The Boy Who Couldn't See: Year 2

The Heir of Slytherin

TW: tom is an entire warning in of himself, he says the m-word a lot :/

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Harry walks slowly, eyes clamped shut and his wand held tightly in his hand.

After he doesn't hear anything for at least a minute or two, he whisper-shouts, "Ginny? Ginny, can you hear me?"

No response. He quickens his pace slightly.

"Ginny!" he raises his voice, throwing caution to the wind. "Please tell me you can hear me!"

"She can't," a soft voice says, echoing only slightly.

Harry freezes.

"Tom?"

"It's good to see you, Harry."

"W-What d'you mean she can't? What's wrong with her? Is she — she's not —"

"She's still alive," Tom tells him. "But only just."

Harry feels his lip begin to quiver. He swallows, "What have you done to her?"

Tom chuckles, "Smart boy. And here I was, hoping for you to beg me for help..."

"What have you done to her?" Harry repeats through clenched teeth.

"Well, that's an interesting question," Tom says, his voice cheery and pleasant. "And quite a long story. I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger."

"The diary," Harry mumbles.

"My diary," Tom says. "Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how — how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..."

Harry clenches his fist, beginning to inch around and perhaps find where Ginny's body is.

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," Tom continues, either not seeing Harry moving and choosing to ignore it. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket..."

Tom laughs. It's high and cold and such a contrast from his voice that it makes the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up.

"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..."

Harry freezes. Slowly, he says, "What are you talking about, Tom?"

"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" Tom says softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."

Harry inhales sharply, "No."

"Yes," Tom says. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he begins to recite, "I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"