Harry Potter 1. The First Offering

Plot: Once upon a time a naive young girl fell in love with a devil. He toyed with her, made her dance to his tune, and tried to deny that he loved her too. Tom/Ginny

Disclaimer: I is a poor college student and own very little... :(

I have most of this story already written so the rest of this should be uploaded much faster than anything else I've ever written. :P But I've also been revising this for the better part of a year, so who knows how long I can drag that out... I hope you enjoy (and PLEASE review)! 3

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**The Fruit of Hade's Realm**

**Prologue: First Taste:**

He held out the fruit to her. The bright red pomegranate seeds nestled in a golden bowl. Her colors, she knew. He had planned it that way. In this forever twilight realm of his he had made an offering to her, for her. It was a promise, and an enticing lie.

She knew that if she accepted it she would be trapped here forever. With him in this darkness. Her soul cried out for sunlight, joy, and green growing things.

But when she looked up into his dark eyes, eyes that went on forever, great wells of darkness muffling the cries inside of his soul. He was so lonely and so beautiful in his silence. His pain reached out to her, and she wondered if perhaps her light could make the frozen seed of his heart come alive and grow into something she could call love. But most of all, she knew that either way, she could not abandon him to his darkness.

Slowly, surely, willingly, she reached across the distance between them and took a single pomegranate seed.

He watched in agonizing anticipation as she settled the seed on her full lips, opened her mouth and accepted her fate. He closed the distance between them; watched as her eyes fluttered closed.

He grasped her thick red hair in his hands, held her to him, and almost cried out as her lips found his and her fire embraced his ice.

(By the time her mother arrived it was too late)

******

**Finding the Fruit Bitter…**

There's no way you could possibly lose a part of yourself…

Not unwillingly anyway…

_Tom? _

Yes Ginny?

_Would you hold me? I don't want to be alone when… when-_

He didn't answer her but gently he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She imagined that she could hear his heartbeat, as hers slowly grew fainter. She laid her head on his shoulder and tried not to let the tears fall.

He rested his chin in her hair, his mouth hovered over her ear as though he might have great secrets to impart, but for a long moment he was silent. Then, "You didn't fight me when I told you to come…"

Tears choked her voice. "I didn't want to… to fight you I mean." He smiled slowly, a smile she couldn't see and wouldn't have been able to understand.

"What would you have me say?" His voice was soft, deep. Desperately in the corners of her heart she imagined he cared.

"Nothing." The sigh that contained the word fluttered across his nearly tangible throat and her tears fell anew, went right through his chest and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. Somewhere, deep inside himself, he imagined that he did care.

And if he did in fact care, he imagined that he could find redemption in her tears.

And if Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, hadn't bungled his way into the chamber, if he hadn't ruined his plans, he would have held Ginny until the end. He would have made sure she was not alone.

And after everything that was her had faded and his soul was complete he would have held her a moment longer, and wondered, where did one go in death? Was it so far removed that the soul had no memory of this life, or would Ginny still see him, as he pulled her hair back from her frozen face and ran his fingers down her tear stained cheek.

Would she have thought those gestures meant he cared about her. Or would she be able to see deeper than that and observe his detached curiosity or deeper still and know that maybe, maybe, he had cared, just a little. It was hard not to care for someone who willingly accepted death from your fingers.

*

Afterward Ginny sat in the headmaster's office, sobbing in her mother's arms. It was a relief to be here, to not be in trouble for opening the Chamber. It was a relief to be alive. Almost.

She tried to ignore the part of her that had wanted to accept death as she had lain in Tom's arms.

Everyone thought that she had simply suffered through a horrible ordeal. They thought that she had been possessed and had not acted of her own violation. In a way it was true. Tom had wound himself so tightly around her - into her life, and into her subconscious - that there was a part of her that couldn't have refused an order of his simply because it was an order.

There was another part of her that didn't want to refuse. She knew that his kindness and understanding had been a manipulative lie; truly she did, but…

But, those last moments in his arms, his nearly intangible arms, had been so peaceful.

If that was what Hell was, If Hell was absolute surrender, she thought she might take it. He had been controlling, angry at times. She had seen in him a terrifying potential for cruelty. But once she had surrendered to him it had only been a gentle pressure behind the scenes.

His intangible form had smiled at her. His voice had been hypnotic and warm. He had explained what he was doing and why, and what would happen to her. He had expected her to run screaming. He had expected to have to force her to obey. But she hadn't.

Perhaps it was her last vestiges of Gryffindor courage. She hoped that he had admired her for it. She thought that it was perhaps why he had treated her as much as an equal as he had.

Or perhaps he had simply thought her a fool, and humored her as one does a child.

So, now she cried in her mother's arms and grieved. She cried for her close call and for the worry she had caused her friends and family. She cried for the tragedy she had been a part of. And she tried to forget.

She did an admirable job. Tom and Harry really were very similar, as the former had pointed out, and it was easy to continue her childish crush, now increased because he had saved her…

But late at night she dreamed of his soft voice as he expounded upon his plans; of the leashed excitement within him. And she woke in a cold sweat as his voice shifted from the soft personal tones he used with her, to the sharp, cold tone he used as Harry walked into the Chamber.

And sometimes, in the privacy of her own room, she cried for her lost innocence, and the love she had felt which had been cruelly cast aside and turned into nothing but a hazy wisp of smoke.

The years went by…


	2. A Temptation too Sweet

**Chapter One… Sweet Temptation:**

She sat on her bed, staring at her old things: the colors of her childhood, the old worn dresser beside the closet. She had had the doors taken off her closet after her first year at Hogwarts, just to be sure there could be no monsters hiding in the black shadows behind them. Not without her seeing them anyway.

She'd never been afraid of the dark before Hogwarts.

She sat in the dark now. Eventually she relearned that it couldn't hurt her. It wasn't really the dark she had been afraid of anyway.

