Senseless

Senseless

I remember the first time I ever saw you. You were wearing an emerald green dress.

You didn't even know it was one of my favourite colours then.

I remember seeing you crying, your auburn hair flying out in all directions in the wind.

I remember smiling, feeling your pain. It was wonderful.

Funny how you, a mere toy in the beginning, would become my downfall.

* * * * *

I wasn't your physical downfall.

That was caused by him, Harry Potter, the boy with the funny scar on his forehead.

But my death caused you pain that you had not felt before.

You hated it when I quoted people I hardly knew, people you hated, people I had only met once, the one time I escaped you. But you know he was right. There were things worse than you dying.

There was always someone else dying.

Someone you loved.

* * * * *

Love is a strange term.

I had heard of it growing up. I thought it meant giving someone a gift. Or warmth. Things I never had. Until I was older.

Then I though it was lust. But love is something I hate now.

I was even in love once. In love with a girl at school.

She pretended to imitate my Parseltongue. I even taught her to say she loved me in it, although I lied and told her it was an insult. I told her eventually, though, because she started saying it to the other Slytherins and making me quite jealous.

She had red hair too, the kind you could twist around your finger while sitting. While eating a picnic lunch. Or while star gazing late at night and whispering dark secrets to one another meant for no other man.

I loved her.

She died, you know. Killed by the Dark Lord of that age--Grindelwald.

It was because she lived in a Muggle city. And he destroyed part of it.

I hated Muggles anyway, but that made it worse. She wouldn't have died if her parents hadn't been Muggle.

She was the least bit Muggle out of anyone I had ever met. I loved that. She treated me like a human being. No one else ever did. No one else ever cared. She did. And she died.

Another redhead would enter my life later. But I wouldn't love her, no, I would use her. I wouldn't even know of her if I hadn't restored my old diary and read about the little wisp of a girl who spoke Parseltongue.

She meant nothing to me. I did not love her.

But I would fall in love once more, again against all common sense, and against my will.

I would fall in love with you.

* * * * *

The first night was terrible with you.

I fought you.

You, of course, found me amusing.

I was frightened.

You hurt me more than once. I didn't know it was...supposed to hurt...

I wasn't that young either, but I suppose I was just naïve.

You did say I was younger than that boy with the scar.

Wasn't that one of the last things you said to me before you informed me I'd be sleeping in your room that night?

I think I'd remember every word you said.

You said very little, even into the morning.

I remember the sunlight drifting through the crack in the bed curtains. I remember embracing it for a full minute, happy for a sign of real life until you waved your wand and they closed so you could envelop yourself in darkness again.

You always did enjoy the dark. I never understood it.

* * * * *

It was because you were so young. So much younger than I.

* * * * *

You would say it was because I was younger than you. Unwise. Beautiful, but foolish in the way that I was naïve. But I know that, in truth, it was because your darkness was too much for me. I did not want to embrace it. I preferred the sun you once embraced too, the light I found shining during the day....you made me turn away from it and plunge into the depths with you, forgetting happiness forever.

You promised I would grow happy eventually, find happiness with you. But I knew it wasn't true. I always feared you. Even after you used that glamour to make yourself handsome around me, so I wouldn't cringe whenever you touched me. Even after the precious gifts you brought me, the delicious food you set out before me...I felt like Persephone. If I ate one thing, or took one thing from you, I'd be trapped in your Underworld forever.

* * * * *

I felt like Hades. For so many years I had been denied that which all other men had.

Call it stupidity, or perhaps avarice. But I desired something and I did not know what.

Surely, I wanted that boy dead. But more than that, when I saw them about to kill you, about to use you as their toy, I stopped them. I don't know what came over me.

I saw it as the answer to my secret wish, although even I did not know exactly what I had asked for.

I saw you and I wanted you as my own.

* * * * *

I would tell you that you could never own me. I was my own person. You laughed and called me stubborn and fiery...perhaps I was.

Funny, but it reminded me of my mother.

* * * * *

Silence.

* * * * *

Do you...remember your mother anymore?

* * * * *

Forget...

* * * * *

I have not forgotten my mother, if that is what you mean. But she means nothing to me now. She is something I can never see again. Not even Demeter to my Persephone.

You killed my family.

* * * * *

They killed your family.

* * * * *

They are your followers. They follow your orders. You told them to kill the Muggles. They did. They killed my parents.

I was a Muggle. Why did you not order me killed as well?

* * * * *

Because I love you, my dear.

* * * * *

Because you are a toy. I couldn't lose that.

* * * * *

You lied to me when I was still alive. But I remember...the day you killed Dumbledore. The Ministry wizards cornered me on the cliff. I was trying to ward them away. To save my...our...child.

They didn't understand I was an innocent.

I had grown to love you, although I would never admit it.

But I wanted no part in your darkness.

They didn't know.

They killed me.

I remember stepping outside of myself, seeing my own body plunging down the cliff.

I remember seeing you, crimson eyes wide with fear, standing over the body of Dumbledore.

I remember a sudden spell stopping my descent. That girl--what was her name? The wisp of a girl who had now grown....Ginny, I think, saving me. Well, my body, at least.

The boy saw you, you know. The scarred one. He saw the look in your eyes as you realized I was gone.

The pain.

The fury.

The sadness.

And no heir to your throne.

The child was dead too. The spell had done us both in, obviously.

To think you had said a few more weeks and the child would be ours to raise together.

(Not that you'd ever have helped. You were not the fatherly type.)

::chuckle:: Lies....

* * * * *

The boy saw all of that in your eyes.

You saw him, but you didn't kill him.

Didn't try to, not then anyway.

Ginny turned as you disappeared and reappeared right next to me. Well, my body.

You took the body and left before any wizards, or anyone could stop you.

I was the last hope you had ever given towards love or happiness.

I had brought Tom Riddle out of you again, my love. But now...

Tom was dead.

I was dead.

You were nothing now.

Any human that had remained was ripped into shreds.

My sightless eyes looked into yours, and you died, love.

You forgot you loved me, didn't you?

Forgot you loved......anything....

I wish I could have stayed. Wish I could have lived.

I could have changed you.

At least, the naïve little girl in me wished she could have.

But you were doomed to being the Dark Lord, weren't you?

The Dark Lord with no heir, and with no Lady to share your throne.

Without love.

It is no wonder you died alone and unloved.

Poor, poor Tom...

* * * * *

But I did love you...

You left me.

They always leave me.

Always.

Love?

Love, are you there?

God...I can't hold this connection forever....

Don't die, love, there is nothing beyond it...

* * * * *

I see a light....

Oh it's so very pretty, Tom. It feels so warm. I've been so cold.

Meet me here someday, will you Tom?

* * * * *

Listen to me, damnit! Stay here!

This necromancy isn't worth it if you leave me!

I can bring you back!

...

* * * * *

No, Tom. No one can bring back the dead.

I'm afraid if you don't believe in heaven you can't go there......

I'll miss you.

Goodbye, love.

* * * * *

He stared long after she had gone, long after the candles had gone out in the graveyard and the chalk circles had stopped glowing.

The little watery-eyed man watched his Master stare at the tomb for another moment before turning to go.

His crimson eyes stared and stared.

He couldn't feel anything.

Tom, perhaps, had died and gone with her.

But he was left behind.

Alone.