FIC: "A Wondrous Riddle-Book," Tom/Ginny, R
Title: A Wondrous Riddle-Book
Author: kethlenda
Characters/Pairing: Tom/Ginny
Summary: He had been ink on a page, and moments lost as though written on water, but never a face, not until the very last.
Rating: R
Warning(s): bondage, Legilimency, slight underage-ness
Notes: For the Everything Old is New Again challenge. Originally written for its_art at wizard_love 2006, so it's about a year old.
Based on the divination traditions associated with St. Agnes' Eve, which fell on January 20. The title is from John Keats's poem on the same subject. Beta by sionnain.
For about the hundredth time, Ginny cursed herself for an idiot. This is nothing but Trelawney rubbish. Superstition. In her mind’s eye, Hermione smirked and waggled an I-told-you-so finger.
She was thirsty, and her bedroom reeked of rosemary and thyme. It smells like Potions class in here.
She’d never been much for sleeping nude, either; neither a houseful of brothers nor a crowded dormitory offered much in the way of privacy. Tonight, however, she had the place almost to herself, if one didn’t count her parents snoring at the other end of the Burrow. The covers were uncomfortable against bare skin, rubbing and chafing at places Ginny had almost forgotten were there.
This is the last time I test out a spell from some rubbish book of Muggle fairy tales, she resolved.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time: enlightening at best, a harmless game for a dull evening at worst. A footnote in some dusty tome of Hermione’s, Myths and Legends of Medieval Times, which she’d been scouring for any rumor that might point to the Ravenclaw Horcrux. Bored, Ginny had paged through it, her eyes falling on a page marked St. Agnes’ Eve.
There was a Muggle legend of a virgin martyr, and a ritual to be performed, and the tale had it that any virgin girl who followed the steps on the night of January twentieth would receive a vision of her true love.
Ginny wasn’t at all sure she believed in true love, but she was getting rather sick of virginity, and it just happened to be the twentieth of January. Why not? Maybe it wasn’t just superstition after all. Maybe it was like a potion-if you put all the right ingredients in the right order, you’d achieve the desired result.
It wasn’t as if she’d mind seeing a vision of the man who was her match, after all. He would have to be strong enough to stand up to her, confident enough to treat her as an equal. She thought of Dean, always guiding her through doors as though she were some sort of fragile flower. She thought of Michael, pouting like a child when she trounced his House’s side. My true love, if he exists, would not turn so sour at losing to me.
Perhaps he would not lose to me at all.
Now, however, with the gaily painted fancies of True Love and knights in shining armor dissipated a little by the salty-bitter taste of the ritual cake lingering on her tongue and the medicinal reek of the herbs scattered around the room, Ginny felt more than a little stupid.
She considered getting up, padding down to the kitchen for a glass of water, then decided against it. If I don’t see this through, I’ll never know. This bloody nonexistent dream man has to bring me the water. The book said so.
Ginny Weasley was nothing if not stubborn.
***
"Ginevra."
The voice spoke softly, and at first in her half-sleep she was not certain anyone spoke at all.
"Ginevra," repeated the voice, softly, the soft G almost a sibilance.
She stirred. This time, she could not ignore it, could not pretend it was only a trick of the winter wind. She opened her eyes, and gasped.
Ginny had only seen Tom Riddle once that awful year. He had been ink on a page, and moments lost as though written on water, but never a face, not until the very last. Not until he had led her into the very bowels of the school, corporeal now, given strength and form by her own drained power. His face was the last thing she had seen before going under. He was standing on the threshold of her room, now, looking about her own age, leaning casually on the doorframe.
She gasped. "Voldemort."
"Not Voldemort." He quirked a smug smile. "Tom Riddle."
"Same thing. Get the hell out of my bedroom."
"The finer distinctions may be lost on you, my girl, but as it happens, I am not in your bedroom. In fact, I will not cross this threshold unless it is by your own will."
"Never."