It was what lurked inside of it. And it wasn't really him she feared either: it was herself and what she would allow him to do her.

Her own love had been her undoing…

**

She had come willingly… (again…)

She sat on the floor of the hall, her legs folded beneath her, holding her broken arm to her chest. Tears streamed down her face as the Death Eaters watched.

_They had learned long ago that salvation lay in no ones tears…_

Voldemort stared at her out of his red snake-like eyes. Outside the rain poured down and thunder roared.

Her hair fluttered in the breeze coming through the broken windows. It was the only movement in the hall and light played over it, creating a flaming beacon out of a broken girl.

Millions of choices and scenarios flashed through her mind. If only…

If only she had never opened the book, picked up the quill…

If only she had stayed away…

If only the temptation hadn't been so beautiful, so lost, so hurt, so in need of love…

_If only she hadn't taken the fruit… _

In the grey twilight of the room, the world he had created, Voldemort watched her, watched the images flash through her mind.

Always her mind returned to love. But he was an impenetrable wall. It was the only way it could be, and his minions watched, certain of the girl's death. Far away a boy with black hair and a lightening shaped scar hurtled to her rescue, desperate to save her life and her light.

But Voldemort knew that that light wasn't for the black haired boy.

Once upon a time that light had come into a black world and lit up the shades of grey. That light was a fire lit common room and a tearful laugh.

And the light that was Ginny Weasely had faded long ago, with a shadow image that had tried to kill her. A ghost that she had loved had taken that light with him. And Voldemort didn't know what to do with it.

"What do you hope to gain, sacrificing yourself so?" His cold voice was barely a whisper. Ginny opened her eyes and stared at him unseeing. A memory fluttered through his mind:

A scared girl asked him to hold her, to never leave her…

And once again he wondered: where would she go in death? He had sent millions into Death's cold embrace and never thought a thing about them. But now…

He was losing his patience, this time she would die. He could not let Harry Potter take this moment from him a second time. "Girl!"

She shivered and rocked in place. "I can't hope for anything anymore." Her voice was soft, in it he heard an eleven year old girl, scared and alone.

(_hold me…)_

He heard her at sixteen, begging him to understand.

(_please, I…)_

And here she was, devoid of everything.

(_cut off from …)_

Did she ever really feel anything for him? She looked at him with dead eyes. "I wish I had died then. I wish Harry hadn't saved me. Maybe then, I would know…" her voice faltered, but she continued "I would know if once upon a time, you could have cared."

His wand was frozen pointed at her. The Death Eaters murmured quietly among themselves, not understanding. Ginny looked up at the ceiling. "Please just send me away, tell me to …" The door burst open. Harry, rushing to the rescue, but Voldemort would not be stopped this time.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry's spell went unheard in the uproar of the Death Eaters. Ginny screamed and then was gone. Voldemort and Harry stared at the spot where she had been, briefly united in their disbelief, and then the Dark Lord stumbled back.

"NO!" The cry echoed through the hall almost swallowing the soft whisper, "it's too late… its always been too late…"

*

Ginny awoke in the hospital wing wondering why she wasn't dead. Her arm was sore, but healed, and the comforting smell of antiseptics and clean linen hung about the place. Despite the normalcy of the situation, given what she last remembered, something was off, although she couldn't quite place it.

Then unfamiliar auburn hair and familiar spectacles appeared in her line of vision. The man smiled warmly at her and his eyes twinkled. Ginny swallowed a gasp of air and tried not to choke on her shock.

"Madame Prewett said you were asking for me." Ginny wouldn't be surprised if she had asked for Professor Dumbledore in a delirious state, but never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought she would see him like this.

"Where am I?" she asked quietly, afraid of the answer, afraid he would know what she was really asking.

"You are in the Hogwarts Infirmary." He watched her as he spoke and was surprised to see no confusion on her face; in fact, it looked as though he had confirmed her own suspicions. "Now, you showed up here in a pitiable condition and it would be helpful if you could answer a few questions."

She didn't notice the steely tone his voice had taken; she was too caught up in her own thoughts: What had happened? And if this truly was Hogwarts with a young Dumbledore then When was…

"First, if you could tell me your name, and then what happened to you, if you can remember." She was vaguely aware of the question, focusing more on the fact that he had given her an out… she could say she had forgotten… but no…

She swallowed again and then looked at Dumbledore." My name is Ginevra Weasely, and…" how to say this? "and I was attacked by… a group of evil men. They brought me to their leader and he… I should be dead, he used the Killing Curse, so…" she looked up at him almost desperately "Why aren't I dead? I thought he'd finally kill me… Why?" She stopped talking. She was being foolish, and he couldn't know, Dumbledore couldn't know that she wished she were dead.

"I have never heard of anyone surviving the Killing Curse before." She let out a hysterical laugh (she did know someone who had…) but caught herself and looked resolutely at the wall behind him. "I do not know why you are alive, how you came to be here, or how you know who I am when I'm sure that we have never met before."

She closed her eyes, looking for the words and finding nothing that would make this easier. "I'm not from… _Now_…" She looked at him, hoping he would understand and to her relief she saw understanding dawn in his eyes.

"Then," His voice was grave, "We will see what we can do for you, until then, what year of schooling are you in?"

"My sixth."

"Well, we'll get you settled into one of the dormitories as soon as the other students arrive. I'll go inform Headmaster Dippitt of the situation, as best I can."

She'd settled back on the pillows and closed her eyes when he turned back around, "One more thing." She opened her eyes and watched him warily. He tried to smile warmly, to hide his concern. "Madame Prewett told me you were talking in your sleep. Who is Tom?"

He watched as her eyes widened in shock. She looked past him again and shuddered. She closed her eyes. "A childhood crush." He could hear the tears in her voice and he wondered. She had told him the truth, but the truth often held so many shades of grey.


