A/N: Slightly darker than my usual stuff, but I like it anyway. The original idea was very different, and this has only been implemented thanks to many discussions onboard the S.S. Gin'n'Tonic at FAP. Let's see… Thanks to the shippers in general, but none in specific for this chapter, to Kavitha my lovely beta reader, and thanks in advance to anyone who reviews.

Inkubus

Chapter 1: The Joy of Martyrdom

It was well known amongst the Slytherins that Blaise Zabini had "sacrificed herself for love" in her fifth year. The remainder of the school, professors included, was under the impression that Blaise had been pulled out for home schooling, which disproves Dumbledore's matter-of-fact statement that every secret of the students immediately became common knowledge on the Hogwarts grounds. There was even one secret that even the Slytherin house was not privy to: whom Zabini had fallen in love with in the first place, and why she had decided to lay down her life for him, her, or it.

Of course, most of the Slytherins feigned disinterest, and more than a few actually weren't interested, putting it off as a childish and Gryffindorish ploy. They fully expected to return from their summer holidays to see a very-much-alive Blaise Zabini on the Hogwarts Express at platform 9 ¾, passing of her 'death' as a momentary lapse of reason and descent into Gryffindorish qualities.

However, those closest to Blaise, like Pansy Parkinson, wondered. Pansy was in the best position of all to wonder about her friend's fate, as she was the only one to have read the farewell letter Blaise had left. Pansy had found it, just before the end-of-term tests, on Blaise's pillow. That had been the day that Blaise disappeared.

"If you are reading this," it read, "then I'm dead. Don't let anyone outside of the house know, and don't worry. I take my death as necessary to that which I love, and only vaguely regret that I couldn't see the world I will have helped to create. My parents know what I'm doing, they are proud of the honor I bring them for they will be first in the new order, and I will be remembered and thereby will live on in the hearts of all our followers. All his followers. I die so that he may live, knowing that I bring a greater power to the world through my death than I could possibly have done while alive, and proud of the little I have done to aid the cause. Remember me for what I was able to do in death, not for who I was unable to be in life.

"I, Blaise Zabini, being of sound mind and body, do hereby name Pansy Parkinson as my executor, and do entrust with her the execution of this document. To Ms. Parkinson I give my dark blue dress robes, as they always looked better on her anyway, and the sapphire earrings to match. To Millicent Bulstrode, I give my book on beautifying charms, she was wont to borrow it from me in life, and should take this opportunity now that I am dead, as well as my racing broom. To Draco Malfoy I give my prefect badge, he shall have to serve the office of two now… Everything else shall go to my parents, except for my schoolbooks, which I give to Tom Riddle, although he already has taken my life and therefore cannot ask for more."

It was signed "Blaise Zabini", in her handwriting and her own ink, and therefore clearly the work of Granger or some Ravenclaw. Honestly, the very notion that Blaise Zabini could be in possession of such un-ambitious characteristics as love, self-sacrifice, and honor was to fly in the face of the very fact that she was in Slytherin house. Pansy decided that it was worthy further investigation as she solemnly partitioned up her friend's belongings. She told each recipient that Zabini had sacrificed herself for love, died in the throes of passion, and various other horribly clichéd expressions. The other members of Slytherin House concluded that Pansy had read a few too many cheap romance novels before killing her friend off, but accepted the story nonetheless.

It was summer before Pansy could investigate further, or confirm that everything had returned safely to the Zabini mansion. She still hadn't found this Tom Riddle who she had to give Pansy's school books to – darned heavy things they were, and Pansy had to carry them home with her when she left on the Hogwarts Express, which meant that she had nearly worked out her back from lifting the heavy bags without magic. Her parents weren't the sort to allow her to break petty regulations for the sake of convenience, too much rode on her doing well at Hogwarts for her to risk expulsion simply to allow her to do less work. Pansy knew that Malfoy mocked her behind her back, as he dumped his huge trunk onto the back of a house-elf, but she clenched her teeth and said nothing, because after all there was nothing she could say without losing all the ground she had made for her family.

