TEMPUS

PART I - Lost (In retrospect)

Stuck somewhere back in between/ My blurred memories (Burn Season, Closer)

Ginny Weasley could never remember what it was like to not have her life dominated by a black-haired boy. First Harry. Then Tom. Then Harry again.

But no, that wasn't quite right. She frowned, twisting a strand of poppy-red hair around her finger, perhaps the only habit of childhood that hadn't been stolen from her all too soon.

Tom couldn't be replaced, couldn't be usurped. Tom had never left. She tried to put him away (with other childish things) and had convinced everyone she had forgotten him. She had almost convinced herself.

Almost.

It wasn't so easy to deceive herself when she was away from the bustle of classes and Quidditch sheds and Dean's sweet, earnest kisses that always tasted like Butterbeer, saccharine and airy and innocent. And it was when the evenings drew in, the vivid red-gold of her dormitory fading to blue shade and ephemeral silver moonlight that it was hardest of all.

Tom was the cord she had never severed. The echo of words written but never spoken. He stole through her consciousness like a thief in the night, taking from her when she had nothing left to give. He stirred while the world slumbered and caressed her in the darkness with ghostly fingers. His breath cold against the hollow of her throat, causing her to shiver not unpleasantly. Beneath the sheets, she tossed and turned and squirmed and shuddered in -

Innocence stolen, and all because of him.

She was a naïve, bright little girl when she first started writing to him, with her too-large robes and hair always spilling out of its childish braids. It was humiliating now, to think of the way she used to dote upon everything he said, drinking in every effortless compliment in her ignorance of the world, and her love of someone too perfect to be real. Lies moulding onto his lips, onto her heart. Hypnotic words welling through her veins like sweetly flowing poison.

Would you help free me from these pages, Ginny?

Of course, Tom. You know I would.

I suppose I do. Oh, I so long to be free. To see you in person. You must be beautiful, Ginny.

I don't…

And those classmates of yours are too foolish to notice? But when I am free… we can walk the grounds together, the forests and the lakes, feel the cold night air and see the stars again. And we will dance by moonlight, dance until the end of everything.

Oh, Tom! That sounds beautiful.

And will you seal that bond with a kiss and promise to love me always?

Yes. Yes.

I thought as much.

He began as little more than a shadow at her side. Until it all began to change. Then she felt like a shadow; the one being emptied, hollowed out. People made comments, whispered things, but did nothing to intervene. Meanwhile, inside the diary, he grew ever clearer, ever stronger, exuding power and brilliance and quietly controlled energy. All as she dwindled away, drab and grey and lifeless. A sad, haunted little ghost. Too long grasping at shadows until she became one herself. She saw herself reflected back in mirrors and the fractured surfaces of things: she was paler, thinner, gaunt almost.

Until one day she found herself in a place where there was nothing but cold and reflections, neither alive nor dead. Thin trails of mist shimmered and coalesced between carven serpents that stared down at her with jewelled ebony eyes. And Tom lying beside her, careless of the water seeping through his robes, iridescent green lights slanting across his face that was gradually gaining colour and definition. His hands were crossed over his chest, eyes closed reverently. He was smiling as her death crept ever closer, tasting the new life it would promise him.

And he was still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

You're going to die, Ginny Weasley. And no one will care.

She reached out a pale, wasted hand, the rest of her too weak to move. Blackness was stealing across her vision, the green mist faint and flickering. She inhaled a thin breath through dry lips. Tom… Tom, please…

If they remember you, they'll just think you did it. You'll die never being able to prove your innocence. What do you think about that?

I hate you -

The echo of mocking laughter. And here I thought you loved me.

No -

Do be quiet, Ginny. This is my time. My resurrection. I don't want your pathetic snivelling to ruin the moment. But still… I should be grateful. After all, were it not for you, I would never have been reborn. You had your part to play, and for that I must thank you. After all, Lord Voldemort does not forget those who do him a service.

He caught at her thin little hand with its sharp bones, folding his long fingers over it and pressing it to his heart. Can you feel it, Ginny? Life - my life - coming back to me. All because of you.

All because of you.

The Underworld Story

Often at night, Tom dreamed of London.

Behind closed lids, he would see explosions of searing light, smell the crackle of electricity and sulphur in the throbbing air underpinned by the coppery tang of blood. And he would start awake, cold and shaking, and knowing that summer - that dreaded time of year - was creeping ever closer.

And he had been close, so close to escaping it forever. Old Armando Dippet had told him as much.

"The thing is, Tom, special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…"

Standing at the bottom of the long staircase, Tom silently agonised over the headmaster's words, what they would mean for him. Far below the depths of the castle, in the chamber of his ancestor, his Basilisk lay, secret and silent, waiting upon his command. And she was beautiful. Scales of shimmering emerald, cold to the touch and strong as tempered steel. For serpents killed, however tame. She responded to his every imperious order as he lingered over the sibilant Parseltongue words, the exquisite syllables resounding over the walls of stone set in place a thousand years ago. He was on the brink of something magnificent, the beginning of a new world, using an ancient beast to rewrite history as it should have been… and it was all ending before he had even begun.

