Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, and will never be mine, unless JK Rowling visits this site and stumbles across my humble abode, takes a liking to me, and leaves Harry to me in her will when she dies. But I don't want that to happen! JK Rowling must never die! She must live on!

Thanks to:

Monikka: you're like, my Internet best friend, and I've known you for approximately two or three days. Weird. Anyway, I made a spelling error in the title and then fixed it, but corrections take forever to show. grrr... I growl a lot, don't I? I must be in Padfoot mode. You made it sound like you were surprised it was good...just kidding.

Ptrst: I can't have Harry get really mad at him until later. I should probably write a prologue, huh? Oh, well, I'm so lazy. Humor, romance, drama? Whatever do you mean? And I have no clue as to what is with the marionette thing, here...it makes no sense.

Dedicated to: Monikka, Jennie, and Alex (last two from LMNS), because they are all very talented writers! And cause they're just fun to listen to...

Mercy's eyes squinted in suspicion, then widened in her complete innocence. Tom scorned her for it, but decided that innocence was a tool he should take notice of...it could work very much in his favor..

"Hey, will you stop that?! Just let me tell the story!" Tom shouted as Ginny threw yet another Dark Object directly at his forehead with the intention of maiming and/or disfiguring him, although those mean almost the exact same thing.

"All right, what is it you'd like to tell me?" she asked him, caution in her voice. Innocent but intelligent. She should be a Ravenclaw...but the Sorting Hat never lied...or made a mistake...what could she have been hiding that made her the Slytherin she was?

"Can I trust you?" he pressed, his desire to confide feverish, a red gleam in his eyes, a maniacal undertone in his voice.

Mercy hesitated. Possibly she knew what lay ahead, possibly she knew her choices; become his confidante and set out on the path to eternal damnation, or turn him away and...allow herself to regret having never tried to heal his wounds. He knew what she wanted to do- heal him with her love. But not get hurt. Which, it seemed, was impossible- she would fail and she would be hurt more than she could possibly imagine.

"Yes," she said finally. "Yes, you can trust me."

He seized her shoulder hard and looked into her eyes. "Yes, Mercy, I have heard of the Chamber of Secrets," he whispered.

"And what exactly have you heard about the Chamber of Secrets, Tom?" she said quietly, a hint of panic in her voice.

A grin twisted his lips. "Everything," he said.

She was silent, and she did that silly think where she stared into his eyes, carefully.

Then she said, and her voice was a bit louder, and she sounded scared, "What are you going to do to everyone, Tom?"

He let go of her, and the moment passed away. "You said you'd keep my secrets, Mercy," he said calmly.

She froze.

"You said you would."

"I know." It came out a harsh whisper.

"If you don't keep them, then what's about to happen to all the mudbloods in the school will happen to you."

He looked away and put her face in her hands. He didn't know what she was doing; probably just sighing- and then he saw her shoulders shaking.

"Mercy?!"

She looked up; tears were sliding down her face, pale, shimmery wonders made of moonlight and pure sorrow, the sorrow of an innocent soul.

Ah, yes. That was Mercy.

"Let's go to the Astronomy Tower," he suggested, and helped her up.

"Riddle! You're such a bastard!" Ginny shrieked.

"No kidding, Ginny," Harry said with a laugh.

"Ginevra, if I had a sickle for every time you interrupted me to state the obvious, I'd be a rich man," Tom sighed, caressing his forehead as though she was giving him a headache.

"Then stop talking about her like that!" she yelled. "If you loved her so damn much, why would you use her? Is it just because you don't know how to love?"

Tom turned to look at her slowly, a very ugly look on his face. "I suggest you watch your mouth." He said menacingly.

"Did I hit a sore spot with you, Tommy?" she asked.

"I could get you worse-"

"Leave Ginny alone!" Ron roared, pulling Ginny away from him. Draco rolled his eyes.

Riddle glared at her. He looked really tired.

"What's the matter with you?" Harry asked curiously.

"I sometimes wish I had never told her," he said quietly. "It's not really fair for her to have been sucked into my world like that. She was like a bird with her wings broken- she never stood a chance."

