Could've Been

"I won't go with you," you had said.

"You'll have to force me."

You told me bitterly from inside your common room walls.

But you had to go. You had to come with me.

Nothing could've prevented me from turning you back now...nothing could've ended the unbearable silence that filed the room as I gently stunned you and you fell to the floor.

I tried carrying you, but I wasn't strong enough yet.

I had to wake you up again.

I thought you wouldn't go.

So I forced you.

You came anyway. You followed me, despite your whining protests and soft, muffled cries.

I could stand already. I could walk with you. Funny, how it could've been.

We could've been two friends walking through the dark halls of the school, laughing and whispering secret jokes to one another under my cloak.

We could've been lovers, walking hand in hand in the pale moonlight shining through the window, whispering words of love to each other as you moved closer to me to keep warm.

We could've been so much.

But we weren't.

And you still came, and I still went.

And the darkness surrounded us and swallowed any hope of anything more between us.

You drifted even deeper into the gloom as you wrote your own farewell letter to the world on the wall.

You soon collapsed in my arms. I had to carry you--had to whisper the words to the sink in the bathroom--had to gently push you down.

I had to carry you into the chamber. Had to put you by the feet of my ancestor, saying goodbye for one last time.

Your eyes opened for one last time.

I kissed you for the first and the last time. We could've been so much, Ginny.

Your eyes closed.

I felt stronger by the second.

It was almost a pity I had to sacrifice you to live.

Almost.

And then he came.

Your savior. Your hero.

My enemy.

He wanted to bring you back.

He tried to wake you.

He held you in his arms.

I felt the anger well up in me like the ink seeping through my diary.

He could never hold you like I had.

He could never know what it was like--you writing in my diary, my ghostly image sitting next to you.

Us sharing laughs about the school--so what if it was all just pretend?

It felt real to me. It should've felt real to you too...

And he thought he could hold you like I had held you when the nightmares came.

Did he honestly think I would let you back to life just so the two of you could ride off together in the sunset?

Not after all I had done to return to life again.

Not after all you and I shared those few, short months together.

I wouldn't let him have you.

I would fight until I won.

So I kept my cool--explained the situation, and fought for my life.

We battled, albeit I didn't do much at all.

I left that to my basilisk--our basilisk.

I nearly killed him.

You were almost dead and my body was almost completely restored.

But then he killed me.

Scarlet ink spilling onto the cold stone as I felt the energy being sapped from me--saw the energy being restored to you again.

The pain was unbearable--where would I go once the diary was gone? I was but a memory then......

There was blackness in my mind for the longest time--the dreams ceased as did all my hope for renewal.

Then I met myself.

Lucius Malfoy had returned the diary to me--dead and lost with all its power--two years after it was destroyed.

I woke myself up from the wreckage that was once my memories.

I could never be the same, no matter what I tried.

Tom--I gave my memories back to myself.

Remembered all that had happened that year with you.

And I never wanted to forget.

And the memory of me was absorbed and the diary nothing but a book.

I put it away on the shelf, remembering how when I was younger I would stare at the cover for hours trying to think what to write for the day--what memory to capture.

I still stare at the cover sometimes, wondering what would have happened.

Had you died in order for me to live, I could've brought you back.

I could've restored you.

The soul of my older self could've joined that of my younger.

I could've been eternally young--eternally Tom.

Eternally yours.

We could've been so much.

But we weren't.

And you still came, and I still went.

And I'm still here, and we're still apart.

Perhaps living with the memory of you is all I'll ever need...

I still can't find it in me to cry.

It's better this way.

Ginny.......