"Suit yourself," he said. "By the way, I must say that you've grown up quite nicely, Ginevra Molly Weasley." His eyes flicked with reptilian quickness up and down her body and she remembered she was naked. Her cheeks burned with the realization, and she felt the skin of her bare breasts flushed with heat as well, but she would not surrender the advantage. She would not cower, clutch a sheet to herself. She would play the queen, the goddess, the woman who need hide nothing.
"How did you know my full name?" she demanded.
"This is the Very Secret Diary of Ginevra Molly Weasley," he said in a high-pitched, simpering tone. "You gave me too much, my girl. Can you fault me for using the weapons you so thoughtfully provided?"
"I provided nothing," she said, lifting her chin high.
"Suit yourself." His smile was slow, as though calculated. "Hold out your hand, Ginevra."
"I don't think so."
"Don't be a fool. As you may have noticed, I still haven't crossed your threshold. I only mean to pour you a glass of water.”
She smirked, held out one hand, but grasped her wand from the nightstand with the other. "Prove it."
He gestured, and instantly her hand curved around a chilly glass of colorless liquid. She sniffed it; it seemed to be ordinary water, but she knew potions could be deceptive. Mum would kill me if she caught me accepting a drink from Tom bloody Riddle, she thought, but perhaps going along would buy her some time, and besides, she was oddly intrigued by the fact that he'd not ventured yet into her room. "So what brings you here, Tom? Or should I call you Your Lordship?" She put as much scorn into her smile as she could muster.
"I told you; I'm not Lord Voldemort. Not yet. There are men who regret the mistakes of their past; it seems that I must atone for the sins of my future." He flicked his hand in the air and produced another glass ,and took a long, savouring sip. "The Tom Riddle who stands before you is merely a man, not yet a man, even. Your age. And frustrated with the world, which refuses to grant me the respect I deserve. Can you tell me you've never felt such a thing?"
Images crowded Ginny's mind: her parents treating her like a precious doll that needed to be kept safely on its shelf; Harry ditching her for fear she'd die, as if she hadn't proven herself up to what needed to be done. Dean and the doors…
Tom smiled even before Ginny nodded, and she had the disconcerting thought that he was tasting her memories as they passed through her mind.
He spoke. "You see? You and I are kindred. I can feel the power within you, the strength; it's like an aura around you. You could be great, and no one can see it. They see only the fragile girl, the damsel in distress."
"And who put me in distress in the first place? Don't give me that sins of the future bollocks. It was Tom who tried to suck out my life to feed himself, not Voldemort. That was you. Now get your murdering arse out of my room."
Tom sighed. "Guilty as charged. I made a tragic error. I may be a great wizard, but I'm no Seer, and I did not see what you would become." He gestured toward her supine body with his glass.
"Which is what, exactly? A nice piece of arse?" She felt hot all over; took a great gulp of the cold water, and then recoiled. "Oh, my God."
"I assure you, I've not poisoned you; nor have I drugged you. It is only water.”
She took a deep breath. It hadn't tasted like anything but water, for which she was thankful, but drinking it hadn’t helped any. She'd been hoping to cool herself off. Instead, her body felt even more heated, as though the water boiled within her at his glance.. Suddenly she wasn't so keen on her "lounging naked like a red-headed Cleopatra" stubbornness. "Accio Bathrobe." The robe sailed across the room, landing in a soft heap in her lap. She set down the wine and put it on; it felt like comfort and childhood; smelled clean as innocence.
"Such a shame," said Tom quietly. He took another sip of his wine. She hated him for his serenity.
"Now, where were we?" he asked.
"You were telling me what a brilliant witch I was, I think. Or else that I have nice nibs. Not sure which."
"There are a million beautiful women in this world, Ginevra. Beauty is of no importance; it rots in the grave, just the same as ugliness. It's power that endures. You have power. You are the only woman who was ever worthy of me."
She was shocked at the ragged animal sound of her breath. The boys she had known had ogled and kissed and groped, but never admired, and respect was headier than wine. "Tom? Come in. Please. I want...I want to know if you're real."
"I thought you'd never ask," he said, a smirk twisting his coldly handsome face. He walked into the room, seemed to fill the entire space with his presence. She gasped, curling up into her covers, tightening the bathrobe around her body.
