Riddle Mod (riddle_mod) wrote in riddle_gifts, @ 2008-07-31 20:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2008_exchange_fic |
EXCHANGE: Fic for Kcstories "Over and Over, the Past Repeats" (Tom/Ginny, PG-13)
Recipient: kcstories
Author: mandya06
Artist: myotherlastlife
Title: Over and Over, the Past Repeats
Pairing: Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley (slight Harry/Ginny)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,500
Warnings: Language, suggestiveness, possible spoilers for The Deathly Hallows, corresponds with canon (to a certain degree)
Summary: The loss of her brother sends Ginny on a desperate search for the one thing that could possibly bring him back, but her last chance to say goodbye is ruined when her past comes back to haunt her.
Disclaimer: All characters and recognizable details (besides the plot) are the property of J.K. Rowling. No profit is being made from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's/artist's notes: Alright kcstories, I decided to go with a Tom/Ginny pairing for you. It hope you like it sweetie. ^_^ The art is an added bonus from my boyfriend; I’m trying to sucker him into fandom. *lol* And I’d like to give a big thank you to my beta, who really pulled me out of a tight spot with this one. You rock love!
She had been falling to pieces only minutes ago. Her hands shaking, her heart hammering in her chest, not able to breathe past the pain.
The excited voices of the survivors had only made it worse; that they could stand there and smile while the dead lay mere inches from their feet disgusted her.
Fred. Fred. Fred. Fred.
The horror in George’s eyes as he looked onto his twin’s dead body. Her mother sobbing, her father shaking with grief. Her brothers, angry and shocked.
She couldn’t take it.
But now she had hope.
“Ginny, have you ever heard of the Resurrection Stone?”
Stumbling over tree roots and bramble, she ran, her long hair tangling with leaves and spider webs. She pushed branches away from her face with flailing arms, not bothering to stop as the trees cut into her pale skin.
Blood from a wound on her cheek slid slowly down her face, mixing with sweat and dirt and tears that she hadn’t wiped away.
They were her war trophies.
She kept running.
“Are you ok Ginny?”
No. “Yes.”
“Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help.” He sounded so desperate.
Bring my brother back. Make my family whole again. “I just… I wish I could see him. Just one last time, to say goodbye.” She whispered, staring at nothing.
Harry’s cold hand tightened around hers and she looked up; the bags under his eyes were dark and purple, like bruises, and she almost felt sorry for him. The hero. Her hero. The one who had survived while so many others had died.
He looked uncertain, scared even, and she wondered what he could possibly have to fear now.
“There may be something.” He said softly.
There’s nothing. “What?” She stared at him, feeling numb.
“You can’t tell anyone. I meant for it to never be found but… I love you Ginny. I want you to be able to say goodbye. I trust you to hide it once and for all, after…”
“After what Harry? What are you talking about?”
He smiled at her and his fingers reached up to stroke her dirtied cheek.
“Ginny, have you ever heard of the Resurrection Stone?”
She ran faster, away from the crumbling castle and the people who were still celebrating, still weeping, and still trying to take it all in.
Voldemort had been dead for over two hours now, but her brother had been dead for far longer. His body was already becoming stiff and turning milky white.
Bile burned in her throat, choking her, slowing her down, but she couldn’t stop. She had to get there as fast as she could while she still had the chance.
Harry’s memory had been vague; too many things had happened since he had dropped the stone in the forest, but he knew that it had been somewhere in the spiders’ lair, close to the entrance. Aragog’s old home, he had said.
“Aragog?”
“Yes. The acromantula that Hagrid took care of. The one that Tom Rid…”
Don’t say his name. “I know Harry.” She interrupted.
“Yes, well, all you have to do is follow the spider webs. I don’t think the other spiders have returned, but if they have then I don’t want you near there. Come straight back here. Do you promise?”
No. I’m going to find the stone, no matter what. “…”
“Do you promise Ginny?” He urged.
“Yes Harry, I promise.”
The sparkling webs were getting larger, more intricate, hanging low from the drooping branches. Every break in the treetops brought a burst of light into the forest, illuminating the webs, making them look like gossamer threads covered with hundreds of diamonds.
