This is my first Harry Potter story, and I am rather more proud of it than I ought to be, considering. I poured a lot of my "Heart and Soul" into writing it, and I hope you are able to see the emotion that I tried to write into it.

Pairings: Harry/Ginny; Ginny/Tom Riddle

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the all-powerful J.K. Rowling.

The diary.

It was just a thin, black book. There was nothing particularly remarkable in its appearance, but the Ginny it was a lifeline. She was alone in every roomful of people, an outsider, a social pariah. The diary that she had found tucked carelessly between her books appeared to her like shining door, an escape from the real world in which she could lose herself.

And then she met Tom Riddle.

He treated her like a princess. He took her and told her that everyone else was just stupid, that no one else was important besides him and her. Had she been older, she might have seen the manipulation, the way she pulled away from her friends, the way he told her that he was "her secret" and she didn't question him for a moment, because she was his. His and his alone. She almost came to imagine that, just as she was his, he was hers. It was easy to think.

She poured her heart and soul into him. She gave him her everything, her thoughts, her fears, her deepest darkest desires, and he took them and made them into something for himself. Nasty, awful, to those of us who can see clearly; but to she, who was already his, it was wonderful, a miracle.

and when she had poured so much into him that it became easy for him to take her as his own, and she first lost the memories of that awful night the first time the chamber was opened, it was to him she ran. it seemed to her that this wonderful boy, who called her his and seemed, at least, to see only Ginny in a world where most people saw only another Weasley child, was the only one she could trust. And so she poured more of herself into him, and loved him for it.

And he took it. He took more and more of her, and gave nothing of himself, and when she finally came to see that, she took the book and tried to get rid of it. It felt like a poison that was contaminating her, and it scared her, scared her that she told him so much and loved-yes, loved-him so much and he could not love her back because he was a book. And so she threw him away, flushed the book down the toilet, and cried herself to sleep.

But she found the book, or Harry found it, and she stole it form him because He was hers (Or she was his, there was no longer any difference in her mind) and continued to write init despite the voice warning her that something was wrong, and her mind became truly his, and he led her down into the chamber.

In that chamber, everything blurred but him. He was tall, dark haired, with a smooth voice and a nobleman's charm. He looked at her with something akin to pity, as she cried and pleaded with him. And he lifted her, for she was now too weak to walk, and laid her gently in front of the great statue, and leaned over her as she slipped into unconsciousness with an almost tender expression as her siphoned the last of her life force.

And when she awoke Harry was there, and He was gone, as was the diary, and she cried and he held her and told her it was going to be alright. And when they both grew up she fell in love with this dark-haired boy, and he never manipulated her and he told her that he loved her and they belonged to each other and not her to him.

But sometimes she still mourns for the innocence she lost when she fell in love with a murderer.

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