That little brat Myrtle had been far more trouble than she was worth. One would not have thought the death of a worthless Mudblood would cause such an outcry. And Dippet - the craven, cowering fool - had spoken of closing the school.

Would he? Could he?

Tom knew he should have felt anger as Dippet explained this to him, sadly, resignedly. But he didn't. He felt fear.

He couldn't go back to that orphanage again. He couldn't. Not because of the war, the poverty, or the hunger - such dangers did not daunt him. There, another, greater danger threatened him; that of insignificance. At the orphanage, he was nothing, no one. He was not Lord Voldemort, the heir of Salazar Slytherin, there he was merely that Riddle boy, a pauper's brat, another mouth to feed. At night, he would lie in that cold, hard bed, where the sheets scratched starch across his bare skin, and the thin curtains flared with passing Doodlebugs. Arms wrapped around his knees, he would close his eyes, and whisper to himself, over and over, I will not forget, I will not forget.

Or he would prowl the Underground, reciting the names of the stations, as he read them so frequently the words were burned behind his eyes. Embankment, Charing Cross, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road…

More often still, he would wander through the streets (I wander through each chartered street) daring the fire and smoke and debris. Every night an apocalypse. Premature dawn illumined the skies in synthetic amber and the clouds rained ash. Patterns of hyper-real light slanted across his skin in burning strips as the ground shuddered beneath his feet like an oncoming storm. He could smell death, taste it. Sharp and metallic with the chill of the grave. People sobbed in the charred ruins that had once been houses. Others huddled in churches, praying for a salvation that would not come. He saw death ever more frequently, a terrifying spectre stalking the streets of London, and the need to uncover the secret to immortality had become a vital compulsion.

It seemed to Tom, as he thought back, that London had always been this apocalyptic wasteland, the kind of darkened horror captured so perfectly by Doré in his paintings. A world where chemical lightning blazed through the skies as the warning sirens wailed over the shrapnel that shrieked in a death's course towards the condemned.

No, not condemned. That was what struck Tom about the Blitz. There was no organisation, no efficiency to the attacks. Simply madness and fire. How different to the refined precision of the Avada Kedavra or the subtlety of the Imperious curse. Even Crucio had a kind of… focused elegance in the utmost control one wielded over the victim. Nothing like this brutish onslaught. It was utter chaos.

Even Mrs Cole had passed away the previous summer, killed by flying shrapnel as she was out doing her rounds. Tom was almost disappointed. He would have liked to do it himself - sever his last (only) tie to the Muggle world. Instead, she merely another forgotten casualty, a name on an endless list that no one would bother reading when (if) the war ended.

It disgusted him. The Muggles were like animals, blowing themselves apart in contraptions of scorched, perspiring metal and rippling waves of infernal heat. To hold such power and use it so carelessly. Where was the beauty, the poetry, the symmetry? Tom knew that he would never resort to such disordered violence. No, when his time came, he would create a sign. Something unique and magnificent. Something iconic. But how could he hope to do so if he was banished from Hogwarts forever?

He must have been standing there for longer than he thought; his skin had gone pale and hard as cold marble in the chill of the evening.

If the person was caught... if it all stopped…

He knew what must be done. Tom slowly drew his wand and set off down the corridor with a calm determination. For now, he told himself. Only for now.

But soon, he would never have to hide who he truly was. When that day came, he would split the world asunder then build it anew.

And never again would he be powerless.

Heroes and Villains

He had stood there in the office, covered in blood and water and slime, the oversized sword in his hand dragging across the floor. His glasses were smeared and his black hair was a tangled mess. He resembled nothing so much as an untidy magpie. It was hard to believe this very same boy had wielded a sword against a Basilisk and defeated the heir of Slytherin.

"You're a hero, Harry."

That had been her mother, tearful and stunned. Ron clapped him on the back, gangly and filthy, but grinning broadly. Even Professor McGonagall gave Harry a curt, stern nod, though suspicious moisture flashed through her fierce green eyes. Dumbledore's lined face was filled with pride.

Harry. Her hero, her champion, her light where Tom had brought only darkness. Ginny had been too shy to speak, too shy to say anything. Thank you seemed so… inadequate. I love you too melodramatic.

So she had said nothing.

She merely stood there, shivering, her red hair plastered to her pallid skin, like a drowned mermaid out of water. She should have died in those inky green depths, the cloying cold closing around her, the last sight in her mortal life being those dark, slanting eyes… but instead, she was here, in Dumbledore's office, skin and flesh and blood, not paper and leather and ink. Her father's hand was on her shoulder, large and familiar and freckled, yet other hands came to mind: pale and slender and long-fingered. She fought down the savage urge to shake it off.

"At least it's over now," her father said, as he led her from the office.

Ginny glanced down. For a moment, she was certain she had ink on her hands, but maybe it was only her veins she saw after all, as when she looked again, there was nothing there.

And perhaps that made her cry most of all.

