The halls of Hogwarts are as they always are- cold. Empty. Hollow.
Some days, they feel neverending. Other days, they are impossibly suffocating. On those days, his only solace is the Library.
In fact, nowadays more often than not his only solace is the Library, and its shelves filled with books. There are too many books to count, and it's not nearly enough.
Every other room feels empty, from the classrooms to the dorms: it's been years now, decades maybe, since he's been able to stomach the Great Hall.
It's too bare without the tables, the tapestries, the enchanted ceiling. Some days he can even admit that, in order to feel truly filled, it needs the students. The teachers, too. No ghosts, though. Never ghosts. They remind him too much of himself.
He had tried to count the days, at first, but that is an impossibility when there is no sun to rise or fall. The light shining in from the windows is watery at best and casts everything in a sepia-sort of tone. If not for the books, he would have forgotten what real sunlight looks like.
He might have been stuck here for days, or years. What's the difference, anyways? After a little while, it all seems the same. Everything is always the same.
He's taken to counting his moods as days: Sometimes, he rages. He rages on and on and on and on and- and then he's done raging, and another day has begun. Some days he spends in a melancholic haze.
Others, he's feverishly combing through his books; certain he can squeeze some new information from them. Surely he's forgotten something? Surely there's another puzzle for his mind to try and solve? So far, he's had little luck. What else is there to do, though?
He never cries.
He's not sure he knows how. He can't remember if he's ever cried before. He must have. He must have at least shed crocodile tears of some sort. As a manipulation tactic against Dumbledore, maybe?
And there he is again, combing through his books- ah, yes. Four years old. Crying over the too-still form of a little serpent. It hadn't done anything to anyone, and still the other children had thrown it against a wall until it had died.
He'd never understood the delight they'd taken in senseless violence- at least, not until he'd tried it for himself.
Satisfied, he closes the book and puts it back onto its shelf. Perhaps he'll practice crying tomorrow. Today, he wants to see if he can find another example.
It's later. That's how time usually passes here. There's only "later" and "now". It used to be now, and now it's later. Very rarely, he thinks back on "earlier".
It's later and something is different. He knows this as well as he knows the halls of Hogwarts, as well as he knows the back of his hand.
For the first time in… for the first time in a very long time, he runs.
He'd been counting the stones making up the dungeon walls (5,672 so far) when he felt it. He hadn't hesitated, just broke into a dead sprint towards the Library.
He doesn't run out of breath, since he doesn't need to breathe. (He still practices how to do it, sometimes, when the fancy strikes.) He skids to a stop in front of the Library doors, hands shaking slightly.
He doesn't know what he's going to find, and just like that another day, a new day starts: apprehension.
He pushes the doors open, and walks slowly over to the only table in the Library; in all of Hogwarts, even: it's the table he thinks of as 'his', in 'his' spot.
It is perpetually dusty, and has a couple of blank textbooks, quills, and ink pots littering its surface. He doesn't know why this is, but thinks it might be an attempt at disguising the real treasure. Disguising it from who, he isn't sure, but the mind works in mysterious ways.
He moves a textbook or two out of the way and if it could, his breath would catch. There it is, in all of its unassuming glory: his journal.
He picks it up, flipping through its blank pages until his eyes catch on a scrawling page of text:
Dear Diary,
I felt a little silly writing that, but mum and dad must've gotten me a journal as a present, and I'd feel bad about not using it, so here we are.
Moving on, you'd never believe who came with us to Diagon Alley: Harry Potter! He's nothing like the books said he'd be: he's better. I didn't even recognize him at first, and we had a whole conversation before he introduced himself and, oh Diary, I'm so ashamed to say it but I ran off. I don't know what I was thinking! But I just got so shy all of a sudden.
Hey, what gives? Is this a trick diary? Why aren't my words sticking? Hello? Fred, George, if this is you it isn't funny.
He feels a grin spread across his face, the first one he's worn in a very long time. He reaches for a quill, taps it into an ink pot, and puts the quill to paper:
Hello. My name is Tom Riddle. What's yours?