Return to Eden

Return to Eden

Chapter 22: Fear Finds You

"Dead I am the dog, hound of hell you cry

Devil on your back, I can never die."

- Rob Zombie "Dragula"

Ginny stood rigid with her back pressed against the wall, her eyes closed, praying to every deity that had ever existed that she'd melt right into it and the sight before her would only be a nightmare. Unfortunately for her, no matter how hard she wished and begged, Tom would still be standing there, as much in the physical world as she herself. The product of her naiveté.

The raven-haired boy paid no mind to her muttered pleading and started sauntering towards her, measuring his steps with agonizing slowness for maximum effect. Besides, where was the fun in playing it safe when his mere presence had such a traumatizing impression on her? But it was more than just simple panic, he decided; Tom could smell it clear across the room.

"Y - Y - You're not real." Ginny tried in vain to control the trembling of her voice.

Tom just continued to smirk as he finally sidled up to her and placed his left palm flat against the wall next to her head.

"Of course I am, Ginevra. You made me that way."

His face, now no more than three inches away from her own, washed over her like a sea of wickedness, full of churning waves and blackened skies, and the reality of her actions hit her like a ton of bricks. "You tricked me," she whispered, finally coming to her senses that this wasn't going to go away. Tom Riddle was standing over her in a room above the Leaky Cauldron, her wand lay discarded somewhere on the floor, and there was nothing she could do.

"No," he said in reply.

He lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips down the side of her face, watching in amusement as she tried to turn away. Ginny grimaced as the Slytherin leaned forward to whisper in her ear, bringing their bodies in contact.

"You're tricking yourself." His breath tickled the hairs on her neck as he spoke.

Her azure eyes connected with his frosty, blue ones, looking for all the world like two chips of ice broken off an Arctic glacier. The sapphire depths shining from her face reflected profound confusion, and her alarm was momentarily forgotten.

Tom simply nodded and proceeded to converse in that same unhurried drawl she remembered from years before. "You're tricking yourself about not wanting me back, about not wanting me with you. Just like you wanted to believe I had answers. All the nasty things you can't admit to yourself, I know, Ginevra." He paused to take a deep breath before delivering his final blow. "It's why I know you need me, just like you've always needed me."

Summoning up all her Gryffindor courage, the redhead stood her ground and gritted her teeth. "What makes you think I ever needed you?" she hissed.

The malicious young man chuckled; a sound that made Ginny feel as if her nerves were being scraped across a cheese grater. "You're a part of me, Ginevra, just like I am a part of you." He trailed his right index finger down the slope of her jaw blazing a path across her neck and continuing down in-between the valley of her breasts as he continued to speak, his voice low. "I might have only started out as a substitute for that blasted Boy Wonder, don't think the resemblance escaped me when we came face-to-face in the Chamber of Secrets, but now he is the one substituting." He nipped her earlobe harshly with his teeth and his hot breath danced across her throat. "Your little schoolgirl crush isn't enough to keep you warm at night, not when you crave fulfillment in such a primal way."

His tone mocked her with sincerity as he continued to distract her with his wandering hands, but she was determined not to let him see how much his words and actions were affecting her. "You decided you wanted to be good, to sway his interest, and you tried so hard, to be the innocent damsel for the hero to save, but it wasn't enough. He was the one lacking because even in the middle of the struggle, he remained untainted by everything around him, too pure for someone like you who touched true corruption and liked it." A small whimper sounded from the back of her throat when his palm grazed lightly over her hardened nipple, sending tingles throughout her nerve-endings and setting her body aflame. He chuckled again in response as his hand journeyed further downward, his voice dropping to a reverberating growl. "Admit it, my Ginevra. Somewhere down the road you realized that he could never be as dark as you wanted, could never touch you the way I can, all the way down to the deepest recesses of your soul, catering to every depraved urge you've ever had.

"All those malevolent thoughts you keep locked away, afraid to tell a soul, those are what keep me alive in you. How much you hate being a Weasley, how you desperately wish you were an only child, how you viciously detest your parents for being poor, how you can't stand most of your friends." Trapping her between him and the wall, he grabbed her by the hips and pressed all of his weight against her. "How much you want to be fucked by the very enemy you claim to fear and despise." He shoved his pelvis against her abdomen letting Ginny feel his need for her in the form of his burgeoning erection. "You want me here: to protect you, to fuck you, to be everything you won't let yourself be, and to punish all the people who have hurt you. You can't fool me, Ginevra. I know your worst secrets."

