Ginny dreamed she was watching herself relive an imaginary first year. Once again she had Riddle’s diary, but this time she did not read it in secret. Instead she carried it with her everywhere. She held the book pressed up against her nose as she walked to her classes. She ate with it in front of her breakfast. Occasionally she would take a long heron feathered quill that Ginny knew she had never owned in her real life, and write a sentence or two in the diary. For each sentence she wrote whole paragraphs came back with responses from him.
Her closest friends did little to stop her from reading the diary. Sometimes they would laugh casually or make teasing remarks about her ‘habit’ but none of them seem too concerned with the fact that she was sleeping with the book propped on her stomach, held open by her outstretched hands. She would awake and read more, write more, utterly consumed by her relationship with Tom Riddle.
Only one person tried to take the diary from her: Harry Potter. In every spare moment he was by her side, trying to talk sense into her apparently insane second year self. He shouted at her at mealtimes, he came to her classes and confronted her. Several times he attempted to physically tear the book from her hands. When this failed he went to teachers and friends, begging for their help, screaming that Ginny was being possessed by Lord Voldemort. Nobody listened.
In the dream Ginny watched her subconscious self with disgust. In real life she had not been that idiotic. She wanted to scream at herself to “throw the bloody book away!”
The dream ended with a massive fight between Harry and her obsessive imaginary self. Harry ranted, screamed, begged, and fought with Ginny in an abandoned classroom for what seemed liked hours. The heartless Ginny said nothing. She merely peered at Harry over the binding of the little black diary. Occasionally she sidestepped when Harry made a lunge for it. Finally she gave a cold, Riddlesque smile, and left the room while Harry knelt begging. Her face never left the page.
She woke up screaming.
The sheets were bunched around her ankles and twisted around her waist from the violence of the dream. Sheets?. Since when were there sheets in a dungeon? Her eyes flew open in shock. She was not in a dungeon; she was in a palace.
The first thing she noticed was that her torn flying robes were gone. Instead she found herself in a comfortable silk shift. Her hand flew to her neck and then dropped in relief. The simple gold chain she wore was still intact.
For a moment the light exuding from the massive fireplace blinded her from taking in the full glory of the room. Then her eyes adjusted and she groaned. It was beautiful. The colors of her bedspread and curtains glowed burgundy, one wall was taken up by grandiose ebony paned windows, but the room lacked what she wanted most: a way out.
The largest set of doors was to the right of her bed. They opened automatically as she came towards them, but revealed only a closet filled with fine gowns. There was another door at the far left of the room. This too opened as she approached. She found herself in a bathroom. It smelled of lilacs. The marble tub had thirty taps and was sunken into the floor. There were mirrors on every wall. Ginny left the room in frustration.
She found a third door next to a gilded chair. This one did not open as she approached. The golden handle would not turn. The door was locked. She reached for her wand and then remembered one of the Death Eaters had taken it from her. She yanked the handle harder and swore under her breath. Her room was no dungeon, but she was a prisoner still.
Just as she turned away from the door she heard a faint click and the handle began to turn. Someone was entering the room. Ginny stepped backwards as the door opened.
“How nice,” said a voice that ensured her nothing was nice about it, “Our honored guest is awake.” A small woman with remarkable black and purple hair stood next to the chair.
“Where am I?” Ginny demanded.
The woman grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would.” She gritted her teeth.
The woman looked to be on the verge of saying something nasty when another figure entered. A figure Ginny recognized.
“Try not to antagonize our ‘honored guest’, Emma,” said Narcissa Malfoy. Her smile was full of sarcasm.
“My apologies.” Emma gave a mock bow. “She just looks to be such a simpleton.”
Narcissa nodded in agreement. “You’ll have to put on something more suitable to a guest of Azkaban.”
Ginny tried to hide her astonishment. She was in Azkaban Castle, the fortress Voldemort had built over the ruins of the prison. But she was not in the dungeon; she was in the upper chambers, the abode of the pureblood elite. And she was being treated as a ‘guest’, whatever that meant. What were these people playing at?
“Close your mouth and start pretending you have a brain somewhere behind that pretty little face,” Narcissa commanded. “Emma will find you an appropriate gown, after which I will personally give you a tour of the place from which Britain is ruled.”