"It's no use," he said. "I'm the greatest Legilimens the world has ever known. You can hide your body, but I know your mind. I know every silly little thought you had when you were eleven, and I can read every decadent dream you have now." He reached out and trailed one cold finger down her heated cheek. "Tell me, Ginevra, am I real?"
She shivered through her sweat. "Yes," she said.
He looked up and to one side, as though trying to remember something. "Ah, yes. You've always wanted to be bound, to be ruled. Fools, the boys who treated you like porcelain. Incarcerous."
Silvery ropes shot out of Tom's wand and lashed her wrists tightly to the bedposts. She should have struggled, she knew. This was Lord bloody Voldemort.
No. Tom.
His fingers deftly untied the hasty knot she'd made in the belt of her bathrobe. She heard a moan escaping her throat as he peeled the cloth away from her breasts and trailed his fingers lightly, softly, over each nipple.
"Tell me what you want," he whispered, his tongue tickling at her ear.
She wriggled, strained against the bonds. "Why should I have to tell you, Oh Lord Legilimens? You already know; you said so yourself."
He smiled. "Of course. But I want to hear it from your own lips. I'll do nothing against your will; broken, you would no longer be worthy." He slipped one hand inside her robe and lightly, too lightly, explored between her thighs.
She writhed, humiliated at the heat and wetness she knew was there. "Can't you tell?"
"I told you already. I can read you like an open book. But is not poetry sweeter when read aloud?"
She pressed her lips together. Sheer stubbornness, but Ginny hated to admit defeat and confessing desire for Tom Riddle would be the very worst sort of surrender.
"Suit yourself," he said, rearranging her robe demurely over her body, vanishing the bonds, and walking away from the bed. He turned his back; in his dark heavy robes he seemed a shadow, slipping away again into the night, the one who could have matched her.
"No!" she called.
He turned, cocking a sardonic eyebrow.
"I...I want you," Ginny said.
He was silent for a long moment, and she was afraid he was going to laugh. Instead he nodded solemnly and walked back across the room to where she lay.
His lips were cool and dry on hers. He descended upon her, shadow-like blotting out the moonlight; he was all the world.
She felt destiny strike like lightning, yes, this was the way it was meant to be, it could never have been any other way... and her hands roamed over his chest, his face, revealing him to her even in the darkness, making him real. Words rose to the surface of her mind now as though written in fire across the night sky and she felt him read her, no need to speak in this place that was heaven and hell and home.
I want your hands on my breasts. I want your lips at my throat. I want you inside me.
He claimed her, his own thoughts for once bared to her, did you think I'd let you go? and as he burst within her, his eyes blazed red in the blackness like malevolent suns.
***
Ginny sat bolt upright in bed, a cold sweat chilling her skin. Just a dream, she told herself. Her breath still coming in short gasps, she looked around the room, and saw no trace of Tom Riddle in the golden light of dawn.
Tom.
No, Voldemort. By daylight it was impossible to cherish any illusions about his true identity; for all his pretty words about having been a different man once, that was the past. She'd seen the red flashing in his eyes. Tom was gone; Voldemort remained.
Any other morning, Ginny would have chalked up the dream to some errant scrap of himself he'd left in her mind all those years ago, but she remembered the ritual, the vision she had sought, and wondered.
Just a dream?
Or fate?
If it was a true vision, that must mean she was destined to betray her friends, or that they were doomed to lose and leave Ginny at Voldemort's mercy.
Or maybe I'll be the one to change him.
That was fool's talk and Ginny knew it, so she shoved it roughly from her mind and got out of bed. She was relieved to see her bathrobe hanging innocently on its hook across the room; if it had been tangled around her in the bed, her terror would have been complete.
She dressed, and padded down to the kitchen in her slippers. Her brother and friends were clustered around the kitchen table. As Ginny entered, they looked up from something Hermione had been showing the others, something she'd found in one of her interminable books.
How like children they looked.