…

He had stood there in the office, tall and upright and immaculate, the Prefect's badge gleaming on his robes. He radiated an aura of calm and reliability.

"You're a hero, Tom."

Tom looked uncomfortable. "The teachers don't like me talking about it, sir. Professor Dippet was particularly insistent about the issue." His voice was soft, smooth and polite, the customary tone he used with his teachers. The professors liked that. They took it as subtle acknowledgement of their authority, an implicit nod to their intelligence.

Horace Slughorn was no different. He smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course. Still, credit where credit is due. What you did was remarkably brave, Tom - no sense in denying that."

"Thank you, sir." Tom kept his expression deliberately bland.

"Now, off to the dormitory with you. You don't want to be late."

"Yes, sir. Goodnight."

Tom took his leave, walking down the corridor with an easy, measured pace. None of the teachers would chastise him for being out several minutes after hours. Not after being branded the saviour of the school. He inhaled deeply, the scent of the night drifting through the open castle windows clear and bracing. The corridor was bathed in golden light from the sconces; he could feel the brief, glowing heat warm against the surface of his skin each time he passed one by. Outside the windows, the long shadows had darkened to black, a bleak, drizzling rain blurring the glass. Tom thought briefly of Rubeus Hagrid stumbling around the grounds in the dark and had to fight back a laugh. It had been a stroke of brilliance that had surprised even him. Not only had he handed Dippet a culprit, he had ensured that the staff believed there was no culprit - that the Chamber of Secrets was nothing more than a legend. His secret remained safe. He held the entire school in the palm of his hand, professors and students, kings and castles and pawns. They had all lost without even knowing they were playing.

And it seemed to Tom that life was good.

The demons of the past compete/And draw and tear my heart to pieces (Boris Pasternak, Mary Magdalene)

Whenever Ginny walked down a corridor, she saw Tom.

Not all at once, of course. It would be head of dark hair here, a tall, slender body there. Sometimes, it was more subtle. The arrogant arch of someone's shoulders, the softness in a voice that both caressed and threatened at the same time. But she was able to fit the fragmented pieces together to form a whole, a secret picture that she carried with her everywhere. Skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal, a fairytale prince who brought no happily-ever-after, but instead roses that concealed thorns, everlasting cold, and castles that turned out to be prisons after all.

And then, perhaps it was inevitable that she really did begin to see Tom, after looking so long, and finding him everywhere. After spending so many years assembling him from bits of paper and coal, pouring black ink into his irises and snake's venom through his veins, encasing the whole in hard, perfect marble. She had brought him to life once, it was not so surprising that she could do it again.

It was small flashes, at first. But gradually, memory by memory trickled in. Not her memories - not entirely, anyway. But the present receded to a distant wilderness, and the past swallowed her up. Time flew backwards and her consciousness spiralled through a sea of images, faces, names. Walls crumbled and rebuilt themselves. Sound and noise and light and laughter returned as a world - his world - was constructed around her.

She had always imagined from Wizarding photographs that 1943 would be everlastingly sepia-toned, or rather like something that Hermione called an old-fashioned move-ee. It came as something of a shock to realise that it was just as vivid and alive and Hogwarts in the present day.

Only, of course, Ginny wasn't interested in glimpses of Hogwarts in its fifty-year past. She was interested in him.

And she wasn't the only one. Heads turned as he passed by, smooth, elegant, aloof. There was a certain glamour in everything he said and did, a cool assurance that was magnetic. She remembered it all, and ached inside. Those empty places that he had filled were hollow, devoid of that sense of perverse completeness.

She followed him everywhere. A dizzying movement from corridor to classroom, up winding stairs to towers and down again. Faces, faces, faces. Yet she still couldn't get at him, near him. She needed him, but knew perfectly well that he didn't need her. Worse even than that, he didn't see her. No one did.

She saw, but could not touch. Even though he was alive, really alive, his chest rising and falling with steady breaths, his pulse beating in his throat, he was as distant to her as that elusive spirit bound within paper and sealed with spells. There was still a translucent quality to his beauty, even in hard, physical reality. For once - just once - she wanted to reach out and touch him. To see if his skin was as cold and hard as his soul. But he was not incapable of human feeling, she knew that. Hunger, hatred, rage… oh, he could certainly feel.

He had certainly made her feel in the long winter nights when he fed her dreams even as he consumed her soul. She ran after him, feet thudding soundlessly against the stone floors as he talked and laughed carelessly with people who had no idea what he truly was. Ginny almost envied their ignorance.

Oh, Tom. Why did you make me hate you when I so easily could have loved you?

Memento Mori

One year, one heir, one monster. So many deaths.

The serpent engraved on the tap gleamed like liquid quicksilver in the cold, ephemeral light. And Tom Marvolo Riddle smiled into his reflection. There was blood on his fingers and ink in his veins and a song in his heart.

He didn't know why it was that he kept returning to this place, especially as the Chamber could never be opened while he remained at Hogwarts. But this was where it had all began, for him. Tom placed a ghostly-pale hand against the cold glass. Killing was an extraordinary feeling. He felt such power. He felt no guilt. He could look upon his own self in the glass and know only the certainty. The deaths at his hand had been necessary, and that was enough. He had always known he was meant for something greater than what he was.

