you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 19

"Ginny!" Harry called, running to her. He stood over her lifeless body helplessly, unsure of what to do. He looked around, realizing he had let down his defenses—and came face to face with a boy.

He looked older than Harry, though definitely still a schoolboy, with a Slytherin prefect badge and handsome features, but the most glaring discrepancy was the fact that he was transparent. Not silvery, like a ghost, but muted and two-dimensional like an old photograph.

"Helena Potter," he said, the name rolling off his tongue as smooth as water. His face was handsome, but his eyes looked... wrong. Human, yes, but the way they looked at Harry—hungrily, coldly—was almost snake-like. "Or, shall I say, Harry Potter. We meet again."

Harry frowned. "You're... a Slytherin. But... I've never seen you before."

The boy laughed. "Oh, yes, I was a Slytherin. Fifty years ago, that is. Tom Riddle, prefect, Head Boy, brilliant and gifted, Transfiguration prodigy."

Harry felt his breaths coming in small gasps. "Listen, that's not important. I—I need help," he said desperately, gesturing to Ginny's body still lying on the stone floor. "There's a basilisk, and—"

"Oh, I know," Tom said offhandedly. "You don't have to worry about the basilisk. For now, at least. Not until you answer all my questions."

He circled around Harry with those snake-like eyes. "Ginny Weasley," he murmured. "Not who I was looking for, but she served her purpose... she trusted me, this diary—" Tom pointed at a small diary lying open next to Ginny, "—so much. She poured her secrets into it, her hopes and fears, lent me her soul... and in return, I poured some of myself into her, made her do the things I told her to."

Harry stared at Tom in horror. 

"And oh, how often she talked about the great Harry Potter! How it was a pity you were in Slytherin, how you intimidated her but she couldn't help but admire you so, the way you defeated Quirrell and Voldemort when you were only eleven. Your pretty green eyes, your scar."

Tom fixed Harry with a stare. "Now I've finally met you," he said softly. "And I've found that we are a lot alike, you and I. Both of us orphaned. Both of us unwanted, cast away. Both of in the great house of Slytherin. And both of us with filthy Muggle blood running through our veins," he spat.

Harry felt cold all over. 

Tom's face rearranged itself into something smoother. "We look somewhat alike, too," he said thoughtfully. "And you even speak Parseltongue. I admit, I had my doubts. Harry Potter, the child of two of the most talented, foolhardily brave people to come out of Gryffindor, a Slytherin? It couldn't be. But here you are, and never have I met someone so similar to myself. It's almost like looking in a mirror."

"Who are you?" Harry whispered. 

Tom waved his wand. In the air hung in shimmery letters:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

He waved his wand again, and the letters rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

Harry's teeth chattered and he was pretty sure all of the feeling had gone from his toes and fingers; he was much more scared this time than he was with Quirrell, but he was determined not to show it. "Wow, Tom," Harry sneered. "How long did it take for you to come up with something so clever?"

Tom's eyes flashed. "Well, it doesn't matter to you now. Because I'm going to kill you. You came down here to save Ginny Weasley, didn't you? My, the Hat certainly did a number on you. What shame you must be bringing to Slytherin. No one would miss you, I'm sure."