'It's not first year anymore, but Ginny likes to pretend. Oneshot.'


In Secret
Rasielle


No one notices, so I don't have to worry. And I find myself preferring it that way. If they so much as suspected it, they'd be showering me with sympathy and concern and a load of rubbish that I did not need.

I would never forget how he was in my first-year; so kind, so patient. I trusted him with everything I had; I told him everything.

He didn't lie when he said I gave him my soul.

But that is over now, they say. All is forgotten, all the pain fading slowly away, they say. I disagree. Even now, at the mere thought of him, I can feel that longing again, as overwhelming as ever, that desire to feel so darkly powerful and unique and immense and important.

Because I've never been important before. Not really.

I can't think of him as Lord Voldemort. It's very hard. I can't think of him as the man who slaughtered and killed and destroyed for his own benefits. The Muggle hater. That too was very hard. He was a boy once; he used to be Tom Riddle. He used to be my best friend.

Sometimes, when I'm alone and there's absolutely no way anyone could catch me, I take out a diary. It's blank, and fairly new (if you can call anything secondhand new), and something inside of me jumps. I write in it, glancing at the door after every letter to make sure no one walks in: Hello. And I almost expect him to write back.

It's not the same diary. At least I'm not running the risk of dying again, or resurrecting the modern world's greatest evil. No one notices when I fall quiet at the mention of Lord Voldemort; no one sees the hungry, despairing look in my eyes, sees the desire welling up behind them, sees the evil part of me that I often tried to suffocate. My secret is safe.

No one notices that I have a diary; but I don't mind. If they did, they'd see rows and rows of attempted conversation, a one-sided discussion. Merlin, they could use it to convince even Dumbledore that I belonged in a mental institution.

Hello there. I'm Ginny Weasley.

I have a lot to tell you about today. Do you mind listening?

Talking to you always makes me feel better. I'm so lucky to have you.

I really want your opinion, Tom.

Tom, I miss you.

And it's true. That is what scares me the most. When I feel that strange craving again, on the most quiet of days, I take out my diary and scribble. It's what I do in secret. And nobody notices.

--- fin.