Pansy organized a trip to the Zabini mansion, surreptitiously motivated by the need to give condolences and to ensure the execution of the will.

The man who opened the door was certainly Blaise's father, but the man behind him was not recognizable as related to Blaise in any way, shape, or form. Pansy would have slammed the door shut to collect her thoughts, but her better sense prevailed, and she allowed herself to be led through the copious mansion.

Who was this man? He appeared to be about her age, but she had never seen him around Hogwarts. To be allowed entrance into the Zabini mansion, he must either be a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw, and the school was not so large that Pansy couldn't keep track of the faces of those as whom she spend the majority of five years of her life in the same cold, dingy castle.  Which all just meant that he wasn't a Hogwarts student at all. But he surely hadn't graduated from Hogwarts more than five years ago, he looked in his mid-teens, not early twenties.

So far, he hadn't said a thing, and so all that Pansy could tell was the fact that she knew nothing. All in all, this was a bothersome situation for the girl, and she wished to remedy it. After all, she was no Millicent Bulstrode, willing to force through any problem with a few simple curses, or even her bare hands. She was Pansy Parkinson, who connived her way into people's good graces before hexing them in a blind alley. Perhaps not so effective at it as the alluring Blaise Zabini – the late, alluring Blaise Zabini – but more honest seeming for her small, flat nose, her mousy brown hair, and her filmy, distracted blue eyes.

She was silent. Having explained the purpose of her visit, she sat and listened to the conversation of the two men. She hoped she could fade into the background, so as to absorb as much information as she could. However, all that she had absorbed was the stranger's name, Tom Riddle, when she found herself drawn into a conversation.

She had books for Tom Riddle.

But, of course, they were still sitting in her bedroom, idly collecting dust while Tom Riddle was without them. Who knows, maybe he wanted those books as much as she had a burning desire to get her hands on that blue dress. But Mr. Zabini had asked her a question, and the books were far away, at home, and there was nothing that she could do but get an address where she could find Mr. Riddle.

"What do they, at Hogwarts, think happened to Blaise?" Mr. Zabini had queried. Or something quite similar.

This was certainly not how Pansy had imagined her time at the Zabini mansion. She was supposed to gain information, not give it out. But there was only one answer to the question, and it was not silence. Pansy cleared her throat. "I told them," she began, calmly, "That Blaise had killed herself for love," she looked at the expectant look on Mr. Zabini's face, and she continued. "Of a cause. The Slytherin students, that is. The rest of Hogwarts thinks you took her out of school, sir."

At this, Mr. Zabini smiled, and dismissed Pansy.

No, no, NO. That wasn't at all how it was supposed to happen. Pansy still needed information, but she could hardly be so impolite as to continue listening when Mr. Zabini had already informed her that the will had been executed, and her reason for entry into the mansion was worn out.

She left the room.

And promptly climbed the stairs to Blaise's bedchamber. What was a little spying between friends?

The bedchamber was much as described by Blaise on nights when the girls would reminisce. Pansy stood in the center, perusing the room and trying to find any sign of what had really happened to Blaise, any clue to the truth.

There was none.

Pansy searched the drawers, the desk, under the bed. Nothing. She threw open a door on the wall, and abruptly stopped her search.

She had found Blaise's closet. There in front of her, aired out in front and beautiful, was the dark blue robe. The robe that Pansy had envied for every year that she had known it existed, the robe that Pansy had only worn once but fallen in love with then. She reached out, to touch it, and found its soft silk light and cool on her hands. It was hers; Blaise had given it to her in her will. It could do no harm to try it on immediately, no one would see but herself. Slowly, gently, she picked it up, and just as slowly and carefully, brought it over to the bed, laying it down before closing, and locking, the door to the room.

