To those who might have read my previous pieces on here; I promise I have not given up on them or on you. I have oft thought of trying to update them but kept getting sidetracked by shiny things that pay better than fanfic. Not hard really. However, I have three weeks off work now and I earnestly promise that in that time an update on I Did Nothing will be forthcoming. It's been a while, I know. A long while. Umm...oops. Sorry about that. Pinky promises. In the meanwhile, this was an idea that hit me like a rock and wouldn't let go. You can therefore thank it for the reason I've re-surfaced after all these months and then felt really guilty about the unfinished stories which have been left languishing and not-quite-forgotten. I hated it when writers did that to me! I will also attempt to have a go at Giving Up but we'll see how that goes. I Did Nothing is a sworn promise though.
Chapter 1: The Return of a Riddle
The diary that had held both his life form and his soul lay useless and drained on the floor beneath his feet, much like the silly little girl who had last held it. After so long confined and imprisoned beyond any reach of influence in the world he is free, finally free from the chains that bound him for so many years. Tom Riddle stands alone in the cavernous and dreary chamber, only the diary beneath his feet and the girl's body to keep him company, and he rejoices silently. The girl had managed to be useful after all. She may have been weak but she had turned out to be a veritable fountain of knowledge. Knowledge that he had sorely needed, for no longer was it 1954. Even trapped within that thrice damned diary he couldn't have anticipated just how much time had passed or just how much had occurred in those forty years.
Yes, the girl had been most useful in the end, despite all her childish whining and caterwauling. She was after all at least partially responsible for his return, although of course more credit lay with his own self. But she had admittedly provided some useful information for the newly returned Tom Riddle. Unwittingly of course, but there had been some gems within her childish wittering and heart-sick foolery. The most staggering was the discovery of the knowledge of his own downfall some ten years back from the present day. At the hands of a child no less. A babe barely a year old. It was near unbelievable, but he didn't doubt the girl was telling the truth. She had not the wits nor the guile to make-up a lie of that magnitude, even if he wasn't adept at reading the truths behind such lies.
Just as remarkable though was that the same child had managed it again and only last year. One Harry Potter had stood against Lord Voldemort a second time, eleven years old and armed with only a first year's knowledge of spells. And he had bested Lord Voldemort. It had not surprised Tom that his shade had survived the Killing Curse even if his body hadn't, after all was that not why he had created this diary in the first place? To ensure immortality. His soul split into exactly seven pieces, scattered across the world to ensure that he, Tom Riddle, would live forever. And it had worked. Here he stood. He always had been destined for greatness. The Heir of Salazar Slytherin had come again.
Kicking the diary contemptuously away, the seventeen year old paced impatiently across the Chamber of his revival, the Chamber of Secrets. Why hadn't the boy come? The glimpse of him that Tom had so frustratingly briefly got had cemented his plans, he had been sure it would work, he had been sure the Potter boy would come. He might even have succeeded in taking the boy's life force instead of having to use this useless girl's life force instead had she not panicked and retrieved the diary from the boys dormitory, the foolish mudblood lover. The Weasley's and the Prewitt's always had been a waste of good wizarding blood.
But even then, he had been certain that the boy would come. And wouldn't that have been sweet. The child who had destroyed the great Lord Voldemort being solely responsible for the Dark Lord's return. The circle complete. After the girls lovesick prattling about how Potter had rushed to save the Philosophers Stone from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named because no one would listen to him last year, Tom had been certain that he would rush to save the idiotic girl. After all, she was his best friend's sister which had to be worth more than a stone that the child could barely understand. But the boy didn't show.
Tom had riffled through the foolish girls mind in her dying moments, mindlessly shredding all that didn't interest him and instead taking the few worthwhile thoughts and memories. He'd learned a lot in those brief moments, only taking account of her shallow and laboured breathing or her weak and faltering heart as an indication of how long he had left. So when her heart finally stuttered to a halt and her last breath caught and rattled to a close, Tom Riddle arose triumphantly. The girl's death meant less than nothing to him, she was merely a pawn to be taken and used before being discarded. What he had learned from her in those final helpless moments was almost worth Potter not having arrived. Lord Voldemort would rise again, greater and stronger than he had ever been before, unhampered by a child's luck or a mothers sacrifice. And when he did, the first to die would not be Potter. No, Potter would join him or die regardless, another pawn to be disposed of at will. The first to die would be Severus Snape.
Not yet though. Loyal to Dumbledore the man might be, but he could perhaps still be useful. For Tom Riddle needed access to Hogwarts after all, he needed access to the books of course but most importantly he needed access to the knowledge. The knowledge stored in the bricks and foundations of this ancient place as well as only in the crevices of others minds. First, a chance of name and most certainly appearance would be needed. Of everyone alive, that old fool Dumbledore would surely recognise Lord Voldemort's younger self even after forty years, he had no doubts about that. After all, his other self had successfully ensured he was renowned the whole world over before conveniently dying. After teaching him for so many years, Tom Riddle's face was not one the old wizard would be soon to forget even without the advantage of a Pensieve for an addled mind. But that would be easy enough, there were basic charms after all for the very short term and the Weasley girl had told him that Knockturn Alley hadn't gone anywhere.
