the same thing to me when he showed me that Hagrid had Aragog. I wouldn't believe most of what he showed you."

Hermione frowned. Were the memories Tom showed Ginny all fake?

"Did you see anything false when he showed you a memory, Harry?" She remembered he had shared with them that Slughorn had altered one of his own memories and he had to get the real one.

Harry blinked and huffed, "Well...no, it wasn't altered but...but he used it to convince me of a lie. He used a true memory but it was in the wrong context."

Hermione had a feeling that Harry was getting a little touchy because this was Ginny, his girlfriend, who was describing his enemy. He loved and cared for Ginny, and she had just admitted to Tom being somewhat charming. Maybe part of Harry was angry that they had gotten so close while she was being used?

Ron was tense, but surprisingly quiet the whole time. It must be hard hearing this from his baby sister.

Hermione unconsciously reached out and laid a hand on Ron's forearm, squeezing gently in a gesture of support. She wished she could brush her hands over Ron and Harry's brow and smooth away all her remorse at bringing this subject up.

But… Hermione was on a mission. This wasn't just curiosity, this was data collection. She had never asked Ginny about these things because she hadn't really cared before. There were so many more important things to focus on.

A belated guilt twisted through her like a pinch deep in her chest, sparking the beginnings of a tension headache behind her eyes, and for an instant she thought she heard a quiet ringing in her ears, though it was gone quickly. Now, as then, she found herself putting her search for knowledge before their well-being. She needed to know these things right now. More than she needed to spare her friends this pain.

For what felt like the millionth time, she wondered if she were heartless.

She had to ask.

"If he were still alive…" she said quietly, directing her question to Harry. Her mind carefully shuffling aside her feelings of self-castigation and pouring over this strange, intriguing new Tom, that Ginny assured her had once been the same person that had leveled Hogwarts. "If it were possible… would he still be worth saving?"

Harry looked up at her sharply, his eyes hauntingly sad, and she was suddenly struck by the years she saw reflected in them – it was easy to forget sometimes how old the war had made them become verses the age they actually were. She would be only 19 at the end of summer. Moments like these simultaneously made her feel incredibly fortunate and incredibly resentful. They had never been able to just be kids.

The sincerity in his face, made somehow more profound by the display of timeless knowing in his eyes, struck her hard in the chest and stole her breath.

"I do not think he could have been saved."

It wasn't that revelatory. She couldn't imagine him saying anything differently.

"When I died..." he paused and Hermione stopped breathing. It was so fantastical to think that Harry had actually gone over to where not many have gone before...or rather, where everyone have gone but almost no man had come back from. An image of the archway in the Ministry of magic flitted across her memory. What WAS on the other side?

"I saw Voldemort, or at least what was left of him. It was..." Harry's eyes narrowed as he struggled to describe the experience, "Disgusting. He was less than human. Destroyed. He...he looked so pathetic lying there. Cold and naked and helpless and...I wanted to help him." Harry looked up with confusion in his eyes at a reaction that he couldn't control, "Can you imagine that? Me! Wanting to help the man that took everything from me." Harry shook his head slowly and turned away looking into the distance, "I would have tried if Dumbledore hadn't led me away from him. He told me that there was nothing I could do for him."

"The universe is… unkind. It finds creative ways to make you suffer…"

Hermione shivered, her gut coiling tightly with the vague threat of whatever unspoken horror Tom had been referring to. She tried to imagine what Harry had seen.

Everyone was silent at Harry's sobering revelation before he quietly spoke, "But..."

"But?" Hermione heard herself faintly echoing.

"Dumbledore said it in…such a strange way." Harry went on, nodding his head minutely as he spoke, as though confirming his own words to himself. "He said that there was nothing I could do to help him. He said it...like..." Harry's eyebrows furrowed as he tried to give words to his emotions, "Like I specifically couldn't help him." Harry shrugged, "Was he capable of even being helped? I don't know. Certainly not by me nor by Dumbledore."

It was Hermione's turn to look away, her mind racing. She shifted, the disc in her pocket digging into her hip. Suddenly, the symbols of the healing sun, the need to be filled, and the gift that breeds loyalty, all took on new facets of meaning.

Tom believed there could be healing. And she could be a part of it.

Hermione bit her lip. Did she even WANT to help him? How could someone come back from all that evil anyways? How could someone like him repay all the bad he's done? Perhaps somewhere in another life, Hermione mused. Certainly not here, on earth. Tom Riddle wouldn't get another chance here in this realm of existence, Hermione was sure. But what did it mean to be friends with Life and Death as Alexa had referred to Tom's state of being? Who'd WANT to be friends with someone like him?

Tom believed there could be healing.

