~o~

Tom only had to wait a little while before the Granger girl found the handsome, leather-bound journal in her bag and picked it up.

He breathed a sigh of relief as she cracked open his cover and flipped through his pages with curiosity.

Her fingertips poked at his pages delicately.

Tom grinned to himself as he awaited what the curious mudblood might write in him.

Surely she would be more amusing and intelligent than Draco. Such as ask important questions: like who was Tom Marvolo Riddle. And why was his blank diary in her bookbag. Surely she would ask that question first?

Tom eagerly anticipated having an intelligent conversation for the first time, in what felt like, two hundred years.

The mudblood's quill began to scrawl:

"Dear Diary,

Pansy made fun of my bushy brown hair again. Is my hair really so terrible?

Looking at Professor Lockhart's shiny perfect hair (and perfect sparkling white teeth), I sometimes wonder if I should brew a beauty potion or two that might help...but then I wouldn't want to give into vanity.

...Especially when Parvati and all the other girls are doing everything they can to try to get Professor Lockhart's attention. Though can you blame them? When even I am wont to admit Lockhart did deserve winning Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award...I can't stop staring at his smile sometimes while sighing..."

Oh Good lord. Tom held his face in the palms of his hands.

This was worse than the time he had to overhear a long conversation between Myrtle and another Gryffindor girl while he hid in the girls washroom to try to access the Chamber of Secrets. He later sent the Baskilisk to kill Myrtle for making him endure that dumb conversation about periods and which pad spells to use. Tom's skin crawled at the memory.

He'd really hoped the mudblood would be a touch more intelligent (and less word salad) than Draco. At least intelligent enough to amuse him before he killed her. But this was the insipid diary contents he expected from Draco, if albeit slightly more self-aware and well-spoken...This wasn't much of an improvement.

And Draco was setting the bar very low.

Tom coughed to clear his throat and brace himself before he began this no-doubt, disappointing conversation.

"Hello, I'm Tom," he wrote in his most elegant scrawl, hoping to impress the mudblood with his calligraphy alone, if nothing else. Important people had important-looking handwriting. Surely the mudblood would see that.

"Excuse me?!" Hermione wrote back immediately with an exclamation mark.

Tom didn't see the need for the exclamation mark, but he supposed all preteen girls were given to exaggeration. So he excused her dramatic flair.

"I am your diary," he clarified for the mudblood.

"Yes, I know that," Hermione wrote back very fast in her own neat writing. "If I knew this diary was sentient, I would never have written in it." She underlined the word 'never' twice.

Tom swallowed hard. Oh so the mudblood was going to be this way? He was almost impressed by her skepticism, but he decided to play dumb and lull her into his trust slowly.

"Oh why might that be?" he asked.

"Diaries—" (she underlined the word twice) "—are supposed to be private!"

Tom rolled his eyes.

"Is your hair really that bad?"

"It's none of your business!"

"Hold on, I am a helping diary," Tom wrote with a smirk. "Perhaps I could suggest some hair potions, hmm?" he offered the breadcrumb tantalizingly, hoping she'd take the bait the same way Draco did with his offers of making him more popular and important in Slytherin house. "With my help, nobody would laugh at you again...in fact, they might only look at your hair with the same admiration you now look at," cough," Lockhart's hair...and smile," he added that extra tidbit for further temptation.

"No."

Tom was flabbergasted she didn't take his bait whatsoever.

"Pardon. Why not?"

"Because I don't trust you."

Tom held back his irritation. "Didn't I tell you I am a helping diary?"

"Helpful? Unlikely!" the mudblood wrote back promptly. "I know it was from Draco and he would never mean me anything but harm!"

Fair enough, Tom thought.

Yet he asked, "What makes you so sure this diary is from that boy?" He really hoped to kick Draco for his lack of subtlety in delivering the diary. He added, "I ask only out of curiosity. I don't know who this Draco you speak of is."

"The nerve of you two!" The mudblood used two exclamation points again and even stabbed his diary with some excess ink in her quill she was so mad. "I saw Draco carrying a journal, scrawling in it while throwing me obscene, furtive looks! This is the same diary isn't it?!"

Shit. How to course correct? Draco had fudged up his plans majorly. What was he thinking, trusting the inbred fool, with even a simple task? It was like asking Draco to screw in a lightbulb. Too much to ask of him.

"Wait. That isn't the whole truth."

"Oh what is? Do tell me," the mudblood wrote with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Well, if you'd allow me to explain," Tom wrote and began to formulate a clever lie to explain the coincidence when the mudblood interrupted him.

"Enough. I've got some homework to do. And actual important books to read."

Oh that was a definite snub. Tom held back his wrath. Though his pride was hurt. Because how dare a filthy mudblood imply he was not an important book? Did she have any idea who she spoke to with so much disrespect?!

Just as he was about to correct her and tell her how important he was (without disclosing he was Voldemort, of course), the mudblood snapped the book shut.

"Wait!" Tom wrote madly. "You can't do this!"

Blood Merlin's beard.

He really might end up in a second hand bookshop...or worse, a second hand MUGGLE bookshop.

Tom's skin crawled at the thought.

~o~