There were three reasons I really wanted to write this story.

1. A less traditional writing style. I've played around with other styles before, but only in one-shots – never in multi-chapter works.

2. An exercise in building a tangible universe for the story, even when the descriptions are stripped of the visual imagery I usually depend on. …Didn't really work out, I cheated…

3. …I forget the third reason, but I'm sure it's there somewhere. :3

This is the first new piece of HP fanfiction I've published in two years, and even though it's one of the least popular stories I've produced, I really enjoyed writing this and I'm even somewhat proud of it. Though I do need to go back and rework some scenes and sew some parts together. (Or, more like, give this story a draft number two.) The first two chapters are especially awkward and need to be redone.

I hope it proved an enjoyable read for you. Thank you so much for following with this story.

And if any of you are interested or willing to beta this story, or at least offer a bit of feedback on how I can improve, please let me know! I'd love to talk over with you on how I can really perfect this. It'll be especially great to have input from someone who knows what it's like to read this story from a reader's perspective, without knowing what each scene meant the first time around.

Now, after that long ramble…

Enjoy the final chapter!

She's taken to keeping a diary – a series of letters on scraps of parchment, all addressed to the same person.

Sometimes she makes the hike to the Owlrey, tying that day's entry to an extended talon, sending it into open air. These letters are mere memos, short and near empty.

But mostly, her letters are lengthy, and she places them on a damp towel and ignites the parchment. A missive sent to the heavens for no one to read.

…

Dear Tom,

I thought I'd be the one to tell you what the world looks like today, for once.

Today, the sky is painted black, and the ground opens up to the color of agony. I guess it's always been that way, ever since my sight was darkened. But in the past few years, I didn't notice it as much. The shadows didn't seem so dark.

Now they're darker than ever.

It's all cheers to you.

…

Dear Tom,

I'm no poet – you know this. You know about that horrible excuse for a limerick I composed first year for Harry.

But I have words to tell you, so I'll say it as frankly as I can:

Lord Voldemort's hate would exemplify itself in curses, hexes, sneers, pain. Death.

Your hate is silent.

And it's worse than the gnarring wistfulness of unrequited love. Your hate is cold and callous, and it hollows out my ribcage with a blunt pickaxe.

…

Dear Tom,

I don't know why I write you these letters. It's as if I'm purposely trying to relive my first year again. My real first year, not the first year I spent with you. My real first year – the one where I opened your diary, and you tried to kill me. That doesn't make any sense, does it?

Whenever I finish a letter – an entry – whatever this is – I always hesitate. Because I know you're not going to write back. You won't even read it, because I won't give it to you. And even if you did respond – I couldn't read your reply, anyways.

And the bloody thing is, I'm always torn about how I feel – relieved, disappointed, confused.

Mostly confused.

…

Sometimes, while walking down empty corridors as she always does, she catches scent of him.

And it doesn't matter what she does – if her heart freezes or races, if her feet falter or slip, if she speaks or stay silent – his reaction is always the same.

"Tom – "

His reaction is nothing.

…

Dear Tom,

You asked me how I lost my vision. I told you how, but not why.

In my universe, you were despicable. A tyrant. You killed friends and tortured families, all in the name of power.

And we were losing to your reign.

I was sent here, to this time, to create a new universe for the world – a universe where you allowed life to live. I did it for the people I loved, and for the people who deserved more than what you served them. I did it for everyone.

Lately, I've been doing it for you, too.

But what I wanted – before I came here, before I gave up everyone and everything I knew – I wanted to fight. I wanted to be angry, I wanted to properly hate you – and act on that hate – one last time.

That's when I lost my sight. In that last battle.

It's really all because of you, isn't it? It seems my whole life revolves around you.

Fuck you.

…

Dear Tom,

Do you know I can't remember the voices of my closest friends anymore? The ones back home, where I'm from. Luna, Hermione, Harry – I've forgotten the inflections of their voices. I don't remember which sound is which.

I've forgotten.

All I can remember are their faces, and I paste them against the black I see every day.

In fact, the last thing I ever saw – before a flash of red light – the last thing I saw, it was a face.

It was because I saw that face that I went blind.

I think he was just trying to protect me. Protect my mind, that is.