But not if she told Harry what she knew. In fact, if she told him now, Harry would not rest until he found Voldemort. A whole new quest to find Voldemort would begin, one that she wouldn't allow Harry to go on alone. And if Alexa Solberg was to be believed, he wasn't even on this mortal plane of existence. It would be a ghost chase and she would be to blame if anything horrible occurred to her friends because of it. Harry deserved peace. She could give him that.

In that moment, all her worry and vacillating and rationalizing came to nothing, because the answer was clear to her. She had no idea if it was the right one. For all she knew Voldemort could be lying through his teeth to her. But she knew it was the one she would choose.

Not for Tom. For Harry.

The distinction comforted her, even though she knew it really didn't make any difference. The lie was the same. As was the outcome.

The moment for honesty was gone. Tom's secret would stay secret.

For now. Hermione thought resolutely.

"I am sorry, 'Mione, I understand your curiosity, but can we speak of something else now?" Harry asked dully. "This feels too heavy for a happy meeting between friends."

Hermione shook off her musings. There was no point in chewing on them further. The choice was made. It was Tom's move now. And she'd tortured Harry enough for one day.

"I'm sorry," she sighed. She rubbed a guilty hand over her brow, unable to quite look over at him as her conscience at last caught up with her curiosity. "Of course this is hard for you. I can't believe how selfish I'm being."

Harry shook his head, "No, it's…it's alright. It was merely unexpected." He smiled more warmly at her, his tone lightening with relief as his eyes softened. "It's all over now. Over and done. And we are all together again."

Hermione tried to smile back at him.

Hermione sat on one of the beds in Ginny's room that was always pulled out out whenever she slept over, normally during the summer months. Ginny sat at her vanity, applying a bubotuber pus potion to her face although there was no acne to be found on her pretty pale skin.

The light was set to "dim" and the pink walls made the whole room glow like a warm blush.

In the corner of her eye, Ginny's favorite Quidditch captain, Gwenog Jones, flew around in her poster. While the Weird Sister poster on the right of the Gwenog's poster kept waving at their friendly fans from on stage.

Hermione fluffed up her pillow and then as she customarily did while at Ginny's house, she leaped up and over her bed. For a millisecond she was airborn before gravity had it's way with her and she came crashing down onto the nice soft mattress with a light bounce, ruining whatever semblance of calm her hair had been.

"Ahhhhhh." Hermione loudly sighed as her back and shoulder muscles began to pop and relax. Today was a much more stressful day than it should have been. Not to mention she hadn't slept very good since the hotel room, worrying if she would find herself at the mercy of a dark wizard in her sleep again.

Ginny studied her and her messy hair from the mirror in her vanity for a moment before chuckling at something. Something about her laugh seemed off though and Hermione sat up a little, studying Ginny's troubled eyes through the mirror, "What?"

"Nothing, it's just..." Ginny sighed and began pinching her nose and then rubbing at her eyes and at her face, "Our talk at the fire pit just...started making the memories come back, you know?" She shook her head, her eyes closed and distressed.

"Tell me." Hermione encouraged gently. If Ginny wanted to lay her burden down, Hermione would gladly listen. "What memories are you holding onto?"

Ginny was quiet for a while and it seemed like she wasn't going to open up, until she closed her eyes with a huge sigh, and shook her head again, obviously agitated, "There was...this one memory he showed me from his 4th year. He set a girl's hair on fire from his class."

Hermione's mouth dropped open with a gasp. "That's horrible!"

Hermione had always been particularly touchy about her hair, and she felt some righteous indignation. The poor girl! How was she ever supposed to actually forgive and even consider keeping Tom's secret when so many things stacked off against him?

"Tom just talked his way out of it." Ginny just shook her head. "His eloquence was unmatched. I've never seen anyone talk as smoothly as him and..." Ginny rolled her eyes in annoyance, "he could be devastatingly charming. Many of the girls in Hogwarts back then liked him. But not her."

Hermione scoffed, "Well I should think not! Who would like a boy after they set their hair on fire?!"

Ginny hummed and nodded in agreement, "He loved playing pranks. Especially on her. He was particularly nasty towards her."

Hermione cocked her head, "Was It Myrtle?" She couldn't help but ask aloud. He had killed her after all.

"No, it wasn't Myrtle." Ginny shook her head, "Her hair was light brown. It looked just like yours."

Hermione froze.

"You just reminded me of her when your hair flew around you just now, is all." Ginny smiled at Hermione before rolling her eyes at herself again and getting animated, "And he had these golden little charmed earings he used to give all the ladies! He was quite the craftsman, and quite well known for it—"

Hermione didn't really hear what Ginny was saying. Her mind was stuck on what she had said before. Someone who looked like her... An icy feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

"—could pick out all of his 'conquests' at in the Great Hall by the jewelry they wore. It became something of an inside joke amongst the witches that Tom's love was like a goldfly. The saying went that you could catch Tom's attention, but you couldn't keep it, because it died after one night, and left only a bit of gold behind."

