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Oct. 10th, 2005 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
honoumikoGuess what I've been doing.
Yep.
I got back to my fanfiction. :D
If anyone is interested...
(Sorry a lot of it (i.e. everything Tom writes) is supposed to be in italics but alas. HTML too much for LJ to handle.)
When I Look at You
“All right, class, take out your books!”
The voice of Professor Minerva McGonnagall pierced the eardrums of all the first-years in their first transfiguration class at Hogwarts. Colin Creevey sat in his chair, a bit too excited, wishing that photography was allowed in the classroom. Next to him sat Ginny Weasley, curious as ever. She reached into her book bag to find her transfiguration textbook, but she didn’t see it. Confused, she looked around at the other students to make sure she was looking for the right book, and sure enough, she was. She looked again, but all she found was a blank black book with 1942 on the cover. She didn’t have the time to look at it then, so she decided to try and share with another student.
“Um… excuse me,” she said to the boy next to her. “My name’s Ginny Weasley. I can’t find my textbook, can I share with you?”
“Oh, sure, no problem!” Colin replied with a hyperactive smile and moved closer to Ginny so they both could see the book easily. “My name’s Colin Creevey. Pleased to meet you! Say, what do you think of that Harry Potter? I think I saw your brother hanging out with him…”
“I don’t know him that well,” Ginny interrupted. “He’s just friends with my brother, he doesn’t talk to me.” Ginny hoped that her blush wasn’t too obvious.
“Oh, okay. I got a picture of him though! Wanna s—”
“Class!!” Professor McGonnagall yelled. “This is not a time for chatter. Now raise your wands, we’re going to turn a bluebird into a tennis ball…”
~
Ginny's last class of her first day at Hogwarts had just ended. Fascinated by everything there and curious to see it all, she decided to explore. She made her way all over the library, found all the windows with beautiful views of the campus, and even had a few nice chats with various paintings. Her last visit for the day was the lonely girls' bathroom, eternally occupied by Moaning Myrtle.
The walls were made of glistening marble, and the circle of sinks stood in the center of the round entranceway, resembling a Spanish plaza. The stalls were a little further down, and were adorned with a few randomly located cobwebs, proving the bathroom’s lack of use.
"Ooh, a visitor!" came a voice from inside a stall. Ginny jumped back, startled. A ghost wearing a Hogwarts uniform peered over the stall door, bouncing her pigtails on the way. She rolled her ethereal bespectacled eyes. "I take it you've come to mock me like all the others," she whined.
"Um... No, I'm just looking around..." Ginny replied warily. "Who are you?"
"Myrtle... everyone calls me 'Moaning Myrtle' because all I ever do is moan and cry, remembering my life and contemplating my pitiful existence in this bathroom," the ghost sighed. The speechless Ginny found this a bit queer and remained awkwardly silent. "Well, go on. There's not much to see here. Unless you want to listen to me complain," Myrtle said matter-of-factly, drumming her translucent fingers.
Ginny shrugged. “Actually, I’d like to stay a bit,” she said, remembering the black book she found in her bag. She sat down on the cold floor, and reached into her bag and took the book out. It was covered with dust, and her hands itched as she tried to brush it away.
"What have you got there?” Myrtle asked nosily.
“Not sure, but I was thinking maybe you knew something about it, since it looks old, and you’re a gh—”
“Oh, sure, let’s tease Myrtle about her age! She can’t have feelings, she’s dead! She died fifty years ago!”
Ginny realized something. 1942, the date inscribed on the cover, was in fact fifty years ago. “Myrtle,” she said. “This is the year you died.”
Myrtle became quiet and suddenly curious. “What’s it got in it?”
Ginny opened the book. “Nothing… except…” She noticed something on the inside cover. The name T. M. Riddle was written there in skillful calligraphy. “…except this name. Do you recognize it?”
Myrtle stopped short when she saw the name. “That boy… I remember him. All I know is he was a brain,” she said quickly. She seemed to be hiding something. “Prefect, if I recall correctly. Hmm. Wonder what ever became of him, with a brain like that,” she said. If the less-than-opaque skin on her cheeks could turn pink, they would have right then.
Intrigued by Myrtle’s memory of the owner, she put the book back in her bag. “Thank you. I’ll have to look into this, it seems interesting,” she said. Though her body was heading for the door, her mind was preoccupied with what she finally concluded was a diary, longing for answers to all the questions that now nagged at her. "It was nice meeting you," Ginny said vaguely as she exited the bathroom.
~
It was perfect. Ginny wanted a diary to write in while she was at Hogwarts, and this black book was just right for that. She'd made a few friends already, but not the types she'd tell her secrets to or bother with her daily rants and raves. And she certainly didn't yet want anyone to know how infatuated she'd become with Harry Potter. This diary was the key to her sanity.
Ginny wondered about the story behind the golden date inscribed mysteriously on the cover. She ran her fingers over it gingerly, caressing each and every indentation of the shimmering text. Myrtle had said that the diary belonged to a student. She didn’t want to invade the privacy of someone she didn’t even know. But there was nothing written in it… what did this student look like? Did he enjoy writing as much as she did? She couldn’t wait any longer to find out.
She opened the book. The pages were blank, yellowed, and wrinkled with age. She picked up her quill, wetted the tip with the top-quality ink her mother had insisted she use, and began to write the date: "September 3, 1992..."
The letters disappeared. Puzzled, Ginny inked her quill again and was about to rewrite the date when five words appeared magically on that page.
"My, how time has flown"
Ginny's eyes widened with amazement. The diary was alive, and it was capable of reading what she wrote! Somewhat frightened, but mostly just thrilled, her hand trembled as her thoughts scrambled to question the living diary.
"Is there a spirit in this diary?"
The ink sank into the page, and reappeared as the diary's reply.
"No. I'm a mere memory of a young man, but I am able to exist through my diary. What is your name?"
"Ginny Weasley," she answered. "Are you Mr. Riddle? I saw the name on the cover."
"Please call me Tom."
Ginny smiled at the name. "Tom Riddle," she said to herself, letting the name echo over and over in her ears. "What a charming name."
"It's nice to meet you. Might I see you?" Inquired Ginny's ink. There was a long, careful pause before she got an answer, and her heart raced in anticipation.
"You will see me soon enough. Just keep writing to me like this. It's awfully nice to have someone to talk to. It gets a bit lonely at times, being just a memory," Tom answered. Ginny smiled at the fact that she was helping to take away someone’s loneliness. She could tell already they would make great friends.
Another pause.
"My existence in this diary holds the appearance of a sixteen-year-old boy; that's when I wrote in it. But I'm much older. How old are you?"
"I'm eleven."
"Such a wonderful age. Tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you."
Thus, as Ginny began to write, her soul began to permeate through the pages of Tom Riddle's diary.
~
“Do you like it at Hogwarts?” Tom asked through the paper.
“Yes, it’s fantastic,” Ginny wrote. “Everyone here is so nice.”
“Really?”
Ginny thought for a moment, and remembered how horribly Draco had treated her in Diagon Alley. “Mostly. There’s this one boy who’s very mean. I don’t like him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Draco Malfoy. He was making fun of Harry Potter, and I stood up for him, and then he started teasing me. My dad and his dad got into a fight, and somehow in the mess I lost my Transfiguration book. And now I have your diary. It probably fell off one of the shelves into my bag, I’m guessing.”
“Harry Potter?”
Ginny blushed again. She preferred not to talk about him; it was too embarrassing. But since he asked…
“Yes, he stayed with us for a few days before school started. So we went book shopping together. With my family too, I mean. How do you know about him?”
