Disclaimer: No, I do not own Harry Potter. No, I am not making any money off of this story and I do not mean to hurt the business of Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Rowling, or anyone else involved in these lovely books. I'm just another innocent fan, don't hurt me. This doesn't contain any spoilers for book 5, so you can read freely.
Inkubus
Chapter 3: Decisive Action
Tom found Blaise first, on a whim. He supposed that his first step would be to find this Penny, or Pansy, girl. He inquired with the Zabinis after any especially close friends of Blaise's, and was supplied with her name and the location of her sprawling chateau, wedged firmly into the side of a hill, and growing out of it like a fungus. The door was attended by a stern-looking Goblin. "Who goes there?" called a gruff voice.
"My name is Tom Riddle," Tom answered, "I have business with the young lady of the house, in regards to one Blaise Zabini," and then he added, "Recently deceased." Blaise had no place with the living any more, and the point was worth emphasis. Even if she wasn't dead, she had less than half of her soul. She was effectively dead. Her body was gone, well, yes. Her body was already cold, in her family mortuary. Blaise was dead. Any pretense that Pansy Parkinson might have that her friend was alive and well, just trapped in a mirror, was horribly false. The Goblin trundled away, leaving Tom in the entrance hall.
Pansy soon came down, carrying a huge stack of books, but no mirror. "I'm so glad you came!" she exclaimed cheerfully in her rather nasal voice, a huge, fake grin plastered to her puggish face. "I have all these to give you, Blaise's wishes," she dumped the books into Tom's hands. He caught them with an "Oomph". They weighed as more than a small child. "I hope you don't mind, but I'm terribly busy… I really can't entertain right now," the girl chattered to a mute Tom.
"Blaise," Tom began, trying to interject one or two demands into Pansy's stream of babble, but she was herding him out the door, with the help of the gruff Goblin and what would appear to be several of his friends.
"I'm sure she would think of you, but she doesn't much remember, now does she? It's best that you just forget about her and move on with your plans without her. She won't be much help to you now. Sorry, really must excuse myself, can't entertain right now…" She shoved Tom out and the door shut on his nose with a resounding crash.
Tom Riddle stood, shell-shocked and speechless, for a moment before taking the books to the enchanted car Mr. Zabini had leant him, and heading back to the Zabini Mansion.
The trip was at least an hour long, and so Tom leafed through the schoolbooks as he rode. There must have been a reason, and there it was, the little Diary to which he owed his current state. It was battered and burned, but a quick Reparo would fix that, and it might be usable once more.
He left the rest of the books in the car, having no use for them, and promptly entered the first guest bedroom, his bedroom, locking the door behind him.
Holding Blaise's wand out, he muttered "Reparo." The Diary writhed on the desk, like a small, dying animal. But then its holes patched, and its stains disappeared, and it was once again the Diary he had created. Tom dipped a quill into his dark green ink, and scratched a sentence onto the page. Hello. The ink glistened for a moment before seeping into the yellowed page. He heard it in the back of his mind, into that space where his Diary consciousness' was relegated now that he was out of the book, "Hello."
He willed another word out onto the paper, ink seeping out of the pages and back in again, "My name is Tom Riddle."
Tom flipped through the old Diary. Blaise had forgotten, then? Or was Pansy's speech a ploy? In either case, he could do nothing without Ginny Weasley. Everything seemed to revolve around that girl. He searched what records he had for the Weasley residence, adamant on another encounter with little Virginia.
If Ginny had told him, five years ago, that 'home' was 'The Burrow', he would have found it straight out, in a matter of seconds. However, as it was, it took him several hours to locate the ramshackle house on a map. It was 7:00 when he found it, and both Mr. and Mrs. Zabini were busy at dinner.
Exactly why anyone would want to live in that godforsaken locale was beyond him, but he supposed that Gryffindors operated beyond the bounds of logic. He hadn't heard of a single Slytherin from Ottery St. Catchpole, and he knew of a great many Slytherins.
So. Blaise had forgotten, if he was to believe Poppy. The logic behind believing the girl was arguable, and he didn't want to think about it because he knew the real answer. Blaise was waiting, but she would be hard to get to with all those Goblins around. He supposed that, until he was ready to break into the Parkinson Castle, he would have to forget about Blaise.
