Rating:PG for semi-oblique references to death.
Summery: This was written for a fanfic challenge on (submitted under the name of Rowen). We had to pick one of ten fanart pictures and include it in our story somehow. There was this one black and white picture of Tom Riddle with a snake wrapped around him, and the way it was drawn brought to mind the diary scene from Chamber of Secrets, and then this just came flowing out.
Disclaimer: I do not own Tom Riddle, Ginny, Harry Potter, or the Chamber of Secrets; all of which are owned by J.K. Rowling. Everything else in this is mine.
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AWAKE!
She goes...
Awake!
...at my bidding, and she...
Awake!
...unwittingly awakes me.
Awake!
Ah! To be awake at last! To walk again, to see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears, rather than live through another's quill, relying on a child's distilled knowledge.
Awake, awake!
Knowledge? Say experience, rather. That is what she feeds me, what I thrive on. The pure, raw experience of another, the nourishment at the core of unadulterated feelings, emotions, sensations. Knowledge, I may gain from them, but the experience is the true, the priceless gift; willingly given, unknowingly stolen;...
Ah, to be AWAKE!
...for it is that which wakes me.
Ah, to see!
I see! I see again, as I did all those years ago, not a day younger then as I am now. I can look, feast my eyes, glutting from their long fast, bound by glue and paper to blindness of all but memories...
Memories, memories.
...mine, or another's.
Ah, to see, to have a form!
I see my body. I see my body! I have a form again, and eyes to see it with. She turns pale and trembles as I rise out. Why should she? I am not hideous to look upon. My shoulders rise up, then my hands come up before my face, I may once more gaze upon them, my beautiful hands.
Ah, my hands! To use them again!
All is as I remember. Of course it is, I must be as I remember, there is no other way for it to be. How does a thought age, grow old, spring wrinkles or white hair? Next my lower torso, then my legs to the knee, robes swishing around them, very dignified, then the rest of my legs...
Almost there!
...just a bit further...
Come on!
...and then my feet emerge, and I am whole once more. I walk again. The pure delight of movement!
Ah, to hear!
I hear again, hear real noises, and not the echos of the past that have been clamouring through and through my mind for all these fifty years...
Oh, so long!
...nearly driving me mad with their repetition, their sameness. Madness was still left me, in my pasted pulp prison, for all who can think, can go mad. That is all madness is, a twisting of your thought, so all it requires is thought.
But now.
Yes, now I am awake, I am free! I can hear the stillness down here with me, and it is sweet. The only noise to break the sweetness is the girl's breathing, so soft I can barely hear it at all.
Oh, if I could breathe again!
Soon, it will be soon. She is weak, she has collapsed already, and when she goes altogether...
Yes, yes! Sweet, sweet life!
...her last breathe will be my first in this new/old form. Her breathing is growing quieter, slower, by the moment; her face paler, more waxen, colder. Her eyes closed eons ago, at the start of these five minutes. Time drags by so slowly when you are waiting to awake, beginning to break your fast of sleep, lingering on in the last vestiges of your dream until you emerge fully and completely awake, to face the world once again in a brand new day.
Ah, to awake!
Or night, if that's what this is. But no, it is always day when one awakes, it does not matter what hour, how light the sky outside. Down here it is always night, no matter the hour or how bright the sky, so if eternal night may reign, I may call my time of waking day, no matter what others may call it.
Ah, to move!
Yes, I can move again, it is strange after so long. I am lighter than I remember - but then I am not all here yet, will not be until she is completely not here, an empty shell on the stones. So frail she looks, so weak, deceptive form! It took a long, hard battle to bring her to this, to make her ready to revive me.
Foolish child!
But perhaps it is better so, for awakening is all the sweeter, the gift all the stronger, myself all the stronger for feeding on her strength. And yet...
Awake, awake again!
...yet, she is; she was; so vulnerable as well. Strange that one with such fierceness of spirit that she could struggle against me, against my command, even after I had drained her partially already, that such a one should crumble so easily to her emotions. To her emotions! Of all things to fall prey to!
Foolish, foolish, weak, silly girl!
I am glad this was so, for it was her one chink; the one gaping hole, more like; where I could enter, for she felt the need of a friend. Someone to pour her fears into. Her emotions. Her worries. Her raw experience.
Once hers, once told, once and forever mine.
My food.
Ah, to awake!
I become steadily more awake, more there, more alive; moment by moment; I am ready to receive those who might follow after her - nay, will follow after, if what she has told me is anything to go by.
The very insides of a person's mind cannot lie.
As she wanes, I wax, but neither will go the other way again. She shall never leave here, a prisoner of more than stone and snake scale, a prisoner of that worst tyrant of all...
No! NO!
...but I must not think of that, I who was so nearly there, if her memories serve. And I, I shall once again be free to tread the earth, to ride the skies, to do as I wish, no more a prisoner of memory.
What?
Something comes.
Who, who, is it him, is it him?
Who would dare enter my lair, the lair of my pretty pet? And, daring, could? It must be him, it could be no one else, he is the only other parsletongue in the school. Come here...
Come, COME!
...Mr Harry Potter. I have heard all about you. I know it must be you, it could be no one else, she said; no, stronger even; she thought to me that only you had the gift necessary to enter. It must be you, it must.
IT MUST!
So, you come thinking to try to rescue her, my new life's source. Think again. I am waiting for you. My pretty pet is waiting for you. For you and only you, Mr Potter. You think you can defeat me, defeat it...
He will not escape.
...but you do not know. You do not know I am here, do not know I am here to rid the world of you once and for all. Perhaps you do not even know about my pretty pet, my basilisk...
Soon, he nears, soon.
...thinking only to save your friend. It is the last mistake you will ever make, Harry Potter...
He comes!
...I promise you, the last, for now, now, I have my power back. I can see, hear, feel, move, talk. You will never leave here I promise. Never.
I AM AWAKE!