Difficulties of Avoidance
by dead2self
A/N: And we're back! I had fun with Ginny in this one, it always struck me in the books that when she got mad, she got vicious. Enjoy!
Ginny spent a fair amount of time unconscious that evening. If she had been any less Gryffindor, she probably would have learned to keep her mouth shut. But she was angry as she had never been angry before, furious that nothing had changed in Riddle, furious that she had ever hoped, furious that he was horrible and she could do nothing against him but spit venom.
Despite pinching herself at intervals to stay awake, she had drifted off during the night. She woke up to the room dark. Riddle was slumped on the bed, her wand clutched to his chest. Shocked awake, she surged to her feet and charged him, her aim to wrap the bedsheets around his neck and trap his arms. But half a metre from him she was caught by some magic and thrown violently back. She crashed into the wall and Riddle woke, disoriented only for a moment. Then he laughed, laid down, and turned his back on her.
Groaning, Ginny made her way back to the fireplace, encouraged at least that the tether would let her reach under Riddle's bed if she managed to get near it. In the light of the fire she examined her injuries. A mottled yellow and purple bruise was rising from her hip to her shoulder from her tragic encounter with the bookcase, though Tom must have partially healed her while she was unconscious. There had been a moment that she had not felt her legs.
Once she had waited for Tom's breathing to slow, she finally pulled the D.A. coin from her pocket. She had not dared check it while he was awake, but it had warmed at intervals over the course of the evening. The message left on it now was cryptic. All it said was Still in the forest.
She stuffed the coin back in her pocket, frustrated. There was no way to read the messages she had missed, but she held it in her hand, willing someone to write again. She wondered if she could enchant the numbers without a wand. It was a sort of Transfiguration, not her best subject, but simple. She had never tried wandless magic, but Tom had done it. It was magic of the highest order, but not impossible.
She fell asleep during her attempts, woken only when Riddle shook her awake. She gasped and clawed at his wrist, trying to grab the wand. He forewent magic and kicked her in the stomach. She fell back, the breath knocked out of her, but with her feet on the warpath.
"Filthy Muggle tricks," she jeered, remembering his own taunts months ago.
"Was it not Quidditch?" he answered, immobilizing her and pulling her to sitting. He was none too gentle as he poured water into her mouth, and she returned the favor by spitting the last mouthful in his face once she had gulped down her fill. Without a word he cursed her, peeling back her fingernails. She seethed insults at him through gritted teeth, but gave him no more satisfaction. It was nothing she had not endured in Defense class. When the spell wore thin and she lunged for the wand again, he Stunned her.
When she woke, her stomach was curling in on itself, a horrible reminder that she could not let her anger get the best of her. It was only a matter of time before she would be too weak to do anything.
Riddle was studying the Marauder's Map and saw her sitting up. "Where did you get this?" he asked.
Ginny ignored him. When she turned her back on him, he struck her back down to the ground with a spell. Snarling, she clawed to her feet, only to get hit with Legilimens.
It was like fighting back a storm while treading water in the open sea. Occlumency had not been even on the edge of her mind and she struggled now to get a guard up. Ginny did not know if it was the wand or her anger keeping her from properly clearing her mind, but he got his way with ease. He took the Map's origins and Harry sending it to her. He did not stop there, and her memories of the day before poured over with them. Horrified, she watched herself sprinting across the lawn towards Hogsmeade, the D.A. coin in her hand, the Snatchers, Carrow falling beneath her onslaught, the dementor's clammy hand at her neck, encountering Snape's now underwhelming display of Legilimency—
Finally she managed to repel him, but Riddle was already at her side. "Give me that coin," he commanded, and she launched her shoulder into his gut.
This time she did not wrestle like she was rough-housing with her brothers. She spun around him as he bent double and pulled the tether around his legs before she pushed him sprawling to the floor. He swept the wand behind him and shot off a spell, but she dodged it, throwing herself bodily on him. The wand was now trapped beneath him, so she tried gouging at his eyes, but found herself thrown sideways towards the wall with a wandless spell. The tether went tight, jerking painfully at her ankle, and she slammed to the floor with a grunt.