Yet one eternity was not enough. He would create another.

And this would be greater, far greater than gaining Slytherin's ring, even. That victory had been tainted by his witnessing the hovel the Gaunts called their home, the decayed and contemptuous state the noble House had dwindled into. They had turned the noble bloodline of Salazar Slytherin into a mockery. Tom had come expecting them to be great, terrible, even, and what he had in fact encountered was… a mockery. That humiliation still burned within him. They had deserved to be eradicated. He had felt no remorse in killing them. It had not been a hasty thing, rashly done in anger or bloodlust. He had carried it out with a calm, cold clarity, knowing what must be done. The old would die out, and the new would rise in its place.

One for sorrow, two for joy. First the ring. And now the diary.

Shallow, stupid Myrtle had had her uses, after all. But this one would be different. Not merely a symbol of his having purged the unworthy elements of his ancestry, aligning himself fully with the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin. No, this had another, higher purpose. A cleansing through venom and blood.

But he could not do it alone. He needed to bide his time while the school remained so cautious. Another would have to act in his stead.

Another heir?

No, he wanted no offspring, no progeny. He - the last surviving heir, the greatest of all Salazar Slytherin's descendants - no, he was not willing to share glory. He alone had the blood of Slytherin running through his veins, so it must remain.

Tom often thought back to those ancient days of Gryffindor and Slytherin as their ties, bound in will and magic and blood, slowly drained away. He twirled Slytherin's ring round and round his finger, deep in thought.

Friends. Brothers. Rivals. Enemies.

Slytherin had been foolish, Tom decided, in trusting the other Founders. Not that he hadn't seen sense in the end, of course… but he should have acted alone from the first. Courageous as Gryffindor, sharp-minded as Ravenclaw, resilient as Hufflepuff… what need had he of any of them?

Divide et impera, he thought to himself. Divide and conquer.

And he would never die.

His reflection was ghostlike in the greenish darkness. Vague and insubstantial. Was this what it would be like for the fragment of his spirit entrapped within the diary? A part of him shuddered slightly at the thought of himself - even if only a small part - enclosed within those dark pages, cold and silent until -

Until what?

That was something he could only guess at. Tom had little patience for Divination. He would shape his own destiny, and there would be none to tell him his limits. He had walked fearlessly through the darkened trees in the Forbidden Forest, seeking out the Centaurs who dwelt there, but they eluded him. And in the night sky, Mars burned ever brighter. War was coming.

Not the war fought by the Muggles that he witnessed every time he returned to the detestable orphanage, where shrapnel shrieked through the sky and London smouldered to ash. Not Grindlewald, massing his dark armies in the east. Something greater still. The stars foretold it.

But first, he must arm himself, make certain that he would be invincible when the time came.

His former enemies had been so weak. His father. The Gaunts. Myrtle. He needed something, something more.

He needed one worthy. One strong enough to endure his soul. There would be those who were weak. Those who would be consumed by his spirit in an instant. He would not entrust his soul to any worthless fool who happened to stumble by.

He would destroy them in the end, of course. But he sought after one who would last. A worthy adversary.

Tom pressed his pale hands together as though in prayer, his dark head bowed as the silver serpent blurred across his vision.

Where are you?

Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? (Revelations, V)

Ginny never thought she would meet anyone who spent more time in the library than Hermione. But Tom did.

Hidden behind a stack of shelves, she watched as he studied for hours, never seeming to tire of perusing book after book. He seemed to crave knowledge as others craved love and affection. His pale features became ardent with animation, thin lips pressed together as his dark eyes moved hungrily across pages and pages, pausing occasionally to scribble something down on a spare scrap of parchment. Her heart caught in her throat as she recognised the elegant, slanting handwriting that would haunt her until her dying day. She imagined that she saw not incantations or magical theory but the old words of promises and love that she had been so willing to believe… I'll always be there for you, Ginny, you know that. Even when your brothers tease you and your parents forget to write or when Harry Potter is too foolish to notice you, I'll be here. Forever. Just tell me your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams. I want to know everything about you. You do trust me, don't you, Ginny? You do love me? More than anyone else in the world? You do? Then let me give you the chance to prove it to me… that's right, Ginny. Don't be scared. Trust me. Trust your Tom. And believe me, you'll never feel insignificant again…

Even when his eyes became pearlescent with fatigue, dark curls falling over his brow as his head drooped with tiredness, he continued to study with a preternatural tenacity. And what was he searching for? What was it he sought after so endlessly?

Ginny strained forward. His lips moved, shaping the one word that haunted and consumed him. Horcruxes, horcruxes, horcruxes.

She watched as his eyes gradually began to close, lashes casting dark shadows across his pale cheeks. Finally, his head rested on one of the opened books, black hair spilling over the faded pages. He seemed strangely vulnerable in slumber, one arm flung possessively across the stacks of parchment as his chest rose and fell with soft breaths. Ginny was startled at how young he looked, flushed with sleep, curling hair damp against his temples, the softening of his tense mouth.