	3. Slipping Slowly into Hell

**Chapter Two: Slipping Slowly into Hell**

The girl stood at the front of the great hall, for all appearances indifferent to the world. She was pale, with stunning red hair flowing down her back. Her face was impassive as Dumbledore kindly motioned her to approach the sorting hat. Tom watched as she sat down and placed it on her head. A distant pressure settled behind his eyes.

_Most of all, I'm terrified of being completely alone; of being cut from the world. I don't want to be cut off from my family, the people I love…_

After a long moment the hat cried out_** 'Slytherine!'**_

Slowly she stood. Her face had not changed, but to Tom it seemed that she was slowly stealing her nerve. And then with deliberate steps she walked to Slytherine table. She slowly scanned the seats, looking for an empty one, or perhaps a friendly face. When she looked at him her eyes widened. His eyes narrowed. She looked past him and headed toward a seat at the opposite end of the table from him. As she passed him she acted as though he wasn't there.

For some reason, he thought she should acknowledge his presence. He wanted her to. He wasn't sure why, but, for the briefest moment he thought he had seen recognition in her eyes. And for an even briefer moment recognition had fluttered across his soul.

For him, red hair and haunted brown eyes had only ever belonged to Ginevra Weasley. And yet he had no idea who she was.

*

Tom watched her in the common room, wondering who she was and where she had come from. She had barely spoken to anyone since dinner and he desperately wanted to know why the hell she set him on edge so.

He walked across the common room and stood above her, almost too close for comfort. She closed her eyes and barely turned her face away. "May I sit down." His voice was steely, and Ginny couldn't even begin to find the question in it, it was nothing short of an order. She nodded and didn't move as she felt the cushion of the sofa depress beside her.

She opened her eyes and slowly turned to face him. And he saw-

_she leaned forward and her forehead against his own. He watched as tears brimmed in her eyes, but instead of letting them fall she smiled bravely, "Tom…" whispered against his lips_.

-tears were in fact brimming in her eyes, and he had no idea where that image had come from. She waited patiently for him to say what he had come to say and kept herself from doing anything foolish.

"I'm Tom Riddle, Head Boy this year." He held out his hand for a handshake, unsure of why he was doing this.

She glanced at his hand and her own fluttered briefly between them before she set it in his. Her handshake was timid at first but oddly lingering. She didn't look him in the eye but instead focused on their clasped hands, "I'm Ginevra Weasley, little nothing."

His lip twitched at her attempted joke but he remained opaque. Instead he watched as she bit at her own lower lip and attempted to drop his hand. He gripped it more tightly but let her hand fall down to the cushion, still clasped in his own.

"There is some secret about you Ginevra, and I will discover it."

Her hand seemed to spasm, briefly gripping his again, and he smiled coldly. For the first time since the opening feast she looked him in the eye.

"There is nothing to discover about me Tom." The name sounded oddly familiar on her tongue as though she had murmured it many times to her self, but her eyes were distant. "I'm a little fool, a lost waif. I can do you no harm." He suddenly saw a deep strength hidden behind her fear.

He shifted his grip to her wrist and pulled her toward him trying, somehow, to read her, to discover what that look meant. Down in the depths of her eyes he saw a fire ignite, but it was quick and fleeting and she looked away. He dropped her hand as though it had burned him and stalked slowly to his room.

He would discover her!

*

They sat together in the common room, pretending to work on homework, side by side. Certainly it was normal for the Head Boy to take an interest in the new girl, an unknown. Besides, the other students murmured, she was uncommonly pretty in a delicate sort of way.

Tom ignored the stares and the rumors. He didn't know why… But it was fascinating watching her fall apart; watching her break down.

Silently her face fell. Tears welled in her large dark eyes. Her eyelids closed and water droplets shimmered on her lashes; darkening them, soaking them, and then the tears slowly coursed down her cheeks.

He didn't know why she was crying.

-_But he thought perhaps redemption lay in her tears-_

He blinked.

She laid her head in her arms, as though the world were a heavy weight on her shoulders. He put his hand on the small of her back, a mockery of comfort. She didn't look up, but she did turn her face towards him so that he could watch the play of emotion on her face.

She was the exact opposite of him. She had been loved once he knew, though perhaps she hadn't realized how much. No one had ever cared for him.

She was an open book. Emotions played across her face, a stunning impressionist work of art, never done, the artist kept laying down new strokes even as he watched. He was a marble statue. Grecian: done in the classical period, perfection carved in stone, yet completely detached from the rough strokes that had first hewn his marble encasement.

The only thing they had in common was their silence. She was screaming inside. Sobbing and floundering, drowning in her own blood and tears. He was raging inside. Cursing and yelling, tearing the walls down around him. Tears coursed down her cheeks, his face was silently observant.

She looked up and met his eyes with her own.

Both stared into darkness.

*

SO! Tell me whatcha think (please) 3


	4. Into the Arms of the Devil

I'm sorry if this seems choppy (or rushed). This is still a work in progress so I might repost it later (or I might be lazy and not).

**Chapter Three: Into the Arms of the Devil**

He had opened the Chamber for the first time that day, discovered the snake. Now he crept quietly back into the common room, hoping to go unnoticed, but then he saw her silhouetted against the fire place, her back to him.

He stood in the shadowy common room, a part of the darkness and yet deeper. She was engulfed in the red light from the dying coals. She couldn't know he was there, and yet she sighed turning slightly and he observed her profile, tall, erect, trembling: a phoenix fading, not sure if she had the strength to rise.

"Tom." It was a whisper, nothing more. He imagined it scrolled across the darkness between them: red ink on a black canvas. "What are you most afraid of?" He took a sharp intake of air. He imagined he could see her shiver in the fading light.

_-He set the quill to the page but he could not pen words-_

He didn't answer her. But that was ok. She hadn't expected him to. He hadn't before. He was just the excuse for her to be an open book after all: providing the blank pages and pretending to offer a comforting ear. "Most of all," she whispered, "I'm afraid of the unknown…"

The room wavered around him and his breath caught.

