A/N: Written for the Duct Tape competition.
Prompt: Penguin.
It starts with a diary, and the hand-me-down quill and ink you retrieve from your older brother's room when he's in the back garden, lambasting the twins for being too noisy when he's trying to finish his homework. The diary says "T. Riddle" in the corner, but when you riffle through the pages, they're all blank, and you think perhaps it's someone's old school things, donated because they never wrote in it. You don't know how wrong you are until the diary begins to write back.
The funny thing is, you can see the manipulation behind the friendliness, like fairy floss over the noxious wisp of decay, but that's okay, because you're lying, too. You chatter of inanities, whining about your family as you tease out Tom Riddle's intentions. You can't figure them out, but you know they aren't good. It doesn't matter. Yours aren't good, either.
When you arrive at Hogwarts, flushed and trembling, the Sorting Hat susses you out instantly. Oh, child, it says sadly in your head, so maudlin you want to give it a good slap around the brim. What has been done to you?
Nothing, you snap. Can you get on with it? And not Slytherin. Mum would have a cow.
No, you would not do well in Slytherin in this political climate, the Hat agrees, the first sensible thing it's said all evening. In that case, better be...
"Gryffindor!" it shouts to the Great Hall and you affect a silly grin as you make your way to the Gryffindor table and slide into place next to Percy. He gives you an affectionate pat on the head, like you're some kind of stray dog, and you resist the urge to bare your teeth at him. You're supposed to be the good one, you remind yourself. Little innocent Ginny. Even the diary in your pocket seems to laugh at you for that thought.
But you settle into life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry easily enough. The classes are interesting and while your classmates are puerile, a few of them are interesting enough to cultivate. Like Luna Lovegood, the dreamy-eyed Ravenclaw who's already acquired the nickname "Loony" and seems to relish it, considering her propensity for wearing radishes in her ears and a necklace made out of butterbeer corks.
You keep writing in your diary. Tom Riddle is far more pleasant to deal with than most of the school, even if he's so clumsy at manipulation, a garden gnome could see through it. He wants you to feel like he's your only friend, like he's the only one you can depend on, so you lie, write syrupy sweet declarations of friendship and virtual fealty in the pages, even force out a tear or two when it comes time to whisper of a supposed slight by one classmate or another. You laugh when he tells you that he's never had a friend like you. He doesn't know the half of it.
Then again, you don't, either, and it shakes you up when he tries to possess you. It doesn't work-not that time. Your mind is not quite wide-open-empty enough, and you force him out, shaking with the effort, as your stomach tries to heave its contents all over your pillow and your fingers shake, tightening around the quill.
What are you doing? you demand, the tip of the quill stabbing into the parchment. For once, he has no answer.
Angry and more than a bit unsettled, you avoid the diary for a week. When you finally settle back down to it, it's with your bed-curtains charmed shut, and your wand up your sleeve.
What are you trying to make me do? is the only question you write, and it takes so long for him to reply you think that perhaps he's given up for good.
Nothing you don't want to, Tom says, and you laugh, the bitter sound echoing around the deserted dormitory.
Right, you assure him scathingly. That's why you tried to take over my body. Because you wanted me to do things I want. Pull the other, Tom, it's got bells on.
And then the whole story pours out, or well, as much as he's willing to tell you. About being the Heir to Slytherin, about opening the Chamber of Secrets. About the basilisk that lurks within, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting person who wandered in front of its eyes (for, unlike Tom, you have no delusion about the superiourity of blood).
I'll help you, you finally decide, the scratching of your quill like the soundtrack to your own doom. But you have to help me.
Everyone has their price, you realise as you settle down to sleep that night, your hand aching and ink-spattered, but it's oh so worth it. Even a boy, trapped in a diary and reeking of the darkest magic you've ever touched. Everyone has their price.
It is a dark year, your first year at Hogwarts, but you're in your element. And when it all unravels at the end (as it is wont to do), your brown eyes fill up with tears and you fling yourself, sobbing, into Harry Potter's arms, claiming that you had no idea what was happening, sniffling about Tom and how you trusted him.
And the best part is how everyone believes you.