Could've Been Saved ⇢ 𝒕𝒎𝒓 & 𝒉𝒋𝒑

2

N/A: I'm not following the series at all, and I'll probably get a shitton wrong because I suck at remembering details lol so I'm sorry about that. 

Harry almost gasped aloud at the sudden message that had spread out on the blank page. But just in time he caught the breath back in his throat, remembering that there were others in the room with him, even if snoring, and unbothered about Harry's experience.

Yet there is was, black ink pulled along into a handsome writing font with a rather not-so-handsome message.

Harry swallowed hard, this was more than he expected to happen even though he was so firm in his belief that Tom Riddle still lingered inside the many pages he leafed through, anywhere. The last time he'd come face to face with him was in the Chamber, where Ginny's small, unconscious body was sprawled on the cold stone-floor, draining out of life until the last bits of her turned Tom more vibrant and the memory of him became a whole person.

The Weasley's took it especially hard when Harry dragged himself out of there with her in his arms, a couple of limp legs bouncing around uselessly because they were never going to walk again.

Harry didn't expect that the reaction to receiving the message would take such a toll on him and make his stomach feel heavy, but there he was, feeling his eyes heartening up with the threat of spilling with tears so close to mourning over the redhead all over again.

Just before one could actually escape him and possibly drop onto the handwriting and make it bleed, he rubbed his eyes with both fists until sparkling shapes appeared on the inside of his lids and made him slightly dizzy. As the burst of black faded out and he stared back on the page the ink was fading out along with it, as if it had just reached its expiration time.

'No! Dammit!' Harry cursed under his breath. He licked his lips and dunked the tip of his quilt into the ink bottle, then went ahead and wrote something fresh on the go.

Tom Riddle. So you really are there.
How long have you been spying on me?
Let me just guess...without interruption?

His own message got wiped away the second he put the quill away from the last word, and then, smooth like velvet appeared another storm of letters one by one, a single word written in one skilled sweep.

                    Approximately Fifty-seven pages,
                    if you must know. And if it were
                    more   than    that I   mostly just
                    skimmed through  the rest,   it's
                    quite   repetitious  if you ask me.

Oh, I am asking you! Harry wrote right over Tom's message that was fading away incidentally. And there's definitely more I want to ask you.

Shoot. Harry snorted slightly at the simplicity of this answer, it somehow took the edge of his previous gloom, but it still hung there on his shoulders like a frostbite.

Where have you gone after the Chamber
revived you? And any guilty feels for the murder?

                    I've stayed at Hogwarts, ever since.

Harry frowned heavily, looking up from the page to look around as if he expected Tom to just pop out from thin air. This didn't happen. He picked up the quill again, dripping eagerly with ink. How's that possible? We've certainly never bumped into each other in the hallways.

                    *Hogwarts of 1942.

Harry licked his lips again. This was surprising, he would've expected Tom was more interested in the present and future where he could work on earning more power opposed to the past where there wasn't nearly as much opportunity.

Harry was about to ask him further about this—if Tom was automatically sent there or used a spell—when suddenly the pages all flew towards the back, and at last with the last page the cover slapped shut with a damp noise.

In the same moment Ron stirred in his bed, rolled on his side and pried his eye open.

'Harry...?' He croaked. 'What are you doing?'

This was his chance, Harry thought. If he could show Ron that Tom had been responding to his final message maybe they wouldn't blame everything on Harry's sleep deprived state. They could work on this together!

And so with a jittery kind of excitement, Harry waved him over with the notion that he's found something terrific.

Ron slouched over to the side of Harry's four poster bed, and unceremoniously plopped onto the mattress.

Harry immediately slapped the same page of the book open and told Ron quietly about what happened while he dipped his quill into the pool of ink.

'—And now finally, after Fifty-seven messages from me, well at least that's what he said—He responded, watch! He'll do it again,'

Tom, we need to talk. Are you there?

Harry grinned expectantly at the page, waiting for a response to form while Ron's sceptical eyes bored into his profile.

After a while of nothing happening, expect of Harry's ink to dry into the page, he decided to say something, 'Harry, I think you might've been—'

'No!' Harry said, a little too loud, so he made sure nobody had woken up before he lowered his voice and went on, 'No, I'm telling you...I was writing him just like back then when I had his diary, and all of sudden my ink disappeared and he—'

Ron had leafed a few pages back meanwhile, pinching up each of them like he was picking up wet rags he didn't want to touch. Then he flattened a page, one full of messy scribbles.

All of Harry's messages were there, but not a single one of Tom. For a moment Harry felt like Ron might've been right, he was going crazy, a normal symptom caused by a lack of sleep. But no, it couldn't be...

'It's okay, Harry.' Ron said, almost sadly. 'We all get a little too creative sometimes when we really want something and believe in it a little too much.'

Harry was about to protest, but then with the following words he almost wished he hadn't woken up Ron for this. 'I get creative too...thinking of scenarios where Ginny could've...'

Ron stopped blank then to press his lips together and stare with a faraway look into the dark corners of the room.

After a while he simply said, 'We only got a few more hours to sleep...' and strolled back over to his bed where he tucked himself under the blankets and sighed.