He's at peace, she realised wonderingly. He's actually at peace here.

…

That his future would be ensured through a book struck him as curiously fitting. There was something beautiful and violent and Medieval in the idea. It harkened back to the centuries of Catholic mortification and penitence, of solemn Latin intonations and hellfire captured within the gold bindings and engraved pages. Tom remembered his early days spent inside cramped schoolrooms with chipped desks and backless chairs as his teachers would read aloud sermons to unreceptive children who knew already there was no virtue to be found in poverty. Tom never listened to these tedious moral platitudes, but instead thought of Revelations, of a child being born that escaped being devoured by the dragon, of the rising Beast signifying the ending of the old way of things, and those loyal to the Beast that would bear its mark.

Blood and fire, death and rebirth, and he would be at the centre of it all. He had already unleashed the serpent, and that too would rise again, when the time was right.

Tom was seated with the book open on his lap, as silent and absorbed as the boy who once bent over second-hand textbooks, but how different, how different…

The hand that held the wand was steady even as he traced it across his palm, watching the skin open, a blade of burning ice parting his flesh. Tom fought down the pain of it, fought it down until his lips turned white. Then he carved another thin line on his alternate hand, his movements slow, deliberate. For a moment, the scars remained, silver-pale, until vivid blood began welling from the identical cuts. The blood of Salazar Slytherin. The blood of his past, his future. Tom stared, fascinated, then his vision blurred and he saw -

A small, intent face, a flash of red hair -

He turned his palms downward. The drops fell, glinting like rubies against the smooth pages…

"Dear Tom," she began to say, and it was her tears he saw, her tears and his blood -

…before being absorbed, disappearing into the paper without a trace. Tom remained unmoving, his pale face intent with thought as the fleeting image faded.

Blood magic. Tom knew well the importance of blood. It had set him above mediocrity, placed him on the path to his destiny. He stared at the single red lines marring the perfect whiteness of his hands. He could have healed them in an instant, but he rather liked having them there. Still… it would not do to have anyone asking questions…

A muttered incantation and the skin sealed itself effortlessly, the tracery of veins disappearing beneath the young, regrown flesh. Yet still the icy sensation remained, a faint spider's thread of frost across the lifelines of his palms.

He held the quill, poised above the pages. He was transcribing himself, his very essence into this book. The words he wrote now would shape all that was to come. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. In the beginning was the Word…

He pressed the nib down on the paper as he began to write -

A knocking on the door disturbed him. Tom sighed with annoyance. The diary's pages became instantly blank once more. He laid the quill to once side. There was no trace of blood on his hands. Good. Tom looked up towards the door.

"Come in."

When Cygnus Black entered, Tom was lazing back in his seat, twirling his wand idly between his long fingers. The diary was nowhere to be seen.

"Tom? Professor Slughorn wanted me to give you this." He laid a gilded envelope on the table. Tom glanced at it carelessly. An invitation. How trite.

"Is that all?"

Cygnus hesitated. "I just…"

"What?"

"Did you do it?" His voice was low, hushed, eager.

"Do what?" Tom said, without interest.

"Well… you know."

Tom merely looked at him. Silence was often as powerful a weapon as speech, and this case proved to be no different. He noted with a detached disinterest that beads of perspiration had gathered on Black's forehead.

"It's just… we all know. That you're the heir, I mean."

Tom leaned forward. "Is that so?" he asked softly. "And what would you do with such knowledge? Does it give you some… sense of power?"

Fear flickered in the boy's eyes. "N-no - I didn't mean -"

"No." Tom was almost disappointed. "I don't suppose you did."

He waited until the Slytherin was almost at the door before he spoke again.

"Oh, and Black?"

Cygnus turned to face him nervously.

Tom spoke quietly, idly examining a nail, not looking at him. "Question me again, or do anything so foolish as to mention this conversation to anyone… you will regret it." He smiled. "And that I am telling you the truth about."

"I won't, I promise -"

"Get out," said Tom, pleasantly.

Cygnus fled.

Winter Nights

The Gryffindor common room was filled with warmth and light, glowing red as the inside of the belly of a sleeping dragon. The fire crackled, rich with the smell of holly berries and cinnamon and mulled wine. The heady fumes were making her sleepy. Arnold the Pygmy Puff was snuggled against her shoulder, purring slightly. Ginny was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, teeth pressing into her lower lips as she attempted to wind a stubborn twist of holly into a wreath. She had thought of giving it to Fleur as a Christmas present.

Harry was curled up in one of the armchairs, absorbed in that Potions book he always seemed to be reading these days. Hermione was seated at his feet, her back leaning against his knees, and Ron was… probably off snogging Lavender Brown, Ginny thought, then immediately wished she hadn't. Hermione was reading too, her face glowing in the warmth of the fire. She shifted against Harry's legs; he glanced down at her and smiled. Ginny wished she hadn't seen that. She never made Harry smile like that. Laugh, certainly. With a slightly sad smile, she laid the tangled snarl of holly to one side, watching the two of them, the easy familiarity she always saw whenever they were together.