Ginny shivered as she tried to quell the warmth spreading through her, but it was hard not to remember that the last time they'd come in contact she'd only been eleven and now they were very much the same age. The rough, drawling timbre he spoke with did not help matters.

He was speaking truths she did not want to hear, but there was no way she could avoid them. Tom had never taken her own feelings into account and never told her what she wanted to hear; she didn't expect that a few years had made much difference, but at the same time, he was the only man who'd ever treated her as anything besides a sister, a tagalong or a little girl.

Trying to put those disturbing thoughts out of her mind, her hands reached up and gripped him by the shoulders, trying to put distance between them before he noticed the very separate reaction she was having to him now. To distract the merciless boy who now had a deathlike hold on her hips, she asked the most inane question she could think of to continue the conversation, wondering what else he would say, and hoping she could get away before her mind stopped working completely.

"Why, Tom?"

"Because, my sweet Ginevra." Tom let his head drop to her shoulder as he pushed her further into the wall. His lips danced over her exposed flesh while he continued to explain. "You need me to be different, to be special, to belong." He nuzzled his nose at the crook of her neck as he inhaled, breathing in her scent as she gasped in surprise. The Gryffindor's body was responding in the most instinctive of ways and her knickers were quickly becoming uncomfortable. "And more importantly, I'll always want you. Even when your family doesn't or your friends, even when you don't want yourself, I will want you. You'll always be mine."

Her fear dispersed, the only thing going through the Gryffindor's mind was that a very male sixteen-year old was now pushed against her, his hips pressed against hers and his right leg wedged between her own, telling her he wanted her. His thigh nudged her opening under the skirt she wore, and Ginny cursed her hormones as she tried to clear her mind enough to voice a question, realizing that she was on the verge of a major decision.

"What have I done, Tom, to earn your good favor?" Her voice came out unsteady as she rocked back and forth over his leg, trying to ease the tension building up in the base of her stomach, and leaving a damp trail on his pants in her wake.

The Slytherin tangled his hand in her hair and brutally yanked back her head taking no heed to her cries. "You brought me back, Ginevra, not once, but twice. This time permanently. That sort of thing cannot go without reward." Tom peered down into her eyes from his lofty height above the petite redhead and noted with no small satisfaction that the blue orbs were completely glazed over with want. "Besides, my Ginevra, you've grown to be so very lovely." Dipping his head, his tongue snaked out from between his full lips and traced across her cheek in a lingering, languid stroke as if she were an ice-cream cone he could spend an entire day feasting on with long, immeasurable licks. A bolt of heat shot straight from the wet line on her face directly to her center where she ached for him most as he murmured huskily against her neck, "And you taste like strawberries."

I'm in deep trouble

was Ginny's last thought before his lips ruthlessly descended on her own, claiming them with sheer force. As she felt him pull her away from the wall and start walking them backwards toward the bed, she succumbed to him without protest because she felt weak from fighting and sin was so hard to resist; not when it came wrapped up in the body of a handsome boy who tasted of decadent, dark chocolate and rich, red wine.

----

"So, what are you trying to say? That we've been wrong for seven millennia?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to say."

Ophidia, Lavinia, and Ambrosia, the Three Powers respectively, were in the process of packing up their belongings to leave their little cave in the forest, something they hadn't done in over two thousand years. Nevertheless, some things called for desperate measures, and though they loathed to admit it, they needed to be out among the mortals. The consequences otherwise were too disastrous to even contemplate. The universe was caught in a delicate balance at the moment, and one wrong move in any direction might be the end for them all.

Lavinia turned to her evil counterpart with a disbelieving huff and her shoulders set with determination. "I really don't see how we could be. The signs are all there."

The old hag raised a gnarled finger and stabbed it in the direction of the unraveling tapestry. "Do you not see that, wench? If you're so convinced that everything we saw and was told is the truth, how do you explain that?"

The sorceress inhaled sharply as righteous indignation flashed in her eyes, a tongue-lashing ready on her lips to be unleashed; but when a plausible explanation failed to come, she shrugged her shoulders in defeat.

Ambrosia sighed. They had done nothing but argue ever since she announced that morning her plans to go out and try to get some answers regarding the very real threat hanging over their heads. The youngest Weasley boy had gone out of control when he concluded that he was no longer in the running for the Granger girl. An oversight on their part that could have been easily remedied if they had expected the reaction of young Master Malfoy.