A few seconds passed before the ink lied to her. “Others have written in this diary before you. I hear he’s very famous. Tell me about him.”
Ginny smiled. She didn’t know where to begin. “Well, he’s a little bit taller than me. He has black hair, he wears glasses and looks a bit bookish, but he has beautiful green eyes. He was nice to me, too, for what little time I spent with him.”
“If I weren’t crazy, I’d say you fancy him!” This reply was accompanied by a sloppily scribbled happy face. Ginny giggled. She’d been found out…
“Well, if you promise not to tell anyone… yes.”
“Don’t worry, you have my diary. Even if I wanted to tell anyone, I couldn’t unless someone else gets a hold of it.”
“Okay. He is very cute!” she wrote. What was it about this diary? She would never be so comfortable talking to anyone else about Harry like that. Maybe it was because she didn’t have to look anyone in the face while talking to Tom. She still wondered what he might look like.
“It’s fascinating how he survived the Dark Lord’s attack. I’ve always wondered how he did that.”
“So has the rest of the wizard world. He’s an amazing boy.”
A briefly appearing “Yes” was Tom’s only answer.
~
Over the next week, Ginny felt herself being distracted in class more often. She secretly memorized Harry’s schedule so that she could know which routes to take to her classes if she wanted to pass him in the hall. Not that she had the courage to smile at him, but it was still nice passing by him, even though there was usually only a quick glance or nod here and there. Harry never really seemed to notice her. She had made a few friends, but she still felt somewhat separated from the school. Maybe it was because she never talked to Harry; maybe it was her preoccupation with Tom’s diary. Both of these issues were too important to her to pay less attention to, so she didn’t mind much.
She started to become curious to know more about Tom. At this point, the only image she had of him was the diary itself. Restless, she made sure no one was around, and took the diary out of her bag again and began to write in it.
“Hello, Tom!” she wrote. “How are you?”
“Same as usual. There’s nothing very exciting about being a memory. How are you?”
“I’m doing great. I’ve also been wondering about you.”
“Oh?”
“What do you look like? I know I can’t see you, but I’d like to be able to picture you when I’m talking to you.”
“Actually, you can see me. But you won’t be able to talk to me. I can show you one of my memories if you’d like.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “You’d do that?”
“Of course. This was when I was reflecting back on some times two years before. This isn’t a very cheerful memory, but it’ll do.”
Ginny felt herself being drawn into the diary. Suddenly, she was inside what looked like a cross between a shack and a day care center. She looked around, and saw tattered books, used soup bowls, and a lot of cots in the next room. About fifteen boys, with ages ranging from about nine to fourteen, were scattered about the place. A middle-aged woman with glasses entered and clapped her hands twice.
“Boys!” She shouted. She reminded Ginny of McGonnagall – strict, but she also seemed caring. “It’s three o’clock. You know what that means.”
Most of the younger boys in the group began to cheer. The older ones just looked relieved. “Yes!” a boy of about ten shouted. “We get to go outside!”
“That’s right,” said the woman. “But first, we have to vote on an activity. Any ideas?”
There was an unbearable noise before she reminded them to raise their hands. Then there was only a silent bunch of bouncing bodies waving their arms excitedly. She called on one.
“We can play hide-and-seek!” This received a fairly vocal response.
“Or we could play football! Or kickball!” said a slightly older one. There was a racket, and the woman called on a quiet-looking boy sitting in the corner, alone.
“We could, um…” He spoke with hesitation. “A campfire with marshmallows might be fun,” he managed.
The kids didn’t even bother laughing. That would have made him feel a little more welcome, if they thought he was funny. They just stared at him oddly.
“That’s not a game!” one retorted.
“I’m sorry, we can’t make a campfire, Tom. It’s too dangerous,” said the woman. The boy sunk back into his corner and read his book, disappointed but not surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for his idea.
Ginny walked over to him to talk, but she remembered he couldn’t see her. She sat by him, watching. She could only see in black and white, but she saw his face was pale and pure, and his eyes looked angry and troubled. She wished she could comfort him. But this was the past, and the past couldn’t be changed. He frowned, and his facial expression remained stoic, but she could see tears well up and remain trapped in his eyes. The only other boy who seemed somewhat sympathetic was sitting with the rest of the group, and didn’t appear brave enough to leave the group to go sit with Tom. Not yet, at least.
The room went out of focus, and Ginny was sitting back on her bed, looking at the diary. She was speechless.
“Tom, where was that?”
“My mother died when I was born, and my father left her when he found out she was a witch. So I had to stay in a muggle orphanage over the summer. They obviously didn’t take very well to me.”
“I’m so sorry, Tom. Is there anything I can do?”
“Well that’s long gone, but I do just love having you to talk to. Please write to me as much as you can. I get lonely.”
“That’s fair enough. I love talking to you, too, Tom.” Ginny became lightheaded for a moment. “I need to get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, though!”
“Good night, Ginny.”
“Good night, Tom.”
~
Ginny walked into a fancy restaurant. There were sleeping bags everywhere, and the headwaiter kept singing “God Save the Queen”. She saw Harry sitting at a table in the corner, reading a book. His scar seemed oddly radiant, and he beckoned her to sit with him. She did, and after a bit, she saw Tom walk in the entranceway. He sat down with the two of them and gave Ginny a teddy bear. Harry kissed her on the cheek. They left their waiter a check including tip and a rubber ducky, and they walked out of the restaurant carrying her and giggling. Then Ginny woke up very confused.
~
“Tom?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t stop thinking about that orphanage, and how horribly they treated you. Did you have any friends there?”
“Sort of. There was one boy who was always nice to me. His name was Luke.”
“That’s good. Were you good friends?”
“We got along well enough. I could tell you the story, or I could show you. Which do you prefer?”
“I’d like to see it.”
Without a reply, Ginny found herself once again in the 1940 orphanage. Tom was sitting in a chair by himself, staring at a new-looking portable record player, listening to the first section of the second movement to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. As soon as it reached the less-dreary second section, he moved the needle back to the first. The reddish-haired boy Ginny remembered from the first memory as being sympathetic walked up to him, chuckling.
“God, Tom, you’re so depressing,” he sighed. He was roughly Tom’s age. “Can’t you listen to something a bit more cheerful? I have a Glen Miller record I got from my cousin in America, I think that’d be…” Tom turned his head slowly away from the record player and looked at Luke coldly. “…All right then! So what’s new?”
“Same as always,” Tom said flatly. “I have nothing to do.”
“Well, if you want to talk, I always like to talk,” Luke smiled, now hovering over the record player and its miserable music. Tom said nothing. “Well, I want to talk. Say, we’re all here because our parents died or left, right? What’s the story with your parents?”
“My father left my mother before I was born,” Tom replied, never taking his eyes off that record player.
“Why?”
“I can’t say.” There was a long pause. For once, Luke wasn’t prying him for information. “Then right after I was born, my mother died. They say she only lived long enough to name me. After my father, too, which I always thought was a bit queer.”
“She must have still loved him,” Luke said.
“My middle name was my grandfather’s. Marvolo.”
“What kind of a name is that??”
“My grandfather’s.”
Luke sat down next to him. “So you never knew your parents?”
“No,” Tom frowned. “I lived here all my life till I was eleven, then every summer since then. And nothing’s changed. No one’s even bothered to be friendly with me.”
“I’m being friendly with you.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t make friends here. I have a few friends at my boarding school…”
“Where do you go to school?”
“I can’t say.”
“Gad, you’re being awful secretive today!”
Tom managed a half-smile. “It’s entertaining.”