True to Narcissa’s word, Emma strode to the closet. She tossed Ginny a velvet green dress. Ginny haphazardly threw it on over her shift. She could not remember the last time she had worn something so nice. Cho and Michael’s wedding, perhaps.
The two women frowned and ‘tsked’ at her poor treatment of the dress. Narcissa recovered first. She stopped frowning and the sarcastic smile spread out again across her face. She gestured for Ginny to follow her out of the room, “Welcome, my dear,” she peered down at her as if she were an unwanted piece of rubble, “Welcome to Azkaban Castle.”
Ginny followed them into the corridor. The walls were lined with golden candlesticks. She scanned for possible escape routes while Narcissa explained that the eternal gold flames had been important from Thailand. “Many things in this house are very fine, so I warn you not to touch anything unless I give you express permission.”
“She might muss them with her dirty hands,” Emma whispered loudly into Narcissa’s ear. Ginny looked down at her hands. They were calloused but clean. Then she stole a glance at the two other women’s. Both were unnaturally smooth and perfectly manicured.
The corridor led to a flight of stairs, which emptied out into a massive room. “The third floor dining hall,” Narcissa pronounced, “But there is a much grander one on the main floor.” It was grand enough for Ginny. Its emptiness exaggerated its size, and the red velvet rugs its beauty. In imitation of Hogwarts, the ceiling had been enchanted to show the rainy outdoor sky. Narcissa primly led them through several other rooms, until they reached a pair of elegant French doors.
“The courtyard,” she said as she opened the doors. To Ginny’s shock, they entered a sunlit garden. They sky in the walled garden showed no sign of the rain that enveloped the rest of Azkaban, but instead revealed a cloudless day. Multitudes of flowers grew along the paths in the courtyard. They went under a rose covered archway into the main part of the garden.
“As you see, here in Azkaban we have a careful eye for beauty,” said Emma. Or decadence, thought Ginny. This part of the garden was full of pools and archways. Narcissa took a seat on a stone bench beside the largest pool. She sat on it as if it were a throne. She waved her hand and a house elf appeared beside her.
“Yes my Mistress?” the house elf squeaked.
Narcissa rolled her eyes. “It’s hot Tilly, and I can’t be bothered to do a cooling spell.”
“Of course Mistress!” said Tilly. The house elf snapped her fingers and an ornate fan appeared in them. She rapidly began to fan Narcissa, and the fan must have been magical, for soon a pleasant breeze filled the whole garden.
“We will rest here for a while,” Narcissa told Ginny. “You may continue to walk the garden, but don’t do anything rash.” Ginny, sick of watching the two women sun themselves, hurried away to examine the rest of the courtyard. She persisted in looking for a way out.
She came to an engraved stone door at the corner of one of the walls. The door had a fancy handle with a large keyhole, but she decided it was worth a try. She reached out and grabbed the handle.
It was a catastrophically cold. Ginny stifled a cry of pain as her fingertips froze to the iron. With her other hand she pried her fingers away, then slowly rubbed life back into them. They were covered in frost.
She turned away from the door. She noticed for the first time that there was a statue next to the farthest pool. It looked to be pure gold. She came closer to inspect it saw it was a woman with shoulder length hair and a Grecian dress. The woman had a small upturned nose and a sad heart shaped face.
She realized she was staring into the face of Nymphadora Tonks. “I don’t even know why we have that statue,” said Emma, who had come up behind her, “She’s not very pretty, and she was rather obnoxious before we turned her into a statue.”
Ginny felt sick. “You mean that’s, that’s”“
“Famed rebel and Auror Nymphadora Tonks,” Emma finished for her. “Wife of that sainted werewolf Remus Lupin. We were going to kill her, but the Dark Lord thought a statue would be so much more ironic. She never liked standing still in real life; and now she’ll stand still for eternity.”
“You’re disgusting.”
Emma laughed. “Spare me the rebel banter. I came to tell you it’s time to go. There’s someone important you need to meet.”
She half dragged Ginny away from the statue and towards Narcissa, who was sunning herself.
