Red and Gold

She sits in a red meadow, under the golden sun. The warm breeze blows her fiery hair back away from her face. She looks down at her clothes, a perfectly white, oversized tee shirt, stitched in, to fashion a nightgown. She used to wear a nightgown just like this, when she was 11. She holds a rag doll, yellow skin, red hair, scarlet clothes, and glittery brown eyes. She is playing with the rag doll. It hardly strikes her to be confused that she has never seen the meadow before, much less to look around her. She has played like this before, in the grassy lawn outside the Burrow.

She decides this must be a dream when the lion cubs come up and start playing with her. Adorable, just like big tabby cats, innocent and playful. There are six of them, ranging from bigger than she is to as small as a housecat, all orangey red and specked with gold. All seven of them wrestle in the red grass of the meadow, blissful.

Until one of them steals her rag doll. It is the smallest, the most speckled. She tugs at the doll in his mouth, but he tugs back, thinking it all a game. Finally, he wrests the doll out of her hands and runs with it, far and fast. She chases after the cub, through the red meadow, until the sky and the earth change places, the red of sunset staining the atmosphere, and the red grasses transforming into yellow desert sands. She catches up to the lion cub then, and wrestles the rag doll out of its teeth, only to drop it again.

She turned to find herself face to face with the mother lion. Her rag doll is forgotten as she runs away, as fast as she can. The sky turns to silvery moon and she shivers, her white nightgown providing little protection against the dark, cold night. She begins to cry. She falls onto the ground, shivering. She cannot summon the strength to rise, and simply lays on the ground, terrified and freezing, eyes wet. She feels a warm touch on her shoulder, comforting her. She turns to look, but it is only the silvery moonlight. She falls asleep, and when she opens her eyes again, it is morning.

The golden sun has returned to the sky, now she's at Hogwarts. She's also older, her hair is pinned up, and she is wearing the two-piece pajama set she usually wears now. She sits up, yawning. The sun warms her, and the green grass in her fingers and toes feels cool and pleasant. She sits there for a long time, just thinking. The sun becomes harsher, crueler, and the grass fades from green to dry yellow. She stands up, looking for shade.

She sees the shade she seeks, tinged green in the sunlight, at the edge of the forbidden forest. The dry grass bites her feet as she runs to the forgiving shade. There, she sits and waits. She doesn't know what she's waiting for, but she waits nonetheless.

Bored, restless, she stands up, to find something tugging at her feet.

Wrapped around her left leg, calmly climbing her body, slowly covering her, is a huge green snake. She gasps, and clutches for her rag doll, but she dropped it when faced with the lion. Had she been brave, she would be playing in the red meadow, under the golden sun, with six lion cubs, the mother and father lions watching over proudly. The snake climbs higher. She was cowardly, and now the snake is smothering her, she doesn't even have her rag doll to comfort her.

Except, she doesn't suffocate. The snake slithers over her shoulder, completely entwining her in its mass. She feels a pulling at her shoulder and realizes that the snake is trying to turn her around. Slowly, carefully, she does. The tugging continues, this time right in front of her. She takes a step forward. The snake continues to pull. In this fashion, she is guided through the cool, green forest. She hardly cares that she cannot move her arms, and if she did, there would be little she could do about it. The snake continues on, tugging her behind. She stumbles on a root, almost falls, but the snake catches her. She feels as if she could fall asleep while walking, the serpent would continue to guide her, take her wherever she is going.

Deeper and deeper into the cool, clear green forest they go, and when they stop, it is night again, and she is in a silvery, moonlit clearing. She looks around.

There, in the corner, there is someone else. He steps into the open.

It is Tom. Tom Riddle. His icy blue eyes sparkle, almost maliciously. He is holding her rag doll, carefully, as if it is the key to a very difficult and fragile puzzle. She had often seen him in her dreams, her first year in Hogwarts, but hasn't seen him for a time now. It is disconcerting, but familiar and comfortable. This must be a dream.

"Tom," she gasps.

He smiles, he must already have known everything that happened. He always did. "Who are you?" he asks.

"Tom," she says, incredulous, "It's me, Ginny. You remember, from four years ago?"

"Of course it's Ginny," he answers calmly. "Did you think I'd forget you, darling? I've been waiting for you to come back. But who are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, but I am Lord Voldemort." He replies, as if this was some obvious interpretation of his question, rather than a startling logical leap. "Who are you?"

"I... I don't know..." she stutters, now scared.

He smiles harshly, and orders, "Then come back when you do."

She reaches for her rag doll, now terrified, but he steps back into the shadows, her doll with her, as the dream fades away, and she is plunged into darkness.

