Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/9897104. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence Category: Gen Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling Character: Other(s), Tom_Riddle, Voldemort Additional Tags: Explicit_Language, Heterosexual_Sex, Sexual_Content, Angst, Tragedy, Drama, Romance Collections: HPFandom Stats: Published: 2012-12-05 Words: 1637 ****** The Ghost of You ****** by Bellatrixs_Lament [archived by HPFandom_archivist] Summary True love never dies, even if that love is unrequited. Lucretia Black had the misfortune of losing her heart to the Dark Lord when she was just a girl; this is that story. Mentions. character death, suicide attempt. No gore. (It should also be noted that Lucretia Black is not an OC, her name can be seen on the Black family tree.) Notes Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at HP_Fandom, which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on HP_Fandom_collection profile. Disclaimer: Everything and everyone belongs to JK, I just warp them slightly and return them later confunded but unharmed. Please read and review! Prologue "At the end of the world, Or the last thing I see, You are never coming home, Never coming home..." The Ghost of You - My Chemical Romance All Hallow's Eve, 1992 She was ready to go. The only thing that had stopped Lucretia from giving up years ago was the promise he had made to her. She'd held his words close to her heart, her very own well kept secret; the last thing shared between them, and had never dared whisper it to another soul. They would have called her crazy, and maybe she was; holding onto the perpetually thinning shred of hope that a dead man, a man who had died eleven years ago tonight, would return to her. Perhaps he was mistaken, after all. Perhaps he had not achieved what he had set out to do all those years ago. She couldn't understand it. Tom was never wrong, not about anything that she could recall, and he was always so sure that his mortality was a thing of the past, that he would never cease to breathe, never cease to live, never give himself over to the human weakness that was death. Never break her heart by leaving her that way, and yet he had. She was tired now. Tired of crying, tired of the emptiness in her heart and the ache her body felt when she thought of him. Tired of being forced by fate to go on without him. Her entire life she had been forced to do one thing or another; forced into a marriage she hadn't wanted, forced away from the man she loved because he didn't meet her father's standard of wealth, forced to raise children who lived and breathed to disappoint her and go against everything she had stood up and in her own way, had fought for. Her entire life, everything was based around decisions someone else had made for her because she was a woman, and thereby controllable. Everything in her life save for one thing, and even that, in the end, had been taken from her as well. But no more. Today was finally the day that she said 'enough', and decided, on her own, to come here tonight, to a familiar and beloved place, and say her final farewell to the world. Sad eyes focused on the murky water that rippled slightly before her, tears clinging to her lashes and glistening like tiny diamonds in the light of the setting sun. This had become a ritual for her, every year on this night, returning to the lake where the two of them had passed many quiet hours wrapped in each others arms during their school years, the place where he had promised he would meet her when his business that night was done. The trek from the village to the lake had become more and more arduous over the years, Lucretia not being the young woman that she had been so long ago; her bones ached with age as she shifted her weight from one side of her back to the other, hoping to relieve some of the pressure there. No, she was nothing like she had been the first time she'd sat by the lake with Tom Riddle, a girl, young and free, running ahead and teasing the serious boy with her laughter as they made the trek together. That had been the first of many times that they would meet in this spot, and every tree that dotted the landscape held a fond memory of their time spent there. Recent memories, though, were more difficult for her. She now sat beneath the tree alone when she came, and the only laughter that could be heard now came from the school that loomed eerily in the distance. That Halloween in 1981, she had waited for him, well into the next day, watching the morning sun cast its first rays on the school, and the dark cluster of owls returning to their perches for their daily slumber. When he didn't come, she had known, but she couldn't find the strength in her body to leave her post, hoping with the heart of a foolish woman that he had simply been delayed, or even that he had forgotten or dismissed his promise to meet her. Even that would have been preferable to the reality she still had yet to accept. The news had traveled fast. By the time she finally made it home, her husband and daughter were already engrossed in conversation over coffee, and celebrating the news of the death of the terrible You-Know-Who, while they spoke in tribute to the heroes who had sacrificed their lives to take the murderous man down for good. It was vengeance, Molly had said, for the deaths of her brothers on his command. Revenge for the deaths of people she had known and loved, and for the innocents who had nothing to do with the war in any form. It was all Lucretia could do to remain planted calmly in the spot next to the stove, all she could do to remain in one spot and not launch herself at the daughter who despite her mother's seeming indifference to the matter, continued to talk. And where have you been, Mum?', the question had been waved off with a shaky hand and a shake of her head as she made her way to her sewing room, excusing herself from their happy little gathering by claiming a headache. She wanted to scream, to release her anguish in the form of a yell that could be heard around Britain, she wanted to take out her anger on the walls and her family, and anyone who happened to smile at her that day, but she couldn't muster up the strength to do anything more than to allow her weakened legs to finally collapse beneath her, and cry until she felt no more. The world had breathed a sigh of relief when the Dark Lord had fallen, but Lucretia Prewett only wished she could breathe her last. There was one photo, black and white and wrinkled, and by now so old that the figures captured in time rarely moved anymore. Every now and again though when she removed the picture from where she kept it hidden, Tom would give one of his rare smiles to her and grip the waist of the girl in the photo to pull her a little closer. Sometimes, she would recall the feel of those hands on her, and at times, the day that photo had been taken. Both of them so young, so full of life, and both with the world waiting at their feet. He had dreamed of taking over that world, and ruling over them all, while she, so hopelessly devoted to him, had dreamed of giving her world to him and becoming his wife. But he never wanted that. Not from her, and not from anyone else for that matter. She knew how little she had meant to him, but it was her love for him that kept Lucretia bound to Lord Voldemort, and gave her the determination not to give up on him, for as long as he still reached out to her, she would go, always, and cling to him as though their romance were not a one sided affair. That was all in the past now, a past that was better not brought up, neither by words nor by thoughts nor tears. But she was still ready to go, to be with him again and in her own heaven, to have the life they had been denied here. Folding the photo back into a small square and tucking it back against her heart, she rose slowly from her spot, robes billowing gently behind her in the breeze as she walked toward the lake, determined that now, tonight, Tom would at last make good on the promise he had made to her eleven years ago. A shadow cast in the dying light joined her own, seemingly taking this journey with her, by her side, matching her step for step. She was sure it was an illusion, a delusion of her own mind, but the shadow was a comfort to her, and it made her smile that he had come after all in some way, and that she wouldn't have to go this alone. As her toes touched the water, she let the warming charm she had cast on her body go and the icy fingers of the murky depths reached her ankles, causing her to gasp suddenly and lose her footing in the slippery mud beneath her feet. The shadow figure reached out to grab her, and she could hear the sound of heavy footsteps as the figure approached to rescue her, but it was too late. She fell forward, the splash she had made frightening a school of brightly colored flower-fish away from the edge of the water, surrounding her for a moment, her hair wafting out around her in long dark curls, and all giving her the look of an accidental Ophelia of the Shakespearian tale. Lucretia didn't feel any pain when her head struck the rock, nor did she feel the man finally join her in the water, lifting her in strong arms to gently carry her to safety. For a moment she hovered between sleep and wakefulness, eyes fluttering as she took in the hazy form that loomed above her. A pair of dark eyes met her own blue, and a trembling hand reached up to stroke across the smooth skin of her rescuer. "Tom," she muttered softly, before her world slipped into darkness. 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