Fuck.Fuck fuck fuck.
A minute ago I was in my room. My own room. My own body. The ceiling fan came loose, metal screaming as it fell—and then—
I wake up not breathing.
That's the first thing I notice.
I don't have lungs.
I don't have a heartbeat.
I'm standing in the Chamber of Secrets, sixteen years old, handsome in a way that feels calculated rather than natural, my reflection rippling faintly in the black stone—and Ginny Weasley is crumpled on the floor beside me, pale, barely conscious.
And I know.I know.
I'm Tom Riddle.Or worse—I'm the diary.
The Horcrux.
The version of Voldemort that canon kills.
My stomach should drop, but this body doesn't do nausea. Instead, panic spreads like ice through my thoughts.
Harry Potter is on his way down here.Dumbledore already suspects everything.And according to the original plot, I am supposed to monologue, summon a basilisk, get stabbed by a stupid sword, and cease to exist.
Permanently.
No respawn. No afterlife. No second chances.
I rake through my mind—and it isn't just my memories in here.
It's his.
Tom Riddle's childhood. The orphanage. The thefts. The first murders done with cold, scientific curiosity. Hogwarts through a predator's eyes. Magic dissected, optimized, mastered.
And Merlin help me—he was a genius.
Even at sixteen, his understanding of magic eclipses most adult wizards. He knew things Dumbledore only suspects. Soul theory, sympathetic magic, blood anchors—
And now I have all of it.
Which is the problem.
Because I also have my morals layered on top of his.
I should feel sick at the idea forming in my mind.
I don't.
That's what scares me most.
I've fused with him. Not overwritten him. Not replaced him. We've… averaged out. I can feel the calculus happening automatically: costs, risks, probabilities.
Harry has plot armour.Lily's sacrificial protection will burn me if I attack him directly.Fawkes, the Sword of Gryffindor, basilisk venom—every variable ends with me destroyed.
Fighting is suicide.
Running?
I glance down at the diary lying near Ginny's hand.
Running without a body is also suicide.
A Horcrux without an anchor is just an artifact waiting to be destroyed. Dumbledore would tear the world apart to find me.
I need three things to survive:
A physical body
A wand
Plausible deniability
And I have… minutes.
I look at Ginny again.
Her life force is already half-drained. The diary has been feeding for months. The ritual is incomplete—but close.
In canon, Tom finishes it because he wants to return as Voldemort.
I don't.
I just want to live.
And that changes everything.
I kneel beside her, pressing two fingers lightly to her throat. Weak pulse. Still alive.
Good.
If I fully drain her, the magic will mark the rebirth as murder—violent, loud, detectable. Dumbledore would feel it ripple through the wards of Hogwarts.
But if I stop halfway…
A partial incarnation.
Risky. Imperfect.
But subtle.
I draw the magic carefully, deliberately throttling the pull. Not enough to kill her. Just enough to anchor myself. Flesh condenses around intention, memory wrapping around bone like a spell remembering how bodies work.
Pain explodes through me as sensation ignites for the first time.
I gasp.
Lungs.Blood.A heart that slams violently into motion.
I stagger back, collapsing against the stone wall, shaking—not from guilt, not from fear, but from the sheer overload of being alive.
Ginny coughs weakly.
Alive.
Good. That matters. More than I want to admit.
Footsteps echo in the tunnel.
Harry is close.
I don't have time to explain. I don't have time to fight. I don't even have time to think too hard about what I've just done.
I grab the diary.
No—my phylactery. Not a Horcrux anymore. An anchor. Important distinction.
I shove it deep into a crack between stones, sealing it with a wandless compression charm so subtle it looks like natural rock.
Then I do something Tom Riddle would never do.
I leave.
Not through the main chamber.
Through a maintenance tunnel I remember from his memories—one the basilisk used, one no student ever found. I sprint, barefoot, heart hammering, stealing a wand from a fallen statue's alcove as I go.
Behind me, I hear Harry shout.
I don't answer.
Let canon think I died.
Let Dumbledore mourn a threat he believes neutralized.
I am not Voldemort.I am not his diary.I am not the Dark Lord reborn.
I am the thing that slipped through the cracks of the story.
And I intend to survive.