And the purpose of the Diary? To keep track of the other girl, Ginny Weasley.
He didn't need to take the car to Ottery St. Catchpole. The Knight Bus would serve such purposes as that, and he didn't want to be rude to his dining hosts.
The Knight Bus picked him up just outside the mansion, and he settled down in the back of the first story, wondering exactly how he was going to handle this next encounter with Virginia Weasley. He opened the Diary, to a blank page. Hello Ginny Weasley, It's me.
He wasn't exactly sure how it would be useful, but he was sure it would.
. .
Ginny had fallen asleep, that night, easier than she had slept in several years. But she awoke in the early hours of the morning, her body telling her that although her drowsiness was oppressive, she didn't need sleep. That exhaustion had set in that she trained her body against, the familiar drowsy that she fought now, even in her sleep. She slowly walked to the window.
She knew what she would see, and there he was, looking up at her from the garden.
There was nothing for him to see, her room was pitch black and the garden shone with fairy lights and gnome-fires. But still he stared up at her, unwavering and pensive. As if he was debating his next move. She felt strangely drawn to him, strangely drawn to stand next to him and speak her mind about everything – it didn't matter what. She crept outside, pulling on a robe over her pajamas. She hadn't unpacked yet; it was her Hogwarts School work robe, emblazoned with the Gryffindor crest.
If her plan had been to surprise Tom, she would have failed. If she had meant to catch him before he decided on his next action, she would have met with only disappointment. If she wanted any sort of advantage over him, she would have been better off staying in her room upstairs, where people would have heard him on the creaky floorboard in the kitchen, or the noisy second step, and come to her assistance. However, being as she wasn't aiming for any of these specifically, and she wasn't quite sure what she was even meaning to do, she found no such defeat when she couldn't find Tom.
Because of course he was behind her, as soon as she was surrounded by shrubbery and garden plants. "Tom?" she whispered.
"You still remembered, even when I ordered you to stop." It was a mere statement of fact. He betrayed no emotion. Ginny couldn't see the future, but she pulled out her wand defensively.
"Yes," she answered, trying to gain the same nonchalance and emotionless ness that Tom had, but probably betraying her fear.
"Why?" Came the neutral voice.
"I don't know," she answered quickly, but saw that this was not an acceptable answer. "It was horrible. How could I forget?" She spoke through her hazy drowsiness, through her fear. She steeled her nerves against any possible attack, and gripped her wand tighter.
"Easily enough. I think you know how."
Of course she knew how, but that meant accepting the guilt for her first year, and she didn't deserve that. Not when there was so willing a receptacle as Tom. "I don't want to." She bit. It was the truth, and the truth was always easier with Tom. He could tell when she was lying. "You can't make me."
He smirked. "Yes I can, little Ginny." He held up Blaise's wand, examining it, and Ginny, closely. "A quick memory charm, and you'd be asking if I was related to Harry Potter. But not tonight. I'm not here to make you forget."
"Then why?"
"So you will forget on your own."
She glared up at him, and spoke in clipped tones. "You can't convince me to do your bidding so easily, Tom. I'm not such a fool anymore and I have no desire to forget everything I've learned and go back to being usable and naïve. You tried to convince me once before. It didn't work then and it won't work now. I won't forget what you made me do, or I run the risk of being used again."
"If you're so grown up, why did you come out here tonight?" Ginny said nothing. There was nothing to say. She looked down, ashamed. Tom tilted her head back to face him, not allowing her an easy escape. "I think, no I know, something else is going on here. Don't look down, you know where the answer is and it's not on the ground."
She stood like that for a moment, tears coming to her eyes. Why had she come down? She should have ignored him, stayed up in her room, locked the door and hidden the key, fastened it against opening spells, and crouched, shivering, in the corner. But that wouldn't have been the brave, strong, smart Gryffindor Ginny Weasley that everyone expected her to be. She had come down here to tell him to leave her alone. And she would tell him to leave her alone.