The most important hurdle of all would be finding the other horcruxes, if they even existed after all these years. In fact, had his older self completed his aim to create the seven horcruxes that he had planned in the halls of this very castle all those years ago? He'd had thirty years though, surely that would have been enough time to create and hide them? What he had used and where they were hidden were of the highest priority to Tom Riddle now. Until he had the other horcruxes, he couldn't be complete, couldn't be whole. He would be forever competing with his other self, wherever his other self was now skulking and plotting, for surely he would be plotting. That couldn't be allowed to happen. The horcruxes had to be his.
Whether he would be able to amalgamate the horcruxes back into his own soul was something he would have to research, although carefully. He would have to avoid the unwanted attention that such a request would openly get him. Even Horace Slughorn had been wary, and that was before the reign of Lord Voldemort. But those horcruxes either had to be his or they had to be destroyed. They were fragments of his other self's very soul after all, and the only person who would ever be able to rival Lord Voldemort was Lord Voldemort. And he would be the only Tom Riddle, the only Lord Voldemort. His other self had had its chance after all. Now it was his turn. Nobody would deny him that. Lord Voldemort would reign supreme once more.
But first he had to get out of this chamber. Of course he knew the way out of the castle but to succeed he would have to be invisible. To be seen now, at this first critical juncture would foul all of his plans and that simply could not be permitted. Greatness would be his and no mere child would stand in his way. Without any hesitation, Tom Riddle riffled through the dead girls robes until he found her wand; she hardly needed it any longer after all. He would certainly need his own wand, but for now this one would do as a temporary stop gap. Common sense indicated that he would need to dispose of it quickly anyway; it would not do his cause any favours if the mother or brother spotted him holding it after all.
Regardless, it would not have been his own choice; chestnut, a weak wood with no real qualities or strengths of its own making, instead entirely reliant on the owner's disposition and the core held within it. A wand for those subject to change, easily swayed and dominated. The core of course he couldn't be sure of, but his guess was Dragon heart string; an Ollivander wand for certain and Ollivander only regularly used three cores. Unicorn hair ought to repel him even at this age and he couldn't see the girl having the fire for phoenix feather. Granted he couldn't see her having the power or the temperament for Dragon heart string, but he had been known to be mistaken occasionally.
The charms to alter his appearance sufficiently to cause no undue second glances or hastily forbidden association with his other self were easy enough however, regardless of the quality of the wand used. With a lazy wave of the wand Tom Riddle transfigured a rock into a looking glass and smiled. The figure looking back at him was a good half foot shorter than Tom Riddle had been at full growth and a good three stone larger. Certainly not fat for he would not countenance that, but the sharp contours and his aristocratic facial structure had been easily hidden behind a layer of puppy fat that the orphanage never allowed for all those years ago. A longer nose and slightly rounded chin acted further against anyone recognising the sharp faced teenager he once had been and the final change to complete the look; framing his new face was long blonde hair stopping just short of his shoulders. Not bad looking, even perhaps handsome to some tastes, but the thin, angular dark haired boy was gone. The only thing left untouched was his eyes. His dark, expressive eyes remained unchanged.
His fears about getting out of Hogwarts castle also proved to be unfounded and the route out was simpler than he could have imagined. He still knew all the secret passages and tunnels out of the castle although there were certainly some new ones he would have yet to learn, but to a place as historic and ancient as Hogwarts, forty years was a mere blink in space and time. Some tunnels may have been blocked off, but the One-Eyed Witch was still there and all of the corridors were completely empty of any life whether student or staff. Even the ghosts of the castle were nowhere to be seen. There was almost no need for his subterfuge with his appearance as he didn't see a soul, alive or dead, in any of the deserted and silent corridors. Not one being crossed his path as he slipped through the One-Eyed-Witch unseen and unnoticed.
By the time the young Harry Potter had escaped his Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors office, he was already too late although he didn't know it yet. Running instead to the Acting Headmistress in search of adult help after the disastrous experience with Professor Lockhart took more time than the young Miss Weasley had. He found the Chamber of Secrets and the key to unlock the concealed entrance with the ghost of Tom Riddle's first victim watching in fascination with Professor McGonagall and the heads of house at his back. But the Professors only found Ginny Weasley's unmarked body and an old, battered diary with no words written within it when they went down the tunnel, leaving the two teenagers waiting safely above. No sign of an attack, no sign of magic, no sign of anything.
Despite the Potter boys recognition of the diary as one that wrote back to him, even took him into some form of memory of the first time the Chamber was opened, the diary seemed to hold no hidden secrets. The young boys words were eventually dismissed as grief stricken fantasies, and the knowledge of Hagrid's involvement with the original Chamber of Secrets as a forgotten conversation with the gamekeeper. Everyone knew of his attachment to the man. And despite Professor Flitwick's most earnest efforts, the diary was in turn dismissed as just that; an old, forgotten diary, somehow hidden in the bowls of the school.
Something had happened, the discovery of Ginny Weasley's body proved that.
But Tom Riddle was gone and nobody would suspect he had ever been there.