I wish he'd forgiven himself about that by the time I left. It wasn't his fault.

It was yours, of course.

…

To give up.

Verb.

To let your muscles breathe, let your soul rest, at the cost of cloaking your shoulders with the desolation of failure and letting your heart weep.

She's almost reached this definition, turning the pages of her dictionary.

…

Dear Tom,

Do you remember the story you told me as I lay dying in the Chamber? I remember it, nearly word for word.

The last thing you said to me was – "Put your silly wants to rest, and sleep your happily ever after."

Sometimes I wonder if I didn't end up dying in the Chamber, and the time since then has all been a dream.

But it can't be, can it? Even though sometimes I feel like I'm walking through a dream world, this is hardly any happily ever after, is it?

And so it must be reality.

…

Dear Tom,

I suppose I shouldn't accuse you of so much. After all, it isn't you. It's the other you.

But I'm afraid you'll turn into the other you. Graduation is approaching, and you still refuse to acknowledge me.

I'm frantic, Tom. I've lost my mind.

At the very least, I guess you can't say anymore that my worries are petty anymore, can you?

I was forced to mature too soon.

…

"Professor Dumbledore."

The pressure of the photo album against her chest does little to reassure her as she walks forward.

"I – I have something for you, sir."

…

Dear Tom,

I had six brothers. You know this.

You killed one of them. Not by your hand specifically, but it was because of you that he died. He was killed by your cause.

I killed the other five when I fell through time.

But in a way, they were already dead. We all were.

You can't really label what we were doing as "living."

…

Dear Tom,

I can't help but blame you, I've realized. I can't help but blame you for everything that's happened to me.

It distracts me from how I'm feeling now.

And really, it's all your fault.

…

Closing the door to Dumbledore's office behind her, she inhales.

This is it. The end.

She would walk down these empty corridors one last time before boarding the Hogwarts Express – one last time.

She does her best to ignore the gravity of failure taking hold of her stomach.

"Dear Tom."

Words that echo against stone.

She knows that voice. Her heart skips a beat as she spins around, because – maybe –

"Tom," she says in surprised greeting.

"I should've known better," he continues reciting – or maybe reading, she isn't sure which – but regardless, he's ignoring her and quoting her words. "First year, I should've known better." Parchment crinkles, and she decides he must be reading the scraps she had sent him.

Her cheeks flame as he begins to read another note.

"Dear Tom," he says, "you're an utter bastard, and I wish that I could properly hate you, the way you abhor me."

The syllables slip off his tongue and melt onto the floor, and she tries to comprehend the fact that he's here – speaking to her, as if nothing had happened. As if these past few months, there has been no cold war between them. He's here, acknowledging her – something she has despaired of. She's suspended in emotion, afraid to hope. As desperate as she is to move on from him, to be done, she can't.

And she's both slightly frightened and horrified, that he's clutching the words of her heart in his hands. Because as inadequate as they are, words have power.

The floor trembles with her as he takes another step closer, and parchment gives another dry laugh.

"Dear Tom, you can take back the handkerchief. It smells like you, and I don't care for it." Another step. "P.S. How dare you make me fall in love with you."

The heat spreads to the back of her neck. "I didn't think you actually read them," she admits. "Or at least, care enough to keep them."

"No?" he questions lightly, in a way that makes her think it was meant to come off as dry amusement – but for a resonating timbre that betrays his anxiety of receiving her answer.

Then suddenly, she's overwhelmed by his presence, his aura pressing against hers – and he's close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating from him, and it does nothing to quell the red that fans her cheeks.

"I didn't – I don't – abhor you," he says quietly. "Since that last Hogsmeade trip – I haven't gotten better. I kept telling myself that I didn't need – that I was better off without – that I – " He breaks off, and his breath is hot as he exhales.

Her heart counts the seconds of the quiet that follows.

"These past few days," he says, his throat dry, "I've been thinking about what happens tomorrow, and I realized – well – "

His voice trails to silence, and then she feels a slight tugging at her elbow where he captures the fabric of her robe sleeves. And just as she did during that first Hogsmeade trip, he follows the fold down to her hand, lifting it and depositing a square of cloth, his fingers closing her own around it.

"You can keep the handkerchief," he tells her. "It smells like you, and I don't care for it."