"I know," he murmured. And he did.

He wasn't aware of moving across the room toward her, but before he knew it she was in his arms as he slowly sank to the floor.

Her fingers threaded through his hair as she eased against him and she shivered slightly: intensely aware of the form pressed to her back. He ran his fingers along her collarbone and up her throat watching the black shadows of his fingers trace her fire-lit skin.

He felt tears on her cheeks and his throat caught on something unfamiliar.

"Ginny." His voice was soft and comforting and she bit back a sob. It came out anyway, a strangled, gasping moan. "What's wrong? Tell me." Even the demand was warm now and she almost believed his sincerity.

A watery laugh met his ears and she turned to bury her face in his shoulder breathing in the scent of him for the first time and travelling a road down memory lane. "I fear I will never be free of you." She confided this to his throat and he tried desperately to pretend that she had no effect on him, but she was pressed to closely against him.

She pulled away just enough to look up into his eyes. "Tell me to leave you and I will." There were no more tears in her eyes but they were still damply luminous. He didn't tell her to leave him. Instead he pinned her to the floor beneath him and kissed her as passionately as he knew how.

*

They sat in the common room again, actually studying this time. Actually studying this time. Every now and then his fingers brushed hers as he turned a page. Ginny's hand seemed to be on auto-pilot and wrote steadily as the larger part of her mind focused on her predicament. She had never thought she would be in so hopeless a state. Her twisted childhood crush on Tom Riddle had intensified in his near constant presence.

She could not deny that she felt love for him, but often she found herself wondering why. Tom was often cruel and demanding. He hardly ever took her feelings into account and when he did it seemed as though he were only trying to discover something about her. And he had opened the Chamber again... or for the first time. Her first year was happening all over again and there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

She thought of her friends and family in a future that she might never see again. What would they think of her if they could see her now?

She felt the stuffy, cottony feeling behind her eyes that signaled another bout of tears and she cursed to herself. If only she could stop crying, she would not feel so weak, so helpless. And then, like a moth to a flame, Tom turned to her, before the first tear fell.

He cupped her face in one hand and ran his thumb over her cheek. Looking him in the eye she knew he expected her to cry, he seemed to crave it, and this knowledge gave her strength. the tears filled her eyes but they did not fall. He gazed at her for a moment longer and then smirked in something resembling triumph. Gently he pushed her back against the sofa and kissed her slowly. The students remaining in the common room hurriedly filtered out.

He began working his way along her jaw, freeing her mouth and she bit her lip, trying to keep the words in. As he nuzzle her throat she closed eyes and her lips betrayed her and with a soft gasp she murmured, "I love you..." immediately he looked up at her with a hint of curiosity shining behind his eyes.

"And that makes you cry?" she nodded as he leaned in for another kiss. This one was much more passionate than the last and in the corner of her mind she wondered what he thought of her confession, but really, she didn't want to think at all, she just wanted to drown in his kiss and imagine that he did care.

But this was the great mystery of Ginny Weasely and he would not just let it pass him by. He pulled away again and then asked with a slow smile, " "if you love me, why do you cry –"He hovered over her, his pale handsome face alight with curiosity and carefully veiled excitement. Everything about him seemed gentle in that moment and yet she knew it was not. It made him seem that much more dangerous, and yet that did not curb her feelings for him. Softly he continued, "– I've heard so many confessions of love – they never _begin_ with tears." His smile, subtly cruel, told her that they _always_ ended in tears.

Once again she turned her face away from him, but she was still trapped between his forearms. He leaned slightly to the side, covering her face with one large hand, feeling out the contours: tracing gently over her eyelids, brushing her damp lashes. He covered her more fully so that his lips hovered beside her ear. "Why do you cry Ginevra?" His hand slid down her face to cup her chin – her lips pressed lightly against his thumb.

She opened her mouth, tried to draw him in – trying to distract him. He smirked down at her, aware of her ploy and kissed her once, pulling away too quickly. She lay gasping beneath him, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. He traced a singly tear track down her cheek.

She gazed up at him silently for a moment, stealing her nerve. She was about to flay herself alive for him, lay all of herself out for his perusal. With a deep breath she looked him in the eye.

"I shouldn't love you. I know what you are, what you're doing… and what you'll become." Her voice was barely there. His look had become steely. She looked up at him and then reached up, trying to smooth the frown from his brow. "I know I shouldn't love you – and I know what my family would say -if they could see me now. . And... that, more than my physical separation from them, is why I cry..." The frown was slowly fading from his face as another thought occurred to her. "I know all of those things, but I can't stop loving you!" It sounded like an accusation and he couldn't help but feel an odd sort of pride. He nearly missed the soft whisper. "I can't stop… and it makes me feel weak." She looked him in the eye. He smiled. "I hate feeling weak with you."

She closed her eyes, awaiting his recriminations, but they didn't come. Instead he began kissing his way down her throat as though his original intentions had never been interrupted. She lay still at first, still unsure of his response. After a long moment she began to respond, running her own hands over his body. She felt him smile against her skin and then he murmured, "_That_ I can understand."

She gasped as his fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse but she wasn't sure if it was in response to his actions or the cool statement which seemed so at odds with each other.

She didn't say anything else, just accepted him, as he wanted her to and as he expected her to. It wasn't until later that night when they were falling asleep in Tom's room that he finished the statement. "I never think of you as weak. You are passive to my Direction, but there is too much hidden fire in you for me to view you as weak."

She looked up at him, to try to interpret his expression but in the moonlight his face was impassive. His eyes were closed. She sighed softly and leaned more fully into him. His arms tightened subtly around her.


