A/N: I wrote this a couple years back, and I think I wanted to do a little more with it but at this point I have no recollection of what. So since it appears to be otherwise complete, I present it for your enjoyment. I haven't done much writing lately, but I've been inspired to start again recently, so we'll see what else it brings.
Bloody Gingers!
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. . . . I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her . . ."
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, p. 310 (Scholastic Edition)
As he stood outside the door to the Dark Lord's "throne room" awaiting his master's call to enter, Lucius Malfoy reflected on how he'd gotten himself into this mess in the first place. Oh, it has seemed like a good idea at the time, and chances are if it had worked as he expected he would have been handsomely rewarded for bringing his master back two years earlier than he actually was, but it hadn't, and he still didn't know why.
For ten years after the disappearance and supposed death of the Dark Lord he had kept his ears open for any sign of his master, without nary a whisper to be heard. Then, at the end of Draco's first year at Hogwarts, which had also seen the return of Harry Potter to Magical Britain, he'd finally gotten his first hint. While he couldn't be certain, he was fairly sure that the Dark Lord had attempted to steal something hidden inside Hogwarts, and had somehow been thwarted. Unable to get confirmation of what condition his master was in, he sought direction from the diary that he had been entrusted with.
While he didn't know exactly what it was, he knew it contained some sort of echo of his master, and so he'd written in it asking what to do. He'd been instructed to slip the diary to a young student, preferably a first year female, and that it would use them to resurrect himself. He'd done just that, slipping it you young Ginevra Weasley, and then he'd waited to see the results. And waited. And waited. As time went on it became clear that he'd failed somehow, though he had no idea what went wrong. He'd even gone so far as to ask Draco to try and find out what happened to the diary, but all his son had been able to determine was that she still had it and occasionally wrote in it.
After his master's rebirth a few days ago, he'd been asked if the diary was still safe. He'd reluctantly explained what he'd done, and what had (or in this case, hadn't) happened, and that while it was apparently still intact he no longer had possession of it. He'd suffered briefly under the Cruciatus Curse, but the Dark Lord hadn't had time to "properly" deal with him then and told Lucius to wait for his summons. So now, here he was, awaiting his fate and hoping his Lord was feeling merciful.
Suddenly, the door opened and Wormtail motioned him in. He entered quickly, not wanting to make the Dark Lord any angrier by making him wait, and kneeled at the feet of his master.
"So good of you to join us, Lucius," intoned the Dark Lord. "Now, what to do about your utter failure with regards to my diary."
"My Lord," Malfoy began, but he was cut off.
"Do not patronize me, Lucius," said the Dark Lord dangerously. "I have made my own inquiries into your actions, and I find that you should have known better and could have easily done better. Yet you managed to give it to one of the only people who would be unaffected by it."
"I don't understand, my Lord," said Malfoy, trying to figure out what it is he'd missed.
"And that is why you are an utter failure. I told you my diary contained a portion of my soul, to allow me to remain should my body be destroyed. A soul container, which needs a victim's soul to control them. And yet you gave it to a Weasley." Seeing the look of confusion on Malfoy's face, he intoned, "Crucio!"
Malfoy screamed until the Dark Lord canceled the spell a few seconds later, then struggled to recover as he wheezed, "But, my Lord, they are blood traitors."
"Be that as it may," replied the Dark Lord, "they also possess a quality that makes them immune to my diary. Tell me, Lucius, what color is their hair."
Malfoy thought that was an odd question, but the answer was obvious to anyone who'd ever seen a Weasley. "Red, my Lord, the Weasleys all have red hair."
"Correct, Lucius. Red hair. You gave my soul-powered diary to a girl with red hair."
Malfoy gasped, then shrieked as the Cruciatus Curse struck him again. The last thing he heard before his mind snapped was the Dark Lord saying angrily, "And as we all know, Gingers HAVE NO SOULS!"
FIN
A/N2: Obviously, year two happened completely differently, and the opening quote is just for context.
