I'm not much of a Ginny fan. I don't hate her or anything like that, I've just found that the older she gets the less sweet she gets and the more in-your-face she gets - and it sort of irritated me. I don't think the Miss Wright who plays her is that talented an actress either, but that's by the by. So I've tried to get in touch with her more *vulnerable* side - I know being stuck with older boys all your life will make you rebellious, but I don't like how she's made out to be some kind of 'man-eater' in the books, if you know what I mean! lol!

There are lots of Ginny-Tom Riddle fan-fics out there, probably too many to read through, so the chances are there are many similar to this.

Sad to say, I do not own any of the characters, nor Hogwarts, nor Tom Riddle's diary! *sob* they all belong to J K Rowling! The portal pendant, however, is my own design J

P.S. In the film her eyes are pale blue, in the book her eyes are dark brown - so I compromised!

P.P.S. Maybe I might actually finish this one!


"Tom Riddle? Are you here?" Ginny whispered into the darkness. As far as she was aware, she was in Hogwarts, and it was minutes after midnight.

She was standing in the Slytherin dungeons, just as she had been instructed. She had been there before, and she knew the way, so why did it feel so different? She was used to the eeriness, but she was not used to such severe cold.

She shivered, clutching her arms. All she had on was a pale pink nightdress down to her knees, and a ratty dressing gown. The soles to her slippers had been worn so thin, she could feel the sharpness of the cold from the flagstone floor right beneath her skin. Her chattering teeth were so loud that they echoed; she was completely alone.

She had been too nervous to call out, she was worried about what might come walking out of the blackness. But now she felt she had no choice - maybe he was waiting for her to make the first move?

"Hello?" she called out, her voice ringing in her ears. She waited, and several seconds later, a smooth voice rose from the darkness, making her heart squeeze.

"Hello, Ginny," came her reply. Out of the darkest corner of the dungeon corridor, came a tall, lean figure. In the faint glow of the silver-tinted candle-light, a face, with skin pale as the moon, could be distinguished. "We finally meet in person." He smiled at Ginny.

Her face, almost as pale as his from the cold, froze. This was him; this was Tom Riddle. He had actually had the nerve to show himself? After all this time, and after all the torment he had caused her? She straightened up, and tried to compose herself. But the atmosphere was riddled - quite literally, now - with such darkness, fear and uncertainty, that she could not hide the worry in her voice.

He spoke again before she could come up with a decent reply. "You have not changed a lot," he continued, slowly stepping forward. "You have grown, you have blossomed from a little girl into a beautiful young woman…but I can see you have not lost your sparkle from five years ago."

Ginny's cheeks finally flushed with colour, and she felt her temperature rise. This was not how she had pictured their meeting. The last time she had seen him was four years ago, when she was only just twelve years of age in her first year at Hogwarts - young, vulnerable and naïve. Her memories of him were vague and misty, like a distant dream. But the memory of what he had done, the sound of his voice in her head had taken longer to forget. Hearing it live, right in front of her, unnerved her.

"You do not scare me, Riddle," she hissed, determined to keep her cool. Tom had certainly kept his cool; he stood calm and composed before her as if they were friends.

"I have not come here to scare you," he replied, holding up a ghostly pale hand and shaking his head. "I have come here simply to meet again. You are not an easy person to scare, Ginny. You are stronger than you think you are."

Ginny dared to step closer to him to get a better look. His face was impassive, and his eyes were like glass, pale and glistening with mystery, much unlike her own dark blue eyes. She was waiting for him to lash out and terrify her.

"You have a nerve showing up here," she went on, folding her arms.

"You have a nerve coming to meet me face to face. If you were so hurt and horrified by what I had done - why did you come here to see me?" he replied, raising his eyebrows with wonder, and a hint of mockery. He nodded with satisfaction when she did not reply. "You must remember, I am not the Dark Lord you know in your day and age. I am still Tom Riddle, and I am still just a teenage wizard."

"What does my 'day and age' have to do with anything?" she asked abruptly. She looked around at the dungeons and corridor, and wondered now whether her original suspicions were correct. "Am I in your time? How did I get here?"

Tom nodded again, this time an impressed smile playing about his face. "Yes, well done," he said. "When you walked through the doorway of the Room of Requirements, you did not just enter another room, you entered another dimension. You travelled beyond the boundaries of time, and you were brought here. To me." Ginny gazed at him as he spoke. He was so bold and certain in his replies, and completely correct at the same time.

"You still have not told me why you wanted to see me," she persisted. She watched Tom pace in front of her, never removing his gaze from hers. Didn't he ever blink?

"What you never knew four years ago, was that the moment you opened my diary and wrote to me, you created a magical connection between yourself and I," said Tom. "You found the diary, you wrote in the diary, and I replied. It was strange, but powerful magic at work. It was destiny."

Ginny stepped back again. She did not like where this was going. "We share nothing," she said bluntly. "It was a stupid mistake, my picking up your wretched diary," she paused, "and it was a mistake coming here tonight."

She turned on her heel and headed for the way out of the dungeons, even though she had no idea how to get back. Tom Riddle may have been here only way of getting back, but she was in no mood to be befriending him. The instant she turned her back to him, he shot up behind her.

"You can go if you want to," he said curtly, hovering a hand over her shoulder, but not touching it. "But before you go - I have a gift for you." He took from his left trouser pocket a fine, silver chain with something hanging from it. Ginny could not see what it was, since he held it tight in his grip, leaving only the free chain to hang.

"I will not accept any gifts from you," she replied coldly, her eyes narrowing. She was still aware that he had not yet looked away from her eyes. Even when she looked away and rolled her eyes, he still followed them.

"Well that would be foolish, since this special gift is your only means of escape," he whispered. She looked at his fist, clenching whatever hung on the chain hard. "This is a portal pendant. It will allow you to travel to any place, and any time, anywhere your heart truly desires." He carefully took Ginny's right hand, the tips of his fingers cold as stone, and gently unfolded her tightened fist to drop the portal pendant in the palm of her hand.

It was cold and heavy; the back resembled a regular pendant, but on the front was a silver snake's head. She analysed it carefully, then looked back up, looking right into his staring, silver eyes.

"Place the chain around your neck, and open the snake's mouth," he whispered softly, still watching her eyes skim over the smooth bumps and ridges on the snake's head. "This is no toy," he went on, "this is an age-old, dark magical object. It will take you home, I promise you that. But it will also bring you back to me."

Ginny stepped back and held out the pendant in her hand, staring at it with horror. "I don't want it. Take it back," she gabbled quickly, holding it up to him, but not daring to force it back into his hand and touch him. But he shook his head.

"It is yours now. You cannot escape from here without it," he breathed, barely audible. Ginny threw the pendant to the floor, span on the spot, and started to run. "Unless you plan to find your own way back," he called out.

In a state of panic, acting on impulse. She raced back to the pendant, hauled it off the floor, scrambled to get it over her head, and pulled the snake's mouth hard. In an instant, the black onyx inside its mouth emitted a brilliant gold glow, and the world around her span and blurred. Her heart lurched, Tom Riddle blurred back out of existence, and she was plunged into the darkness.

A strange place to start without explaining how she got here, I know! But continue to chapter 2, and the truth will await you…!