Oh really…

Ginny seemed to be genuinely enjoying her reminiscence, so she did not notice Hermione's eyebrows shoot up her forehead at that anecdote. The beautifully crafted gold disc inside her pajama pocket suddenly felt intensely conspicuous, and she furitively brushed her hand over the bulge to make sure no edge was sticking out to be spotted.

Playboy… she thought sullenly, then frowned inwardly at her own petulance. It's not like it really matters… at least I told him that I knew he wasn't serious, so he won't think I'm blind enough to become another dew-eyed conquest …

Not the point, dummy. Focus.

Ginny was still talking, revealing more than Hermione ever imagined she might learn.

"Ginny," Hermione interrupted and fidgeted a little. "Could we perhaps use a pensive? I should like very much to see your memory of what happened."

Ginny made a face, "What? Why?"

"I just-" Hermione scrambled for anything that wouldn't make her seem conspicuous. "I want to see the girl with the hair like mine. You know how uncommon my hair is." She gestured to herself.

"Just go look at a picture of Bellatrix Lestrange." Ginny quirked an eyebrow, teasingly. "That's your hair when you don't have Sleek-eazy in it."

This earned her a pillow in the face from Hermione who had gasped indignantly at the unfair comparison. NO one had hair like Bellatrix.

"Hey!" Ginny laughed, "I just put this potion on!"

"No, but seriously," Hermione said after the giggling had subsided, "Can I see it?"

"We don't have a pensieve." Ginny shook her head.

"Oh." Hermione quickly calculated how much one would cost and how soon she could get it. Not to mention the spell needed to retract the memories. She knew how to perform it, but she couldn't take a memory from someone else's head. They had to learn the spell and perform the retraction themselves. She thought about how long it would take her to teach Ginny, who wasn't a slow learner by any means.

Ginny sobered, the weight of her past revealing itself on her expressive face.

"What's wrong, Ginny." Hermione asked gently.

"The worst part of it all is..." Ginny's face drew in, shuttering with quiet grief. "I miss having someone to talk to like I did with him." She clutched a notebook in her hand and Hermione deducted that it was Ginny's horcrux-free diary. "I know..." She gave a loud huff. Angry at herself for feelings she didn't want, but pushed on, "I know he talked with me just to get to Harry...But he knew just how to make me laugh, and how to comfort me or calm me when I was raging about my brothers or sulking about 'Harry Potter not noticing me'. He was.." Ginny shook her head, ashamed, "my confidante. He was all conflicting truths, but all those truths met in him somehow and at first, before he knew that I knew Harry… he was just… Tom."

Hermione was at a loss herself. The memories that Ginny had described were no doubt skewed, the loss of her "pen pal" were perhaps making her remember the good and gloss over the bad in her own mind.

Ginny shrugged and shook her head, still at a loss. "And because I was so trusting; he was able to control me. Made me do such horrible things to everyone."

Hermione stood up and came over to where Ginny sat, putting her arms around her. Ginny clutched at Hermione's arms embracing her and hugged back.

Hermione thought maybe she could imagine, but only in a vague, abstract way.

She thought about how she felt when she'd realized Voldemort's mark had been secretly on her forehead, and she'd hadn't known it. The sense of intrusion, invasion, uncertainty and powerlessness had chilled her on a primal level. The intimacy of knowing one's own body should be sacrosanct.

How much worse would it be to find out that it wasn't just a little patch of skin, but instead it was her entire mind/body that was being controlled? Not just for a few hours, but for months?

It's a shame that the Weasley family didn't have enough money to send Ginny to a therapist.

Hermione's eyes became hard with resentment. No, she couldn't trust him. But she would at least listen to what he had to say.

If he'd just stop being so obscure…

All this symbolic language, riddling in runes, a trail of breadcrumbs leading her from clue to clue as though she were deciphering a treasure map… it was, she again admitted grudgingly to herself, rather intriguing, but it was getting her nowhere and it made her anxious. Afraid even. He was treating this like a game, even though the consequences were deadly serious…

Mischievous, practical, creative, intelligent, challenging… The man Ginny had described as they had sat around the fire abruptly clicked with the man she had encountered in the hotel in unexpected and disorienting ways. A link forged in an instant, joining the man Harry saw, with the man who had helped her in Malfoy Manor. And who now she might have a chance to help save…

She would listen. But he was going to have to do more than smooth-talk her with that supposed silver tongue if he expected her help.

Ginny shrugged again, pulling Hermione out of her thoughts and breaking the sisterly hug, "At any rate, it's all in the past now. I'm just glad it's all over."

Hermione grimaced.

…

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