Healing Rain

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Something cold and moist fell on Ginny's face. She opened her eyes slowly to see that she was outside, staring up into a sky of velvety nighttime clouds. Large raindrops fell onto her face like silvery tears from unseen eyes.

Ginny sat up and gasped sharply. There was a pain in her chest that felt like the muscles were tearing to pieces every time she took a breath in. Her clothes and hair were all soaked, and she had a mixture of encrusted dirt and dried blood all over her arms and legs.

"Ah, awake, dear girl?" she heard him ask. "It's about time. This rain is becoming most inconvenient."

Ginny turned to look to her left. Tom was sitting on a large rock, smiling pleasantly. His wet clothes clung to his body, which was slightly thinned, as if he moved too much and ate too little. His hair dripped at the ends into those eyes of malachite. Despite his comment, he seemed blasé about the rain. His cloak lay on the ground next to Ginny, and she could tell that he had, at one point, been sitting beside her.

"What? I thought . . . ."

"A small change of plans," Tom explained to her, with a flippant tone. "I may need your assistance yet. I've performed the Absorption Spell," he told her, delighting somewhat as a look of hope vanished from her eyes, "We are both back in your time, out by the lake. I decided not to aim for your heart, however. I'll need you to acquire certain pieces of information. Mostly from Potter, of course, but I have everything worked out."

Ginny scowled. "Oh? Is that so? And what if I decide not to? What if I decide to tell Dumbledore about everything."

For a moment, Ginny thought she had seen a momentary glance of panic in Tom's eyes. If she had, however, it had vanished into a look of cold malice.

"If you were to decide on that, then I would repay you properly with your brother's life. I don't think you want to take that chance, do you?"

Ginny's eyes dampened. "No," she answered softly.

Tom's face returned to its usual indifferent expression. "Good. You're a very loyal sister. You should count yourself lucky that you have a family worth protecting."

"Save me the sob story, alright?" she snapped, her eyes blazing with tears that begged to fall. "I don't care. You're not going to earn my pity."

Tom stood, walked over to her slowly, and kneeled down next to her. Grabbing the front of her robes, he pulled her to his face. His scent -- a smell of musky ingredients that Snape had, at one time, presented to the class and explained to be crucial for many Dark Potions -- flared inside her senses. It seemed both very repugnant, but also very sweet, and became almost enthralling.

"Let me make one thing clear to you, Weasley," he told her, in a soft and deadly voice. "I do not dwell on my family. I require no pity, and furthermore, I despise it to an incredulous amount. You will do better to remember this next time you feel compelled to accuse me of anything otherwise. Is this in anyway unclear?"

Ginny shook her head quickly, overtaken by fear from the anger in Tom's every movement and word.

He let her go and regained his cool. "Very well, then. Now that we have that settled, I'll be requiring something to eat. Go nick some food out of the kitchens. You may also steal some for yourself, if you'd like."

"Oh, you're too gracious," she spat, standing to her feet.

Tom shrugged. "I like to be courteous."

"Well, then, Mr. Polite . . . just how do you expect me to get into the kitchens without being caught by Filch?"

He narrowed his eyes curiously. "Is that the owner of the cat? The squib? Sneak around. Stealing is the reason that lurking was given to us humans."

Ginny gawked. "Me? Sneak around? I don't think so. I'll get caught."

Tom considered her briefly. "Yes, you're right," he sighed. "It is too much to ask a Gryffindor for some real cunning, isn't it? Here, take this."

He threw Harry's invisibility cloak to her and she looked at him curiously.

"I found it on the floor of the girls' bathroom," he explained. "Use it to sneak about."

Ginny nodded and started to trek up towards the castle.

"Oh, and Ginny?"

She turned to look at Tom.

He smiled at her with a look that could be described as concerned, if such a word could ever be used about Tom Riddle.

"Keep in mind what I said about . . . Ron, is it? In case you decide to visit anybody."

