"What will you do once I graduate?" Tom asked Dumbledore one day. He had grown impossibly handsome and charming and no one suspected that he was tired to the bone, worn away by Dumbledore's constant manipulations. There hadn't been another incident like in third year, but there had been smaller things, things that had near driven him mad with his impossibility to stop them.

"We will continue," Dumbledore answered simply.

Tom wanted to say that they wouldn't, that he would be beyond Dumbledore's reach, but he knew he wouldn't be. Freedom was, by now, an impossibility unless Dumbledore released him himself.

That night, Tom considered his options.

He could kill himself or he could let Dumbledore turn him into a monster, weakening himself along the way in his attempts to fight. Death was a cowardly way to go, but, perhaps, preferable to becoming a Dark Wizard at the whim of a besotted old fool.

But, then, Dumbledore would most likely turn to someone else to become a Dark Wizard. Tom considered himself and just how much mercy and compassion he practiced.

Finally, he decided: he would live, simply so someone else wouldn't have to be evil in his place. His sacrifice kept him content for a very long time to come.

~::~

There wasn't much Tom could be proud of these days. He had no free will, his closest friend hated him, he was destined to become a Dark Lord against his wishes, and he was damn well tired of how everyone looked up to Dumbledore, the greatest evil he had ever known.

But this was something he could enjoy, being the only student outside of the Ravenclaw House to get the Grey Lady to speak to him.

Helena Ravenclaw was not as timid as believed. She was particularly kind, Tom thought, helping lost Ravenclaws or telling them where they might have mislaid something.

"I know about Dumbledore," she told him one day.

He closed his red eyes tiredly. "That does not surprise me, bloody Ravenclaw."

She smiled and he offered a slightly amused look.

"I remember when he was a student here."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yes. He was glory-hungry and prejudiced."

"Was he?"

She frowned sadly. "We knew he wasn't kind or generous. There was a time when we, the ghosts here and some of the professors, were nervous that he would become a Dark Lord. Especially after he became friends with Grindelwald. We knew a little about him back then, that Grindelwald had been expelled from Durmstrang, he was so evil and his experiments so twisted."

Tom nodded. Durmstrang was known for its loose control on their students practicing the Dark Arts. For a student being kicked out for it… He could only imagine.

But that told him something; Grindelwald had been set in his ways before he had met Dumbledore and likewise.

"Then there was an accident; Dumbledore's sister was murdered somehow, and Dumbledore changed. We thought it was all for the better, but –" she gave him a sympathizing look.

He didn't say anything about it, staring distantly at the wall.

"Tom, when you graduate," she paused. "When you graduate, go to Albania. That is where my mother's diadem is. Use it like you used your diary."

His head twisted towards her. "How do you know about my diary?"

"I'm dead, Tom. The school speaks to me, to all of us ghosts. We're a part of it and it's become a part of us. None of us have told Dumbledore about it and we never will, though some of us disagree with your way of rebellion. I, for one, support you."

"Thank you for that. But I can not use the Ravenclaw diadem for that."

"Why not?"

"Because I would have to kill someone."

She looked incredibly sad. "Keep it with you. When Dumbledore makes you kill again, and we both know he will, use it then."

He sighed. "I understand. Thank you."

She told him exactly where the diadem was and he stored the information away for later usage.

He had to do it, he told himself. It would only take so long before Dumbledore discovered his journal. It wasn't as if it was impossible to get Slughorn to admit to their discussion about horcruxes and Dumbledore was smart enough to finish the puzzle on his own.

One more horcrux, he promised himself. Just one more.