	5. Living in a Twilight Realm

Disclaimer: I own nothing but plot :)

**Chapter Four: Living in a Twilit Realm:**

Moaning Myrtle lay on the floor. He stared in cold detachment. He had sent the snake away. He needed to report this incident to Headmaster Dippitt. As the faucets dripped distantly Tom thought that killing was surprisingly easy.

-_And they dripped in time with a fading heart beat_ -

Steps echoed down the hall and he thought of calling the snake back. But a red-haired girl wrote an intangible message across one of the walls of his mind and he didn't. Ginny walked into the bathroom and the message was written in blood. She gazed long and hard at Myrtle. She didn't look at him. Instead she continued the conversation that was never-ending.

"I should hate you." But she didn't. Even as the hell that was her first year played out in her mind, even as she watched the creation of a monster…

"You should." She knew his secret. He was almost certain she had known his secret since her arrival, since before he had even let the snake out of the chamber. She absolutely should hate him. He had given her no reason not to hate him.

"Why don't I hate you?" The tears were gone. She seemed almost resigned.

"Because you feel some emotion for me that I can't begin to comprehend." He wasn't sure if that was true anymore, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

She walked across the bathroom and took his hand, kissed him softly and chastely. "I wish I could make you understand." She looked mutely at Myrtle's body and he wondered why she hadn't run screaming from the room yet. "Come on. We should go find the Headmaster. It will be less suspicious if I found her body in the girls' bathroom." As she led him from the room she muttered, "Besides, Myrtles ghost will be back soon."

He didn't ask how she knew this. It was one secret he would let her keep.

The betrayal fell from her lips without a second thought, she knew how this story played a out after all, "You know Hagrid has-"

"I know." She nodded; no guilt on her heart-shaped face. Tom wondered if there should be.

"Of course you knew. You never did need my help, really." She no longer wondered why she gave it so willingly.

Watching her throat move as she spoke to him Tom suddenly thought something warm and dirty, but they were outside the headmasters office now and her eyes were brimming with tears. As he put an obligatory arm of comfort around her shoulders he wondered at her sincerity. He wondered what she truly cried for, if not for Moaning Myrtle, if not for herself.

Headmaster Dippitt took her tears at face value.

Dumbledore watched Ginny watch Tom and tried to catch her eye. But it was too late, she had already slipped into Hell.

*

They sat by the lake under the overcast sky. Ginny's head rested on her lover's shoulder as she watched the blue-grey clouds billow in the depths of the lake. His arm was slung heavily around her and she was held to his side as though by a warm iron vice. She thought that if it weren't for him she would be blown away, up into the clouds. But he wouldn't let go, ever.

From a distance it looked as though they were a loving couple.

_-hold me-_

His body was warm and hard and comforting. She turned her head slightly and nuzzled his neck, breathing in his warm masculine scent. Her breath ghosted across his throat. He continued to gaze up at the sky through the leaves of the tree he leaned against. He seemed ignorant of the warm body he held to him. She sighed into his shoulder and left the ghost of a kiss on the corded muscle running from his jaw to his collar bone. His shaggy hair fluttered over her face and she closed her eyes.

He seemed oblivious to her, but he wasn't. He was very aware of the line of electricity running between them where her body was pressed against his. He closed his eyes briefly as she sighed and then watched out of the corner of his eye as she closed her own eyes. He could feel the warmth and life in her, the vitality of her spirit. It was a mystery to him. He felt so cold inside and yet she snuggled into him as though he were her only source of heat in a frozen world.

How ironic that was.

She was an anomaly he couldn't figure out. She knew simply too much and sometimes that scared him.

"Tom." She always said his name so simply, as though it were a fact, not a name, "If I joined you in Hell, do you think you would one day understand what I feel… why I stay with you even though you're an insincere bastard?"

"No." He sounded bored, internally he gasped for air.

"If you say so." She leaned up ever so slightly and left a warm kiss on his jaw. His had closed convulsively on her shoulder and she laid her head back down, snuggling into his warm chest as she watched the grey waves rushing over blue-black stones on the shore.


	6. Accepting the Fruit

a small note: the Maiden and her King, mentioned in the last line, are a theme of my creation (the theme works throughout this whole fanfic actually, a surprise to realize that my 'writing for release' and 'writing for work' ended up paralleling one another); part of a book of poems that I'm currently working on and I'm very protective of because I hope to publish it at some point.

Disclaimer: I own nothing (but the theme mentioned above) and am making no profit off of this work.

**Final Chapter: Accepting the Fruit:  
**

"Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?" Ron asked.

"Yes." Said Hermione with a hollow smile, "But it would be excruciatingly painful."

"Why? How do you do it?" asked Harry.

"Remorse." Said Hermione, "You've got to really feel what you've done. There's a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can't see Voldemorte trying it somehow, can you?"

(J.K. Rowling; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

* * *

He'd gone to the old shack today; that grungy disheveled place where the last of the great line of Slytherine resided. What an incredible disappointment. The mad, snake-talking moron: the old, mindlessly angry man: and the grinding, almost palpable ignorance.

He had never felt ashamed of being a wizard, of being a descendant of Salazar Slytherine, until that moment. He wanted, with everything in him, to kill them and burn their excuse for a home to the ground. But then he'd thought of Ginny and the look of worry, and true fear, in her eyes before he'd left. He hadn't told her where he was going, but, somehow, she'd known. And somehow she'd also known that he planned on coming back a murderer. Myrtle hadn't counted, really, the snake had done that killing, (and so Ginny could pretend that, maybe, he wasn't evil, he supposed) or perhaps she knew about the conversation he'd had with Slugthorn about the making of a horcrux.

He didn't understand how she knew all of the things she knew. And, even more, he couldn't understand how, knowing these things, she still proclaimed to love him in word and action. She was so loyal, so good, and so unquestioningly _his_.

And so as the urge to kill, kill, KILL, rose up from the depths of his soul he held onto the image of Ginny Weasely and her lovingly frightened eyes. He returned to Hogwarts with Slytherine's ring, but without leaving two dead bodies behind in a ruined shack.

