deadcatwithaflamethrower:

The moment someone finally—finally!—put quill to the pages
of the diary for the first time, Tom fully intended to drain them dry, reclaim
his inheritance as well as his body, and continue on with his plans. His true
self hadn’t bothered to update the diary since its creation, but he’d decided
upon realizing his Slytherin heritage that there was only one place for him in
Wizarding Britain.

If Muggle Britain can have a Queen, Wizarding Britain can
have a King.

Being perpetually sixteen is irritating enough. To be
sixteen and having things be dull as shit
for decades is intolerable.

Her name is Ginevra Weasley. Ginny.

It’s a bit of surprise to know that there are any Weasleys
left. He always thought the family rather weak, and that was aside from their
politically poor classification as Blood Traitors. Instead, there are seven
Weasley children and their parents, a Weasley married to a Prewett. There are a
number of Prewetts lurking about still, as well.

Odd. The weak should have been the first to fall. He’s been
planning his rule for a long time, after all.

Tom does use the diary’s magic to claim her consciousness
once, and it is absolutely glorious to move again, to see the school…to greet
the ancient basilisk once more. His friend. His only friend. It’s difficult to
get the proper sibilance of Parseltongue from the lips of one who wasn’t born
to speak it, but he does quite well. Her lips and tongue are ideal for it, not
yet molded by school and age into thinking of words as being only specific,
limited sounds.

Tom pretends to be kind when this eleven-year-old girl
writes of girlish nonsense. The concerns of the young and the innocent. He has
never been innocent. He was never allowed to be.

Then Ginny writes a single line one day before book and
quill are both abandoned.

Tom, I’m afraid.

That is all. Three words.

Fear.

Tom knows what it’s like to fear. He fears Dumbledore, who
came to him and terrorized him before telling Tom that he was a wizard.
Dumbledore who never trusted him, who always looked at Tom as if he’d created
all the mischief in the world. Tom had done nothing those first few years to
deserve that. Nothing! He came to the bloody school resolved to be great and
discovered that to be great meant to be scolded, to be frowned upon for wishing
to learn beyond the set limits of classes. He feared those who were older and
more powerful than himself until he’d learned to become more powerful than
they.

Tom gathers up the ink she used for those three words and
leaves her a message: Why?

It’s quite a while before Ginny answers him. There are rumors that the last time this
ruddy Chamber was opened, they were on the verge of shutting down the school
until they caught the one responsible. I don’t want to go home. I hate it there.

Oh, that is definitely interesting. What is so terrible about home? Tome asks while thinking, At least you had one.

I’m just “Baby Ginny”
there. I’m not a person. I’m the little sister, the youngest daughter, the baby
of the family. No one wants to talk about what I like, even if it’s bloody
Quidditch—and the gits all like Quidditch! But no, the baby girl can’t discuss
the big grown-up game with the big boys.

I hate it. I hate that
my mother looks at me and sees fragile, precious, and female, but nothing else
unless it’s a marriage commodity. I think Mum is already plotting to marry me
off to Harry! I hate that my father is just so absent, that he has more
interest in Muggle things than in me. I’m only eleven, but I’m not stupid!
I deserve to exist as a person.

Don’t I?

That is when Tom makes a dreadful, terrible blunder.

He doesn’t just write platitudes and reassurances. He speaks to her.

Everyone deserves to
exist. I’m rather fond of it, myself.

There is a long pause. You’re
not just a diary, are you?

Tom feels…is that pleasure? Is there depth to this girl that
he was ignoring in favor of his other goals? Depth that he could use?

I’m a magical recording
of Tom Riddle, a real person who attended this school in the 1940s. I would
have graduated in 1945. I believe I am considered dead now.

That’s a terrible
shame, Ginny writes. I’d hate to be
aware of my own death like that. Has Hogwarts changed overly much since you
were made, Tom?

Dumbledore, Tom
replies in the most scathing handwriting he can form. It literally drips down
the page.

Not so much, then.
I think you’d like Professor McGonagall.
She is never ridiculous.

Perhaps, Tom
agrees. We went to school together. She
isn’t the way you’ve written of her now, but no, she was never ridiculous. Minerva
had never turned her nose up at him, either.

He hasn’t thought on that in a long time. He only remembered
the hatred. The fear. The desire to become himself again.

Besides. I am a
Slytherin.

Oh, Ginny writes
back at once. There is amusement in her writing. Then Professor Snape would definitely like you. He can’t stand the rest
of us, but he treats his Slytherins like gold.

Not like Slughorn,
then? Tom asks curiously.

Who the bloody hell is
Slughorn?

HE DOESN’T TEACH HERE
ANYMORE?

Tom would dance if he could. Slughorn might have taught him
how to make himself, how to store these lovely copies and set them aside if
they are needed…but that man was an utter fool. What idiot tells a
fifteen-year-old student how to craft a bit of magic made from murder? Someone
looking to curry favor and unable to look beyond the bridge of his bulbous
nose, that’s who. Fucking idiot.

That was quite the
rant, Ginny writes. Tom catches himself and realizes every single bit of
those thoughts revealed themselves on his pages. Shit.

Magic made from
murder, Ginny continues. Sounds
unpleasant. I know murder is a
powerful vehicle for magic, but not what sorts.

Tom makes his second blunder. He falls in love with
a pragmatic, intelligent, vicious fucking Gryffindor Weasley.