Hello Ginny

Imagine waking up after a nightmare.

"It wasn't real," you sigh with relief.

But what if it was?

Imagine meeting the most frightening individual, then watching him die.

"He's gone," you sigh with relief.

But what if he isn't?

Waking from his grasp was like waking from a nightmare. Watching the ghostly form of a demon vanish with consciousness was like being able to breath again.

Down, down, down into the deep, deep, depths of the ancient school my friend the demon led me. Down, down, down he dragged me and held my soul hostage in a place of no light.

'Hello, Ginny," he had said, as I truly saw him in the light of his own malice.

I was dead, I thought, in the eternal darkness.

Then freedom. Darkness releasing me, poisoned by the dangerous light of dawn.

The diary, corrupted.

His spirit, fled.

"He can't hurt you anymore, Ginny," my family all told me. "He's gone, gone forever."

I believed them, for a while.

For a while, I felt safe in the daylight.

The nightmares eventually lessened, spread thin and faded like old film. Only once a month now, in the hours of darkness before dawn, do I still relive the year when my actions were not my own but his.

Tom Riddle was gone, they told me. He can't hurt you, they told me.

Waking from nightmares is no longer reprieve.

Tom Riddle lives. Breathes and watches. Thinks and moves.

Kills, again.

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.

Monk's Hood by any other name poisons just as well.

But nobody else sees the darkness I see.

When Lord Voldemort returned, I saw the diary in my mind's eye, clear as a bell. The dark cover fell open, the aged pages flipped themselves and a familiar handwriting scrawled across the page.

"Hello, Ginny."

When Lord Voldemort's snake attacked my father, I saw the diary in my mind's eye, clear as a bell. The dark cover fell open, the aged pages flipped themselves and a familiar handwriting scrawled across the page.

"That sounds awful, Ginny. Tell me about it. I can help. I'm good at advice."

When we were in the Department of Mysteries and Lord Voldemort was there, in the Atrium, with Harry and Dumbledore, I felt it. My demon, once friend, I knew him. I saw the diary in my mind's eye, clear as a bell. The dark cover fell open, the aged pages flipped themselves and from the midst of the familiar words came a rush.

A rush of darkness, light failing and a savage triumph.

My nightmare crossed into reality. He stepped from the pages of the diary and the darkness of unconscious into my reality.

"Hello, Ginny," he said and I died, my soul locked in the dark place.

But, like the phoenix, we were both reborn.

The nightmare lives on, in my mind and in the flesh. We will meet, I know it, and my nightmare will come to life before my eyes once again.

This time, I will smile the way the dawn smiles at the nightmares.

"Goodbye, Tom."