Harry sighed, taking his glasses off as he rubbed his eyes with the other hand.

Ginny felt her heart contract. She so rarely saw him with his glasses off. Without them, he looked older, harder, somehow, his features more clear-cut and defined. It was both strange and horribly familiar. And then she seemed to see another figure superimposed over his, someone else who had leant over a book with such quiet intensity. The angular shoulders, the coal-smudge of dark hair startling against the whiteness of his skin -

"Ginny?"

She blinked. Harry's green eyes were tired and bemused as they looked at her. The precise colour of the Avada Kedavra curse. Now why had she thought that?

"What?"

"You're staring."

"Oh." She felt herself flush. "Sorry."

Hermione looked from one to the other. "Well," she said rather loudly. "I'm going to bed."

Ginny barely noticed her leave. She was aware only of Harry as he came to kneel on the floor beside her. Suddenly, she was no longer tired, every part of her body alive and humming as though she were on the Quidditch pitch. Harry yawned and stretched, rumpled, himself again. Nothing like Tom, nothing, nothing. "Where's Dean tonight?"

"Oh," she shrugged carelessly. "I left him and Seamus by the statue of the one-eyed witch." She smirked. "With a bottle of Firewhiskey." Annoyance bit through her. Why must he ask about Dean?

For something to do, she began fiddling with the holly again and gasped as it sliced across her skin. A thin line of blood spread across her small, freckled hand. She swore quietly, clenching her fist as she bit down the sharp pain.

"Here."

She jumped. Harry was suddenly in front of her, his firm, slender fingers pressing a wad of material against the hurt. She looked at him. Having him so close made her ache. She loved him, loved him. Oh, more than anything. She could feel it like the fire against her skin, heating her blood into a fever. But she didn't mind. She wanted that warmth.

"It's alright." She heard herself speak as though from a very great distance.

They both looked down at his hand covering hers. They seemed to fit together. Ginny realised only then that he was using his own jumper to absorb the trail of blood. Always, him there to stop the bleeding and make the pain go away.

"You'll ruin your jumper," she said.

He smiled at her. "I don't mind."

"Neither do I."

He was still holding her hand. She could feel the rapid beat of his pulse - or was it hers? It did not matter, the pain did not matter, not with him… Ginny leaned forward. Her red hair fell between them in a scented curtain, shielding them from the outside world and the bitter cold. Only Harry, the warmth of him, the distant crackle of the fire and his steady breathing... And will you seal that bond with a kiss and promise to love me always?

She jerked backwards. The colour and hum and chatter of the common room rushed back into focus. Harry's hand was no longer in hers. He had stood up.

"Try essence of Murtlap," he said, then was gone.

Ginny sighed, letting her head fall into her hands. Merry Christmas, Ginny.

And somewhere, she heard a faint laugh.

…

The howling of ice winds shrieking past the frost-rimmed windows was the only sound in the near-deserted common room. The castle was far enough north that there were precious few hours of daylight at this time of year; now, at the winter solstice, the night-shrouded world seemed to be breathing its last.

Tom was seated on the window ledge, his chin resting on one hand as he stared out through the darkened glass. His breath was misting in the cold air, but he did not mind. He didn't feel the cold these days and wondered why that should be. He had certainly felt it back at the orphanage, in those bitter London winters so fierce it brought tears to his eyes whenever he stepped outside or ploughed through the dimly-lit streets in fraying second-hand coats too large for his slender frame.

He remembered the evenings he used to slip away to Oxford Street because it was always lit up and blazing like a magnificent Christmas tree. Normally tight-fisted stall owners, filled with Christmas cheer, used to slip him handfuls of roasted chestnuts that burned his fingers. Crouched in shop-door openings, Tom had watched glamorous couples in fur-lined coats sweeping past, laughing in high, elegant, cultured voices. They did not even glance at the poorly-dressed, Dickensian-looking waif with his mop of charcoal hair and feverishly pale skin. They didn't know that he would have been one of them, had his father not -

But Tom didn't want to think about his father. After all, he had taken his revenge, had he not?

Instead, he continued to gaze out the window. The grounds were beautiful when shrouded in crystalline frost, the surface of the lake still and glinting as the heart of a clear-cut diamond. The distant trees were laden with snow, their branches wearing coats of liquid glass that glinted beneath the cold stars. Suddenly, Tom wanted to be standing outside, to feel the ice on his skin and the breath of ancient magic, such as the Founders must have known in those long ago days of storm and blood and fire.

He loved Hogwarts in winter, when it was almost deserted like this. He could imagine the castle belonging entirely to him, as some day it would be. Tom was certain of this. And he would fill its stone walls with ebony and emerald, serpent's eyes and ancient scrolls. Soon, he told himself. Soon. It would not be long. He could feel it in his bones.