As the nymph collected a myriad of potion bottles from her shelf with a wave of her hand and packed them away into a shrinkable trunk, she reflected on how little they knew of human emotions even after watching them constantly for thousands of years.

Young love was something they saw quite frequently in their time as fate-keepers. It was passionate and strong, but usually, it tended to happen quickly, over and done before it really began and yet never forgotten.

How were they supposed to know that making sure the two kids stayed together was the only way to complete this cockamamie shift?

Apparently, the One True Power was one cynical bastard to have so much riding on the relationship between two hormone-driven teenagers. Or maybe he was just a romantic at heart.

Ambrosia seriously doubted it.

Either way, the more the blonde Slytherin and the brunette Gryffindor separated from each other, both physically and emotionally, the faster the tapestry unraveled itself. Soon, it would be nothing but a pile of string on the floor if things continued to proceed as is. No one would have a fate if that came to pass, even them.

Nodding her head to herself as she double-checked her things, Ambrosia took a deep breath before facing her comrades. "I know that this is difficult to accept, but it's something we have to do."

Lavinia focused her glare away from the hag she'd been quarreling with and redirected it towards the fairy-like creature. "Isn't there some other way to clarify what is happening? The signs never lie, and I don't feel there's any reason to leave the cave," she tried to reason.

Cackling so hard she was nearly bent halfway over, Ophidia was overcome with the witch's ability to rationalize. She drew in great puffs of air trying to catch her breath as she pointed out the holes in the other woman's logic. "So things are hunky-dory, eh?" The hag cut her off before she had time to reply. "What about the death of the Zabini girl? Or Longbottom? That's two student deaths at Hogwarts in less than a week. Think about it: Hogwarts, a school that has seen less than a handful of student deaths since its inception, is now tearing itself apart from the inside. What could possibly be wrong?"

Ambrosia was not amused by her level of cynicism. "That's enough." She moved to exit the cave knowing the other two would follow. "We have an appointment with Professor Dumbledore and I fully intend to keep it."

----

"What do you think you're doing here?"

Draco snapped to attention from where he was sitting at his desk in the study once he heard Blaise shriek shrilly behind him. Turning slowly with a narrowed gaze, his scowl darkened when the intensity of her glare met his own. She was standing near the window overlooking the gardens, and telling by the fire lit behind her violet eyes, she was obviously not happy with him.

The blonde Head Boy sneered in response as he traced his eyes over her from head to foot taking in her change of apparel since the last time he'd seen her. Today's choice was a backless display in powder blue that did wonders for her eyes and nothing for her skin tone.

He sniffed haughtily at that. Blaise had always had a fondness for that ridiculous color, no matter how many times he told her that the pale complexions of aristocracy and light, cool colors did not mix; she would continue to wear it even if it made the veins in her arms stick out like sore thumbs.

He glared at her again for good measure, knowing full well why she was there. "Where else would I be? This is, after all, my home, and I don't recall having any reason to leave it."

Blaise let her arms drop to her sides from where they'd been crossed in front of her chest as her jaw went slack. Hell, she had expected shouting and throwing things, maybe even crying though she rarely saw him cry, but not this nonchalant, could care less attitude.

The raven-haired girl closed the space between them and came to a stop beside where he continued to sit at his desk. He peered up at her curiously with cold, impassive eyes, letting no emotion bleed into them until the gray pools resembled nothing so much as twin stone walls. She'd seen that look many, many times in the past and knew what it meant. Rational bastard Draco had taken over the building and it might be awhile before he left.

Blaise was so incensed that she was shaking. "You stupid, fucking fool!" she hissed. Planting her feet on the ground, she shifted all her weight and shoved him sideways out of the chair. "You're just going to sit there while the best thing that ever happened to you just slips through your fingers." After moving to where she loomed over him without the desk or the chair to encumber her, she kicked him in the shin a few times for spite. "That's real smart, Draco. I thought I told you to. Not. Screw. This. Up!"

"Good fucking Merlin, Blaise! That hurts!" Draco batted her feet away from his abused calves and jumped back up to his feet. The scowl was back, firmly in place as ever.

"Good!" she huffed. "You deserved it."

The blonde crossed his arms across his chest and sneered down at her from his towering height above her head. "You always were such a bitch, Blaise. Glad to see that even death couldn't change that."

