This came to me when reading someone's summary when looking for a story to read. No idea what the story was about or what it was called but this idea just…came to me.

Tears

The diary was a charred thing.

It lay on the desk seemingly out of place; a wide scar in its pure black cover sinking through the yellowing, curling, pages. Corners edged in untarnished gold, the diary was small, not much bigger than an ordinary notebook. The light wood it rested on presenting a sharp contrast to the inky blackness the diary seemed to emit. That was all it was. A book, a few hundred leather bound pages, something to write on until it was full.

Just like all the rest.

But different, as everything always is, different in a fundamental way, just as everything always has to be …

But the same, on the basis that it too has withered and died, just as everything always does.

The office was dark, pockets of light flashing randomly as the midnight sky glowed with bolts of cyan lightning. Glowing, with streaks of soft blue light, the colour of the hottest flame against the thick darkness that stretched boldly across the starless sky. Illuminated by light reflected off of various bits of glass in the wide room, the diary appeared almost indecisive, stuck in the in-between, light and dark, an impossible choice. The deep gorge mark down the centre now seemed more than a scar; a wound that would never heal, a mark disfiguring the prefect, smooth, surface of the little book. But of course it would never heal…the book was inanimate, an object, a tool, and nothing more.

Right?

Tom Riddle sat in the empty Transfiguration classroom.

His quill poised between three fingers, he glared angrily at the parchment in front of him, at the lines inscribed on the wrinkled page. With a arrogant flourish designed to annoy, he finished the last characters of the sentence he was writing and then started the process again, only stopping to dip his quill in the ink well on his desk.

The door behind him opened as Dumbledore walked back into the room.

His teacher sat back down at his desk and resumed marking the papers in front of him. Tom briefly looked up, before looking dismissively back down at his parchment and continuing to write. Now Dumbledore was back in the room, his anger was under control, as it should be. It didn't take long for the boy to finish and after a few minutes of the scratching of his quill, he stood and walked over to the Professors desk. The fourteen year old waited for a moment for the man to look up, in a rare moment of respect for the man, and when he didn't, decided that he would speak first.

"The lines are done, sir." the boy said softly, in a voice that many would soon begin to fear.

Dumbledore looked up, bright blue eyes meeting Tom's. He reached out and took the parchment out of Tom's hands and read through the words quickly, pushing his glasses further up his nose when they fell down. After what felt like an age, he nodded in approval, a small smile on his face.

"Well, everything seems to be as it should be, here. I should hope that this will discourage you from passing notes in my class again, Mr Riddle?" the man asked causally, distant and slightly aloof.

"Yes sir." Tom replied, staring directly into the mans intelligent eyes. He hadn't liked that tone.

Dumbledore smiled. "Good, it wouldn't do for one of my best students to be getting into too much trouble would it?"

The tone was light, but Tom could sense the undercurrent, the warning, and the worry. Mentally, he smiled back, this was familiar ground, the man was back to being the overbearing, irritating teacher that Tom knew so well. Not aloof and unfamiliar. Tom liked knowing how people would act; he didn't like not knowing.

"No sir." Tom replied finally.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at the pause but let it drop. "In that case, Mr Riddle, I will see you the same time tomorrow. Remember your quill this time?"

Tom nodded, dropping the borrowed quill onto the teachers desk with little worry about respect. "Of course."

The boy turned to go but was stopped when the professor spoke again. "Wait one moment, Mr Riddle."

Tom turned round and now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow. Dumbledore was holding out a small black book, offering it to him. The boy walked back to the desk and gracefully plucked the book out of the mans hands before giving the Professor a confused look. Dumbledore chuckled.

"I thought you might need a distraction…something to keep you from feeling the temptation to send notes in my class. Maybe this will help you control your desire to write." the words were said innocently enough, but Tom was no fool, and even he could sense that the man was amused. "Anyway, it is Christmas soon."

"Your giving me a gift?" Tom asked silkily, the same humour in his tone as had been in Dumbledore's. Two can play at that game old man.

Blue eyes regarded the teen calmly. "What gave you that idea? As I said, I do not want you passing notes in my classroom. That book should provide a nice distraction, don't you think?"

The message was clear…are you going to continue passing notes and being a nuisance to me?

Tom's reply was equally as clear. "We'll see."

Not a chance.

Another smile was all he got for his trouble. "You can go." the wizard said eventually.

Tom nodded, turning on his heel and leaving the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Dumbledore watched him go shaking his head slightly as he looked back down to the parchment, to the words written in neat handwriting that he recognised as Tom's. Each letter ending in a flourish that he knew the boy did to irritate him. He slipped the parchment into one of his various draws, before he picked up his quill and resumed his marking.

And here the diary was, lying on a desk more than fifty years later.

It had been a gift, a present, one that had not been thrown carelessly away. Lightning flashed once more and the book was illuminated. Pages, cover…diary. It was personal and important and empty; more empty than it had been for years. There were no elegantly scripted words on the paper, no magic now contained within its worn pages, the Basilisk venom had seen to that. There was nothing left to describe the boy it had been given to in an act that might have been friendship, might have been compassion. Might have, if someone was looking for meaning, in a teacher giving a student a simple diary.

The scar was the only thing that remained.

A reflection, perhaps, a reminder, the last thing that could be linked with the boy who had once wrote in that small black book.

After all, how could one kill and maim, destroy and burn, watch and laugh, and not have even a scar?

The diary was scarred, it was old and worn and almost dead, held together by only a few scraps of binding and glue. It was empty and black and cold, with that long scar down the middle. Singed paper was curled from the burning of the acidic venom. So, yes, it was scarred, and in those flashes of electric lightning, the deep gorge mark was illuminated all the more, the light casting a dark shadow.

Something shifted.

There was no one to watch, no one to gasp in shock or smile sadly. The office was empty. The room was silent. So no one was there to witness the fiery red of mercy and the translucence of forgiveness and understanding.

So, no, there was no one there. No one at all.

There was no one there when a phoenix cried on Tom Riddles diary.

So…yeah. No idea where that came from but…

It never sat too well with me that Dumbledore is portrayed as never giving Tom a chance, like he always knew there was something off about him. Come on, this is Dumbledore, who believed in Snape, of all people, who gave mercy to anyone. He was wise like that. I would have thought that the Headmaster would not have judged so easily. And then I thought about where the diary had come from. Also, Voldemort could not have been evil from the start, I believe one can really be born evil, but maybe just slight dark inclined. I don't know. But was a kid? I don't see him as being evil overlord material yet. Yes, maybe well on his way, but not there yet.

This was my trying to focus on the fact that, whatever Tom is now, he was human once, and that part of him deserves to be mourned. And written about. Because it is interesting. Don't get me wrong, Voldemort's evil, but he is an interesting character. I wonder what I'm going to write next…probably another Dumbledore oneshot knowing me. Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Please review.