She sat, waiting for him, in the darkest corner of the common room. Her wand lay on the table beside the small couch she had curled herself into, and she didn't look a him as he stalked toward her. She didn't move when he knelt on the floor before her, and when he reached for her clasped hands, for the first time she seemed to shrink away from him.

She was surprised when he gently took her hands in his own, when he didn't jerk her or yell at her for cringing. She never had before, and she knew that if anything could hurt him or at least make him angry with her, that would. But the cold feel of the ring on his finger frightened her, and thoughts of what he was doing, of what he would finally, truly become tonight had been chasing themselves around her mind all day. She hadn't gone to class. She'd told everyone she felt ill, and it was true.

Finally she looked at him and was surprised to see him kneeling before her, he almost looked subservient, almost, though a ghost of that haughty smile still hung around his lips.

"Did you... is it done?" Her voice was small and frightened and she wouldn't quite look him in the eye. It seemed that for all her bravery, when finally faced with the creation of a monster, she couldn't face it.

"I took the ring." He watched as she closed her eyes and silent tears slid from beneath her lids. "I did take the ring. But I didn't kill them." Her eyes shot open and her breath caught. For the first time since he'd taken her hands she clutched at his and he smiled slightly at the urgency of her touch. He looked away then, still uncertain, still unsure, but... after all they'd been through, after all she'd done for him, "I wanted to – " his voice caught, "I wanted to so much; when I saw them, I hated them. I hated them and I hated myself, but then, I thought of you and – what you meant to me..."

"What I meant to you?" She uncurled from the ball she'd been in, her feet slipping from the cushion and coming to rest on either side of his knees. She looked down at him and he thought he saw the beginning of a trembling smile.

"Yes, I... I love you -" He meant to go on, but she slid from the sofa, landing on his lap and kissed him more passionately than she ever had before. It was the best, the happiest moment of his life. But he wasn't finished, he had more to say, and he _needed_ her to hear it.

He gently placed his hands on her head and pulled her face away from his. Her eyes were shining and when her lips were freed from his she murmured, "I love you, Tom, so much, I always have…" He lay his finger over her trembling lips and went on.

His voice was barely there, "I love you in a way I thought I never could love anyone, and – I want to be someone that you can be proud to love. So I didn't kill them. I didn't create a horcrux, and, for you – only for you – I never will." it was the only time she had heard him sound unsure of himself, but that only strengthened her own resolve, made her love him more, if she could.

Smiling, she kissed him again, softly. She never wanted this moment to end but – No – then, she felt that pull. The same one she had felt in the dilapidated hall when all those spells had gone off. She kissed him with fervor, wrapping her arms and legs around him, hoping against hope that her love could hold her here. She felt his hands on her back pressing her to him, one entangling in her hair and then a sharp pain in the vicinity of her soul. Gasping she pulled her lips from his.

He watched in confusion as tears ran down her face. "Tom!" she sounded like she was in pain but then she kissed him once again, briefly, "Tom, I love you, so, so much, and, I'm so sorry, but I think I'm going... away –"

She leaned in to kiss him again, and in confusion he reached to meet her, but his lips touched empty air, and just before she faded from existence she burned brighter than anything he had ever seen before…

(she was reborn in that moment)

And then, she was gone…

He had never hated anyone more than he hated her.

And he knew - oh, how he knew - that love was the cruelest lie to ever live.

* * *

Ginny reappeared in her room, surrounded by all her old familiar things. She stood, shaking, at the center of her room staring at the old worn clock on her writing desk. This was the night, the night she had gone to the old concert hall: the night Voldemort's Killing Curse had somehow sent her to the past.

The conversation she had had only moments before with Tom in Slytherine common room still rang in her ears. _If she hadn't gone into the past…_

Slowly she glanced at her bed. She could still see the imprint from where she had been sitting on her bed, staring at the missing closet doors, meaning she must have left only moments before… a year ago.

Downstairs she could hear her Mum putting the kettle on for one last cup of tea. She brought her hand up to her face and found that she was crying. The urge to run downstairs and embrace her mother was overwhelming. Almost in slow motion she fell to the floor and rested on her knees. She could stay here, safe. She could crawl into bed and wake up with the sun then go downstairs for breakfast. She could laugh and smile and love with her family, pretend none of the past year had ever happened, perhaps one day marry Harry…

The thought made her go cold, feel sick. She tried to imagine a life with Harry, and for the first time found that she couldn't. Another face rose out of the darkness, dark blue eyes and rich brown hair, to gaze at her coldly, accusingly. A monster waited for her out in the darkness and now, more than ever, she had to know:

Had there ever been any hope? Or was this how it was supposed to be? If she didn't go to him now, she would never know. She could live the simple happy life but she would live it plagued by doubt and guilt… _If only_ -

Finally she stood again and walked to her writing desk where she sat down. After a long moment she began to write. When the letter was finished she stood slowly, moving about her room like a ghost. After an eternity she heard her parent's door shut. She placed the letter she had been clutching to her chest on the desk. With one final glance at her missing closet doors she walked out the door the meet her fate

Dear Mum and Dad; Ron, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, Hermione, and Harry, Percy too…

I love you all. More than you could know. I know you can't understand why I'm leaving, but the truth is I haven't been the same since the Chamber.

The difference between then and now was that then, I wanted change. I wanted to be normal and good. I dreamt of growing up; of marrying Harry. Making him part of a family that loved him as though he were one of us and returning to him the family he had lost.

I know now that I can't be a part of that future. Please don't try to save me. I don't want to be saved this time because if whatever is left of Tom can't find it in his heart to save me himself then I would rather he kill me. Because then I will finally know if he ever did truly care.

There's so much more that you don't know and couldn't understand but I don't have any time to explain. The most important thing though, is that I love him, and there's a tiny chance that that fact can save us all: I need to go to him. I'm sorry.