She stared at them, feeling like a stranger in her own home--knowing she would always feel separate from them now, knowing that her story would end in darkness.
Author: kethlenda
Characters/Pairing: Tom/Ginny
Summary: He had been ink on a page, and moments lost as though written on water, but never a face, not until the very last.
Rating: R
Warning(s): bondage, Legilimency, slight underage-ness
Notes: For the Everything Old is New Again challenge. Originally written for its_art at wizard_love 2006, so it's about a year old.
Based on the divination traditions associated with St. Agnes' Eve, which fell on January 20. The title is from John Keats's poem on the same subject. Beta by sionnain.
For about the hundredth time, Ginny cursed herself for an idiot. This is nothing but Trelawney rubbish. Superstition. In her mind’s eye, Hermione smirked and waggled an I-told-you-so finger.
She was thirsty, and her bedroom reeked of rosemary and thyme. It smells like Potions class in here.
She’d never been much for sleeping nude, either; neither a houseful of brothers nor a crowded dormitory offered much in the way of privacy. Tonight, however, she had the place almost to herself, if one didn’t count her parents snoring at the other end of the Burrow. The covers were uncomfortable against bare skin, rubbing and chafing at places Ginny had almost forgotten were there.
This is the last time I test out a spell from some rubbish book of Muggle fairy tales, she resolved.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time: enlightening at best, a harmless game for a dull evening at worst. A footnote in some dusty tome of Hermione’s, Myths and Legends of Medieval Times, which she’d been scouring for any rumor that might point to the Ravenclaw Horcrux. Bored, Ginny had paged through it, her eyes falling on a page marked St. Agnes’ Eve.
There was a Muggle legend of a virgin martyr, and a ritual to be performed, and the tale had it that any virgin girl who followed the steps on the night of January twentieth would receive a vision of her true love.
Ginny wasn’t at all sure she believed in true love, but she was getting rather sick of virginity, and it just happened to be the twentieth of January. Why not? Maybe it wasn’t just superstition after all. Maybe it was like a potion-if you put all the right ingredients in the right order, you’d achieve the desired result.
It wasn’t as if she’d mind seeing a vision of the man who was her match, after all. He would have to be strong enough to stand up to her, confident enough to treat her as an equal. She thought of Dean, always guiding her through doors as though she were some sort of fragile flower. She thought of Michael, pouting like a child when she trounced his House’s side. My true love, if he exists, would not turn so sour at losing to me.
Perhaps he would not lose to me at all.
Now, however, with the gaily painted fancies of True Love and knights in shining armor dissipated a little by the salty-bitter taste of the ritual cake lingering on her tongue and the medicinal reek of the herbs scattered around the room, Ginny felt more than a little stupid.
She considered getting up, padding down to the kitchen for a glass of water, then decided against it. If I don’t see this through, I’ll never know. This bloody nonexistent dream man has to bring me the water. The book said so.
Ginny Weasley was nothing if not stubborn.
***
"Ginevra."
The voice spoke softly, and at first in her half-sleep she was not certain anyone spoke at all.
"Ginevra," repeated the voice, softly, the soft G almost a sibilance.
She stirred. This time, she could not ignore it, could not pretend it was only a trick of the winter wind. She opened her eyes, and gasped.
Ginny had only seen Tom Riddle once that awful year. He had been ink on a page, and moments lost as though written on water, but never a face, not until the very last. Not until he had led her into the very bowels of the school, corporeal now, given strength and form by her own drained power. His face was the last thing she had seen before going under. He was standing on the threshold of her room, now, looking about her own age, leaning casually on the doorframe.
She gasped. "Voldemort."
"Not Voldemort." He quirked a smug smile. "Tom Riddle."
"Same thing. Get the hell out of my bedroom."
"The finer distinctions may be lost on you, my girl, but as it happens, I am not in your bedroom. In fact, I will not cross this threshold unless it is by your own will."
"Never."
