A/N please read, I won't do this every chap: Hey, so this is a Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley pairing...no idea where I'm going with it, but it'll be kinda an AU version of the canon from basically the first book to post epilogue. There will be a fair few warning later on but this is kind of just a prologue to see if anyone likes where I'm going with it. Multi-chapter. Italics interspersed at the bottom are intended to be Riddle's thoughts but idk. anyway cause I'm kinda iffy about this, thoughts would be reallly appreciated, especially constructive. I haven't written anything new in a while either, especially not with intended length. Mkay I'll shut up. Enjoy!

JKR OWNS ALL.

Prologue: Rust and Smoke

Years will pass and her hair will fade. The fiery mane will dim, loose it's copper shimmer and turn rusty and streaked with grey. Her milky skin will sag and wrinkle. Creases will permanently form around her forehead and eyes. Her smile will turn downward, and the years of unhappiness will be written on her flesh like it's the parchment it will begin to resemble.

In her head though, as in the diary, he remains pure and perfect and untouchable. He is still 16 and not quite the monster he will become.

He is dead but he lives on in her still blazing eyes.

At 11 she is as uncorrupted as virgin snow.

She is pure and

sweet and

hopeful and

innocent.

She is gullible and far too trusting and ignorant and hopelessly optimistic and she is

Afraid. She is

Easy.

She's the baby girl of a family who would die to protect her. She is loved and she is shielded and has never known true fear. Not yet.

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

Her smile is untroubled and words tumble freely, gaily out of her rosebud mouth and her excitement is infectious.

The virgin sacrifice.

And her joyous laughter sounds like birdsong.

Turtledove in a gilded cage, but you don't know you're

Trapped.

There is steam and scarlet paint. There is a train whistle screeching and plump arms around her. There is a kiss made sloppy by tears and smiling eyes blurred by emotion.

There is a flurry of activity and the slamming of doors. Hauling her heavy trunk behind her, she turns and waves to her proud parents.

She's on her way.

We're coming home.

In a tattered school back pack, shoved between a dog eared copy of Witch Weekly and a squashed package of slightly dry corned beef sandwiches, there is a plain, black, highly unremarkable diary. On the first page, in a girlish, disjointed print, is written: "1st September-I'm finally going to Hogwarts!"

And as the train picks up speed and the countryside blurs green and grey outside the windows, Ginny Weasley's words fade to and a masculine spidery scrawl appears on the diary's page;

At

Last.