“I don’t understand you, Tom. You’re very queer. Eh, all my friends are. I always find the oddest friends.” Tom smiled. “You know, I’ve never seen you smile! You look so different!”
“I’ve never seen you not smiling. You’re so goddamn cheerful it’s sickening.” Luke was surprised at the word usage, but didn’t bother mentioning it. “So what happened to your parents? You’ve only been here about a year, right?”
“Yeah. My mum died when I was three, and my dad went to war last year so he couldn’t take care of me. They sent me here, of all places. I’d stay with my cousin, but they’re just barely coming out of that depression in America, and he can’t afford to have me. He likes to send me records, though.”
“Well, here’s a late welcome to Hell, I suppose,” Tom said dryly.
“Glad to be here! You must be Satan!” They both laughed. It was quite an accomplishment Luke had just done, making Tom laugh.
There was a loud noise coming from a few blocks down, and the vibration made the record skip on an unresolved chord. Tom and Luke jumped.
“What the hell was that?”
“I… don’t know.”
Another explosion. The woman in charge stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting about, thinking quickly. “Everyone, get under a table. Now.”
Random shouts and comments were heard throughout the room.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the Germans. They’re attacking…”
“They can’t be…!”
“I knew this was going to happen…”
Tom and Luke looked at each other wide-eyed and jumped under the table that held the still-skipping record player. A third explosion came, this time very close to the orphanage. The woman was trying to figure out whether it was safe to evacuate, and decided it was too dangerous to have fifteen scared boys running loose in the streets during an attack.
“I don’t believe this is happening,” cried Luke. Tom said nothing, but grabbed Luke’s arm and held on to it tightly. The explosions kept coming, and some of the plaster on the ceiling began to fall as dust. After a while, they were the only noises audible aside from the record and a few crying little boys.
“Luke,” whispered Tom. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“If this orphanage gets attacked, I won’t die alone.”
“Don’t say that! It’s scaring me!”
Tears formed in both of their eyes, but only Luke let his flow down his cheeks. They stayed huddled under that table with their knees in their arms, trembling for an hour until the explosions died down. Ginny watched in awe and horror, and her vision became blurred. When her eyes focused again, she was in a History of Magic class at Hogwarts. A man walked in with a concerned expression on his face.
“I need to see Thomas,” he said. Tom closed his book, got up and stepped outside the classroom.
“Yes, Professor Dumbledore?”
“Tom, there’s something you need to be informed of.”
“What is it?”
Dumbledore sighed. “There was another blitz attack on London last night.”
“And?”
“Your orphanage was destroyed.”
Tom froze. “W…what about the people in it?”
“I’m sorry.”
Tom couldn’t even speak. His thoughts remained fixed on Luke. The only boy at the orphanage who had shown any compassion towards him was now dead. To Hell with the rest of them. He only cared about Luke. Then he thought of his own future.
“…Where will I stay in the summer? I have no family.” This fact hit him even harder now that Luke was gone.
“As far as I know, they’re planning on rebuilding it. You should be safe there; they say lightning never strikes the same place twice.”
Lightning. The blitzkrieg. Tom burned with anger. The orphanage, as dreadful as it was, was his second home. Luke had become like a brother to him between the time they talked and the day Tom went back to Hogwarts. His second home was destroyed, and he needed to destroy something in turn.
“You may be excused from classes for the rest of the day if you prefer,” Dumbledore sighed.
“Thank you, sir,” he said as he turned away from Dumbledore.
Tom stormed over to the Slytherin common room. No one was there; everyone else was in class. He slammed his fist down on the glass coffee table, causing it to break and cut the side of his hand. He paid no heed. He took a glass and threw it at the wall, shattering it. His blood dripped steadily onto the floor unnoticed, and he kicked the broken coffee table and hurled a small pewter figurine at the shards of glass. His screams echoed through the empty hallways, and he sat down on a hard chair and finally cried.
Tears filled Ginny’s eyes as she watched. She closed her eyes to refresh them, and when she opened them again, she was back in her room with the diary. A tear fell on one of the pages and disappeared.
“Please don’t cry.”
“I didn’t mean to, Tom. I’m so sorry. That’s so horrible.” Ginny couldn’t think of anything to write.
“It’s in the past. There’s no use fussing over something so far in the past.”
“Tom, you’re so lucky you weren’t killed in that attack.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be here talking with you like this if I had.”
“I’m so glad you’re my friend, Tom. Am I your friend?”
“Of course, Ginny.”
When Ginny slept that night, she kept the diary under her pillow.
~
Ginny was so excited. She’d been completely stressed about having three major tests on Halloween. But that day was done, and she aced them all. It was late at night, but she was energetic as ever. She ran down the hall, beaming, and shot straight for the Gryffindor common room and took out Tom’s diary.
“Hi, Tom!”
“You seem happy.”
“I just got three of my tests back, and I got all A’s! I can’t believe I passed the History of Magic test!”
“That’s wonderful! I’m happy for you.”
“How have you been?”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
This confused Ginny. What would he want her to do? She couldn’t get anything for him. He was just a diary. “What is it?” She wrote.
Ginny felt herself becoming numb. A chill ran through her, and a cold presence enveloped her completely. Her body relaxed, and instead of seeing a written reply to her question, she suddenly heard Tom’s voice speaking to her for the first time.
“Ginny,” he whispered. His voice was soft and hypnotic in her mind. “I need you to come with me.”
“Tom?” Ginny said deliriously.
“I won’t be your friend if you don’t, Ginny. I am your friend, aren’t I?”
“Yes, Tom…”
Ginny was completely possessed by Tom. His quintessence led Ginny silently out of the common room. His icy air took her by the hand and led her through the hall towards the abandoned girls’ bathroom where Moaning Myrtle resided. She felt herself open the door, and Myrtle hovered above one of the stalls, sniffling. She stopped when she saw who was there.
“Oh, hello again, Ginny,” she mumbled. “You look… off…” Ginny was barely conscious to anything but Tom’s presence. Myrtle’s eyes refocused to a figure even fainter than her own, creeping behind Ginny’s body, with what looked like hands perched upon her shoulders. Myrtle floated down closer to the sight, eyeing Ginny and the figure warily. She squinted at them, trying to figure out what was going on.
Tom’s figure looked up weakly but piercingly at Myrtle, and his voice emanated from it. “What a pleasant surprise, Myrtle. You never have left this room, have you?”
Myrtle froze. “Tom??”
“Lucky guess,” he chuckled.
“Tom, I’d remember your voice anywhere,” Myrtle smiled. “I never knew what happened to you after I died.”
He smirked to himself; his face was indiscernible to anyone else. “Never bothered to find out, did you, then? I reiterate: you’ve never left this room.”
“I did!” She protested. “I taunted Olive Hornby for quite some time, if you must know.”
“Yes, very clever of you indeed. But obviously you didn’t care to find out about me, did you? You said you’d recognize my voice anywhere.” Tom remembered the time he set the basilisk on her. “That’s a lie.”
“What do you mean?
“Go to hell, you stupid mudblood.”
“Tom!”
“Obliterate!” Myrtle froze, and Tom shouted in Parseltongue the password to open the Chamber of Secrets. He pushed Ginny ahead of her as the two of them fell down into the depth that was once underneath them. As they approached the cold ground, he cushioned her fall – he could not throw away the precious vitality he needed so much. He took this opportunity to gain more life from her. He tilted her limp body back and leaned over her in what looked like a dance of chivalry, but indeed was nothing of the sort. He put his face to her neck and breathed in, slowly taking her life away from her. The aura about him strengthened, but he still remained quite faint. Ginny’s eyes flickered again with half-consciousness.