She nearly tore off her old robe, before sliding into the new one. She hurried over to Blaise's mirror, to look at her self. Of course, she now fancied herself quite beautiful, and quickly ransacked the desk to find the matching earrings she had also been given, fastening them hastily to her ears. She grabbed a pocket mirror from the table, and looked at the little blue stones dangling prettily from her pasty, normal-looking ears, and sighed. Another sigh came from the pocket mirror, and then; "You always did look better than I did in that robe."

It sounded like Blaise, and Pansy swiveled around, searching for the other girl.

"I'm in here, in the mirror. Look at it angled, and you can see me, I think."

Pansy angled the mirror to look behind her, and there was her friend, sitting on the bed and kicking her feet idly. "You've no idea how glad I am that you came," Blaise commented, standing up. "It's dreadfully boring in here."

"How'd you get in there?" Pansy stuttered.

"Oh, well, Tom couldn't kill me for some reason or another, and so he put me in here for when he would be able to kill me. Only, I thought it would be more exciting, but there's not a single other soul in the entire place, so far as I can tell. So now I'm frightfully angry with him."

"How can I help? Get you out of there, I mean."

The Blaise in the mirror smiled widely. "Just look at yourself more, you do look so beautiful in that robe."

Pansy was not altogether unhappy about admiring herself, and so she continued to do so, until she felt her eyelids drooping and a wave of exhaustion coming on. She sat on the bed, and angled the mirror once more, to look for Blaise.

Except, Blaise was nowhere to be seen in the mirrored-room. Pansy yawned, but found it hard to concentrate on actually wondering where Blaise was. Which wasn't much of a problem, as Blaise had appeared directly in front of her. Pansy sat up, abruptly. "Blaise! You're out!" The other girl nodded. "I suppose you'll be wanting your robe back, then?" she asked, sheepishly.

Blaise shook her head. "No, it's not necessary. And I doubt I'm out to stay, I suppose I'll return eventually. Look at my hand." She held her hand up to the light, and Pansy could see the problem; it was translucent, wavering slightly on the edges.

"So what are you going to do?" Pansy asked.

"I wait. Until Tom sorts everything out and he can kill me," the other girl answered resolutely. Pansy wasn't sure this was the best choice, but Blaise seemed sure of it. Pansy would certainly not have died for the man she saw in the salon.

"What's so special about Tom that you have to die for him?"

"Don't you know?" Blaise whispered. "He's… he's… he's You-Know-Who. Only, he's younger. Told me so, when I met him." That would explain a lot. Blaise thought that by resurrecting lord Voldemort, she could bring herself power and honor in the ranks of the Death Eaters. And, after all, the Death Eaters were the only wizards who really mattered anyway.

But, then again, who was to say that the young man sitting next to Mr. Zabini downstairs actually was Lord Voldemort? He certainly didn't look like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Didn't much sound like him, and didn't have the horrifying and foreboding presence that her parents said You-Know-Who undoubtedly possessed. It didn't do much to help understand Blaise's motives to be questioning the reality of her beliefs. Blaise thought that Riddle was You-Know-Who, so she was willing to die so that he could live.

Pansy would still never do it; kill herself for You-Know-Who. It didn't make sense. She was out there to make the best name she could for herself, and that certainly didn't coincide with killing herself at an early age. What it did coincide with was working hard, studying, and calculating her way into the position of leadership amongst the Slytherin girls. Not to mention amassing large portions of gold in a well-paying job once she got out of Hogwarts.

The girls would have continued to talk, as Blaise faded more and more into the air, but the door to Blaise's bedchamber was flung open, and who should appear but Tom Riddle himself.

Pansy jumped to attention, rallying her strength to explain herself. Blaise disappeared, into the mirror. Tom – He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – looked as if he knew exactly what was going on and was not at all pleased. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Nothing, sir," Pansy answered. "Well, just picking up the robe that Blaise left me in her will." She tried to make her voice emotionless and calm, but it wasn't working.