He loved too the solitude, the quiet in this world of endless ice. So why the fleeting glimpses of fiery hair and flashing dark eyes that caught him at unawares ever since he had bled into the diary? Was it a side effect? Or a sign? If it were anyone else, he would have suspected the spell had gone wrong. But he had done everything perfectly.

Yet still the images persisted, elusive, maddening, particularly whenever the book was close by. If he could only pin them down. Or rather, her, for he knew it was a her, even if the exact details of the face escaped him. But such a pretty girl. And one that he wanted so very, very much. To wrap his hands in that pretty red hair as he broke her pretty red heart.

He could do it. He wanted to do it.

"Have you seen her, then?"

Tom turned around. His bones ached at the movement after sitting so long in one position. Ignatius Prewett was facing him.

"Who?" he demanded sharply.

"Druella, of course." The younger boy smirked. "We all saw you, at Slughorn's party."

"Oh," said Tom, idly, tracing a finger down the glass. "That."

He recalled spending most of the evening with Druella Rosier, a Slytherin a year younger than himself. At the end of the night, he had pulled her under the mistletoe and kissed her hard, careless of the wolf-whistles and envious glances thrown Druella's way. Instead, he held her firmly as snow from the enchanted ceiling crowned their entwined figures and diamond bright lights glinted in the frosty night. How strange. He had almost forgotten it.

"She's pretty," Ignatius offered.

Tom shrugged indifferently. "The Rosiers are a powerful family."

He leaned back, resting his cheek against the cold glass, thinking. He recalled that Druella's father held a high position within the Ministry. That was something worth remembering. Yes, Druella would do, for the time being. She was an adequate pawn for his purposes, though Tom had known at once that there was a lack, something missing. A secret, unacknowledged part of him hungered for a spark, a fire that could never be found in Druella's ice-blue eyes or silver-pale hair. He could never regard her with anything more than a detached bodily lust that never touched him. Beyond that, he felt nothing for her other than contempt. She was willing, and she was loyal, and Slytherin enough to possess a healthy streak of self-preservation - enough to keep her mouth shut at any rate. Yes, she would do very well.

And yet… and yet… Out of the corners of his vision, a figure danced across the lake, leaving it melted and steaming, the ice black and slick in wake of such heat. Hair the colour of a scarlet sunrise. Red as holly berries and rich wine and a warmth he had never known. Didn't want to know.

Tom picked up his quill. He felt incomplete without one in his hand these days. Summoning a sheet of parchment, he scrawled Dear Druella across the top, then leaned back against the window. He began to smile.

You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre)

She drifted through the corridors, through other people's existences, as empty and insignificant as she had felt in those first days at Hogwarts when it seemed Tom had been her only friend (all lies). The crowds of unseeing students instinctively parted around her, like water. And at last. Him. His lean figure was a dark silhouette against the warm light of the hall. The Prefect badge gleamed on his chest like a trapped emerald. He carried a book under one arm, the picture of a model student. He was surrounded by a group of classmates talking eagerly to him, but didn't seem to be paying them much attention.

"Tom!"

Tom looked up at the sound of his name and his mouth curled up at the edges. The clear, feminine voice had come from one of the girls waiting at the door. Ginny had briefly noticed her in the corridor. She was tall and striking; high cheekbones, narrow chin, a mouth that was firm and stubborn rather than soft and delicate. She was drawing a few envious glances and looked as though she knew it. There was a cool, elegant remoteness to her that commanded attention. Cold yet brilliantly beautiful, an untouchable ice-queen. Only now, with Tom standing before her, she seemed to diminish slightly, suddenly becoming as demure and blushing as any sixteen-year old girl.

"Druella," Tom murmured. "You waited for me. Isn't that… sweet."

The girl called Druella looked up at him, ice-blonde hair falling over her shoulders in shimmering waves. "I thought you'd want to see me."

"Is that right?"

"Don't you?"

"Don't I always?" He sounded faintly amused.

"It's hard to tell with you."

"Then let's make things a little clearer." Tom manoeuvred her easily against the wall, seemingly careless of the students milling around them in the transitional rush between classes.

Druella looked up at him through a fringe of pale gold lashes. "I don't know you at all. Do I?"

"Don't pretend you mind." His silken voice, laced with an undercurrent of desire, caused chills to ripple across the back of Ginny's neck. She shivered in the draughty corridor, though it wasn't from cold.

"Here?" the girl said, and for the first time her brightly confident voice faltered a little.

"Why? Ashamed to be seen with me?"

"Ashamed?" She laughed, a sound so light and careless it brought tears to Ginny's eyes. "Right now I'm the most envied girl in the school."

"And why is that?"

She smiled. "Because I'm Tom Riddle's girlfriend."

At that moment, everything inside Ginny seemed to shatter. She couldn't move. Couldn't think.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, every part of her being screaming until her throat was surely bloody and raw, her nails slipping on hot palms, slick with sweat and tears, and Tom -

Tom -

He knew all her darkest secrets, had drank from her soul, shattered her innocence, destroyed her life -

And he was seeing someone else.