"I came out here to tell you – I hate you. Get away from me," she whispered harshly, jerking away from him and glaring, wand at the ready, to hex him with some vile spell. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her hand was shaking, she couldn't help it. "You're evil. You used me before and you would again if you didn't have a Death Eater girl in your pocket." She blinked her eyes free of tears and grabbed his free hand with hers, holding it up in the fairy-lit garden to see the blurring edges. "But you're not alive yet, for one reason or another. And you want to use me to get alive, is that it? Blaise stopped trusting you before you could suck her dry, and so you came back for little Ginny Weasley?" Tears formed in her eyes again, and she dropped his hand, gripping her wand with both hands and trying to steady it. "I've got a message for you, Tom. I'm not that stupid any more. You tricked me once, but you won't again." She tried to turn away, but he caught her hand. Even if he wasn't quite real yet, he was still stronger than she was. She let out a sob.
"Let me go!" she shouted, but he ignored her. "You expect me to fall right back into your deceptive arms, but I won't." She tugged at her arm, to no avail. "I've done everything I could to prevent this. You're not going to catch me again. You can't. I'm a prefect now, I'm a good student, I've gotten over Harry as best I can, I know the family history of every student at Hogwarts. Every student, Tom. I've prepared and prepared and there's no way…" She felt her weariness grow, and she trailed off. It didn't take much force for Tom to turn her around so she would face him. The smirk on his face said it all too clearly. "You've already won…" she whispered.
"I always win, Ginny. I always win eventually." He kissed the top of her head, just like she was a twelve-year old girl again, in the Chamber of Secrets.
She looked up at him, taking all of her diminishing strength to say, "I hate you. Someone will beat you. Harry will."
Tom smirked again. "Ginny dear, Harry Potter is as good as dead."
"I'll warn him," she added desperately.
"Of course you will, Ginny."
"I will."
"You'll be too scared to form a complete sentence."
Anger replenished her energy, and she stood up. "I'm not afraid of Harry Potter anymore. I'm not twelve years old."
"I never said you would be afraid of him." Tom said, more serious. "Yes, Virginia, you have grown up. But so have your fears."
"I'll warn him," she said, but his eyes were magnetic and dark, and they got bigger and darker, and then there was a flash of light, just before she blacked out.
She was lost, just as surely as in her first year.
It was her first year, she dreamt of wandering dark swamps, holding up an ephemeral lantern to chase away the shadows, but they gathered in close and the flickering light was the only thing holding them at bay, and the little flame gasped and sputtered and struggled.
And then it went out, and everything was blackness. And she had failed, been too weak, too small, nothing in the face of all that blackness, that uncontrollable wave of dark that swallowed everything. Darkness that gulped up the light greedily, darkness that hid her in its folds and allowed her no escape.
She cried, alone in the darkness. She had fallen. She was too weak.
When she opened her eyes, she was in her bedroom, her blanket a mess, a tangle around her, but light shone through the window and it was a new day. A Diary, black leather bound and worn with age, sat, falsely meek, on her desk.
She would destroy it. Burn it. When she had the time.
Her mind flew back to the previous night. Had she…? Had he?
And what was that light she had seen?
She didn't remember enough. She could never remember enough.
But that dream. The last time…
She rushed downstairs, terror stricken, not even noticing she was still in her pajamas, the ankles wet with dew. Had she done something? Was everyone all right?
Her family was gathered around the kitchen table, unsurprisingly. More surprisingly was the boy with messy black hair and green eyes sitting next to her brother. Harry Potter was smiling as he ate his fill of breakfast. She grinned as best she could, and sat down affecting normalcy. She would ignore the pajamas. Her fear drained away and was replaced with exhaustion. Everyone was okay, including Harry Potter.
That Diary would have to go, she thought as she picked at her food. She wasn't hungry, couldn't tell why. At her mother's insistence, she shoved down a few mouthfuls before returning to her room. The Diary stared at her, defensive, on the desk. It knew she wanted to destroy it. It was ready for her. She picked it up, idly flipping through the pages. Blank, as usual. Words curled up. "Hello, Ginny dear." She slammed the cover shut and quickly jammed the Diary in a drawer. Ron was at the door, with Harry.
"Ginny," Ron began, tensely. "What were you doing outside last night?"