She shuddered and walked off. Before she entered the castle, she turned back to look through the soft mist of rain at him. He had pulled out his wand and was drawing silvery shapes in the air. His face was set in a sort of amused and innocent wonder at the way the metallic figures moved when he moved the wand.

For one solitary moment, Ginny felt a wave of pity for him sweep over her heart.

*****

"You know, I think Hogwarts has the best food anywhere. Not that I'm a good judge on the subject, considering all I've ever had is that stuff at the orphanage."

It was nearly an hour after Ginny had gone to steal them some food. She had returned with an armful of sweets and a large flask of pumpkin juice. Tom had tried to pretend that he wasn't too excited, but she could see that the thought of more than a dozen of Hogwarts sweets at three o'clock in the morning was pleasing, even to him. He had reclined a little and scooted backwards so that she could lay everything in front of him.

"Not the best of foods, I suspect," Ginny said.

Tom nodded. "Try mixing something much like mud with something much like lake water, with something much like . . . er . . . I'll let you figure out the rest. All in all, it's some of the worst tasting stuff you'd ever put in your mouth."

Ginny ate at an éclair for a moment, deep in thought. Then she looked up at him.

Tom took a quick drink of pumpkin juice and looked up at the sky instead of her. The rain had become a little more than mist, and he knew it was a matter of time before it worsened.

It was always a matter of time, wasn't it?

"It's funny, actually. You'd think it'd be a lonely type place. But it isn't; lonely would be too much of a Godsend. No, it's much worse than lonely. It's infuriating. You get beat and starved when you've done nothing wrong. I'm not the only one, you know," he added, now chancing a look at her. "I'm just the usual one. The one all of the new methods of punishment are first tried out on."

Ginny was horrified. "That's sickening," she gasped, pushing her hair out of her face. "What do you do?"

Tom closed his eyes for a moment. Just then, a small explosion burst right behind Ginny. She squeaked with surprise and turned to see a small puff of smoke where the sound had come from.

He opened his dark eyes and gave her a very sinister smile.

"Something to that extent," he replied. "While nobody is around, of course."

He finished off the pumpkin juice and stood. As he did so, the rain began to pound. Ginny found this very odd, but said nothing.

"You'd better be getting back to bed, Ginny," he told her. His voice seemed colder than before, and it made her realize that while she had been sitting with him, he had been almost human. "You will have quite a day tomorrow, and I want you to be completely rested."

Ginny felt a coldness wrap around her heart. "Tom, please . . . ."

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm sorry. I was under the impression that your family meant something to you. Do you mean to tell me otherwise?"

"No, Tom," Ginny answered obediently, tears now falling. She looked down at the ground in order to hide them from him.

Tom walked over to her and tilted her chin gently with the back of his hand, so that she was looking into his eyes, which appeared raven-colored under the shadows.

"Good," he said, in a voice which sounded as if he were talking to one of his mindless followers, rather than somebody like Ginny. "Now, do as I say. Leave."

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked, fully aware that his hand was still under her chin. "Out here in the rain?"

Tom smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time."

Ginny stood under the rain, not daring to breathe. She stared into his darkened eyes, trying to see what he was thinking, what he was up to.

Before she could ponder the thought anymore, he lowered his lips to hers. A rushing feeling of blinding bliss filled her mind as the rain continued to fall on them. She didn't care anymore about what he wanted her to do or who he wanted to hurt. She didn't care about a thing except for the moment, not knowing that this was what he wanted. Anybody who saw them at this very instant may think that they were just two lovesick kids, caught up in the flash of the rain and the moonlight, which would occasionally peek out from behind the clouds, as if watching them knowingly and trying to shine its light on who it was that Ginny was allowing winning her over.

Tom finally took a step backward and gave her a push towards the castle. "Leave. Hurry."

She nodded, her mind still dazed from his kiss. He gave her a light caress across her arm, and she turned to run back to the school and to the common room.

But she did not see the sly smile that crept across his face.

"You're mine to control once again, Ginny," he whispered after her, watching as the darkness around her became thicker and thicker until it encased her completely. "It is as I said . . . I always have control."