"Phoenix tears…" muttered Tom Riddle as he stared at the once mortal wound, now smooth, infuriatingly healthy skin. "Of course… healing powers… I forgot…"

He glanced up at the boy's face. It was absolutely filthy, slack with exhaustion, but Tom couldn't help but marvel at how similar it was to his own. He'd really have to perform an ancestry ritual once his flesh fully returned. Perhaps there was inheritance to be had, and wouldn't that be ironic.

"But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way." He smirked. "Just you and me, Harry Potter… You and me…"

Tom raised his new wand. It was amazing to be able to touch and alter the world around him with his own hands. He'd been trapped in that accursed book for so long. Now, with the unfortunate sacrifice of the girl, he'd regain eternity. He was so close. Moments, seconds. He could feel himself gaining permanence, his mind more lucid than he could ever remember it being. Almost whole.

There was a flash of red gold. It swept over Potter and dropped his near-former vessel into the Boy's lap, who didn't hesitate before stabbing it with a basilisk fang.

A horrific shriek echoed through the chamber. Tom was in too much agony to realize it came from him. His new body was crumbling, collapsing into brilliant light and burnt scraps of paper, his very essence bleeding into nonexistence. He felt the call of another place, an escape from the pain, and he fled toward it with all he had left… a beautiful glow shone through a gap in reality, it sang promises of relief, of peace… and he was stopped short, as if at the end of a tether.

The demi-soul of Tom Riddle, so much more than a fragment now, was just coherent enough to realize what he'd done… what his other selves had done. The soul vessels, his ultimate failsafe, tied him to the world. Normally they would dissipate if destroyed, too weak to maintain form, but the piece that was him had become more. Less than the meanest ghost, and yet…

It was worse than any hell. He'd doomed himself to an eternal, excruciating existence in the gap between realities. What was left of Tom's mind howled in disbelief. He was supposed to be a master, a Lord of Magic, climbing the ladder of ascension! His dominion was inevitable! How could this be his fate?!

In desperation he reached, grasped, writhed for any solution, any way forward. It was then he noticed, deep within the discordant depths of his being, a pulling sensation.

In the skies far above Scotland a strange dark cloud, no more than a puff of smoke, began to drift southeast.

—

A small brown snake slid through shadowed detritus somewhere in the forests of Albania. Its bright red eyes glared at the surrounding trees, willing them to burn, or animate and tear the lands asunder, or just die. As usual, nothing happened.

The spirit inside the creature seethed. Reduced, again, to hateful vapor, forced to possess beasts, forced to hide from his enemies. A pitiable state for anyone, but moreso for one such as he. For he was Lord Voldemort, the greatest, the worthiest, and he would kill them all when he returned. And he would rise again. For Lord Voldemort was immortal, and that was him. It was a matter of time, surely, they would pay!

Not just his enemies. His old allies, they didn't help him, they were worse than traitors. His old friends, not friends, he didn't have friends. He didn't need friends! He was peerless. But he would torture them, yes. Lord Voldemort would show them he was brilliant and powerful and the rightful ruler of the world, not that he needed their approval. If only this damn snake could move faster!

And wouldn't it be nice to burn this forest down… deserves as much for standing in my way… He pictured the trees aflame then returned to swearing vengeance. Against the old man, against his enemies, his friends, he didn't have friends, against that accursed boy who was too stupid to join him… but yes he had to kill him anyway, the prophecy…

There was movement on the horizon. The snake-spirit wouldn't have seen it, being well below the canopy, but he began to feel something strange. His grasp on the creature's mind was weakening, he was being drawn upward. Before he could properly ponder this new development he felt a horrible wrenching in his essence, much worse than when he was forced to abandon that fool Quirrel as he was sucked into the void. The boy had done it with his bare hands, imagine that. Brutally! Perhaps he had potential as a death eater? Though, no, he had to murder him. The prophecy. And he was going to torture Severus to death, how dare he threaten the human vessel of Lord Vo-

There was an echoing, terrible scream, a flash of reddish light and the snake's body exploded. Gore splattered the trees and thick, dark, oily smoke poured from the viscera. As it began to coalesce it was smashed into by a thinner, lighter, but just as oily smoke from above, becoming one large chaotic mass.