Ginny stared. How did he know? What did he know? "Just thinking, clearing my mind, I couldn't sleep."
Ron furrowed his brow, but said no more. Harry, however, was not so easily convinced. "Are you sure there wasn't another reason?"
This was ridiculous. They didn't know anything. They couldn't know anything. "You're imagining things." She lied. Her hand was shaking. She slipped it into her pocket. Her hand always shook when she was nervous, especially when she was lying. At least it wasn't the customary Weasley blush. "Maybe if you'd been paying attention, you'd have noticed; I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I just needed to unwind."
Harry and Ron stood looking suspicious. "Please, get out."
"If you'd like to talk," Ron started, but was cut off by Ginny's adamant gaze, and hurried off. Harry followed.
She didn't see him again until dinner, and didn't have much to say then. Pleasentries dispensed with and dishes doing themselves, she sat down quietly, to think out her predicament by the fire. Everyone else had gone – noises of explosions came from Fred and George's room, as usual. Fainter behind it were the sounds of Wizard chess. Harry and Ron must be playing a game. Her parents were in the kitchen, having a cup of tea and talking about the Order, in all likelihood.
Tom was back. This was, on all accounts, a disaster, but perhaps not an altogether irredeemable one. There was a chance – albeit a faint one – that she could face him, defeat him. She would simply have to hold her tongue. And she wasn't as stupid as she had been in her first year. She would not write in that Diary, she would not speak to Tom, she would starve him of energy until he was, once again, nothing more than a whiff of air on the breeze.
At least that way she wouldn't have to take the blame for herself.
She stared at the fire. When it came down to it, she knew that that plan wouldn't work. It would provide Tom enough energy to come back, just as he had this time. It would provide a chance; and in time a chance would surely become the reality. She would have to forget him entirely. The fire crackled. The noises of explosion from the twins' room became so loud she couldn't hear the cracks and whistles of Wizard Chess from above them, or even the clanking of the ghoul in the attic.
The fire warmed her feet, and she closed her eyes to think easier. She sighed, and began the painful process of eradicating Tom Riddle from her memory. It was her fault, she told herself. Those horrible attacks in her first year, she had attacked them. She had done so of her own volition. She had – here she hesitated because it was so painful to admit – she had wanted to, just to feel power. To feel special, different from her siblings; she had wanted to feel better than them.
She had known what she was doing was wrong, so she had tried to blame it on Tom – to throw away the Diary and pretend it had been all its fault, but back came the Diary and back came her chance to show herself powerful, and – someone was sitting next to her.
"Ginny?" Harry asked. "Are you okay?"
Her eyes flew open and she turned on Harry. "Yes, I'm fine," she lied, slipping her hand into her pocket.
He kept looking at her, vaguely concerned. She returned his gaze. He said nothing. She went back to her thoughts. The Diary had only given her the chance, the option to show herself powerful, and she had taken it with both hands. She blinked. It was her fault, she told herself. It was all her fault. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. If she hadn't been stopped, she would have – Harry interrupted her again.
"You're crying," he said, simply. "You're not fine. What is it? Have you been having strange dreams? Nightmares?"
"No. No, that's not it. Harry, it's…" she trailed off. She couldn't tell him. To tell Harry would bring Tom into the open, it would give him power, it would give him thoughts and consciousness that he didn't have before. It was best just to keep this to herself, but still… "It's… Tom's back."
It was amazing how fast Harry's demeanor changed. He went from kindly worried to almost panic-striken. "He's back? What's happened? Is that what happened last night? What's going on, Ginny?"
Harry was clutching her shoulders and staring at her in vague horror. Ginny felt her tears recede. Obviously, if Harry thought that Tom was this big a threat, then it was forgivable for a young girl of twelve years old to fall under his spell. "Calm down, Harry," she said, regaining some of her casual demeanor as she chided herself for secretly relishing his hands on her shoulders. "It's nothing. Nothing's happened yet – well, he's killed Blaise Zabini but that's it. And I won't let anything happen. It's just… to beat him…" The thought of bearing the guilt made her trail off.
"Don't worry, Ginny. I'll beat him," Harry said, calming down visibly when he heard it wasn't a catastrophe yet. "I'll take care of it." Now he seemed resigned – that was his fate, to be a hero.
