Blood Red

'Tom...help me......TOM!'

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"Look, Ron I'm not saying you should openly ask her, but.....she is not exactly acting....well normal, is she?" pressed Hermione.

"Bollocks Herm. Four years ago she nearly had her soul sucked out of her, and you think she should be back to normal by now."

"No. Of course not. Then again, shouldn't she be on the mend?"

Ginny listened from around the corner. Hermione was concerned. How quaint. But then again, she should bloody well be concerned. She was mad. Criminally insane. She wanted to laugh out loud at that one, but she was eavesdropping, and it would do her no good at all to blow her cover.

The effects weren't completely reversed. Of Tom's exchange; when she poured her soul out to him, and he gave her some of his soul, it stayed. She knew so much more. She was filed with unimaginable Dark Power, and she could do anything she wanted. Well, not anything, While most of the other students Avada Kedavra curses would cause little more than a nose bleed, hers would kill. Her Imperius curse could control even the beloved Harry Potter. All this she knew. And yet she had waited for her time to come with bated breath. Voldemort was Toms alleged past present and future. And the small splinter of cruelty of Tom's that remained in her soul would drive her as it had driven him. Where Voldemort had failed, she would succeed.

She spun round and began walking back to the Gryffindor tower. Her head down, as the meek little 'Virginia' would have walked, she collided with something. Tall. Muscular. She looked up. Blonde. Before Malfoy had even time to smirk;

"Morning.....Draco." She purred, giving him the once over.

Draco was shocked into gaping like a very pale fish. Who did she think she was? And, wasn't she Weasel's little sister. He glared after her as she sauntered off.

Ginny walked off smirking, practically feeling the glare boring through her skull.

She was attracted to him. There was no denying it. But whereas the shy Ginny would hate him for being a Slytherin, she had power over people. Over him. In volumes. And she loved it. Maybe, if he was against muggles and mudbloods as he thought he was he would be of some use. Some, more than others. She giggled at that, despite herself. She was the evil everyone was not expecting. She shouldn't giggle like a school girl. Oh well, she was in all eventuality a schoolgirl. These were meant to be the years that stayed in her mind. They would stay alright. In everybody's minds. Everybody who lived through it that is.

She changed her course, heading for the library instead. As a fifth year she was allowed to look in the restricted section, but only take out books with permission, of course. Ginny laughed inwardly. And people would just think that she was researching to save poor Potter's hide, like his groupies had done for the last six years. But she wouldn't. She already knew how his death was going to play out, by her hands and hers alone. But she still had much to learn. The Tom that had been in the diary was only 16 years old, and was not all knowing. Well, she supposed, know-one was. But by the time she was finished, she would be bloody close.

She allowed herself to think back to before....before now. Before The Change. She was so different. Pleasing, accommodating. Her memory of Riddle's life gained her access to a speech from a play. She supposed it was quite appropriate:

'Makes me want to...They taught me to be nice, Mon. Showed me how to be...nice. To take the smallest piece of cake...to choose sensible shoes...to avoid at all costs making an exhibition of myself...to cooperate...to accommodate...to settle for the good flat middle ground of their expectations...and to say sorry'

To say sorry. To be nice. That summed her up in a nutshell. She was trained by all those around her to be nice. To always place others wants and needs above her own ones. She had felt she was nothing - a nobody. Not good enough for Ron's attention, too lowly for the famous Harry Potter, not worth the attention of even the least popular boy in school, a second choice for Neville Longbottom.

It would all happen so quickly, the Wizarding World wouldn't know what hit them. The muggles would be next. No more waiting.