Two hearts hammer to the same rhythm –

love me

love me

love me

She's too afraid to respond – as if any sound or movement would shatter the fragile air that caresses them.

He speaks for her.

"Did you mean it?" he asks. "Did you mean what you wrote?"

love me

love me

Words – words she didn't know she had left, after writing all those burned letters – they push forward and tumble from her lips. "More than you know."

love me

His hand tightens its grip on hers. "I can't be your saint," he cautions her.

"You can't," she agrees readily. He's not Harry, and she doesn't want him to be the green-eyed savior.

Because he's Tom Riddle. He's somebody that this Wizarding world has never seen before, somebody remarkable, somebody far from generic.

And he is his own imperfect person.

"But will you let me be yours?"

She's not perfect either – but maybe what they both need is each other.

Maybe she could be his fallen angel.

…

Dear Tom,

There's a little more to the story of my blindness.

On the battlefield, I tried to take down as many as I could. I wasn't leaving until the itch in my wand hand had been scratched.

But then I dueled him – the one who took away my sight – and my spell missed and instead grazed the hood that covered his head. Underneath was orange hair that I recognized.

My family, we all had orange hair.

In an instant, I reached for the mask that obscured his face and tugged it away –

And it was him. Charlie.

I had thought him dead. We all – we all hoped that he was dead, almost, because that meant nothing worse could happen to him. One day, he hadn't returned from a mission for the Order.

He wasn't killed, as it turned out. He was put under the Imperius, following your orders for Merlin knows how long. You corrupted him, forced his hand to do dark magic that no one should ever have to do.

I remember a fleeting flicker of recognition in his eyes before the clouds overtook him again, and spiteful voices in his head told him to kill me.

But he couldn't. I was his baby sister, the one he used to coddle – because he loved me.

The curse that fired at me was meant to blind me. He said, later, that he didn't want me to recognize him, because he knew it would break my heart, to realize what had happened – but it was too late, I had seen, and the voices were already starting to chant in his head again, and the curse that ended up flying from his wand point was a dark one that would blind me permanently.

I don't regret being blind. He returned, a month or two later, while I was learning to adapt. That moment of recognition was enough to stir something back up within him, and with time he managed to fight off the Imperius.

My blindness meant that I could at least hear his voice again before I left. My blindness returned him to the family.

What I do regret – what I regret is the emotion that overtook me when I was dueling him, when I was not yet aware that he was my brother. Hate, vengeance, fury. I wanted to kill.

How many others have I hated, have I wanted to kill, without knowing who they were? How many other masked murderers were spelled just as Charlie was – husbands, wives, ripped from their own families?

I've tried to hate since then. Mostly, I've tried to hate you.

But I can't do it without breaking down in guilt.

At any rate, that's the last story I have left. I've told all the other stories already in these vanished ashes, in these past few months of silence. And soon, this letter will join its brothers in a world of cinders.

Tomorrow, the Hogwarts Express is headed for King's Cross. And when we ride it, we won't ride it back to Hogwarts as well.

A one-way ride.

Goodbye, Tom. I hope you do good things in your future.

…

You already know how the story ends.

"Where will you go once we leave?"

She doesn't know. "Anywhere that'll take a blind girl who doesn't fit in."

His knuckles kiss her cheek as his fingers snake behind her neck, guiding her forward until their foreheads touch.

"Stay," he begs of her.

Two unspoken words: with me.

His lips hover over hers. What he asks isn't a choice for her.

"Okay," she breathes.

Where else could she go? Would she go?

Heads shift, lips graze, and twin heartbeats race.

And Ginny sees something – someone – beautiful.

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…

Thank you again for following this story. I loved writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Two things –

Again, I'm looking for a beta to rework this story. Talk themes, flow, pacing, rearranging some scenes. Clarify what's still unclear. Drop a review, a PM, a telepathic message…

Also, I've written a spin-off story for this fic. As of right now, it's called And the Seven Victims, and it's the bedtime story Tom conjured up for Ginny as she was passed out in the Chamber of Secrets. It's a short story – like, really short. Roughly 800 words – and I hope to release it soon! :D

As usual, reviews are adored.

Thanks for sticking this one out with me!