I'm Bound Forever To Tom

I never meant to fall in love with him. He was so cold towards me, yet not unfriendly. It was almost as if he was trying to protect me from something I couldn't handle. I didn't find out exactly what that was until it was too late. Harry saved me from the truth, just in time. I hated him for it.

I wanted to stay down in that cold chamber forever. Tom was a drug that kept me high forever, as long as I was with him. I was addicted to him. Every cold, goose bump forming touch he gave me fired through my veins and made me demand more. Of course he would never give me what I wanted. He found through trial and error that it was best to keep me wanting things. I suppose I was easier to handle then.

I was young when he corrupted me with his seductive smiles and dangerous aurora. I was too innocent to understand what he was slowly doing to me. How was I supposed to know that the advances he shot towards me were slowing leading me to my impending death?

I don't think he meant if to get that out of hand. I mean- I know he needed and wanted a sacrifice in order to save himself, let him out of the darkness he was shut in for so long. But he didn't mean to use me. I think he loved me. He told me time and time again, while I was shuddering in the damp darkness that I was trapped in, that he was sorry. I believed him, I still believe him. No one can be that impure at heart.

I don't know how I fell in love with him. He always listened to me. He knew exactly what I was thinking and why. And when I was sad and wishing for my exhausted life to end, he made me feel glad to be me again. Everyone believed in their own way that I was brainwashed. They covered me with awestruck looks and thankful hugs, ignoring my outcries of pain from the result of being separated from my soul mate. He was my soul mate. Now one understood this, and I thought it was imperative to make them believe that I had to be with Tom, the holder of my heart.

Down in that chamber, something happened to me. I changed without knowing it. Tom had made my heart shed its purity and made it bleed with a distortion for what was real and good. Years later, this would be the mark Tom left on me; branding my skin forever with a smear no other could recreate or destroy. I was forever and I managed to turn my head away from what was happening to myself. I did not want to see myself change- yet I trusted this man enough to mold me into his ideal woman. I so wanted to be whatever he could imagine. I wanted to please him.

That's where I got in too deep. By the time I realized that this man was not to be trusted I was to far away from the girl I was before. I was a different one, with different eyes that seemed to have lost their sparkle, with different hair that seemed to have lost its bounce and with a different smile that no longer seemed to reveal the teeth it once shown. Harry knew this. When he saw my broken body, he saw everything that had twisted into what Tom wanted it to be. And he fought my hero, to the last drop of his being. Harry thought that Tom had raped me of all that was mine, but he didn't understand. I committed myself to him- I let him change me.

And when Harry saved me, he gave me a look that said, "Don't worry Ginny, I'll take care of you." He didn't understand that I didn't need saving and was perfectly fine on the cold flagstone. That's when he fell in love with me, he told me in the years to come. When he saw me helpless and alone, he said, it made him feel that I was connected to him now and that through everything, we would survive together.

I don't remember how I got back that night, only that within seconds I was showered in those looks and hugs and I even got a few shaky kisses. But they didn't make up for all that I had lost. The hole in my heart got bigger everyday I was apart from him. I felt alone and no on could fix it.

But that's not to say they didn't try. In fact, Harry and I dated for some time after what we now refer to as "the accident", he propose exactly eight years, two days and three hours after I saw my last glimpse of Tom. I said yes only because of his eager eyes boring into mine.

On the wedding day, I refused to wear white, saying that it would make me look washed out next to my red hair. Deep down, both Harry and I knew why. He cursed Tom and every generation to come after him. I praised him- I was thankful for Tom. He birthed a woman inside of me that I never knew existed and came to know only through him.

In my dreams, I'm always in the Chamber of Secrets. I'm always in his arms, sheltered by his chest and bathed in his kisses.

My soul will always remain with Tom. I'm bound to him.