“Tom…” she mumbled. Her consciousness prevented him from taking any more from her, and he stopped. “Where…”
“Never you mind. I’m taking you back.” As he said this, he lifted her back up through the vertical passageway until they arrived back in the girls’ bathroom. Myrtle was in one of the stalls, now bawling, for she had no recollection of why she felt so sad. She could not hear anything behind her. Tom let go of Ginny, stood beside her, and whispered in her ear.
“Go to the campus barn. I need you to kill the roosters there, one by one. Save their blood. We will use it later.”
She did not protest. By now, Tom didn’t even need to guide her shoulders as she drifted independently outside towards the coop where the roosters lived their last minutes. She looked around, and no one was there.
“That’s right, Ginny,” Tom said. “Just go in. Break their necks. Strangle them.”
Ginny obeyed. She walked into the coop slowly. She eyed all the roosters, and chose one to be the first to die. It looked up at her naively, oblivious to its fate. It cooed faintly, and Ginny took it by its weak neck. Tom’s spirit watched in anticipation, proud of his ability to seduce the girl into his control – even though he was not controlling her actions. He controlled her emotions, and forced her into this spellbound state, where she obeyed every word he said out of her own free will. Ginny’s eyes widened as her grip tightened around the neck of the rooster. It was not dying quickly enough. She took both of her hands, and snapped the neck. The creature slipped into its stage of being half-dead, relying on reflexes, wandering aimlessly with a broken neck for twenty minutes. She went to the next rooster, and did the same. She continued until all six roosters were killed.
“Take their blood.”
Ginny frowned in total concentration on the task Tom had given her. She took out her wand, still staring at the roosters, and uttered a charm she hadn’t known before, and a slit appeared on the rooster’s skin like a zipper being unzipped. Blood came trickling out slowly at first, and she went and grabbed a feed bucket from the corner, and dumped the feed onto the floor. She took the rooster, whose blood now flowed freely from the gash, and held it over the empty bucket. Again, she repeated the process for the five other roosters.
“Come with me,” Tom muttered. He guided her from behind toward the first floor hallway, holding her hand in his to make sure none of the blood spilled from the bucket. They settled between two windows, and Tom, who now had a very faint figure, whispered in Ginny’s ear.
“Write.”
Tom’s hands held Ginny’s shoulders as she dipped her tiny fingers in the blood. Her eyes closed, and yet she was able to write perfectly the words Tom breathed into her soul. Gradually, she finished her duty to Tom, and the message on the wall read:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
~
Ginny awakened a few moments later, alone. Tom was no longer with her, except in the diary she held in her arms. There was dried blood on her fingers and some that had dripped down her sweater, and a few stray feathers stuck to her. Dumfounded, she said a quick charm to make it disappear, and so it did. She ran back to her room to get some sleep, trying not to wake anyone. But sleeping is very difficult after one has just found an unknown red substance on their hands, with no recollection of how it got there, or why they’ve woken up in the middle of the hall. She took out the diary for consolation.
“Tom?”
“What are you doing up so late?”
“Tom, I think I’m losing my memory.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don’t know how they got there. I only remember being excited about my tests, and then suddenly waking up in the hallway. And I found this red stuff on my hands and sweater. I don’t know what it is.”
“You were probably sleepwalking. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“That doesn’t explain the red stuff.”
“Did you consider the possibility of wet paint? You don’t know if a handrail was being painted, or something of the like. You probably grabbed on to it.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Get some sleep, it’s very late. You shouldn’t be up at this hour.”
“Good night, Tom.”
Once again, she slept with the diary under her pillow, not knowing how much danger it put her in.
~
The next day was very traumatic for Ginny. As people gathered in the hall, she struggled to see what the commotion was about. Then she saw the writing on the wall. She had not seen it when she woke up earlier – it was behind her. She remembered even less from the night before; she couldn’t remember if she had dreamt the incident with the red paint or not. She looked around the hallway, and saw Mrs. Norris, hanging in midair. Her heart began to race. She didn’t remember anything. She was too confused now to distinguish between reality and dreams, and she didn’t know who she was. Could she have caused this? Pale and filled with fear of herself, she sprinted away from the scene to a place where she could talk with Tom. Maybe he knew something.
“Tom!” she wrote frantically.
“What is it?”
“I don’t remember anything from Halloween night. Now there’s writing on the wall in red, like the red on my hands last night. Something about a secret chamber. But I don’t even know if that red on my hands was real anymore. I’ve been so out of sorts lately. And Mrs. Norris – she’s a cat – she’s petrified, and she’s suspended in the air in the hallway on the first floor. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t remember anything. I’m so scared, Tom!”
“What red on your hands?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No, Ginny.”
“I guess it was a dream, then. But I still don’t remember anything from last night after I got my tests back from an owl after dinner. Do you know what this secret chamber they’re writing about is?”
“No, unfortunately. Things like these happen sometimes. No reason to be scared. You probably just need some sleep, and you’ll feel better soon.”
“I guess so. Thanks, Tom.”
“Anytime.”
~
Since then, paranoia had dominated Ginny’s everyday life. She never knew what was real and what she had dreamt, and all she knew that what she wasn’t sure was real was disturbing at the very least. As months passed, she had been feeling increasingly weak by the day, and found herself excusing herself from class more and more often to refresh her senses with a drink of water. She was suspicious about the diary, but somehow she could not bring herself to stop writing in it. All she could do was take things as they came, because she no longer had control over the situation. She was still curious about Tom, no matter how fishy everything seemed now, and still told him about the daily events. After all, he did say how lonely it was to be a memory, and she imagined how hurt he’d be if she missed a day in writing to him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, even if it cost her her own sense of stability in life. When she wasn’t writing to Tom, her world was a living hell of confusion and turmoil, but when she was, he seemed to give her the comfort she needed to get through it all. She was addicted to him.
“Tom… Harry, Ron and Hermione seem to be catching on to me.”
“What do you mean, to you?”
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing to prove this is my fault.”
“What, all the commotion with the cat, and the writing on the wall?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry, dear Virginia. It’s not your fault.”
“Actually, my name isn’t Virginia, it’s Ginevra… it’s okay, everyone thinks that at first.”
“Ah, I see. Ginevra is a much more flattering name.”
Ginny paused and smiled at the diary, remembering Tom’s own smiling face from the memory he had shown her. There was some mysterious allure in his pale complexion and brooding manner that made his smile stand out even more. Even still, she remembered the pain that remained in his eyes beneath the smile. It was somehow endearing.
“Are you there? What was this business about Harry?”
“Oh, yes, sorry. It’s just that they keep trying to figure out what’s going on around here. I think they’re going to be expelled. I don’t want them to leave.”
“Of course not. Well, I suggest you mind your own business, you don’t want to get involved in any way.”
“This is true. I just hope Harry doesn’t get in trouble.”
“If he does, it’d just be something he’d have to deal with. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“But I do… I’ve been crying a lot lately. I want to know what’s going on, too. I feel so helpless.” She began to get flustered, and let a tear fall on the page.
“Ginny, was that a tear?” Tom’s memory became excited.
“I’m sorry, I’m just being moody again.” She let herself cry more, and he drank in her tears.
“It’s okay, Ginny. I’m here.”
Nowhere NEAR being finished, and a lot of it was written back in junior year of HS, so it needs some revision... but hey, I got back to it, fixed a big hole in the plot, and got past my chronic writer's block. Enjoy.
PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU CRITICIZE, KEEP IN MIND I STILL HAVE NOT YET FINISHED ALL THE BOOKS... so please don't spoil any more than has already been spoiled. I'm not considering this finished until I've read them all (including whenever the 7th one comes out).