And somehow this betrayal was worse than all the others. She stood motionless, a roaring in her ears. Hanging onto the edges of her sanity. She thought she would die from the pain of it, yet could not look away, not even when Tom leaned forward, tilting his mouth over the girl's with a determined, chaste desire.

Ginny felt her legs weaken, a ferocious, hungry ache ravaging her insides at the sight of Tom - her Tom - holding another so passionately. And still she could not look away. How could she, when he was burnt into her heart and soul? It was too much. The way the girl arched into Tom, her body bending submissively, the effortless ease with which he supported her slender weight, his hands exploring every inch of her with a kind of slow, languorous sensuality that made Ginny aware of a hot, flushed feeling creeping through her face and legs. He doesn't love her, she thought to herself fiercely. He doesn't love her. But they looked perfect together, light and dark, alpha and omega. And she the lonely outsider, even though inside, she was burning, burning alive. And he was so controlled, even in passion, kissing the girl with slow deliberation as though he had all the time in the world. A serpent sinking its fangs into pliant, willing prey. Yet if this was death, if this was poison, how sweet it seemed. To fall into that folding dark embrace as the deadly venom pulsed through the blood, rendering the body helpless even while refusing to fight…

Then Tom's eyes opened.

Ginny could not move. He seemed to be staring directly at her, though that was impossible, of course... No one could see her. But his dark brows drew together in startled surprise. And his eyes. Tom's eyes. Blacker than ink, blacker than darkness -

She stumbled backwards, her back thudding through someone's robes. Blindly, she allowed herself to be swept along with the crowd. Faces blurred and she could hear nothing but the howl of voices filling her ears... Her world was falling down around her - but, no - it was his world, falling, falling… and no one else seemed to notice. The castle groaned. Glass from the window panes shattered. Ginny threw herself down, hands covering her eyes as she cowered on the floor -

And found herself in 1997.

He had betrayed her fifty-four years ago.

You like them with the spirit to be naughty? (Henry James, The Turn of the Screw)

Sometimes she was a child. A child with enormous dark eyes and a stream of blazing hair.

Tom had never liked children. They were coarse and irritating and prattled endlessly. But children grew up. Children could be moulded and shaped into powerful weapons. Children could be deceptively innocent.

And this little girl, that haunted his imagination? She was stupid and tiresome, not even any superior intelligence to render her other than average. But perhaps it was better that way. Such guileless purity. Spotless and unstained. A blank slate for a blank diary. This way, he could transcribe his essence onto her all the more easily. Oh, how much more interesting she would become, then.

Sugar and spice and all things nice.

Blood and tears and serpent's scales, that's what this little girl would be made of, when Tom was done with her.

It would not be the first time. Tom remembered the tang of salt air, the crash and struggle of roiling waves and eroded rocks slick beneath his hands. Terrified breathing in the darkness. But more vivid still, the awakening of something dormant within him, unfurling like a snake rearing its head for the first time, making things happen, giving him power where he had been powerless. Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop had been practice, he realised now. A prelude, to show that he could do what must be done. Even they had had their purpose.

But this was different. He needed to know more. That vision or something he had seen in the corridor drove him to madness, to distraction. He had glimpsed flame and porcelain and eyes, dark eyes. Oh, those eyes. The way she had looked at him -

When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad…

He needed answers. Never before had Tom so single-mindedly sought to lose control over himself or his body, but the mind must be opened. There were ways and means, he knew that. He had done it before, when necessity demanded it of him, even though it left him drained and aching for days on end. But he would not be daunted. Not by a mere slip of a girl. And he would have answers.

He drank firewhiskey until the blood boiled in his veins and forced himself to stay awake until his mind spun and lost all sense of itself. He read books that whispered things and pierced his hands with metal bindings, and he drank bitter potions that tasted like live snakes writhing in his insides, savagely tearing at his organs until he convulsed on the floor in silent agony.

His body jerked, spasming, and Tom clutched at his stomach, feeling his lungs compressing in on themselves. Air and shadows writhed, and he saw - he saw -

A little bright-haired girl picking up a quill, the scratching of words on parchment. Water, water dripping, echoing. Then he saw a little ghost girl entombed in a stone sepulchre, guarded over by towering serpents… the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, Enemies of the Heir Beware… as the ice-water in his veins turned to blood once more, the solid marble of his flesh gaining sensation and warmth and life… hissing in his ears… let me rip… let me tear… let me kill… his Basilisk coiling and writhing, a deadly scream splitting the cold, cloying air, the echoes thrown around the cavernous walls. The images came, faster and faster, blurring, maddening. Emerald scales and ruby swords, gold feathers and blood, blood, blood, and still the writing went on, burning across his eyelids, never-ending, -

Tom screamed, once, and then all was silent.

When he came to himself again, he was still lying on the faded green carpet, curling hair plastered to his damp brow. Aftershocks of pain rippled through his body, but he managed to smile through the splitting sensation in his temples. He had been right. The girl, the diary, it was all one and the same, and now he knew it for certain.

That girl holds the key to my immortality.

Part II to follow shortly. Shortly(er) if reviews are forthcoming. X