Difficulties of Avoidance
by dead2self
A/N: I left you all hanging longer than I planned with that last cliffhanger, but this is another chapter I've been looking forward to posting for ages, so I hope it makes up for the wait. Enjoy!
Ginny woke up, which surprised her. It meant she was still alive. Beyond that, when she sat up, she realized they were still in the Room of Requirement. Across the room sat Riddle, his back against the door and his buoyant mood deflated. He watched her, glowering, and sighted down her wand at her before she could climb to her feet.
"It is impossible," he said, quiet. "You were under a perfect Imperius Curse. There is no way you could have passed her a message."
Every inch of her hurt, and her head muddled through what he said. Of course, he was correct. "I didn't do anything," she slurred.
"As I said." He rose, prowling toward her. "It follows that there must be new factors in play. I am hardly surprised at your lies. Rather, I am impressed that your skill has improved."
"I'm good under pressure," she said, putting a hand to her head. Merlin, but it hurt.
"Indeed. But now you will tell me the truth."
Ginny was less concerned with filling in the holes for Riddle than understanding for herself what in bloody hell was happening. She cast about the Room as though she could find the answer around them and the details clicked back into place. Tom had disarmed her with nothing but his mind, and before that Snape had chased her to the threshold of the Room. She had shot off her Patronus under the effect of an Imperius, but clearly Luna had not freed them—
All at once, the only reason Luna would not have released her became clear. Too clear, like an over-bright light. "Oh Merlin," she breathed. "Oh no. No, no, no."
"Good under pressure are you?"
"Shut up, Riddle. Luna is—" She came up short and could not say it. Instead, she breathed deep and said, "There are Death Eaters in the castle."
That bolstered him, and she hated him in that moment more than he could know. Luna was missing, and he laughed. "My, but the defense standards have fallen."
"Not invading, invaded," she snapped. "You-Know-Who has taken over the Ministry, taken over Hogwarts. His right hand man is the new Headmaster. Did you think students were torturing me and no one noticed?"
She usually liked shocking him, but there was nothing nice about seeing the pure victory on his face. She gathered herself because she had to explain.
"We were helping the Muggle-borns escape the castle. Snape sent McGonagall away, so I had to fetch the Portkeys from Hogsmeade. I got them to Luna, but Snape caught me. I had to hide, I couldn't let them find—" She cut off, getting to her point. "Luna was going to accompany the students down to the station, and then come back. She can send her Patronus that far. But there were Snatchers heading towards the station. So if she hasn't sent it, it means—" Words failed her. She swallowed and tried again. "It means she couldn't."
Riddle's exultant look took a sharp nosedive as he realized what she could not say out loud. He reached down and hauled her up close. "Have they any reason to keep her alive?"
When she could not answer, he shook her until words came out.
"I don't know. I don't think any of them suspected about you. She's pureblood, but her father has been publishing a lot against You-Know-Who."
He dropped her and she stumbled, but stayed on her feet. "Enough to warrant taking a hostage?"
Her chest fluttered. "Maybe. Yes, probably."
Snarling, Riddle stalked away from her, running his hands through his hair so that it nearly stood on end. He spun and pointed one finger at her, commanding. "You are going to wish for that door to appear without her until your ears bleed. The Room is still under your control."
Drawing herself up, she prepared for the worst. "I will not."
He cast the Imperius without another word. The gentle floating sensation settled over her. Everything felt right again.
Wish for the door to open.
But this time she heard her own voice struggle to life, as she had learned all those times in class. No, it said, it was imperative that she not.
You need for the door to open.
Her head turned to the far wall, where the door needed to appear. No, I need the opposite, said the voice, less distant this time. It seemed odd against the perfect, untraceable happiness that flooded through her, but the voice was certain and strong and so clearly her.
You must open the door.
If you open the door, he is going to kill you, it told her. If you open the door, people will die. If you open the door, he will make you kill your family.
"No."
She met Riddle's eyes straight on as the hazy peace shattered. He breathed heavily through his teeth, furious.
"You will, or I will kill you."
Her heart thundered, but she kept her voice even. "You can't. Even if Luna can get off her Patronus, we don't know how long it will be. I don't know if it will unlock, or if we'll need my Patronus again. Want to risk it?"
"I am quite tempted."
"You're more clever than that. You're not going to kill me."
"Imperio!"
But her voice had woken up, and it recognized the intrusion. He had barely turned her attention to the door before her mind lit upon the wrongness of it.
"Absolutely not," she snarled, repelling his control. Riddle was closer than she expected him to be and with a roar of frustration he raised her wand against her. With a swift slash, he cut a gash into her cheek from her lips across her eye. Crying out, she crumpled.