Scrambling to her knees, she grabbed the poker that had appeared next to the fireplace and spun, swinging for Tom's head. He caught the poker with a twitch of the wand and ripped it from her grasp. With a vicious slash he knocked her backwards so hard that she saw stars when her head hit the floor.
Ginny groaned, but Tom was not finished. He knelt on her wrist and leaned over her as he had during their first skirmish, though this time he pressed her wand to her temple rather than trapping her other hand. She took the opportunity to grab for the wand, but he slapped her hand down beside her head and leaned his whole weight on it.
"I told you I would not forget."
She nearly spat on him, but with great effort reined in her anger. He would certainly knock her out again if she did that. Instead, she drew a ragged breath through her nose and answered, "Good. I'm glad to remind you that you come from nothing and you'll go back to nothing."
So her anger was not entirely reined in. Her mother called it the Prewett fury, but Ginny had always had a way with words that cut deep. When she was angry, she could see exactly where to strike to hurt. Riddle was a tough case, but she saw his eyes harden and knew she had hit something.
He answered by digging in her pockets and producing the coin. Holding it before her eyes, he curled a smile.
"Let's ask for help, shall we?"
She bucked, but he held her down, and without even using her wand, she watched as he changed the numbers to a simple message: Safe, but trapped in Hogwarts. Need help. Ginny.
The fight went out of Ginny as she saw it, and she squeezed her eyes shut, laying her head back. She needed to find emptiness, enough separation from everything that she felt so that she could properly protect her mind. She could not give him anything that would convince them he was her. It was like squeezing into a too-small sweater, horribly scratchy and wrong, but her friends' lives depended on it.
"Someone was waiting for news," said Tom, and Ginny's eyes snapped open. She could read the response on the coin from this close. Her stomach swooped. It was from Fred and George.
"What did we call you after Muriel's?" Tom read, his eyes flashing with spite. Ginny stitched her lips shut and steeled herself. It felt impossible to stop him, but Tom had taught her that Occlumency was not the sort of magic she needed a wand to pull off. There was more to it than the brute force of magical talent. He had given her ample practice, and this time she would not be caught off guard.
Great Aunt Muriel's parlor swam before her eyes. She was perched on George's shoulders reaching for a sparkling tiara on the top shelf of a display case. The sweets shop in the nearby town was wonderful to behold, but as usual the Weasley siblings had less than two Knuts to rub together. Muriel never shut up about the tiara, so Ginny figured it ought to fetch them a load of candy. The cabinet was locked tight, but her hands had been small enough to slip the key from the slightly broken desk drawer.
"You're a right Princess Tiny-fingers," Ron said afterward, when she wore their prize around her neck because it was too large to sit upon her head.
Riddle released her, triumphant, and spelled the numbers on the coin to respond. Ginny scrambled up as a moment passed, and then he roared and hurled the galleon at her. She dodged and caught it, feeling it still warm like she held her brothers' love in hand.
If you hurt our sister, we'll kill you.
She cackled, dancing away from the next hex he shot at her. No one had called her princess in her life and gotten away with it. When she had tackled Ron to the ground in retaliation, their mother had come running and rescued the tiara (and belatedly also Ron). Fred and George had called Ginny Banshee for a month for how she had screamed.
She kept her distance while Tom calmed himself, and then pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I've created a monster. Already a liar, and I taught you Occlumency."
"Don't give yourself so much credit. Snape gave me the book I needed in detention."
"You did not improve because of a book."
"I improved in spite of you, not because of you. That you ever thought to teach at Hogwarts is laughable."
Tom's narrowed his eyes at her, his brow folding for a moment before he ignored her and turned his attention to the coin. He Summoned it from between her fingers and caught it deftly.
"What are you saying?" she asked when he started enchanting the coin again.
"You've lost your privilege to partake in the conversation," said Tom.