I hope that you can forgive me.

All my love: Ginny

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.

The end of the letter was scrawled messily and blotched, as though the pen couldn't contain the emotions she had felt.

Somewhere, running to the hall, she caught up with herself from the past and the two halves merged. She walked into the concert hall tall and unafraid. Ready to face her future, and her past.

_I fear I will always love him_. Tears dripped wetly down her cheeks… again and again, always…

Always her mind returned to love. But he was an impenetrable wall. It was the only way it could be, and his minions watched, certain of the girl's death. Far away a boy with black hair and a lightening shaped scar hurtled to her rescue, desperate to save her life and her light.

_-In an empty dripping chamber he counted her fading heartbeats-_

But Voldemort knew that her light wasn't for the black haired boy.

Once upon a time that light had come into a black world and illuminated the shades of grey. That light was a fire lit common room and a tearful laugh.

(a warm caress…)

And the light that was Ginny Weasely had faded long ago, with a shadow image that had tried to kill her. A ghost that she had loved had taken that light with him. And Voldemort didn't know what to do with it.

"What do you hope to gain?" His cold voice was barely a whisper, echoing in the shattered concert hall, a lost boy's voice came back from the shadows, accusing. Ginny opened her eyes and stared at him unseeing. A memory fluttered through his mind:

A scared girl asked him to hold her, to never leave her…

And once again he wondered: where would she go in death? He had sent millions into deaths cold embrace and never thought about them. But now…

He was losing his patience, this time she _would_ die. He could not let Harry Potter take this moment from him a second time… a third time? "Girl!"

She shivered and rocked in place. "I can't hope for anything anymore." Her voice was soft, in it he heard an eleven year old girl, scared and alone.

-_hold me…_

He heard her at sixteen, begging him to understand.

-if I joined you in Hell...-

And here she was, devoid of everything.

_cut off from…her family… from him…_

Did she ever really feel anything for him? She looked at him with dead eyes, perhaps her soul had already abandoned her. "I wish I had died then. I wish I hadn't been saved. Maybe then, I would know…" her voice faltered, he thought he saw the remnants of a fire in her eyes, "I would know if once upon a time, you could have truly cared; if you ever did love me."

His wand was frozen pointed at her.

-_Could have loved…?-_

The Death Eaters murmured quietly among themselves, not understanding. Ginny looked up at the ceiling. "Send me away, tell me to leave you and I will…" The door burst open. Harry, rushing to the rescue, but Voldemort would not be stopped this time.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry's spell went unheard in the uproar of the Death Eaters. Ginny screamed and then was gone. Voldemort and Harry stared at the spot where she had been, briefly united in their disbelief and then the Dark Lord stumbled back.

"NO!" The cry echoed through the hall almost swallowing the soft whisper, "it's too late… too late…its always been to late… I can't… I couldn't-"

Voldemort continued to stare at the space she had filled only a moment before. She was gone, but somehow he knew that she hadn't gone to the past only they remembered. Wherever she was now, she was dead… there was no mistaking the green light that had engulfed her before she vanished.

She was gone… Again

_Forever._

Vanished into the vast immensity of Death which he had feared all his life – to the one place he had sworn never to go himself.

He was suddenly, excruciatingly, aware of the hollowness inside himself. The loss and anger he had felt the first time she had left him – abandoned him for a future he had barely imagined paled in comparison to the rage he felt now.

His wretched shell ached and in it he could feel the shape of what he had become and, remembering the frightened, loving look in her eyes, he hated himself more than he had hated anything, more than he had hated _her_ when he thought she had chosen to abandon him.

Softly – in the din of shocked silence – one thought rose up from the darkness and reverberated around the walls of his aching soul, blinding him to all else.

It was his fault.

She was gone, and he had no one to blame but himself.

He wanted to lash out, make someone suffer, but…

It. Was. His. Fault.

A crushing weight started somewhere between his chest and his spine, where the tattered remnants of a soul resided. For a moment he thought he would do anything to take it back, to make the pain go away, but he knew that he couldn't.

He of all people knew that death was irreversible.

If only…

If only he hadn't opened the Chamber: if only he hadn't cast the curse…

An unearthly scream shuddered through the hall and Lord Voldemort fell to the ground.

Time froze. The spells that had gone off glowed brilliantly in the thick air, confused neon streamers: red, green, blue, and white. The shadows darkened where the light could no longer reach. Hearts raced, eyes fluttered, but nothing happened.

And then the world changed.

Through the haze of extinguished spells and settling dust Harry looked up to see an unfamiliar red haired woman kneeling next to Voldemort. She pulled the fallen Dark Lord's head into her lap and instead of a shriveled snake creature he saw a young man, well groomed dark hair fluttered in several directions and a bloody scratch ran down the side of his face.

Everyone in the room watched as Ginny Weasley ran her fingers through Tom Riddle's hair. Voldemort gripped her wrist and no one noticed as movement returned to the world. The golden dust from forgotten spells slowly settled and everyone strained their ears.

"I would have died for you once." It was a soft whisper, but it echoed loudly through the concert hall. Tom knew this. If he knew nothing else about Ginevra Weasley he knew this fact.

"Would you now?" For a long moment silence, and then her heart started beating again

"I just did."

_-And just before she faded from existence she burned brighter than anything he had seen before-_

And then they were gone.

* * *

She fears she will always love him.

He brought her into the twilight world of his personal hell, and she showed him that there was color there. He watched her dance in the moonlit glades and she laughed for joy at the beauty of muted green grass and the deep blue overhead. She pointed to the diamond dust stars as she turned to him, an innocent smile curving her mouth.

He covered his lips with his hand and told her that she was a foolish girl. Strangely enough it didn't hurt coming from him.