"The door, Weasley!"
The whole right side of her face seared with pain, and she could not see. Blood dripped into her eye, to the ground. There was so much of it. She felt lightheaded. "Sod off," she hissed.
He seized her chin and jerked her head up to face him. She whimpered, not knowing it could hurt worse. "Do it, or I'll do the other one."
"Heal me… or… I'll die."
He dropped her and her head fell with a thump to the ground. Moaning, she curled into a ball. He had to heal her, he had to.
He did not, at least not until after she passed out.
When she woke, she was no longer bleeding. Tentatively, she felt her cheek and encountered nothing but a thin raised line. She could see from her right eye and was so relieved that she let out a gasping sob.
Motion in the corner of her vision arrested her relief. Riddle leaned forward in his chair, her wand laid across his knees. She noticed the chair was no longer red and gold, but dark, polished wood. His glare shocked through her.
"Are you ready to cooperate?"
She sat fully up and faced him. "Have I mentioned I have six brothers?"
His mouth thinned. "You never tire of it."
"It's agreed across the family that I'm more stubborn than the lot of them put together." Her lips curled into a snarl. The new scar cut them in two. "Might as well get it over with and curse me."
"Perhaps this time I'll let you go blind."
"Then at least I won't have to see your face for the rest of my short life."
Silently, he stood. For all her bravado, she flinched away from him, but he simply Summoned a flask from the stockpile of food that he had moved underneath his bed. He crossed the room as he unscrewed the lid and took a short drink.
"I cannot have you dying of thirst," he said, and handed her the flask. Watching him warily, she took a tentative sip. Then two gulps before he took it back. His fingers curled around it tight. "However, it is possible to survive weeks without food. It is not pleasant."
She followed his gaze to the stockpile and her stomach flopped. It was tucked deep under his bed, which meant that if she tried to sneak food he would catch her. She realized where the threat was going before he said it.
"I don't suppose there is enough food for the both of us," she said wryly.
"Not if you insist on resisting."
It was to be a long death, then. She was sure it had not been his first choice. "I think I'll keep resisting. Keep an eye out for oily patches. Or better yet, don't."
Riddle's eyes flashed with humor as she climbed to her feet. "Oh, Ginevra, you are too trusting. I may have exaggerated the dangers of that particular spell."
She groaned, but the wheels in her head were already turning. To keep him talking, she said, "You've got to be kidding me. I've been slaving over your food for the last week for nothing?"
"The oil-splotched batches may have killed me after some years of storage, but in two weeks I'd risk only a mild stomach ache."
"Merlin, now you've even made me waste food. You are a monster."
"Lovegood is gallingly perceptive. While I trust I could imitate you passably well, I had to ensure you'd come to see me the morning the train departed to avoid her altogether. Thus I provided a difficult solution to a simple problem."
She wondered how many other things Riddle had taught her incorrectly, his only redeemable quality crumbling before her eyes. The only reason she did not feel like an absolute fool was that his escape would have gone smoothly even if she'd refused all his lessons. All he'd had to do was look her in the eyes.
Ginny turned her back on Riddle, fuming. She did not want to listen to him boast of his own cleverness for another second. She wished instead for him to hurt. But it seemed the Room was incapable of it, for he carried on quite unchecked.
"Annoyingly enough, you turned out handier at preservation charms than I led you to believe. I had to ruin a few batches to ensure you'd be back."
"I knew it," she said. "I'm too good at Charms to have a ten percent success rate." She walked, trembling, towards her armchair, which stood between him and the door. He Vanished it before she could reach it, sneering.
"You knew nothing."
A new armchair appeared where hers had vanished, simply because she was tired and sore, but Ginny did not sit in it. She spun on him, her rage spilling out. "Congratulations, Riddle, you are clever. Merlin, how you love to hear yourself talk!"
"I am the only one worth listening to in this room."
All his pettiness and attempts to control her only underlined the realty that she had control of the Room, not him. The only potion Riddle had brewed was the one whose ingredients they had discussed in painstaking detail. He needed an exit from the Room, and was still trapped. Clearly the Room only worked for him if he made it think she needed something. He may have the wand, but she still had power.
If he planned to starve her out, then she needed to pour all her energy into striking now, before she was weak. As long as she was conscious, she was going to make Tom regret underestimating her again.
Specifics. She needed to think through exactly what she wanted, or the Room would come to its own conclusions, like a silly book while Harry and Cho made moon-eyes at each other. She really would have preferred a Beater's bat.
First, she needed to be safe from Tom, blocked off from him. She imagined a wall rising between them, dividing the room, doorless, impenetrable.
