Gaunt ~ Book 2

Forty-two~Gaunt

a/n: Same reminder as usual, I'm combining J.K. Rowling's work with my own. Hope you enjoy!

"The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. 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 second hand robes and books, how" — Riddle's eyes glinted — "how she didn't think the famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her. . . ."

All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them.

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly troubles of an eleven-year-old-girl," he went on. "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. . . ."

Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him.

"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I've 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 . . ."

"What d'you mean?" said Harry.

"Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle 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 Mudblood's, and then the Squib's cat."

"No," Harry whispered.

Marvolo was feeling invisible. It seemed all Tom Riddle seemed to care about was Harry. That's what everyone seemed to care about. He took a step back, mumbling something inaudible about going to help Ron with the rocks but he stopped. Tom Riddle's eyes had slid from Harry to Marvolo and back again. In the brief moment that he had met his cousin's eyes, Marvolo had gotten a message. Stay here. I want you to see this. 

"Yes," said Riddle calmly to Harry. "Of course, she didn't know she was doing it at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries . . . far more interesting, they became. . . . Dear Tom," he recited, still watching Harry. "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!"

Harry's fists clenched.

"It took very long for stupid little Ginny Weasley to stop trusting her diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to dispose of it. And that's when you came in, Harry. You found it, and I couldn't have been more excited. Of all the people who could've picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet. . . ."

"And why did you want to meet me?" said Harry. Marvolo could tell it was hard for Harry to keep a steady voice.

"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your whole fascinating history." His eye roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided to show you my famous capture of that oaf, Hagrid, to gain your trust —"

"Hagrid's my friend," said Harry, voice shaking. "And you framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but —"

Riddle laughed his high laugh again.

"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student . . . on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week,trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls . . . but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance . . . as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!

"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed. . . . Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did. . . ."

"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," said Harry.

"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school but I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in it's pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."

"Well, you haven't finished it," said Harry triumphantly. "No one's died this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be alright again —"

"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now my target has been — you"

Harry stared at him.

"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery — particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue. . . .

"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her. . . . She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last. . . . I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter."

Marvolo's eyes drifted to the statue of Salazar Slytherin at the end of the Chamber, tuning out of the conversation. He had a sense that the basilisk was somewhere over there, lurking, waiting to be called. Marvolo could call it. If he did, it would come. The name 'Voldemort' slipped in through Marvolo's ear and he was pulled back into the conversation.

"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future Harry Potter. . . ."

He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Marvolo saw Harry's eyes widen as he read Riddle's middle name.

Then Riddle waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I am Lord Voldemort

"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry — I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards one day would fear to speak, when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!"