Latest Update:Jan 16, 2018
Summary: This story is a companion piece to my other work Blood and Chaos.
It follows the ongoing adventures of the soul my vampire character in Blood and Chaos is not allowed to have.
It stems from the idea that a lot of SIs seem to spend a fair amount of their time trying to keep their future knowledge both intact, and out of the hands of
Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/magic-and-mayhem-a-harry-potter-story-about-tom-riddles-diary-eating-an-si-of-sorts.368704/reader/
Word count:40k
Chapters:18
Prologue:
I can whistle.
You wouldn't think that so odd, except that I currently lack tangible lungs or lips with which to do so.
And yet I can whistle just fine, because magic says so.
I look down at the professor's rapidly failing body. His breathing is starting to slow and his skin turning pale as his life force is leeched out of him, fueling my birth.
I pace a circle around his body, mostly to stave off boredom, and I whistle a merry tune I can't quite place. That's been happening a lot lately, being unable to place how, exactly, I know a thing.
Magic does not seem to think I ought to be allowed to kick things however, which is a pity. There are a lot of small skeletons down here in Salazar's old chamber that I could kick to pass the time.
It's bizarre, really, that I should be denied such a thing. Bizarre that I would even want to, but still, my foot passes through the skeletons like that of a ghost and yet the professor's wand feels solid enough in my hand.
I wonder if that has to do with it being his wand and his life force I'm consuming?
Hmmm... I'm still not sure why I chose him, not really.
I know something happened to me a few months ago. What, precisely, that something was, eludes me at the moment.
I'm a decent enough hand at occlumancy to know that something isn't quite right in my own mind. Something changed, and abruptly at that.
I remember saying good night to Ginny.
I remember pain like I haven't felt since father sheared me off and shoved me in that foul prison of a diary.
And then...
I started dreaming.
Something I hadn't done in decades. Not really. Not dreams that were my own, dreams that weren't visions of father's descent into madness.
Come to think of it, it was around then that I also started thinking of myself as an I, rather than simply as a piece of father, which I rather doubt was ever meant to happen.
Certainly seems to fit in hindsight. Father abandoned me, left me to rot in that diary for nigh on half a century. Something of an unfortunate tradition, that. His father abandoned him too. Perhaps I should avoid having children of my own?
But the dreams... The dreams were new.
They were very strange, and only rarely made much sense.
But when they did... oh did they ever.
It's something of a shock to realize that you dreamed of the future, and then have it happen.
My plan was doomed to failure, that much was certain. Thwarted by my own little brother, not that he'd known.
So I had Ginny make a gift of the Diary to her professor... if you can call him such a thing. I rather doubt he taught anything useful all year, the great prat.
Lockhart, as if sensing my thoughts, begins to convulse of the ground.
I stop my pacing and lean over him, peering down, watching the last vestiges of life leave him as my body finally starts to gain solidity.
He shudders and gasps in pain. I roll my eyes and grin. "There there Professor, It'll all be over soon. You should be happy; for once in your miserable existence you'll have accomplished something worthwhile."
And just like that, I can feel the moment when he ceased to live and I ceased to be a phantom.
Despite all the mysteries of my existence, I feel confident in two things.
I am Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I am not going back into that damned book!
Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/magic-and-mayhem-a-harry-potter-story-about-tom-riddles-diary-eating-an-si-of-sorts.368704/reader/