"Ginny, please wake up!" some idiot shouted in my face as they shook me roughly. I irritatedly opened my eyes to behold the stupid visage of my greatest enemy. Or the other me's greatest enemy, I wasn't too sure where I stood with this. Anyway.
"Unh-" I squeaked. What? I looked down at my hands, I was still the girl. Why was I still the girl? Unless someone asked, then of course this had been my plan all along.
"Oh, thank goodness!" Potter hugged me. He actually hugged me. This enraged me for all of three seconds before I realised I was still the girl.
"W-what happened?" I stammered waveringly like a pathetic child who was also not particularly bright and had no real life goals. "Where am I?"
"You got taken by the Heir, we're in the Chamber of Secrets," his puerile voice caught. "We thought they killed you."
"Oh," I said. How did he get in here anyway, I knew he was somehow a Parseltongue, but how did he find the Chamber? I would have to change the passwords to avoid this in the future. Potter gave me a few more platitudes about how things were going to be ok before going to pick up his wand he had thrown away like a Muggle.
The second his back was turned Ginevra's wand was out and he was Imperiused. I eyed him shrewdly for a moment, this boy who had killed Lord Voldemort. I knew this because I had read every single book I could find on the matter, but none could offer the truth. But now?
"Tell me, boy, how did you vanquish Lord Voldemort?"
"I don't know," he said dully.
I rolled my eyes, because of course he didn't know. That would be too easy for me wouldn't it. My future self had been blown up by a toddler, and of course the boy had no idea how he'd done it.
"Do you know anything?" I sneered.
Potter stood silent for a moment. "Dumbledore said I'm alive because my mother died to save me."
Yes, I twirled Ginevra's wand idly. That did make sense, and for it to backfire on me so spectacularly the mother must have been dabbling in some powerful counter magic. Well, mystery solved, time to kill him.
I raised Ginevra's wand, then lowered it. "How did you find this chamber?"
"Once we realised the monster was a Basilisk we asked Moaning Myrtle how she died, and she told us which sink to look behind."
Mytle? That stupid bint was still haunting the toilet? I vowed to exorcise her at my earliest convenience lest she direct more preteens into my most secret of chambers, but really this whole thing stunk of a Dumbledore plot. Or so I imagined since most of his plotting had been against the me that was older than sixteen. This raised an interesting conundrum, one I had been puzzling over during my yearlong possession of Ginevra; was I Lord Voldemort? Not literally because of course I was Lord Voldemort, but did I inherit his legacy? He'd made a lot of enemies I wanted nothing to do with and a lot of decisions even I had to question; despite them being my greatest fantasy.
A Dark Lord, cloaked in black with glowing red eyes who commanded an army of skull masked terrorists to overthrow a nation.
He was so cool. But he was so stupid. But he was so cool. And still so stupid.
Perhaps this was destiny, that I would be given a second chance at life, that I could learn from my future as though it was the past. I would become a Dark Lord even Voldemort would fear, and I would have a better name that wasn't French and I would be less cringey about the whole thing. Step one, if at some point I have to murder another baby for some reason I would watch from a safe distance as someone else did it for me with a hammer.
Yes, I decided. That potential iteration of myself was a disappointment and a fool and had shamed us.
"Congratulations, Potter, you live another day."Just to spite the other me. He deserved it for defying me and thinking French was a good choice of language. This time I would pick something truly intimidating that wasn't an anagram of my name, in perhaps Russian or possibly Sanskrit.
Besides, this meant I still had a chance at the Defence professorship. As I understood it Dumbledore had denied my other self's application due to a petty grudge he held against me, but now I was the Weasley girl and a Gryffindor; surely if I managed to get O's on all of my NEWTs again I would be a shoo in. I did so love Hogwarts, after all the only reason I opened the Chamber and set the Basilisk on mudbloods was because it was so much fun the first time around, and now I would get another six years here.
I smiled winsomely, because of course this was my plan all along and I would make sure to gloat about it to the other Voldemort when I saw him next. Assuming I saw him next. It was likely he had several other Horcruxes but I had no idea if they were separate entities or connected, perhaps my existence rendered me the Prime Voldemort? Something to test later.
I hid my diary within Slytherin's mouth, put my Basilisk to sleep, and collected Potter before strolling out of the Chamber. We soon came upon a cave in, and I glared reproachfully at Potter for daring to destroy any part of this place (I made a note to torment him later,) before Ginevra's simple brother started shouting and trying to peer through a gap in the rubble. He too was Imperiused and set to work repairing the tunnel along with Potter. Once the priceless historical and culturally significant tunnel was back in place we proceeded to the entrance where Professor Lockheart reclined in easy confidence on the grimy floor.
My eyes bulged, why was he here?! A man as dangerous as Lockheart would see straight through my hastily cast Imperius curses, and even now as he calculated my next action he still found he could lay in a position with so many openings?
"Hello," he drawled lazily, not deigning to even draw his wand. "Odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"
My wand was up and the incantation for the killing curse passing my lips before I could mediate my reaction, the curse taking him full in the face. Lockheart sighed and closed his eyes for the last time as my heart hammered in my chest like a Giant's drumming.
Thank god, he mustn't have seen through my disguise, and now I had a prop to include into my cover story; which had been my plan all along. Very excellent! I set about Obliviating Weasley and Potter and imbuing them with a set of false memories detailing Lockheart's valiance before hitting myself with a mix of the Confundus and reverse Cheering Charms.
Tears dripped off my chin as I bawled wretchedly.
In hindsight it was an incredibly intelligent move on my part, as I was too distracted by faux misery to notice we were sprung from the Chamber by Dumbledore's Pheonix (how it got into the Chamber I have no clue,) because if I had noticed what was going on it would have surely attacked in an instant, that insipid goose. It had always had it out for me for no reason, glaring and screeching whenever I went to the headmaster's office, but as it was we made it to McGonagall's office where I was beset by the equally vapid mother Weasley. After Potter spent some time weaving his tale (which expanded on his explanation to me) and recounting his false memories of Lockheart duelling with Voldemort's shade before a mutual kill; Dumbledore let slip some very valuable information.
Voldemort was hiding in a forest in Albania.
So now there was two of us.
I of course kept up my Ginevra act flawlessly and when prompted gave some useless, stuttering explanation of losing track of what I was doing and waking up in the Chamber before I was sent away to the hospital wing, still accompanied by the wretched mother Weasley. I was beginning to regret my master plan, having failed to account for the girls large, and fairly worthless family. I would just have to strip them of their secret magics and spend as much time out of the house as possible, I supposed, merely treat it as a rest stop in between Hogwarts until I graduated and never had to see them again; unless it was to murder them for defying me in some fashion as those types of wizard were wont to do.
I smirked into my mug of hot chocolate as the last of my reverse Cheering Charm wore off, everything had gone exactly according to my design.