She wakes up suddenly. "Who are you?" ringing in her ears. She pulls out a paper, and ink.

I...

The word curls over the paper, scarlet ink on yellowed parchment. Gryffindor colors. Harsh, glaring Gryffindor colors, like her bright red hair and pallid yellow skin from too many potions detentions. Like the all too bright early sunset, before it fades into blues, silvers, and purples. Before it dimmed into sweet, enveloping darkness.

She tells herself not to hate Gryffindor, that it will just lead to hating herself, but she can't help it. She had seen what was possible, the so much more that is offered to those who took it, those with ambition. She had seen the riches hiding in silvery shadows, just out of her reach, and she had turned green with envy. She had seen that she was too weak for bright light, and had found the darkness.

I was...

She stares at the word before thinking. Was, will never be. It can't even really be called 'was', it was a mere possibility, one that she had thrown away for a Knight in Shining Armor who promptly forgot about her. Was, no, could have been. But 'was' fit better. It is all in her mind, anyway, every last moment of it. All a Memory, right from the start. In her memory, in her mind, it was, not just could have been. Just as he was.

Is. He is. I am he would say, I am Lord Voldemort.

He is. She was. And yet, he no longer exists, and she is very much alive. He was ephemeral, unreal, ghostlike. She had been special, possessed, possessive. She is normal, weak and alone. She should have died, given in to the darkness. The darkness that is so much more comforting than the harsh light, the reds and golds that paint her world.

She belongs in the darkness now, that untraceable darkness she can never find any more. She had been, what seemed like years, decades ago, had been an innocent girl in a brightly painted world. She had been a creature of golden sunshine and bright red tulips, living in a world of summer days and familial love. Then he came. Her golden, untarnished hearth had welcomed him in. He had changed her, turned her into a creature of the moon. He had taken her warm, crimson blood and made it run cold, silvery green, inhuman.

That was the year darkness had enveloped her, she found dark corners easily, hid from the painful, garish reds and golds, taking refuge in the calculating, dim, cool, greens and silvers.

But now her darkness was gone. She was a shadow left out in the sun, doomed to be burned away in a bright flash of red and gold.

I was lady...

Lady? Yes, lady. As much as any 11 year old witch is a lady, she is. If he is Lord, she is lady, the rulers of their newfound aristocracy of darkness, betrayal, and death.

Death? Betrayal? Is that all she is capable of anymore? No, there are loyalties amidst the deception, there is joy hidden in the darkness, and love within the hate. She knows that. It most be true. She had been the 11-yearh old lady to a 16-year old lord.

I was lady Mauvaireigne
Virginia Maud Weasley

The dark queen. Appropriate, but it will never be. Was, she sighed, I was a lady. Now I'm a stupid schoolgirl. A peasant. A Gryffindor, burning in the reds and golds.

She dreams again that night, and she is back on the edge to the Forbidden Forest. Her snake guide has not come, before she sees someone running towards her across the lawn. A black haired, lanky someone. Tom. The thought is in her head before she can stop it. He is carrying a doll. Her rag doll.

Of course it's not Tom, and as he nears it is painfully obvious that it is only Harry. Harry walks up, smiling warmly. "Ginny," he asserts, "I was looking for you."

She smiles weakly, she can't find the strength to smile with strength. "You were? Why?"

"I..." Harry stutters, and then holds out the doll. "I wanted to give you this. I heard you lost your rag doll." The doll is garishly bright, And somehow all wrong. Too delicate, too intricate, not the sort of thing that one gives a child, but rather the sort of thing that adults collect in order to search out their lost childhoods.

She takes the doll, nonetheless, knowing that it will be lost when the snake comes to lead her to the clearing. She smiles again, and thanks Harry for his gift, no matter how wrong it is.

"Ginny," he starts, "You shouldn't be in the Forbidden Forest," he warns. His smile is gone and his face is masked with concern.

"Don't worry, I can handle myself," she wishes he would leave her in peace. Leave he does, confused, Ginny still in her little corner of the forest, waiting for the snake.

The snake does come, a few minutes later, and Ginny is once again led through the forest to Tom. She re-enters the clearing, and picks him out in the darkness, before he steps forward.

"Do you know?" he asks, still holding her rag doll.

"Yes," she responds, and reaches for the doll.

"Who are you?"

"I am nothing. I was... I was..." she can't continue.

"You were?" he prompts, a gleam in his eyes.

"I was a dark lady, those four years ago."

He smiles, and offers her doll back. "Do you wish to return to those days?" she nods. "Then take the doll."

Ginny drops Harry's jeweled, silken masterpiece and clutches her rag doll.