"Liar!" Riddle cut, reaching for the mirror. This was suddenly no Lord Voldemort. This was a boy her age who knew a dark magic spell or two and was trying to keep Blaise Zabini locked up in a little hand mirror. Well, even if Blaise was horribly misdirected in her thoughts, Pansy wasn't, and she wasn't about to let her friend be turned into a lapdog to some unknown entity, this Tom Riddle.

"You can't have that, sir, it's only my portable mirror," she said, with more force in her voice. Mr. Zabini appeared at the window. "I just came up here to get the robe, sir," Pansy explained, motioning to the robe she was wearing, "the one that Blaise left me. And… and then, sir, I tried it on, to try and remember that one time, the Yule Ball, sir, when I had worn it before and loved it. And that made me remember Blaise, and then I just broke down, sir. And now, Mr. Riddle, sir, he comes up and tries to take my little mirror away from me, the one that Blaise had given to me last year," She looked imploringly at Mr. Zabini, who obviously thought she was touched in the head. But, he nodded, and showed her out of the room and to the street. Once outside, she remembered the books.

It was little use now; she would have to keep them until she saw Tom Riddle again. On the way home, she pulled the mirror out of the pocket of her robe, to find Blaise sitting next to her, livid.

"What in Merlin's name did you do that for? You'll get yourself dishonored for sure by treating You-know-who like that! Not to mention me; how am I supposed to die if Tom can't find me?"

Pansy only smiled. "You're not going to die," she answered. "You're going to live, and be great in your own right, just like anyone else from the Slytherin house."

Blaise didn't speak to her for the rest of the journey.

. .

For the first time in his life, Tom Riddle did not know what was going on. He stood, shocked, as some Petunia Peterson or something like that took away his one sure method of becoming alive. He looked at his hand, seeing not the solid flesh but the fuzzy edges that marked him, to the trained eye, as a mere memory of his former self.

He had to find Blaise Zabini.

He also had to find Virginia Weasley, preferably before finding Blaise. Now that he had a better victim, one who he could advertise as being the one to sacrifice herself for her leader's resurrection, now that he was looking at bigger plans than setting a Basilisk free in the school, he could afford to do away with the innocent victim.

Of course it was more complicated than that, or Virginia Weasley and Blaise Zabini would both be dead, and Tom Riddle would be calmly going about his business of killing those unworthy of magical training.

Blaise couldn't die until Ginny had forgotten.

And not a simple memory charm, either. He had done more reading when he found that the spell hadn't been perfect. Of course, it had been closer to well implemented than most sixteen year olds could wish for, but the fact that it wasn't perfect still bothered him. And the problem had turned out to be his greatest stumbling block to date.

To complete the spell, he had needed blood from his mother and his father. However, as his mother was dead and his father unreachable for the time that he was at Hogwarts, he had used the substitute suggested: twice the amount of his own blood.

Therein lay the catch. Any substitution is not perfect, and they all have their consequences. Because he had used only one person's blood, he could only use one person's soul to return to life. A consequence only mentioned in a footnote of a footnote at the end of the chapter including the spell.

Which would be working well, if Ginny Weasley had forgotten. Then her soul would have returned to her, and he would have been free to find his next potential victim, kill Blaise Zabini, and return fully to life. However, it hadn't worked that way.

Just as a jar can only hold a certain amount of water, Tom Riddle was unable to sap more than 1 soul in total. Except, due to the substitution, this was the one case where half a liter and five hundred milliliters didn't add up to one liter in use, even if they still did in volume. Which meant that he couldn't take all of Blaise's soul, kill her, until he got rid of whatever remnants of Ginny's soul she would not take back. And if he just killed Ginny, then the soul would have nowhere to go, and he would be permanently stuck a memory. Which wasn't what he wanted to be. Because, as a memory, he had to rely on the self-same Virginia Weasley to remember him, and not suddenly decide she wanted her soul back.

Which all boiled down to one course of action; find Ginny, and find Blaise. Order didn't matter so much.

But it was summer holidays, so both of them would be impossible to find.