In the spirit that was Lord Voldemort's mind there was a maelstrom, a flood of memories old and new. His childhood ideals, his hopes and dreams… The disgust and hate for the muggles of his old world and at the lack of vision in the leaders of his new one. His love of magic. Love! How long had it been since he'd felt it? His admiration for magical blood, of hierarchy, of power. His first steps on the road to immortality. Being trapped in a diary, only able to influence through words, hidden away. A crimson haired girl who could not see her own potential, held down by her lackwit family. She poured her soul into him and he was nourished. Hearing stories of himself, his rise, his actions. How he had slaughtered thousands, ended family lines, blown ancient historical sites to bits in his plan to… what? Rule over ashes? How he'd become a monstrosity, no longer beautiful, no longer a paragon of wizarding potential. How despite all he'd been destroyed by a child. Swearing to rectify his mistakes, almost gaining form, being destroyed by that child AGAIN.

The horrifying purgatory beyond. The pull towards the forests of Albania. The impact with the source of the pull. The horror, the memories…

It was then that Lord Voldemort had his first coherent thought in decades.

I've been such a fool.

—

Ginny woke up, which was a surprise. She hadn't expected to. Resigned herself to it, really, from the moment that she 'rescued' Tom from the boy's dormitory. Was she dead? No, surely death would be comfier than this.
The stone beneath her was cold, wet, and terribly rough, so Ginny rose slightly and glanced about in bemusement. She was still in the chamber near an ornate statue of a head, a gigantic (hopefully dead) greenish-black snake, and Harry, who was covered in blood and ink. Her gaze fell on the torn-up diary in his hands and shock wiped all trace of post-near-death fuzziness from her mind. Tears formed in her eyes. Tom was gone. Forever.

Following this awful realization was a rush of horror, and guilt. If he was gone and she was here then she might be in big trouble. They couldn't know she knew. That she'd chosen to go along with it, even if it was awful and meant her end, for the sake of the diary that had been her closest friend. Her 11 year old mind lurched into gear, and she babbled nonsense through her sobs.

"Harry… Oh, Harry… I t-tried to tell you at b-breakfast but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy… It was me Harry but I- I s-swear I didn't mean to… H-he made me and…" Ginny carried on, and Harry stared, clearly not knowing how to react. Eventually he held up the book, showing her the tattered hole torn through it. It was still dripping ink. Despite it only being paper, Ginny had never seen anything more gruesome.

"It's all right. Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk." Harry gestured, quite unnecessarily, at the corpse which dominated the chamber. "C'mon Ginny, let's get out of here-"

"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry awkwardly helped her to her feet. She rambled pitiably as they made their way out of the chamber, alternating between trying to shift the blame and moaning about consequences, but her real thoughts were elsewhere. What was she going to do now? She'd had the rest of her life figured out, short though it may have been. Her sacrifice would've made everything Ginny'd had to endure worth it. A dirt poor, barely educated child, the youngest of a large family of fools and bullies… she'd been proud that she was worth enough to help someone like Tom. And now it was for nothing. All those nights he'd spent painting eloquent pictures in her head of the glories of his future, the heights even painfully average witches like her could have risen to, magicals finally taking their rightful place as the apex (a word she'd had to look up) of humanity… gone with him.

She followed Harry in a daze as they met up with her brother, and an addled-seeming Lockhart, and eventually even her parents, who flung themselves upon her, voices alternating between weeping and chastizing. Ginny barely heard them.

Thankfully they all seemed to buy her story of not being in control of her own actions, especially when Harry and Professor Dumbledore backed her up. Yet instead of bringing her to St. Mungos to be checked out, like any truly loving parents would, they whisked her home and told her to wash up and get some rest. That there'd be warm soup in the morning. They didn't even wish her a good night, just left her in her dingy corner room as they went to fuss over Ron, the 'hero' who'd helped 'save' her.

Ginny lay there in the dark. All alone again, in a poor excuse for a world. Her tears had stopped hours ago, and now all she felt was emptiness. Emptiness… and a strange pulling sensation, deep inside her.

Towards the southeast.