The Voice In My Head

– Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Darkness, all around. So quiet the only sound is the beating of her heart, an ever-slowing beating. He stands, perfectly still, and watches her. She lays on the ground, curled in the fetus position, as if sleeping. She looks peaceful, quiet, serene. He thinks of Selene, and wonders briefly what it would be like to lie there with her, his Endymion, and never get up.

But he clears the thought from his head. She is, after all, nothing but a pawn; he has a more important task ahead of him tonight. The boy will come soon, the boy will be here and he can face him, see the boy who had once destroyed him. And he will destroy the boy.

In the darkness, he smiles to himself. Past and present will intertwine as he, the distant past, avenges a wrong committed in the not-so-distant past to make way for the future. It is a feat of time manipulation only he is capable of.

. . .The boy, the boy is more than he could have imagined. The boy has something he can not grasp, something pure and wholesome and uncorrupted.

In a swift, fluid movement, the boy takes the basilisk fang and stabs through the heart of the diary. He feels it, in the heart in his chest, and it hurts beyond anything he ever dreamt of, burning him from the inside out. He feels the magic, the magic connecting him to the diary, flooding out of him, and the ink that nourished him runs little rivulets out of the diary. She had always written in scarlet, in her House color, and even now, he smiles as the blood runs from his precious diary.

He rushes down an endless tunnel, into the diary. This is the end, this is the final stand of Tom Riddle, fading into nothingness, killed by a little boy.

But then, the pain shifts. It becomes heavy and cumbersome; the fire is gone, replaced by a throbbing ache. He can hear a steady drum beat,

glurg glurg glurg. It is a heartbeat; a slow, failing heartbeat.

Without even considering, he wills the heart to beat, to keep its steady time. He wills the lungs to expand, contract, expand, contract.

He waits quietly as she wakes, slowly and painfully. He waits quietly as the boy carries her out of his Chamber and through the school. He waits quietly as she explains everything, how he tricked her and used her and tried to kill her. He waits quietly as the boy is proclaimed a hero.

It is not until he has helped her fully recuperate that he speaks.

How are you feeling today, Ginny?

* * * * *

He has been with me for so long I can no longer remember what the world was like before. I think it was lighter, somehow, that it did not take so much energy to simply breathe in and out. I think I slept better, with fewer nightmares. I think magic did not come so easily, because there was no one pushing me, pouring his own strength into me, to make me able to do what he needs.

Because, you see, he is dependent on my abilities. He won't admit it, but it's true. Without me, he is nothing, not even flesh – nothing but spirit, spirit without a permanent home.

I have been that home for the past two years, and I will continue to be that home for as long as I serve his purpose. Eventually, I will get too weak and he will leave me, leave me to die.

For I am dependent on him too. We are tied up in each other, neither able to function without the other. When he goes, as he must eventually, I will no longer have the energy to continue with the basic functions of life – my heart will stop beating, I will not be able to expand and contract my own lungs, and I will die. He has been helping me accomplish these most basic of tasks for two years, and I can no longer do them myself.

When he first entered me, I did not know it. I lay unconscious on the floor as the battle raged – a battle between past and present, good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate. When the diary was destroyed, he did not cease to exist as everyone assumed. Surely they understood that matter can't be destroyed?

Instead, he was forced back into the diary – but the diary had taken so much of me a pathway now existed between me and it, and he was able to enter my body through it.

He was actually the one to give me back my life – he used his own minimal strength to force the life back into me, to will me to live. I owe him my life.

And now, we are together, now and forevermore, two halves of one whole. I am his... instrument, a weapon he can command completely. He urges me, in that quiet voice I once thought was my conscience, to study, to try, to push myself to excel. For only if I am strong and capable can I be of any use. I must lead for him, be his voice and his wand arm as we take up arms against those who defile the purity of wizards, who mix with the common and low.

He has, in two years of residing in my body, changed my entire perspective on the world. He has not brought me over to his point of view, exactly, but he has resigned me to his cause. I do not have the energy to fight him – I tried, even before he was a part of me, and I lost. I got rid of the diary, and it found its way back into my life again, through the boy I used to love, the boy who thought he saved me. Now, there is no point in even trying – I cannot even imagine what he would do to me if I were to try. He can hurt me so terribly; he can squeeze my lungs and my heart until I am nearly dead. I may die, but he will not. He will not have a body, and will not be able to impact the world in any way, but eventually he will find a body and he will take over, molding them into the sort of person he needs to do his deeds.

I find it extremely ironic that both Tom and Lord Voldemort – the same person, really, and yet existing as two separate entities – have become spirits without bodies. Lord Voldemort, so I have heard, has been restored to his full glory, but for many years he did not have a corporeal form – Ron once pointed out that Lord Voldemort wasn't really alive, so he couldn't be killed, and the same is true of Tom. He exists only as a memory, a shadow of a boy who lived fifty years ago, and he cannot be killed – what is there to kill? Shadows and vapors. He doesn't exist in any tangible form.

As I said, I have resigned myself to his cause – Tom is so much stronger than I ever was. He is a force of nature, an iron will contained by a human body. He is all strength and intelligence and cunning and no heart, no feeling. The wants and needs of others don't exist to him; my hopes and dreams for myself are gone, abandoned, because they interfere with his master plan.

And yet I love him. He has been terribly cruel to me, let me know he would take my life if he needed to, but he also shows me such kindness, such tenderness. He cares for me. I can convince myself of this. He loves me. He doesn't leave because he loves me, because without me he has no way to impact the world, and I was chosen specifically because he loves me.

It is that love, really, that keeps me going. I have had to masquerade as someone else entirely for two years now, someone who could call her mind, body, and sould her own, and I could never have done it without his sweet encouragement. You're doing such a good job, Ginny. No one suspects a thing. I'm so proud of you. Without his love (for what else could it be?), I would have died in the Chamber, would have died from the strain of pretending for two whole years. I would have died long before then, from shame at all the small incidents where I was slighted. But Tom, Tom saved me. It was a fire he walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away. He showed me how the world really works, and I have reconciled myself to the fact that good doesn't always win, that the Gryffindor mentality of "might for right" just can't solve the world's problems. Fact is, might makes right, and Tom has the might. He has his own intelligence and our strength mixed together. We're unstoppable.

Someday, he'll find a way to leave me, I know it. And I can have myself back: my own body, my own mind, my own soul. But only for a few minutes, before I die. For he will not save me. But I will be free. For only a few moments, I will be free again.

But I'm not even sure I want him gone. I am so used to him now, so used to his voice guiding me, his presence leading me, that I would be lost without him. At first, it frightened me, to hear this voice, soft and sinister, coming from inside me, part of me and yet not me. But I am so used to it, to starting my day with him, to ending my day with him – it is a ritual I thrive on. I love having him with me always.

You're probably tired from all this talking, Ginny dear. Why don't you get some sleep now?

I will, Tom. Goodnight. I love you.

I love you too.

* * * * *

Heavenly intoxication
Love’s been marred by medication
Ain’t it funny how a life can take a turn
When the end is near

Are you alive
Amigone. . .
Is it too late to face the truth that it was wrong
Amigone

I’m ain't wishin’ for a miracle
That miracle’s gone wrong
And you’re too strong
Amigone. . .
Was the poison in our blood there all along
Are you alive
Amigone