"You won't pull anything over on Fred and George."
"I can be persuasive."
She snorted, derisive. "Tom Riddle versus the Weasley twins? I know where I'd place my bet."
"Surely you jest. From what I can tell, there is nothing extraordinary about them. One-note inventors too lazy to traffic in worthwhile magic."
This somehow offended her more than any insult he had leveled at her. She clenched her teeth and shot back. "If you've never experienced joy, it's no surprise you can't appreciate their genius."
Tom sneered back at her. "Will you feed yourself with joy? Take my wand with it?"
"If it's so frivolous, why don't you produce a Patronus to take your message instead of fiddling with a coin? Kingsley sent his half across England to warn us of the fall of the Ministry, surely the great Tom Riddle can do better."
He struck her with a slash of the wand that caught her and threw her like a ragdoll across the room. She stopped just short of the protection spell around his bed. She would have hit it and been thrown in the opposite direction had she not braced against the floor to slow her speed. She looked at the stockpile tucked under his bed, and sensed an opportunity.
"I have been overly patient with you," said Tom, wand outstretched, the coin forgotten. "But now you will remove that filthy name from your mouth. That is not who I am."
"You call me Ginevra. I'll call you Tom."
"That is not my name."
"You want me to call you Voldemort?
Saying the name again after months of not speaking it for the Taboo sent a chill down her spine, but also a certain thrill of satisfaction. It was her own private act of rebellion. She understood in her bones now the fear that the name inspired, but it was no longer attached to the boy in front of her. Fear, yes, but of the boy. The jagged soul she met in the diary her first year was Voldemort. The wizard terrorizing Wizarding Britain was Voldemort. This boy, his teeth gritted and his hair overlong, was Tom Riddle, whatever name he claimed. And if she imagined him writing out the anagram as a teenager, it struck her as childish.
Having tasted it, she drove that feeling into her pronouncement of it. "Lord Voldemort, with your Horcruxes obviously intact, may I suggest that you turn your venerable destructive powers on yourself. Surely a spirit could escape this room."
He bristled. "Have you no sense of proper respect?"
"Respect? I'll give you reverence." Ginny scrabbled to her knees and clasped her hands fervently at her chest. "Give me the wand and I'll help with all my heart, Lord Voldemort." She drove all her ridicule into his name, twisting it.
"Stop that."
"Surely your many followers will resurrect you, my Lord—"
"I am Lord Voldemort," he said, and the words transformed in his mouth. They were not childish or empty at all. In fact, she could picture him in school at Hogwarts speaking to his followers, full of conviction and purpose. This was no false confidence or delusions of grandeur. He believed in himself, in this identity, and the power he put behind it was real. When he said it, he filled it out.
Merlin, but he was like no one she had ever met.
It was also exactly what she wanted him to say. "As I said, Lord Voldemort," she sneered, but her words had lost their sting. His mouth curled, satisfied, and he turned his back on her. She thrust her hand toward the food stockpile. It went through where she had been repelled before.
Her hunch had been right. The Taboo affected even him, annulling his protection spells around the bed. She seized a package and stuffed it in her robes.
Ginny retreated slowly towards the fireplace while Riddle slumped in her armchair to stare at the coin. It seemed her brothers had stopped responding. She contemplated her options. She probably needed to eat her prize before Riddle noticed it was gone, but there was nowhere to hide. If she asked the Room, that would be all too obvious.
Curled on the floor by the fireplace, she screwed up her face and started crying. Not loudly, but quietly, almost ashamed to be making any noise at all. She covered her face with her arm, hiding her mouth, and whimpered.
In truth, Ginny was not one for tears. It was not that she never cried, it was just that she knew how to push through better than she did when she was young. But it had not always been that way. She knew all the different ways there were to cry. And being the youngest, she did have a good bit of experience faking tears.
Her sniffling covered the sound as she tore into the package with her teeth. She threw in a hiccup for good measure while she chewed. She had snagged a meatloaf, and she had never been so happy for meatloaf in her life. She ate as much as she dared, and then tucked her rations back into her robes.