Tom's eyes widened as the wall sprouted between them, but Ginny was already turning for the door, her feet scrambling over the ground as she felt need like she had never felt before. She needed the door to open for her, but to not let Tom through. A bang that rattled through her teeth shook the room, a long spidering fissure already appearing in her wall. Her hand closed around the handle, and then the wall exploded.
Crying out, Ginny shielded her head against bits of plaster and stone, and pulled hard on the handle. She thought it turned, but then Tom's hand closed over her shoulder and the handle stuck. He reached past her and his hand closed over hers, testing, but the door remained locked.
Knowing what was coming, Ginny elbowed him in the ribs as hard as she could. He folded and she darted out from beneath him, fleeing for the other side of the room. Behind her another wall sprouted, dividing them once more, and she huddled against the far wall. This time she willed a whole new door to appear, a new escape that opened only to her. Oddly, she thought she saw the outline of a portrait shimmering above her head, but then she slammed to the floor. She screamed as an unbearable weight pushed down on her, crushing the air out of her lungs.
Riddle stepped through the wall as it turned to dust, wand trained on her. "Stay down, Weasley."
"I—will—never—stay—down—" Ginny panted.
"I had hoped your incessant prattling would stop once I had your wand, but I see I was overly optimistic."
"I—told—you—so."
He released his hold on her, but it was not a reprieve. He Cruciated her on the spot. When his rage was spent, he tried to control her again, but Ginny's anger held true. It was the fastest she ever bucked the curse. Her body, unfortunately, had reached a limit. He left her curled with her back to the wall, shivering against the aftereffects of the curse even after the Room produced a fireplace next to her.
Despite what she said, this time she stayed down. Trying a different tactic, she thought of the short black wand in her trunk. The Room had brought magical objects before, her broom and the potions, stolen them it seemed from within the castle. She desperately needed that wand in her pocket, but it did not appear. Perhaps it was a degree of magical object beyond the scope of the Room to transport, but Ginny was crushed.
Tom had moved to back to the center of the room, stooping between their two chairs. He conjured a cord and attached it to the bolt.
Ginny realized what he meant to do. Despite the fact that she barely had the strength to haul herself up on her elbows, she knew she had to try one last time. She called on the Room for another wall between them as thick as the boundary wall around the grounds. But she never even tried to summon up another door, for the D.A. coin warmed in her pocket. Her whole mind turned to Luna, and she nearly tangled her hands in her robes in her haste to pull it out. She caught it between trembling fingers – another wall, she wished, as Tom Reduced the first – but did not find a message about Luna at all.
All it said was her name. Ginny?
Riddle crushed her down for a second time, and she slapped the coin to the floor in a desperate attempt to hide it from him. His spell pushed her down until she saw black spots and her mind floundered without air. Her consciousness came back when he released her, and she found him standing over her with the tether in hand.
"This is foolishness, Ginevra," he said, crouching to shackle it to her ankle. "You will not win."
"My name is Ginny," she rasped, throat raw. "Call me Weasley, or call me Ginny. I am not Ginevra to you."
"I understand your frustration," he said, and it may have been the first truly empathetic thing Riddle had ever said to her, for all that it dripped with ire. "But you have lost. You only prolong the inevitable."
"I have not lost if you're still in here with me." She glanced at his bed, at the food that would only feed Tom for two weeks, her heart hardening and strengthening all at once. "You're always talking about power. This is power. If we die here together, I still win."
He snarled, dismissive despite all the evidence to the contrary. "You'll be begging me before long."
"After one year, do you know me at all?"
"How I wish I didn't," he said. Then he straightened, saw her fingers splayed on the rug, and brought his heel down on them. Ginny cried out, curling around her broken fingers, but she did not move her hand even a hair. Her coin, hidden underneath, had gone warm once again.
Tom busied himself and Ginny rested for her next attempt at escape. She was fairly certain at least two of her fingers were broken, but the Room provided a roll of tape. Her father had become rather fascinated one summer with Muggle Healing. Between that and her experience with Quidditch injuries she was able to wrap them up so at least she did not get sharp pain anytime she moved. She did not dare check the coin. Instead, she scooped it into her pocket while Tom's back was turned.
She felt her first pangs of hunger when Tom ate his lunch. Terrified that the Room would interpret her hunger as desire for an exit, Ginny spent the meal insisting that she needed the Room to keep them there. She hoped the constant fear for her family, for Luna, for the Muggle-borns would reinforce which need was more important.
After spending his lunch glaring balefully at her over the rim of his soup bowl, Tom turned his attention away from her. He bottled the Polyjuice Potion and then took to casting an increasingly difficult series of spells on the door and on the walls of the room.
