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The castle looked so different. Tom blinked and tried to recall what it had looked like the previous year, but he could not grasp any memory of it. Every stone was darker, the cracks finer, and the air that whipped around the corners felt only more frigid.

Even his own robes did not feel as warm as they once had. His bed felt less comfortable, and the Great Hall looked somehow dimmer. Tom sighed as he walked to the Great Hall for breakfast. He had hardly slept at all. He had been thinking about the summer, and all the events that had happened.

There was also the smallest corner of his heart that thought of other things as well. He had not been surprised to see her walk hand and hand with Potter to the castle for the welcoming feast the night before, but he was surprised at how much it still hurt to see her.

At dinner, he had felt her gaze more than once, but he never met her eyes. When he had laid down to bed after the feast, he had been unable to find sleep. Instead he pulled out his old diary. He had not written in it once over the summer, for he had finally decided its future role in his life.

He reread a few of the pages that were shining with glistening ink. He flipped through until one particular page opened up, a letter written in blue ink tucked neatly inside. The emotions had come rushing back to Tom in a wave, and he had snapped the book shut again.

This morning, he ran a hand through his unruly hair, thinking of the task that would eventually come. He felt torn. There was something inside of him that knew the power that it would bring. The task would bring a chance of immortality to him, but of course it would not come without a sacrifice. A sacrifice of his soul.

He shook the thought from his head for the time being. It would not come until late in the year. He did wanted time. That was all that Tom Riddle ever simply wanted...time.

He threw himself into his classes, soaking up every possible bit of useful information and storing it away for possible use. Slughorn's little club was already back in motion, and Tom knew that the time had come to ask Slughorn the question that he had been wondering since the beginning of his quest.

He would do it after the Slug Club meeting that night.

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Tom leaned against the door outside of the potions room, breathing heavily. The conversation with Slughorn had not gone quite as he would have hoped, but he had found the information that he needed. Seven. He would be the first, the last, and the only wizard to ever do it. Seven.

He would be seven times invincible. He would be seven times immortal. He would not die. For death was Tom Riddle's fear. Death was that thought that his mind could not accept. He could not die. He would not die.

He walked along in silent thought, reflecting heavily upon it. He did not even watch where he was going, and before he knew it, he had knocked into another person, and they both fell to the floor. When he saw who it was, he leapt up. It was her. He did not know whether to run or to try and speak.

His manners eventually won. He extended a hand to help her up, but she simply looked at it, and pushed herself up from the ground.

Hurt, he quickly brought his arm back in. They stood together uncomfortably for awhile before she finally spoke. "Hi."

He avoided her eyes. "Hi."

The silence was deafening in those moments. "How was your summer?" she asked him.

"It was...productive. Yours?"

"Oh...um...fine."

Tom shuffled his feet and she looked everywhere but at him. "I wrote you -" she began.

"I know," said Tom. "I got it at the end of last year."

She nodded. "I'm sorry."

He attempted a weak smile. "I thought I told you not to be sorry. It's a waste of time."

She gave him a small smile in return. "I remember."

"Good," he said. "Listen, do you maybe want to, take a walk or something?"

She opened her mouth in surprise, and was about to reply when Tom heard a shout from behind him.

"Arin!" Charlus Potter was striding down the hall.

Tom quickly looked away. Charlus grabbed her hand and glared at Tom. "What the bloody hell do you want, Riddle?"

Tom glared back and did not speak.

"Let's go," said Potter, and he walked away, still holding her hand. She followed, but glanced back at Tom and gave him a small smile. He simply watched them leave down the hall, and he tried not to think about the aching in his heart.

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The year passed without further incident, and Tom had no further conversations with her. He simply worked on cutting himself off from emotion. He knew that if he would possibly survive in his task, he could not let his heart rule his mind.

It was the last week of his sixth year when he knew that it was time. He had thought about it more than he cared to admit. The first horcrux would be the most difficult. Tom had never killed before.

With shaking hands he gathered his wand and his old black diary. Finding it difficult to breath, he slipped out of the Slytherin common room and out into the dark halls of the school. He had made sure that she would be there. As silently as a ghost, he slipped up behind her, and cast his spell. She was knocked out.

Not quite believing what he was about to do, he gathered her in his arms and carried her to the girl's bathroom. With his sibilant hissings, the entrance to the chamber of secrets slid open. He jumped in, and he carried her to the center of the vast chamber. He woke her up, though it pained him to do so. He knew that it would not work if she were not fully conscious.

She looked at him with fear in her eyes. "Tom?"

He did not speak, he simply drew his wand with a shaky hand.

"Tom? What's going on? What are you doing?" She looked at him, confused and afraid.

Not wanting to drag it out, he simply muttered the words that would complete the spell when the task was finished. Forcing himself to make eye contact with her, his wand shaking almost uncontrollably, he said the two words.

Before a scream even could escape her throat, the blinding flash of green light erupted across the chamber, and her lifeless body fell to the floor with a thud. But the green light did not fade, instead it became even more blinding. Slowly turning into crimson fire, it surrounded Tom, and he felt pain as he had never felt before. He threw the diary on the floor, and with the scarlet flames and another blinding burst of pain that racked his body, it was over.

He fell to his knees, shaking and sweating. He could hardly breath. He had done it, though at a price that almost killed him. With violently trembling hands, he reached out for the diary and drew a quill from his pocket. Hardly able to control his hand, he wrote four words on the last page of the book and threw the quill down. Before his very eyes, the green ink slowly faded into the pages, and it looked like no more than an empty diary.

Tom looked at her body and began to sob uncontrollably from the pain. He bent down, and lightly brushed her lips with his own. With that, wiping the tears away and grabbing the small diary, he left the chamber, no longer human, though deep inside him, he was not sure that he ever had been.

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The school hushed it up, and no one ever found out the truth of what had ever happened to her.

Dumbledore called Tom into his office on the last day before Summer. Looking at him sternly, Dumbledore spoke. "I do not know why Tom, but I will figure it out."

"You will try," was all that Tom could say.

"I knew that there was nothing left inside of you, Tom." Dumbledore said.

"You do not know everything there is to know about me, Professor."

"Indeed Tom, I do not. I advise you to watch yourself carefully Tom, because you can guarantee that I will be."

Tom had risen and left without a reply to Dumbledore. He did not have the strength left inside of him to argue with the old man. Tom looked in the mirror that evening, and saw the changes in his face. His skin was paler and his nose looked flatter. His cheeks were a bit more hollow, more pronounced. Tom leaned on the sink and clutched his stomach. These days, he always felt on the verge of constant nausea.

Tom was empty now. He had nothing left to live for, but he knew that he could not allow himself to die.

His last day of his sixth year was spent at the small memorial for her. Charlus Potter was in the front row, rigid and tears shining in his eyes. Her friends were sobbing, and the Headmaster was giving a speech. Tom stood in the back for only a few moments. He knew that he should not have even gone.

He grabbed the diary and headed down to the lake. Their spot on the lake.

He opened the diary to the last page, and to his surprise, the words that he had written that evening remained clear. Not capable of emotion any longer, Tom leaned back on the grass, and laid in the sun, though he could not feel it. All he could feel was the intense cold that racked his body.

Next to him lay the diary. As if knowing that the words no longer had any meaning, they slowly and arduously began to fade away into the page, never to be seen again.

Arin, I am sorry.

The End

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A/N: So that's it! Thank you so much for reading. I really enjoyed writing this little fic. Now I'll get back to working on some of my others. If you are a star wars fan, check them out. Currently, this is my only HP fic, but I definitely want to write more. Anyway, thanks again for reading! Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!