Riddle's Salvation

~Ghosts~

~"Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on." -Eckhart Tolle

(Vienna. July 22nd, 1944)

    I find myself in the glass tea room of Riddle Manor, the very same one I sat in to have tea with the Riddle's some weeks ago, the lush gardens dark and nearly foreboding outside. I sit heavily into the very same chair, placing the Gaunt ring on the table in front of me and eyeing it wearily. My hand shakes as I wave my wand, casting a quite silencing charm around the room as my heart beats wildly in my chest. Was I ready to say goodbye? I knew that this would be the last time I would ever see whoever came through due to the Ressurection Stone. I didn't plan on ever using it again and the fear was mounting slowly within my veins. What if they hated me? What if they were disappointed? What if I don't have the strength to hear what they have to say? The questions run continuously through my mind as I carefully extract the Stone from the Gaunt Ring, keeping in mind that I promised Tom I would return it to him safe and intact. The tiny stone seems to weigh nearly a ton as I finally release it from the Gaunt Ring and rest it in my palm, carefully setting the now half completed Ring to the side of the table and trying to steady my labored breathing. What if I can't say goodbye? The question rings through my head, dousing the fear within me like a bucket of ice cold water and freezing me in my tracks. I thought I had truly accepted my fate of being stuck in a new time some months ago. I thought I had accepted the new lifestyle, new friends and even the new war.  I thought I had proved that when I decided to face Gellert Grindelwald, when I killed all those people in that room, when I murdered a man in cold blood just a few nights ago and especially when I started dating Tom Riddle.  I find myself setting the stone back on the table and standing abruptly from my chair which tips over in the process. I begin pacing in front of the windows, running my hands consistently down my face and through my already messy hair, my breathing beginning to come out in short gasps as the panic settles into my bones. What is wrong with me? My eyes begin to sting as I continue my pacing and if I didn't know any better I'd blame it on the pendant that was still sitting on the coffee table in the other room. This wasn't the pendant's doing, this was my own. It wasn't until I reached a glass wall and turned abruptly that I realized I was no longer alone in the room anymore and froze in my tracks. "I can't." The words come out choked as I look at a concerned Tom, who was leaning against the wall near the door, his hands in his pockets and his hair a tousled mess. He raises an eyebrow at my statement and pushes off from the wall, taking careful steps towards me. "Why can't you?" I very nearly begin to cry at the tone of his voice, it's soft and gentle, something I've never heard from him before, like he was trying to calm a frightened animal instead of his very clearly distressed girlfriend. "I don't...." I run a hand through my hair again and try to take a deep breath before finishing, "I don't know." He nods his head and stops his careful steps, just a few feet from me, his chocolate eyes filled with sympathy and causing a stray tear to roll down my cheek. 
    "I could never understand the full complexity of what you have been through Vienna. These past few months since you told me how you came to be in this time I've struggled with the knowledge that I was the one to cause you all this pain." He sighs and takes a few more steps towards me. "This whole talk of destiny and such things made me realize that it wasn't me who did this to you...not really anyway." He swallows heavily before taking the final steps and gently pulling me into his arms. "Despite everything that had to happen to you before we met, you may call me selfish, but I'm glad it did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have learned something important, an important life lesson." He trails off, his arms squeezing me gently and his chest vibrating against my cheek. "What lesson?" He chuckles at my question, causing a small smile to emerge on my face as I hold him closer to me. "Hope." A strike of confusion fills me as I pull away from him to look at his face, giving him a questioning look in the process and causing him to let out a chuckle again. Tom gently cradles my face between his hands, using the pads of his thumbs to wipe away a few stray tears before meeting my confused gaze again. "Before you, hope was never even a part of my vocabulary, let alone something I thought I could ever feel. I had given up on that word when I was young. I gave up on the prospect and hope of ever being adopted. I gave up hope in having true friends. I gave up hope altogether." He gives me a smile that causes my heart to skip a beat. "Then all of a sudden you fall from the sky. You confused me greatly, in fact, you still sometimes do. Everything that you did and said, every breath you breathed and step you took caused a stirring of hope within my chest. I suddenly had friends, real friends, the kind that doesn't judge me for my ancestry, the kind that I can smile at and the kind that causes me to feel welcome. I was adopted out of that godforsaken orphanage, by my own father and my own grandparents. I no longer feel unwanted and unloveable. When I think of all the things you've given me, the most profound is that feeling of hope. Hope for the future. Hope for myself. I can't thank you enough for giving it to me Vienna." He gives me a sad smile before placing a gentle kiss to my forehead and pulling me back into his chest. "I know why you think you can't do this. I understand, even if you don't fully understand it yourself." He pulls away from me and releases me from his arms, taking a few steps back and causing the room to grow colder. "There is a part of you, buried deep, that still has hope you can return from where you came from." I open my mouth to object, but he holds up a hand and flashes me another small sad smile. "It's alright like I said, I understand Vienna. You feel as if you can't because it would be the final act of letting go, of moving on and in a way, accepting your destiny fully. The ghosts of your past are what drives you to create a better future, but don't let them define you. It's up to you to let go, no one can force you." Tom gives me one last smile before turning around and exiting the room, leaving me breathless with his words and a new sense of utter bewilderment filling my veins. The longer I stood there staring at the door the more the truth of his words hit me. I need to let go. I need to move on and find new hope. 