In the meantime, the Room had helpfully grown a red and gold striped hammock for her. She climbed into it and realized that the Room had outdone itself. It enveloped her such that she would easily be able to eat her food in peace if she did not make much noise. She shoveled down a few more bites before becoming paranoid. That Riddle could not see her meant that she could not see him.
He was still scowling when she peeked out at him, and he glanced at her. "If you're finished blubbering, I want to check you over. That bruise on your side was somewhat resistant to healing, and you may need some potions to balance out any spell damage."
Her heart bucked at this proposal. She could not stand the thought of Riddle looking at the mottled yellowing mark on her side. Everything in her curdled against him touching her, even the simple notion of lifting her robes and her jumper to show the bruise. Not to mention that he would certainly find the parcel of stolen food.
"I'll look at it myself," she said, sitting up in the hammock. Riddle rolled his eyes.
"Oh yes, we all know what an accomplished Mediwitch you are."
"I'll take my chances."
She was going to stow the package of food in the hammock, but then he Vanished it entirely, dropping her straight on her side. "I don't accomplish what I do by leaving things to chance," said Riddle. "Come here."
The drop certainly did not help her bruise. She groaned and climbed to her feet, hyper-aware of the bulge the food made in her robes. If he had been any normal bloke she would have ribbed him about trying to get her clothes off and gotten him to turn around while she stashed the parcel, but she did not think she could stomach saying that to Riddle. Her pride recoiled against it, a visceral block, and she struck back at him instead.
"You haven't accomplished anything of note" she said. "You found the Chamber of Secrets, but I doubt Slytherin would be impressed with one dead Muggle-born and ruining the first year of a pureblood witch."
It went too far, and Riddle stopped mincing words. He struck her with a Summoning Charm, dragging her stumbling and kicking across the room by the collar of her robes. The force of the spell ripped them half open, and as she fell at his feet, the package of food tumbled out onto to the floor. Ginny lunged for it, but Tom was faster, snatching it up with a spell. She spun to her feet, her insides going cold.
Tom stared down at the half-eaten parcel, utterly baffled. She saw his thoughts trace through the impossibility of her dismantling his protection spells as his eyes shot to his bed. His brow creased even further as he counted the parcels and found one missing. With a swish of the wand, he found the spell missing as well, and spun back on her, advancing.
"How?" he growled.
Ginny backed away. She was more angry at herself than at him. She should have eaten the entire thing while she could. "I can scurry around beneath your notice," she bit out, "because you see me as beneath you. It's easy to deceive someone who is utterly convinced you're incapable."
"I don't think you're incapable," he said. "Answer me, Weasley."
She saw something especially dangerous in his eyes, but it only spurred her to show no mercy. He certainly would not. "It wasn't me. It seems your older self doesn't consider you as much as an equal as you do."
He stopped cold, and then his eyes widened. "A Taboo."
The words hung between them, and Ginny smiled as cruel as she knew how. "You are not Lord Voldemort, Tom Riddle, not even to yourself."
She braced for his rage, but it did not come down on her blazing as it had all the days of her confinement. Instead, his fury went cold. His back drew straight, his lips pulled white, and he walked toward her slowly. With almost no movement, he struck her with a Vomiting Jinx. She retched and fell to her knees, losing all of her hard-earned meal. Riddle Vanished the mess, still advancing, and Ginny clamored to her feet to get away.
"You are right, Weasley." His voice was cold, hard as stone. "I ought to take you more seriously. Withholding food has not created a significant enough need to convince the Room."
Ginny reached the end of her tether and Riddle reached her. He pressed the tip of her wand into her throat and his eyes met hers, full and dark. He was looking at her, really looking at her. Her heart stuttered as she realized it. He may never see her as an equal, but she was being considered. She had graduated to real threat.
"Withholding water should do it." He leaned closer, teeth bared. "You've earned it."