For her part, Ginny spent her time asking the Room for all manner of sharp objects. It would do her no good to summon a door while Tom was distracted if she was still shackled to the floor. She took a swipe at Riddle a few times, but since she had to use her off-hand, they were poor attempts. Periodically Tom saw her tools and Vanished them, but the tether was magically reinforced and none of them did any good.
Ginny thought it might have been the afternoon when he finally succeeded in wrapping her in a successful Imperius Curse. She came out of it, blinking, having finally wished for the Room to open a way for them with all her heart, but it seemed her efforts over the course of the day had thoroughly convinced the Room of Requirements of what she truly wanted. No door had appeared. Rather, an empty painting hung on the wall near Tom's bookshelf, just above where she huddled on the floor.
The relief that washed over Ginny crashed with her horror, and she found herself laughing like mad. Tom was wild with rage, striking her with a Stinging Hex to herd her to a different section of the wall. While he studied the frame maniacally, bangs sounding as he tried everything in his power to unstick it from the wall, Ginny returned to begging the Room not to free them. Not long after, the empty painting disappeared. Riddle spun on her.
"I cannot believe you. You cannot truly think to outsmart me."
"If your masterful, unbeatable plan did not take into account that I would fight you every step of the way, then you are an idiot."
"You were saved by happy chance, do not take credit for it."
"It is not happy chance that Luna is missing," she snarled, using the bookshelf to climb to her feet.
"On this we are agreed," he replied.
"And you can lie to yourself all you want, but you are in this room because of me."
"I am well-aware, you idiotic school-girl."
"We are the same age, you absolute prat. And if I'm an idiot, what does that make you that I keep beating you."
"You are delusional if you think you've beaten me."
"I caught you when you escaped the Room."
"Because I prioritized acquiring a wand rather than face Dumbledore emptyhanded."
"I beat you in a duel because I used my environment to my advantage—"
"I could have beat you down anytime I wanted in the past two months—"
"And when you tried, your escape failed."
"Delayed on account of misfortune."
Ginny tightened her grip on the bookshelf so much that it hurt her injured hand. "On account of skill. Can just anyone resist the Imperius Curse?"
"You are bragging of resisting the Dark Arts for a mere afternoon. There is far worse in store for you if you do not cooperate."
"You are bragging of failure."
Riddle hissed a sharp breath out through his teeth, and then he squeezed his eyes shut, his knuckles going white around her wand. When he opened his eyes, he said, "Enough. Come here, Weasley, and I'll fix your hand."
"You just threatened to do worse to me. Stay away from me; I'd rather keep the reminder of your kindness."
"The very last thing I need is for you to fall victim to medical complications due of all the curses you've sustained."
"Perhaps you ought to stop cursing me then."
"If I wished to be kind, then perhaps I would."
That teased a hollow laugh from Ginny. "You don't know the first thing about kindness."
"And you do? You've kept me prisoner for a year and insisted that it was goodwill. You're either a simpleton or a hypocrite."
"If you find a hunted, mad basilisk on your doorstep, you don't let it roam about Petrifying everyone while you hide it from its would-be killer."
"I am not a wild animal to be—"
"Oh, so now you're human? I thought you were beyond us mere—"
"I do not want your pity or need your protection—"
"Merlin, I hope you do get out. That way when you're shriveling up and dying inside a miserable old man, you'll know exactly what it feels like to deal with such an egotistical, arrogant bastard."
Tom struck so fast that her wand blurred, but he only hit her with a healing charm. Her fingers snapped back into alignment and the pain vanished as Tom turned his back on her, scowling. This left her clutching the bookcase with an excellent opening and enough rage to drive through her weakness.
A Quaffle appeared on the bookshelf and Ginny seized it, turning in one smooth motion to hurl it at Tom's head. She knew her own strength – she had once knocked Peakes unconscious during practice. Tom spun, wand flashing and the Quaffle knocked off course, hitting the wall with a crash. She snatched a book from his bookshelf and hurled it in the path of his first hex. It exploded, and she dodged the second, snatching up another book. She managed to knock the wind out of him with a book to the chest, but her triumph was short-lived. With a flick of her wand and a crash, Tom pulled the bookshelf down on her.
When the dust cleared, she was sprawled out, trapped but for an arm, and her whole body in pain. It was a fairly humiliating having her own trick turned against her. Tom walked over, his thoughts clearly tracing the same path.
Ginny met his smug grin with gritted teeth. "You shouldn't look so proud of yourself if you're so convinced that I'm beneath you."
His mouth twisted, and this time he finally knocked her unconscious.