    It was these thoughts that pushed me to pick up the toppled chair and sit again. It was these thoughts that made me close my eyes tightly and turn the tiny stone thrice in my hand, but it was the fear of these thoughts that caused me to not open my eyes and face whoever appeared in a gush of icy cold wind. My heart pounded in my chest and I could hear the blood rushing through my veins as the silence stretched on. "You can open your eyes, Violet." The familiar voice seemed to freeze the world and time itself. I find myself shaking my head violently in protest because it just had to be him. I could have almost laughed out loud at the irony of exactly who I needed to let go of the most. "I'm not that ugly ya know?" I couldn't help myself when I snorted at the comment, which was followed by a choked sob that escaped without me wanting it too. "I'm scared." It was the whole-hearted truth and I couldn't help the tears that escaped from my tightly closed eyes. "You can face the once Dark Lord, a Basilisk and Grindelwald but you can't face little ole' me? I don't know whether to be flattered or offended." I could picture him clearly in my mind sitting across from me with a cheeky grin on his face and his red hair sticking up in all sorts of odd directions. "Do you hate me, Fred?" The questions slipped through my lips before I could stop it and I shivered at the long silence that followed. "I could never hate you Vienna." My eyes opened unwillingly in shock, the image in my mind turning into reality as I looked upon Fred Weasley sitting in front of me. "You said my name." The statement was a mixture of confusion and disbelief and he chuckled at the words. "It is your name is it not?" A crooked smile fills his face, one that I knew well and had memorized. "Not once have you ever called me by my actual name." He chuckles again and his eyes glisten in amusement. "Desperate times call for desperate measures! I had to get you to open your eyes somehow." I shook my head in bewilderment at his statement, choosing to ignore the melancholy feeling filling my chest at the sight of my ex-boyfriend's ghostly presence. "It just had to be you didn't it?" I grip the stone tighter in my palm and cross my arms across my chest as I look at him. "I was the only one you needed to see from your original time. You made peace with your parent's deaths long ago." His eyes dance across the tea room, taking in details of Riddle Manor before settling back onto me. A flash of longing crosses his features before it turns into a bittersweet acceptance and the look on his face causes pain to ripple through my chest and fresh tears to fall down my cheeks. "This is it then?" He nods his head slowly at my question as I desperately try to clear the stinging in my eyes and calm the stuttering in my heart. "I need to tell you something Violet, something that you need to hear and something that will hopefully ease your mind." I mutter a small 'alright' at his words and watch as he leans forward in his chair, his face full of honesty and love. 
    "I loved you from the moment I met you on the train all those years ago. Of course, I didn't fully realize that I loved you until I got older, I just thought you were a silly crush, but to me, you were always my Violet. I tried to get rid of it, I dated other pretty girls and eventually gave up on girls altogether because they weren't you, they didn't invoke the same feelings as you did and it wasn't fair to them. The night of the Yule Ball was the greatest night of my life, that stupid fight we had caused all those feelings to resurface and it turned out you felt the same way. The following years with you will always be the greatest years of my life. But since, well...dying, I realized that you didn't love me the way I loved you. No, no, no let me finish." He waves a hand at me when I start to protest his words and causing me to snap my mouth shut and let out an agitated huff. "You did love me, Violet, I'm not saying you didn't, I'm just saying that you loved me differently. It wasn't love at first sight for you like it was for me. It was gradual, it was slow and it took a lot of acceptance on your part to realize that you loved me. But with Tom Riddle, it wasn't. You were always destined for greater things Violet." He lets out a chuckle as my mouth drops open again in shock. "You were sent back in time and you accepted it quicker than you accepted your feelings for me. I'm not saying this with any sort of malice Violet, I'm saying it because it's true and you need to hear it. You needed to see me the most because you need to realize that you won't ever see me again like this. I won't remember you anymore Violet." His eyes fill with ghostly tears and he swallows heavily. "You see now? You and I were never really meant to be. I was never really meant to love you and you were never really meant to love me. I'm sorry Violet but you need to let me go. Your life is here now along with your future and you can't move on if you keep holding on to the memory of me. Tall, dark and handsome is your future and I think you've known that for a while now." Fred wipes at his eyes, brushing away the unshed tears and giving me another crooked smile. "Old Tommy boy was right ya know? I have to say he's a damn lucky man for winning your heart so quickly, maybe one day I can ask him for some advice on lady wrangling." I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of my chest and filled the air. Here Fred was, telling me to let him go whilst simultaneously planning on asking Tom Riddle for advice in the love department. "Good luck with that Freddie." His smile grows wider at my words and I feel a weight lifting off my shoulders and acceptance filling my bones. "I hope you find someone that can love you better than what I could Fred." His smile fades a little but his eyes still glisten in amusement. "I hope so too, I mean you were a handful." Another laugh escapes my throat and this time it's joined by his own laughter. Fred looks around the room once again before standing from his chair and meeting my eyes. "It's time for me to go Violet. There are others that are waiting their turn to speak with the all-powerful you." I give him a sad smile and nod my head at his words. "Alright then Freddie, thank you..." I swallow heavily as I try to memorize his face into my mind and say the words. "Goodbye Fred."  The finality of the words vibrates throughout the room and I nearly shudder at the echo. He gives me a dazzling smile and a cheeky wink. "Goodbye Vienna." In the blink of an eye, Fred Weasley is gone, only leaving me with my memories of him and newfound acceptance of my future. 

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AN: This was the longest and the most difficult chapter I've ever written. What a rollercoaster of emotions amirite??