Yep.
I got back to my fanfiction. :D
If anyone is interested...
(Sorry a lot of it (i.e. everything Tom writes) is supposed to be in italics but alas. HTML too much for LJ to handle.)
When I Look at You
“All right, class, take out your books!”
The voice of Professor Minerva McGonnagall pierced the eardrums of all the first-years in their first transfiguration class at Hogwarts. Colin Creevey sat in his chair, a bit too excited, wishing that photography was allowed in the classroom. Next to him sat Ginny Weasley, curious as ever. She reached into her book bag to find her transfiguration textbook, but she didn’t see it. Confused, she looked around at the other students to make sure she was looking for the right book, and sure enough, she was. She looked again, but all she found was a blank black book with 1942 on the cover. She didn’t have the time to look at it then, so she decided to try and share with another student.
“Um… excuse me,” she said to the boy next to her. “My name’s Ginny Weasley. I can’t find my textbook, can I share with you?”
“Oh, sure, no problem!” Colin replied with a hyperactive smile and moved closer to Ginny so they both could see the book easily. “My name’s Colin Creevey. Pleased to meet you! Say, what do you think of that Harry Potter? I think I saw your brother hanging out with him…”
“I don’t know him that well,” Ginny interrupted. “He’s just friends with my brother, he doesn’t talk to me.” Ginny hoped that her blush wasn’t too obvious.
“Oh, okay. I got a picture of him though! Wanna s—”
“Class!!” Professor McGonnagall yelled. “This is not a time for chatter. Now raise your wands, we’re going to turn a bluebird into a tennis ball…”
~
Ginny's last class of her first day at Hogwarts had just ended. Fascinated by everything there and curious to see it all, she decided to explore. She made her way all over the library, found all the windows with beautiful views of the campus, and even had a few nice chats with various paintings. Her last visit for the day was the lonely girls' bathroom, eternally occupied by Moaning Myrtle.
The walls were made of glistening marble, and the circle of sinks stood in the center of the round entranceway, resembling a Spanish plaza. The stalls were a little further down, and were adorned with a few randomly located cobwebs, proving the bathroom’s lack of use.
"Ooh, a visitor!" came a voice from inside a stall. Ginny jumped back, startled. A ghost wearing a Hogwarts uniform peered over the stall door, bouncing her pigtails on the way. She rolled her ethereal bespectacled eyes. "I take it you've come to mock me like all the others," she whined.
"Um... No, I'm just looking around..." Ginny replied warily. "Who are you?"
"Myrtle... everyone calls me 'Moaning Myrtle' because all I ever do is moan and cry, remembering my life and contemplating my pitiful existence in this bathroom," the ghost sighed. The speechless Ginny found this a bit queer and remained awkwardly silent. "Well, go on. There's not much to see here. Unless you want to listen to me complain," Myrtle said matter-of-factly, drumming her translucent fingers.
Ginny shrugged. “Actually, I’d like to stay a bit,” she said, remembering the black book she found in her bag. She sat down on the cold floor, and reached into her bag and took the book out. It was covered with dust, and her hands itched as she tried to brush it away.
"What have you got there?” Myrtle asked nosily.
“Not sure, but I was thinking maybe you knew something about it, since it looks old, and you’re a gh—”
“Oh, sure, let’s tease Myrtle about her age! She can’t have feelings, she’s dead! She died fifty years ago!”
Ginny realized something. 1942, the date inscribed on the cover, was in fact fifty years ago. “Myrtle,” she said. “This is the year you died.”
Myrtle became quiet and suddenly curious. “What’s it got in it?”
Ginny opened the book. “Nothing… except…” She noticed something on the inside cover. The name T. M. Riddle was written there in skillful calligraphy. “…except this name. Do you recognize it?”
Myrtle stopped short when she saw the name. “That boy… I remember him. All I know is he was a brain,” she said quickly. She seemed to be hiding something. “Prefect, if I recall correctly. Hmm. Wonder what ever became of him, with a brain like that,” she said. If the less-than-opaque skin on her cheeks could turn pink, they would have right then.
Intrigued by Myrtle’s memory of the owner, she put the book back in her bag. “Thank you. I’ll have to look into this, it seems interesting,” she said. Though her body was heading for the door, her mind was preoccupied with what she finally concluded was a diary, longing for answers to all the questions that now nagged at her. "It was nice meeting you," Ginny said vaguely as she exited the bathroom.
~
It was perfect. Ginny wanted a diary to write in while she was at Hogwarts, and this black book was just right for that. She'd made a few friends already, but not the types she'd tell her secrets to or bother with her daily rants and raves. And she certainly didn't yet want anyone to know how infatuated she'd become with Harry Potter. This diary was the key to her sanity.
Ginny wondered about the story behind the golden date inscribed mysteriously on the cover. She ran her fingers over it gingerly, caressing each and every indentation of the shimmering text. Myrtle had said that the diary belonged to a student. She didn’t want to invade the privacy of someone she didn’t even know. But there was nothing written in it… what did this student look like? Did he enjoy writing as much as she did? She couldn’t wait any longer to find out.
She opened the book. The pages were blank, yellowed, and wrinkled with age. She picked up her quill, wetted the tip with the top-quality ink her mother had insisted she use, and began to write the date: "September 3, 1992..."
The letters disappeared. Puzzled, Ginny inked her quill again and was about to rewrite the date when five words appeared magically on that page.
"My, how time has flown"
Ginny's eyes widened with amazement. The diary was alive, and it was capable of reading what she wrote! Somewhat frightened, but mostly just thrilled, her hand trembled as her thoughts scrambled to question the living diary.
"Is there a spirit in this diary?"
The ink sank into the page, and reappeared as the diary's reply.
"No. I'm a mere memory of a young man, but I am able to exist through my diary. What is your name?"
"Ginny Weasley," she answered. "Are you Mr. Riddle? I saw the name on the cover."
"Please call me Tom."
Ginny smiled at the name. "Tom Riddle," she said to herself, letting the name echo over and over in her ears. "What a charming name."
"It's nice to meet you. Might I see you?" Inquired Ginny's ink. There was a long, careful pause before she got an answer, and her heart raced in anticipation.
"You will see me soon enough. Just keep writing to me like this. It's awfully nice to have someone to talk to. It gets a bit lonely at times, being just a memory," Tom answered. Ginny smiled at the fact that she was helping to take away someone’s loneliness. She could tell already they would make great friends.
Another pause.
"My existence in this diary holds the appearance of a sixteen-year-old boy; that's when I wrote in it. But I'm much older. How old are you?"
"I'm eleven."
"Such a wonderful age. Tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you."
Thus, as Ginny began to write, her soul began to permeate through the pages of Tom Riddle's diary.
~
“Do you like it at Hogwarts?” Tom asked through the paper.
“Yes, it’s fantastic,” Ginny wrote. “Everyone here is so nice.”
“Really?”
Ginny thought for a moment, and remembered how horribly Draco had treated her in Diagon Alley. “Mostly. There’s this one boy who’s very mean. I don’t like him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Draco Malfoy. He was making fun of Harry Potter, and I stood up for him, and then he started teasing me. My dad and his dad got into a fight, and somehow in the mess I lost my Transfiguration book. And now I have your diary. It probably fell off one of the shelves into my bag, I’m guessing.”
“Harry Potter?”
Ginny blushed again. She preferred not to talk about him; it was too embarrassing. But since he asked…
“Yes, he stayed with us for a few days before school started. So we went book shopping together. With my family too, I mean. How do you know about him?”
A few seconds passed before the ink lied to her. “Others have written in this diary before you. I hear he’s very famous. Tell me about him.”
