Not Again//Harry Potter [2]

25

Autumn and Harry slowly walked through the pipes until they landed in a giant room. Their footsteps echoed for what seemed like ages until they both saw something —someone— laying on the floor.

"Ginny!" Autumn muttered, not caring about her foot as she pulled Harry towards her.

"Ginny! Don't be dead, don't be dead."

Autumn took her pulse, her skin was as cold as ice -- but a pulse was there.

"She's alive," Autumn said to Harry.

"But barely," a soft voice spoke to them from behind.

Autumn grabbed her wand and began to point it at the figure, but Harry said something.

"Tom? Tom Riddle?"

Autumn paused. "From the diary?"

The man of the voice nodded.

"Are you a ghost?" Harry asked.

"A memory," Riddle said. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed towards a familiar looking diary on the ground.

"You've got to help me, Tom," Harry said, starting to help Ginny up. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a basilisk. . . I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment. Please, help us—"

Autumn helped Harry hoist Ginny up off the floor, and Harry left Autumn to grab his wand.

"Did you see—?"

He looked up. Riddle was still watching him, twirling Harry's wand between his long fingers.

"Thanks," said Harry, stretching out his hand for it, but Riddle moved it out of the way.

"How did Ginny get like this?" Autumn asked, suspiciously.

"Well, that's an interesting question," said Riddle pleasantly. "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."

"What are you talking about?" said Harry.

"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 secondhand robes and books, how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her. How everyone told her that she and Harry Potter wouldn't work out because he was dating Autumn Grey."

Autumn's eyes went wide. She thought Harry and Autumn were dating?

Riddle never lost eye contact with Harry.

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," He continued. "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. . ."

"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. . ."

"What do you mean?" Autumn asked, beginning to get worried.

"Haven't you guessed yet?" 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 Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat."