I.

A/N: I don't even know. I came up with this twisted thing in the middle of the night last night and it threatened to strangle me too if I didn't agree to write it down. It makes me laugh, in a rather horrible way. I was thinking, what if Voldemort killed Harry instead of the horcrux in the last book? And then I started thinking about the diary . . .

I don't know if I'll ever actually finish it, but I decided that posting it might give me the motivation to continue. It might remain a oneshot, but I have Plans with this, I tell you. Plans with a capital P. Muahaha.

Why do we disclaim these things? Isn't it obvious that it isn't mine?

[*]

The memory of a boy who was once Tom Riddle stood smirking above the corpses of two small children, twirling a stolen wand between his fingers.

He had done it. He was becoming more solid as he waited, the cool air of the Chamber turning much more noticeable against his pale skin. Most would have felt discomfort at the chill, but Tom relished it. It meant he was alive again.

He had been cut off from all senses while he had been trapped away in the diary. He had had no way of even knowing how much time had passed. All he had known was darkness, stretching on until eternity without any feeling. Just hanging in an empty void until that foolish Weasley girl had decided to tell him everything.

But now she was dead, and so was Harry Potter, that annoying brat who had somehow managed to survive the killing curse of an older version of himself. Absolutely preposterous. He easily overpowered him tonight, when he had only the knowledge of a sixteen year old boy. How powerful he must have become, with fifty years of age. How could he have fallen to a child?

It had been simple, to kill the boy, really. A pity that the basilisk had died as well, but at least it had done its job. That annoying bird would have to be killed, though. It was still crying over the idiot boy's arm, as if it could help the corpse. Even Phoenix tears couldn't bring back the dead.

He frowned deeply as the boy's body twitched, as if in resentment of his previous thought. The bloody bird fluttered around him like a mother hen as the boy's arms moved with an almost unearthly grace underneath his body, pushing himself into a sitting position and slowly standing up, with that same fluidity that Tom was certain he hadn't controlled before. The older boy – for he was no longer just a memory – could only gape in shock, the Gryffindor's wand still held limply in his hand.

Potter pulled the basilisk fang out of his arm, tossing it carelessly to the ground and brushing off his robes.

"How do you still live?" Tom asked faintly, still spluttering and not understanding in the least. The boy had been dead, dammit. Dead.

The boy gave him a devil-may-care smirk before reaching out towards Dumbledore's pesky bird. The overgrown chicken landed on his shoulder and nuzzled his hair with its beak.

Potter kept eye contact with Tom as he reached up with a fluent motion to grab the phoenix around the neck and swing it down sharply. The sickening crack echoed around the Chamber as the boy's eyes flashed red.

"Oh, dear Tom," it laughed softly. It – because this creature could no longer be Potter. "You may have been the first we made, but for no reason ought you believe you were the last."