"Suit yourself," he said. "By the way, I must say that you've grown up quite nicely, Ginevra Molly Weasley." His eyes flicked with reptilian quickness up and down her body and she remembered she was naked. Her cheeks burned with the realization, and she felt the skin of her bare breasts flushed with heat as well, but she would not surrender the advantage. She would not cower, clutch a sheet to herself. She would play the queen, the goddess, the woman who need hide nothing.
"How did you know my full name?" she demanded.
"This is the Very Secret Diary of Ginevra Molly Weasley," he said in a high-pitched, simpering tone. "You gave me too much, my girl. Can you fault me for using the weapons you so thoughtfully provided?"
"I provided nothing," she said, lifting her chin high.
"Suit yourself." His smile was slow, as though calculated. "Hold out your hand, Ginevra."
"I don't think so."
"Don't be a fool. As you may have noticed, I still haven't crossed your threshold. I only mean to pour you a glass of water.”
She smirked, held out one hand, but grasped her wand from the nightstand with the other. "Prove it."
He gestured, and instantly her hand curved around a chilly glass of colorless liquid. She sniffed it; it seemed to be ordinary water, but she knew potions could be deceptive. Mum would kill me if she caught me accepting a drink from Tom bloody Riddle, she thought, but perhaps going along would buy her some time, and besides, she was oddly intrigued by the fact that he'd not ventured yet into her room. "So what brings you here, Tom? Or should I call you Your Lordship?" She put as much scorn into her smile as she could muster.
"I told you; I'm not Lord Voldemort. Not yet. There are men who regret the mistakes of their past; it seems that I must atone for the sins of my future." He flicked his hand in the air and produced another glass ,and took a long, savouring sip. "The Tom Riddle who stands before you is merely a man, not yet a man, even. Your age. And frustrated with the world, which refuses to grant me the respect I deserve. Can you tell me you've never felt such a thing?"
Images crowded Ginny's mind: her parents treating her like a precious doll that needed to be kept safely on its shelf; Harry ditching her for fear she'd die, as if she hadn't proven herself up to what needed to be done. Dean and the doors…
Tom smiled even before Ginny nodded, and she had the disconcerting thought that he was tasting her memories as they passed through her mind.
He spoke. "You see? You and I are kindred. I can feel the power within you, the strength; it's like an aura around you. You could be great, and no one can see it. They see only the fragile girl, the damsel in distress."
"And who put me in distress in the first place? Don't give me that sins of the future bollocks. It was Tom who tried to suck out my life to feed himself, not Voldemort. That was you. Now get your murdering arse out of my room."
Tom sighed. "Guilty as charged. I made a tragic error. I may be a great wizard, but I'm no Seer, and I did not see what you would become." He gestured toward her supine body with his glass.
"Which is what, exactly? A nice piece of arse?" She felt hot all over; took a great gulp of the cold water, and then recoiled. "Oh, my God."
"I assure you, I've not poisoned you; nor have I drugged you. It is only water.”
She took a deep breath. It hadn't tasted like anything but water, for which she was thankful, but drinking it hadn’t helped any. She'd been hoping to cool herself off. Instead, her body felt even more heated, as though the water boiled within her at his glance.. Suddenly she wasn't so keen on her "lounging naked like a red-headed Cleopatra" stubbornness. "Accio Bathrobe." The robe sailed across the room, landing in a soft heap in her lap. She set down the wine and put it on; it felt like comfort and childhood; smelled clean as innocence.
"Such a shame," said Tom quietly. He took another sip of his wine. She hated him for his serenity.
"Now, where were we?" he asked.
"You were telling me what a brilliant witch I was, I think. Or else that I have nice nibs. Not sure which."
"There are a million beautiful women in this world, Ginevra. Beauty is of no importance; it rots in the grave, just the same as ugliness. It's power that endures. You have power. You are the only woman who was ever worthy of me."
She was shocked at the ragged animal sound of her breath. The boys she had known had ogled and kissed and groped, but never admired, and respect was headier than wine. "Tom? Come in. Please. I want...I want to know if you're real."
"I thought you'd never ask," he said, a smirk twisting his coldly handsome face. He walked into the room, seemed to fill the entire space with his presence. She gasped, curling up into her covers, tightening the bathrobe around her body.