"What are you talking about, Riddle?" Draco asked, interested. Tom looked troubled- shamed by his past deeds.

Hermione pulled Harry's face down to her mouth and whispered into his ear, "He may have done a lot of terrible things, but he was still just a boy. Our age, he's our age. He had a conscience at this point, driven out of his head by ambition and some sort of insanity."

"Insani-?"

"He's criminally insane. But he regrets things- part of him is still Tom Riddle."

Harry knew it. Part of him was still Tom Riddle. If you rearrange Tom Marvolo Riddle you get "I am Lord Voldemort"....and if you rearrange the letters of I Am Lord Voldemort, you get...

...a hurt child.

"I think Mercy must've known it," continued Hermione. "And Ginny, too."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to tell you about the Astronomy Tower," Tom said loudly.

"Oh, sure," Draco said eagerly. "Is this when you slept with her?"

"You have one sick little mind, Malfoy," said Ron, looking at him strangely.

"Just because you can't appreciate good sex doesn't mean I can't," snapped Draco.

"Okay," Hermione interjected, "Do you think he could finish? Because this is just too weird."

Draco and Ron nodded, then cast eachother reproachful glances.

Tom sat on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, enjoying the chill down his spine. He knew that at any moment he could fall to his death, and that's what he loved about it; every time he left, he knew he had cheated Lady Death's cold embrace yet again. He was invincible. Immortal.

That Tower and he were old friends, and had been ever since his third year, when he'd led Penny Hutchinson up there and slept with her, for the first time. It was the perfect place for anything he could have ever wanted to do, like a loyal friend it never told anyone his secrets, and helped him carry out his plans. But he didn't just go there with girls. More often than not, he went there alone. To think, and to whisper to the wind, and have it whip away the sound of his voice, never to be heard again.

But he had never done this before- he had never brought up a girl in this manner, and then just sat there, as though she weren't there. He usually met the girl in the hallway, snogged, her, and sat, "I have a better idea," and then carried her up to the Tower for approximately forty-five minutes, and sometimes more.

Mercy sat beside him. He could sense that she was afraid. She knew of the danger, and yet she sat anyway. To be beside him? He was her master now, in a sense; she was keeping his secrets as though a house elf.

He caught her looking at him more than once. Did she want him to touch her, kiss her, say something? Was that what she wanted? The possibility intrigued him.

He looked up at the moon, the cold moon, and whispered, "Oh, gods, help me, I don't know what to do."

She heard a sound and turned towards him. "Did you sat something, Tom?"

She was saying his name. And yet she wasn't. He no longer wanted to go by that, not anymore...Robby didn't call him that, he knew...Robby called him by his true name, would it be safe for her to call him the same?

He sighed and got off, and went to sit down on the glacial stone. She sat beside him, shivering. "What's wrong?" she asked, when he looked up at her.

He didn't reply. There were no lights on in the school, only the moon, and a cloud was passing over her pale silvery face, shrouding her in a gauzy veil, concealing her from his and Mercy's eyes.

"Tom?" she repeated.

"You look cold," he said to her, a bit ineptly- he wasn't used to this sort of approach. Usually it was, hey, I know what will warm us up, why don't you let me take off that bulky blouse of your and I'll show you.

"A little," she admitted. He reached over and pulled her close to him- heard her gasp, sucking in air- and felt her relax against him a little, although not completely. He didn't know when she'd ever relax completely.

So he held her, listening to her heartbeat, her breath flutter on his neck, and waited for her to break away and say something to him. Which didn't take very long.

"Tom," she said quietly, "why do you hate muggles? You're father is a muggle, isn't he?"

eep, I really like this chapter. I had so much fun writing it, it was well planned out, in my opinion, and that which is carefully calculated is, in my eyes, more enjoyable than a bunch of thoughts thrown on a page at random, just impulsively writing a story based on an outline. I should be writing more of this story, not more of BTT. Oops, sorry, BTT fans, but that story is very messed up.