Ginny smiled. She didn’t know where to begin. “Well, he’s a little bit taller than me. He has black hair, he wears glasses and looks a bit bookish, but he has beautiful green eyes. He was nice to me, too, for what little time I spent with him.”
“If I weren’t crazy, I’d say you fancy him!” This reply was accompanied by a sloppily scribbled happy face. Ginny giggled. She’d been found out…
“Well, if you promise not to tell anyone… yes.”
“Don’t worry, you have my diary. Even if I wanted to tell anyone, I couldn’t unless someone else gets a hold of it.”
“Okay. He is very cute!” she wrote. What was it about this diary? She would never be so comfortable talking to anyone else about Harry like that. Maybe it was because she didn’t have to look anyone in the face while talking to Tom. She still wondered what he might look like.
“It’s fascinating how he survived the Dark Lord’s attack. I’ve always wondered how he did that.”
“So has the rest of the wizard world. He’s an amazing boy.”
A briefly appearing “Yes” was Tom’s only answer.
~
Over the next week, Ginny felt herself being distracted in class more often. She secretly memorized Harry’s schedule so that she could know which routes to take to her classes if she wanted to pass him in the hall. Not that she had the courage to smile at him, but it was still nice passing by him, even though there was usually only a quick glance or nod here and there. Harry never really seemed to notice her. She had made a few friends, but she still felt somewhat separated from the school. Maybe it was because she never talked to Harry; maybe it was her preoccupation with Tom’s diary. Both of these issues were too important to her to pay less attention to, so she didn’t mind much.
She started to become curious to know more about Tom. At this point, the only image she had of him was the diary itself. Restless, she made sure no one was around, and took the diary out of her bag again and began to write in it.
“Hello, Tom!” she wrote. “How are you?”
“Same as usual. There’s nothing very exciting about being a memory. How are you?”
“I’m doing great. I’ve also been wondering about you.”
“Oh?”
“What do you look like? I know I can’t see you, but I’d like to be able to picture you when I’m talking to you.”
“Actually, you can see me. But you won’t be able to talk to me. I can show you one of my memories if you’d like.”
Ginny’s eyes widened. “You’d do that?”
“Of course. This was when I was reflecting back on some times two years before. This isn’t a very cheerful memory, but it’ll do.”
Ginny felt herself being drawn into the diary. Suddenly, she was inside what looked like a cross between a shack and a day care center. She looked around, and saw tattered books, used soup bowls, and a lot of cots in the next room. About fifteen boys, with ages ranging from about nine to fourteen, were scattered about the place. A middle-aged woman with glasses entered and clapped her hands twice.
“Boys!” She shouted. She reminded Ginny of McGonnagall – strict, but she also seemed caring. “It’s three o’clock. You know what that means.”
Most of the younger boys in the group began to cheer. The older ones just looked relieved. “Yes!” a boy of about ten shouted. “We get to go outside!”
“That’s right,” said the woman. “But first, we have to vote on an activity. Any ideas?”
There was an unbearable noise before she reminded them to raise their hands. Then there was only a silent bunch of bouncing bodies waving their arms excitedly. She called on one.
“We can play hide-and-seek!” This received a fairly vocal response.
“Or we could play football! Or kickball!” said a slightly older one. There was a racket, and the woman called on a quiet-looking boy sitting in the corner, alone.
“We could, um…” He spoke with hesitation. “A campfire with marshmallows might be fun,” he managed.
The kids didn’t even bother laughing. That would have made him feel a little more welcome, if they thought he was funny. They just stared at him oddly.
“That’s not a game!” one retorted.
“I’m sorry, we can’t make a campfire, Tom. It’s too dangerous,” said the woman. The boy sunk back into his corner and read his book, disappointed but not surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for his idea.
Ginny walked over to him to talk, but she remembered he couldn’t see her. She sat by him, watching. She could only see in black and white, but she saw his face was pale and pure, and his eyes looked angry and troubled. She wished she could comfort him. But this was the past, and the past couldn’t be changed. He frowned, and his facial expression remained stoic, but she could see tears well up and remain trapped in his eyes. The only other boy who seemed somewhat sympathetic was sitting with the rest of the group, and didn’t appear brave enough to leave the group to go sit with Tom. Not yet, at least.
The room went out of focus, and Ginny was sitting back on her bed, looking at the diary. She was speechless.
“Tom, where was that?”
“My mother died when I was born, and my father left her when he found out she was a witch. So I had to stay in a muggle orphanage over the summer. They obviously didn’t take very well to me.”
“I’m so sorry, Tom. Is there anything I can do?”
“Well that’s long gone, but I do just love having you to talk to. Please write to me as much as you can. I get lonely.”
“That’s fair enough. I love talking to you, too, Tom.” Ginny became lightheaded for a moment. “I need to get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, though!”
“Good night, Ginny.”
“Good night, Tom.”
~
Ginny walked into a fancy restaurant. There were sleeping bags everywhere, and the headwaiter kept singing “God Save the Queen”. She saw Harry sitting at a table in the corner, reading a book. His scar seemed oddly radiant, and he beckoned her to sit with him. She did, and after a bit, she saw Tom walk in the entranceway. He sat down with the two of them and gave Ginny a teddy bear. Harry kissed her on the cheek. They left their waiter a check including tip and a rubber ducky, and they walked out of the restaurant carrying her and giggling. Then Ginny woke up very confused.
~
“Tom?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t stop thinking about that orphanage, and how horribly they treated you. Did you have any friends there?”
“Sort of. There was one boy who was always nice to me. His name was Luke.”
“That’s good. Were you good friends?”
“We got along well enough. I could tell you the story, or I could show you. Which do you prefer?”
“I’d like to see it.”
Without a reply, Ginny found herself once again in the 1940 orphanage. Tom was sitting in a chair by himself, staring at a new-looking portable record player, listening to the first section of the second movement to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. As soon as it reached the less-dreary second section, he moved the needle back to the first. The reddish-haired boy Ginny remembered from the first memory as being sympathetic walked up to him, chuckling.
“God, Tom, you’re so depressing,” he sighed. He was roughly Tom’s age. “Can’t you listen to something a bit more cheerful? I have a Glen Miller record I got from my cousin in America, I think that’d be…” Tom turned his head slowly away from the record player and looked at Luke coldly. “…All right then! So what’s new?”
“Same as always,” Tom said flatly. “I have nothing to do.”
“Well, if you want to talk, I always like to talk,” Luke smiled, now hovering over the record player and its miserable music. Tom said nothing. “Well, I want to talk. Say, we’re all here because our parents died or left, right? What’s the story with your parents?”
“My father left my mother before I was born,” Tom replied, never taking his eyes off that record player.
“Why?”
“I can’t say.” There was a long pause. For once, Luke wasn’t prying him for information. “Then right after I was born, my mother died. They say she only lived long enough to name me. After my father, too, which I always thought was a bit queer.”
“She must have still loved him,” Luke said.
“My middle name was my grandfather’s. Marvolo.”
“What kind of a name is that??”
“My grandfather’s.”
Luke sat down next to him. “So you never knew your parents?”
“No,” Tom frowned. “I lived here all my life till I was eleven, then every summer since then. And nothing’s changed. No one’s even bothered to be friendly with me.”
“I’m being friendly with you.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t make friends here. I have a few friends at my boarding school…”
“Where do you go to school?”
“I can’t say.”
“Gad, you’re being awful secretive today!”
Tom managed a half-smile. “It’s entertaining.”
“I don’t understand you, Tom. You’re very queer. Eh, all my friends are. I always find the oddest friends.” Tom smiled. “You know, I’ve never seen you smile! You look so different!”