It was a spectacular sight, one that Ginny couldn’t fully appreciate. Not now when she was so close.
There was something strange up ahead; a large cluster of trees, covered in webs, looked as though they opened up to something… like a large clearing.
Ginny slowed down, feeling excited and nervous and breathless and… scared.
“What if I can’t find it? What if it doesn’t work?”
“It will Ginny, trust me. All you have to do is turn it in your hand three times, and think of Fred. You’ll see him again.”
Fred.
She smiled. It was too good to be true.
Harry smiled back and hugged her close.
“Go now, and get rid of it when you’re done.”
We’ll see. “I will Harry. Thank you.”
She stepped away from him and stared into his green eyes for a moment longer before she turned and ran towards the castle’s ruined entrance.
She didn’t look back.
The forest floor near the clearing was a mess of scattered footprints, broken branches, and trampled spider webs. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air but whatever fire there had been must have died out. Ginny didn’t enter the clearing to investigate.
Falling to her knees, she began to search as carefully as she could, though she grew more hopeless with every passing second.
How could she possibly find a dark rock on a forest floor? It was almost absurd, crawling around on her hands and knees in the dirt, searching for a stone.
Searching like a… muggle.
“Of course!” She whispered, pulling out her wand from the pocket of her torn robes. She’d been too frantic to think of this before but now that she had her wand in her hand she felt confident and a little more at ease.
“Accio Resurrection Stone,” she said, trying to ignore the tremor in her voice and the knot tightening her stomach.
The ground twitched a few feet in front of her, as though a burrowed insect was trying to escape from the tightly packed dirt. Ginny stuffed her wand back into her robes and almost tripped over her feet as she ran to the spot.
Her fingers hastily dug into the cold earth, past the grass and the useless multicolored pebbles, until something small and dark glinted dully through the coarse soil.
Ginny, breathless and shaking, picked up the curious black stone – curious because of jagged crack running down the middle – and brushed off the remaining dirt with her fingertips.
She could hardly believe what she was holding. She remembered her mother telling her and her siblings ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’ every Hallows Eve, but she had never once believed that they were real. It was just a fairytale. Entertaining and impossible.
But nothing was impossible. Hadn’t Fred and George always told her that? Nothing was impossible.
Fred. My brother.
She turned the stone once in her hand as the image of Fred smiling mischievously burned in her mind.
One.
She turned the stone again and felt the jagged crack, the worn engraving on its face. She could almost hear him laughing, telling her some joke that their mother would have scolded him for.
Two.
It happened in that one moment where the stone was making its third turn in her hand. She was thinking of not only her brother, but of the others she had lost. Remus, Tonks, Colin – who had always been a good friend to her – and many others whom she had talked to in the hallways, or shared notes with during classes.
And then there was…Tom.
Suddenly and completely unwanted, a torrent of memories flooded her mind.
“Tom, you’re always so good to me. I’m so glad I have you.”
“And I’ll always be here for you, Ginevra. Always…”
He had called her by her real name and it made her feel so grown up.
“Tom, I think something’s wrong with me. Dear Tom, I’m scared. I keep waking up in the strangest places, and I don’t know how I got there. Dear Tom, I wish I could see you. I wish you were really here with me.”
“You will be able to see me Ginevra, but only if you keep me close to your heart. Forever.”
A scream of fury bubbled up in her throat, but Ginny couldn’t make the memories stop. The familiar, healing image of Fred’s bright blue eyes had been replaced. Instead she now saw a pair of dark, handsome eyes, and a face she had seen for only seconds as her life was slipping away.
“Go to sleep little Ginny, and maybe you won’t feel a thing.”
The stone turned completely and fell still in her clammy hand.
Three.
There was no sudden mist, or otherworldly noise, or any kind of indication that something had happened.
He was simply there.
He was sitting on the ground, his limp body supported only by the large tree that he was slumped against, as though he had been tossed there. The shabby gray tunic he was wearing appeared to be too small for his long limbed frame; his bare feet poked out from the frayed bottom of the pants.
He looked like a lifeless doll, pale and beautiful and staring at her with dark, unblinking eyes.
“No.” Ginny whispered in horror.
A dark eyebrow lifted curiously but he made no other movement.