She reached for his hands and pulled him from the forest's edge and then down beside her on the dew-kissed grass. Her feet were bloody and bruised from dancing to his tune, but the pain was numb. He looked at the sky and asked where she had found the stars.

They had been there when she arrived; perhaps he had just been too blind to see. She watched the stars reflected in his deep blue bottomless eyes. He watched them in detached wonder and she couldn't begin to imagine what he was thinking.

Slowly he pulled from his pocket a bright red apple and offered it to her. She stared at him in shock, wondering what it could mean. The breeze stilled, he was holding his breath.

She took the apple, but he did not let go right away.

"You can never leave me." His voice was strained and she wondered what had made him break, what had caused him to let her in on the trap while she still had the chance to run. She looked into his fathomless eyes and smiled.

"Shouldn't it be a pomengranite then?" He smiled the ghost of a smile. She remembered the day her life had begun… the day she had nearly died. She remembered the strength of his arms and the fire of his kiss. She remembered all the tears she had ever shed for him and all the tears he had never let fall.

"Hades offered love, I don't know if I can… Lucifer never made any promises that didn't come true. I can offer you knowledge… and death, if you will take it" His voice was barely there.

She pulled the fruit from his hand, never looking away from his eyes. When she bit into it it was sweet and warm. So deceiving coming from him. She couldn't help but wonder though if the devil in his heart was offering more than he thought. With a whimsical laugh she offered him a bite. He looked confused, but took it nonetheless.

"To die beside you? I am content."

Ginny kissed him; for the first time, for the last time, for forever. She kissed him and sealed her fate. She didn't bother to look back. There would be no Adam for her, no Hero. Harry Potter would live a life without ever having met her, but she was content.

**Epilogue: **

History rewrote itself, and the scene in the deserted concert hall never took place.

Harry Potter was born to loving parents and never knew the fear and anger of being an orphan. He never met a girl named Ginevera Weasely. Instead he had odd dreams of a red haired woman walking through a battle field and sacrificing herself for those she loved most. She never looked back and a small part of his heart broke, but in the morning he only remembered her loving smile.

A strange, lost girl appeared in the wizarding world just after the Second World War and saved a frozen lost boy from himself…

She lay in his bed. Her red hair splayed over his pillows. He knelt beside her and watched intently as her pulse fluttered in her ivory neck. He lay his ear next to her mouth and listened to her shallow breaths. He ran his hand down her cheek and she turned, instinctively, into his warm caress.

She was so warm, so full of life. And she loved him unconditionally. Even in sleep she turned toward him for comfort.

The old faucet in the bathroom was dripping again. It was a reminder and, secretly, a gateway into his personal Hell… he never had it fixed.

_-He imagined water dripping down cold stone walls; echoing in dark empty caverns. He imagined a cold dampness in the air kissing her rosy cheeks and dusting her red locks with diamond droplets of water. He imagined her lashes soaked dark red with unshed tears. _

_He imagined the coldness of the cavern enveloping her and entering her; taking the warm glow away from her rosy cheeks and the sparkle away from her eyes. He imagined the life leaving her body, her sinewy limbs stilling; her breath slowing. In his minds eye he watched as her pulse slowed. He counted the beats. _

_One. Two. Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven..._

_He listened for the steps that should echo wetly down the long archway behind him. Coming to save her. Coming to make sure that her heart continued beating: to make sure that she would smile for him in the morning. _

_He listened until the only thing echoing in the secret dark chamber was the gasping sound of his own breath as his lungs worked desperately for air.- _

He woke to find himself half sprawled on his bed, tears streaming down his face, like a creature cast down to sacrifice. He hadn't saved her, he never would. Again he wondered why she had chosen him, knowing that he couldn't save her. There was movement in front of him and he looked up to see her stirring in her sleep. His feet were going numb from kneeling for too long but he couldn't take his eyes from her.

She opened her eyes and smiled gently at him. He thought perhaps he had imagined the tears running down his cheeks. She leant forward and kissed him softly and all he could think was how warm and soft and gentle and loving she was…. And why, why, why had she chosen him: what had he done? He could still see her body lying dead on the cold stone floor.

He knelt, lost, staring at nothing, and only became aware again as she was wiping the tears from his cheeks.

"Tom." She murmured, but he didn't respond. "Tom, what's wrong?" He shook his head and she kissed him softly again. "Tom." Patiently.

"I killed you. You were dead." He opened his eyes to see her reaction and watched in wonder as she smiled.

"I know, but I forgave you." He shook his head, she didn't understand. She did though.

"I didn't save you. I never will. I _can't_ save you."

"I know, you're my downfall, I'll have to save myself one day I suppose." She closed her eyes and kissed him passionately. As though he _were_ her only lifeline instead of an anchor to the abyss. He closed his eyes as well and tried to drown in her warmth, to exist in her life. "Now stop kneeling there and come to bed, you make me feel like I'm on an altar."

What she didn't realize was that she was. She was on an altar to life as he'd never known it before and a feeling he hadn't thought existed, or could be as powerful as it was.

Tom slid under the covers and pulled the warm bundle of limbs that was Ginny Weasley against his chest. She had warmed his cold heart and saved him from a fate worse than simple death.

He closed his eyes and fell immediately into a dream.

_Once upon a time, a little girl asked for comfort, and he gave it…_

_Once upon a time, a red haired woman walked across a battle field and accepted her fate…_

_Once upon a time he cast a curse that couldn't kill (you can't kill if you don't mean it, and he hadn't, he never would)._

He smiled in his sleep and Ginny ran a gentle thumb over his lips, smiling as well, he looked so peaceful in sleep.

_Once upon a time, his love saved her from himself…_

And as the years passed on Demeter reread her only daughter's letter and cried, holding the worn parchment to her heart. She cried for a daughter she had never known, and for the sacrifice that the world could never know.

_Once upon a time, the Maiden descended into Hell so that her King could live_**_. _**

**End.**


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