“I’ve never seen you not smiling. You’re so goddamn cheerful it’s sickening.” Luke was surprised at the word usage, but didn’t bother mentioning it. “So what happened to your parents? You’ve only been here about a year, right?”
“Yeah. My mum died when I was three, and my dad went to war last year so he couldn’t take care of me. They sent me here, of all places. I’d stay with my cousin, but they’re just barely coming out of that depression in America, and he can’t afford to have me. He likes to send me records, though.”
“Well, here’s a late welcome to Hell, I suppose,” Tom said dryly.
“Glad to be here! You must be Satan!” They both laughed. It was quite an accomplishment Luke had just done, making Tom laugh.
There was a loud noise coming from a few blocks down, and the vibration made the record skip on an unresolved chord. Tom and Luke jumped.
“What the hell was that?”
“I… don’t know.”
Another explosion. The woman in charge stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting about, thinking quickly. “Everyone, get under a table. Now.”
Random shouts and comments were heard throughout the room.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the Germans. They’re attacking…”
“They can’t be…!”
“I knew this was going to happen…”
Tom and Luke looked at each other wide-eyed and jumped under the table that held the still-skipping record player. A third explosion came, this time very close to the orphanage. The woman was trying to figure out whether it was safe to evacuate, and decided it was too dangerous to have fifteen scared boys running loose in the streets during an attack.
“I don’t believe this is happening,” cried Luke. Tom said nothing, but grabbed Luke’s arm and held on to it tightly. The explosions kept coming, and some of the plaster on the ceiling began to fall as dust. After a while, they were the only noises audible aside from the record and a few crying little boys.
“Luke,” whispered Tom. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“If this orphanage gets attacked, I won’t die alone.”
“Don’t say that! It’s scaring me!”
Tears formed in both of their eyes, but only Luke let his flow down his cheeks. They stayed huddled under that table with their knees in their arms, trembling for an hour until the explosions died down. Ginny watched in awe and horror, and her vision became blurred. When her eyes focused again, she was in a History of Magic class at Hogwarts. A man walked in with a concerned expression on his face.
“I need to see Thomas,” he said. Tom closed his book, got up and stepped outside the classroom.
“Yes, Professor Dumbledore?”
“Tom, there’s something you need to be informed of.”
“What is it?”
Dumbledore sighed. “There was another blitz attack on London last night.”
“And?”
“Your orphanage was destroyed.”
Tom froze. “W…what about the people in it?”
“I’m sorry.”
Tom couldn’t even speak. His thoughts remained fixed on Luke. The only boy at the orphanage who had shown any compassion towards him was now dead. To Hell with the rest of them. He only cared about Luke. Then he thought of his own future.
“…Where will I stay in the summer? I have no family.” This fact hit him even harder now that Luke was gone.
“As far as I know, they’re planning on rebuilding it. You should be safe there; they say lightning never strikes the same place twice.”
Lightning. The blitzkrieg. Tom burned with anger. The orphanage, as dreadful as it was, was his second home. Luke had become like a brother to him between the time they talked and the day Tom went back to Hogwarts. His second home was destroyed, and he needed to destroy something in turn.
“You may be excused from classes for the rest of the day if you prefer,” Dumbledore sighed.
“Thank you, sir,” he said as he turned away from Dumbledore.
Tom stormed over to the Slytherin common room. No one was there; everyone else was in class. He slammed his fist down on the glass coffee table, causing it to break and cut the side of his hand. He paid no heed. He took a glass and threw it at the wall, shattering it. His blood dripped steadily onto the floor unnoticed, and he kicked the broken coffee table and hurled a small pewter figurine at the shards of glass. His screams echoed through the empty hallways, and he sat down on a hard chair and finally cried.
Tears filled Ginny’s eyes as she watched. She closed her eyes to refresh them, and when she opened them again, she was back in her room with the diary. A tear fell on one of the pages and disappeared.
“Please don’t cry.”
“I didn’t mean to, Tom. I’m so sorry. That’s so horrible.” Ginny couldn’t think of anything to write.
“It’s in the past. There’s no use fussing over something so far in the past.”
“Tom, you’re so lucky you weren’t killed in that attack.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be here talking with you like this if I had.”
“I’m so glad you’re my friend, Tom. Am I your friend?”
“Of course, Ginny.”
When Ginny slept that night, she kept the diary under her pillow.
~
Ginny was so excited. She’d been completely stressed about having three major tests on Halloween. But that day was done, and she aced them all. It was late at night, but she was energetic as ever. She ran down the hall, beaming, and shot straight for the Gryffindor common room and took out Tom’s diary.
“Hi, Tom!”
“You seem happy.”
“I just got three of my tests back, and I got all A’s! I can’t believe I passed the History of Magic test!”
“That’s wonderful! I’m happy for you.”
“How have you been?”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
This confused Ginny. What would he want her to do? She couldn’t get anything for him. He was just a diary. “What is it?” She wrote.
Ginny felt herself becoming numb. A chill ran through her, and a cold presence enveloped her completely. Her body relaxed, and instead of seeing a written reply to her question, she suddenly heard Tom’s voice speaking to her for the first time.
“Ginny,” he whispered. His voice was soft and hypnotic in her mind. “I need you to come with me.”
“Tom?” Ginny said deliriously.
“I won’t be your friend if you don’t, Ginny. I am your friend, aren’t I?”
“Yes, Tom…”
Ginny was completely possessed by Tom. His quintessence led Ginny silently out of the common room. His icy air took her by the hand and led her through the hall towards the abandoned girls’ bathroom where Moaning Myrtle resided. She felt herself open the door, and Myrtle hovered above one of the stalls, sniffling. She stopped when she saw who was there.
“Oh, hello again, Ginny,” she mumbled. “You look… off…” Ginny was barely conscious to anything but Tom’s presence. Myrtle’s eyes refocused to a figure even fainter than her own, creeping behind Ginny’s body, with what looked like hands perched upon her shoulders. Myrtle floated down closer to the sight, eyeing Ginny and the figure warily. She squinted at them, trying to figure out what was going on.
Tom’s figure looked up weakly but piercingly at Myrtle, and his voice emanated from it. “What a pleasant surprise, Myrtle. You never have left this room, have you?”
Myrtle froze. “Tom??”
“Lucky guess,” he chuckled.
“Tom, I’d remember your voice anywhere,” Myrtle smiled. “I never knew what happened to you after I died.”
He smirked to himself; his face was indiscernible to anyone else. “Never bothered to find out, did you, then? I reiterate: you’ve never left this room.”
“I did!” She protested. “I taunted Olive Hornby for quite some time, if you must know.”
“Yes, very clever of you indeed. But obviously you didn’t care to find out about me, did you? You said you’d recognize my voice anywhere.” Tom remembered the time he set the basilisk on her. “That’s a lie.”
“What do you mean?
“Go to hell, you stupid mudblood.”
“Tom!”
“Obliterate!” Myrtle froze, and Tom shouted in Parseltongue the password to open the Chamber of Secrets. He pushed Ginny ahead of her as the two of them fell down into the depth that was once underneath them. As they approached the cold ground, he cushioned her fall – he could not throw away the precious vitality he needed so much. He took this opportunity to gain more life from her. He tilted her limp body back and leaned over her in what looked like a dance of chivalry, but indeed was nothing of the sort. He put his face to her neck and breathed in, slowly taking her life away from her. The aura about him strengthened, but he still remained quite faint. Ginny’s eyes flickered again with half-consciousness.
