Thoughts of a Spirit

I had no knowledge of the Voldemort she spoke of. I knew of a name that I had invented in my fifth year, a name that I thought seemed appropriate for someone with the power to arrange death. For I had that power.

That is not a vainglorious statement. Even then, I had killed someone.

I say I had killed someone - that is not completely accurate. I did not kill her directly. I simply ordered for her to be killed. I did nothing but speak.

My basilisk killed her - again, that is not correct. He is not mine.

He belongs, still, to Salazar Slytherin. The basilisk was created only to kill Muggles and Muggle-borns.

But then, who can truly order a snake around? I may be able to talk to him, but he is still just as deadly to me as he is to a Muggle-born. But only if I look into his eyes. Only then, for he would never kill me purposely. He is mine to control.

If he belongs to Slytherin, does he not, by right of inheritance, belong to me? For I am, and this I know, descended from him, the greatest of those four who founded Hogwarts.

And now I know what I will become. What I have become.

The girl has written of a great Dark wizard who held to world in terror for eleven years. A wizard who went by my name - Voldemort. Who could it be but me?

And if it is I, then, eleven years ago now, forty years after the last year I remember, I was defeated, destroyed by a child. A rather ignoble death.

Is it a death, though? For, she says - it took quite a lot of flattery and pressing to get this out of her - no body was ever found, and there are rumours that the year before she came to Hogwarts, I rose again, or would have, but was defeated, yet again, by that child.

Harry Potter.

She hero-worships him. So, I suppose, do many girls her age - the great Harry Potter, destroyer of evil. She will tell me all she knows about him quite readily. I probably know more about him than he does himself. This will be useful.

If the child has the power to destroy the greatest Dark wizard who ever lived, then he will continue to do so. Unless he is killed.

I have all the means to kill him. I have the basilisk. I have a chamber where he will never be found - though I don't suppose that matters, as it would be difficult to convict a spirit. And I have the bait.

I don't suppose she will play that part willingly. But I have forced her to do other things, to lead the basilisk through the hallways, looking for Muggle-borns to kill, to write on the wall. I can force her to come to the chamber.

I shall lead the girl to the chamber, and wait. He shall follow her, if he is intelligent enough to discover where the chamber is. If she dies, her strength shall come to me, and I shall return to life. If she does not die before he comes, that will give him more motivation.

And then I shall call the basilisk, and he shall be destroyed.

Tom?

Yes, Ginny?