The girl smirked cruelly at her companion. "What about you?" she asked, her eyes narrowed into amethyst slits. "That's what you are now, isn't it? Daddy's little bitch?" she hissed.

Anticipating his reaction to her statement, she stood her ground not surprised when his hand flew back and let go across her face, his knuckles stinging her cheek in a brutal demonstration of his greater strength. However, she was not expecting the outburst that followed, especially the tears staining his cheeks as soon as he pulled his arm back.

"She left me! Not the other way around! What was I supposed to do? Just go running off after her? I don't know where she went and I'm needed here. In case you forgot, I have a baby to look after, your baby. And her grandmother is still here. She just turned and left, leaving me to deal with all of her problems."

Unable to express her shock in appropriate words, Blaise caught him in a hug before his knees could give out and they crumpled to the floor together, Draco curling around her searching for comfort. She stroked his back, trying to soothe him as he let all the things bothering him escape into his words. If Blaise was being honest with herself, the fatigued despondency of his tone scared her, as if Hermione's absence was having a physical effect on him.

"She just left, Blaise," he sighed. "Saw the mark on my arm and went out the door and never looked back. I can't believe that she would do that, just leave and not say a word. I always thought, if and when she found out, she would yell and scream, possibly even throw things at me, but she'd accept it eventually. She would have to, if she really loved me," he finished with a whisper.

Blaise cradled his head to her chest and ran her fingers through his cornsilk hair like his mother used to do when he was sick. "She does, Draco," she said confidently. "She does love you, but she's still a Gryffindor at heart. No matter how much she's discovered her inner-Slytherin, she's still stuck on the moral high ground."

Draco sighed again before burrowing deeper into the girl's embrace. "She's always known what I am, what my family represents, but at the first sign of what she must have convinced herself wasn't true, she bolts like our relationship meant nothing. I can't help it if she doesn't want to deal with the real me, not a more pleasant imagined figment of myself that doesn't exist. It won't be too long before she realizes it's a part of her, too. Dark magic is part of her legacy and one day, she'll have to come to terms with it, but I won't run after her. I'm not the one in denial and I have responsibilities that can't be ignored."

"Don't worry, Draco," she murmured. "She'll come back." Blaise took a deep breath, and in the moment before she exhaled, a deep, profound terror flashed through her eyes, but she blinked and it was gone. Trepidation colored her next words like she didn't want to know what could happen otherwise.

"She has to."

----

Percy was having a no-nonsense sort of day. Much like the one he'd had before the Malfoy patriarch paid a visit to his office, but Percy wasn't thinking of that right now.

In fact, Percy would be glad if he never heard the names 'Cordelia' and 'Regina' again. He knew, of course, that it was highly unlikely of that happening, but he could hope nevertheless.

Things had fairly returned to normal since he dropped by the Burrow and expressed his conclusions about Hermione to his family with the addition of Harry. For all he knew, they could have simply dashed away his concerns and not thought another moment on them, but he sincerely doubted it.

If there was one thing he knew for certain about his family, it was that they were skeptical until they got to the bottom of things. Outright determination was probably one of their better qualities and one that had helped him procure his current position within the Ministry.

However, having not received an owl from his mother or any other correspondence from his family, Percy realized that nothing too terribly drastic must have happened and put his mind at ease. Distressing himself over it would only turn him into a worrywart like his mother and that was something Percy could not allow.

Plunking his wire-rimmed spectacles on his face, he picked up the proposal he was working on off his desk and scanned over it, searching for any vital details he might have left out while drafting it. Finding a spot to reiterate his idea, he made a note in the margin with his quill, rapidly finding himself lost in concentration. A few minutes passed before he was abruptly knocked out of his focus with a bang.

Jocelyn Moon, his assistant, barged into his office with strangled alarm clouding her face. Percy was quick to note that her hands were shaking where they were clasped over the knob to his door.

"Mr. Weasley, you're needed in the Atrium," she said, her voice struggling to stay controlled.

Percy frowned. "Whatever for?" he grumbled, but the lanky wizard was already making his way out of his office and toward the lift, Jocelyn in tow.

The first thing he noticed upon boarding the lift was how very crowded it was. He spotted nearly a dozen other Ministry heads, a handful of Aurors including Amelia Bones herself, as well as a few Unspeakables. All of them had their wands drawn in front of them.

Feeling nervous suddenly as he glanced around the small enclosed space, Percy extracted his own wand from the inside pocket of his robes and held it, drawing comfort from the feel of the wood in his hand.

When the doors opened on the Atrium level, Percy, who felt himself a calm and collected person, couldn't keep his jaw from going slack as his mouth fell open. The occupants of the lift pushed past him, pouring out of the retractable doors like a wave, trying to make their way through the onlookers gathered around the sight at the fountain.

Hermione Granger had Luna Lovegood tightly by the throat and was trying to keep the blonde's head submerged beneath the pool of water. The Ravenclaw, for her part, was doing her best to stay afloat as she struggled in vain to claw at the grip the elder girl held on her neck. The most surprising thing, however, was the force-field that seemed to have formed around the two girls and if the Auror that had just bounced off of it was any indication, then it must be impenetrable.

Percy was so stunned, he couldn't move.

Apparently, Hermione had just been found wandering around a small wizarding village. She'd been dehydrated and hadn't been making much sense when the Ministry retrieved her to be brought in. Just as they had apparated into the Atrium level of the Ministry, Luna passed by them being escorted by Aurors on the way to her hearing for confessing to the killing of Neville Longbottom. Without warning, the brunette pounced on Luna and hauled her towards the fountain. That's when the shield went up and nobody could reach them.

Dread started twisting in his stomach as Percy watched person after person try to damage the shimmering barrier without success.

If they didn't get to them soon, he was sure Luna would die.

----

"I can't believe we're actually discussing this."

Pansy watched her raven-haired counterpart pace around her apartment while she smoked what had to be her millionth cigarette that week.

After the shocking news of Luna's confession was paired with the news of Hannah being expelled, she and Harry had left school separately and met later at the place her parents kept in the city. That had been four days ago, the day of Blaise's funeral. He was still wary of her, she could tell, but things were starting to look desperate and he needed help where he could get it.

"Believe it, Potter," she said seriously, her upturned face absent of its usual smirk or sneer.

Harry ran his hand through his already messy hair as he glanced back at her, his tortured gaze prominent on his countenance. "How can you be so sure this will work?"

The blonde Slytherin stabbed out her cigarette with more force than was necessary before springing to her feet from the reclined position she'd been keeping on the living room chair as he paced back and forth. "Have you not listened to a single thing I've said?"

"I have - "

"Well, then, what's the problem?" she asked irritably, cutting him off mid-explanation.

The Gryffindor sighed. "It's just wrong."

Pansy gazed at him in astonishment. "Wrong? It's wrong? We're at war, Potter. You can't be squeamish just because something might go against your precious Gryffindor morals. Do you want to be the one standing at the end or not?"

"I do, but I'm just doubtful." Harry took a seat across from her. "How do you know he's the problem?"

The Slytherin's eyes turned cold at his words. "I know."

"Yes, but - "

"Do you know what he did to Blaise in our third year?" Her tone was bitter as she interrupted him once again. "He found out she had a crush on that half-blood, Finnigan. He'd caught her looking at him one day and do you know what he did?" she asked in a harsh whisper.

"No," Harry replied quietly, knowing he didn't really want to know.

"He locked her in a closet without her wand. No lights, no food, nothing. Said he wouldn't let her out until she promised never to look at a lowly half-blood like that again. She was in there for over a day."

The Gryffindor shuddered.

"He once caught me talking to a group of Ravenclaw girls back in fourth year. Some of them weren't from wizarding families, and we were just discussing what we were going to wear to the Yule Ball. Do you know what he did then?"

Harry shook his head as he looked away from the blonde, his eyes unable to bear the acrimony radiating from her.

"He took out his wand and burned a 'S' into my upper-arm. Told me it would keep me from forgetting myself when I wanted to associate with people lower than myself and to which house I belonged." Pansy rubbed her arm where the mark had been in remembrance as she trembled. "I had to get Madam Pomfrey to heal it. Thankfully, she didn't ask too many questions and I told her it was just a hair-curling charm I did wrong."

The raven-haired boy stood back up and held up his hands to ward away any further examples. "Okay, enough. You've made your point."

"And?" The blonde lifted an eyebrow expectantly towards him.

Harry sighed once again, this time in defeat. "I suppose you're right. I suppose we'll have to kidnap Hermione to get her away from Malfoy."

Pansy decisively nodded her head. "Yes. For her own good."