“Tom…” she mumbled. Her consciousness prevented him from taking any more from her, and he stopped. “Where…”
“Never you mind. I’m taking you back.” As he said this, he lifted her back up through the vertical passageway until they arrived back in the girls’ bathroom. Myrtle was in one of the stalls, now bawling, for she had no recollection of why she felt so sad. She could not hear anything behind her. Tom let go of Ginny, stood beside her, and whispered in her ear.
“Go to the campus barn. I need you to kill the roosters there, one by one. Save their blood. We will use it later.”
She did not protest. By now, Tom didn’t even need to guide her shoulders as she drifted independently outside towards the coop where the roosters lived their last minutes. She looked around, and no one was there.
“That’s right, Ginny,” Tom said. “Just go in. Break their necks. Strangle them.”
Ginny obeyed. She walked into the coop slowly. She eyed all the roosters, and chose one to be the first to die. It looked up at her naively, oblivious to its fate. It cooed faintly, and Ginny took it by its weak neck. Tom’s spirit watched in anticipation, proud of his ability to seduce the girl into his control – even though he was not controlling her actions. He controlled her emotions, and forced her into this spellbound state, where she obeyed every word he said out of her own free will. Ginny’s eyes widened as her grip tightened around the neck of the rooster. It was not dying quickly enough. She took both of her hands, and snapped the neck. The creature slipped into its stage of being half-dead, relying on reflexes, wandering aimlessly with a broken neck for twenty minutes. She went to the next rooster, and did the same. She continued until all six roosters were killed.
“Take their blood.”
Ginny frowned in total concentration on the task Tom had given her. She took out her wand, still staring at the roosters, and uttered a charm she hadn’t known before, and a slit appeared on the rooster’s skin like a zipper being unzipped. Blood came trickling out slowly at first, and she went and grabbed a feed bucket from the corner, and dumped the feed onto the floor. She took the rooster, whose blood now flowed freely from the gash, and held it over the empty bucket. Again, she repeated the process for the five other roosters.
“Come with me,” Tom muttered. He guided her from behind toward the first floor hallway, holding her hand in his to make sure none of the blood spilled from the bucket. They settled between two windows, and Tom, who now had a very faint figure, whispered in Ginny’s ear.
“Write.”
Tom’s hands held Ginny’s shoulders as she dipped her tiny fingers in the blood. Her eyes closed, and yet she was able to write perfectly the words Tom breathed into her soul. Gradually, she finished her duty to Tom, and the message on the wall read:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
~
Ginny awakened a few moments later, alone. Tom was no longer with her, except in the diary she held in her arms. There was dried blood on her fingers and some that had dripped down her sweater, and a few stray feathers stuck to her. Dumfounded, she said a quick charm to make it disappear, and so it did. She ran back to her room to get some sleep, trying not to wake anyone. But sleeping is very difficult after one has just found an unknown red substance on their hands, with no recollection of how it got there, or why they’ve woken up in the middle of the hall. She took out the diary for consolation.
“Tom?”
“What are you doing up so late?”
“Tom, I think I’m losing my memory.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don’t know how they got there. I only remember being excited about my tests, and then suddenly waking up in the hallway. And I found this red stuff on my hands and sweater. I don’t know what it is.”
“You were probably sleepwalking. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“That doesn’t explain the red stuff.”
“Did you consider the possibility of wet paint? You don’t know if a handrail was being painted, or something of the like. You probably grabbed on to it.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Get some sleep, it’s very late. You shouldn’t be up at this hour.”
“Good night, Tom.”
Once again, she slept with the diary under her pillow, not knowing how much danger it put her in.
~
The next day was very traumatic for Ginny. As people gathered in the hall, she struggled to see what the commotion was about. Then she saw the writing on the wall. She had not seen it when she woke up earlier – it was behind her. She remembered even less from the night before; she couldn’t remember if she had dreamt the incident with the red paint or not. She looked around the hallway, and saw Mrs. Norris, hanging in midair. Her heart began to race. She didn’t remember anything. She was too confused now to distinguish between reality and dreams, and she didn’t know who she was. Could she have caused this? Pale and filled with fear of herself, she sprinted away from the scene to a place where she could talk with Tom. Maybe he knew something.
“Tom!” she wrote frantically.
“What is it?”
“I don’t remember anything from Halloween night. Now there’s writing on the wall in red, like the red on my hands last night. Something about a secret chamber. But I don’t even know if that red on my hands was real anymore. I’ve been so out of sorts lately. And Mrs. Norris – she’s a cat – she’s petrified, and she’s suspended in the air in the hallway on the first floor. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t remember anything. I’m so scared, Tom!”
“What red on your hands?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No, Ginny.”
“I guess it was a dream, then. But I still don’t remember anything from last night after I got my tests back from an owl after dinner. Do you know what this secret chamber they’re writing about is?”
“No, unfortunately. Things like these happen sometimes. No reason to be scared. You probably just need some sleep, and you’ll feel better soon.”
“I guess so. Thanks, Tom.”
“Anytime.”
~
Since then, paranoia had dominated Ginny’s everyday life. She never knew what was real and what she had dreamt, and all she knew that what she wasn’t sure was real was disturbing at the very least. As months passed, she had been feeling increasingly weak by the day, and found herself excusing herself from class more and more often to refresh her senses with a drink of water. She was suspicious about the diary, but somehow she could not bring herself to stop writing in it. All she could do was take things as they came, because she no longer had control over the situation. She was still curious about Tom, no matter how fishy everything seemed now, and still told him about the daily events. After all, he did say how lonely it was to be a memory, and she imagined how hurt he’d be if she missed a day in writing to him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, even if it cost her her own sense of stability in life. When she wasn’t writing to Tom, her world was a living hell of confusion and turmoil, but when she was, he seemed to give her the comfort she needed to get through it all. She was addicted to him.
“Tom… Harry, Ron and Hermione seem to be catching on to me.”
“What do you mean, to you?”
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing to prove this is my fault.”
“What, all the commotion with the cat, and the writing on the wall?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry, dear Virginia. It’s not your fault.”
“Actually, my name isn’t Virginia, it’s Ginevra… it’s okay, everyone thinks that at first.”
“Ah, I see. Ginevra is a much more flattering name.”
Ginny paused and smiled at the diary, remembering Tom’s own smiling face from the memory he had shown her. There was some mysterious allure in his pale complexion and brooding manner that made his smile stand out even more. Even still, she remembered the pain that remained in his eyes beneath the smile. It was somehow endearing.
“Are you there? What was this business about Harry?”
“Oh, yes, sorry. It’s just that they keep trying to figure out what’s going on around here. I think they’re going to be expelled. I don’t want them to leave.”
“Of course not. Well, I suggest you mind your own business, you don’t want to get involved in any way.”
“This is true. I just hope Harry doesn’t get in trouble.”
“If he does, it’d just be something he’d have to deal with. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“But I do… I’ve been crying a lot lately. I want to know what’s going on, too. I feel so helpless.” She began to get flustered, and let a tear fall on the page.
“Ginny, was that a tear?” Tom’s memory became excited.
“I’m sorry, I’m just being moody again.” She let herself cry more, and he drank in her tears.
“It’s okay, Ginny. I’m here.”
Nowhere NEAR being finished, and a lot of it was written back in junior year of HS, so it needs some revision... but hey, I got back to it, fixed a big hole in the plot, and got past my chronic writer's block. Enjoy.
PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU CRITICIZE, KEEP IN MIND I STILL HAVE NOT YET FINISHED ALL THE BOOKS... so please don't spoil any more than has already been spoiled. I'm not considering this finished until I've read them all (including whenever the 7th one comes out).