“Show me your fingers,” Narcissa demanded. She grabbed Ginny’s hand and felt her icy fingertips. “Messing around again, I see. I’ll have you know that door leads into the Dark Lord’s private garden, and no one, not even his most trusted servants are permitted there.” She dismissed her house elf and waved her wand at the corner of the hedge. A flight of stairs was revealed.
The afternoon passed miserably for Ginny. The trio toured room after room with Narcissa extolling the virtues of each as well as the superiority of purebloods in general, and Emma making nasty comments about her at every opportunity.
They reached the main floor. They came down a glass elevator into an atrium full of people in fine clothes. Ginny recognized many of them as bitter opponents. Rodolphus Lestrange was engrossed in conversation with Alecto just a few feet away from them. She wondered where the other Lestrange was. Lucius Malfoy came up to them and kissed his wife’s hand. He nodded at Emma, who curtsied, and then inspected Ginny.
“You showed her the castle?”
“Yes,” said Narcissa. “Is the Dark Lord to make an appearance soon? Perhaps we will find out what he intends to do with this riffraff. I hope it’s something amusing.” She gave Ginny another sarcastic smile.
“Perhaps,” answered Lucius. He indicated the stairs planted in the center of the atrium. There were large double doors at the top. The doors were opening. The crowd hushed as a dark haired young man came through. Ginny wondered if he was some sort of servant for Voldemort. But no one followed the young man out of the doors. Instead he descended the staircase regally and then moved through the silent crowd. It parted at his beckoning. He came to a halt beside Lucius.
“Master,” Emma, Narcissa, and Lucius all bowed. The young man gave them an authoritative nod. He reached out and took Ginny’s hand, then leaned down and kissed her still icy fingers. Ginny looked up into his handsome face.
She stared into the black eyes of Tom Marvolo Riddle.
She turned to run, to flee, no matter what the cost, but her feet had been magically planted to the floor. She opened her mouth to scream, but her lips had been sealed.
“Come Ginevra,” Riddle took her hand and guided her though the crowd. Her feet could move now, but only in the direction he wished them too. Ginny felt powerless, ill, she wanted to struggle, to shout, but she could do nothing. It was not the Imperius curse, which she had experience fighting. She still had her mind intact, it was her body that would not obey her.
They reached the top of the staircase. “My servants,” shouted Riddle. “Today I introduce you to a very special lady.” He smiled, a haunting smile that consumed his mouth but did not reach his dark eyes. The crowd clapped politely, but confusion was written on most of their faces.
“As you know,” continued Riddle. “Your Lord and Master is a powerful man. I am young, nay, immortal, and I am strong. I have worked hard to bring both beauty and talent to our beloved castle, and today I bring both.” He lifted his hand and a golden flame grew out of it. “I introduce you to my fiancé, Ginevra Molly Weasley, your future Queen.” The crowd gasped as the flame in his hand shot out and formed a ring of liquid fire around Ginny’s finger.
Ginny could not believe what she was hearing. Where was the Lord Voldemort she remembered, the cold reptilian being? Who was this person with Riddle’s face who wanted to marry her? For the second time that day she felt sick. She must be dreaming, no, she must be having a nightmare.
“Let us treat my dear betrothed as one of us! Tonight we will hold a ball in her honor!” said Riddle. He motioned for Ginny to take the stairs back towards the sea of faces glaring at her. “Let us see what your beloved Potter thinks of this,” he whispered in her ear. Then he walked away from her, back through the double doors. They slammed behind him.
A/N: I hope you liked your cameo Emma! You’ll be in later chapters as well. Laura, Kitty, Maya, and Alyssa will all appear in the next chapter, which will be Vow.
Here are some great options for reader participation! Please answer/complete at least one in a review…
- Continue to submit cameos! I want more people in this fic. The more the merrier!
- In the next chapter I want Neville to have a lovely assistant/romantic interest helping him at the wall. Who should this girl be? Hannah Abbott? Susan Bones? Parvati Patil? (or someone else…?)
- What should Ginny’s ball gown look like? (Yes, she’s going…)
- In general, what would you like to see happen in this fic?
If you have any other suggestions or comments that don’t relate to these ideas please feel free to make them! Thanks again!