“No. Not you. Fred. I want to see Fred!”
Minutes passed in silence. She watched him closely and waited for him to do something, afraid that he would suddenly spring up and attack, but he did nothing. Ginny became frustrated by his stillness. She wanted him to speak, to move, to do anything just to prove that he was real and not some nightmare.
“Say something, dammit!” She screamed. Her knees were aching as she continued to sit on them, but she didn’t care. “You’re the reason he’s dead, the reason for every horrible thing that has happened in my life! Have you nothing to say to that? You coward! I hate you! I’m glad you’re dead!”
Her chest was heaving with the force of her hatred. He was murderer. A monster. He had no right to look like that. So vulnerable…
“Say something!”
There was a moment of silence – expect for the sound of her harsh breathing – and then, “I know your face.”
If she hadn’t seen his lips move then Ginny wouldn’t have believed he had spoken. His voice was hoarse, as though he had been screaming or crying for a long time, but the tone was quiet and thoughtful, not pained. His body remained motionless as he continued to stare at her, but he was talking now.
“Your name, I know it. It’s Ginevra, yes?” When Ginny didn’t respond Tom continued. “It’s strange.” he said softly. “A part of me knows you very well, but only a small part. The rest of me... the rest of me…” he trailed off, looking confused.
“You don’t know me at all.” She said sharply.
“I think I did once. You told me… no, you wrote to me, in a diary. Dear Tom…”
“Stop!” She shrieked, and she held up a hand as though to silence him.
Tom quieted and went back to his motionless state, staring at her with his dark eyes, neither happy nor sad. But empty.
“I didn’t mean to bring you back.” She said once she had calmed a bit. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t deserve to be here.”
“Don’t. Please, don’t.” He was pleading but it sounded vacant somehow. Hopeless.
“Don’t what?” She snapped.
“Don’t send me back there.”
Ginny glared at him through narrowed eyes but her curiosity momentarily subdued her anger. She wanted to know where he had been, what had happened to him after he had died.
Died. She was talking to a dead man.
“Back where?”
“I can’t remember. Perhaps there’s nothing to remember. Perhaps I came from Nothingness.” A tremor shot through him, moving his body for the first time.
“You deserve worse.” She whispered. Tom didn’t answer, but continued to stare blankly at her.
“I’m sending you back. I never want to see you again.” Her tight grip on the Resurrection Stone loosened and the tension seemed to ease out of her. She didn’t have to see him anymore. He was dead. Dead and gone forever.
“You will be able to see me Ginevra, but only if you keep me close to your heart. Forever.”
“You’re going back.”
“You’ve said that already.” Tom’s voice was quiet again. Hopeless. “I remember you quite clearly now. Ginny Weasley.”
The stone slid down to her fingertips.
“You were a sacrifice, the one who would restore me. Bring me back. You’re much older now though, aren’t you?” He whispered. “Why are you still bringing me back, little Ginny?”
The stone fell from her hand and Tom Riddle vanished as if he had never been there.
“Back to hell with you.” She said to no one.
But now that he was gone, and she was able to really think about what had just happened, she felt frozen with shock. She had just seen and spoken to Tom Riddle. Lord Voldemort. The monster whose body was, at that very moment, rotting away in some room at Hogwarts.
But he hadn’t looked like a monster. He had looked like a boy who had no more fight left in him. No hopes, no dreams, no drive to do anything.
It was similar to how she herself felt at that moment. She no longer wanted to see Fred, too afraid that he would know what she had done, whom she had called forth in his place. And she couldn’t tell Harry, not ever. He would see it as a betrayal, having used the stone to bring back his dead enemy.
There was nothing left for her to do but to bury the stone here forever and live with the memory of the beautiful – monstrous – boy with the haunted eyes.
“Get rid of it.” She muttered to herself. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she didn’t want to get rid of it. It was too much of a temptation; she would go looking for it again in the future, despite what she had promised Harry.
Harry. What would he think of her now? But it wouldn’t matter, if he never knew. If she was careful. If she was mad enough to even go through with it.
Maybe she had gone mad?
Ginny sat there on the cold forest floor for an immeasurable amount of time, staring at nothing but seeing those dark, deadened eyes very clearly.
No one would ever know.