"No," Ginny stated, forcefully. "I have to forget him. It's the only way to beat him. And forgetting him means accepting the fact that what happened in my first year – it was my fault. That's why I was crying."
"But… I can just destroy the Diary…"
"Oh, because that worked so well last time," Ginny bit. "I know what has to be done, Harry. After I've come to terms with forgetting him, you can toss the Diary into the fire, but until then destroying it would serve no purpose."
Harry nodded, the concerned look back on his face. "Just… if there's anything I can do, anything at all, you should tell me. I've tried to fight Voldemort alone, and it doesn't work." He tried to smile.
"Weren't you playing Wizard Chess with Ron?" she asked him. After all, she had heard them arguing over a rule, or something.
"He beat me. Now he's off owling Hermione about something or other."
Ginny nodded, and looked at the fire. Now that Harry was here, somehow, it made it easier. She remembered back to her first year. The sorting hat had said she could have gone to Slytherin, and Tom had proven it. Just give her a chance to get power, and she would seize it, even if it meant killing people along the way. She gulped.
"You're drifting off again," Harry commented.
"I'm trying to convince myself that it was my fault. I've gone through four years pretending it wasn't, the lie got ingrained as memory." She sank deeper into the sofa. "It's like; I've never really thought about what the sorting hat told me. It told me I could have gone to Slytherin. I had to beg it to put me in Gryffindor like my brothers. Imagine that – a Weasley, in Slytherin. My parents would have had a fit."
Harry smiled a bit. "Oh, that's nothing. The hat said the same thing to me. That doesn't make you evil, unless I am," he laughed. Ginny's spirits lightened. If Harry Potter could have gone into Slytherin, well then maybe it wasn't so bad what the Sorting hat had said.
But still – she had tried to kill those people, directed the Basilisk against them so she could feel absolute power over life and death rushing through her veins, so she could control something. Harry must never have felt anything like that. She opened her mouth. "I attacked all those people," she mumbled.
"Do you remember it?" Harry asked.
"No, but they were attacked… I know it was my fault."
"Ginny, that wasn't your fault. No one blames you for it but yourself." Harry paused. "You were possessed."
There were sounds in the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley shouted up to the twins to quit exploding things and go to sleep. Soon she and Mr. Weasley would leave the kitchen. Harry turned to Ginny. "Ron will be done writing his letter, I suppose," he said, and climbed up the stairs to Ron's room. Ginny followed, taking a door a few flights of steps lower to her own.
She had warned him. He would be ready. He would – they would – destroy the Diary and Tom Riddle. She would make up for her first year.
She felt better already, almost good enough to throw that useless, evil Diary into the fire all by herself. She pulled out the Diary, staring at it quizzically. Right then it seemed strange that something so little could cause so much harm. So much lasting harm. The pages flipped open. Writing was curling out, horrible threatening writing that chilled her to the bone and made her wish Harry was still right behind her. "Fine then. Try and destroy me. See if you can. You are NOTHING, Ginny Weasley. You and your fabulous Harry Potter will fall, back to the dirt that you came from, the ignominy where you belong. You'll see. Maybe you could have gotten away with that when you were 11, but now you have to face the consequences of your actions." She stared down at the page, and tried to shut the Diary, but it wouldn't close. A picture appeared, but she didn't look.
She wouldn't be sucked in again. She wouldn't be tricked by Tom Riddle. She would destroy the Diary, and the memory. She would finish what she had started, all those almost five years ago. He was right, nothing was starting for her, she was ending his dominance over her life. She was gaining independence.
A/N: Okies. Well, OotP came out and the fandom has been rocked. *teeters on the brink of falling over* But as per usual, I'm not changing this fic any… I guess we'll just call it AU. Then again, isn't that what ficcing is all about? Thanks to my (three this time!) reviewers, Venus DeOmnipotent, Kilohana, and theMuse. Thanks to the folks at the Gin'n'Tonic and (for the first time ever) the Orange Crush… for being generally wonderful folks and providing me with inspiration. Ummm… that's it. One more chapter on the way. I promise a shorter wait this time.