"It's no use," he said. "I'm the greatest Legilimens the world has ever known. You can hide your body, but I know your mind. I know every silly little thought you had when you were eleven, and I can read every decadent dream you have now." He reached out and trailed one cold finger down her heated cheek. "Tell me, Ginevra, am I real?"
She shivered through her sweat. "Yes," she said.
He looked up and to one side, as though trying to remember something. "Ah, yes. You've always wanted to be bound, to be ruled. Fools, the boys who treated you like porcelain. Incarcerous."
Silvery ropes shot out of Tom's wand and lashed her wrists tightly to the bedposts. She should have struggled, she knew. This was Lord bloody Voldemort.
No. Tom.
His fingers deftly untied the hasty knot she'd made in the belt of her bathrobe. She heard a moan escaping her throat as he peeled the cloth away from her breasts and trailed his fingers lightly, softly, over each nipple.
"Tell me what you want," he whispered, his tongue tickling at her ear.
She wriggled, strained against the bonds. "Why should I have to tell you, Oh Lord Legilimens? You already know; you said so yourself."
He smiled. "Of course. But I want to hear it from your own lips. I'll do nothing against your will; broken, you would no longer be worthy." He slipped one hand inside her robe and lightly, too lightly, explored between her thighs.
She writhed, humiliated at the heat and wetness she knew was there. "Can't you tell?"
"I told you already. I can read you like an open book. But is not poetry sweeter when read aloud?"
She pressed her lips together. Sheer stubbornness, but Ginny hated to admit defeat and confessing desire for Tom Riddle would be the very worst sort of surrender.
"Suit yourself," he said, rearranging her robe demurely over her body, vanishing the bonds, and walking away from the bed. He turned his back; in his dark heavy robes he seemed a shadow, slipping away again into the night, the one who could have matched her.
"No!" she called.
He turned, cocking a sardonic eyebrow.
"I...I want you," Ginny said.
He was silent for a long moment, and she was afraid he was going to laugh. Instead he nodded solemnly and walked back across the room to where she lay.
His lips were cool and dry on hers. He descended upon her, shadow-like blotting out the moonlight; he was all the world.
She felt destiny strike like lightning, yes, this was the way it was meant to be, it could never have been any other way... and her hands roamed over his chest, his face, revealing him to her even in the darkness, making him real. Words rose to the surface of her mind now as though written in fire across the night sky and she felt him read her, no need to speak in this place that was heaven and hell and home.
I want your hands on my breasts. I want your lips at my throat. I want you inside me.
He claimed her, his own thoughts for once bared to her, did you think I'd let you go? and as he burst within her, his eyes blazed red in the blackness like malevolent suns.
***
Ginny sat bolt upright in bed, a cold sweat chilling her skin. Just a dream, she told herself. Her breath still coming in short gasps, she looked around the room, and saw no trace of Tom Riddle in the golden light of dawn.
Tom.
No, Voldemort. By daylight it was impossible to cherish any illusions about his true identity; for all his pretty words about having been a different man once, that was the past. She'd seen the red flashing in his eyes. Tom was gone; Voldemort remained.
Any other morning, Ginny would have chalked up the dream to some errant scrap of himself he'd left in her mind all those years ago, but she remembered the ritual, the vision she had sought, and wondered.
Just a dream?
Or fate?
If it was a true vision, that must mean she was destined to betray her friends, or that they were doomed to lose and leave Ginny at Voldemort's mercy.
Or maybe I'll be the one to change him.
That was fool's talk and Ginny knew it, so she shoved it roughly from her mind and got out of bed. She was relieved to see her bathrobe hanging innocently on its hook across the room; if it had been tangled around her in the bed, her terror would have been complete.
She dressed, and padded down to the kitchen in her slippers. Her brother and friends were clustered around the kitchen table. As Ginny entered, they looked up from something Hermione had been showing the others, something she'd found in one of her interminable books.
How like children they looked.
She stared at them, feeling like a stranger in her own home--knowing she would always feel separate from them now, knowing that her story would end in darkness.